Collateral Damage
The squawking coming from the henhouse was what first alerted Ben Wimbrow that there was a situation. He grabbed his Browning and rushed to see what was happening. It could be a fox, but something told Wimbrow it was the stray mutt that had been hanging around over to the doc’s house. He’d watched the dog and the girl in her red winter coat walking together down the road. She’d put a collar and leash on it, and he’d seen the dog eating off a plate in her front yard. It was a sorry looking thing, white except for one brown ear, mangy, and skinny as a weasel.
Problem was, the girl’s folks lacked good sense and common courtesy. That included the doc. Couldn’t bother to shut the dog up. They let it wander while the girl was at school. Just missed being roadkill at least one time that Wimbrow knew of. Carload of teenagers speeding around the curve, the dog half in the road, half on the shoulder. Missed it by inches.
The dog got into the neighbors’ garbage. Thelma Thompson, the widow on the other side of the small field next to Wimbrow, had asked him twice now to clean up trash after the dog strewed it over her front yard. She used a walker and couldn’t do it herself.
Probably the doc was hoping the dog would run off, go back wherever it came from. Hotshot doctor, he would never let his bird dogs run around like that. No sir. His dogs stayed safe in his back yard, eight foot fence all around, kennels with fancy doghouses, steak bones and who knew what all else. Better off than most people. No way those dogs would get hit by a car or wind up toting a load of buckshot. The mutt was just a stray, true enough, but the girl liked it and the doc could afford one more dog.
It was dark, just a sliver of late February moon hanging over the woods behind the house when Wimbrow ran out, the door banging behind him. He paused, pointed the gun up to the night sky and fired a blast, then hurried on to the henhouse where the flock screeched in a panic. A white blur shot past, headed toward Thelma’s garage. Wimbrow tripped on a garden hose, and when he caught his balance the damn dog was gone. Son of a bitch’s days were numbered.
Inside the henhouse he switched on the electric light and saw his favorite Leghorn with her head ripped off, white feathers bloodied. “Goddam it! Goddamn it to hell!” He did a quick inspection of the remaining hens, nine of them, five Rhode Island Reds, four Leghorns. They were cackling and flapping, but the dog hadn’t got to them. Wimbrow could see where the dog had tunneled under the chicken wire to get inside the coop. All it had to do from there was walk right through the henhouse door. Normally, Wimbrow shut the door at dusk when the hens went to roost, but tonight he’d forgotten. “The one damn time I forget. That bastard will meet its maker next time it sets foot on my property.”
He was so angry that tears began to well up. It was the helplessness. Too many things happen that shouldn’t. A man ought to have more control over his life. He picked up the limp, warm body of the hen. The sensible thing to do was pluck and clean her, make chicken soup. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Sarah Jane had loved those hens. After she died, he felt like taking care of them was the least he could do.
He brought the hen inside and put her on a towel in the bathtub. The dog would get her if he left the body outside. Come morning, he’d bury her. He smoothed the feathers and realized he didn’t have the head. Must still be in the henhouse, unless it was in the dog’s belly. “Sorry, Daisy. Sorry, old girl.” He wrapped the towel around her, turned off the light and shut the bathroom door.
Sarah Jane wouldn’t blame him for what had happened, Wimbrow knew that, but he still felt bad. She had been a good wife. Christ, he missed her so much. The years with her were the best he’d known. There had been some difficulty having children, but finally, they had been blessed with Frank. He’d been the only one. Fourteen years later, he and Frank had stood out back of the Methodist church in their Sunday suits, and watched as Sarah Jane was laid to rest in the red clay of the cemetery. A brain tumor. You think things like that only happen to other people. Never expect they’ll happen to you.
Thinking about Frank brought Bobby Whaley to mind. Wimbrow hadn’t seen much of him lately. In fact, only once in recent months. Bobby had come out of Pomeroy’s Liquor just as Wimbrow pulled the door open, a couple Saturday nights ago. Bobby and Frank had gone from kindergarten through high school together. They joked that they didn’t have any choice but to be best buddies because they were always stuck sitting next to each other. Teachers assigned seats in alphabetical order— Whaley, Wimbrow. The boys did everything together—Scouts, church, camping. Bobby spent more time at the Wimbrows’ house than his own. He’d been like a second son.
“Hey there, Mr. Ben, how you doing?” Bobby had said, awkward, his eyes darting around, looking for rescue. He was a tall boy, over six feet now, handsome. All the girls had chased after him in high school, according to Frank. Probably still did. He was a football hero until September of his senior year, when he dropped unconscious during practice one hot afternoon. Doctors at the hospital said he had a heart condition nobody had known about, and his football days were over and done. That was four years ago already.
“Doing okay, Bobby,” Wimbrow said, and clapped Bobby on the shoulder. “Doing okay,” he repeated. “How’s work?”
“Got a promotion a couple weeks ago, and just started night school at Valley Tech. Going for my associates in electrical.” He shuffled his feet, and shifted the six pack of beer to his other hand.
“That sounds real good, Bobby. A lot of money in electrical. Stop by sometime, don’t be a stranger, you hear?” Wimbrow forced himself to smile at Bobby, and he didn’t mean to, but his hand moved of its own volition, reached out and touched Bobby’s shoulder again, rested on the soft flannel shirt; his thumb stroked Bobby’s collarbone. He yanked his hand back, embarrassed.
“I will, sir. Good to see you.” Bobby turned and walked quickly to his pickup truck, waved as he pulled out of the parking lot. Wimbrow watched the red tail lights get smaller, then got his fifth of Jack Daniels and went home. Sarah Jane would have a conniption if she knew he was drinking.
Next morning, Wimbrow got his shovel out of the tool shed, and dug a hole under the camellia bush. Sarah Jane had planted it not long after they moved into the house. She was always one for flowers. Daffodils, crocus, and iris still coming up, every spring, all these years later. He paused and leaned on the shovel, eyeballed the hole. Better make it twice as deep, be sure the dog can’t dig it up. He stepped on the shovel again, forced the blade into the black soil. Gently, he placed the hen in the ground, still wrapped in the towel, minus her head, which he had been unsuccessful in locating. He began shoveling, then as an afterthought, plucked a white bloom from the camellia and dropped it on the towel. Turning into a senile old man. He finished filling the hole, tamped it down with his boot, and placed three cinder blocks on top for good measure.
The ten o’clock news talked about the end of the war. Last of the troops would be home before summer. In the back of his throat, he tasted the familiar bitterness. Too late for him. His boy was already home. Wimbrow heard the clatter of the trash can on the gravel drive. He had expected it, had the Browning leaned up against the back door jamb, ready. The dog wasn’t quick enough this time, and Wimbrow hit it with the first blast, saw the gleam of its eye in the moonlight as it went down, not making a sound. The shot paralyzed the dog and it lay on the gravel and twitched, looked up at Wimbrow, still silent. He fired a second round into the head, point blank.
Frank wasn’t even drafted. He joined the Army in ’69, right out of high school, wanted to serve his country. Something the protesters didn’t seem to understand. When he was home on leave, Wimbrow asked him about the children that the newspapers claimed our soldiers were killing. Frank said it was what the Army called collateral damage. Nobody wanted to kill babies. It was all a mess over there.
The officers came to the house on a bright spring morning, two years ago this March. When Wimbrow opened the door and saw them, his stomach clenched and a weight slammed into his chest. His heart skittered around trying to escape what was coming. He looked at the quince bush, pink with blossoms. Underneath, a sparrow hopped. A red car drove by, slowly, an elderly woman at the wheel. They said it had been quick, a sniper bullet to the chest. Wimbrow wanted to believe that. He was glad Sarah Jane hadn’t been there to open the door.
A dark pool was gathering under the dog. He needed to get his shovel and bury it before morning when the girl would go looking for it. Something sparkled around its neck. A rhinestone collar. He unbuckled it and ran a fingertip across the sharp edges and points of the stones, back and forth, until his finger was raw.
