Driftless

David Rhodes

• Publisher: Milkweed Editions
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781571318008
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

"A fast-moving story about small town life with characters that seem to have walked off the pages of Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology."— The Wall Street Journal The few hundred souls who inhabit Words, Wisconsin, are an extraordinary cast of characters. The middle-aged couple who zealously guards their farm from a scheming milk cooperative. The lifelong invalid, crippled by conflicting emotions about her sister. A cantankerous retiree, haunted by childhood memories after discovering a cougar in his haymow. The former drifter who forever alters the ties that bind a community. In his first novel in 30 years, David Rhodes offers a vivid and unforgettable look at life in small-town America. "[Rhodes's] finest work yet... Driftless is the best work of fiction to come out of the Midwest in many years."— Chicago Tribune "Set in a rural Wisconsin town, the book presents a series of portraits that resemble Edgar Lee Masters's 'Spoon River Anthology' in their vividness and in the cumulative picture they create of village life."— The New Yorker "Encompassing and incisive, comedic and profound, Driftless is a radiant novel of community and courage."— Booklist (starred review) "A welcome antidote to overheated urban fiction... A quiet novel of depth and simplicity."— Kirkus Reviews "It takes a while for all these stories to kick in, but once they do, Rhodes shows he still knows how to keep readers riveted. Add a blizzard, a marauding cougar and some rabble-rousing militiamen, and the result is a novel that is as affecting as it is pleasantly overstuffed."— Publishers Weekly

FIGHTING DOGS

WADE ARMBUSTER PLACED OLIVIA ON THE FRONT SEAT OF HIS pickup, put the wheelchair in the back, and drove away from the Brasso house with Violet watching from the unlit window in the upstairs storage room.

“Thanks for writing to my parole officer,” said Wade when they reached the state highway.

“I was happy to do it,” said Olivia, clicking her seat belt into place. “I hope it’s all right if I bring a camera.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” said Wade.

“Did you get your car put away?”

“Yes, it’s back in the machine shed. Jacob helped me with the windshield. You want to get something to eat afterwards?”

“I guess it depends. When does this event start?”

“It starts as soon as enough people and dogs get there and ends after there aren’t any more dogs to fight. There’s a truck stop not far from where we’re going.”

“A truck stop,” repeated Olivia, relishing the sound and the attending idea. “What a perfect place for people riding in a truck.”

“I brought some blankets,” said Wade. “It can get cold at a game. You want one now?”

“No thank you. I’ve got on plenty of clothes.”

Wade turned off the state highway and onto a northbound blacktop. The distance between houses grew longer and longer. A floating oval moon and canopy of stars were visible in the east.

Crossing the county line, the blacktop deteriorated and the old pickup clattered loudly over each bump and pothole. They drove through Snow Corners, a tiny village on the edge of a pine forest. Of the two dozen homes only one appeared lived in, and for Olivia, who studied each passing attraction with supreme interest, the single window of light held haunting enchantment.

Wade drove between two towering walls of thick black pines, the feathered branches blotting out the light of the night sky. Olivia breathed deeply, savoring the smell of Christmas as it mingled with the odor of antifreeze and burned oil wafting out of the heater.

Several miles later, Wade turned at an intersection marked by a rag tied around a road sign and drove downhill, deeper into the forest. Near the bottom, he slowed and searched along the road. Another rag—tied to a stick shoved into the ditch—marked a drive. Wade turned in, put the truck into four-wheel drive and continued forward, following earlier tracks made in the snow, the branches of the pines on either side of the narrow lane almost touching. Soon, a cattle gate blocked their progress: KEEP OUT, PRIVATE PROPERTY.

Wade stopped before the gate and turned off the headlights. Then he turned them on and off twice. As though formed from the forest air, a stooped figure in a snowmobile suit emerged from the trees, dragged the gate to the side, and with a thick gloved hand motioned them forward. Olivia watched him with the wonder of a cat watching a mouse—or a mouse watching a cat.

They followed the narrow lane further downhill, pine limbs brushing audibly against the sides of the truck. At the base of the hill the lane turned left and spit them out of the forest into a large clearing, where the welcome light of the moon reflected brightly across the surface of snow. In the middle of the clearing, twenty or twenty-five vehicles, mostly vans and pickups, were wedged around an unpainted barn. Homemade wooden crates and wire cages sat in the back of many trucks, but all that Olivia could see were empty, with the exception of one large white lumpy shape. Smoke billowed from a metal chimney at the side of the barn, and a single lantern hanging from the side of the building marked the entrance.

Wade parked as near to the door as he could and set Olivia into her wheelchair. The air was cold and he threw a blanket over her lap. The snow was deep, and because of the front casters on her wheelchair, he wasn’t able to push her through it, so he pulled her backward to the hard-packed path. An unseen pair of arms rolled the door aside and a woman sitting on a stool held out a coffee can. Wade pushed two ten-dollar bills into its open mouth. Quick as a flash, the woman’s big, nimble hand dove into the can, plucked up one of the tens, and handed it back to Wade.

“No charge for wheelchairs,” she said, smiling a missing-front-tooth smile. “They bring their own seats.”

Originally a horse barn, the building had stalls along three sides and a large open area. Thirty or forty people stood and sat on bales of straw around a chicken-wire pen.

“That’s the pit,” Wade told Olivia and pushed her over to inspect the six-sided enclosure, which looked as if it might have been constructed earlier in the day. The arena had been dug a foot into the dirt floor, reinforced with wooden posts, the sides made of chicken wire. Trouble lights fastened to the tops of the posts directed light into the pit, which was about twelve or fourteen feet in diameter.

A dozen men and a few women stood with muzzled dogs on leashes. More men and dogs were in the open stalls. Wood and coal smoke seeped from the seams of a squat, hot-fired iron stove, and many of the spectators, Olivia noticed, had removed their coats. A blackboard on the wall listed the scheduled matches, along with the weights of the contestants: Caesar (58) vs. Wide Mouth (52); LockJaw (67) vs. Lady MacBeth (62); Jake III (45) vs. Iron Bitch (47); White-Eye (76) vs. Vice President All Gore (81).

Wade parked Olivia at a comfortable viewing distance from the pit and pulled up a bale of straw to sit beside her.

A thin, salt-and-pepper-whiskered man seated at a card table took bets and scribbled names and numbers into a notebook. Before him, an opened leather suitcase served as a cash register. Standing behind him and to the side of the blackboard an enormous blond youth kept his hands shoved deeply in his jacket pockets. Despite the lack of any official designation, badge or sign, his purpose was clearly enforcement.

Olivia drank in the sights, smells, and sounds like a woman dying of thirst. Hoping to make herself look less like an invalid—and also because she was too warm—she removed the blanket Wade had tucked around her and folded it neatly on the bale of straw next to Wade.

“Most of these dogs look like American Staffordshire terriers,” she said.

“We call ’em pit bulls,” said Wade. “Or just bulls.”

“That’s a slang expression,” said Olivia. “It dates from when the English used dogs to bait bulls.”

“I wondered about that,” said Wade.

“They seem fairly docile,” said Olivia, who imagined that dogs bred for fighting, like horses bred for running, would be nearly uncontrollable. But the mostly mottled, shorthaired dogs sat next to their handlers like any other pets, and even in some cases, she noticed, wagged their tails when people petted them or talked to them.

At the same time, she noted, they weren’t like most other dogs. Wide, square heads and necks; small eyes, tiny ears, muscled shoulders; short, bowed legs and inscrutably blank expressions gave them a unique appearance, emphasized by heavy leather muzzles and oversized collars.

“That’s what makes ’em so cool,” said Wade. “They make excellent fighters but very poor guard dogs. It’s their breeding. They don’t bark much and generally like people. When they’re used as guard dogs they sometimes get stolen. They’ll climb into anybody’s car. It’s just other dogs they don’t like. It’s bred into them.”

“What?”

“The game—the fighting instinct.”

It was a curious notion, Olivia thought, the idea of breeding behavior as opposed to physical features.

“What does that mean?” asked Olivia, pointing at the handwritten NO COON sign hanging below the blackboard.

“Raccoons aren’t allowed,” Wade explained. “Some people always want to see a raccoon tossed in the pit with a small dog. They fight like hell when they’re cornered. It’s because they’re wild. It’s what they try to breed into the bulls—to put the wildness back in ’em that was earlier bred out. When a coon is thrown in the ring, either it or a dog is going to die.”

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“You said bulls like people. That’s not a wild trait.”

“I know it doesn’t make sense, but that’s the way it is. Whatever makes the bulls good at fighting each other also makes them like people, I mean generally. Some of the other game breeds aren’t like that—the bigger ones—but they don’t, pound for pound, make as good fighters.”

The first match, Caesar versus Wide Mouth, began when two men led their dogs into the pit and took off their muzzles. Caesar, a brown five-year-old male, six pounds heavier than his brown three-year-old opponent, struggled to get at the other dog. The younger dog waited patiently for its collar to be unfastened, but when it was released it charged the bigger dog, jaws snapping. Wide Mouth—the bitch—met the assault, and they merged into one ball of snarling canine fur, limbs, and teeth.

Five minutes later, both dogs were covered with blood. And though the wrestling, snarling, and biting continued undiminished, even Olivia could tell which dog had the upper hand. Caesar, the older dog, dominated. His larger size contributed to the unbalance, but he also seemed more dedicated. The younger dog, in comparison, seemed hesitant, confused, fearful, trying to protect herself—defensive. When she bit, she did not hold on with the same tenacity.

In the next few minutes both dogs showed signs of exhaustion, but the male’s superiority became increasingly apparent. The future of the contest soon became inevitable and the judge—a small copper-skinned man wearing a jacket with “Joe” sewn into an oval patch above the left pocket—blew a whistle.

“Hold off!” yelled the female’s owner and both owners rushed into the pit and separated their bloody animals. Afterward, Olivia noticed, the dogs were shaking, and the defeated female hung her head and limped out of the pit. Caesar, however, strutted out of the gate with a prideful, smug expression—to the delight of many onlookers, who clapped, pointed, and smiled at the blatant display of celebrated victory.

“People like that,” whispered Wade.

A dozen gamblers rushed forward to collect their winnings from the card table. The thin, whiskered man counted bills into waiting hands, observed by the giant blond youth, his small, deeply recessed blue eyes expressionless.

The volume of sound inside the barn increased. Like a first round of drinks, the fighting had loosened everyone up, releasing shouting, laughter, and persiflage. There was movement to study the dogs scheduled for the next fight and place bets. Cigarettes and cigars were lit and fresh pinches of chewing tobacco packed into cheeks. The dogs in the room grew more anxious. The stove door was thrown open, blue smoke belched into the room, and chunks of coal the size of muskmelons were tossed inside. More jackets were taken off.

Olivia was beside herself. Though she had tried to anticipate what a dogfight would be like—through library books, Dog Lovers magazine, the World Book Encyclopedia, and her focused imagination—she was completely unprepared for the impact it made upon her. The savagery of the animals left her quivering in her limbs and breathing through her mouth. It was repulsive, sickening, terrifying, pathetic, and shameful. At the same time it was exhilarating, riveting, and, oddly, fun. She identified with both the winning and the losing dog, and felt as though she had just won, and lost, the most critical contest of her life. Her heart beat fiercely and she felt like crying, shouting, lecturing, and laughing, all at once.

She turned to Wade with an ashen face and said, “Christ forgive us, they fight like people, if people had only their mouths.”

“I told you it was cool,” said Wade, who was also somewhat ashen, though trying to appear nonchalant.

“It isn’t cool, Wade,” said Olivia. “It’s horrible.”

“I’m sorry, do you want to leave?”

“No. I don’t know. It’s ghastly.”

“Do you want to place a bet?”

“I’m no good at gambling.”

“How about a cup of coffee? They got cream.”

“No.”

Olivia tried to clear her mind. She studied the other people in the room, both condemning them and drawing on their brute strength. She breathed deeply and closed her eyes. It was as if she had opened a familiar door and found, just inside the wallpapered room amid antique furniture and hardbound editions of classical literature, a hideous creature devouring handfuls of rotting meat and smiling at her as though they were related. She understood now why some people relished dogfighting and others abhorred it. She also understood, perfectly, what “game” meant. It was as Wade had said—the quality of wildness, the blind inability to compromise or surrender.

But for the love of Saint Francis—the contradictions! It was almost too much ...

Table of contents

• Praise
• ALSO BY DAVID RHODES
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• PROLOGUE
• NO REASON
• A NATION OF FAMILIES
• SCHEDULED VIOLENCE
• MOTTLED SUNLIGHT
• GRIEF
• PAINTED BODIES AND ORANGE FIRES
• GATHERING EVIDENCE
• THINK LESS, DO MORE
• PROTECTING PAPERS
• KEEPING A RESPECTFUL DISTANCE
• HUMPED FLOORS
• A ROOM WITHOUT FURNITURE
• FAITH KEEPS NO TREASURE
• BROKEN THINGS
• HOT MILK
• HIRING HELP
• PERPETUAL PERISHING
• EPIPHANY
• THEFT
• VISITOR
• STRAIGHT FLUSH
• TESTIMONY
• A PRIVATE HEAVEN
• WORK BEGINS
• LETTER TO THE EDITOR
• FIRE IN THE FIELD
• A NEW SONG
• FINISHING UP
• SNOW
• REMEMBERED LOVE
• DESPERATION
• COMPLETING THE CIRCLE
• FAMILY
• ENVY
• SEEKING HELP
• THEODYSSEY
• FEAR
• REUNION
• DON’T GO THAT WAY
• MEASURING UP
• THE MEANING OF TRUTH
• A FRAGILE BALANCE
• INSURGENCY
• SLAUGHTER
• FIGHTING DOGS
• THE THIEF
• THE UNIVERSAL ACORN
• HUNTING
• SPRING
• NEW LOVE
• KEEPING IN ONE’S PLACE
• MUSHROOMS ARE UP
• MAKING BAIL
• THE HEARTLAND FEDERAL RESERVE
• INSIDE THE NEIGHBOR’S HOUSE
• TRAPPED BY THE PAST
• VALUE
• LETTING GO
• LAWYERS
• RESEMBLANCE
• THE COUNTY FAIR
• MAKING OTHER ARRANGEMENTS
• MEETING AT SNOW CORNERS
• THE LOOK OF DEATH
• FINDING JULY
• SELLING LAND
• INSIDE THE CHURCH
• THE FUNERAL
• DRIFTLESS
• READING GUIDE QUESTIONS
• Q & A WITH DAVID RHODES
• THE MILKWEED EDITIONS EDITOR’S CIRCLE
• Copyright Page