A Dog's Way Home (17 page)

“S
o where's your grandmother want to go this weekend?” Cheyenne asked as we finished our lunch.

Here was another great big, fat surprise: Meemaw was the goingest person I'd ever seen! She wanted to see
everything
there was to see. She wanted to eat Nashville up.

Cheyenne had appointed herself as tour guide. She and Mr. Richard drove us all over the city and beyond, seeing the sights: the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the old Ryman Auditorium, the state capitol. She showed us all kinds of famous people's homes and even got us VIP tickets to the Grand Ole Opry last weekend. I was about wore out.

“We're staying home this weekend,” I said. “Daddy's coming back!”

The bell rang for the next class. “You're lucky,” Cheyenne said with a sigh. “My dad doesn't get home for another week.”

“Well, anyway,” Cheyenne said, “ask her if she wants to go see the botanical gardens tomorrow after school. Richard thinks she'll like seeing that.”

If I didn't know better, I'd swear Mr. Richard was sweet on Meemaw.

 

Friday night, Daddy called.

“Hey, peanut!” he yelled into the phone.

“Hey, Daddy! Where are you? You're still coming home, aren't you?”

“You better believe it,” he said, and laughed. “If I had my way, I'd sprout wings and fly there in two minutes. But one of the headlights went out in the van. I don't dare drive any farther tonight.”

He must've heard my heart sink, because he said, “Don't worry, though. I'm only about five hours away. I'll leave first thing in the morning. Y'all look for me about lunchtime.”

“I'll be real happy when you get home, Daddy,” I said.

“Me too, sugar,” Daddy said. “I am bone-weary of life on the road.” And he purely sounded like it too.

 

Having Daddy home was like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and all our birthdays rolled into one. From the minute he pulled into the driveway, Mama couldn't tear her eyes off him.

Meemaw about laughed herself to death when she saw his short, slicked-back hair and baby face. “Lord, lord,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I wouldn't have recognized my own son if you'd come up and stood right in my face.”

We spent most of the day and the night pestering him with questions and hearing his stories of life on the road. I showed him the map I'd made of his entire trip. He shook his head and pulled on the end of his nose. “You got this perfect, Abby. It makes me tired just looking at it.”

“Did lots of people buy your CD, Daddy?” I asked.

“Yes, sugar, they did. More than we ever imagined would.” But the funny thing was, he didn't sound too happy when he said that.

That night, Meemaw and I lay side by side in the bed. I listened to Mama and Daddy's voices drifting high and low from their bedroom. I heard Mama say something soft and tender, then Daddy practically yell, “You're
what
?” Then he let out a big whoop. He sure didn't sound that happy when he'd talked about selling all those music CDs.

“Meemaw, why do you think Daddy wasn't all that
happy about selling lots of CDs?”

She was quiet for a long time. I figured she must have fallen asleep. I was just about to roll over when she said, “Sometimes the thing you think is the most important isn't that big a deal, once you have it.”

“But Daddy always said he had to follow his north star, and that being a professional musician was that star.”

Meemaw rolled on her side to face me. “We learn new things about ourselves all the time, honey, all the time.”

 

After breakfast Sunday morning, after Daddy unloaded all his instruments and things from the van, Mama said, “Abby, help me clean this van out. It looks like a pig's been living in it.”

I crawled up in the van and handed garbage out to Mama—receipts and lists and doodles and bags and bags from fast-food places. I found empty soda cans and a pair of old gloves under the front seats. And way back was a piece of bright yellow paper. I grabbed it and was about to hand it out to Mama when something caught my eye. In big block letters were the words
SHETLAND SHEEPDOG
.

A chill ran from my toes all the way up to my scalp. My hands shook as I uncrumpled the paper. I could barely breathe as I read:
MISSING: MALE SHETLAND SHEEPDOG
. Just like in my dreams, I saw Tam. I saw him waiting for someone on a cabin porch, saw him wandering
through the mountains cold and hungry, felt him trying to find a way home.

My knees buckled. I sat down hard on my behind.

“Abby, what's wrong?” Mama asked.

I held the paper out to her. She read it out loud, then looked at me. “Let's go find your father,” she said.

“Ian!” she yelled as she banged through the front door.

Daddy was on the phone as usual. He held up a finger. “Just one second, Holly.”

Mama grabbed the phone out of his hand and said to whoever was on the other end, “I'm sorry, my husband will have to call you back,” and hung up the phone.

She thrust the flyer in Daddy's face. “What is this, Ian?”

Meemaw came up behind me and read the flyer over my shoulder. “Good Lord above,” she whispered.

A million questions flew around the room.

“Do you think there's any chance?”

“How long ago was it?”

“Could it really be—”

“Why didn't you—”

Daddy waved his arms in the air like he was trying to fight off a bunch of angry bees. “Holly, Galax is more than two hundred miles from where we lost him! I didn't think there was any chance it was Tam. And then the weather was so bad and I was already running behind and…”

Mama glared at him, hands on her hips.

He glanced at me sitting there in the middle of the floor, clutching the flyer to my chest. In a lower voice he said, “I didn't want to get Abby's hopes up. I mean, what are the chances it was him after all this time?”

“I understand that Ian, but—” And they were at it again. I wanted to shout at them to just stop, to just shut up, but I couldn't. My heart hammered so hard in my chest, my words were beaten down.

And then in the middle of all this, Mama and Daddy arguing, me sitting in the middle of the floor, a voice strong as the mountains said, “You must call. Now.”

Everybody stopped and looked at Meemaw. She stood tall, that still, faraway look on her face.

“Mama?” Daddy said. “You all right?”

Meemaw blinked, looked at us all like we were a house full of strangers. She snatched the paper from my hands, handed it to Daddy, and said again, “Call. Now.”

“But Mama—”

Without a word, Meemaw grabbed the phone off the table. She looked at me, took a deep breath, and dialed.

We all held our breath as we waited for this Ivy Calhoun to answer the phone and answer my prayers.

After what seemed like forever and a day, Meemaw stood up a little straighter and said, “Yes, is this Mrs. Ivy Calhoun?”

She looked over at me and nodded.

“Are you looking for a missing sheltie, Mrs. Calhoun?”

Meemaw sat down on the couch and closed her eyes as she listened. I sat down next to her.

She took a deep breath and held my hand in hers, tight. “Mrs. Calhoun, my name is Agnes Whistler. I live in Harmony Gap, North Carolina, with my family. And I have a story to tell you.”

T
am passed beneath the long shadow of Mount Mitchell. The tops of the Black Mountains cut like shark's teeth through the bank of white clouds resting on the mountains' shoulders.

It was late April. Tam had traveled more than three hundred and forty miles in six months. He'd almost drowned, been chased by a bear, loved by a coyote, shot, and brought back to life by a kind, old woman. He had fought an eagle for a rabbit, had survived the brutal cold and snows of a high country winter. He had done all of this without thought or hesitation, because he knew he must return to his home with the girl.

Yet Tam was no longer the sheltie Abby knew. Gone
was the lustrous coat she had brushed until it glowed like firelight. Gone was the strong, sturdy frame and the easy, proud gait. Bones showed through his dirty, matted coat, torn and dull from mud and briars and too many days without food. Months of living wild had made him keen as any fox.

He knew the best places to sleep out of a cold wind, how to listen for faint life beneath the snow and earth, life he would kill and eat. He had learned the hard way to avoid at all costs porcupines, skunks, and most humans. He was more wild than not. It was only his love for the girl and his dreams of home that marked him as someone's dog.

The sun warmed Tam's bad shoulder. He had stopped to rest on a rocky outcropping. Wind slipped fine as silk through the thin needles of the pines. Restless with spring and hunger, Tam watched the meadow. He lowered his head to his paws and sighed.

Just as he closed his eyes, he heard a whisper of movement in the grass below. He cocked one ear toward the sound; his nose trembled. Slowly, very slowly, Tam raised his head. There beneath him, just on the edge of a tangle of rhododendron, was a rabbit. It was not a large rabbit, but it was bigger than anything Tam had eaten in a long while. His mouth watered and his stomach clenched.

Inch by inch, Tam gathered his legs beneath him. The wind carried his scent away from his prey. Nothing
else existed for Tam except the rabbit and the distance between them.

The rabbit lowered her head to nibble at the new green grass, her back to Tam. The sheltie shot from his rocky perch, his front paws pinning the rabbit's hind end.

But the rabbit was keen and quick from the long winter months. She twisted from beneath her captor's paws and bolted into the thicket.

Tam tore after the rabbit, through fetterbush and dog-hobble. The rabbit squeezed free of the brush and darted into a maze of rhododendron. Tam barely broke stride. It was just like the weave poles on the agility course, all a matter of speed and control. Tam wove his way as quick and easy as water in a stream.

Sun shone through an opening in the rhododendron. The rabbit, seconds ahead of Tam, raced for the opening, cut left, and disappeared from sight.

Tam burst into the sunlight. The smell of hot, sweet blood filled the air. Tam skidded to a stop. The rabbit,
his
rabbit, hung like a rag from the mouth of a large cat.

The bobcat flattened his ears and growled around his full mouth. Tam knew this was not like the cats he had lived with at home. This cat was taller than he was and clearly hated him. The cat fixed him with hard, dark eyes. Still, the rabbit
was
his.

Tam took one step forward and growled.

The bobcat stepped back. Lichen-covered rocks behind and on both sides enclosed him. The bobcat glanced up to the ledge five feet above. Without the weight of the rabbit, he could easily spring to the top, well out of the dog's reach. If he wanted to eat this rabbit, he would have to find another way around the dog.

The bobcat dropped the kill. He had eaten recently. He spat and growled at the dog, to make a final point, and prepared to spring for the ledge.

Tam had never been particularly good at understanding why cats do what they do. They were a mystery to him. So when the cat dropped the rabbit, then spat and growled, Tam lunged forward to grab it.

The bobcat whirled, lashed at the dog with his long claws.

Fire raced across Tam's face. He yelped and snapped at the cat.

A stronger slap from the bobcat sent Tam tumbling backward. He screamed in pain, his vision blurred red. He pulled himself up and shook his head. Blood spattered the rocks and leaves. He looked for the cat. It was gone. And so was the rabbit.

Tam whimpered, pawed at his face. Bright blood smeared his white paw. He had never felt pain like this.

 

For several days, Tam pressed south. The deep wounds in his face festered. His eye throbbed.

He no longer tried to find food. He sought shelter when his body would take him no farther; he drank when he could no longer bear the raging fever in his body. Only one thing drove Tam: the instinct to go home.

The first few days, he covered many miles. By the fifth day, he barely managed a painful walk. His head hung low and lifeless, but his course south remained true.

Tam climbed the rocky trails to the top of the Craggy Gardens heath balds. The sound of snowplows scraping the last of the winter slush from the Parkway drifted up from below. The Parkway would open soon for the season.

Tam stood on that rocky, treeless crest and looked south through his one good eye to the endless ocean of mountains falling away and away before him. He swayed on his feet. With a last bit of strength, he scratched out a shallow bed in the thicket of laurel and blueberry bushes cowering on the exposed, high peak. He could go no farther. He curled in on his fevered body and slept.

I
grabbed Cheyenne as soon as we got out for recess. “I got to talk to you,” I said, holding her tight by the arm.

We went over by the trees, away from the kickball game. I licked my lips and swallowed hard. “you remember me telling you about my lost dog, Tam?”

She frowned. “Sure I do.”

I launched into my story about finding the flyer in Daddy's van and calling Mrs. ivy Calhoun in Galax. I told how she'd found this little dog washed up on the banks of the river by her house.

“She thought it was a hurt fox at first because of the red and white fur,” I'd told Cheyenne. “And that was my first clue the sheltie she'd found was Tam. not many shelties have coats as red as his. She said he even had a white
patch on the top of his head shaped like a star.”

I told her how Mrs. Ivy Calhoun had nursed him back to health, that she'd said he was the smartest dog and best friend she'd ever had. “That's when I knew without a doubt the dog had to be Tam.

“She got real attached to him,” I whispered, blinking back tears.

“Then how come he ran away?”

I explained about her heart attack and her son finding her there on the floor and chasing Tam away. “Tam must've been so scared,” I sobbed.

“She was in the hospital for more than a week. She's been trying to find him ever since. She was just sick about the whole thing,” I explained.

“And that was in February?” Cheyenne said.

“February twentieth, to be exact.”

Cheyenne tried to blow out a whistle. Cheyenne can't whistle to save her life. “Where do you think he is, Abby?”

Looking north, I said, “On his way home.”

This had been another big source of argument with Mama and Daddy: where had Tam gone and what the chances were of finding him
again
after two months.

Daddy had said he thought he was following the Blue Ridge Parkway south. Mama had said it was just a coincidence that Galax was close to the Parkway, and that didn't mean he was following it.

“That's still more than two hundred miles from the
Asheville area,” Mama said. “He could be anywhere, if he's even still alive.”

“You thought he was dead
before
,” I said. “And now look.”

Mama had touched my cheek. “I know, Abby, but that was months ago. I just don't want you to get all hopeful and then get your heart broken again.”

“But I've
never
given up hope, Mama! I know he's on his way home.”

Once again, Meemaw stepped in and calmed the storm. “The child's right, Holly,” she said. “Tam's on his way home.”

Pulling me to her and drawing herself up, Mama said, “With all due respect, Agnes, don't say that unless you really know it.”

“I know it as sure as I know my own name,” Meemaw said.

 

Cheyenne nodded in the bright spring sun. “Your grandmother's right. He's on his way back to you, just like in
Lassie Come-Home
and
The Incredible Journey
.”

I paced back and forth. I was wound up tight as one of Daddy's fiddle strings. “But where would he be now?” I muttered. “Like Mama said, it's been months since Mrs. Calhoun lost him.”

Miss Bettis blew her shiny silver whistle, signaling the
end of recess. I did not want to go back in that putrid school. I wanted to sprout wings and fly all the way to Virginia and look for Tam.

“Abby Whistler,” Cheyenne said, hands on her hips, frowning down at me, “you of all people know.”

“Know what?” I asked.

“Look at a map,” she said.

“I did,” I said. “But there's an awful lot of terra incognita between Galax, Virginia, and Harmony Gap.”

She smiled. “Yeah but, you've got a secret weapon.”

“Like what?”

“The Sight, Abby.”

“I'm not sure I have the Sight like Meemaw,” I said, and sighed.

The bell rang for the next class. Cheyenne shook her head. “You've got to trust yourself, Abby.”

 

Two nights later, I got a great big clue from none other than Olivia McButtars.

“Abby,” she said when I answered the phone, “I have some very important news. It's about Tam.” I'd emailed Olivia right away after we'd talked with Mrs. Ivy Calhoun.

I could barely get words out past my heart jumping all around my throat. “What is it?”

“I checked the messages on your answering machine at your grandmother's house like she'd asked and—”

“Great bucket of gravy, Olivia,” I said. “What
is
it?”

I heard her take a deep breath. “There were several messages from a shelter in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. They have Tam.”

I almost fainted right onto the kitchen floor. “They have Tam?” I sobbed.

Mama and Daddy came in the kitchen. “What is it?” Mama mouthed.

I looked at her, grinning through my tears. “A shelter in North Carolina has Tam!”

Daddy's jaw dropped down to his knees. Mama grabbed a scrap of paper and a pencil and handed them to me.

I wrote down the number. “I'll call you back when I find out about Tam,” I said to Olivia.

“I'm sorry I didn't check the answering machine sooner, Abby. Maybe if I'd…” Her little voice trailed off.

I wanted so bad right then to reach through that phone line and hug her. “Olivia Marie McButtars, you're the best friend ever.”

“Thanks, Abby. So are you.”

“I'll call you back as soon as I find out about Tam.”

Mama dialed the number of the shelter for me. My hands shook so bad, I couldn't do it. She handed me the phone.

It rang once, twice—

Please answer, please answer,
I prayed.

Finally, on the fourth ring, a woman's voice said, “Hello, Watauga County Animal Shelter.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said, holding the phone tight. “My name is Abby Whistler and I believe you have my dog, Tam.”

Mama and Daddy grinned at each other.

Every bit of my brain filled with a movie of us driving up there, me running into the shelter, throwing open his cage door, and—

“I'm sorry, honey,” the woman said. “He's not here anymore.”

 

“He
what
?” Cheyenne said, when I told her the latest chapter of Tam's story the next day at lunch.

I buried my head in my arms. “I can't believe it either. But yes, he ran away two putrid, putrid weeks ago.”

Cheyenne tapped her fork against her cheek. “But that's south of Virginia, right?”

I looked up from my arms. “Yeah, in North Carolina.”

“Anywhere near the Blue Ridge Parkway?”

I sat up straighter. “Yeah, actually. Real near.” I knew this from looking at Daddy's road atlas the night before.

Cheyenne nodded. “You come home with me after school tomorrow. It's time to put Harley to work.”

“Really?” I asked. “You think he'd help me?”

Cheyenne cocked her head to one side, the sun shining
on her black hair. “Why wouldn't he? He loves a challenging map project. Besides, you're my best friend.”

I looked at her then and thought about her and Olivia and that Mrs. Ivy Calhoun—all the people helping me and Tam along the way. I'd always thought I liked animals more than people. But if I could have talked to Tam right then, I'd have told him I'd learned that humans can make fine friends too. And Tam would've understood, because Tam always understood.