The Last Days of Dogtown Read online

  Then Oliver remembered Allen’s message and decided he might as well find out what the man wanted.

  “Who gave you the beating?” The farmer was sitting on a bench outside his house, mending a broken barrel, when Oliver arrived.

  “I fell,” he mumbled.

  Allen smirked, but said, “Figured I’d try my hand at this before paying some damned cooper to do it.”

  “Everett Mansfield said you wanted to see me.”

  Allen glanced up at Oliver, took another whack at the bent spoke, cleared his throat, glanced at the horizon, chewed on his lip, and said, “It’s near supper. You might as well come inside.”

  Mrs. Allen was not happy about the sudden arrival of a guest. “Just give me a minute,” she said and whisked the two plates from the table to divide the beans and brown bread into three smaller portions. The Allens ate quickly, without exchanging a word. As soon as the last bite was swallowed, Allen led Oliver back outside, lit a pipe, and said, “Good to have company at the table.”

  Oliver wondered about the purpose of that lie and dug his toe into the dirt. “You got some work for me?” he asked.

  Allen puffed. “That parcel of land you’re on,” he said,

  “too bad it’s such a pile of rocks. No hope of a crop up there.”

  Oliver shrugged.

  “That stream is about dried up, too, ain’t it?”

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  “No,” Oliver said. “It’s still running sweet.”

  “Huh,” Allen said. “How long it take you to walk to the harbor? An hour?”

  “Nowhere near.”

  “The berries give out yet?”

  “The berries are fine,” Oliver said, losing patience.

  “Everett seems to think you have some sort of commission for me.”

  “Actually, son,” Allen dropped his voice, “I figured you’d have worked it out for yourself by now, how the Younger place belongs to you. It’s yours. Been yours for a while, as I count it.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Oliver. “Tammy inherited the place from Lucy.”

  “No, sir,” said Allen. “That’s Younger land, belonged to your grandfather and then your father. Tammy was sister to your granddad, but when he died and left it to your pa, Tammy was already set up in the house. Your pa was off at sea, but your ma wouldn’t have nothing to do with Dogtown so he stayed with her people whenever he come ashore.”

  “But it’s hers till she dies,” Oliver said. “Isn’t it?”

  Allen sighed. “A few weeks before he died, your pa come to me with a piece of paper he wrote up. Your mother had the fever real bad, and he wasn’t looking any too good himself. Maybe he had a feeling his time was coming, I don’t know. But he wrote it up so’s you’d come into your rights at sixteen.”

  “You saw a paper?”

  “I signed it,” Allen muttered. “I was witness.”

  Oliver knew very little about his parents. The last of his relations died when he was a boy, and no one in Dogtown

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  or Gloucester had ever volunteered a word about them.

  He’d been too shy to ask, or afraid of what he might learn.

  If Tammy was the best he could do for a guardian, maybe there were worse secrets in the family cupboard.

  “Does anyone else know this?”

  “I doubt it,” Allen shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Oliver felt as though a wave of icy seawater had broken over his head. His eyes burned, his ears rang, and he gasped for breath. When he surfaced, his hands were tight around Allen’s neck.

  “You son-of-a-bitch. You goddamn son-of-a-bitch, you didn’t tell me?”

  Allen twisted loose, but Oliver grabbed his arm and pinned it behind him. “I’d come here begging for food, and you’d turn your nose up at me. Your daughters laughed at my clothes.” Oliver tightened his grip. “All that time you knew this, and you didn’t tell me?”

  “I didn’t need Tammy mad at me,” said Allen.

  “You aren’t stupid enough to believe she’s a witch, are you?” Oliver said. “Are you as dumb as all that?”

  Allen had his reasons for keeping on Tammy’s good side. She’d made it clear long ago that his silence about the Younger will would keep her quiet about his regular trips to the harbor’s whores. It had been a good enough bargain, till now.

  “I’m going to break your arm,” Oliver said. “And then I’m going to break the other one.”

  “It ain’t me you want, boy,” Allen said. “It’s Tammy that did you the harm. Go settle up with her. Go find yourself that will, that’s what you need to do. It’s probably in the house somewhere.”

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  Oliver twisted Allen’s arm one last time before rushing headlong into the woods. He moved as quickly as he could, kicking at the underbrush as the whole of his hungry, lonely boyhood came back at him. He had been a slave in his own house and he could have been his own man years ago.

  But the truth was that Oliver could have become his own man long ago. He could have moved out of Tammy’s house. Easter would have taken him in if he’d asked. Or he could have bound himself to a blacksmith or a cooper; by now he’d have a trade and the means to marry Polly.

  But he had been too weak and too afraid, as Tammy had made him. Maybe she was a witch, after all. Oliver might appear to be a grown man, but in fact, he had the spine of a jellyfish. It was past time that he found his nerve.

  Oliver thought of the long knife in Polly’s kitchen and ran all the way back to the house, to find her there, waiting for him with a big smile and arms open. He walked past her without saying a word.

  “What happened to your eye?” Polly cried.

  Oliver brushed her hand aside with what felt like a slap.

  “Ollie!”

  “I fell,” he said as he found the knife and set to sharpening it.

  “What is it?” Polly said. “What happened to you? What do you want with that?”

  He turned the blade over and started on the other side.

  “Please, Ollie,” she begged. “Tell me what happened.

  What are you doing?”

  Polly was terrified. As she’d walked home, she had prepared a funny speech to tell him the news of the baby.

  But there was no talking to this wild stranger. Just a few

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  days ago, the remoteness of the house had made it seem a haven of privacy and safety. Now it felt like a kind of prison, with no one to summon for help and nowhere to turn. The barking of a dog sent her outside to see Greyling worrying a squirrel up a tree.

  Judy Rhines appeared a moment later and waved. But when she saw Polly’s tear-streaked face, she hurried over.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Oliver,” Polly was sobbing. “He’s not himself. He’s got a knife, and he looks so strange and he’s been hurt, too.

  He won’t talk to me. And, oh Judy, I’m going to have a baby. I’m sure of it now.”

  Judy took her arm and led her inside, where they found Oliver testing the knife on the edge of the table.

  “What’s that for?” Judy said.

  But Oliver set his jaw and kept working.

  “Oliver, dear,” said Judy. “You must talk to us. You may not have secrets from Polly now. She’s carrying your baby.”

  That stopped him. “What?” he said, and looked up.

  “I was going to tell you today,” said Polly. “I was hoping it would make you happy.” Had it been any other day, any other hour, he would have covered her face with kisses but at the moment he could not meet her eyes. There was nothing inside him
but anger.

  “What is the knife for?” Judy said.

  “Tammy.”

  Polly shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Nor I,” Judy said.

  His knuckles white around the shaft of the knife, Oliver told them what William Allen had said about his inheritance and the way Tammy had cheated him out of

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  what was rightfully his. “I’m done being the coward,” he said. “I’m a grown man now. It’s time to act like one.”

  Polly tried to put her arms around him, but Oliver pulled away.

  “She is a spiteful old horror,” Judy said. “But you’re not going to murder her. It isn’t worth the risk to you, or to Polly. And besides, you don’t have it in you.”

  He glared at Judy. “You don’t think so, do you?”

  She was suddenly ashamed of the excuses she’d made for Tammy over the years. Judy had made light of Tammy as a character, uncouth but essentially harmless. She had known that Oliver hadn’t had it easy, but she had never put herself in his place, and for the first time, Judy had a feeling for just how bad it must have been for him.

  Polly took his face between her hands so he had to look at her.

  The sight of her tears undid him. “What the hell is wrong with me?” he cried.

  “There is nothing wrong with you,” said Polly. “There just isn’t a killing bone in you. I love you for that.”

  “Did you know about the will?” Oliver asked Judy.

  “No.”

  “Did anyone else know?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Judy, whose mind turned to Easter. Would she have kept such a thing to herself?

  “You need that paper,” she said. “Do you have any idea where it might be?”

  Oliver knew. Tammy’s house was as bare as any other in Dogtown: a bed and a table, a few chairs and a stool, a row of pegs for a wardrobe. But she had one extra piece of furniture, which Oliver had always figured she got through

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  blackmail. A dainty little lady’s writing table, with turned legs and a carved shelf, it sat tucked between her bed and the wall. Now chipped and stained, it was crowded with empty pots that once held jam, clouded spice bottles, broken pipes.

  Once, as a boy, Oliver had peeked inside the drawer and found a mass of wrapping papers from every fondant and nougat that Tammy had ever eaten.

  “Wait until she’s away from the house,” said Judy.

  “That doesn’t happen anymore,” he said. “She can hardly walk to the stream and back.”

  Judy thought for a moment. “I’ll get her into Gloucester then, and give you a chance to find what’s yours.”

  Judy set her plan in motion that very day. After a quick visit to the Allen farm, where she browbeat William into loaning her his wagon, Judy made for Tammy’s house. She was churning butter in the shade by the side of her door. As soon as she saw who was coming up her path, Tammy said, “You can go to hell.”

  “Hello to you, too, Mistress Younger.”

  “I know you got a soft spot for that half-wit nephew of mine,” Tammy said. “You see him, you can tell him I’ll shoot him if he comes back here.”

  “Is Oliver missing?”

  “I ain’t seen a hair of him for two days now. My girls are pining for the meadows while he’s having at it with some strumpet or other. Or maybe he fell into a well and drowned. Good riddance, I say.” Tammy looked Judy up and down and, realizing that she needed someone to get her

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  to market, changed her tone. “Except that I’ve got a whole lot of sweet butter to sell, and no way to get it into town.”

  “Then it’s lucky that I happened by,” said Judy. “I’m aiming to take a bunch of rushes into town on Monday.

  Mrs. Cook wants three chairs mended and a new broom.

  I got William Allen to loan me his wagon. I could take you with me.”

  Tammy screwed up her face. “Allen is making a loan?

  That horse’s ass does nothing for nothing.”

  “You’re right there,” Judy agreed. “I fixed him up with some spring tonic a little while back, and I’m calling in the favor. I figure I might get some of that famous butter out of you, in exchange for the ride.”

  “Why should I give you anything?” said Tammy. “You won’t be going out of your way.”

  “I could pass on by without stopping.”

  “And what would people think of you when I tell ’em you left me here to starve?”

  “How about if I take half a log of butter for doing you that favor?” Judy said.

  Tammy thought Judy a ninny for asking so little, but she scowled to hide her satisfaction at the bargain.

  Oliver rose early to gather enough reeds to make good on Judy’s lie, and for once he didn’t regret cutting short his morning with Polly. He was skittish about rolling over on her now that she was carrying a baby, though he barely slept for worrying. What if Tammy decided not to go into Gloucester? What if she had destroyed the will? What if he

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  couldn’t find it? What if he did? And what kind of difference would it make, anyway? There was no way to get back what had been taken from him.

  The mist was starting to burn off as Judy stopped at Tammy’s place. She was waiting, smoking a pipe and tapping her foot, with three full buckets ready to go. She had churned so much she’d had to wrap some of the butter in strips of yellow gingham instead of white linen, and she’d been rehearsing ways to insult the shopkeepers if they made any complaint about the difference.

  As soon as the cart disappeared, Oliver stepped out of the woods and headed straight for the writing table. It was more cluttered and dustier than he remembered, piled with all sorts of rubbish: lengths of string and ribbon, buttons and nails, shells and bent spoons. The drawer was so full, it took him three tugs to get it open.

  He sat down at the table with the drawer and set to removing the scraps and wrappers, reading every label and advertisement, and then laying each paper flat to make sure he missed nothing. Beneath the last yellowed slips of tissue, he found a small wooden box that rattled with promise but contained nothing but a dozen pale pebbles. On second look, Oliver realized that they were actually the brittle remains of Tammy’s teeth. A shiver passed through him as he remembered her bleating cries at John

  Stanwood’s hand.

  There was no will. He had been so certain that the desk would yield it up. He was wrong again. Polly would be better off married to anyone else—even Caleb Boynton.

  Hating himself for thinking such a miserable thing, Oliver returned to the desk and kicked it as hard as he could,

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  breaking one of its legs and toppling the whole thing onto its side. The back split apart, and he saw the piece of parchment stuck between two thin panels.

  Oliver held his breath as he teased it, yellow and dried, out of its snug hiding place and unfolded the creases slowly, so the paper would not tear. The whole document was but two lines of writing.

  This is to state that all of the Younger lands, including the house on Cherry Street to the

  stream below and to the road above, as well as the pasture to the north and west as noted in town deed, are the sole property of Oliver

  Younger, son of Daniel Younger. This to take effect 12 September 1818, sixteen years to the day after his birth, when he shall come into his inheritance.

  [Signed] Daniel Younger and William Allen

  27 June 1806

  Oliver
had never let himself wonder what his life might have been like had his parents lived, but there was no way to avoid the thought now. His father seemed to be standing in the room with him. He stared at the handwriting, which slanted to the left. And at his birth date, which he had never known. He was a year older than he’d thought.

  Oliver stood up and kicked the desk again, breaking another leg. He grabbed the broom and swept all the papers he’d piled on the table down to the floor. He picked up the little box that contained the dry nubs of Tammy’s teeth, dumped it on the hearthstone, and ground them into dust with his heel.

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  He surveyed the mess he’d made, nodded once, and closed the door as he left.

  When Tammy saw what had been done to her house, she shrieked and cursed so loud that she set her cows to lowing in fear. Judy, who had jumped back into the wagon and taken off at a trot, could hear her a half mile down the road.

  The next morning, Tammy managed to limp to the

  Allen farm. Puffing and sweating, she arrived before dawn, walked into the bedroom, and yanked William Allen out of a sound sleep. “You’re taking me to see the judge, and you’re taking me now.”

  At the clerk’s office she demanded, “I want the

  magistrate. I want to see a judge.”

  “Judge Philpot is sitting in Salem,” said Mr. Saville, the elderly official whose back went up at Tammy’s demeanor and the unmistakable smell of cow that attended her.

  “I got a case,” Tammy said, slamming her hand flat on the desk.

  “Judge Philpot is sitting in Salem all week,” Saville said in a tense monotone. “If you give me the particulars, I will put the matter before him.”

  Tammy launched into a long description of the wrongs that had been done to her by Oliver Younger. “My nephew’s son, no less. My own flesh and blood that I raised up by hand, and he bites me like a mad dog. I want my rights. I want him locked up. And that whore, Judy Rhines, too. I blame her for this. He’s too stupid to have thought it up. It was Judy Rhines.”