Say No More (13 page)

And yet they were not. They were free to roam.

Still, they had also never known the warmth of a couch on a cold and rainy day, or tasted the smooth goodness of gravy, or played chase with a little boy while he laughed with absolute glee.

My yowls fell away to a prolonged whine, then a broken whimper. The rain had stopped. A chilly breeze parted the clouds to let the light of the moon stream down over Bit’s deflated form. Her hair was flattened against her wasted body, her spine prominent. Whatever she had eaten the past couple of days had been expelled in her bloody vomit.

I raised my face to the moon, embraced by a halo of silver. To its right, a star winked brightly. Hunter used to make wishes on stars. Maybe in this place called Covington, where he and Lise lived now, he could see the same star. Maybe he would wish for me to join him. Maybe.

My gaze drifted downward from the heavens. There stood Bit, her fur gleaming in the moonlight, her eyes as bright as that star. And yet, she looked as if she were made of air. She shook from head to tail, bowed her front playfully, and jumped up high. Her feet made no sound when she landed. She curled her body in circles and let out a soft, distant-sounding
woo-woo-woo
, her way of talking, Lise called it. She raced about, alternately leaping and bowing, her energy boundless.

I’d never seen Bit so happy, so uninhibited. I wanted to join her, to feel what she was feeling!

As she ran within the circle of light cast by the sole floodlight that stood between the garage and the barn, that’s when I noticed — that wasn’t Bit. It was her ghost. It was her soul set free.

Her body still lay where she had drawn her last breath.

As she crossed to the far side of the light’s circle, she — my mother’s ghost — dissolved into the darkness, leaving me alone.

If mere hours before I had wanted for Lise to save us, I no longer did. I was beyond hope, beyond caring. Cold and hunger and pain were all I knew and I’d had enough of suffering.

So I waited. For the end. For something better than the life I knew.

I
didn’t die that night. It didn’t matter that I wanted to. That I was tired of fighting to survive. That life had lost its joy. That love had gone.

Death can be cruel like that. It comes when you don’t expect it. Eludes you when you’re ready for it. It can be sudden or slow. It takes both young and old. Strong and weak. The question is never ‘Will I die?’, but ‘
When
will I die?’ and ‘
How
?’

I had a lot of time to think as I waited for the final sleep that never came. And one thing that I began to wonder was what happens when you die. Do you go someplace else? Do you simply stop ... being?

I had seen Ray, Cam, and Bit after they died and they were as real as the living. Ray sitting in Estelle’s Buick the day of the funeral. Cam crouched in the back of Ned’s truck. Bit frolicking around the barnyard in the moonlight. Had I just imagined them? I lay awake all night long, thinking about it, wondering how it was that I could see them at all. Maybe no one else could?

That night it turned bitterly cold. Pressed against the back inside of my doghouse, I shivered myself to utter exhaustion, sleep coming in snatches. I dreamt of Cam and Ray, tending to the cattle in the chutes. I dreamt of Bit, rolling in the grass, a Frisbee clamped in her mouth. I dreamt of my earliest days, nestled between my mother’s forelegs, her breath tickling my whiskers. I dreamt of yellow tennis balls and squeaky stuffed squirrels. Of my brothers and sisters. Of Hunter and Lise. Of home. And family.

Then morning came. And Ned’s rust-pocked truck backfired as it came down the driveway. I retreated deep within my plastic doghouse.

“Aw shhh—!” He slammed the truck door so hard his front bumper rattled. Muttering curses, he stormed into the garage and came out with a shovel. Then he turned the wheelbarrow over and rolled it over to Bit. He grabbed her stiff legs and slung her inside the wheelbarrow. “God dang, stupid dog. Musta got into the rat poison. Just cost me five hundred bucks. There goes my gambling weekend. Well then, I guess the price on the other’n just went up.”

He wheeled her to the back corner of the barn, dug a shallow grave, tossed her in it, and covered it up with loose clods of soil and the remains of the manure pile. Then he went inside the house, but not before he gave me a heaping bowl of dog food and a fresh bucket of water. I waited until he was out of sight before venturing out and ate slowly, mindful to let my stomach settle before I ate more, remembering how I’d made myself sick the last time. I lapped at the water, letting its wetness refresh me from the inside out.

I still had my head in the bucket when I heard the smooth putter of another truck engine. A big white truck, gleaming in the faint winter sunlight, pulled up next to the house. A tall old man in a red fleece jacket knocked on the door. Ned stepped out and motioned him in my direction.

My first instinct was to hide. Strangers were bad news. I didn’t trust them. But as he moved my way, I could see there was an unassuming ease to his stride, a gentleness in his movement.

“The other’n snuck past me and ran away not two days ago,” Ned said as he hurried to catch up to the old man’s long steps. “Spent half the day looking for her. Neighbor said he saw her out by the parkway. Sure ‘nough, I found her flattened by the side of the road between here and there. Shame about her getting hit like that, ain’t it? Good dog like that.”

We sized each other up, the old man and I, while Ned blathered on.

“— know you was thinking of taking both of them, but, well, seein’ as how there’s only the one left, I figured I might keep her to myself. But maybe, y’know, if you really wanted her, I could part with her. For a price.”

The old man turned around slowly. A smile spread over his mouth, folding the finer wrinkles on his face into deep crevices. “Now Mr. Hanson, I know that dog belongs to Mrs. McHugh, or more rightly her daughter-in-law. She was never yours to barter.” At that, Ned’s features hardened. The old man tilted his head, his twinkling blue eyes never wandering from Ned’s face. His voice was so soft, his words so slow and measured, it forced Ned to pay attention. “Ray once told me he’d give me a pup for helping him out, but I never thought to take him up on it. That’s just what we neighbors do. We help each other. And I’m helping the McHughs now by taking this dog with me.”

A tic developed in Ned’s jaw muscle. He jangled the keys in his pocket, one shoulder jerking in a half-shrug. “Umm, guess I could’ve misunderstood Mrs. McHugh, but it was my understanding the dogs were my payment for taking care of the place. Been here every day for months, sometimes two or three times a day, making sure everything —”

“I may be older than dirt, son, but I can see. This dog here, Halo is it?” — he glanced at me — “she hasn’t been looked after properly. Poor thing’s a good seven or eight pounds underweight, maybe ten. And for a dog her size, that’s a heck of a lot. Had you taken better care of the dogs, not lost the one, if indeed that’s what happened, I might’ve offered to pay you for their care.”

The old man hunkered down before me, slipped his fingers through the links. I approached cautiously, sniffed him, then backed away. I wanted to trust him, but ...

He pulled his fingers back, stood, then opened the kennel door and slipped inside.

“I, uh,” Ned said, as he kicked broken bits of ice across the barnyard, “did pay for their dog food out of my own pocket.”

“Were you saving it for a special occasion?” The old man’s joints cracked as he knelt down, one knee sinking into a dirty puddle.

“Huh?”

“Doesn’t look to me like she’s been fed for days.” His spotted hand slid into his pocket and brought out something long and skinny in a crinkly plastic wrapper. He tore the wrapper with his teeth, then tugged it down and broke off a piece. “’Sides, I talked to Estelle McHugh just this morning. Told me she left you a rather generous check.”

Ned slapped his thigh. “Ohhh, yeah. That’s right. Plumb forgot about it. Still in the pocket of my other jacket, I think.”

My nose twitched as the scent of the food the old man offered wafted to me. It reminded me of the sausage links Lise used to make for Cam and Hunter on Sunday mornings.

“Here.” The old man extended his hand. In the flat of his palm lay a small brown piece of sausage-like food. “Slim Jims. Had an old dog named Luke who used to love these.”

I looked past his outstretched arm at his face, all creased like a wad of paper. His eyes were the same sky blue that plays off a bank of snow when the sun strikes it. His brows were winter white, each wiry strand going in a different direction. His head, fringed in the same white, was bald on top.

He reached his hand out one more inch. I looked at the treat, then at him, then at Ned, scowling at me with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

I still didn’t trust strangers. But I was smart enough to know I’d be better off with the old man than with Ned Hanson, whose carelessness had killed my mother.

Cautiously, I took the treat. He gave me more and gently clipped a leash onto my loose collar.

Like I said, a lot can happen in a day. Sometimes, it doesn’t seem like much at the time, but when you look back at it, your whole life can turn on one decision, one action.

And one person ... just one person can make your life heaven or hell.

—o00o—

His name was Cecil Penewit, but to me he was always the Old Man, because, well, that’s what he was. He lived alone, you see, so there was never anyone to call him by name. The house he lived in was small, with only two bedrooms and a kitchen that also served as his dining room and office, and he didn’t own much in the way of furniture or knickknacks. Cam and Lise’s house was always cluttered with toys and family pictures. Ray and Estelle’s home had been filled with old furniture, oiled to a shine monthly, and they even had a row of pictures with matching frames in the hallway. But the Old Man kept just one picture in a gold frame on his bedroom dresser. It was in black and white and it was of a woman much younger than him. She had a smile like Mona Lisa and a bob of dark waves that framed her strong face. I don’t know if the woman had once been his wife, his girlfriend, or perhaps his sister, but every once in awhile as he passed the picture, he’d touch the glass over her face and speak to her as if she were there beside him.

“You’d like this one, Sarah,” he said. “Bit shy, but she’s a beaut, all right. Reminds me of our first one, Shadow. I’m hoping she takes an interest in the woolies. And, if she doesn’t, well ... it doesn’t matter, does it? Sometimes an old man just needs a little company.”

I looked around the corner of the doorframe at him, feeling unusually bold. It had been months since I’d been inside and I intended to find out where the registers were so I could keep warm.

“Ssscat,” he hissed at me. “Back to the kitchen with you. You’ll have to earn your keep here and the first day you come inside belly-deep in mud don’t you dare think of stepping foot past that doorway again. Now get back there.” He shooed me away with a flick of his pale long-fingered hand and I retreated to the kitchen.

Just as I curled beneath the table, where he had put down an old sheet, I heard him mumble, “Bath tomorrow for you. I suppose the outdoor hose is out of the question, seeing as how it’s still winter and all.”

I shuddered at the thought of standing in a tub, dripping wet, while he sudsed me with shampoo smelling of citrus fruit. And yet, the more I considered it, the more it seemed a small price to pay for being warm and clean and sleeping indoors.

That was the last thing he said to me that night. I soon learned he didn’t say much most of the time. Not even to me. He didn’t need to, really. He was so easy to understand.

F
rom the beginning, our relationship was very clear and uncomplicated. I was his silent companion and soon to be his working partner — but he never rushed the point. The Old Man had limitless patience. That’s the difference between youth and age. When you’re young, you think everything has to be done now and that you have far too many things to do than you can ever get done. When you’re old, you realize most things aren’t as important as you’d like to think and that there’s always tomorrow, until ... until there just isn’t, anymore.

While his house was small, the bank barn next to it was ten times the size. The barn had been built into a manmade hill, so a tractor or truck could be driven to the upper level and unloaded. In the barn’s second story was a loft, stacked with sweet-smelling hay and golden straw, and below were rows and rows of sheep pens, some big, some small. He kept two kinds of sheep: Barbados Blackbelly and Suffolks. He never mixed the two and I quickly learned how different in behavior they were.

At first, he just let me follow along. Well, not quite ‘follow’, because I had to go wherever he did. He kept a leash on me, he told me, until he was certain I knew my place was beside him. I never balked when he snapped the leash on. I was well fed, warm and even clean — although I had never quite appreciated how good a bath could make me feel until I had lived in filth for far too long.

Days became weeks; weeks became months. There was a rhythm to our routine that brought with it a sense of peace and purpose. Every morning he rose before first light and made sure my bowl was full before he sat down to his cup of coffee and buttered toast. Sometimes, there was even a raw egg on my kibble. Then we did chores until lunchtime, which meant a ham sandwich for him and a heel of bread for me. After that, more chores and occasionally an errand into town. In the evenings, he let me lick his plate clean. My ribs filled out and my fur became full and glossy again. Every day, the ritual was the same, no matter what day of the week it was. Animals, he said, did not go on holiday. A farmer’s work was never-ending. Cam had said the same thing more than once.

I trailed after him as he fed the sheep, cleaned their watering troughs, and scooped out manure. He did his chores without complaint and with a vigor that belied his years. Some of the sheep’s bellies grew big and fat on the hay he fed them and before that first winter had retreated in full, we were greeted one morning to a pair of little black-faced twins standing on wobbly legs beside their mother. Curious, I pressed my nose between the wires of the fence. The ewe stomped an angry hoof at me in warning. I growled softly at her and stood my ground.