Missy lost April in July, now it was four o’clock November 15^th. Missy still knelt by her poor child’s stone.

The sun was a thin string on the horizon beyond the cedars. Most of the simple graves hid in the darkness. Surrounding Missy were her “things”- a bowl, a chair, a patched blanket and other odds and ends. She was a big Negro woman. For her to get down on the earth was no small feat, but proper mourning was no stranger to the folks on Malaga.

 People said that April was struck down by innocence. It was a case of mistaken identity. A wolf sprang out of the shadows. It was cold and confused. April approached the wolf. She offered it a piece of her molasses candy thinking it was dog. It was a case of mistaken identity. Yet after the attack, the men and the mothers who searched the small island couldn’t find the wolf!

April was six years old and Missy’s only child. She loved dogs. Up until a year before the incident, April and her father Enos tramped the woods, hand and hand singing trailed by canines. That spring right around the time of her birthday, the constable rowed to the island to tell Missy that Enos killed a man on a fishing boat and in retaliation the crew tossed her husband overboard.  All summer long April cried and the dogs barked with her. Then the Council decreed that they stop. They did up until the time of April’s death.

“Now, Missy it’s downright cold out here!” Henry Johnson put one of his wife’s Sadie heavy blankets over her shoulders: “It’s time to go home.”

Henry was Enos’ cousin. He was a small, gentle balding man with eyes that seemed to understand everything.  He was on the island council. All through the summer and fall there were countless meetings about Missy’s vigil as well as the barking.  The ‘Landers could hear the noise across the tide hole as clear as a church bell in the winter.

“Henry, thank sweet Sadie and tell her that I got to see this through.”

“Sadie prays for you and April every Sunday or whenever Preacher Robert Payne can get it going.”

Missy nodded in thanks.

“But the thing is Missy; the Council can’t make you move.”

“It would take more than ten men to pick me up, not four.”

“But this whole thing has become a problem. You see we think if you go home the dogs will stop barking.”

“Why doesn’t the council just ‘will’ the dogs to stop, like they did last year when April lost her father?”

“Well, this is something different all together. Besides all it took was a half bag of Vermont Molasses candy to put the poor child’s mind on other things. This time there is trouble brewing. Yesterday when Sadie went to town to sell the ‘lion greens, she was told if we couldn’t keep the dogs from barking they’d be hell to pay for all of us on the island!”

“Who told her that?”

“The Constable, himself told her that.”

“This is about a wolf not dogs.”

Dogs ran wild on Malaga. On the shore, the men hunted dogs and took them back to the alley behind the Phippsburg jail to shoot them. On Malaga dogs ran free, but not wolves.

“There’s no wolf on Malaga. We looked for it all summer. Maybe it wasn’t a wolf.” Henry tucked at his chin, it was the first time he had a thought like that.

“What made those bites? My baby’s skin clawed away like that.  And where was the constable when I lost my child. Didn’t your good for nothing council asked him to come over when it happened?  He was up in Aroostook County hunting somewhere?” she mocked.

“Come on Missy you been eating too many half cooked beans. You know those ‘Landers can turn us folk on this island upside down if they want!”

“I’m not leaving here until the coat of that wolf covers my April’s grave!”

 Some folks said that some one from the town must have brought a wolf to the island to do mischief and then when the mischief was done took him back. Others said the wolf stood on two legs paws up hiding with the Standing People- the cedars – when the searchers passed. To Henry, whatever the explanation it would not forestall the hundreds of residents of Phippsburg, the thousands of citizens of the State of Maine, the millions of people of the United States of America from uprooting their island paradise because of some dogs barking.

“Let me talk to her Hank.”  A quiet voice floated down from the earthen rock that sheltered the makeshift burial ground.

“Is that you Lottie?  What you doing here?” Missy squinted.

Lottie was a wisp of a person. She was barely eighty pounds and next to Mattie looked like one of Mattie’s fingers. There were good friends up until August when she had to leave Mattie’s vigil to tend to her ailing husband.

“Lottie, them council fools think you can pick me up, and move me of all people?”

“Mattie, you’re the fool, I’m not here because of them. I’m here because of William.”

“How is he? You don’t have answer that. I know he is still ailing, because if he was over it you’d be here with me on this earth waiting.” 

Lottie grabbed Missy’s extended arm and held it. 

“It is about William, he’s dying.”

“Dying, what is a man like him dying for?”

“He is over eighty years old Missy.”

“Then what are you doing here. Go to his bedside. Keep him from dying. Every moment you have with him you’ll never regret.”

“I want him to die.”

Everything stopped then. The only thing that Missy could hear was Henry’s chronic breathing.

“What you say?”

“I want him to die Missy. He is in so much pain.”

“Well then tell him to let go.”

“He won’t.”

“He won’t?”

“He won’t because he doesn’t have a grave to be buried in.”

“Why not?”

“Because, you’re kneeling on it, you got your things all spread out there. You got your pots and spoon on his brother Alden’s grave. Good thing he’s dead because he was very particular.

“I know William’s holding on until you get your justice but it’s like he’s standing at the door waiting for his turn.  Remember Missy this is William’s family site. Look at over there all those names are known to you. Pete was your first beau. Over there is Margie, she was a hoot, and there’s Pa and his Pa. The only reason why April got buried in the first place is because it was Enos’ grave. William gave it to him for saving him from that shark down at the Point.”  Lottie’s hand now rested on Missy’s shoulder.

“He saved him a lot of times.” Henry chimed in. “Remember that whaler that turned over. William was clean knocked out.”

“And the time of the rope,” Lottie added.

“What rope?”

“Enos never told you about that? Well they stretched a rope across the alley where the market is and they told William to pick up some crates. Enos was there and he saw what they were going to do. So Enos pulled on the rope and all of the crates so the fish and the packing ice fell on top of him. It would have killed an older man like William.”

“I remember a time when they were pulling lobster….” And the stories went on and on and as they did Missy got up and picked up her belongings and half crying and half laughing at the antics of old William and her husband headed back to the row shacks, one of which was her home.

To Henry’s and the Council’s dismay the dogs didn’t stop barking. In fact they even barked louder.  One night later, William died. They buried him the next day. Only then did the dogs stop barking.

 But as the wind rushed by the Standing People, the cedars, you could hear the howl of their ancient memories..