Bill Cheng - Southern Cross the Dog

Frankie did not stop to sleep, kept moving, through dusk and dark and again the breaking light, head buzzing, hungry. She clutched the satchel to her chest, did not risk a fire for fear that the smoke would give her away. By now, they would have found the house. She imagined them pawing through her things, her family’s things. Bugheway bastards. She had heard the explosions. Then the crackle of gunfire. The bugheway were clumsy, drunk — firing blindly into the leaf. They came with a parade of dogs, howling, foaming, down the western corridor, then north. She backtracked, stayed off the trails, waded through the brack and peat to mask her scent, till at last, three days later, she made it out the other side. The air was different here. Thin. Sweet with grass. It made her sick to breathe it.

She came to an unmarked road and started down it, trembling, her heart pressing against her teeth. She found an abandoned grain silo and saw in the dirt, boot prints. Robert’s. They were old but she knew right away, the deep etch of the inside heel, the lip where the toe had lifted. She took it as a sign and went inside.

The first night she slept under the pelts and woke up to pigeons fluttering above her, dust and feathers falling from the rafters. She winged one with a rock, stepped on its neck, and cooked it on a spit. The meat was hot and tough. She crunched through the bones, delirious, burning her tongue and mouth; she didn’t care. She lifted a sleeve of dead skin from the roof of her mouth. A week passed. No one came for her. Not Robert. Not the bugheway. She wept alone, exhausted, burning with sorrow and relief.

She resolved then to go into town. She’d sell the skins and, with the money, start again up in the north woods. Saskatchewan.

On her last night at the silo, she awoke to the noise of hoofbeats. They thumped dully through the earth, an old Injun trick. She climbed out from under the skins and saw riders across the valley, a least a dozen strong. They held torches and were whooping brightly, dragging something ragged through the dust.

COME NIGHTFALL, THE WIND TORE into the paneling at Fort Muskethead. The trappers helped nail rugskins to the windows to damp the cold. The electric lights flickered then went. They could see the outline of the cage, the trader’s silhouette against starlight, busying himself with the hurricane lamps — his hump riding to his shoulder. They shoved against the caging, rattled it from its hinges. Hurry up, you old hunchback. The glass caught the glow, and the trader passed the lamps through the slide window.

They set them on the sills, the floors, the tables, then lined up again in front of the opening. One man muscled through in front of the others and he passed his license through the window. The lamps haloed just enough glow for the trader to make out the bull mark. He looked up at the trapper.

His beard was caked in parts, his cheeks scabbed and dirty. The skin had started to peel on the round of his nose, so it looked thatched with frost. The trader passed the license back through the slide window and watched him gather it into his hands, two fingers stumped above the knuckle of his left hand. The trapper took the paw from his rucksack. The trader held it above the lamp. The paw had been chopped below the knee. The bone had splintered and cracked. He felt along the toes and the padding, then slid the money through the slot.

Frankie watched the light move across the old man’s face. She clutched her trapsack to her chest and joined the line. They could smell her, she knew, like they could smell a kill. The tealike odor of frenzy and panic. She looked around the room. Their eyes glittered.

She came to the front.

License?

None, she said.

The trader blew out through his lips. Next.

I’s a L’Etang.

I know a John L’Etang. You of those L’Etangs?

She nodded impatiently.

Well, where are they then?

Gone North to Beaver, she said.

The trader looked into her face. Her eyes were full of wet.

Sorry to hear that, he said.

He moved the lamp closer and brought a slice of soft light against her cheek.

Let me see what you have.

She went through the furs one by one and splayed them out for him to see. He brought out a small comb and combed out the kinks, spreading the skin out with his hands, bringing it to the lamp. There was a pop, and the electric lights flared then fizzled out again.

Sable’s been on the fall lately. Won’t fetch more than fifteen.

Fifteen? Need more ’n that.

The trader closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

It’s not a world for trappers. Not anymore.

Twenty-five. Give a’ twenty-five and I’s go.

Someone behind her snickered. The blood rushed into her face, and she had to keep herself from starting a fight.

You’re welcome to try in three weeks. When the new numbers come in.

Can’t wait three weeks. Need to leave quick jack. Twenty. Please. I go on twenty.

The trader looked again at the skins. They were old. Probably infested with moths.

Eighteen, he said.

Okay, bon. Eighteen.

The trader counted out the money and she stuck it into her coat and walked out. Out on the road, she touched the soft damp bills in her pocket. The hills were full of wind, and moving downridge, it lashed the dust around her. She’d planned to bed down again at the silo, but she’d misjudged how long it’d take her to get to the trading post. It was too dark to head back. There was a glimmer of light in the distance — Anguilla maybe, or one of the small hamlets outside town. She moved toward it. Eighteen dollars. A few days of food. A box of shells if she could get it. A knife and something to whet it on. Eighteen dollars. It’d have to last at least to Snakebite Creek.

The wind was cold. She kept moving, chanting the trapper’s prayer. Strong chains. Strong arms. She made her way closer.

She came to a fork in the road and, deep in its wedge, a barn. The wide doors were thrown open, and a warm orange light bled into the darkness. There were people coming and going, their long shadows sweeping across the brittle grasses. She moved closer, her face gone of feeling. There was laughter. Music. A Negro man brushed past her, mumbled something, and threw up in the bushes.

She went inside and the room went quiet. A dozen black faces turned to face her, their eyes wide and full of white. There was an old Negro at the raised plank stage, his beard full and gray. He’d been playing his guitar and had stopped when she came in, his crepe hand flat against the strings. In front of him was a footstool with a glass of beer on it, golden and full of foam. She could hear it crackling.

Frankie moved slowly to the bar. A man got off his seat and offered it to her.

The barman came and she asked for something to warm her.

He took her money silently and poured a glass of gin.

She sipped and winced.

Bon, she said. Mercy.

Then at once, the music started up again.

She sat and listened to the old Negro play. In front of him, a space had been cleared and men and women were dancing, clicking their heels and shaking their hips. He stomped his feet and bashed the strings. In his beard, a bright red mouth opened and flared his voice through the din. He hollered at the crowd and the crowd hollered back, and the man laughed and roared again. They danced and danced, faster now, dizzied and fevered, hands clapping, shoulders shucking.

Frankie finished her drink and the barman poured another. Now she could hardly taste it.

The barman said something, but she couldn’t make out the words.

She felt someone’s hand on her shoulder. She turned. It was him. Robert. He seemed thinner and gaunt in the face. She almost didn’t recognize him. He put his hand lightly on her elbow.