A Dog's Way Home (8 page)

T
am and the coyote made good distance following the deer trails meandering along the shoulder of the mountains below the ridge. Although it was rarely above freezing, and the late December nights bitter, the snow was solid, making for easy travel.

Still, food was scarce. They caught the occasional squirrel and mouse. The coyote crunched old acorns and dried-up berries. But they'd not had full bellies since the porcupine.

And although the porcupine had filled Tam's belly with sweet, rich meat, it had also left one side of his face swollen and painful. The one quill the coyote was unable to lick free had worked its way deep into Tam's
cheek. As December drew to a close, the swelling and fever increased.

 

Tam and the coyote traveled slowly through new snow on a deer trail. Tam was weak and tired from hunger and fever. The coyote stayed beside him until he stopped to rest or sleep, then she'd go in search of food. By evening, they'd only covered six miles.

They entered a small, moonlit clearing. Both Tam and the coyote smelled food. Something delicious lay buried beneath the snow and pine branches.

The coyote reached the spot first. She reached a paw out to scratch away a pine branch.

Snap!

The coyote yowled. She jumped and twisted straight into the air. The snow and branches scattered, revealing the awful truth: the metal jaws of a trap held the coyote's foot fast.

Tam flattened his ears in fear. He stretched his neck forward and sniffed the evil trap. Bright red blood spattered the snow, pooling under the coyote's foot. She looked at Tam, eyes wide with fright, and cried pitifully.

Despite his painful face, Tam barked and snapped at the trap. He dug frantically where the metal chain disappeared beneath the ground. It was no use. There was nothing Tam could do to help his friend. He lay down
beside her, licked the side of her face and the trapped paw. As the moon traced across the winter sky, a great horned owl hunted not far away, and deer huddled together for warmth in the long grass. Tam wrapped his body tight around the shivering coyote.

 

Sunlight found the clearing the next morning, warming the backs of coyote and dog. Tam woke. He stood and sniffed the coyote. She smelled of blood and fear and sickness. She lay on her side, whimpered once to Tam, and thumped her tail at him.

Tam stood protectively above her. He stooped now and then to lick her grotesquely swollen foot or to whine consolation to her. A thick, low fog crept into the clearing.

Fever in his face drove him away from his friend's side down to a small stream in search of water. He drank so intently to cool the heat in his body, he did not hear or smell the man until it was too late.

A shot rang out. Tam froze. A sharp, acrid smell filled the air. Tam crept up the bank and through the rhododendron forest on the edge of the clearing where the coyote was.

The sight that greeted him filled him with fear. A tall human stood over the little coyote. He kicked at her with the toe of his boot. Tam expected her to snap at the human or at least cry out. But she was silent.

The human kneeled down beside her, pulled the jaws of the steel trap apart, freeing her foot.

Tam tensed, readying himself. Surely now, she would run and they could be away from this terrible place.

But the coyote didn't move.

The human held the coyote's limp body up by the tail. Tam whined. The coyote's eyes, the eyes that had looked at him so many times in joy and concern, were empty. The strong, lithe body that had warmed his, that had covered more than a hundred miles beside him, hung lifeless.

Tam's heart broke. He threw back his head and howled his pain for his friend.

“What the—” The human whirled. He dropped the coyote to the ground, squinting into the swirling fog. He grabbed his gun, aimed at the rhododendron, and fired.

The blast of the shotgun boomed in Tam's ears. In a panic, he darted out into the clearing. Between him and the far side of the clearing was the body of the coyote, the trap, and the human with the gun. Tam crouched and looked side to side for some way to escape.

“Well, looky here,” the human said, grinning. “It's a New Year's Day two-for-one special: a coyote and a fox.” The human raised the long black barrel of the shotgun. Tam pulled back his lips and snarled, taking one step toward his friend. She had saved his life more times than he could remember. How could he leave her now?

Tam rushed the human, slashing his leg as he streaked past.

The human cried out in surprise and pain. “A dog! Must be rabid.”

With helpless rage, Tam stood over the body of the coyote, hackles raised, teeth bared. A low growl rumbled from his chest. His hard eyes, filled with pure hate, fixed on the human.

The man raised his shotgun to his shoulder and squinted at Tam. “Only one thing for a rabid dog.”

The world exploded. The blast lifted Tam off the ground and tumbled him backward. Pain unlike anything he had ever felt shot through his shoulder.

Footsteps stomped through the dead leaves and snow. Tam scrambled to his feet and tried to run. His front left leg refused to move. It hung limply and painfully at his side.

Another shot rang out above his head. “Come back here, you devil dog!”

Tam ran through the forest as fast as his three legs could take him. Blood streamed from the wound.

Footsteps quickened behind him, coming closer.

Tam lost his footing. He slid down a mud-frozen bank to the creek. The human tripped and slid, cursing.

A skin of ice covered the creek. Slick, black rocks jutted through the frozen surface like rotten teeth. Tam
knew if he could get across, he could lose the human in the twisted laurel and rhododendron. Tam stepped carefully onto the ice. Water gurgled beneath.

The human stood on the bank at the edge of the ice. He raised his gun. “Say your prayers.”

Tam dodged to the side. The bullet whined past his ear. He scrambled blindly toward the far bank, away from the human and the gun and the sad, empty body of the coyote.

The ice cracked beneath Tam's feet. Before he could save himself, he plunged into the freezing water and was carried away.

“Y
ou sure you don't want me to come with you?” Mama asked.

From the safety of the school office, I watched all the kids at Jesse Rogers Middle School stream through the front doors. I had never in all my life seen so many kids, so many different kinds of kids, in one place.

It was January 4, my first day at a new school. My mouth felt dry as crackers.

Before I could work up enough spit to get an answer out, a tall lady with curly ginger hair walked in the office. She smiled at me and Mama.

“You must be our new student, Abigail Whistler,” she said.

“Abby,” Mama corrected. “She goes by Abby.”

The lady smiled right into my eyes. “Is that what you'd prefer to be called? Abby?”

I swallowed and nodded. Mama poked me with her mind-your-manners elbow.

“Yes, ma'am,” I said. “I only get called Abigail when I'm in big trouble.”

Mama's face turned red. The lady laughed. It was a nice laugh.

She held out her hand. “I'm Miss Bettis. I'll be your homeroom teacher and your English teacher.”

I took her hand. It was cool and soft. “I'm Abby Whistler.”

After she and Mama made their hellos, Miss Bettis said, “Let's get you down to homeroom so you can meet everybody. Does that sound like a good idea?”

“Yes ma'am,” I said. I figured if everybody at Jesse Rogers Middle School was as nice as she was, I might get along okay.

Miss Bettis steered me out into the mass of kids.

“I'll pick you up after school, Abby,” Mama hollered over all the noise.

It seemed like it took forever and a day to get to the classroom. I figured you could have put three of my school at Harmony Gap into this one school, it was so big.

Finally, Miss Bettis stopped in front of room 309. “Here we go,” she said.

She pulled open the door and gave me a little nudge.

My mouth must've fell open all the way to the ground. I stared at the huge room with all its computers and bulletin boards and fish tanks and bookshelves and about a million and one eyes staring at me.

“Better close your mouth before a fly gets in,” someone called. Laughter rippled across the room.

Miss Bettis frowned. Everyone went quiet. “Class, we have a new student joining us. This is Abby Whistler.” Not a single person said hey.

“Abby, why don't you tell us all where you're from?”

I glanced at the kids in the front of the class. They looked like they could care less where I came from.

“Um…Harmony Gap, North Carolina,” I said, staring down at my feet like they were the most fascinating things on the planet.

“Well, that sounds like a lovely place,” Miss Bettis said. “But I'm sure you'll be happy here in Nashville, right, class?”

Not a peep out of anybody, just lots of eye rolling and shrugging. At that particular moment, I wanted a big ol' hole to open up in the floor and swallow me up.

Miss Bettis guided me over to a desk by the only window in the class. “I think we'll put you here, Abby.”

I slid into my desk and tried to make myself very, very small.

She motioned to the girl sitting next to me who was busy smearing shiny stuff on her lips.

“Madison, would you serve as Abby's escort this week?”

The girl glanced over at me. “Sure thing, Miss B.” She popped her gum. I waited for Miss Bettis to tell her to address her by her proper name and to get rid of that gum.

But she didn't. Instead, she smiled and said, “Thank you, Madison. Make sure she finds her classes and the cafeteria.”

Without sparing me a glance, Madison said, “Sure, whatever.” If that had been Mrs. Radley at my old school, she would have jerked a knot in that girl's tail for talking that way to an adult.

I took a deep breath and tried to smile just a little at Madison.

The bell rang. Madison stood up and slung a fancy-looking pack with all kinds of doodads hanging off it onto her shoulder. “Let's go,” she said.

“See you back here for English, Abby,” Miss Bettis called.

Madison held out her hand. “Let's see your schedule.”

I handed the crumpled piece of paper over to her.

She frowned as she smoothed it out. “You need to take good care of this,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it's got everything on it—your class schedule, your locker number and combination—”

“I got a locker?” I asked. I'd never had a locker before.
Only the kids at the Balsam County High School got lockers.

“Of course you have a locker,” she said.

“What do I do with a locker?” I asked.

She studied me like I was a bug under a windowpane. “I can see I have my work cut out for me.”

 

“Abby! Abby, over here!” Mama waved and hollered at me from the parking lot. The end of my first day at Jesse Rogers Middle School and my head was about to bust.

I slid into the seat beside Mama, slammed the car door closed. For the first time that day, everything was quiet.

Mama touched my cheek. “You okay?”

“Yes, Mama. I believe I am.”

She smiled and pulled out of the parking lot. “So how was your first day of school?”

Every single crack and crease of my brain was full to overflowing with everything about the day, so finding the right words was hard. “Okay, I reckon,” was all my brain had room for.

“Was it a lot different from your old school?”

I laughed. “It purely was,” I said. “The kids dress different, talk different, and act different. And Mama, we change classes lots more than we did at Harmony Gap.”

“Is that so?” she said.

“Uh-huh. And my history teacher is black and my
math teacher is from somewhere in India. I can't pronounce his name, but he's real nice. I'm ahead of the other kids in the class.”

“You got your daddy's math gene,” she said. “So your day must've gone by fast, then?”

“Yes, it did. I can't even recall…”

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks: I'd gone a whole eight hours without thinking about Tam. Not once.

“What's wrong, honey?”

I blinked back tears. “Nothing,” I said. “I reckon I'm just tired.”

We pulled up into the driveway of our rented house. My heart sagged just like the front screen door. Patches of paint curled away from the wood. The porch was barely big enough for one chair. When we first saw this house, Daddy said the yard was small enough for a feller to pee across. That had made me and Mama laugh.

Mama sat there beside me looking at the house too. Neither of us said anything for a long moment. Finally she sighed and squeezed my hand. “Let's go in and unpack some more boxes.”

 

Later that night, after pizza and Daddy's stories about all the people he was meeting down at the recording studio, I went to my tiny little room to unpack another box. I unpacked the last of my books and sketches. I put Tam's
picture on the table by my bed. I hung his collar from the bedpost.

Somewhere close by, another siren wailed. I'd never in my entire life heard so many sirens and cars and horns honking and people yelling. I missed hearing the wind in the old oak tree and the hoot owls late at night. I missed hearing Meemaw's clear, strong voice drifting up through the heat vents from the kitchen below.

I crawled into my bed and pulled one of Meemaw's quilts around my legs. From my bedside table, I took out Olivia's letter. I unfolded it and read it for the fifty-second time.

“Just like Olivia,” I said to no one in particular. “Short and sweet.”

I threw off the quilt and ran to find Mama, which wasn't hard in such a tiny house.

“Mama, have you got your computer set up yet?”

She looked up from the box of dishes. “Yes, it's in the living room. Why?”

“Mama,” I said, “can you teach me how to do email?”