The
sooner was white. Whenever she went in heat, she'd sooner come to Wade's
dogs than wait for them to come to her, was what Wade said. Wade's dogs
were black-and-tans, and half the time they stayed in the house with us.
Me and Wade wasn't
married. I was just staying till the baby came. I was thinking maybe after
Wade seen the baby, me and him would go ahead and do it. He seemed to
be doing the same. Wade was a good man, but even good men don't want nigger
babies.
I wasn't never with
that kind, though, and I told Wade that. But I don't blame him for waiting
to see. People said all kind of shit about me. I don't blame him a bit.
One thing they said
was all I wanted from Wade was his mama's china. But that was a damn lie.
I have never mentioned a word about no china. I ain't even seen it. If
Wade got the china when his mama died, he done something with it. I didn't
care about no china, though. I cared about Wade.
And he cared about
me. Everybody else turned their back. But not Wade. He was the caringest
man I ever met. And I met a few.
First time I seen
the sooner was when her and Blue got stuck together. You should of heard
them baying and bawling. Sound like they'd tree'd a mountain lion. You
couldn't do nothing for them 'cept throw them in the creek and break them
apart. Which is what Wade done. "Get! old sooner," he said, and she lit
on out of here.
But the next day,
her and some other one was up under the house, beating the floorboards
loose, fighting ever time one hurt the other. Wade just about shot both
of them that time. You couldn't blame him, though. His Aunt Geneva was
over, and she got scared. "Wade!" she said, reaching out for his hand.
She wouldn't never take mine. She was there snooping around for Wade's
mama's china. "Wade! Wade!" He kicked on the floor and next thing we know,
both them dogs run on out of there. This sure wasn't no place for her
dead sister's china. I knew that's what Geneva was figuring. But I had
a notion things might be different someday. I had a nice woman's touch,
people always have said. Even without no china, I knew I could make Wade
and me and the baby a real nice home.
My gram-maw was part
Cherokee, she always said, but you couldn't tell it. Her eyes was green
as Ireland, Daddy told us youngins growing up. She used to tell him stories,
though, old Indian legends about how the world was made by a spider. She
knew things about birds and animals and plants, stuff Wade never heard
tell of. Told everybody all time her spirit animal was the turkey. "You
ought to kill that thing," her poor old mama would tell her. "We're liable
to starve to death if you don't, girl." But Gram-maw claimed that turkey
had led her through the brambles and sneeze weed all her life, scratching
over sticker bushes to point out a bushel of gooseberries or May apples
or a ground littered with walnuts. She told Daddy, "Now 'magine if I'd
of kilt it like Mommy wanted me to."
The only animal
I's ever around any, though, was dogs. Daddy never tended no chickens
or cows or nothing like Mama's people had. Just kept a passle of dogs
all the time, not for hunting with like Wade. Just for us kids 'cause
we liked them. I wondered if that old sooner was maybe my gram-maw come
back from the grave to show me something. She sure was a odd sight, a
solid white dog like that. Everything around here was a beagle or Bassett
or redbone or blue tick or some mixture. Nothing more peculiar than a
mutt poodle or collie now and again. She snuck back about every night,
though, that old sooner did. One, two o'clock in the morning. Wade's dogs
would be fighting and carrying on till I was sure he was about to kill
every one of them. I'd crawl out of bed and go out there with a flashlight.
But there wasn't nothing I could do. It's like they went crazy.
And the poor little
sooner would be backed up in a corner of the shed, baring her teeth. Big
plugs of her fur was missing and looked like she'd lost weight some. The
whole thing didn't make no sense. What'd she keep coming back for? That's
what made me figure she was my gram-maw.
"Looks like you
had enough," I said one night when her ear was pouring the blood and she
looked too weak to hold out much longer. I tried running the others off.
"Heel, Barney! Go on! Get!" They wasn't listening though, and here I am
five months pregnant getting between them. I picked up a hoe handle and
swung it a few times and they backed off enough to let me get to her.
I knew better than to try and carry a big old dog like that, so I figured
I'd just try and lead her out of there and put her up some place where
they wouldn't bother her no more. I should of knowed they'd follow us
into the house, though, and buddy, you should of seen Wade then. Oh, if
he wasn't hotter than a stove eye.
"What in Sam's hell
are you doing?" he yelled. "Trying to kill that half-breed you're carrying?"
I couldn't believe
what I heard. My face stung like a branch had swung back and hit me. "I
ain't carrying no half-breed," I said, pulling the sooner closer to me,
poking away the others with the hoe handle.
"Yeah, not for long
if you keep this shit up." He grabbed one of the dogs by the collar and
it tried to wrench itself loose until Wade drug it so far across the linoleum
and laid his foot in its ribs. On out the door it went then, still baying
for everything it was worth. "Not a got-damn one of you'll feel like raising
your son-of-a-bitchin heads for a 'coon now, I'll grant you that," Wade
said, grabbing another by the nape of the neck. "Get on out to the truck,"
he told them. And one by one, they minded him, finally. Like youngins.
I didn't understand
why Wade hated that sooner so much. She was the gentlest thing you ever
saw, and pretty. Fur soft and white as a baby blanket, pointy ears like
a fox, bushy tail, too. Looked like a white fox, I reckoned, but Wade
said he ain't never seen no white foxes round here.
My one cousin in
Maryland said she'd take the baby if it turned out like everybody expected.
Least that's what Wade said. Said I ought to think on it, too, cause it
would be better off away from here. I wondered why someday'd want a nigger
baby better than a white one, but all I told Wade was that there wasn't
no way it couldn't be white. But then I got to wondering what if it wasn't?
What if it was a half-breed? What if it was like Mary getting pregnant
and her being a virgin? I wasn't comparing myself to Mary--I sure wasn't
no virgin--but the lord works his miracles through sinners, I heard somebody
say. Like Moses, who'd done something God-awful bad. What I'd did wasn't
nearly as bad as killing anybody, though all sins was equal in the eyes
of the lord.
Next time that sooner
came round was the worst thing you ever seen happen. Wade's Aunt Geneva
was back packing up his mama's china to give to a rightful heir, she said.
She didn't look at me. All she said was Wade was getting on in age and
likely wouldn't have no children of his own. The sooner came sneaking
round the camper shell and headed toward us. Before she could get up under
the porch, Wade's old dogs laid in on her. One grabbed holt of her and
went to humping and then another tried getting her at the head and she
went to snapping and locking teeth with it till her mouth was pouring
the blood. I ran down off the porch waving my hoe handle, hoping I could
worry Wade's dogs away again. But they wasn't having none of me this time.
They laid back their ears and growled and circled round me and the old
sooner, gnashing their teeth and closing in inch by inch. Wade stood up
from the glider on the porch real sudden and newspapers fell off his lap
onto the floor. He handed Aunt Geneva a teacup and saucer and went slamming
through the screen door after his rifle. I thought he was going to fire
up into the air like always, but when he came out, he took aim at Barney
and shot him dead right there. "Oh, lord, Wade," I yelled. "Why'd you
do that?"
The other dogs had
got spooked and fell quiet for a minute. All except the sooner. Her teeth
was still bared, the white hair on her neck and back stood up on end.
Wade's dogs sniffed around Barney and I reached to grab up the sooner
and run to the porch. But before I could get hold of her, Wade shot again
and again and again and again, killing first the sooner and then every
single one of his own dogs. I barely had time to think about anything.
Then I saw the little sooner laying there limp and turning redder and
redder by the second. She wasn't stone dead. Her neck was blown wide open
but she paddled her feet like she was running somewhere. I started bawling
and looked around me. Dead dogs laid everywhere. Wade's Aunt Geneva stood
trembling like a great big bead of water about to fall, the teacup and
saucer Wade had give her, one in each hand. I heard Wade cock the rifle
again. Then the china fell to the porch in a million pieces.
