The Meadow Literary and Art Journal 2011

could do little to distract me from the struggle with the choking gusts out of a grey southern sky. He barked and pranced behind me as I poured buckets of the caustic, turbid water on the delicate clusters. “Here boy, this is the day to dance. The dance of death.” He put his ears back at the sound of my voice. The preacher had come down from the house. For the first time since I’d known him, Leo growled. “You keep that dog away from me,” the preacher said. “He won’t leave my side ’lest I tell him to.” The preacher didn’t dress much like a preacher. He wore a dirty blue cambric shirt and white suspenders. “That dog’s been coming around during my service at the church. He stands outside and howls until the front row can’t hear a word I’m sayin’. It’s not right, him doing that. He’s not right. I think he’s got a devil in ’im.” “You’re telling me my dog’s got a devil in him ’cause he likes to howl. Now, if he was standing up on two feet and talking I’d be worried. How’d a devil get into him anyway?” “Somebody done something to him. It says in the scriptures that Jesus sent those demons into a flock of pigs.” “I may not come to church, but I know the Word. In that there story the pigs went jumping off a cliff. You seen my dog jump off a cliff?” “People are beginning to talk.” “That’s all they do ’round here—talk. Like to see ’um working once in a while.” “You keep that dog around, knowing it’s a devil, people starting thinking you’re the devil’s friend. Maybe that’s where this dog come from. That you got dealings with the devil.” “Look at my vines. You think they’d be all dried up like that, dried to the callus, if I had a deal with the devil.” “It’s not just the howling. That dog likes to prowl. And they say his prowling around, it’s making people sick. Chickens, ducks and pigeons are dying. Yeah, that’s right. And not from having their necks broke by that devil dog. They just up and die.” “The land’s bad. The bugs are bad. The air is bad. Been that way a long time before this dog showed up.” “Get rid of him. Show us you ain’t no friend to the devil. That’s all I got to say.” Damn this land. And damn that preacher all the way to hell. Spreading it around that a dog that can’t take its tail from between its legs is a devil. Men are full of mischief, especially the fools around here. And the fear, the fear that destroys nations, that destroys everything, eats away their hearts like lime. Leo, my dear Leopold, stood by me as the winds abated and veraison began. I was looking forward to a successful harvest, although the struggle to bring the clusters all the way to maturity was far from over. My dear Leopold, eating from my table, sleeping at my feet, his muzzle pressed against my face as I rested after a hard day’s work. He was as 98 theMeadow

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