Sable

by Karen Hesse

  Mam and Pap hadn’t said I could keep her.

  But they hadn’t said I couldn’t, either.

  4 / Sable’s Bad Habit

  The next morning I woke as the smell of perking coffee needled the house. Pap snored in the next room and Mam sang country in the shower. I pulled on my overalls and raced to the shop.

  Sable met me at the door, wagging her tail and sniffing my hands. “Good girl,” I said, checking for messes and not finding any. I hugged her and led her outside.

  “Want some breakfast?” I asked.

  Sable sat on the back porch in the frosty morning, watching me through the storm door while I soaked some bread in milk.

  She bolted down the soggy bread and sat waiting for more.

  How could I leave her and go off to school? I wouldn’t mind staying home. But I knew Mam and Pap wouldn’t let me. Sometimes Pap took me along when he delivered a job out of town. He’d let me skip school for that, but not for a dog.

  I looked at Sable and considered tying her. If I tied her, she’d surely be waiting for me when I got home. But then I thought about Raye Cather’s dogs. Those dogs lay in their own mess, day in, day out. I couldn’t do that to Sable.

  “Don’t run off while I’m gone today,” I told her as we walked down the drive to the bus stop. “I’ll be back at three. I promise.”

  Sable wagged her tail in the crinkly leaves, looking right at me. “When I get home, Sable, I’ll feed you dog food from a can, and I’ll teach you to sit.”

  Sable already sat pretty well on her own, but only when she felt like sitting.

  The bus screeched to a stop in front of the driveway. Sable sat, watching, as I climbed the steps.

  “Got yourself a dog?” the driver asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  I hurried down the aisle to the back of the bus so I could see Sable out the rear window. Just before we turned the bend in front of the Cobbs’, Sable lay down in the dust of our driveway, resting her head on her paws.

  I couldn’t stay fixed on my schoolwork that day, wondering if I’d find her when I got home. During recess I worked it out with Tom. I’d dust and sweep the store in exchange for dog food. Now, at least, I’d be able to feed Sable.

  On the way home I strained my neck, trying to see our driveway as we came around the corner. If hoping could make a thing happen, Sable would surely be there. And then she was there, waiting at the bus stop for me, just where I’d left her.

  She waited for me that first day. And the second too. She waited the whole first week. She was always there, sitting in the middle of our driveway, watching the bus pull up, wagging her tail.

  I almost stopped worrying about her running off when one morning, after she’d been with us a few weeks, instead of lying down like she usually did, Sable started running after the bus, trying to catch up. I watched, helpless, from the rear window as she sprinted down the road. She stayed close behind us, too, until we turned onto Route 30 and picked up speed.

  I never was the best student to begin with. But that day I couldn’t keep my mind on anything, knowing she might get hit by a car. Or wander so far she couldn’t find her way back.

  When I got home that afternoon, Sable wasn’t at the bus stop to meet me. The sky hung low over the valley, heavy with snow. She might die, lost outside in the harsh weather.

  I searched for her in Pap’s shop, and at the secret place. I searched along the road, and down the river. My voice nearly gave out from calling her.

  She came home, finally, when she was good and ready, after I’d wound myself tighter than a rope swing. She showed up at dusk, wagging her tail in a big circle, carrying an old rubber boot between her teeth.

  I told her “no” and threw the boot into the woods. She started chasing after it, but I called her back and fed her supper.

  I’d hoped that would end her wandering, but it didn’t. She kept it up almost every day, taking off for hours, dragging junk home with her when she returned.

  Once she brought a frozen wedge of chocolate cake. With the big chunk hanging from her mouth, she pranced into the yard, leaving a trail of dog prints in the fresh snow.

  At first I laughed, watching her with that huge piece of cake hanging from her face.

  Then I saw Mam.

  Mam yelled out the storm door at Sable, and Sable took off, heading up the path toward the secret place. I ran after her.

  “Sable,” I said. “You’ve got to stop this.”

  Sable bowed down on her front legs and dropped the cake. She barked, her rear end wagging up high in the icy air. She wanted to play.

  “No, Sable,” I said.

  I called her over to where I sat on the stone foundation, the cold stabbing up through my bottom. Sable trotted over and rested her head on my leg.

  “Listen to me, Sable,” I said, chewing on my lip. “Mam’s not crazy about you to begin with. If you’re not perfect, absolutely perfect, I don’t know what she’ll do.” I ran my gloved hand over Sable’s head and down her ears. “Sable, you’ve got to be good.”

  Sable’s eyes searched my face. She panted softly.

  “What’s the matter, girl?” I asked. “Don’t I feed you right? Don’t I take good care of you?”

  Sable wagged her tail so hard her whole back end wagged with it. She looked at me with those dark eyes, her fuzzy brows rippling.

  She didn’t mean any harm. All she was doing, really, was bringing us presents.

  But Mam didn’t see it that way.

  When I came back to the house after putting Sable in the shop for the night, Mam served up a lecture. She’d been simmering it all afternoon.

  “I don’t know why I let you keep that dog in the first place,” she said. “She’s nothing but trouble. Imagine, stealing good food.”

  I sat at the kitchen table, chasing a crumb around with my fingertip.

  “If you can’t break her stealing, Tate,” Mam said, “she has to go.”

  “No!” I cried.

  Pap said, “Why don’t you tie her, Tate?”

  “Pap! We can’t tie her. Sable’s not like Raye Cather’s dogs.”

  “Then teach her to stay,” Pap said.

  * * *

  All my spare time I worked with Sable. I filled my coat pockets with Mam’s sparkle cookies. If Sable did good, she got a piece of cookie right then and there.

  But it took a whole day teaching her to stay behind the house while I went around front. And she never really learned that right.

  “Stay, Sable,” I commanded, in a voice as firm as Mam’s.

  “Stay,” I repeated, walking backward around the side of the house.

  Sable would stay for a minute, maybe. Then, all of a sudden, she’d burst around the corner of the house. As soon as she caught sight of me, she started jumping and barking and wagging her tail. She snuffled inside my pockets.

  “No treat, Sable!” I cried, refusing to give her a cookie. “It doesn’t count unless you stay till you’re called.”

  Sable cocked her head to one side, sort of smiling at me, green sparkles on her nose and crumbs in her whiskers.

  “Oh, all right,” I said, giving in and feeding her a cookie. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

  But I couldn’t be with her all the time. I had homework and my chores. And then there was the dusting and stuff I did for Tom at the general store to pay Sable’s keep.

  I couldn’t expect Mam to keep track of her. Sable didn’t scare Mam so much anymore. Mam just plain didn’t like her. And she didn’t like my working at the general store, either. She said, “You’re up there cleaning for Tom, but you don’t lift a finger to help me.”

  I don’t know what Mam needed my help for. She did fine on her own. Besides, I didn’t like Mam’s work. I liked Pap’s work.

  I considered asking Pap if he’d watch Sable. But Pap was already doing plenty, just letting Sable stay in the shop with him at night. He had a ton of orders to fill over the winter. Long after I fell into bed, I would
gaze across the yard at the shop window. Pap moved in and out of view, working late.

  The light from Pap’s window soothed the dark. It spilled, warm and bright, across the silent, snowy yard. I imagined Sable twitching in her box, dreaming her dog dreams. After a while, Pap’s machines always sang me to sleep.

  * * *

  “I’m taking Sable up to the secret place,” I told Mam after school one frigid day in February.

  Mam said, “It’s too cold out there today, Tate. I want you to stay in.”

  “I’m dressed warm,” I said, stepping onto the porch.

  I caught sight of a garden basket with a broken handle at the edge of the yard. It didn’t belong to us. I moved it before Mam saw it, too.

  The cold pinched my nose and made my eyes crinkle when I blinked. Before Sable, I would have stayed inside on a day like this, but I had too much fun outside with Sable to let a little cold stop me.

  The thick layers of snow clothes slowed me down as I plowed my way through the newest drifts. Sable raced far ahead of me, then doubled back, spraying snow in my face as she slid to a stop.

  She ran circles around me, barking so much the echo brought snow down off the pine trees. Sable chased the snow as it fell, barking like a hammer blow, making more snow come down.

  “Sable,” I said, “you make winter perfect.”

  Except when you disappear, I thought. And drag trash back from half the valley.

  5 / Stop, Sable!

  Mrs. Elliot from the board of selectmen phoned to say there’d been complaints about Sable.

  “Who complained?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Mam snapped. “She’s bothering folks. That’s all you need to know.”

  “I want to know who complained!”

  “You just cool off, Tate Marshall,” Mam said.

  “No, I won’t!” I stomped out of the kitchen onto the porch. Sitting on the cold step, I nearly froze my backside. My feet cramped as the chill crept up through my boots.

  Sable sat beside me, her brown fur warm in the sun.

  I put my arm across her back and leaned into her side.

  “What kind of neighbor complains about a dog?” I asked. “It’s not like other dogs never come on our property. They get into the compost and dig up the garden. But we never complain.”

  Sable panted softly, staring off into the snowy woods.

  Mam turned on the radio loud. Pots and pans clanked in the kitchen.

  When Pap came in for a cup of coffee, Mam gave him an earful.

  Pap listened, hardly saying a word. When Mam’s storm had blown itself out, Pap left the kitchen, heading straight for the shed. He found a heavy chain, hanging against the back wall. Pap hooked one end of that chain to the side of the shop. He hooked the other end to Sable.

  I couldn’t look at her. Sable wasn’t a dog you chained. Pap and Mam were treating her like Raye Cather treated her dogs. Sable pleaded with me to set her loose. I didn’t dare. When I left in the morning for school, she howled so pitiful, it made my teeth hurt.

  By the end of the week, though, Sable figured out how to get loose all by herself. Once she discovered the trick of freeing herself from the chain, she wasted no time in finding trouble again.

  The day Sable brought home a brand-new mat that people use to wipe their feet on, Mam blew.

  “Get rid of that dog,” she said.

  “No!” I cried, wrapping my arms around Sable.

  “It’s too much, Tate,” Pap said. He spoke so soft, I could hardly hear him. “We can’t keep her anymore.”

  “I’ll tie her up, Pap,” I said. “I’ll tie her up so good she’ll never get loose.”

  “You know you won’t,” Pap said. “She needs someone with her all the time. She needs training. At the very least, she needs a good fence.”

  “We could build a fence, Pap. Together.”

  Mam shook her head. “I’ve put up with her long enough, Tate. The dog’s nothing but trouble. She’s got to go.”

  “No, Mam! Pap! Please!”

  Mam turned her tall back on me and picked up the phone, calling neighbors, trying to find out who the mat belonged to.

  I ran with Sable up to the secret place, without a coat even. Sable sat close beside me.

  “You’ve gotten yourself into hot water with Mam before,” I told Sable. “It’ll be all right. I’m sure it will.” But my heart beat so hard, I could see it thumping through my overalls.

  “Maybe Mam will forget about that mat after a while, Sable.”

  Sable pushed her nose down my neck.

  “Anyway,” I said. “That’s what we’ll hope for.”

  6 / A Trip

  Two weeks later, Pap had cabinets to deliver to a doctor in Concord, New Hampshire. He said I could skip school and come along.

  “Bring the dog, too, Tate,” Pap said, loading cabinets into the truck.

  “Sable’s coming?” I asked. Sable never rode in Pap’s truck.

  “Yup,” Pap said.

  When I unchained her from the shop, Sable ran in giant figure eights, all around the yard. I had some work getting her into the cab. I had to grab her by her braided collar and sort of haul her on in. That square knot I had tied held tighter than a stuck lid.

  * * *

  It was April and large patches of snow still dotted our property, but the dirt roads were thawing and that meant mud.

  Sable panted in the sun-steeped truck. I opened my window a bit and she pushed her nose out, sniffing the spicy air. Sable sat beside me in the cab, her two front paws pressing into my legs. She sure wasn’t skinny anymore.

  “Ouch, Sable,” I said, pushing her off of me.

  Sable brought her head back inside the truck. Her tongue wiped across my cheek, leaving a sloppy wet streak. She snuffled the inside of my ear.

  “Good dog,” I said, stroking the soft white blaze on her chest.

  * * *

  Pap installed the new cabinets for Doc Winston while Sable and I chased chipmunks and frogs on the doctor’s property. It might have been mud season in Vermont, but at Doc Winston’s, the forsythia bloomed and the green grass made a soft mat under my boots.

  A stone wall, taller than I was, wrapped around Doc Winston’s land. He had a pond stocked with goldfish, and gardens, and a forest of pine trees. Our place and most of Mr. Cobb’s would fit inside Doc Winston’s walls. He even had a scrolly gate at the end of his driveway.

  Sable and I didn’t have enough time to explore half of it before Pap had finished.

  “That’s a fine dog you have,” Doc Winston said, admiring Sable as he walked out with Pap toward the truck. Sable shot across the grass, smooth and sleek, chasing a rabbit.

  “She’s good company, all right,” Pap answered, squinting after her. “It’s a shame we can’t keep her.”

  “Oh?” Doc Winston asked.

  “She wanders sometimes,” Pap said.

  Pap whistled and Sable stopped chasing the rabbit. She turned and thundered over, coming to sit on the grass between me and Pap, panting.

  “Wanders?” Doc Winston asked. “Couldn’t you put in a fence?”

  I looked at Pap.

  Pap shook his head. “A fence big enough for this dog? Yours would do fine, but you’ve seen her run, Doc. It wouldn’t be fair, shutting a dog like this up in anything smaller…” Pap’s voice trailed off. I’d watched Pap play cards with Mr. Cobb and all. Something about the way Pap talked to Doc Winston felt like cardplaying.

  “I can see she’d work wonders keeping down the rabbit population. She any good as a watchdog?” Doc Winston asked.

  “Sure is,” Pap answered. “She knows how to keep her eye on things, doesn’t she, Tate?”

  I had a real uneasy feeling about what was happening here.

  “Look, if you’re really thinking about giving her up,” Doc Winston said, “I might take her.”

  Something twisted inside me.

  “Would you?” Pap asked.

  “Pap!”

&
nbsp; “Listen, Tate,” Pap said. “We couldn’t find a better home for her than here.”

  “I’ve been thinking about getting another dog. It’s been years since we lost Damon,” Doc Winston said.

  Pap nodded.

  “You wouldn’t need to worry about her, Tate,” Doc Winston told me. “And you could come back to visit her anytime.”

  Black specks floated in front of my eyes. Come back to visit her! She was my dog!

  “What do you think, Sable?” Doc Winston asked, stooping down. “You want to stay? You’d have a good home here. Plenty room to run.”

  I turned and glared at Pap.

  Sable sat panting softly in the green grass, surrounded by Doc Winston’s land. She held her sleek brown head high, gazing into the distance.

  “Good dog,” Doc Winston said, running an admiring hand down her.

  I couldn’t watch anymore. I ran to Pap’s truck and slammed myself inside.

  Pap had planned on leaving Sable here all along.

  Pap poked his head inside the truck cab. “Come say good-bye to her, Tate.”

  I bit my lip and swallowed. “No, sir,” I said.

  As we backed out of the driveway, Sable trotted along beside us. Her head tilted to one side as Doc Winston closed the gate, locking her in. When we disappeared around the corner, Sable started barking like crazy.

  I squeezed against my side of the truck cab, digging my fingernails into my palms.

  The muscles worked up and down in Pap’s jaw, but he kept on driving.

  7 / The Empty Bed

  I shut myself up in my room and wouldn’t come out. Right about then I hated Mam and Pap. I really did.

  “Why don’t you see how Pap’s doing in the shop?” Mam said, coming into my room that evening after supper, a supper I had refused to eat.

  “I don’t care to,” I answered.

  Mam looked like she wanted to argue, but then she changed her mind and went back to the kitchen.