surveyor’s point, a perch from which their entire, insular little kingdom was revealed. Time and again when Edgar looked up, he found Claude in the process of turning back to work.
As soon as the situation required him to work with Edgar’s father, however, arguments arose, puzzling and disconcerting. Though the details differed each time, Edgar got the idea that Claude and his father had slipped without their knowing it into some irresistible rhythm of taunt and reply whose references were too subtle or too private to decipher. Whatever the dynamic, it wasn’t Claude’s only aversion. Group conversations left him looking bored or trapped. He found reasons to dodge the dinner table, and when he did join them, he seemed to lean away as if ready to walk off if things took an unpleasant turn. Yet he never actually left. He just sat, responding to questions with a word or a nod and watching and listening.
It wasn’t that he disliked talk. He just preferred conversations one on one, and then he liked to tell stories about odd things he’d seen happen, though he himself was seldom the story’s subject. One evening, after Edgar had coaxed a new mother out of her whelping pen for grooming, Claude slipped through the barn doors and ambled over. He knelt and stroked the dog’s ear between his thumb and forefinger.
“Your dad had a dog once,” he said. “Named him Forte. He ever tell you about that?”
Edgar shook his head.
“We were just out of high school, before I went into the navy. Your grandpa came up with the name, because of his size. That one was a stray, too, and only ever half tame because of the time he spent in the woods. But he was a dog, you know? Smart as any we’d seen. Good build, good bones, ran a hundred-twenty, hundred-thirty pounds once he was fed right. Your grandfather had no qualms about using him for breeding stock when he saw what he had.” Claude talked about how strong Forte was, how quick, how the only bad thing about him was how he liked to fight, and how his grandfather made Forte his father’s responsibility, because, Claude said, “that dog was so much like Gar.”
This last comment made Edgar look up in surprise.
“Oh, yes. Once upon a time your father was a hell-raiser. Come home drunk, or sometimes not at all. Those two were made for each other. Your dad taught him a trick where he’d whistle and the dog would jump into his arms, all hundred-twenty pounds of him. They’d go into Park Falls and your father would let Forte fight somebody else’s dog and of course Forte would win, and as often as not the other guy’d pick an argument, and there they’d be, man and dog fighting side by side. They’d come home bloody and sleep so late the next morning your grandpa would get mad and kick them out of bed.”
Edgar had never seen his father lift his hand in anger, not against a dog and not against a person. He couldn’t imagine him letting a dogfight happen. But Claude just grinned and shook his head as if reading Edgar’s thoughts.
“Hard to believe, right? Just like from looking at me you wouldn’t necessarily think I was the one patching things up all the time, but that’s true, too. Anyway, your father fell in love with that dog, even though he wouldn’t listen worth a damn. One night he grabs me and Forte and we drive to The Hollow. He downs a fair number of beers and pretty soon some guy says he’s heard of Forte and next thing I know, we’re bouncing along a back road in the dust of this guy’s truck. Your father’s at the wheel, weaving all over, but it doesn’t matter because we’re so far back in the woods there’s nobody else on the road.
“He stops in the driveway outside the man’s house, which turns out to be just a shack. There’s no lights. Your father leaves the headlights on, and as we watch, the guy walks to a shed and a minute later out comes the biggest, blackest mastiff I’ve ever seen in my life. The thing puts its front feet on the hood of the truck and looks in at us, slavering like a bear. Your father pushes open the passenger-side door, but Forte’s seen this monster and thinks he’s got no chance, so all of a sudden he’s sitting in your father’s lap. The mastiff gets off the hood and comes around by the open door. I’m sitting closest to that side, and I go to shut the door, but the mastiff’s head is between me and the handle. Next thing I know, it’s hunching backward and then I’m not in the truck anymore—I’m being dragged through the grass by one boot. I’ve got a free foot, but I’m afraid if I kick it, it’ll start in on my leg, so all I can do is holler for your dad.”
“In the meantime, this guy’s standing in the headlights. He’s got a rifle over his shoulder, and he’s doubled over laughing. Your father’s struggling to get out of the truck, but he’s too drunk to move fast, and he’s got a grown dog cowering in his lap. He throws Forte out of the truck. The dog no sooner touches the ground than he’s back in the cab, and they start all over again. Meanwhile, the mastiff is pulling me back toward its pen to gnaw on me for a good long while.
“Well, your dad finally gives up on Forte and falls out of the driver’s-side door, which would have been funny in any other situation, but right then I’m screaming for help. He gets up and grabs the gun out of the guy’s hand and runs over, jams the barrel of the rifle into the mastiff’s ribs, but it pays no mind. So he jabs it again. It finally notices him and it drops my leg. By the time I get on my feet, it’s got him backed up against the side of the shack and he’s shouting, ‘How do you call it off? How do you call it off?’ The man is still laughing. ‘I got no idea!’ he says, and then there’s a lunge and the gun goes off and before any of us know what’s happening, the mastiff is laid out on the ground.”
Edgar led the dog he’d been grooming back to the whelping room. When he returned, Claude stood waiting for him.
“So the guy’s mad now,” he continued. “He takes the gun from your father and says, ‘Get your dog out of that truck or I’ll shoot it where it sits,’ and it’s clear that he means it. Your father goes to the truck and pulls Forte out. You have to understand how angry he was at Forte for cowering in there. The man lifts up the rifle but your father says, ‘Wait.’ And here’s the strange part: he takes the gun away from the guy, easy as anything. They’re both real drunk, see, swaying in the headlights of the truck. But instead of punching the guy and pitching his gun into the weeds, he calls Forte out and shoots him himself. He shoots his own dog. And then he tosses the gun down and cold-cocks the guy.”
No, Edgar signed. I don’t believe you.
“I put Forte in the back of the truck and drove us out of there. I buried him in the woods across the road, right over there. Then I told your grandfather that Forte ran away, because your father was too sick from the drinking to come downstairs, much less explain what happened. Besides, he didn’t even remember. I had to tell him. He asked some questions at first—like, why didn’t he do this or that, but I think it finally came back. Then he just rolled over in bed and stopped talking. Stayed there for the better part of three days before he could finally face anyone.”
Edgar shook his head and pushed past Claude.
“So you see how it is?” Claude said to his back. “There’s no way he can do it now, even when it has to be done.”
Almondine followed Edgar to his room and they lay on the floor, paw-boxing. He tried to put Claude’s story out of his mind. It was a lie, though he couldn’t have said how he knew, or why Claude would tell him such a thing. When Almondine tired of their game, he looked out the window. Claude was sitting alone on the porch steps, smoking his cigarette and looking at the stars.
THEY COAXED THE STRAY up the path each day by refilling the bowl and moving it closer to the yard, just a few feet at first and then, as the days wore on, much farther. At least, they hoped it was the stray: the bowl was always licked clean. Finally, they staked it close enough to the house that Edgar could see the glint of metal behind the garden, and the next morning, for the first time, the kibble was untouched. At dinner,
