A Dog's Way Home (4 page)

A
s soon as school let out Monday afternoon, I went to the front office.

The secretary, Miss Peasly, sorted papers behind the counter. I cleared my throat.

Miss Peasly looked up and smiled. “Well, hi there, Abby. Did you have a good day at school?”

“Yes, ma'am.” The first lie.

“That's nice, honey,” she said, picking up her papers.

I shifted my weight on my crutches. “Um…”

She looked up at me again. “Is there something you need, Abby?”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said. “I need a ride to the bus station.”

She took her glasses off and let them hang from strings
against her big bosom. “Why in the world would you need a ride to the bus station?” she asked.

I swallowed. “I…I have a relative coming in on the bus this afternoon. From Virginia. I have to meet him there.” The second lie.

She puckered up her lips. “Why don't your mama or daddy pick him up?”

My hands started to sweat, and my stomach itched. This lying was hard. “My mama's going to meet us both there and carry us on back to the house. I'm—I'm just going to surprise her. I mean him.”

Miss Peasly studied me for a minute too long. I about melted in a puddle of relief when she said, “I guess I can do that. I have to go right by there on my way home.” She put the papers away in the file cabinet. “Give me just a minute and I'll run you over there.”

I crutched over to the bench where kids usually sat when they were waiting to see the principal. Bad kids. I felt like a bad kid too, telling all those lies to a nice person like Miss Peasly.

I pulled the bus schedule I'd printed out on the school library printer from my backpack. I had to catch the three forty-five bus to Asheville if I had any hope of getting the bus up to Waynesboro, Virginia, tonight.

I glanced at the big clock on the wall. Right about now, the bus to my house would be pulling out of the
school yard. I wished Miss Peasly would hurry up.

“Let's go, sugar,” Miss Peasly said, swinging a big plastic purse over her shoulder.

I'm here to tell you, Miss Peasly is the slowest driver on God's green earth. She drove with one arm hanging out the car window, waving to anybody and everybody, like we had all the time in the world. Which I surely did not.

“When do you get that cast off?” she asked me.

“Couple weeks,” I said. At which point, I would be back from Virginia with Tam.

“You settling into school okay this year? I know it's been a hard adjustment after being homeschooled and all.”

I just shrugged. Then, remembering my manners, I said, “Yes, ma'am.”

She smiled over at me. “It must have been exciting traveling with your daddy's band, the Clear Creek Boys.”

I'd never really thought about it being exciting or not. It was all I'd known since I was first born, traveling all over the place in our old camper van surrounded by music.

When I didn't answer, she said, “I know your grandmamma was thankful when y'all moved in after your granddaddy died so unexpectedly. That place of hers way up in Wild Cat Cove is too isolated for a woman alone.”

Finally, the Greyhound bus station came into view.

Before she came to a full stop, I unbuckled my seat belt. “I surely do appreciate the ride,” I said. I swung open
the car door, scooted my crutches out in front of me, and put on my pack.

I slammed the car door shut. Miss Peasly stretched across the car seat and looked at me like she was trying to think of what else to say. She opened that puckery mouth of hers. “Abby, are you sure—”

I waved. “Thanks again,” I called as I crutched as fast as I could into the bus station.

The bus station was practically empty. An old man in overalls slept sitting up on the bench by the Coke machine; a woman fussed with her cranky baby.

I marched as best I could up to the ticket window. An old man looked up from a paperback book.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

In my oldest voice, I said, “I'd like to purchase a ticket to Asheville, North Carolina.” I said it just like I bought bus tickets all the time.

He pushed his glasses up on his nose and leaned forward to get a better look at me. “You would, would you?”

I tried my best to look taller with those stupid crutches. “Yes, sir, I would. I got to go up and see my grandmamma. She's sick.” This time, the lie slid off my tongue easy as hot butter.

He leaned out a little farther and looked around the room. “Anyone traveling with you, young lady?”

“No, sir,” I said. Which wasn't exactly a lie. “But my
granddaddy'll meet my bus in Asheville.”

The clock in his office ticked. We looked at each other. Finally he sighed and said, “That'll be forty dollars and sixty cents. Next bus is in fifteen minutes.”

I counted out some of the money I'd saved from our win at the agility competition. I surely hoped the rest would buy my bus ticket to Virginia.

After I got my ticket, I bought a Coke from the machine. Mama never let me have Cokes. She said they eat the enamel off your teeth. I figured she'd never know. Besides, I needed lots of brainpower to figure out just what I was going to do once I got to Virginia.

I sat on a bench away from the fussy baby and the snoring man. Fifteen minutes. I'd just make it out of town before Meemaw realized I wasn't coming home.

I took a swallow of Coke. It burned my throat. Maybe Mama was right.

I set the Coke on the floor and unzipped my pack. Instead of all my schoolbooks, notebooks, and stuff, I had: a clean shirt, a clean pair of underwear, a whistle, a picture of Tam, my lucky baseball cap that said
Shelties Rule!
, the lunch Mama packed that I never ate, my old beat-up copy of
The Secret Garden
, which I must've read a million times, and my map-drawing sketch pad.

I glanced at the clock. Just two more minutes. Two more minutes and I'd be on my way to find Tam. I wasn't
exactly sure how it was all going to work when I got to Virginia, but I figured it would come to me.

I propped my sketch pad on my knees and studied the map I'd been working on since the accident. I'd drawn in the mountains, and the song Mama and I had been singing, and the winding, winding road, the long shadows of the late afternoon sun, and the deer they said had likely darted in front of the truck. It made me sick to think about it, but I had to draw in Tam and the screeching tires, the smell of burning rubber, shattering glass, how the trees must've somersaulted as he and the crate were thrown from the truck. My heart beat in my throat. Sweat popped out on my arms.

“Abby.”

I looked up. My heart froze.

Mama.

I was in for it now. I braced myself for the kind of tongue-lashing only Mama could give.

Instead, she sat down next to me and took my hand. After a long moment she said, “A relative from Virginia, huh?”

I looked away. I guess I wasn't such a good liar.

I thought Mama was going to tell me how sinful it was to lie, how thoughtless I was being.

Instead, she stretched her legs out in front and leaned her head back against the tiled wall.

The silence stretched out between us, taut as a fiddle string.

Then the bus pulled into the front of the station. Above the windshield was the word
ASHEVILLE
in big letters.

I started to slip my hand out of Mama's. She gripped it tight. “No, Abby,” she said.

I watched the people get off the bus. “But Mama, I have a ticket.” Mama purely hates wasting money.

She shook her head. “I can't let you go.”

My heart pounded as the bus driver helped the woman with the baby onto the bus. The old man gathered up his plastic bags full of who-knows-what and shuffled to the waiting bus.

Mama gripped my hand so hard it hurt.

“Mama,
please
,” I said. A tear slipped down my cheek and over my lip. “I got to find him.”

Mama wiped the tear away with her thumb. “I understand, Abby. Really I do. But no.”

The bus driver mounted the steps and climbed into the driver's seat. Those doors would close any second.

I jerked my hand away and lurched to my feet. I didn't even bother grabbing my pack.

I crutched as fast as I could across the room.

“Abby, stop!” Mama's voice rang out.

I hesitated for a sixteenth of a second, then pushed through the door.

“Wait!” I cried.

The driver revved the engine of the bus. His hand clutched the handle to close the door. He looked from me to Mama.

“Drive on,” Mama's voice said behind me. “She's not going.”

The door folded shut.

I watched with pure frustration as that bus, the bus that would help me get to Virginia, pulled away. If it weren't for those stupid crutches and the stupider cast, I could have run that bus down.

Mama touched my shoulder. “Time to go home, Abby.”

I whirled away from Mama's touch like it was fire.

“Stop it!” I said. “Stop telling me what to do!”

Mama jerked back like I'd slapped her.

“It's all your fault,” I said. “If you'd let Tam ride up front with us in your putrid, putrid truck, I'd never have lost Tam! But no,
all
you cared about was how nice your brand-new truck was.”

Mama held out a hand like she was trying to ward off a mad dog. “Now, Abby…”

A dam burst inside me. “And then you promised we'd go back and look for him, but we haven't, so I have to go myself because none of
you care
!”

Mama folded her arms over her chest. “I do care, Abby. I loved Tam. But I love you more. I have to do what's best
for you. Someday you'll understand.”

“No I
won't
,” I spat. “I won't
ever
understand. All I understand is Tam is out there somewhere, waiting for me. And
you don't care
!”

I stood there trembling like a leaf in the fall wind. I'd never ever talked to an adult like that, much less Mama. She'd probably make me go live in the barn with her precious llamas, or maybe she'd make me walk all the way home. I didn't care. Everything I said was true.

Mama opened her mouth, then closed it. She slumped like somebody had let all the air out of her.

She wiped at the corner of one eye and sniffed. She slung my pack on her good shoulder. “Come on, honey. Let's go home.”

 

I'd gone straight to my room after me and Mama got back from the bus station and didn't come out. My stomach grumbled and growled from missing supper, but I didn't care. Tam was probably starving too.

I got out the map I'd planned to work on during the bus ride to Virginia, when there came a tap on my door.

I gripped my colored pencil tighter. “Go away,” I said.

The door swung open anyway. Meemaw stood tall and straight as a pine in the doorway. “I brought you a little bite to eat,” she said.

I turned back to my map. “I ain't hungry,” I said. Meemaw didn't care how I talked.

She shut the door behind her. “I made you a grilled cheese, all mashed down and gooey the way you like.”

My stomach knotted up. I sure did love Meemaw's grilled cheese sandwiches. But still. “No, thank you,” I said.

She set the tray with the sandwich and glass of milk on my bed. She picked up the brush off my dresser and came up behind me.

Meemaw worked my braids loose. “Starving yourself won't bring Tam back, Abby.”

I closed my eyes against the tears and didn't say anything. That lump in my throat was so big, I couldn't get anything out even if I'd wanted to.

Running the brush from the top of my head and all down my back she said, “You about broke your mama's heart trying to run off like that, honey.”

The long strokes of the brush worked out the tangles in my hair and my throat, but I still didn't say anything.

“Your mama's got enough on her mind with your daddy leaving and the money it took to fix that van.”

“I don't see why Daddy has to leave again. I thought he'd given up playing music on the road,” I said.

Meemaw stopped brushing. “Your daddy's not a stay-by-the-hearth kind of dog. Never has been.”

“But Mama says she's just as happy to not be traveling all the time,” I pointed out.

Meemaw resumed her brushing. “Yes, she was weary of
life on the road. And it's not a fit life for a child.” Meemaw hummed under her breath. “Do you miss the traveling life, Abby?” she asked.

I looked out onto the moonlit fields and dark, dark mountains all around us. I knew every square inch of those eighty acres as well as I knew the color of my eyes and hair and every single freckle. I knew just how the trees whispered to me and Tam on a summer evening, and the best places along Clear Creek to look for salamanders. And that there was no better place to watch for deer than the pond down below the apple orchard.

“No, ma'am,” I said. “I'm just as happy we moved in with you. I never want to leave Wild Cat Cove and Harmony Gap.”

“That sure is a big ol' yellow moon,” Meemaw said in a dreamy kind of voice. “Your grandpa Bill called it a Carolina Moon.”

I looked up at Meemaw's face, all faraway-looking like it gets when she talks about my grandpa. I touched her arm to bring her back. “Meemaw, you reckon Tam is looking at this same moon somewhere?”

Meemaw smiled a sad kind of smile. “He just might be, honey. He might be.”

T
am lay in the full sun in a small meadow. The grass was brown now, but at least it was dry. Days of rain and wind had stripped the last of the leaves from the trees. The only color in the forests was the last of the red sumac. Although the nights were cold, Indian summer had found the high country.

Several days had passed since Tam's encounter with the humans at the rest stop. The angry voices, the exploding noises had burned deep into his memory. Humans were to be avoided.

The pinched flanks of the sheltie rose and fell as he slept. His ribs showed through his dirty, matted coat. It had been weeks since the accident, since he had become
lost to everything he knew; weeks since he'd had his bowl set down before him by the stove and slept in the warmth of his girl's side.

A raven circled low over the sleeping dog and landed on the branch of a sassafras tree. He cocked his head to one side, then the other, watching the dog in the sun. Curiosity got the best of the raven. He flew down to the grass and hopped to the head of the dog. Tam's nose twitched, ears flicked forward, but his eyes did not open. The raven, always the prankster, snatched a lock of Tam's hair from the tip of his ear.

Tam jerked awake and leaped to his feet. He lunged at the raven, but the bird was too quick. He flew back to the tree and cawed teasingly. Tam danced on his back legs, barking furiously at the raven. The bird plucked twigs and dead, mitten-shaped leaves from the sassafras tree, pelting the dog below.

Tam shook himself and lay back down. He had every intention of ignoring the bird.

The raven would have none of it. He pushed off the limb and soared over the sheltie, snatching at the top of Tam's head with his claws. In the blink of an eye, Tam was on his feet, racing across the meadow after the bird, barking. The raven cawed and taunted him.

The chase was on. Tam leaped over logs, wove through the underbrush, raced across a fallen tree bridging the
stream. For the first time in weeks, he forgot the hunger, the fear, the loneliness, and the burning drive to go south. He was doing what he did best, what he'd trained every day to do: cover the obstacle course as quickly as possible.

But this time, as Tam sailed over the last jump and tore around the corner of a blueberry patch, the girl was not there calling his name, arms open. Instead, he ran right into the huge, stinking hulk of a black bear browsing lazily through the last of the berries.

Tam scrambled backward, eyes wide with fear.

The bear stood up on her back legs. Her nose worked the air for the scent of the intruder. The approaching winter made the bear sluggish, but it also made her grumpy. Someone interrupting her fattening up for the winter would not be tolerated.

She caught the scent of the sheltie. She dropped to all fours and took after the dog with surprising speed.

Tam's heart crashed against his ribs as he tore across the dry grass, his hunger-starved muscles screaming. In the open meadow, the bear closed the distance. Tam felt her hot breath on his flank. He heard the click of her teeth and wet slap of her jowls as she lunged and snapped. Calling on his last bit of strength, the dog raced into the thick forest.

When his legs would no longer carry him, he squeezed as far as he could into an old hollowed tree and waited.
His breathing came in ragged gasps. His legs quivered. His nose searched for any scent of the creature.

A twig snapped.

A huge black nose sniffed the opening of the log. The bear's head blotted out the sunlight.

Tam whimpered in terror and pushed himself as far back in the log as he could.

The bear huffed and grunted. She reached one black paw into the log. Claws like curved daggers felt blindly for the dog. Tam yelped when one claw bit his forepaw. Making himself as small as he possibly could, he pushed himself against the back of the log.

The bear withdrew her paw.

Silence.

Tam's nose searched for the scent of the creature. He still smelled her, but the sound of her was gone. Tam relaxed.

Suddenly the log began to rock back and forth. Tam scrambled to keep from being thrown from his hiding place. Sick fear flooded every inch of his body. In his three years of life, he had never known fear. He had never known hunger. He had only known what every well-loved dog knows: comfort and security. This new life of constant danger was beyond his experience.

But deep within every dog is a bit of the wolf from which he descended. And that wolf gives the dog keen
instinct. As the bear rocked the log harder and harder, Tam shot from the old tree like a cannonball between the bear's legs. The bear whirled and roared in frustration.

Tam raced farther into the forest and into a thick tangle of blackberry bushes. The sweet berries were long gone, but the wicked thorns remained. Tam was a small sheltie. He easily avoided the worst of the thorns by following the faint path left by foxes and skunks.

The bear reached one long arm and swiped at the wall of thorny brambles. The thorns bit deep into her skin. She jerked her furry arm back. The curved little daggers left bloody welts. The bear bawled like a baby cow. She licked at the bloody tracks on her arm. With a snort and a huff, she turned and ambled away. This creature was altogether too much trouble for her.

Tam waited and listened. He quivered both inside and out from exhaustion. He searched the breeze for the scent of the bear. The dark, evil smell was fading. Finally, he lowered his head between his paws and watched the sun move across the forest floor.

His eyes closed.

A twig snapped.

His eyes flew open. A deer.

Finally, the sun dimmed and the air cooled. Tam left the thicket and made his way back to the stream to drink. Then he retreated to the safety of the hollow tree and slept.

As Tam slept and the moon rose, a coyote hunted the
dry grass in the meadow. The smell of bear still lingered there, rank and disturbing. The coyote may have been just a few months beyond being a pup, but she knew well enough to stay away from a bear.

But there was another smell in the meadow, one the coyote could not quite read. It was not a rabbit. It was not a deer. It was certainly not a skunk or raccoon. The smell reminded her a little of the red fox who lived down in the laurel grove. And it reminded her of the warmth of the den she had shared with her mother and brothers. But not quite.

The coyote cocked her head to one side. She listened with keen concentration to faint rustling below the grass. She pounced, snatching one mouse and then another. She ate them with great satisfaction.

The coyote sat beneath the moonlight and searched the night wind for that smell she did not understand. She threw back her head and howled her questions to the moon and the mountains, then followed the thread of the unknown scent into the forest.

 

Tam woke stiff the next morning. With a groan, he uncurled himself and crawled out of the hollow tree. As he yawned and stretched his back legs, he sniffed the air to smell what the morning would bring. Just as he was about to shake the dirt and cobwebs from his coat, he stopped. There was a smell he had not met before. It was not deer
or rabbit, nor skunk or raccoon. It was not the thick, dark smell of the bear. It was a smell somehow familiar and somehow not.

The coyote woke. She rose and stretched elaborately, first one back leg and then the other. At six months, she was all long, gangly legs and comically huge ears. She shook the night's sleep from her tan and white coat and looked around the forest. Her yellow eyes fell on Tam. The coyote stood stock-still, ears cocked forward, nose working the air.

To Tam, she looked almost like other dogs he'd met. But not quite. She had a doggish smell, except wilder. She smelled of sun and grass, blood and bones. Tam whined uncertainly and raised his tail.

The coyote did what every canine from wolf to poodle does as a sign of friendship: She wagged her tail. Her ears relaxed and she stretched her mouth in a wide coyote grin.

Fear and uncertainty of yet another wild creature Tam did not understand filled him. What was this dog that was not a dog? He raised his tail higher. A long, low growl rumbled from his chest.

The little coyote pinned her ears flat against her skull and wagged the tip of her tail in her bid for friendship.

Tam growled louder, his eyes hardening.

Then a breeze from the south whispered through the
tall pines. It made its way to Tam's nose, to his ears,
Home, home.

Tam wheeled and set out on his course, straight and true. He crossed meadows and followed faint deer paths. The miles passed beneath his feet.

And always, always, just out of sight, followed the coyote.