Bill Cheng - Southern Cross the Dog

But Burke recalled when the crew was on demolition and after a blast how Chatham would walk across the craters. He remembered the beaver dam, the emptiness of his face as he stared back at him from across the desk. No shame or fear or surprise. And on the day of the blowout, he was inches away. Could almost touch him. His body broke through the river, his vulture form diving into the foam.

From the sheriff’s department, Burke started walking. He was a large man and he made himself look small by stooping and shoving his hands into his pockets. He followed the trail of grit in the gutters, crossing one street then another. Cars churned dust in his direction as they drove past. He squinted and kept walking. He arrived at Chatham’s boardinghouse, unsure if it was an accident or if he’d been guided.

The landlady was an old colored woman. She let the door open just a few inches so that the space could frame her mouth.

Yes?

Ma’am. Good afternoon.

Afternoon, she said carefully.

I’m a friend of one of your boarders. Former boarder. Robert Chatham.

Robert didn’t have no friends, she said.

We worked together. Don’t mean to put you out but I’d like to see his room if you’d allow me.

The woman squinted hard at him and furrowed her lip.

Let me go talk to my husband, she said.

She closed the door. When it opened again later, she had a ring of keys in her hand.

This way, she said.

They went up a long narrow staircase and came to the door at the top of the stairs. Burke reached for the knob, but the landlady stopped him.

You know, he owes for the month, your friend. I’m out a whole month on account of him.

Burke reached into his wallet. He found some bills and pushed them into her hand.

Inside, the apartment was bare. The windows were open, letting in the cold. On the floor where the bed had been, there were marks where the posts used to stand. An empty footlocker sat pushed against the wall. The landlady flipped the lid down and sat on it like a bench.

This is it? Burke said. This is where he lived?

If the landlady had heard him, she made no sign. Her leg was propped across her lap and she was massaging the veins of her ankles.

Burke walked to the window and rested his hands on the sill. He tried to imagine Chatham’s hands there, looking out the same window. There was nothing out there. Flat, empty, nothing.

It true he took his own life? the woman asked.

I don’t know, Burke said. Where are his things?

Sold them. Didn’t figure they’d do him any good now. Anything I couldn’t get rid of is in that closet there.

Burke pulled back the closet door.

You can take anything you like, but you won’t get nothing for it.

There were some clothes, worn through and moth-eaten. A hat that had lost its shape. On the high shelf he found a small box. He brought it down, the contents rustling within. He looked at the landlady and she shrugged. Burke blew the dust from the lid. Inside was a layer of fine white sand. He took some in his fist and let it run down his palms.

Is that…?

He brought his nose to the lip of the box. It didn’t smell of anything.

He brought the grains to his thumb and tasted it.

Well? the landlady asked. What is it?

Burke worked his tongue against his cheek. He wiped his hands on the side of his pants and returned the box to the shelf.

Table salt, he said.

AS THE CREWS LEFT FOR home, Burke stayed in his trailer and decided to get drunk. The sun was sinking low and the sticky air seemed to sit in his lungs like a tar. He reached into his drawer and found the bottle of whiskey his brother-in-law had given him last Christmas. He wiped the dust from the neck and pulled the cork with his teeth. Outside, the last of the men were boarding the bus back into town. He went to the door and stood in its frame. The bottle hung at his side. He let its weight sway on the hook of his fingers, tapping against his leg. The sun always seemed at its most brilliant going down. To the west, he could see the start of towers rising from the swamp. Skeletons. He tugged from the bottle, saluting them. The plow trucks and drill cranes bowed their clawed heads.

The clamor of construction work faded, overtaken by the chorus of crickets and toads, the low pulse of swamp sounds. The sky surged bright gold, then pale, into a poisoned gloom. Soon it was full dark and Burke could no longer see in front of him.

They put us in a wilderness, he thought. But this was their job. To be in this wild and to force it back, to bury it under concrete and stone.

It was time to check that the equipment sheds were locked. He got to his feet and groped for his coat and boots. Then he tested a flashlight against the flat of his hand. Outside, the gate lamps were burning. He followed the fence line west, toward the supply depot, shining his light through the spokes. There was no wind, just his cold white breath dissolving in front of him.

Outside, the light threw a long arc on the floor. It was a cloudless, moonless night and above him spanned a deep and pervading black with no stars to relieve it. At the edge of the light, something moved swiftly away.

He swung the light to a narrow gap between two trailers.

It was a cat, sleek and black with yellow eyes.

He laughed at himself and knelt down in front of it.

Come here, he whispered. He reached into the gap, clucking his tongue, but the cat retreated. He felt in his coat and found his pipe and tobacco. His hands were trembling from the cold, and he spilled the leaves onto his lap. He lit and drew deeply from the bit. Well, he said to the cat. Her muscular rump was raised high. She rubbed against Burke awhile, flicking her tail at his chin. When she realized that he had no food, she stalked away to sulk beneath the floorboards of the trailer.

He stumbled on through a field of diggers, cranes, drill trucks whose forms stuck up from the ground like sepulchers. He thought he heard a noise. The crackle of frost. Clothes swishing. He brought the light over his head and steadied it. There was the noise again. The small hairs of his neck stood on end.

He panned the flashlight across the ground, the light sluicing along the short blades of shrub grass. It caught on some small piece of wire in the distance. It winked at him. He moved unsteadily toward it and came to a large gate. The lock had been broken and the gate swung open easily with his touch. He passed through the portal and walked on. As he went, he felt the earth climbing, the ground beneath him becoming steeper and steeper till at last he found himself on his hands and knees, forcing his weight upward. When he came to the top, he was atop a large earth embankment. Below him, the darkness plunged for miles. He shone the light into the pit, but it was no use. There was no bottom. Soon the bulb flickered, waned, and died and he threw it down into the pit. The future lay sprawled in front of him — no shape, no form — the low white drone of water in the distance.

Frankie had reached her hand inside his neck and pinched off the gushing artery. She had saved his life and for this he hated her. He would no longer speak or eat or let Frankie near enough to change his bandage or lay to his neck any stinking paste. The gauze had turned stiff and black, and the wound beneath had started to draw flies. He was rotting and he did not care. In the corner of the room, he sat, his knees tucked up to his chest, staring hard at a knot of wood. She would speak his name and his eyes would drift up then fall away, uninterested.

Weeks passed in the swamp and the heat broke, calling down rain and wind. It whinnied through the trees and sent wood chips and twigs hurtling through the trails. When the storm had lifted, the sumac had begun to pink and yellowjackets menaced the air. The weather was turning and if they were going to live through the winter, they needed to go downland through the southern corridor where the waters were still warm enough to trap beaver and shoot wild boar. But Frankie worried that Rowbear would not survive the journey.