IF WE’D POSSESSED burglars in our country they would have had good pickings on that Saturday, for practically every house was guiltless of life before ten o’clock when the Bench Show started in.
I was chairman for grounds and parking, like I’d been the last two years, so I was present at six o’clock or just before; my brother Del was chairman for refreshments and the barbecue, and he’d been there with other members of his committee since the night before, toiling with pit and firewood.
Smoke ascended spicy among the boughs and drifted out to scent the valley-sides of lower Heaven Creek. We’d held the Butternut in this same grove for at least a generation. There was a claybank out beyond, where folks could sit by scores and catch each shouting of the dogs as they went speeding over the ravines.
Del Royster whispered in my ear a while, the hour when I came, and so I knew peculiar happenings were bound to show; but no one could have guessed the strange events to be detected on this day.
Just before our program started up, when I was working with a loose plank of the platform we had built on hollow tiles, I rose to see the form of Benjy Davis striding close and staring hard. His eyes were little chunks of coal, and he was pale beneath his tan as if he’d seen a dozen ghosts—and liked them, though they frightened him.
“She’s here,” he blurted. Something gave a pound inside me. I had to look away a minute, and never let him understand I knew already.
“Just who’s here?” I asked, pretending calm.
“Camden. She’s got a funny dog on leash. I guess it’s one of those—” He stared a moment longer, then turned abrupt and walked away, the judge’s badge apparent on his shirt.
He was a field judge for the Race, because he hadn’t entered any hound this year. No one could be a judge who’d entered, naturally; but most of them had more connections than you could shake a stick at, who were trying it. It had to be that way, for we were all related up: a dozen families, no more, made up the bulk of population; and there were seven Lanceys running in the Butternut alone. The judges strove to give an honest ruling, and seldom was the charge produced that they had favored cousins.
I worked an old brick underneath the plank so it lay true, and then I made my way toward that small table where the owners signed. A line stretched out, with dogs in tow, and Uncle Punch Lancey sat alongside old Ed Armstrong, signing hounds for Race or Bench or both.
And there stood Camden in the row, waiting her turn, and looking lovelier than any branch of autumn leaves. She wore a skirt and sweater of the shade of robins’ eggs, and had her red hair wrapped up in a silken scarf. I went and grinned and squeezed her hand, as many others did; and usually the rest went off to whisper afterward, and wonder what this meant, and tip their crafty glance at Benjy.
“Well,” I said, “it’s good you’ve come.”
“The Butternut,” she said. “I didn’t want to miss it.”
“Camden, are you entering?”
She murmured that she was, and we both fell silent, looking down at that strange dog which she was leading. Bristles, sure enough—you couldn’t miss the mark—with hair all bushy on his neck and face, though he had stifles built far out like Little Lady. He looked as stickery as that old skate who sired him.
“He’s good,” came Camden’s little voice. “Bake, you never need to look like that. I haven’t lost my mind.”
But still I thought she had, and so did everyone. I gazed around for Benjy; he was standing, lonely and aloof beyond the chairmen’s table, and people gave him room.
“Tell me. Bake. Is Mr. Davis here as yet?”
“No,” I said. “He’s far too old, and he has seen a lot of Butternuts. He doesn’t care too much for bench, and the long program wearies him. My brother Tom will pick him up and fetch him, before the race begins this afternoon.”
All this while the line deployed, moving on slowly to the entry table, and finally Camden waited with her sorry potlicker before the gaze of Uncle Punch.
Now he was liked—regarded with amusement too. But Uncle Punch was far too pompous and he had a stuffiness of attitude. He’d been a mailman in his time, and also did some veterinary work, and taught a singing school for years without success, and always ran for county clerk but never won. He was bald and brown and squinty-eyed, and tried to talk like any senator.
“Name?” he demanded, though he knew her name so well.
She gave her name.
“Bench or Race, or both?” he asked, and old Ed chuckled there beside him.
“Just for the Race,” said Camden Davis, and that chuckle spread around, and Camden even smiled a small tight smile herself. She seemed to be pretending that Benjy was in Africa or elsewhere, though he stood barely twenty feet away.
“One moment,” then said Uncle Punch. He laid his pencil down and squinted fierce at Camden. “The Race is only open to the folks in this here county. I take it that you’re not a resident no longer.”
Behind him, Benjy Davis cleared his throat. His face was burning bright, but still he never looked to watch his wife. “Uncle Punch,” he called, no matter what it cost him in the coin of his embarrassment, “I guess that you’ve been misinformed. Camden’s my wife, and she’s officially a resident as much as you.”
Uncle Punch Lancey pursed his lips solemnly, and seemed about to write, and then he put his pencil down again. “But this thing she’s got with her. I always understood the Butternut was open solely to the breed of fox-hounds. I wouldn’t try to run Old Rags, my collie,” and a laugh went high but nervous through the crowd.
Camden stiffened. She seemed about to speak, but her young husband was ahead of her. “Uncle Punch,” cried Benjy in disgust, “don’t be a worse fool than you are! That dog is out of Little Lady. Little Lady won the Butternut three years ago—her first time in—as everybody knows. You can’t scratch out a pup from any champion,” and people buzzed about it. A dozen men declared, “That’s right,” and “Uncle Punch, your hounds—they never came from anything in any stud book.” So he had to write it down at last.
The name was Little Bristles. Camden opened up a big limp leather bag a-hanging from her arm, took out a purse and paid five dollars entrance fee. She walked away, remote and never looking back, and all the kids were skirmishing to get another look at that strange Airedale-coated animal as if he was a lion or a bear out of a circus.
She placed her dog within her car, and let him lie on blankets she had folded, and she fetched fresh water from the pump and filled his pan. She’d let him snooze, I knew, until the Butternut was called. The program started soon; and there’d be the Bench Show, then the barbecue and basket dinner. Then everyone would take it easy—sit and gab, and smoke, and visit round—until the Race was called.
The prayer was by the Reverend Monterey Adair. He had the church at McKee’s Crossing—a heavy patient man who used to be a blacksmith up until he got the Call. We always started Butternuts with prayer (it kept the drinking down a mite) and Reverend Mont Adair distinguished on this day. For he made mention of the Psalms, and quoted them, and spoke of Nimrod and of Esau, and rugged Hebrew folks of yore who used to range the wilderness; and he believed they must have taken dogs along. And he remarked that it was dogs who licked the wounds of Lazarus.
He prayed that all the judges would find strength to be alert and honest in their judg-ments, which was proper for the Reverend Mont to plead, since he had a hound entered in the Butternut.
Then there came music, for as usual we’d hauled a little parlor organ from the Pettigrews’, and Widow Amy Leah played it sweet. The crowd sang “Dixie” in honor of the famous Rebels—all departed now except for Springfield Davis, and he hadn’t come as yet. And “Glory Hallelujah” in memory of Unionists.
Young Archie Armstrong sang, “The Hunting of John Peel” and sang it well, although he kind of drawled the words, since he was in a Gary Cooper mood that month. And “Old Dog Tray”—he sang it for his second. Then up got Gabriel Strickland with his melodic guitar, and all his songs were better yet, for nobody nearby could tickle a guitar like him. “Old Blue” he sang, and “Ranger” and then “The Fox upon a Stilly Night.” People clapped their hands off, and whistles sounded shrill.
The Bench Show started up, with dogs upon the platform—people holding high their tails to show how wonderful a form and carriage each one had. Although I didn’t give a hoot for Bench, and always thought what was the use of holding any hound’s tail up on high if he could never hold it up himself.
I sought out Camden, but discovered her among the younger women, speaking polite and cool-assured, while they questioned busily about the sweater which she wore, and wondered if she’d knitted it herself; she said she had, and would be willing to lend out the pattern.
I checked upon the parking situation, and we had to string a clothesline through the trees, to keep the newlycome arrivals from driving up too close and interfering with the Bench.
But all the while I searched for Benjy from the corner of my eye, and found him not. I went away from all the crowd at last, to hunt him out; and finally he was there, alone above the clay-bank cliff, sitting with arms around his knees, and studying the timberland of lower Heaven Creek as if he’d never seen a cottonwood or bush before.
Oh, I had known him since he dragged a little wagon in the yard; and it was I who taught him how to fling his darts and whittle them from shingles.
“Benjy, you’re maybe tasting better luck than you deserve.”
” How so?”
“To have her coming back like this.”
His voice was scratchy but it didn’t shake in wrath. “I don’t say she’s come back. She’s never spoke a word to me, nor acted like she saw me. No doubt she’s only come to run that mongrel in the Race; and it’s an insult to us all.” But still he had no fury in his tone, for he was softened by the beauty of his wife, and seeing her in prettiness again.
“Bake,” he said, “I guess you heard. I make no doubt that it was talked around. We’ve got a child.”
“Oh, yes,” I told him. “It was a boy, they say.”
“And Camden never even sent for me, nor wanted me to stand beside her bed.”
“You went—and you came back.”
“She’d left the hospital; they told me she was fine. I couldn’t bring myself to take a further step. I didn’t know it was a baby at the time.”
I’d had enough of his restraint and sourness. “This is your chance. It’s my belief she came apurpose just to give you opportunity. I hope you won’t be pickle-headed all your life, and lose your wife for keeps, and rob your own son of a father’s care,” and then I walked away. But Benjy never showed up for the Bench or barbecue; nor did I see him till the Race was called, and judges stood to get their places and assignments.