A note to the text: The following entry was found in a thrift store in Oregon. A few years ago, while in graduate school, my wife and I often spent weekends in the more remote places of the state, either hiking and camping in the Deschutes, or traveling east to the high plains and rummaging through the junk shops some people run out of their garages — the kinds that smell like treated wood and always look closed, where you have to knock and hope the owners are in a good mood. What follows is a copy of the entry in its entirety. I’ve edited it for clarity. The papers were loose leaf, torn out from somewhere else, then folded and tucked into a secret pocket in an old leather journal. I paid seven dollars for the journal and a pair of yellowed unused postcards with coyotes on them to send to my father in Germany. The rabies epidemic the boy describes lasted in Eastern Oregon from about 1910 on into the 1920s.
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Crook County, Oregon, 1917
Bad enough that at night nature conspires against us, do not need it from the milk pails. Early morning still dark in the barn tripping on milk pails. Light started to seep through the cracks in the boards. I could see the cows’ breath, the steam coming off the milk that would soon be butter on biscuits. Pa lay up in his bedroom on account of the paralysis, teeth gritting on a wood spoon cursing the world. Ma tended to him. He sounded like a cow moaning and huffing. We thought he needs another doctor, that the shot they gave him was bad, but there are few doctors here. The war in Europe means doctors are needed elsewhere, in the cities, on the boats, teaching new doctors on army bases. Just a scratch, Pa said after it happened. Nothing to get bent out of shape about.
Brought in the milk and then collected eggs from the hens in the coop. Each and every one of them is a certified moron that would peck her own eyes out for another kernel. Love them all like sisters though. One of the cats was perched on the windowsill watching Ma heat water for oatmeal. Devilish little thing whipping that tail around. Little Margaret would not stop pulling Ma’s dark hem. “Let it go,” I said, prying her milky fingers loose and I lifted her up onto my lap to play piano with me until breakfast was ready.
The sun was up higher. Could not tell if it was Pa groaning upstairs or the wood stretching under the heat.
Margaret at the piano played the same shrill chord over and over until Pa yelled down at her, “please for the love of God.” Ma got her ready for school so we went and I held her hand in one hand and Pa’s revolver in the other. “Two shells will knock down a rabid coyote,” he had said, “but go ahead and empty the whole damn thing.” Margaret asked if she could hold the gun. When I pretended to give it to her and then snatched it back quick she cried and would not walk another step until I said I’m sorry. Almost there when we ran into Catherine walking her little brother. She was also packing on account of the hydrophobia. “Did you know,” she said, “I saw a bat flying in the middle of the day like a little black angel dancing in the sky. If you ask me, it’s God punishing us.”
She walked back with me part of the way going on about how many head of cattle the Carpers have lost and how her pa is certain it is God punishing them. Finally she said she is sorry to hear about my pa. “It’s rabies isn’t it?” she said.
“Is God punishing him?” I asked. “Is He punishing us?”
“We’ll pray for you,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “All right.”
Back at home I looked for Ma to check with her what needs doing but she had left a note on the big table saying she went into town for supplies and to watch Pa. Did not really feel much like watching him. Skin stretched over bone, hair falling out. I yelled up, “Pa, you all right?” He said something back down about fine, never better. I got my pencil and my notebook to the porch and sketched the dead pine tree down the way and the road leading away into town until Ma came back in the horse and buggy with the shotgun set sideways across her lap. “Supposed to be watching your pa,” she said, wiping sweat off her forehead. I helped her unload sacks of flour, paint, and the tiles we need to patch the roof before the rains come.
Unlocked the cellar door and stored everything slowly, soaking in the cooler air. When I cleared the steps up into the sunlight Ma said he is worse. Told her he said he was fine. “Brought him water and he got scared,” she said. “It’s not a fever or flu. The shot was no good. He’s got rabies from the cougar. I told him he would. That animal wasn’t any type of right in its mind.”
Went on to the well and primed the pump. Been taking longer and longer, the water is not as good. Tastes like licking a horseshoe.
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Here’s a memory: On the far side of the barn Ma standing with the shotgun over the cougar that got Pa pinned to the ground. It’s out of its mind. Does not bother with her and she walks right up to it, blows the big cat’s head clean off. Fountain of blood. Ma seems to soak it in, does not kneel at Pa to comfort him. Lets the red dapple her face. As if she had waited her whole life to blow off that cougar’s head. Help your Pa, she told me, while she walked back to the porch where Margaret wouldn’t stop crying.
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Brought a glass of water to Pa’s lips while he napped. He swallowed on reflex and then his eyes burst open. His hand smacked the glass across the room and it shattered against the wardrobe. Jaw muscles pumped and clenched as if they wanted to detach the bone and the teeth from his skull. Eyes rolled back into his head. “I’m sorry,” I said. His body twisted until his neck looked broken, muscles in his forearms fired off like a Gatling gun. “I’m sorry,” I said again. Slowly, his body settled back into the bed. “Helen,” he kept saying. Helen. But we don’t know any Helen.
When a new doctor finally arrived that night he shook his head. “Too late,” he said. “Make arrangements, fetch the priest.” When he tried to feed Pa the laudanum, Pa crushed the glass dripper in his teeth and blood spurted out of his mouth until the doctor picked out all the glass and stuffed his mouth full of gauze. After a shot he fell asleep with his muffled voice talking to itself.
Stood on the front porch and we watched him drive his horses away. “Fool,” Ma said. It took me a minute to realize she had meant Pa. “He made fools of us all,” she said. “Going on and getting himself bit.” Did not seem fair to Pa, who thought he saw something strange in the sky, something not from our world, when the cat got him, but before I could remind her she had left for the priest and to make arrangements in town.
That night stayed up in the barn with the lantern to make sure no bats bit the cows. Even from out there I could hear Pa and Ma scream and Margaret cry. It felt like no time at all went by and then the sunlight was already outlining the edges of the red hills out over where there ought to have been snow last winter but never was.
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Dylan Brown’s writing has appeared in places like Gulf Coast, Tin House, LA Review of Books, and Hobart. He currently works as a bookseller in Los Angeles.