A Dog's Way Home (6 page)

“O
kay, here's another one,” Olivia said, squinting at the computer screen. “It's called Fairhope County Shelter. It's not all that close to where you lost Tam, but he may have wandered farther by now, so I'll print it out.”

“Thanks, Olivia,” I said. I squeezed closer to her at the school library's computer station. “That gives me six to start calling, now that the ranger station is closed for the winter.”

I'd discovered that the other day when I made my daily phone call. I about died. It was my friend Olivia, the smartest kid in all of Harmony Gap, who came up with the idea of calling animal shelters.

The bell rang. Olivia logged off the computer. “We'll
just work our way south and find more to call.”

“Like Tam,” I said.

Olivia took off her glasses and began to clean them carefully, always a sure sign she was thinking of how best to say something hard. I braced myself.

“Abby, I don't want you to get your hopes up too high. I know how much you and Tam loved each other, and he was one smart dog.”

“Don't talk about him like he's dead,” I snapped.

She sighed and put her glasses back on. “All I'm saying is be careful, Abby.”

I slung my pack on my back and stomped off to music class without a backward glance.

 

Two nights later, Daddy came up to my room. He picked up my guitar and sat down in the window seat. He strummed the opening notes to “The Water Is Wide,” one of our favorites to sing together.

“Your mama tells me you're calling animal shelters all over Virginia. Says you're going to put us in the poorhouse with all those calls.”

Not looking up from the map I was working on, I said, “It's only six shelters, not that many. And I don't call each and every one of them every single day.”

Daddy set the guitar aside and came to sit on my bed. “Money's tight right now, peanut. And Christmas
is just around the corner.”

I just shrugged. I drew Mr. J. T. Fryar's son finding Tam's crate and collar in White Rock Creek onto my map.

“Which is why,” Daddy continued, “I'm leaving again, right after Thanksgiving.”

“I heard,” I muttered.

“From who?”

I sighed and set my sketch pad aside. “From you and Mama,” I said. “I could hear y'all fighting about it this morning. Mama sounded pretty mad.”

It was Daddy's turn to sigh. “Yeah, I'm in the doghouse with your mama. As usual.”

“You'll be back in time for Christmas, won't you?”

Daddy smiled. “Wouldn't miss it for anything, sugar.”

I studied my daddy's face for a long time. His eyes were still the bluest blue, his nose straight and strong. He had Meemaw's red hair, wild as an Appalachian storm in the summertime. I knew exactly how he smelled.

“I wish I could go with you, Daddy,” I said. “Be your navigator.”

Daddy grinned. “You came by loving maps rightly. Your mama and me driving all over the place, you just a tiny little baby sitting in her lap, looking at the map. Your mama always swore you liked having her make up bedtime stories straight from the lines on the road atlas.”

“I wish too you
wouldn't
go,” I confessed.

“I got to follow my north star, Abby honey. Being a professional musician is my dream.”

“Just like the three wise men followed that north star to Bethlehem?” I said.

“Just like.” Daddy nodded like he was agreeing with himself. “Most folks got a north star in their life—something that gives their life extra meaning. Mine is music.”

Without even thinking, I said, “Mine is Tam.”

 

Mama says to her mind, Thanksgiving is the best holiday ever. She says it's all about family and friends and good food to share. “Thanksgiving is all about
sharing
,” Mama said as we peeled apples for the pies. “Not about
getting.
”

I was thinking about that as I looked around the table. Mama sat next to Daddy with shining eyes. I knew they were holding hands under the table. Olivia and her granddaddy sat across from me, Mr. Singer saying for the millionth time to Meemaw, “I ain't never eaten so much good food in my life.”

Meemaw laughed. “You ate that turkey and dressing like a man with a hollow leg, Alphus.”

Daddy winked at me. “Do turkeys still come with wishbones, peanut?”

Meemaw jumped up and took something off the top of the woodstove. “Just had it over there drying,” she said,
handing a big ol' wishbone to Daddy.

Daddy narrowed his eyes and studied the two prongs. “Looks perfect for wishing on to me. What do you think, Miss Olivia? Abby?”

We both grinned and nodded.

We each took hold of one piece of the bone. “Make your wishes, girls,” Mama said.

I closed my eyes and pictured Tam grinning at me with his rich brown eyes. I felt his head on my knee.

“You ready?” Daddy asked. We both nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “One, two, three…”

Snap!

“Well for pity's sake, would you look at that?” Meemaw exclaimed.

I opened my eyes and looked at the bones we held. They were exactly the same length!

Olivia shook her head. “I don't think I've ever seen that before.”

“You must have each had awful powerful wishes,” Olivia's granddaddy said, scratching his beard.

I wanted so bad to ask Olivia what she'd wished for. But Daddy said, “I'm not a smart enough man to know what that means, but I do know it's high time for some music.”

“Mama,” he said to Meemaw, “go and grab that old autoharp of yours. Abby, get your guitar.”

“I'll get my banjo tuned up,” Mr. Singer said.

Daddy swatted Mama on the behind. “And you go park your sweet self at the piano, my lovely Holly Prescott Whistler. It's long past time we had some music in our house.”

We all hurried to do what Daddy'd said. We tuned and argued about what song to play. Daddy put the fiddle under his chin and struck the first sweet notes of “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” and we all got swept away. Then he swung right into a fast version of “Rocky Top.” We about got dizzy trying to keep up. Olivia sang at the top of her lungs. We all laughed so hard, we didn't even hear the wind and sleet slapping the house. I decided right then and there that Thanksgiving beat Christmas hands down.

I took my fingers off my guitar strings to give them a rest. Purely out of habit, my hand dropped to the side of my chair to scratch Tam's ears. But there was no soft fur, no tongue licking the tips of my fingers. Only sad emptiness sat beside my chair.

 

Two weeks, six days, and eight minutes after Daddy left for his tour, he called.

“Hey, peanut!” he boomed over the phone. “How's the best girl in all of Harmony Gap doing?”

“Pretty good,” I said. “I got a test tomorrow in civics,
Daddy. Why in the world are they giving us a test on the last day before Christmas break I will never understand.”

“Does seem kind of crazy to me too,” he said with a laugh. “Maybe Olivia will let you cheat off her paper.”

I laughed too and burrowed deeper into the blanket on the couch. “Olivia would never do that, and you know it.”

“Well, I'll be home by this time tomorrow night.”

“Really, Daddy?”

“Really and truly, darlin'. And I'm coming home with some big news.”

“Tell me,” I said. For just a minute, I wondered if he knew something about Tam.

I heard somebody telling him to hurry up.

“I got to go, Abby. I'll tell everybody tomorrow night.”

“But Daddy…”

“Sleep tight, sugar. Tell your mama and Meemaw I'm coming home tomorrow.”

I held the phone to my chest. Mama came from the barn all covered with snow.

“Daddy just called,” I said.

“Humph…”
she grumbled, pulling off her boots and shaking snow from her coat.

“Says he'll be home by this time tomorrow night and he's got big news,” I said.

Mama came over and plopped down on the end of the couch. She pulled my feet into her lap and started rubbing
them. Her hands were cold, but I didn't mind.

“What do you think that news could be, Mama?”

“I hope it's that he won the lottery.” Mama laughed. But it was a tired kind of laugh.

I nudged Mama with my foot. “What would you buy with a million dollars?”

This was a game me and Mama played when we were driving in the car. Sometimes we named serious things like food for all the starving animals in the world. But most of the time, it was just plain silly stuff like our own Ferris wheel or the world's biggest, fanciest popcorn maker like in the movie theater.

This time, though, Mama just stared up at the ceiling and said, “Peace of mind.”

T
he last days of fall gave way to cold rain and sleet. After a wet, miserable day of travel, the dog and the coyote found the remains of an old wooden shed in a clearing. They hid in the thick laurel, watching and listening for signs of humans. Satisfied they were safe, they slipped under a split-rail fence and into the dry, dark shed. The air smelled of rotten hay and corn. Rusted farm tools and tattered feed sacks lay scattered in the far corner. Rain tapped on the tin roof.

Tam heard scurrying from under the feed bags. Without thinking, he pounced and grabbed. His mouth filled with fur and warm, fresh blood. Tam dropped the rat as if it were a hot coal, took a step back, and whined.
He pawed at the rat. Why didn't it move? The smell of blood made Tam's mouth water. He licked at the bloody body, growing hungrier.

The coyote snatched up the rat, the tail hanging out one side of her mouth, the head out the other. Tam growled, flashing his teeth. The rat was his. Despite the fact that she had fed him all these weeks; despite the fact that she could maim him with one slash to the throat, the young coyote dropped the rat, trotted to the corner of the shed, and watched as Tam ate his first kill.

That night, as rain changed to sleet and sleet to snow, as the approaching winter beat back the remnants of fall, as Tam and the coyote slept pressed against each other amid the remains of the rat, blood speckling the white ruff around Tam's chest, the old Tam slipped away. Away went the Tam who slept in a warm bed, who had his food served to him in a dish. All that remained of that Tam was the girl: the sound of her voice, the feel of her hands, her smell. And the drive to go south.

 

For two days wind howled and pushed against the shed as the temperatures dropped. Tam and the coyote slept close together for warmth, only leaving the shed to relieve themselves or drink from a nearby stream. The rats that had made the shed their home had scattered.

On the third morning, Tam was awakened by the
sound of a wet
whump
. For the first time in days, a shaft of sunlight streamed through the doorway. Tam rose, arched his back, and yawned. He looked to his side for the sleeping coyote. She was gone. Tam sniffed the old feed sack the coyote slept on and followed her scent to the doorway.

White, white snow blanketed the meadow, sparkling in the morning sun. Above, a raven cawed, landing on the branch of a tall spruce and sending the snow to the ground with a loud
whump.
The coyote's tracks cut the smooth blanket from the doorway to the split-rail fence on the edge of the meadow.

Tam followed her tracks, lifting each paw distastefully. It may have been white, and it may have been frozen, but it was still water.

Just as Tam was halfway across the meadow, he heard a yip and saw, from the corner of his eye, a brown blur barreling toward him. The thing knocked him on his side and rolled him onto his back. He tried to scramble to his feet, but the wet, heavy snow held him fast. He was stuck, belly exposed.

Above Tam, grinning wide, tongue lolling out one side of her mouth, was the coyote. She nipped at his forelegs waving uselessly in the air, then nipped at his back legs.

She pounced at his head and pulled hard at the white ruff around his neck. Tam snapped at her, tried to right himself, but it was no use. Every time he almost got his
feet under him, she knocked him over again. Tam was furious.

Finally, Tam's claws found purchase in the ground beneath the snow. He scrambled to his feet and knocked the coyote to one side with his broad chest. He whirled, grabbing the coyote's back leg. She yelped, nipped his ear, and took off across the meadow.

Tam tore after her. They leaped over the split-rail fence. They shot around snow-laden laurel thickets and moss-covered boulders. The coyote lost her footing. Tam grabbed the end of her tail and pulled. The coyote whipped around and grabbed the side of Tam's face. They tumbled down an icy bank in a tangle of fur. They broke through the laced ice on the edge of the creek, into the cold water.

The two pulled themselves up onto the bank, shook the water from their coats, and panted happily. The coyote licked a small, bleeding wound on the side of Tam's face. Tam's tail waved back and forth. He couldn't stay mad at the little coyote.

They drank side by side from the stream, then followed the scent of a rabbit back up to the fence. They found the rabbit's den beneath the crumbled remains of a stone chimney. Together they dug beneath the snow where the earth was still warm. Tam flushed the frightened rabbit. The coyote caught it in two bounds, snapped its neck, and carried it back to Tam.

 

Three days after it appeared, the snow was gone. The tree branches once again stretched toward the sky; rhododendron and mountain laurel thickets regained their fullness. Squirrels, rabbits, and chipmunks busied themselves gathering the last of their winter food. Birds filled the trees. This first snow of the high country was gone, leaving behind a sense of urgency.

Tam awakened that morning with the need to continue south. Leaving the warm shelter of the shed, he and the coyote slipped under the fence and crossed the creek.

As they descended into the Roanoke Valley, the thick forests gave way to hay fields, rolling farmland, and the occasional homestead. By late afternoon, they found themselves in an old apple orchard, long abandoned.

Tam chewed a shriveled wild green apple and watched the coyote on the edge of the orchard. She turned her head to one side, cocking an ear. Her body tensed. Almost imperceptibly, she lowered her haunches, arched her back. From a dead standstill, she sprang straight up into the air, arcing over the tall grass. Two more pounces in quick succession and she emerged with a large field rat hanging limply from her jaws. Tam trotted over and wagged his tail hopefully. But she did not share her meal this time. This was her kill. Tam would have to make his own.

Tam scouted the tall grass too. The orchard, with its
rotting apples, was a haven for field rats and meadow voles. Although Tam could not match the coyote's pouncing technique, he was fast and agile. By nightfall, he too had a full belly.

That night, as he and his friend lay together beneath a rocky outcropping, stars glittered like ice in the night sky. The next morning, a hard frost coated the ground and studded the grass. Winter followed close at their heels.