The last house made the others look like Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. Set well back from the road on a winding, narrow approach, it sagged from depression. Tar paper covered most of the windows, missing shingles pockmarked the roof, the whole sorry mess rotting from termites who had long since fled to better pickings. If it burned to the ground, the coroner would call it suicide.
I pulled the Plymouth into the side yard, gunning the engine, sliding on the dirt, letting him know I was there. Turned off the ignition and waited— I wasn't going to jump out too fast.
He came around the side of the house, a tall, rawboned, slope-shouldered man with a doofus mustache. Hair cropped short, wearing tiny round sunglasses. A rifle in one hand, a dog on a chain in the other— a white pit bull with a ring of black fur around one eye and one black ear. The animal didn't look a bit like Spuds McKenzie.
Elroy. He lived back in the woods. Off the land, he said. He'd jack deer by spotlight at night when they came to the salt lick he'd set up. Blow ducks off the water with his shotgun. Anything that had fur, feathers, or scales. He wasn't a hunter, he was an armed consumer.
Even the bikers cut him considerable slack— people said he ate road-kill sandwiches.
I hit the window switch, let him have a good long look.
'Burke!' he boomed out.
'Yeah, it's me. Put the gun down, okay?'
'Sure.'
'And tie that animal up.'
'Barko wouldn't hurt anyone,' he said, sounding insulted.
'I got Pansy in the car,' I told him, by way of explanation. I climbed out. The pit bull watched me with only mild interest, but his ears were cocked. He had Pansy's scent, growled a challenge.
We walked around behind the house. Elroy had his own prefab shed too. Maybe they came with the original houses.
'You have the paper?' I asked him.
'What's your hurry?'
'That paper isn't going to move itself, Elroy.'
'Come on,' he said.
We walked past the shed toward the woods. Two more pit bulls were anchored to metal stakes set in cement. One had an old tire in his alligator jaws, waving it around in triumph as the other watched.
'Aren't they beauties?' Elroy asked.
'They are, for sure. You training them?'
'Yeah! Want to see?'
'Okay.'
'Barko's really my best one. Just wait here, I'll get him.'
He came back leading the dog. The other two yapped in anticipation, pawing the ground. A low-slung four- wheeled cart stood on a level patch of ground, piled high with solid-concrete blocks. Elroy took an elaborate leather harness from a hook on a nearby tree. It was lined with some spongelike material. As soon as he took up the harness, Barko began running in little circles, overcome with excitement.
'Come on, boy! Time to work!'
Barko trotted over on his stubby legs and Elroy fitted him up. He attached two short leads from the harness directly to a U-bolt on the front of the cart. Barko stood rigid at attention, waiting.
'Okay, baby…
The pit bull surged forward, straining against the harness, fighting for traction. When all four legs locked in, he began to inch forward, dragging the cart behind him, foaming a bit at the mouth, Elroy screaming, 'Full Pull, Barko! Full Pull!' Soon the little tank was slogging forward, like a man wading through setting cement. Barko never faltered, chugging ahead until Elroy ran to intercept him, kicking a wooden wedge under the cart's wheels. He unsnapped the harness, held the dog high over his head in both hands.
'The winner…
'Sure. You don't think I'm gonna let my dogs
'Pit bull tractor pulls?'
'Yeah, man! You know how much Barko just lugged across the finish line? One half ton, man. A thousand pounds. And that was on grass— the regulation pulls're on a piece of flat carpet. Better traction, smoother roll.'
'Unreal.'
'He's still working. The record's a little over one full ton, man. Twenty-one hundred pounds.'
'What pulled that, a Clydesdale?'
'A pit bull, Burke. A forty-eight-pound bitch, in fact. That's the middleweight class, not the open. Some of those damn Rottweilers, they could pull a house.'
