The Luck of the Spindrift

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3The morning light and the pin-prick of his conscience wakened Samuel Culver from a dream in which he had solved triumphantly the Etruscan language.

He remembered that he had something other than study before him, on this day. He had to start out on the pavements to find a new job. Now, at last, he might have to accept work as a translator, even if the rate were only twenty cents a page. Or perhaps he could find some sort of task as a laborer. For if he worked as a common laborer, perhaps in the street, he would get exercise in plenty without having to use a precious hour out of every day in keeping that body of his in a healthy condition.

Stretching and yawning, he turned his head—and saw, against the slowly shifting white of the morning mist, a great dark silhouette pasted against his window. It was not a silhouette; it was a living creature. And now the full recollection of the evening’s adventure returned suddenly upon him. He stood up from the bed. The dog, shrinking as it turned its head, favored him with one brief snarl. Then it resumed its study of the blankness of space as the fog drifted past.

All those hours of the night preceding had not established an amity between them, but rather a state of armed truce out of which battle could be precipitated by a single hasty gesture. As for the rapid movements of his setting-up exercises, it was plain that Culver could not indulge in them while this package of emotional dynamite was in the room as an audience. At that, it probably was hungry dynamite! He dressed, and hurried down to the little corner market.

Mr. Farbenstein was greatly surprised.

“Hai, Mr. Culver!” he said. “What are you wanting at this hour?”

“Meat,” said Culver.

“Meat!” cried Farbenstein, amazed—for Culver never bought meat.

“Perhaps not,” said Culver. “But what else would you feed a dog?”

“A dog? You have a dog to feed?” cried Farbenstein. “What kind of a dog, please?”

“Something bigger than a police dog, but somewhat that wolfish type. Much bigger.”

“Well, feed him dog biscuits.”

“Dog biscuits?” murmured Culver. “I don’t think so. Raw meat, I should say.”

“I’ll grind it for you,” declared Farbenstein. “How many pounds?”

“Two at least. Good meat, if you please.”

“Yes, yes!” cried Farbenstein. “Good meat for the dogs of good people! How I can tell people by the things they buy is nobody’s business, it is so wonderful. I don’t need to read the mail of this neighborhood; I only watch their grocery and their meat orders. That is enough. Next to what the laundryman knows, the grocery store is what can tell your mind from day to day.”

He got out the meat, weighed it, and began to push the cut-up scraps into the grinder. The electric motor sent through the shop a deeply vibrating sound that reminded Culver of the dog’s snarl. . . .

As Culver, returning, opened the door of his room, the dog whirled from the window and leaped at him. Recognition stopped that attack before it was driven home. On braced legs, the big fellow skilled to a stop. His first reaction still gave him the mask of a green-eyed devil.

Culver unwrapped the meat, squatted back against the door, and offered a morsel of Mr. Farbenstein’s best in the palm of his open hand. The dog pricked his ears, sniffed, and then lifting his head, he looked across the room toward the window as though food were entirely beneath the dignity of his attention; he was betrayed by a thin streak of saliva that drooled down from his mouth. Culver smiled and waited.

Hunger is a great bender of dignity. The big dog turned his head once more toward the meat. He seemed to find a mystery in the close association of Culver’s hand with the meat which it held. His nose, constantly sniffing, seemed to draw him forward against his volition. But long minutes went by, and the extended arm of Culver ached to the shoulder before the big head darted out and the fangs nipped the meat cleanly away. The dog, recoiling as though from danger, leaped away half the length of the room.

But there was another morsel in the hand now, and the scent of fresh meat laid hold on the very vitals of the dog. He could not help slipping near again. Perhaps there was a memory of the night before, when a strange warmth of kindness had passed from those same fingertips into the whole body of the dog. At any rate, he ventured in and with a wolfish side-s***h of his teeth clipped away the red meat again. It was not so clean a job, this time. A tooth-edge had split the skin of Culver; his own blood was kneaded into the next lump of meat which he offered. And the dog, with that added scent in the air, began to snarl as he worked his cautious way closer.

When blood is drawn, there is a fight. What could be a more elemental rule than this? Culver knew it for the first time as he watched the brute come in for the third time, sidling, alert to spring in any direction. But this time, instead of the sidelong flash of the teeth, the dog thrust out his head with only scent to guide it, while his green eyes dwelt constantly on the face of Culver.

The meat was his. He shrank back as he swallowed it, but without shifting his feet. In fact, there appeared to be no danger. Not for an instant was his caution laid aside, but hunger kept him steadily in place until the last morsel of meat was gone. Still the bleeding hand of Culver was held out empty before him. The dog, snarling from the depths of his throat, licked that blood away until the shallow wound was dry.

To Culver, it was an act of infinite grace; for he remembered among primitive people a tasting of blood in the ceremony which creates blood brotherhood. It was a silly fancy, perhaps, that the actions of the dog immediately afterward kept all intimacy at a distance. He returned to his window and sat down before it, oblivious of Culver, oblivious of everything in the world except some undecipherable goal.

It came to Culver, as he reflected, while he cooked his breakfast, that other people in the world had something which differentiated them from him. They had something other than the love of books. They had something beyond images of solemn Etruscans or slant-eyed Orientals. They had deeply possessive love.

He sat down to his bowl of porridge and brown sugar and ate slowly, his eye fixed on the heroic outline of the animal, but his mind groping far beyond the fog that still drifted white against the window. He had a feeling that this dumb brute, like the figurehead of a ship, was traveling over mysterious seas of desire about which he knew nothing. And he wanted to know. There grew up in Culver a blasphemous feeling that he would rather read the mind of the beast than solve the Etruscan mystery.

He put this thought behind him with a guilty haste, washed the porringer, and left the house again, this time to walk a number of blocks until he came to a little corner store which carried notions of all sorts. They had dog muzzles, and he selected a big leather contraption with collar and leash in one. The cost was two dollars and nineteen cents!

And Butcher’s edition of the Poetics, which by mysterious neglect he had omitted from his library, he could buy from his bookseller for a dollar sixty-three! He broke into a fine sweat as he thought of this. He went home still darkened by this quandary and so pushed open the front door of the house and heard, with horror and fear, the frightful snarling of the dog from the rear of the house. Above that sound rang the screeches of Mrs. Mary Lindley, his landlady, and the sharp, clear voice of a man who spoke with authority. The uproar came from the back yard. He was out on the rear porch instantly. There he saw that his preparations to take the dog for a walk had been much too late; the brute had taken a short cut to exercise and freedom by diving through the window. The ragged remnants of the pane remained, and bright splinters of it were scattered on the cement beneath. On the porch cowered Mrs. Lindley behind a tall young policeman who held a duty revolver in his hand and pointed it down the steps toward the dog.

“Be easy, madam,” he was saying. “I’ll take care of him if he makes another step toward us.”

For down there was that gray monster with his mane ruffed up like a lion’s as he advanced a stealthy paw for the next step.

“Put up that gun,” said Culver, stepping past the policeman. “I’ll handle him. But put that gun out of sight.”

“Mr. Culver, Mr. Culver!” wailed the landlady. “What are you after doing to the good name of my house that you bring a wolf into your room? Oh, my God, he’d have the eating of me before he’s done. Let me back into the house. Oh, the dirty beast! Officer, Officer, will you do your duty, or will you stand there like a man made of wet dough, and God help us?”

“Put up that gun or I’ll take it away from you,” said Culver.

“You’ll what?” asked the policeman.

Culver held back his hands with a mighty effort.

“Point it another way, then,” he said, and walked down the steps straight toward the gray beast that seemed to be stalking them all. Afterward he remembered it all with amazement, wondering at himself, but at the moment he had no earthly fear for himself but only dread that the gun might explode behind him and snuff out the life of the dog. Most wonderful of all, the brute paid not the least attention to him, but allowed the muzzle to be slipped over his head without the slightest attempt to escape. Samuel Culver, fastening it, said to the two at the head of the steps: “You see, he’s entirely harmless.”

He straightened, smiling at them.

“Harmless?” shrilled Mrs. Lindley. “Harmless, when he’s smashed my window to flinders? Oh, Mr. Culver, that you should be playing tricks!”

“Find out if there’s a shot of something worth drinking in your house, will you?” asked the policeman; and as Mrs. Lindley disappeared he added to Culver, who was nearing the head of the steps: “What were you saying about taking the gun from me, just now?”

Samuel Culver looked him over with patient calm. He was a big young man, big enough to give trouble and something over; and all the days of his life Culver had prepared his hands for defense merely, never for attack.

“If I’ve offended you, Officer,” said Culver, “I’m very sorry for it.”

“Yeah,” said the large young policeman. “I’ve taken a lot of lip from some of you mugs because I was on my beat.” He looked at the threadbare clothes, the bagging trousers of Culver, and let his anger run more freely. “But I’m here where there’s no one to see,” he added, “and it would be only a second for me to peel off this coat and be the same as any man. Why don’t you take off your glasses and talk up to me?”

Samuel Culver ran the red tip of his tongue over his lips and narrowed his eyes a little. There is freedom in this world, he thought, for some men to use their hands, and for some dogs to use their teeth, but his own role was that of peace. He said, breathing a little hard as he spoke the words: “I want no trouble with you, sir!”

“Ah, that’s it, is it?” murmured the man of the law. He sneered openly. “It’s only the clothes you wear that are big, eh?” And he turned away with a shrug of his fine shoulders. Culver walked slowly past him. The dog followed without pulling back on the leash, but snarling savagely at every step. So they came back into the room.