A Dog's Way Home (16 page)

“Okay, the number is seven-one-six-five-seven.” Dorothy tapped a pencil on the edge of the desk. She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “She's checking the number in their database.

“Yes, I have something to write with,” Dorothy said, sitting up straighter.

“Abby Whistler at Box Twenty-nine, Wild Cat Cove Road, Harmony Gap, North Carolina,” Dorothy repeated
as she wrote furiously on the pad of paper. “Is there a phone number?”

Dorothy glanced at the girl. The girl held up crossed fingers.

“Oh good.” Dorothy nodded as she wrote down the phone number on her pad. “Thanks so much for your help.”

Dorothy leaned back in her chair. “I can't believe it. Of all the dogs out there who have a microchip, that one's not the one I'd ever expect.”

The girl clapped her hands. “Did they say what his name is?”

The woman glanced back down at her paper. “Yes, actually, they did. His name's Tam.”

The bell on the front door of the shelter jingled. A voice called, “Julie, time to go home.”

“Shoot,” the girl said. “It's my mom. It must be five thirty.”

She waved to her mother standing out at the front desk. “Can we try to call his family before I leave?”

“Sure,” Dorothy said. She punched in the numbers and waited. Julie crossed her fingers again.

Dorothy shook her head and hung up the phone. “Busy. We'll try again tomorrow.”

“Don't worry,” Dorothy said as she walked Julie to the front door. “At least we know someone's there. He's not
going anywhere between now and tomorrow.”

Dorothy watched the slight girl and her mother walk to their car. The girl turned and called, “Don't forget, he's got a name now! It's Tam!”

Dorothy waved. “I won't forget!”

The woman locked the front door and turned off the computer and lights. “Not one single adoption today,” she said, sighing.

She walked down the row of kennels, double-checking to make sure all the doors to the outside runs were closed. She stopped in front of Tam's cage. “You are one lucky dog, Tam.”

Tam threw his ears forward at the sound of his name.

“Hopefully by this time tomorrow, you'll be back with your family, Tam, and I'll have one less dog to worry over.”

Tam watched the woman as she walked down the hall and turned off the lights. The word she had spoken echoed in his mind. It was not the name the old woman had called him, the name not quite his name. This was
his
name. The name his girl murmured in his ear, shouted with joy. The name that linked him with her, that marked him as her dog.
Tam.
The name to lead him home.

Two days later, Mama had a big grin on her face when she picked me up from school. “Can I go over to Cheyenne's?” I asked, leaning in the truck window.

She shook her head and pushed open the passenger door. “Not today, honey.”

“But Mama…”

She patted the car seat. “No buts, young lady. Get your fanny in this seat.” She laughed like she'd made the funniest joke in the world. I rolled my eyes and waved to Cheyenne to go on home.

“What's gotten into you?” I grumbled.

“A big surprise,” she said, grinning like a cat that's swallowed a canary.

My heart danced in my chest. “Is Daddy home?”

Her face fell just the tiniest bit. “Well, no. But I have a surprise that's the next best thing.”

I got very still. Could it be something about Tam? I had a sudden lightning flash in a crevice of my brain. Maybe someone had called.

“Is it…” I couldn't get the words out.

“Just wait and see,” she said.

I think I held my breath for the whole teetotal time we drove across town. I'd never in my life seen so many car-repair shops and pawnshops. Finally Mama swung the truck into the parking lot of the Greyhound bus station. She cut off the engine, looked over at me, and smiled.

I frowned. “I don't get it,” I said. What would a bus station have to do with Tam?

Mama practically jumped out of the truck. “Come on, Abby. There's someone waiting inside for you.” She held out her hand to me.

Someone waiting inside?
That meant it wasn't Tam. I dragged over to where Mama waited for me.

She slipped her arm around my shoulder. I trudged beside her to the front doors of the bus station. And then another lightning bolt hit my brain: What if someone found Tam and sent him home on a bus? I'd read about that happening to a lost dog once.

I broke free of Mama's arm and ran into the bus station.

And there, in the middle of the lobby, grinning ear to ear, stood Meemaw.

She held out her arms to me. “Come here, Abby honey!”

My heart fell like a ton of bricks. How could I have been so stupid?

Mama gave me a little shove from behind. I walked into Meemaw's arms and buried my face in her coat so she couldn't see my tears. She smelled like home.

 

“Goodness gracious,” Meemaw said, craning her neck practically out the truck window. “Have you ever seen such tall buildings?”

To tell you the truth, Meemaw showing up at the bus station in Nashville was just about as miraculous as if Tam had shown up there. I'd never known Meemaw to leave Harmony Gap. But here she was, and she said she'd be here until Daddy got back.

I pointed to a real tall building with pointy sides on the top. “That one there is the AT&T Building, but my friend Cheyenne says it looks like Batman's head.”

Meemaw laughed. “She's right too.”

Meemaw's eyes—the same eyes as Daddy's—danced with curiosity. They weren't scared like I was when I first saw the city.

We passed the Harris Teeter grocery store. “We'll get
groceries tomorrow,” Mama said. “What y'all want for supper tonight?”

I wanted some of Meemaw's scratch biscuits and chicken and dumplings. And maybe an apple pie and—

“Pizza,” Meemaw declared. “With extra pepperoni and olives.”

 

The three of us sat around the kitchen table that night, finishing off the last of the pizza. Even Mama ate two slices, in between asking Meemaw a million and one questions about each of the llamas.

“They're just fine, Holly. I promise,” Meemaw said. “Between all the attention they're getting from me and Mr. Singer and Olivia, they're spoiled rotten as eggs.”

Mama sighed and wiped at her eyes. “I sure do miss them,” she said.

Meemaw caught us up on all the news back home. “The biggest thing,” she said, “is old Mr. and Mrs. Sutter's family has moved into their place.”

The old Sutter farm was in between our farm and Olivia and her grandpa's place.

“I remember Mrs. Sutter passed a few months ago,” Mama said. “I wondered if any of their children would move back or sell it.”

“Their son from California has moved there with his family. He says he's going to bring that old Christmas
tree farm back to life.”

“They have any kids?” I asked.

“Four!” Meemaw beamed. “They have a little baby girl named Jasmine, a four-year-old girl named Sunny, and a twin boy and girl named Forrest and River. They're your age, Abby.”

Meemaw got all dreamy-looking. “Been a long time since the cove had a bunch of young'uns in it.”

“They nice?” Mama asked.

“Real nice,” Meemaw said. “Why, just the other night they had me and Olivia and Mr. Singer all up to their place for dinner. We had a real good time. Olivia and the twin girl, River, hit it off like gangbusters.”

I frowned. “Olivia hasn't said anything to me about it.”

 

That night, for the first time in a long time, Meemaw and I brushed each other's hair before we went to bed. She'd be sleeping with me.

I told her all about my friends at school, especially Cheyenne Rivers. “And you know what, Meemaw?” I said.

“What, darlin'?”

“At first, everybody at school was afraid of her and wouldn't even try to be her friend. But it turns out, she's just real shy.”

“Is that a fact?” I could feel Meemaw smiling behind me as she brushed and brushed my hair.

“Uh-huh,” I said. “But now that she's been playing with us at recess and not wearing all those black clothes, people aren't so afraid of her.

“I'm still her best friend, though,” I added.

Meemaw patted my shoulder. “You're still Olivia's best friend too.”

I twisted around and gave Meemaw a hug. “I'm so glad you're here, Meemaw.”

She kissed the top of my head. “Me too, sugar. You have no idea how much I purely missed you.”

“A
ny luck today?” Julie always asked first thing when she arrived at the animal shelter in the afternoons after school.

And every day, Dorothy Pollard shook her head. “Just got the answering machine. Again.”

It had been a week since they'd discovered Tam's microchip. Julie thought perhaps his family was on vacation. But Dorothy knew, with each passing day they were less likely to find them.

Dorothy sighed, took off her glasses, and rubbed her eyes. Three more dogs had come to the shelter that day. Three more dogs without homes.

“I'm going to walk Tam,” Julie called as she grabbed a leash.

“Okay,” Dorothy said. “But don't forget about the other dogs. They need your attention too.”

Tam walked into the kennel from the outdoor run. The other dogs barked and howled over the music on the radio and hurled themselves against their wire doors. That meant only one thing: Someone was coming.

He heard the girl's high voice as she greeted each of the dogs. They pleaded for her attention. “Pick me! Pick me!” “I'm best! I'm best!” But Tam knew he was her favorite. The dogs grumbled and whined as she opened his kennel door and clipped on the leash. “Let's go, Tam,” she said.

Tam trotted along beside the girl in the brisk spring air. He liked this girl well enough. Her hands were gentle and she always had a special treat for him in her pocket. But she wasn't
his
girl. They did not belong to each other.

He stopped and scented the air to the south. He was stronger now, after a week of food and rest. It was time. Time to go to his girl. He pulled hard against the leash.

“No, Tam,” the girl said. “We have to go back. I have to walk the other dogs too.”

Tam pulled again. He felt the collar slip toward his ears. If only—

The girl scooped him up in her arms. “Come on, you stubborn boy.”

 

Days passed, and with each passing day the urge to continue his journey home consumed Tam. He no longer ate his food. He stood impatient as the girl brushed him. He refused to come into the kennel in the evening from his outside run.

“How long until I can adopt him?” Julie asked Dorothy for the millionth time.

“In two more days, the waiting period will be up, and not a minute too soon,” she grumbled. “Whoever would have thought that little dog would turn out to be so much trouble? Bad enough I have such a time getting him to come in at night before I leave. And now, just today, I discovered he's been digging under the fence.”

Tam stood next to the wire door, waiting. Waiting for the gentle hands of the girl who was not his girl, waiting for the special treat she always had in her pocket.

As Julie opened the door to Tam's run and clipped on the leash, someone on the radio announced, “And now we have a song from a new group out of Nashville, the Clear Creek Boys. Give a listen. This is a group to watch.”

Tam was taking the piece of cheese from her fingers when he heard,
There's a place high in the mountains, a place that I call home….

Tam froze: He knew that voice; he knew that music. It was the big man, the one who lived with his girl. That music was nights on a wide-plank porch, the big man
singing, his girl singing, and Tam always, always by her side. That music was where he belonged: home.

He looked up at Julie and whined.

Julie laughed. “He's just got spring fever, don't you, Tam? A walk will do him good.”

Julie led Tam outside for his afternoon walk. She chattered away the whole time. “I think I've about got my mom and dad talked into adopting you,” she said. “We'll have so much fun….”

Tam paid little mind to the girl's words as they walked south down the dirt road, toward the mountains. Her words were no more than a fly buzzing around his ear or the chattering of a mockingbird. What Tam heard, clearer now than ever, was the music of home, and the call inside him that said,
It's time…it's time.

The girl stopped. “Gosh, I didn't mean to walk this far. Dorothy's going to skin me alive.” She tugged on Tam's leash. “Come on, Tam. We've got to go back.”

The girl turned back toward the kennel.

Tam stood stock-still, his brown eyes fixed on the mountains beyond.

The girl tugged harder. “Come
on
, Tam! We have to go.”

Tam caught the word
come
. He had always been an obedient dog. He took one step, then two, toward the girl.

The wind carried the frantic barking from the shelter, the smell of fear and sadness. A school bus filled with
the high, happy voices of children rattled past and disappeared south down the road.

The girl gave one long, hard pull on the leash. “Come on!”

Tam dipped his head and popped free of his collar and leash. Without a backward glance, he raced down the road after the school bus, raced toward the mountain and the only way home.

 

By evening, Tam had slipped through the vast apple orchards of Moses Cone Memorial Park. Less than a mile to the south stretched the Blue Ridge Parkway.

A thin curtain of snow blew through the trees. Tam shivered and his stomach grumbled. He was utterly miserable. He watched with longing the warm lights glowing in the huge white house at the top of a small rise.

Flat Top Manor had once been the grandest mansion south of Richmond, with its twenty-three rooms and gleaming white Victorian columns and arches. A sweeping, wraparound porch looked out over rolling white pine and hemlock forests, then up to the soaring peak of Grandfather Mountain.

Angus McIven had been groundskeeper of Flat Top Manor for as long as anyone could remember.

Angus took a long draw on his pipe and squinted through the snow at the small figure watching him from the edge of the orchard.

A sweet, sharp scent touched Tam's nose. The smell brought an image of the big man who lived in the house with the girl. Tam lifted his head and peered through the falling snow at the large white house and a man standing on the porch. For a moment, Tam was confused. Could it be the big man? Could that be his white house and his front porch? Tam whined, and walked hesitantly toward the house.

“Fox,” Angus said to the old dog sitting next to him. He leaned against the stone railing, watching intently. He sucked on his pipe and exhaled slowly. “Looks like it's had a tough winter, Blue.” The old hound dog thumped his bony tail on the porch floor.

Tam caught the low, soft voice of the man on the porch. He knew now this was not his house, nor the big man who lived there. But still, Tam was hungry.

Suddenly Tam smelled a new scent on the man: fear.

“Something's not right with him, Blue,” the old man said, reaching for his blackthorn walking stick. “Could be sick, or worse.”

Angus charged down the steps of the porch, waving his stick in the air. “Get out of here!”

Tam stopped dead in his tracks. His hackles rose even as he cowered closer to the ground. Here was another man, yelling and waving a stick at him. A stick that could be thrown; a stick that could explode and kill.

The old dog pulled himself up off the porch and
limped slowly down the steps to see what all the fuss was about. Like his master, his eyes were filmed over with cataracts; unlike his master, his nose worked just fine. He caught the scent of an intruder. He didn't know why the dog was frightened. But he did know his master was distressed and it was his job to protect him. The old hound drew himself up to his full height, raised his once-proud tail, and barked.

Between the man with the stick and the yelling and the barking dog, Tam knew he was not welcome. He whirled and dashed into the orchard. He heard the old dog give chase, the man call him back. Tam knew the dog would not follow him.

 

A week after his encounter with Angus McIven and the old hound, Tam wound his way through the high, wild reaches of the Blue Ridge. The Parkway left the towns and parks and people behind. Tam traveled over wild country, deep into the Linville Gorge Wilderness.

Although it was mid-April, winter was reluctant to leave the high country. Here, there were no flowering trees or tender, new grass. Deer still pawed through thin snow in search of food; ice still edged the creeks and pools. Here, the Blue Ridge Parkway was snow-packed.

Despite the snow and ice, Tam was filled with the fever of spring and hope. The warm, soft days as he traveled in
the lower mountains had reminded him of all the things he and the girl would be doing, now that winter was over. There were creeks to explore, forests to say hello to. And, most importantly, agility training to do. He and the girl would work the course, getting faster and faster. Once he returned home, he would shake off the weight of the long winter and fly. Everything would finally be as it should.

Later that night, Tam's feet twitched in sleep. He yipped with joy. He had never felt so strong. He soared across the course in his dreams, flying toward the girl and her wide-open arms.

Something woke Tam. He blinked against the cold night sky. For a moment he didn't understand why he was so cold, so stiff, so hungry.

Then he heard it: the voices of coyotes calling ridge to ridge. He crawled from beneath the stony outcropping, stretched, and listened. The voices came again, closer this time. He lifted his nose to catch a scent. Nothing.

He limped down to the pool at the base of a small waterfall and drank. A cold wind lifted his matted fur and brought him a scent. A scent somehow familiar and somehow not.

Tam's heart lifted. He scrambled up the bank and over the rocky outcropping. There, in moonlight, stood a tall male coyote. The amber eyes glowed.

Tam wagged his tail. He knew this was not his friend,
the coyote; still how wonderful it would be to have a traveling companion again! Someone to hunt with and keep warm with at night.

A low rumble crept up the coyote's throat. Black lips pulled back from white teeth. Yellow eyes narrowed and hardened. Behind him, in the shadows, glowed several more pairs of coyote eyes.

This was not at all what Tam had expected. He pinned his ears back, turned his head to one side, not looking at the coyote.

The pack leader took a step toward Tam and sniffed. This dog was not strong, had not eaten well in some time. The coyote had noted Tam's limp as he walked up the bank from the pool. He smelled recently healed wounds on the dog.

As a general rule, the coyote despised dogs. Where dogs went, people followed close behind. People with their traps and guns, and their murdering ways. In his five years, the coyote had even killed a dog or two.

But what puzzled the coyote about this dog was what he
didn't
smell on him: the stink of man. Instead, the dog smelled of rich earth, blood, wind, leaves, and high, wild places.

The coyote stalked over to Tam, stiff-legged. He drew himself up tall, towering over the dog, flashing his teeth. Three more coyotes stepped from the shadows, their
yellow eyes filled with hate and contempt.

Tam cowered, tucking his tail between his legs.

The three coyotes pressed closer. A small male crouched, preparing to leap upon the intruder.

Their leader flashed his teeth impatiently at them. They pinned their ears in apology and glanced at one another, bewildered.

The coyote ran his nose along the cowering dog, reading him from tip to tail. He read the miles and miles on Tam's paws. He read the months of cold nights beneath the stars. He read loneliness and determination.

The coyote stepped back, sat, and studied the dog through narrowed eyes. He knew this was no ordinary dog.

The coyote stood and yawned. This dog was not a threat. It would not bring man; it would not stay in his pack's territory. Besides, dogs were weak, used to being taken care of. And this dog was alone. No animal survived a high mountain winter without a companion, pack, or herd.

He barked one short command to his pack. With barely a backward glance, the coyotes disappeared beyond the moonlight.