Sable

 

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For Dad

—
K. H
.

 

For Amy, Danny, and Vernon, and Kelly and Michael

—
M. S
.

1 / The Arrival

Mam would not hear about having a dog. She didn't like them, none of them. She didn't even like Mr. and Mrs. Cobb's old hound, Truman. And Truman was as easygoing as a flat tire.

I had no hope of getting a dog when Sable wandered down off the mountain last October. The maples had turned flame red, and that morning, frost glittered on the windshield of Pap's pickup.

Eden, Mam's crimp-tailed cat, saw the dog first. She arched her back and hissed at the porch door.

“What is it?” Mam asked. Mam stood tall at the sink, toes turned out, looking over her shoulder.

Eden growled in her gray, silk throat. She flattened her ears.

“There's a dog out here, Mam!” I said, pressing against the storm door.

“Get your hand off that latch, Tate Marshall,” Mam ordered.

She marched across the kitchen toward me, wiping her hands on her apron, and peered out the back door.

Eden was all riled up, hissing and growling and looking three times her size, while the dog just sat, drooping on the back porch. Bones held together by a dark brown coat, that's all she was. The longer she sat, the more she sagged, till her nose nearly touched the porch floor.

“Poor dog,” I whispered, touching my fingers to the glass.

The dog looked up—not at me exactly; not at Mam, either. She stared at nothing in particular. Just moved her head in the direction of the kitchen door.

Her stirring scared Eden half to death. Mam's cat slipped like gray smoke behind the fridge.

The dog staggered to her feet and wobbled a step or two away from us. Then she stopped. She leaned against the porch rail, panting.

“She looks awful thirsty, Mam,” I said. “Should I put some water out for her?”

Mam's face tightened a bit, but then she nodded. “I guess some water would be okay,” she said. “Just push the bowl out the door, Tate. Don't you go out there yourself. There's no trusting a stray.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said, filling a small mixing bowl with cool water. “Should I feed her something, too?”

“Not a bite, Tate,” Mam said. “Don't even think about giving that dog a reason for staying.”

I slid the bowl out the door, slopping water over the cuff of my shirt. The dog inched up slowly, sniffing, and started to drink.

Just then, Pap came out of his shop, heading toward the house for his morning snack. He was wearing his blue Saxonville baseball cap.

Before he covered half the distance between the shop and the kitchen, he spotted the dog on the porch. Pap's face shifted into a question. The dog wagged her tail weakly.

“Poor thing,” Pap said, coming up and fitting his hand over the bones of the dog's head. “Where'd you come from?”

I called from inside the kitchen, “She just showed up, Pap. She won't bite, will she? Mam thought she would, but I don't. I think we should feed her.”

Mam looked up from the sink and scowled.

The storm door banged shut as Pap came into the kitchen. Scrambling down the porch steps, the dog fled, tail between her legs. She crept back up, though, a few seconds later, and finished emptying the water from the mixing bowl.

Pap slipped one of Mam's biscuits soaked in milk gravy to me.

“Ransom!” Mam said, frowning.

“The dog's near starved,” Pap answered.

I took the biscuit from Pap and followed him out of the kitchen onto the porch, cushioning the storm door behind me.

Easing down, I held the biscuit on my open palm. Cautiously, the dog came over, her nose stretched way out in front of her, sniffing. The closer she got, the faster my heart beat.

Finally she came close enough to take the biscuit from my hand, real easy. She swallowed it without chewing.

After she'd finished licking her whiskers real good, she sniffed the gravy streaks on my fingers. Then she made a start of cleaning me.

I guess I grinned wider than a half moon, feeling that tongue wipe across my palm.

She was all the dog I ever wanted, dark brown except for a blaze of white on her chest and the tip of her tail. Even with brambles stuck in her dusty fur, there had never been a more perfect dog.

My hand stroked her bone-hard head and down her ears. Those ears—that dog had the softest ears. They reminded me of the trim on the sweater Pap got for Mam one year. Pap said the trim was a kind of fur called sable.

“Come on, Sable,” I said, coaxing her down off the porch.

“Named her, have you?” Pap said.

“Yes, sir,” I answered.

2 / A Collar for Sable

Except for her being so skinny, Sable unfolded into a good-sized dog. She leaned against me, standing in the doorway to Pap's shop.

“If you're coming in, get on with it, Tate,” Pap said. “You're letting the heat out.”

I nudged Sable inside, shutting the door behind me.

Pap builds furniture for people who live in places like Boston and Hartford.

I wished Pap would let me work along with him. He never did. Pap said, “Ten is too young to work with saws and things. Besides, girls have plenty other jobs to do without messing with wood.” My stomach always tightened when Pap said stuff like that.

I knelt beside Sable, stroking her all over, getting to know her with my hands. “How come Mam doesn't like dogs?” I asked.

Pap shrugged. He held a pencil between his teeth as he sighted down a piece of white oak.

Pap made a mark on the wood with the pencil. “Mam got herself tore up by a dog when she was a girl,” he said. “You've seen that scar on her leg, Tate.”

“I didn't know that was from a dog,” I said. Mam always wore dresses that hid the scar. She didn't even like me seeing it.

The shop smell tingled inside my nose, like a sneeze coming. I wiggled my nostrils in and out, trying to get the tickle to settle down.

“She was younger than you when it happened,” Pap said. “We'd have had a dog a long time ago if it was up to me. I always had dogs when I was growing up. Your great-grandmam raised them.”

“She did?” I asked.

“Beauties,” Pap said. “Elkhounds.”

My hand rested on Sable's head. “Do you think we could raise Sable?”

A knot tightened right inside my throat, waiting for Pap's answer.

“Even if Mam was willing,” Pap said, “that mongrel's sure to disappear in a day or two. Just passing through—that's my bet. Don't get attached to it, Tate.”

“No, sir,” I said, chewing on my lip.

Pap switched on the planer and started running the oak through. Sable tucked her tail between her legs and backed toward the door.

“Come on, girl,” I said, leading her out of Pap's shop. “You don't have to stay in here if you don't want.”

Sable and I walked the property line, from Mam's willow in front to the sour apple out back. Plucking a stunted apple from the sour tree, I took a bite, puckered, and offered Sable the rest. Sable ate that sour apple, core and all.

“Sable,” I said. “I've got someplace I want to show you.”

We crossed the yard and climbed the path into the woods. Following the trail, we entered a small clearing surrounded by maple and pine trees.

“Used to be someone had a cabin up here,” I told Sable. “A long time ago, before the river changed course.”

In the center of the clearing stood a stone foundation and the remnants of a chimney.

“This is my secret place,” I told Sable. “I have it fixed up just right with everything I need.”

I stashed my best stuff up there: my rock collection, my treasure box. Tucked it all on a shelf inside the old fireplace. I had a pocketknife and soap for whittling, all kinds of string, a family of spool dolls.

Digging around in the treasure box, I uncovered a ball of twine.

“How about I make you a collar, Sable?” I asked. “Think you'd like that?”