A Dog's Way Home (15 page)

“W
hat's that you're doing?” Cheyenne asked from across our table in the cafeteria.

Without looking up from my sketch pad, I said, “I'm drawing a map.”

She leaned across the table to get a better look. “Of what?”

“My daddy's music tour,” I said.

Cheyenne returned to her book. “And how long's he been gone, as of today?”

I sighed. “Two weeks, three days, and four hours.”

She shook her head and closed her book. Next to Olivia, she's the readingest person I know. “Better get used to it, girlfriend. Sometimes my daddy's gone for months at a time.”

I wasn't at all sure I wanted Daddy to be a millionaire country singer.

“Harley's way into maps too,” Cheyenne said. “He draws them on his computer, though.”

I looked up. “No fooling?” I'd never met anybody but me who liked to draw maps.

“No fooling,” she said. “He wants to be a cartographer when he grows up.”

That didn't make much sense to me. “He wants to take pictures of cars?”

Cheyenne snorted. “No, you hillbilly. A cartographer is a professional mapmaker. Harley has all these expensive mapmaking programs on his computer. You can tell him to start at point A, give him points B and C and D, and tell him where you want to end up, and he can make a map of it. He can even tell you how long it will take you to get there…all kinds of stuff.”

She plucked the sketch pad from my side of the table and studied my map. “Huh,” she said, cocking her head to one side. “This is pretty cool. It's more like a story than an actual map, isn't it?”

“Yep,” I said. I pointed to a snowy scene in Virginia that showed Daddy squinting through the windshield of his van. “That's Galax, where Daddy had to get the van fixed and ran into an unexpected snowstorm. And there,” I said, pointing to a picture of Daddy sitting in a cornfield
beside the road, playing his guitar, “is where the van broke down outside of Lexington, Kentucky, and Daddy had to wait forever for help. So he just decided to play his guitar while he waited.”

“You don't have any pictures of him performing,” she pointed out.

I closed up my pad. “No,” I said. “We don't talk a whole lot about that when he calls. He's been playing in some big cities, though. Richmond, Virginia; Columbus, Ohio; Branson, Missouri. I think he's on his way to Kansas City now….” I trailed off. “He sounds like he's having the time of his life, but I get tired just thinking about all those places.

“I know it makes Mama tired. She's been sleeping a lot since he's been gone.” I twisted the end of my braid. “It's made her sick too. She doesn't know it, but I've heard her throwing up sometimes in the morning in the bathroom.”

Cheyenne raised that one eyebrow of hers. I'd practiced like crazy trying to do that. My eyebrows, though, wanted to do everything together.

“But you know what?” I asked.

Cheyenne shook her head. “What?”

“We were driving to the Swishy Washy yesterday and we heard Daddy and his band on the radio!”

“I bet that made your mother feel better, didn't it?”

I frowned, remembering how Mama went from shocked
to happy to sad in five seconds flat. “Not really,” I said. “I think it made her feel worse.”

The bell rang. “I guess she's just heartsick without Daddy and the llamas,” I said.

Cheyenne slung her book bag on her shoulder. “She's got you, though.”

I shrugged. Mama had said me and her and Daddy were a three-legged dog without Meemaw. But without Daddy, we were like a two-legged dog. And I couldn't for the life of me see how a two-legged dog could get along.

 

That night, a bad dream about Tam woke me up. In it Tam was trapped in a cage of ice, with snow piling up all around him. He tried so hard to get out, but he couldn't, and there was nothing I could do to help him. I woke up, my heart pounding.

I got up to get a drink of water from the kitchen. The light was on. “Mama?” I called.

No answer.

I looked in her and Daddy's bedroom. She wasn't there.

Something told me to look out on the porch. And there she was, sitting in one of the chairs, her legs pulled up under her robe, looking at the full moon.

“Hey, Mama,” I said.

“Hey, honey,” she said. “What are you doing up this late?”

“I had a bad dream,” I said. “About Tam.”

Mama must've heard the tears all tied up in my throat. She held out her arms to me. “Come here, Abby.”

I crawled into her lap, just like when I was a little-bitty thing. Problem was, I'd gotten bigger and Mama hadn't. But neither of us cared. She wrapped her arms around me and rested her chin on my head.

“Isn't it a beautiful moon?” she said with a sigh.

And it was. It was full and yellow as a gold coin. “Meemaw said Grandpa Bill called that a Carolina moon.”

“Mmm…,” Mama murmured. “That's a beautiful name. It sounds like something he would've said.”

She sighed. “I wish your dad were here to see it with us.”

I sat up and looked at her. “But he is, Mama.” And then I told her about his watching the same moon too.

“He just has to follow his north star, Mama,” I said.

She smiled at me in a sad-but-happy way. “Is that right?”

“That's what he says. He says everybody has a north star, something that gives them a reason to keep going. Being a professional musician is his north star, just like Tam was—is—mine.”

Mama and I gazed at that big ol' moon for a long while. I thought about all the times I'd watched the moon with Tam. Was he watching the moon too? I shivered in the night air.

“Let's get inside before you catch a cold,” Mama said.
“It may be spring, but it's not that warm.”

She tucked me under my quilt and kissed my forehead. “I love you, Abby Whistler,” she said.

“I love you too, Mama.”

Just as she was about to close my door, I sat up and said, “Mama, what's your north star?”

I knew what she'd say: her llamas. Or Daddy.

Instead, she smiled and said, “You are, Abby. You are.”

S
cents and sounds Tam had not encountered in weeks rose to the top of the field in the early evening air: wood smoke, the slam of a car door, gasoline, the rich scent of turned earth. He smelled the horses standing in a barn, the apple trees on the verge of bloom.

He slipped back through the barbed-wire fence and into the forest. He trotted for another half mile on the road until the sound of water drew him away to a small stream. Ice edged the stream, thin as fine lace. A ledge of ice broke beneath his weight, plunging his front feet into the icy water. He drank long and deep until he could no longer feel his front paws. Tam was too tired and lonely to care.

He limped over to a lichen-covered outcropping and sniffed the damp moss. It smelled vaguely of skunk, but not too recent. Tam lay down with a sigh and licked the feeling back into his paws, then pulled sticks and leaves from his tail. His hip still hurt from his fight with the eagle.

Tam watched the moon rise above the far ridge, hanging full and golden between two peaks. All the night creatures stirred around him, beginning their ancient agreement between predator and prey. A fox barked in the hollow below the road.

Many times, Tam had watched the moon with his girl. Sometimes, they had watched from the front porch, with the sound of crickets and the big man's fiddle. Other times, they'd watched from the window seat in her bedroom. Tam had never known why the girl watched the moon with such longing. It had not mattered to him. He loved the moon because he loved the girl, the girl who held him close as she gazed into the night sky. He'd listened to her steady breathing, the
thump thump
of her heart. Her heartbeat had filled his world.

Tam could not know that his girl watched this same moon at this same moment, thinking of him. A dog can only know what he feels in his heart. Tam lifted his head, closed his eyes, and gave the long cry of a dog lost, cold, and lonely.

 

The next morning, Tam resumed his journey south on the Parkway. The road descended steeply, mile after mile, dropping away from the high, open spaces he had grown accustomed to. Every mile the road descended brought him closer to spring. And closer to the town of Blowing Rock.

By late afternoon, Tam watched children rush off the school bus from the cover of a forsythia hedge. He quivered in anticipation of seeing his girl, of hearing her voice cry, “Tam! Come here, Tam!” It was, after all, time. Time for his girl.

But, of course, she did not call.

Hunger drove Tam from beneath the hedge. He skirted the edges of the sprawling lawns of Green Briar Estates. He stayed always just out of sight, beyond the street lamps' widening skirts of light. Each house carried the sound of voices and the smell of food.

The largest of the houses sat at the end of the maze of streets, high up on a hill, surrounded by large oak trees.

Tam trotted up through the trees and watched the house. A cold wind blew through his thin frame. He shivered. But with the wind came the scent of fresh food. Tam searched the wind with his nose for the source of that smell. Then he found it. A large garbage can, the lid halfway off, crouched to the side of the house. Tam licked
his lips and slipped from the trees.

After Tam had feasted from the overturned garbage can, he found a toolshed to bed down in. He listened as a late-March storm worried and tossed the tops of the trees. Somewhere, a hound bayed, and the delicate hooves of deer stirred the undergrowth. Tam dreamed of home.

 

For two more days, Tam raided the garbage can of Lilith McAllister and slept in her late husband's toolshed. For the first time in weeks, Tam began to feel rested and strong.

But on the third morning, as Tam stood on his hind legs just about to pull the can over, a voice cried, “Shoo! Get out of here, you bad dog, you!”

Tam froze. Guilt flooded his little body. How often had he heard the old woman in his home with the girl call him that same name, “bad dog,” when he had gotten into the garbage?

He cowered and turned shame-filled eyes to the woman standing in the morning shadows. She flapped her hands at him. “You heard me,
shoo
! Get out of my garbage!”

Lilith McAllister watched, hands on her hips, as the dog scurried away into the woods. “Lord knows who
that
creature belongs to, but it doesn't belong in my garbage,” she said to no one in particular.

After breakfast, she called Animal Control. By afternoon, the white truck pulled up in her driveway. “It's
been getting in my garbage every blessed day,” she said, showing the officer where she'd seen Tam early that morning.

“Did you notice if it had a collar or anything like that?” the man asked.

“I did not.” Mrs. McAllister sniffed. “It looked like it had the mange of something, though,” she said. “It looked wild.”

The man whistled and called, “Here, doggy, doggy.”

Tam cocked his head from his lookout at the edge of the woods.

The man walked around the property looking for signs of the dog. He pushed open the sagging door of the toolshed and shone his flashlight around.

“Looks like something's been sleeping in here,” he called down to Mrs. McAllister. “Could be the dog.”

The woman wrapped her arms around herself. “Good Lord, I can't have some wild dog eating out of my garbage cans and sleeping in my toolshed. Who knows what it'll do? You have to get rid of it.”

The man in the uniform sighed. “Probably just a scared, hungry stray. Lots of them right now, what with so many folks losing their homes. Folks dump their pets out here in the wealthier areas, hoping someone will take them in. Our shelter's full of them.”

“I want it gone,” Mrs. McAllister cut him off.

“Yes, ma'am,” the officer said. He went to his truck and returned a few minutes later with a cage.

“I'm going to bait this trap and set it up in the toolshed. I reckon if the poor thing's hungry enough, we'll catch it pretty quick.”

Tam watched warily as the man carried the cage up to the toolshed. His wariness changed to interest as the smell of meat drifted to him from inside the shed.

The officer stepped back into the sunlight. He scanned the woods for any sign of the dog. He headed back down the hill. “I'm willing to bet we catch it tonight.”

“Won't be soon enough for me,” Mrs. McAllister said.

“I'll check back first thing in the morning and see if we got our dog,” the officer said.

 

Tam stayed away from the house and the shed until nightfall. He managed to knock over a few more trash cans, but the pickings were slim. At one house, an old hound dog chased him from the yard. At another house, two boys threw rocks at him. By the time Tam made his way back to the toolshed, he was hungry and bleeding.

Miraculously, the rich scent of meat greeted him inside the shed. Tam's heavy heart lifted. He pushed his way inside the odd metal box that held the meat. He grabbed the meat and
clank
! The door of the box slammed shut. Tam's heart filled with panic. He clawed and bit at the
metal bars. He threw his weight to one side and then the other. It was no use. He was trapped.

 

Sunlight slapped Tam in the face. He squinted at the open door of the shed.

“I heard all this barking and howling last night. It was quite a racket,” a woman's voice said.

“He's probably in there, then.” Tam recognized the man's voice from the day before.

Footsteps approached the trap. Tam pushed himself as far back into the tiny cage as he could. He needed to hide, he knew that. But he was trapped and there was nowhere to go.

A light from the man's hand shone in Tam's face. Tam turned his head away.

“Hey there, little guy,” the man said. He ran the light from the flashlight across Tam's body. Tam shivered.

“Yeah, you look like you seen better days, that's for sure.”

He grabbed the handle on the top of the trap and yanked Tam and the cage into the air. Tam scrambled in the wire cage, his eyes wide with fright.

The man carried the trap down the hill. He held it aloft for the woman to see. “Caught 'im,” he said, grinning. “Just like I said.”

Mrs. McAllister pulled her wool cardigan closer around
her shoulders and frowned at the trap. “And not a moment too soon,” she said. “It could be rabid or something.”

The officer shook his head. “Well, it's not your worry now,” he said.

The officer put Tam and the trap into the back of his truck. He gazed at the dog, taking in Tam's dull, matted coat and skinny frame. He noted the dirty plaid collar around the dog's neck.

“I reckon you was someone's dog once,” the man said to Tam.

Twenty minutes later, they pulled up in front of a squat, concrete building. The sound of frantic barking filled Tam with fear.

The man slung Tam and the trap onto a metal table inside the building. Tam cowered at the smell of fear and sadness and sickness.

“What you got there, Woodrow?”

“Another garbage dog out in Green Briar,” the man said.

A large woman peered down at Tam. “Looks pretty bad off,” she said, not unkindly. “Have you tried to handle him yet?”

The man shook his head. “Didn't want to get bit.”

She laughed. “You're in the wrong line of work, Woodrow T. Farnsworth.”

She flipped open the end of the cage and stuck her
fingers in and wiggled them. “Come here, little fella,” she said in a high voice. “I won't hurt you.”

Tam didn't budge.

She grabbed a dog biscuit from a jar and held it out to Tam. “Come here, little doggy. I've got a treat for a good boy.”

Tam caught the words
treat
and
good boy
. He licked his lips and inched his way forward. But just as he stretched his neck out to take the treat, the woman grabbed him by his ruff and hauled him out of the trap.

She ran a large hand across his trembling frame. “Lord almighty,” she said with a sigh. “He's a skinny one.”

She felt around his neck. “Well, he does have a collar on, but no tags.”

“Yep. Looks like he got into a fight or something too,” the man said, pointing at the scabs on Tam's hip.

The woman scooped him up and carried him to an empty kennel. “No telling what he's been through.” She deposited Tam onto the cold, concrete floor and clanked the wire door shut. “I'll give him some water and food after I get all the other kennels clean.”

“You reckon there's any point in checking him for a microchip?” the officer asked.

They both watched as Tam investigated the dirty blanket in the back corner.

“Probably not,” she said. “But I will, when I have a free minute.”

All morning, Tam tried his best to shut out the sound of the other dogs' voices. One dog cried over and over, “Come get me! Come get me!” Another whimpered in her dreams of angry fists and being chased. Still another howled, “Where-oh-where have they gone?” Tam buried his head beneath the blanket and trembled.

 

“Oh, look how cute!” Tam awoke to the sound of a girl's voice. His heart leaped in his chest. He untangled himself from the blanket and stood.

“Is this one of the new ones?” the girl called over her shoulder.

The big woman came and stood beside the girl. “Yeah, got him in this morning. Haven't had time to fool with him yet, though. Been too busy.”

“Can I go in and see him?” the girl asked. Tam wagged just the white tip of his tail.

The woman frowned. “I don't want you going in there by yourself. I need to check him for a chip, though. Let's both go in and check him over. Wait here while I get the scanner.”

The girl knelt down in front of Tam's cage as the woman disappeared down the row of kennels. The girl pushed her fingers through the chain-link door and called softly to him. “Come here, little boy. I won't hurt you, I promise.”

Tam took two hesitant steps toward her. He knew by now that this was not his girl. This girl calling him did not smell of apples and a swift creek. But still, the girl's voice was sweet. He walked over and sniffed the tips of her fingers. They smelled of peanut butter and milk. He licked first one finger, then the other.

The girl laughed. Tam wagged his tail.

“Looks like you've made friends.”

Tam jumped at the sound of the big woman's voice.

“Let's go in and see if he's got a chip,” the woman said to the girl.

They both knelt beside Tam. The girl encircled his chest with her arm and scratched him behind his ears. “That's a good boy,” she cooed. “This won't hurt you.”

The big woman held the scanner just above Tam's shoulders and clicked it on.

She scanned his right shoulder and between his shoulder blades. “Nothing,” she grumbled. “Bloody waste of time.”

Then she passed the scanner across his left shoulder. A light on the top of the wand blinked. She frowned. “It must be wrong.”

She held the head of the scanner closer to Tam's skin and ran it slowly across his left shoulder.

“Well, I'll be dipped,” she breathed.

“What is it?” the girl asked.

“He's got a chip! It's PAL and the number is”—she squinted at the tiny screen—“seven-one-six-five-seven.”

The girl hugged Tam. “What do we do now?”

“We call the company and find out who that number is registered to,” the woman said. “Then we pray that whoever cared enough to chip this dog is still there.” The woman glanced at her watch. “We've got just enough time for a quick call.”

The girl trotted behind the woman down the row of barking, howling dogs to a small, cluttered office. The woman paged through a notebook until she found the number she needed.

“First, let's call the company,” she said to the girl. After the fourth ring, someone answered.

“Yes, ma'am, this is Dorothy Pollard at Watauga County Animal Shelter in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. I got a stray here we just picked up with one of your chips.” Dorothy winked at the girl. The girl crossed her fingers.