“Just be gone in the morning,” I said to the boss. A large black dog with the look of a coward accompanied them. He was hot and sore as they were, but no one paid him any mind. “That dog bite?” I asked a filthy old man as the beast sheepishly made his way toward me. “That dog don’t do nothing but bark,” the boss answered. “That’s what you keep it around for? Its bark?” “I don’t keep it at all. It just follows.” The dog rubbed his flattened, ugly head against my leg. Without thinking, I leaned down and gave him a scratch. He looked at me with frightened, pleading eyes. “Get on out of here,” I said, and gave him a push with my boot. Instead of retreating with a snarl, the slick-haired hound fell on his side and licked my hand. As I walked back down the ravine to my vines he tentatively followed at my heel. Trouble enough, without these evil-eyed drovers gathering firewood and washing in the creek, their big black dog following me around like an orphan. What if they got into the barrels that I kept in the cellar? I would take my breech-loading Sharps rifle to bed with me that night, guarding my gold earned with sweat and dread under the merciless sun, and the land that produced it, my earth, a view troubled with malevolence and unfamiliarity through the iron ghost ring. I watched at the window over my bed, the end of the rifle barrel slightly raised and my exhausted body braced with a squat; the trigger set and my finger on it. My unwanted guests settled into sleep and the fire died down. The moon looked like it had fallen on its side. I heard nothing until dawn. The day was dark and gloomy, but I took comfort in the fact that the teamsters had left without doing any mischief. Or so I thought, until I heard the bark and saw the black shape stealing tentatively toward the house. “You there,” I yelled. “Get on out of here before I boil your skin off.” At the sound of my voice he scampered up to me, fell at my feet and licked my hands. “What do you want with me?” I asked, but I went to the house and threw him the beans and corn mush left over from breakfast. Not so bad, I thought as I watched him eat. Not so bad. I could use a friend to watch the place when I’m away. Don’t seem to have much spirit, though. I picked the papery skin of a boiled bean out of my teeth and watched the dog rub its muzzle in the dirt. That lad. Blacker than my muscats. Satan himself ain’t so black as that. It wasn’t the heat, but the searing wind, noisy as a calliope and angry as boiling sulfur, that struck at the new-sprung fruits. The creek turned yellow and smelled like tin, and the young grapes began to harden and dry. It was a time when the roots needed stress, but the lack of water made the wind-burn worse. In a few days the entire yield could be lost. Leo was by now my good companion, but the comfort of his affection theMeadow 97
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