The collectors greet me cordially.
“Hot enough for you, Doc!” cries Moon.
“How you doing, Doc!” cries old Mr. Jack.
“Yes, it is. All right,” I reply, weaving a bit
The Negroes greet me uneasily. Why do the yarddogs snarl at me and not at Moon and old Mr. Jack? I am unwell.
How will I get up the hill to town? The sun laser bores into the top of my head, but my feet are blocks of ice. If only I could make it to the Little Napoleon, where I could sit in a dark nook and drink a little toddy to settle my stomach.
Halfway up the hill it becomes clear I won’t make it Flowers of darkness are blooming in the weeds. Rank vines sprout in the path. In times of ordeal one’s prayers become simple. I pray only that I will faint in a private place where no one will disturb me and where especially Moon and old Mr. Jack won’t see me.
I have drawn abreast of the new animal shelter, a glass-and-concrete air-conditioned block of a building cantilevered from the hillside like a Swiss sanitorium.
My knees knock.
But here’s a good spot
I sit down in a dry ditch under a chinaberry whose dense branches come down and make a private place. It is next to the dog-runs that slope down the hill under the pines. Where are the dogs?
Something in the ditch catches my eye. It is a Garrett snuff can. I lean forward to pick it up and faint. Not keel over but settle down comfortably propping my head on my bag. The weeds smell like iron.
Where are the dogs?
Here are the dogs. Inside where it is cool.
When I come to, I am lying on the large-dog table in the treatment room of the animal shelter. I feel well but so weak I cannot lift my head. Delicious cool air bathes my forehead. A great blue surgical lamp shines straight down. When my eyes get used to the glare, I notice the dogs, several dozen glossy-coated curs, seated behind grills and watching with interested expressions. This is why the outside runs are empty: the dogs have come inside to enjoy the cool breezes.
Gazing down at me, hands shoved deep in his pockets and fingering coins, stands Victor Charles. I know him without seeing his face. His fat abdomen engages the edge of the table. His belt buckle is to the side. The white duck is soiled by a horizontal streak I’ve seen before. Now I know where the streak comes from. It coincides with the metal edge of the table.
I try to get up.
“Hold it, Doc.” Victor places skilled large-dog hands on my shoulders.
I close my eyes. There is a pleasant sense of being attended, of skills being practiced, strong hands laid on, of another’s clothes rustling nearby.
I open my eyes. The lamp is reflected in one coppery highlight from Victor’s forehead. The rest of his face is blue-black. I notice that his sclerae are lumpy and brown.
“How long have I been here?”
“No more than fifteen minutes, Doc.”
“How did you find me?”
“I saw you sit down out yonder.”
“Were you watching me?”
“Watching you?”
“And you carried me in?”
Victor nods.
I am thinking: it is true. All day I have had the sense of being watched.
“Where’s my bag?”
“Right here, Doc.”
“O.K., Victor. Thank you. I think I’ll sit up.”
He helps me. I am well but weak.
“Eat this, Doc.”
Victor gives me a piece of corn bread and a cold glass of buttermilk. Though the bread is hard and unbuttered, it is very good. I don’t remember anything ever tasting better. The buttermilk slides under the acid.
“Thank you again.”
“You’re welcome.” Victor presses against the table and fingers his coins.
“I’ve got to go.”
“You ought to take better care yourself, Doc. And be more careful where you takes a nap.”
“Why?”
“Crazy folks everywhere now, Doc.”
“Folks? What folks?”
“Folks. You know.”
“You ought to be more careful too, Victor.”
“How’s that, Doc?” Victor, who has been pushing himself off the table with his stomach, stays off.
“I mean who you meet and where you meet, though it’s none of my business.”
“What you talking ‘bout, Doc?”
For some reason all three tiers of dogs start barking.
Presently Victor shouts, “You’ll be all right, Doc. Just rest here a while. You know what you need? Somebody to take care you. Why don’t you move in with your mama, Miss Marva? She be glad to do for you.”
I wait for the dogs to subside.
“You were there at number 11 on the old 18. This morning.”
“What you talking ’bout, Doc?”
“I was there, Victor. On the island. In the pagoda.”
“Oh, you talking about—” Victor begins to shake a loose hand toward the east as if he just remembered.
“What the hell is going on, Victor?”
“Like I told you, Doc—”
“Like you told me! You haven’t told me anything. I saw you, I saw Willard Amadie. Who was the third man?”
“Willard bringing meat for the swamp. Folks going hungry out there, Doc.”
“I saw the deer. Was that all?”
“All? How you say, all?”
“Victor, I heard you. I was sitting in the pagoda.”
“Oh, you talking about—” Again Victor salutes the east.
“Yes. Who was the third man?”
“Him? Doc, they say he mean,” says Victor, laughing.
“They?”
“Everybody. You talk about mean and lowdown!”
“Then what are you laughing about?”
“You, Doc. You something else.”
“Victor, is Willard trying to shoot me?”
“Shoot you! Willard!” Victor falls back.
“You mean somebody else is trying to shoot me?”
“Doc, why in the world anybody want to shoot you? You help folks. Like I tell people, you set up with my auntee when other doctors wouldn’t even come out.”
“You mean somebody is trying to shoot me and you tried to talk them out of it?”
“Doc, look. How long me and you known each other?”
“All our lives.”
“How long did I work for y’all, first for Big Doc, then for Miss Marva clearing land?”
“I don’t know. Twenty years.”
“And didn’t you set up with my auntee many a night before she died?”
“Yes.”
“You think I wouldn’t do the same for you?”
“I think you would. But—”
“Wasn’t I working as a orderly in the hospital last year when they brought you in and didn’t I take care you?”
“Yes, you did.”
“When you said to me, Victor, there’s something crawling on the wall, get it out of here, didn’t I make out like I was throwing it out?”
“Yes.”
Victor is laughing in such a way that I have to smile.
“I couldn’t see but I threw it out anyhow.”
“Yes, you did.”
“You think I wouldn’t tell you right?”
“I think you would.”
“Then, Doc, listen.” Victor comes close again, presses stomach against metal table. “Move in with Miss Marva. She’ll do for you. Miss Marva, she’d love nothing better. I help you move over there, Doc.”