by Karen Hesse
Pap came in and asked if I’d like helping him on a project in the shop.
Pap’s asking like that made me angrier than ever.
I turned my head to the wall. “You never asked me to help before.”
Why did he have to ask now? Now, when he knew I wouldn’t!
When I finally left my room for school on Monday morning, I found Sable’s empty bed off in the corner of Pap’s shop, on top of a tall pile of stickers. Grandmam’s blanket, newly washed, hung on the line, drying. I lifted the box and carried it gently back to the shed, tucking it away where it would be safe.
That’s when I decided. I could make a fence good as Doc Winston’s.
That afternoon I sorted through Pap’s stickers, picking out the best ones. It took ten trips, carrying all that wood behind the shop. Mam’s cat watched from the back porch.
After busting open a couple garbage bags, I slithered around in the crawl space under the shed, spreading the bags out. That plastic would keep the damp earth from rotting the stickers till I was ready to use them.
With Sable gone, I didn’t need money for food anymore, but I kept working at Tom’s anyway, saving for a hammer, nails, a saw. I bought the saw first, using it to cut sharp points on the ends of the stickers.
By late May, I had the other things I needed too.
* * *
Dragging the sticks out from under the shed, I carried an armful at a time across the yard.
I dropped each load with a clatter near the path to the secret place.
“What are you up to, Tate?” Pap asked.
“I’m building a fence, sir,” I said.
“What you building a fence in the middle of the yard for?” Pap asked.
“’Cause we need one here,” I said.
I started by laying long pieces of wood end to end on the ground until I had outlined a run big enough for Sable. Spreading the stickers out along the frame, I began hammering, two nails at the top of each stick. I bent plenty nails, but that was all right. Sometimes I missed the nail and hit the ground, or I’d hit the wood and mess up the row of stickers not yet nailed down. Sometimes I smashed my thumb.
But slowly, the sections came together. When I finished hammering the last one, they looked like big hair combs laying there.
Now I needed to stand the sections up and drive them into the ground.
I lifted the first piece and started pounding. Immediately, I hit rock.
Digging out smaller stones, I lugged them over to Pap’s rock pile. But some were just too big to move. I shifted the fence sections instead, and tried again in softer ground till I got them standing.
With the last section though, I hit more than rock. I struck ledge.
“I’ll just make the gate out of this piece,” I decided, “where Sable can go in and out.” With rope, I tied one end to a section I already had standing. On the opposite end, I screwed in a hook and eye. It took some tinkering, but I made a gate out of it.
For days I worked, whipping those stickers into a fence. My hands filled with splinters and blisters. My thumbnail turned black. Every part of me ached.
But in the end, when I stepped back and looked, I’d done a good job. It had to be good. It was for Sable.
8 / The Runaway
Pap and Mam planned a trip to Hartford to visit Aunt Aurelia. I wasn’t going. Aunt Aurelia kept a stash of candy in her pantry. That part I liked. But she always made me sit on the itchy sofa with her and talk about school. And she kept the temperature in her house hotter than July.
I had other plans.
“I guess you’re old enough to stay on your own for a while,” Pap said.
I listened for the sound of the truck engine firing up. Seemed like it took Mam and Pap half the morning to leave. Finally I heard the crunch of gravel under tires. I saw the dust kicked up behind them as they turned onto the road.
Now it was my turn. I was going to Concord to get Sable.
I had been walking for fifteen minutes, maybe, when Elton Cobb pulled up alongside me.
“Where you heading, Tate Marshall?” Mr. Cobb asked.
“Clear to Concord,” I said. “To fetch my dog.”
“Your folks know about this?” Mr. Cobb asked.
“No, sir,” I said.
“Get in, Tate,” Mr. Cobb said.
He drove me back home.
“Where are your folks?” he asked when he pulled into the empty drive.
“Off to Hartford,” I said. “Visiting family.”
“You look like you mean to get back on the road as soon as I drive away, Tate.”
“I do, sir.”
“Look. I have business in Concord on Tuesday,” Mr. Cobb said. “You get permission from your folks and I’ll take you with me. We’ll drop in on that dog of yours.”
“Yes, sir!” I said.
I spent the rest of the day counting how many hours there were between now and Tuesday. I was going to Concord.
* * *
Mam and Pap pulled in a little after seven that night, hours later than I’d expected. I’d already done my chores and fed Eden. I wasn’t hungry myself. My stomach kept fizzing up at the thought of bringing Sable home.
Mam and Pap sat at the kitchen table, looking exhausted.
“What took you so long?” I asked.
“Aunt Aurelia didn’t recognize us,” Pap explained. “She wouldn’t let us in.”
Pap cleaned his fingernails with the blade of his pocketknife as he spoke. “She thought Mam was from some agency,” Pap said, grinning.
“I’m beat,” Mam said, scowling at the stove.
I knew this wasn’t the best time to be asking about Sable. I should have let them settle down. But I couldn’t help myself.
“Could we bring Sable back now?” I asked.
Pap spread his hands out on the tablecloth and studied them, sighing.
“I built a fence, Pap.”
“There’s other things you could have done around here a lot more useful than that,” Mam said.
Mam and I glared at each other.
Then she dragged herself out of her chair. “I’ll fry up some eggs for supper.”
I had to make Mam understand how important it was to me, bringing Sable back.
“You sit down, Mam,” I ordered. “I’ll cook dinner tonight.”
Mam gave me a funny look, but she settled back into her seat.
I fried up potatoes and onions, eggs and ham.
Pap made soft noises as he ate, dipping his bread into a puddle of egg yolk.
“Thank you, Tate,” Mam said, finishing the last of the potatoes. She wiped her mouth with a napkin. “That was real good.”
“My fence is good, too,” I said.
Pap sighed.
“Can I at least go down and visit her? Doc Winston said to come anytime.”
They stared at me.
“Mr. Cobb will drive me. He said he’d drive me on Tuesday if you gave permission.”
Pap rested his hand over top of Mam’s. She studied me a minute, then she nodded.
Pap sat back in his chair. I poured out two cups of strong coffee, and set one down in front of each of them.
9 / The Storm
I tested my fence once more before I headed over to Mr. Cobb’s house.
The sun chinned itself over the mountain. The trees above the ridge swayed, a high wind tossing them, but it was windless and hot down in the valley. I sat on Mr. Cobb’s porch steps, waiting.
The Cobbs’ hound, Truman, sat on the steps beside me.
“Morning, Tate,” Mrs. Cobb said, coming out onto the porch. Truman got up, tail wagging, and waddled over to her.
Mrs. Cobb had already set the coffee to perk on her woodstove. She had bacon sizzling in the pan. “You care for some breakfast?”
“No, ma’am,” I said, watching Truman follow on her heels. “I’m just waiting on Mr. Cobb.”
* * *
“You got directions to that doctor’s house?” Mr. Cobb asked as
we wove our way over the mountain and turned onto Route 9.
He drove real slow, slow enough I could have run alongside and got there faster. Mr. Cobb’s driving nearly drove me crazy. I just wanted to get to Concord, to Sable.
“Yes, sir,” I said, bringing out the paper Pap had sketched a map on last night. I smoothed the directions out on Mr. Cobb’s dashboard.
“I don’t like the look of that sky,” Mr. Cobb said. “See if you can tune in some weather, Tate.”
I fiddled with Mr. Cobb’s radio. I couldn’t get much more than static.
The sky had turned yellow and still. Nothing moved in it. No birds, no clouds. You couldn’t see the sun. Just a pale yellow sky. Made me feel twitchy in the stomach.
Mr. Cobb got us close to Concord, then followed Pap’s directions. Suddenly I recognized a stand of pine. And then the beginning of Doc Winston’s fence.
“That’s it,” I said.
“Good. This storm looks nasty. I don’t want to be driving in it someplace I don’t know.”
* * *
Mr. Cobb parked outside the gate. I opened my car door. The hair stood up on my arms. It was still as death outside Doc Winston’s house. I heard no barking. Peering through the gate, my eyes searched for signs of Sable.
As I stood there, the sky opened. In a moment my overalls and T-shirt were soaking wet. Rain beat down through my hair and trickled along my scalp.
“Get back in the car, Tate,” Mr. Cobb called.
“No, sir!” I cried.
I opened the gate and slipped through, calling for Sable.
Sable didn’t come. Maybe Doc Winston had her in the house.
I rang the bell. Doc Winston opened his front door and motioned me inside.
Standing in his front hall, I dripped onto the pale patterned rug.
It took a while for me to explain who I was and what I was doing there.
“You’ve come looking for the dog?” Doc Winston asked.
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Sable.”
“Why, she’s been gone for weeks,” Doc Winston said. “I’m so sorry you didn’t call before coming all this way.”
“She’s gone?” I asked.
Doc Winston nodded. “She just took off one day and never came back.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I thought it would just upset you,” Doc Winston said. “Besides, your knowing wouldn’t have brought her back.”
“You lost her!” I cried. “You lost Sable.”
“Come into the kitchen, honey,” Doc Winston said. “Let me give you something warm to drink.”
“No!” I cried. “I mean, no. Thank you, sir. Mr. Cobb’s waiting for me out in the car. I have to go.”
I looked back at Doc Winston before stepping out into the rain. “If you see her you’ll call, won’t you?”
Doc Winston nodded.
I stumbled back to Mr. Cobb’s car. The water streamed down my neck and my back and filled my shoes. My feet squished as I walked. I couldn’t have been wetter if I’d laid down fully dressed in a tub of water.
Mr. Cobb kept the heater running while he took care of his business in Concord.
We had to stop a lot on the way home because of branches down in the road. Mr. Cobb would put on the brake and I’d get out and drag the fallen limbs to the side so we could pass. Some of those branches weighed more than I did, but getting in and out of the car was hard on Mr. Cobb, so I took care of it.
I still hadn’t said a word about Sable when our driveway came into view, but I guess Mr. Cobb knew pretty much how things had gone.
“Sorry the day didn’t turn out better for you, Tate,” Mr. Cobb said.
I just stared at my hands.
10 / Cleaning Up
It looked like a tornado had cut across our property. Mam’s willow lay in a mess of branches across the front yard. The shed behind Pap’s shop sprawled on its side. Mam’s clothesline was down. So was one of the power lines.
I ran toward the house, afraid something might have happened to Mam and Pap.
They flew out the kitchen door at the same time, onto the back porch, stopping when they saw me. They kind of leaned into each other at the top of the steps.
Mr. Cobb waited till I reached the porch. Then he tooted his horn once and waved good-bye.
“Glad you’re back,” Pap said.
I told Mam and Pap about the tree limbs down in the road. I told them about the yellow sky and the silence before the storm broke.
“Did you see Sable?” Pap asked.
“No, sir,” I said.
Mam and Pap looked at me, questioning.
“I’d rather not talk about it,” I said.
“Well,” Pap said, “I’ve got some cleaning up to do.”
“I do, too,” said Mam.
I looked across the yard. The fence I’d made for Sable still stood. All but one sticker. I’d built a good fence for Sable. Only there wasn’t any Sable to put inside it.
I turned to Mam and Pap. “How can I help?” I asked.
Pap put his hand on my shoulder and steered me toward the clothesline. After we got that restrung, we lifted the shed back on its foundation using the pickup truck and a winch and pulley. Some of the shed’s contents had blown around the yard. I gathered up everything still in one piece.
The box that once was Sable’s bed sat in a gully, against a rock. The cardboard had collapsed into a soggy mess. There was no saving it.
I started cleaning up willow branches, but Pap made me stay clear of them until the power company fixed the line.
As we walked across the backyard for the last time that day, Pap stooped and picked up the one fence post that had let go.
“You built a good fence, Tate Marshall,” Pap said.
“Yes, sir.”
“I didn’t know you could.” Pap looked up toward the mountains.
“No, sir,” I said. “I don’t believe you did.”
“Putting a fence in like that takes a lot of planning, a lot of hard work.”
“I did it for Sable, Pap.”
“I know, Tate.”
Pap handed me the broken fence post. I wrapped my arms around it like it was a baby.
11 / The Arrival Again
Then one day, in early summer, with the mountains deepening to a thick green, I listened as Pap’s saw hummed steadily across the yard. I was rinsing breakfast dishes for Mam, thinking about the project waiting for me over in the shop.
Pap had started teaching me his trade. He kept right on top of me when I used his machines, but he let me try more and more all the time.
Between the dishes and the saw, I didn’t hear the chug of a motor until the car had nearly reached the top of our driveway. Dust hovered in the thick air.
“Mam,” I called, recognizing the car through the screen door. “Looks like Mr. Cobb’s here for you.” With me taking over some of Mam’s chores around the house, Mam had started balancing Mr. Cobb’s books, the way she balanced Pap’s.
Mr. Cobb got out slowly and opened the back door of his car. He bent his scrawny legs and lifted something off the car seat.
Standing at the sink, looking over my shoulder, I felt my heart start slamming against my chest.
Eden slid off the porch and hid.
Mr. Cobb was talking real gentle as he set something down in front of him.
Moving a little to the side, he revealed a dog. A dark brown dog.
It can’t be Sable, I thought.
The dog swayed for a moment, trying to keep its balance. It stared down at the ground, like its head weighed too much to hold up. But one step at a time it came, limping up the path toward the porch.
“Mam!”
My heart nailed at my throat like it meant to stick there.
“Mam! I think it’s Sable.”
The screen door banged shut behind me as I flew outside.
I crouched down in front of the dog and held out my hand. The thin brown dog trembled. Her tail, tipped on the end
with white, waved once like a tired arm.
“Sable?”
I spoke gently. The dog took a step forward. She lifted her head. But she didn’t look straight at me. She had a braided twine collar, tied with a ratty square knot, hanging around her neck.
“Sable? It is you, isn’t it, girl!”
She wagged her tail.
Sable looked closer to death than she had the first time she’d wandered into our lives. I could count the ribs in her brown chest and the bones along her spine. Dried blood caked her paws, and she limped pretty bad.
“Tate?” Pap called from the door of his shop. “Tate, what’s going on?”
“Pap!” I called back. “Mr. Cobb found Sable!”
Pap’s long legs carried him quickly across the yard.
He crouched beside me.
Sable limped between the two of us and rested her muzzle on my arm. Pap’s fingers ran through her fur, watching for any sign of pain. Sable lifted her head, sniffing my hair.
“Sable,” I whispered.
She turned, and this time she looked straight at me. That same chocolate look, sweet and dark and shining.
“I was heading over the mountain just now when I saw her,” Mr. Cobb said. “It’s a good thing I wasn’t going too fast or I’d have hit her. Limping right down the center of the road, she was.”
Mr. Cobb’s driving had made me crazy the day I’d gone with him to Concord. It didn’t make me crazy anymore.
“Thank you, Elton,” Pap said. “I’m sure Tate’s glad to see her again.”
“I thought she might be,” Mr. Cobb said.
It looked to me like Pap didn’t mind seeing her again too much either.
And then the strangest thing happened.
Mam walked over, reached down her hand, and touched Sable.
Sable held so still, like she knew how hard it was, what Mam was doing.
Mam’s fingers spread slowly over Sable’s head, taking in the bones. Her tall back relaxed a little. She moved her fingertips down, inching toward Sable’s ears. Mam smiled as she touched those ears.
“I’ll just fetch the first-aid kit,” Pap said.
He turned as he went through the back door. “What do you think of that, Tate? Finding her way home, all the way from Concord.”
