Scarlett Hopper's Arc

Chapter 33 of 33

Morning after the dogs arrived, Scarlett walked the rows before the wind rose. Half the beans had bolted. The lettuce had thrown white flowers. She'd meant to pick them a week ago, but the harvest at the barn had swallowed every hand. The plants were past food now. They were seed. She pulled the wheelbarrow from the shed and dropped the tool bag in it. Shears, trowel, gloves, twine, a stack of paper envelopes Marcus had found at the hardware store. She cut the bolted lettuce at the base and laid the stalks head-down in the barrow. She snapped bean pods brown enough to rattle. She worked one row at a time and marked each envelope with the date and the bed number. Marcus came out with the tabby on his shoulder and watched her hands. "Culling." "Saving," she said. "Next spring's rows." He set the cat on a post and picked up the shears. He worked the row across from her without more talk. By noon they had four envelopes of bean seed, two of lettuce, one of a squash she couldn't name. The problem waited at the gate. Maranda came up the path with a basket of dried fish for the dogs and stopped ten feet short. The gray dog rose. The brindle rose. Both showed teeth. Maranda did not move. She did not speak. She only looked at Scarlett. "They don't know her yet," Scarlett said. She wiped her hands on her shorts and crossed to the dogs. She put one hand on the gray one's chest and one on the brindle's neck. She let the heat move, small and steady, the way she'd done on the ridge road. The gray dog sat. The brindle sat. "Come slow," Scarlett said. Maranda came slow. She held the basket flat. Scarlett took her wrist and pressed it to the gray dog's muzzle. The dog breathed her in. Scarlett did the same with the brindle, then the red, then the black-and-white, then the fawn. She kept her palm on each dog's shoulder while they learned the smell. She thought the word friend as clearly as she could and hoped some of it carried through her hand. "John next," she said. "Then Mable. Then the widow's boy if he comes." Maranda set the basket down. The gray dog took a fish without lunging. "They knew me at the gate yesterday," she said. "They forgot by morning." "So we do it every morning until they don't." By dusk the five dogs let Maranda pass without rising. John walked the barn road with the fawn at his heel. The gray one lay at the crop gate with his head on his paws and his eyes on the ridge. Scarlett stacked the seed envelopes in a tin and set the tin on the kitchen shelf. Next spring had a shape now. So did the watch.