Virginia Reeves - Work Like Any Other

These are all imaginings. Marie has made her choice. Ed, too, and Gerald. They are all gone from me, and I have a report to conjure from this hunting book. There are no wires, no conduits, no dam. There aren’t even cows, whose nature I have grown to know and predict. Here in my book, there are only the hunted and the pursuing, and I must plug men into one and prison dogs into the other.

Here is another ocean book, filed in the sciences of the 500s, a few poems for the 800s, a world atlas and a history of the state in the 900s.

“I don’t know what to take from this book,” I tell Rash at the end of the day. “It’s all about hunting other animals.”

“Just put a man in for the animals.”

“All due respect, sir, but men don’t act like coons and squirrels.”

Rash laughs. “You want my advice, Roscoe? Just give Taylor a story. There’s nothing in these books that’s going to help him train his dogs any better. Tell the man about treeing coons, and he’ll either think it’s groundbreaking or a pile of rubbish, and he’ll either commend you for the information or curse you for your ignorance. It’ll depend only on his understanding of the information. There’s no sure route on this one.”

I can imagine Taylor’s disgust when I tell him to set his dogs loose on a man’s summer scent. Strapping men to dogs is different from everything Hartley’s talking about. His dogs are off lead, the hunters well behind.

Rash gives me the book to study in my cell. “Taylor will be back next Friday,” he tells me as I’m leaving. “You’d best have something ready for him.”

TAYLORis already at the desk when I arrive in the library the following week.

“Deputy Taylor’s ready for his report,” Rash tells me.

“Come on, boy,” Taylor says. “I got work to do at the pens.”

I look to Rash, but he just nods. “You’re free from your shelving as long as Deputy Taylor needs you.”

I resent Rash’s easy disposal of me. Maybe he knows Taylor will soon be over this want of knowledge, that I’ll be dismissed before I’ve said much of anything.

Taylor is walking away. “I’m listening, boy!” he shouts over his shoulder. “What’s it you got for me?”

Rash waves me on.

I follow Taylor out into the yard, drawing up level with him. He is quick-paced for such a large man, and it’s a challenge to match his stride.

“That the book?” He pitches his head toward the book in my hands.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well?”

I hesitate. “Due respect, but I don’t know that I’m turning up much, sir. Hartley’s methods are all about treeing coons.”

“Men have been known to climb trees, Martin.”

“His dogs are off lead, sir.” I turn to the page I’ve marked and read, “ ‘We will go into the woods and walk slowly, giving the dog plenty of time to hunt and if we don’t see him pretty soon, we will sit down on a log and wait a while.’

“That’s the sort of advice I’m getting, sir, and I just don’t know that it’s much help to you.”

I don’t recognize the guard on the east gate, who asks, “New dog boy?”

“Not sure,” Taylor replies, and we pass on through.

We go to the closest pen, the dogs leaping up at the sight of their master.

“They think they’re going on a run,” Taylor says. “Best not disappoint them.”

“Sir?”

“Might be something to this off-lead business. We damn sure slow the dogs down.”

Taylor rubs one of his thick earlobes between his thumb and pointer, pressing the color out of it. When he lets go, I watch it fill back in, red as his nose. He spits in the dirt. “Let’s give it a shot.”

“Sir?”

“You’ll push out through the north fields and into the woods there. After a bit, you’ll come to a creek. I want you to go ahead and cross that. On the opposite bank there’s a big old possum oak — you can’t miss it — and I want you to climb up in the canopy there. Kick up the soil at the trunk before you start climbing. Don’t want it to be too difficult the first time. I’m going to set our girl Maggie on it, with two of the new pups.”

“Sir?”

“Jesus, Martin. You’ve done the chasin’ bit. Now’s the time to be chased. It’s the other side of the job.”

Taylor had told me about this the first time with Jennings, but I hadn’t swallowed down the actual practice of it. It’s obvious, though, standing here now. Hartley trains his dogs on squirrel and woodchuck and finally the coons they’ll keep after. Of course Taylor trains his dogs on men.

I can see excitement growing in him. “Off lead,” he says again, the thrill shaking him, his cheeks wiggling along with his weighty chin. His fingers drum on the great ball of his belly, as though he were playing scales on a piano. “Bet that’s Atmore’s trick — setting the hounds loose.” He claps his hands down still and flat on his stomach and shouts, “Go, Martin!”

I still have Hartley’s book in my hands. Taylor sees it and grabs it. “North!” he shouts. “Across the creek and up into that possum oak.” He shoves my shoulder, and I start walking north out of perplexity and fear.

“Martin!” he yells, and I turn. “You get it in your mind to run past that oak, and the rest of your time here will be painful as I can make it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now get a move on! Men don’t usually walk when they’re running! And leave a stitch of clothing at the edge of the corn. Nothing else though.”

I run, and I am sure the guards in the cornfield will shoot me dead before Taylor’s dogs are even free of their pens. The men on the rows are all in stripes, and they’re sowing manure in among the hip-high stalks. Only trustees pick the ripe ears, high as the crops get during harvest time.

The men hoot as I go past.

“Where you going to in such a hurry?”

“You finally breaking out?”

“Martin!” I hear, a stronger voice. “You doing what it looks like you’re doing?”

It’s Beau. I wish they’d keep him in one spot — the southeast tower or the sixth-floor row or the yard or the corn — so I’d know where to expect his lurching face. He’s leveling his rifle in my direction.

“Best stop!” he shouts.

I’m near to slowing when I hear Taylor. “Easy, Beau. We’re just doing some dog work.” Taylor has got himself up on a horse in what seems just a few seconds. “You pass it down the line,” he shouts, then yells in my direction, “Call that running, Martin? Slow as a lame heifer.”

The corn shakes with laughter, men in stripes and guards in their denim.

I’m ripping the cuff from my sleeve — is this what Taylor wants? — leaving it for a dog to sniff out. And then I’m pouring myself into woods that could easily be the woods of Marie’s land, woods I’ve stamped through in my freedom. I’m running to a large possum oak on the far side of a creek so that I can be treed by dogs. I’m doing this because George Haskin was ignorant enough to get himself killed on the transformers I’d so carefully built to run current to a dying farm.

My scars throb, angered by the exertion. All the moisture is gone from my mouth, and I feel the sweat on my forehead gathering itself into drips down the sides of my face. My hands sting from scratches, these spiny-branched bushes and trees plucking at my skin and clothes as I push myself past. I know the names of these plants, but I can’t name them now. Holly? Buckeye?

Here is the creek, high and muddy from the rains we’ve had. I splash into it gratefully, the water to my knees, soaking my boots and socks. I bend at the waist to scoop a handful of brown water into my mouth. I don’t mind the silt, the rich-earth flavor, and I go to all fours to lap at the creek like a dog.