Fiction

It was late summer. The sun was retreating to its southern wards, light flattening on the land so that the sides of things became more remarkable. People in town could be seen mounting snow tires, airing out heavy quilts and curtains, and filling what gaps they could fin in the rubble foundations of their old houses. Daily now the smell of woodsmoke diluted in the clean cold air, tangy birch, white and yellow, sweet sugar maple, dark black cherry. The denizens of Glastenbery got ready to “hunker down,” here where as one old resident put it “There are only two seasons: winter and getting ready for it.” Bears fattened preparing for their hibernation. The fur thickened on heavy-coated dogs and on rabbits, mink, and fisher cats. Birds fled in great numbers.

Something of a historian himself, Cabot knew and with great accuracy just who and what had passed the yard during the night. Had he been able to speak (and had he a few other necessary faculties), he could have recited a list, that might have included coyotes, deer, rabbits, racoons, mice, and maybe even a bear. He lacked comprehension. But when it came to the apprehension of the recent past, he was the best for miles around.

It was January. There was a light breeze that morning. He lowered his head seeking the particular height above the ground, the particular channel and frequency through which he might intercept smells from upwind. He was well attuned, capable of filtering out certain scents so as to concentrate on others. This morning he growled, a growl sparked by protective rage probably combined with some fear, big as he was. Ordinarily he was a silent as the tomb.

He had a big blocky head and heavy, thickly muscled shoulders. His coat was short, black, and shiny as a wet seal’s. He weighed over 80 pounds, and so, when he growled, it was wise to take notice.

But he was a retriever, a generally mellow and mild-mannered type of dog, although there were other breeds in his family history. You can see some shepherd in his eyes, some Airedale in the extra inch in his legs. He was 2 years old, coming into his full vitality and strength.

Black bears were numerous in the area. Although they are not as big or as dangerous as brown bears, specimens have been recorded weighing over 600 pounds. There were packs of coyotes, moose, lots of deer and rabbits, fisher cats, mink, and weasels, and rumors of the re-incursion of gray wolves and catamounts: mountain lions.

He growled again and then turned to face the door. He sat. A stooped man in late middle-age came out of the house and the big dog rolled over on his back so that the man could scratch his chest.

There was no call of the wild as far as he was concerned. He understood that coyotes and wolves were not his friends. On the other hand, here he was in paradise, thousands of acres of woods. Clean mountain brooks and ponds where he could swim in the heat of summer and emerge with the water beading on his glossy back.

Lightfoot and Sons: CLOCKS

The heavy barn door swings shut silently, without a bang or a click, without a sound from its great iron hinges. Faria finds himself in a warm darkness. At first he can see nothing, but as his pupils dilate he becomes aware of a dim glow some 40 feet away. There is a workbench and over it hangs a single light shaped like a lantern. At the bench a man is tapping something with a hammer, very regularly, like a metronome, with a pause after every four taps.

As Faria approaches he can make out that the man holds a chisel in his other hand. He is shaping a piece of wood. He is an older man, and he does not look up as Faria approaches.

The woodworker taps the head of the chisel to edge it toward where his thumb holds the wood, and as the blade touches his flesh he stops and begins again. Slices of wood curl away from the gleaming blade like butter for some elegant table. The room smells of wood, cherry, maple, and birch beneath a thick layer of must.

Behind the workbench and to the left are cases with shelves holding variously shaped and sized pieces of wood. Above them squares, planes, and clamps are hung from pegs. Chisels, drill bits, and rasps stand in rows, their ends fitted into holes in the shelves. U-shaped carpenter’s braces hang from pairs of nails along with over a dozen saws of different sizes and shapes various as to the size and the number of teeth on their blades.

The worker is dressed in loose-fitting corduroy overalls, a rough black sweater that looks hand-knitted, and a leather apron. In the dim light his hands seem huge, freakishly out of proportion to the rest of his body, which is spare to the point of skeletal. He is only about five feet tall. He wears thick half-framed spectacles and squints at his work. Close behind the workbench and to the right a pot-bellied stove, regaled with fanciful design and heavy chrome, glows red. Beside it but at a safe distance is a box that is probably filled with coal. Heat swims off of the top of the stove and climbs its sides distorting the space behind it as might an old puckered windowpane.

Well behind the stove, in the dim recesses of the barn, is a row of chairs and the forms of two more white-haired men, one who seems to be watching the clockmaker at his craft, the other slumped in his chair as though asleep.

The room is surprisingly warm, given its volume. Faria stands and waits and in the warmth his eyelids start to fall . He jerks himself awake to keep from falling over. The clockmaker still does not acknowledge him, and so the visitor wonders if this strange place has rendered him invisible.

When the craftsman does look up, it is with a certain nonchalance, as though having this man standing in front of his workbench was no more remarkable than the bench itself and the customary contents of the shop.

©PDG 2021

The woman had just climbed down from the buggy. She was tying the horse to a post a few feet from the back door of the house. She saw the charging animal, but betrayed no sign of alarm. However, the eager whine the onrushing beast had given the alert to others, who now rushed out of woods and the barn. There was a greyhound, some collies, two labs, a golden, a German shepherd, two Dalmatians, a great shaggy Newfoundland pounding along ponderously on its bearish feet, unable to keep up, a Scotch terrier, a pair of Airedales and several mixtures of these breeds, all of them making rapid progress, some losing their feet for a second and tumbling, some falling back while the swifter ones took the lead. It was a long run from the barn. Slather hung from the mouth of the lagging Newfoundland.

The woman stood her ground. An observer might have expected the pack to come to a screeching stop in response to the incantatory gesture of her raised hand. But they came right on. The young dog, having given the alarm, now held back to watch, while the others simply ate up the ground. The woman stood firm, speaking softly and calmly at first, then in a louder quick tone when she realized the extent of her mistake. She thrust out her arms defensively and made a quick move towards the house, but she was too late.

The greyhound reached her first and leapt--with an Airedale and a Dalmatian a tenth of a second behind it and leaping too. And the combined force of the three of them against her belly and her chest, aggravated by her attempt to assume a ward that might fend off the rest of the impending pack, made her lose her footing on the muddy ground. She stabbed a heel at the mud vainly seeking to regain her balance her arms spinning madly. Then she was down. And with that they were all upon her.

They swarmed over her, and from some points of view she would have disappeared from sight entirely. They covered her like starving wolves fastening upon some still struggling doe, the larger curs flinging others aside to get at her. There was the sound of growling and snapping that pretty much drowned out her weak shrieks and impotent fulminations. She kept trying to get up, but the pack pressed her, their tails wagging, their voices a treble cacophony of joy.

From the great glacial boulder in the upper meadow (where she would die some 65 years later) one might have seen only a mass of squirming shapes, wolves, perhaps swarming over a fallen fawn. From the road, now Highway 8, one could have seen nothing, since the house was in the way. From the graveyard, one might have had a glimpse of her as she struggled. From a spy satellite photographing that spot had this happened in 2000 and not in 1922, the whole event would have looked like a small blotch near a house, which itself, was hardly discernable as such.

Paws muddied her arms, tongues lacquered her face, one penetrated her left ear. The young dog jostled and pushed itself under her arm, begging to be embraced. Some was silent in their joy, simply wiggling, with their great tails slapping, ears pressed back, noses poking and wet, mud and paws everywhere; others crooned or wailed or howled, one like a wolf, another--the big shepherd--sounding more like a canary with his hysterical little cries. Finally Marion Blood managed to assert enough leverage with one arm to push some of them off her while she pried herself up off of the ground with the other. She had gotten to one knee when the Newfoundland, out-of-breath, drool streaming from his open jaws, and doing his best to slow down, finally arrived, nearly full tilt, his momentum more than enough to knock her down again, and she fell into the mud and this time with a splash big enough to soil the entire pack. They closed in on her again, but their ardor had cooled a bit, and she was able to get to her knees. She crawled to the entrance to the mudroom, using the protection of the doorway to fend them off.

She rose to a crouch. She stood. Thoroughly muddied, yelling at them to back off (they showed more respect once she was erect), staring at each of them in turn as she spoke, calling each by name, looking at her skirts, and laughing. She stopped, and then looked at herself again and then imagined how the whole scene must have looked, like some grim tale from the wilds of the Yukon she had used to read in the newspaper, and she laughed again. She shook with laughter, while the rain came down hard upon her, drenching whatever still was dry. There was something in her laughter that swerved from the normal, people said, but she loved to laugh and was not self-conscious about how she sounded. The dogs sat quizzical, looking now at each other, now at her, some pivoting their heads back and forth as dogs do, some shifting about nervously. The shepherd came forward and nuzzled her, but she pushed him away firmly. Yet she kept laughing and laughing. She stood there her shoulders hunched, shaking with laughter for five minutes before picking up her umbrella and going in through the back door of the house, into the mudroom. She came back out, took her parcels from the buggy (she had been all the way, ten miles, to Williamstown) and brought them into the mudroom. Then she got back into the buggy and drove it into the barn and unhitched the mare, and fed her, and rubbed her down and threw the blanket over her back.

Then she walked, soaked and shivering, down to the house. The brass knob on the back door was slippery, and only after an effort could she get it to turn enough to move the latch. She pulled the heavy door open and went into the mudroom, where she took off her coat and hung it on a hook, and then into the kitchen, where she threw two dry billets into the stove and then took off her clothing, piece by piece.

The room smelled strongly of dog, not just because of the presence of the few wet canines who had followed her in, but also as a set state of things, the smell of dogs inhering in the rugs, the upholstery, in the very wood of the place, but she only noticed it when she had been out of the house for a while, and even then she quickly got used to it. The room was vast, with a great hearth at one end, and the cookstove at the other, near the back door. The floor was pine boards, some of them two feet wide, hardened with age. There was a pump and a drain, two massive carved wooden chairs, a stuffed sofa, and a big bookcase.

Marion shivered, even standing in front of the stove as it heated up with the new wood. There were goose bumps all over her body. She had rounded arms and muscular legs, full breasts. From the other angle there was her firm buttocks, well formed, big, white and spotless. She was of above-average height, almost five foot five; she was more than a little plump, but her skin and muscles were elastic, she moved with grace and agility. She was fair. Her skin was like lightning in the dusky light of the room. The dogs, those that had ventured into the house, fell back from her nakedness.

It made her glad that at thirty-eight she still felt and even looked so good, not that there was any benefit from the latter. She knew, as well, that she was almost at the far edge of looking this way, and that soon she would be old and thus invisible as well as alone. She waltzed before the stove, warming herself. She moved around the kitchen with a hermetic nonchalance, dashed into the mudroom and came back rolling the copper tub, which complained on its tiny wheels. She put two great kettles on the woodstove, and then stood, straight as a post, warming herself by the fire.

When the water was hot, she poured it into the tub, and then pumped cold water for mixing with the hot. Steam frosted the windows and shut out the world. From its sound on the glass, she could tell that the rain had changed to sleet, tapping on the glass as though someone were throwing little pebbles at it to get her attention. She took a lump of soap and a cloth out of a cupboard and lowered herself into the tub. First she washed her long hair. Then the rest. The water barely covered her hips. She had to bend over and scoop up the water to rinse herself. She used an old teacup.

Go To Right Here