Raised Voices

Raised Voices

The old man walked with care down the slope in the road, picking his way through the slicker ice patches and pushing his boots down with firm movements into the crystalline snow. He stopped at the mailbox and held onto it for a moment, steadying himself before stepping out onto the glassy road which he had to cross to reach the driveway. The dog didn’t tug on the leash, and he was grateful for her restraint, worried as he was that she would pull him down onto the unforgiving ice. He told the dog it was time to go, and they stepped together onto the road and walked with even steps across it and to the driveway, where pine needles cushioned their steps.

The male dog had, per his custom, ran ahead of them and roved across the fields. Now that the old man and the dog’s sister were moving down the driveway, he galloped up behind them, cut off to the right, and ran down the hill, under the electrified wire fence, and into the pasture, where placid cows awaited. The old man saw that the young man who owned the cows was down there near the cattle tank and thought to raise his voice and call off his dog, but he remembered that the dog wouldn’t pay him any mind anyway, so he kept silent and watched, his mouth set in a line.

The dog chased one of the cows up from where she had been standing near the tank, then turned and herded another one up the hill with quick, economical movements. The young man working down there stood up and yelled, “Git!” The dog started at the man’s voice and began trotting towards his master up on the ridge. Then the young man pitched his voice at the old man.

“Wanna keep yer dog alive? Better keep him on your property!”

The old man had long experience with the young man, and with the young man’s father, who had died last year. The pair of them were not well-liked in the community, though they were prosperous and had long, deep ties to the acres there. Both of them were known for their cruelty and indifference to their animals, for their coarse ways, and for the hateful way they talked to and treated their children. The now-dead cattleman had been a rustic version of Ebenezer Scrooge, and his face had been permanently creased with avarice, mistrust, and spite. His son, the younger one now shouting at the old man, regularly screamed and cursed at his twitchy young son, belittling and demeaning him for the smallest errors as he worked the cattle with his father.

Since the dog was now slipping under the fence and running towards him, the old man decided not to reply to the young man’s threat. He lifted a desultory hand and continued walking, allowing the little female dog to lead him to the house. The male followed, sniffing the snow and scooping it onto the end of his black nose.

He had just reached the back fence and was opening it to let both dogs in when he heard the sound of a diesel engine behind him. Looking back, he saw the young man’s truck coming down the driveway. He got the dogs into the back yard, unhooked the female’s leash, then turned back and closed the gate behind him. The young man had stepped down from his 4X4 and was walking towards him, so he went out to meet him.

The young man began remonstrating with the older man about how he had finally gotten his cows gentle enough to trust him, and that the old man’s dog’s presence was a disruption in what he was trying to do. He claimed that he had spoken already with the county sheriff and that he was well within his rights if he shot the old man’s dog down the next time it came onto his property and chased his cows.

“Cows?” said the old man. “Oh, you mean those cows? The ones that have gotten out dozens of times over the years, and caused hundreds of dollars in damage to my property, eating and destroying plants, trampling things, knocking things over? The cows that have caused all that damage, and you never once had the decency or the neighborliness to come down my driveway and say a simple ‘I’m sorry’?”

The young man launched into an explanation of how the cows hadn’t been his responsibility until his daddy had died, and that since his daddy had died, the cows had only gotten out once or twice at most. He turned and gestured at the fields beyond the old man’s property and talked about how he had refenced and reinforced the fencing on so many of his pastures, and that he was working the cattle to be more docile and more obedient, and that he wouldn’t tolerate the presence of the old man’s dog on his property any longer.

“You need to keep him tied up, or fenced in. I don’t want him on my land.”

The old man watched him. Both men were wearing sunglasses due to the snow-glare, and so he couldn’t see the younger one’s eyes. But he knew those eyes. Close-set, porcine in their  meanness and mistrustfulness. Like Farkas in that movie, he thought. He considered what the younger man was saying and he knew that the younger man was correct in his stating of the law. His dog was indefensible if he strayed onto someone else’s property and harassed valuable beef cattle. The law would allow for the owner of said cattle to shoot his dog. He tried to look beyond his distaste for the young man and focus on the fact that the law was in the the vulgar hillbilly’s favor. Then the young man spoke again.

“I’ll shoot the damn dog dead if he comes on my goddamn property agin,” he said.

The old man spoke at last. “I don’t appreciate you cussing at me. And I don’t appreciate you threatening my dog.”

“Well, then, keep him the hell off my land!” the young man bellowed.

“Son, don’t raise your voice at me. I’m not one of your kids.”

The old man saw the younger man go still, and he could tell by the eyebrows raised above the sunglasses frames that he had touched a raw nerve. The young man took his hands out of the pockets of his Carhart and stood with them dangling at his hips. The old man had been in many fights and could read other men like a ship’s captain can read the wind and waves. He sensed that the younger man was readying to launch himself at the older man for the implied insult.

So this is how this day begins and ends, he thought. I’m too old and slow to fight this kid. He’s in his late twenties and is several inches taller than me, and he’s fit and hard from daily farm work. He doesn’t have arthritis and he doesn’t have good sense. He’s just rage and reaction and his impulse is as off-the-leash as my dog. When he jumps, I’m not going to fight him. I’m going to crush his Adam’s apple and then take one or both of his eyes, and then I’m going to break  both arms at the elbow once he’s down, and I’m going to spend the weekend in the county jail with redneck meth heads and drunk drivers and wife beaters, and my life will never be the same. He was aware that a familiar but long-dormant physical reaction was occurring; his eyesight had choked down to a tunnel of bright, clear vision, the young man entire, with nothing else in all of creation existing at that moment. His ears were ringing with blood-force, and his breathing was shallow and slowing to a deliberate in/out, as if preparing to draw a bead and squeeze a trigger. All of his life and years and blood were sharpened down into that agate point, the young man standing before him and preparing to close the gap between them. Finally, he spoke.

“You threatened my dog. You want to threaten me? I’m right here. Go ahead. Threaten me.”

His words seemed to jolt the younger man, who took a step back. “I got no problem with you. I go no problem with you. I just want your dog to stay off my land.”

“All right.”

“I ain’t got no problem with you. But the law’s on my side. You kin call the sheriff. He’ll tell you the same thang. I’ve already talked to  him about your dog.”

The old man nodded but said nothing. He watched and waited. Finally, the young man threw a hand up.

“Just keep him off my land. I don’t wanna shoot him, but I will. I’m in my rights. Ok?

The old man kept staring, kept watching ,kept waiting for the attack.

Shaking his head, the younger man waved his arm. “Ok, then.” He turned and walked to his truck, and the old man watched him get in and back down the driveway to the road, then skid just a bit on the slick road and head back down towards where the cows were gathered near the tank.

He went to the gate and opened it, careful not to let the dogs slip out. He stamped his boots on the back porch, loosening the snow on the soles, and looked at the male dog, who was watching him with his clown-grin and wagging his sharp-pointed tail.

“Sorry, old feller,” he said. “I think your rambling privileges just got revoked.”

The dogs followed him inside and he shut the door behind him, grateful for the warmth inside.

Copyright 2022 by S.K. Orr

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.