A Dog's Way Home

by Bobbie Pyron

  Meemaw and I just sat there watching them, dumbfounded.

  Daddy scooped Mama up in his arms and twirled her around and around. Mama laughed and laughed. I did too.

  “We are Nashville bound!” Daddy whooped.

  “When?” Mama asked.

  “They want us there by January fifth,” Daddy said. “I figure we’ll try and get there no later than the first. That’ll give us time to get Abby settled into a new school and—”

  “Wait…what?” I gasped. “What do you mean, a new school?”

  Daddy looked at me like I was an idiot. Mama studied her shoes.

  “I think, Abby honey, your daddy means y’all are moving to Nashville,” Meemaw whispered.

  I looked from Meemaw to Mama to Daddy, shaking my head. “No, Daddy. I can’t. I can’t go.”

  Daddy pulled on the end of his nose. “Of course you’ll go, peanut. We’re a family and…”

  “No, Daddy!” I was shaking all over. “Tam’s on his way home! I have to be here for him!”

  “Now, Abby,” Daddy frowned. “It’s been almost three months. He’s gone, honey. It’s time to let go.”

  I jumped up so quick, my chair fell over backward. “He’s alive, Daddy! I can feel it! I been working real hard on my maps, and…and Meemaw saw him!”

  Mama shot Meemaw a look. Daddy looked like he wanted to be anywhere but in our dining room.

  I looked at the three of them all looking at me, my mouth opening and closing like a landlocked fish.

  Daddy took a step toward me, holding out his hand. “Come on, Abby,” he said.

  I slapped my napkin into my dinner plate, scattering peas every which way. “I. Won’t. Go. To. Nashville!” Then I bolted for my room.

  CHAPTER 18

  Tam

  Tam’s feet twitched in his sleep, a desperate woof slipping from his throat. The coyote cracked one eye open, then slipped back to shallow sleep.

  Tam rarely dreamed now about the girl or his home with her. Most times, his dreams were filled with chasing, or being chased. Bit by bit, Tam was forgetting his life before: before the car crash, the swirling creek, before the coyote, the snap of bone, the taste of fresh blood. Although Tam had traveled well over a hundred and thirty miles since he’d last been someone’s dog, the real distance was inside him.

  He still felt driven to go south. But like the coyote, he didn’t question the why of it; he just went where instinct led him. If the coyote had decided she no longer wanted to go south, or that it was best to head east or to stay put for the winter, Tam would have done that. Home, now, was being with her.

  It snowed hard for two days. Mid-December winds blew drifts of snow so deep, Tam had a difficult time shouldering his way through. He used precious energy just to make one or two miles. Hunting was difficult. Any extra weight Tam had put on during the Indian summer was melting away.

  The coyote was built for snow. Her wide paws splayed on the surface like snowshoes, allowing her to travel easily. Her narrow chest knifed through the deeper drifts. But like Tam, hunting proved difficult for her too. She and Tam had little fat to keep them warm as they slept beneath the low, deep boughs of a hemlock. They awoke hungry and went to sleep hungry.

  After several days, the two lay in the sun on a rock ledge overlooking a meadow. The snow had finally stopped.

  Tam closed his eyes against the glare of the sun on snow. His head tipped forward as he dozed.

  Suddenly the coyote tensed beside him. Tam opened his eyes and followed her gaze down to the edge of the trees on the far side of the meadow. There, a gray form ambled across the snow. Tam lifted his muzzle, catching the scent. It was not a scent he had met before. As he was about to lay his head down on his paws, the coyote slipped off the ledge, eyes fixed on the lumbering animal below.

  She moved with fluid silence. Keeping low and downwind, she swung to the left, skirting the edge of the forest. Tam sat up and watched with interest as she slipped up behind the creature. Tam expected her to arc high in the air and pounce, as she always did.

  Instead, the coyote barked. Tam jumped off the ledge and pushed his way through the snow. A chase would soon be on and the coyote would need him.

  The creature turned to face the coyote. Sun lit the black tips of the long, needlelike quills bristling from every inch of its body.

  The coyote darted forward, snapping at the face of the porcupine, the only part of its body not protected by quills. She and her brothers had learned the hard way about the sharp, stinging quills. They had also learned how sweet the meat of the tender belly of the porcupine is. The trick was to either crush the head in one snap or flip the porcupine over, exposing the unprotected belly.

  Tam barked his way down to the coyote and the porcupine.

  The porcupine swung her head to the side to see Tam.

  The coyote rushed in, snapping at the creature’s nose.

  The porcupine swung her tail. Quills raked the side of the coyote’s neck. She dodged most of them. One or two lodged harmlessly in the thick rough around her neck. She licked her lips, tasting the porcupine’s blood.

  Tam darted forward. He snapped at the porcupine’s side. He yelped and tumbled back, shaking his head. His face was full of quills.

  Tam’s attack was just enough distraction for the coyote. She rushed in, shoved her long muzzle beneath the porcupine, and flipped her onto her back. The quills stuck fast in the snow, pinning the porcupine to the ground. The coyote tore at the exposed throat, the belly.

  In seconds, it was over.

  Tam wiped furiously at the stinging barbs in his face. One pierced the tender side of his black nose. Several more hung from his chin and the side of his mouth. One had barely missed an eye. He managed to dislodge most of the quills by scrubbing his face with his paws. He rubbed his face in the wet snow to cool the terrible burning.

  The coyote tore open the underside of the dead porcupine. Tam wagged his tail. In her hunger, the coyote forgot herself and bared her teeth. Then, just as quickly, she pinned her ears back in apology, wagging her tail low.

  Tam had never tasted meat so warm and so sweet. He forgot the pain in his face. He ate until his shrunken belly could hold no more. They stripped the carcass clean. Later, when raven, then badger, then bobcat checked the carcass for any remaining meat or bones, they would find nothing on the snow but blood and quills.

  That night, their bellies were full. Warm inside the remains of an abandoned mill, the coyote worked all but one of the quills from Tam’s face with her tongue.

  For several days, Tam and the coyote made their way along faint logging roads. Wilderness yielded to small family farms, spread like patchwork quilts across the landscape. The orchards, gardens, and wood lots brought flashes of memory back to Tam again: deer browsing an orchard; an old woman talking as she bent among the plants in her garden. The memories filled Tam’s heart with a longing he could not name, pulling him toward the houses below.

  But the coyote was afraid. Something deep within her was frightened by the scent of people. As Tam coursed down the hill toward the farmstead beyond, the coyote called to him from the edge of the trees.

  A girl’s voice drifted up from inside the house. Tam hesitated. There had been another girl once, hadn’t there? Tam whined and took another step away from the coyote and toward the house.

  The coyote took one step, then another, away from the safety of the trees. Every nerve in her body told her to retreat, to hide. How could she follow? How could she not?

  Tam stopped and looked over his shoulder at his friend. He barked once for her to come.

  But as much as the coyote loved Tam, she could not follow. She sat down, threw her muzzle to the fading sky, and howled her misery.

  A screen door slammed in the house below. The sharp sound carried like gunshot. The coyote whirled and dashed for the forest.

  For a split second, Tam’s heart divided between the longing to be with his friend and the shadow of a girl.

  The coyote yip
ped from the woods. Without a backward glance, Tam turned and joined the coyote in the cover of the forest.

  CHAPTER 19

  Abby

  If I was to draw a map of that Christmas, it would look like this: rivers overflowing with unshed tears; bare, heartbroken trees without a single apple; no deer, no birds, and no songs. And one single, solitary house without a Christmas tree.

  Well, that’s not exactly right, I reckon. We did get a Christmas tree. Sort of. Before, Daddy and I would go way back in the forest on our land and cut our own. We made a real big deal of it too. And Tam was always right there with us, supervising the whole thing.

  But this year the big deal was moving. No time to spend the better part of the day wandering and singing, looking for just the right tree. Instead, we went into town, just like everybody else, and got a store-bought tree.

  As for that map, I couldn’t have drawn it anyway, even if I’d wanted to. I was too wore out. Wore out from doing my level best to convince Mama and Daddy to let me stay behind with Meemaw. Wore out from trying to convince Meemaw to convince Mama and Daddy that she needed me to stay behind.

  Remembering what Miss Peasly had said, I told her, “Meemaw, you can’t handle this place all by yourself. It’s too much for a woman alone. That’s why we came to live in your house in the first place.”

  “I appreciate your concern, child,” Meemaw said. “But your place is with your mama and daddy. I’ll be just fine.”

  Finally, I was purely worn out from saying too many good-byes.

  I said good-bye to my teacher, Mrs. Radley, and Principal Atticus when Mama and I went to pick up my school records. “I’ll miss you, Abby,” Mrs. Radley said. “You kept things interesting around here.”

  I said good-bye to Miss Eugenia Quatch, the librarian at the Balsam County Library, when I returned my library books. She smiled from behind her big wooden desk. “We had many spirited discussions about books, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, ma’am, we sure did.”

  “You tell Olivia to keep me informed of all your doings in the big city. And promise you’ll stop in and see me when you’re back in town?”

  I swallowed hard. “Yes, ma’am, I promise.”

  I said good-bye to each and every apple tree and thanked them for their goodness. I crept beneath the curtain of branches of the big willow tree on the banks of Clear Creek. “You always provided a cool, secret place for me and Tam in the summer.” The long, dry limbs rustled in reply. I looked up into the gnarled branches and said, “I surely do appreciate you letting me climb all over you and for not pitching me out onto the ground.”

  I said good-bye to Clear Creek and to our little pond, Lake Inferior, and to the front porch and the tire swing Daddy’d hung for me in the old oak tree when we first moved here.

  In the days before we left, Mama spent a lot of time in the barn with the llamas. Even though she knew that between Meemaw and Olivia and Olivia’s granddaddy they’d get more attention than they could stand, she still came into the house wiping at her eyes. She said it was from the cold, but I suspect she was saying her good-byes too. Mama loved those llamas more than anything.

  Olivia didn’t have a lot of patience for good-byes.

  “For heaven’s sake, Abby,” she said, when I complained for the millionth time that Mama and Daddy were unreasonable. “Of course you have to go with them.”

  “But Olivia, you know why I have to stay here! What if Tam comes back and—”

  “And what if he doesn’t?” she snapped. My mouth fell open. I’d never, ever heard Olivia use a harsh voice before.

  She took off her glasses and wiped them on the bottom of her shirt. In a voice I could barely make out, she said, “At least you have parents. I’d follow mine to the ends of the earth if they were still alive.”

  At that moment, I felt about as low as a bug’s butt.

  The night before we were to set out for Nashville, Olivia handed me an envelope. “What’s this?” I asked.

  She smiled. “I’m not good at good-byes,” she said. “Read it later.”

  I threw my arms around her and hugged her little self to me. “I’m going to miss you,” I said. “You won’t forget me, will you?”

  “Oh, Abby,” Olivia said, “don’t be so dramatic. Grandfather and I will be up here a bunch to help your grandmother with the llamas. Every square inch of this place will remind me of you. Besides,” she said, “this will force you to get email and join the twenty-first century.”

  The next morning, when Mama and I pulled out of our driveway, that little trailer hitched to Mama’s truck bumping along behind; when I looked back and saw Meemaw growing smaller and smaller as she waved from the front porch, the wind and snow swirling around her, my body still feeling her hugging me, I remembered a map from my world history book. It was an old, old map from the ancient explorer days. It was a map of the world as they knew it, with countries and rivers and towns. But beyond what they knew was a big blank space with nothing but the words Terra Incognita, Unknown Territory.

  That’s exactly how I felt that day as we left my home in the mountains.

  CHAPTER 20

  Tam

  Tam and the coyote made good distance following the deer trails meandering along the shoulder of the mountains below the ridge. Although it was rarely above freezing, and the late December nights bitter, the snow was solid, making for easy travel.

  Still, food was scarce. They caught the occasional squirrel and mouse. The coyote crunched old acorns and dried-up berries. But they’d not had full bellies since the porcupine.

  And although the porcupine had filled Tam’s belly with sweet, rich meat, it had also left one side of his face swollen and painful. The one quill the coyote was unable to lick free had worked its way deep into Tam’s cheek. As December drew to a close, the swelling and fever increased.

  Tam and the coyote traveled slowly through new snow on a deer trail. Tam was weak and tired from hunger and fever. The coyote stayed beside him until he stopped to rest or sleep, then she’d go in search of food. By evening, they’d only covered six miles.

  They entered a small, moonlit clearing. Both Tam and the coyote smelled food. Something delicious lay buried beneath the snow and pine branches.

  The coyote reached the spot first. She reached a paw out to scratch away a pine branch.

  Snap!

  The coyote yowled. She jumped and twisted straight into the air. The snow and branches scattered, revealing the awful truth: the metal jaws of a trap held the coyote’s foot fast.

  Tam flattened his ears in fear. He stretched his neck forward and sniffed the evil trap. Bright red blood spattered the snow, pooling under the coyote’s foot. She looked at Tam, eyes wide with fright, and cried pitifully.

  Despite his painful face, Tam barked and snapped at the trap. He dug frantically where the metal chain disappeared beneath the ground. It was no use. There was nothing Tam could do to help his friend. He lay down beside her, licked the side of her face and the trapped paw. As the moon traced across the winter sky, a great horned owl hunted not far away, and deer huddled together for warmth in the long grass. Tam wrapped his body tight around the shivering coyote.

  Sunlight found the clearing the next morning, warming the backs of coyote and dog. Tam woke. He stood and sniffed the coyote. She smelled of blood and fear and sickness. She lay on her side, whimpered once to Tam, and thumped her tail at him.

  Tam stood protectively above her. He stooped now and then to lick her grotesquely swollen foot or to whine consolation to her. A thick, low fog crept into the clearing.

  Fever in his face drove him away from his friend’s side down to a small stream in search of water. He drank so intently to cool the heat in his body, he did not hear or smell the man until it was too late.

  A shot rang out. Tam froze. A sharp, acrid smell filled the air. Tam crept up the bank and through the rhododendron forest on the edge of the clearing where the coyote was.

  The sight that greeted
him filled him with fear. A tall human stood over the little coyote. He kicked at her with the toe of his boot. Tam expected her to snap at the human or at least cry out. But she was silent.

  The human kneeled down beside her, pulled the jaws of the steel trap apart, freeing her foot.

  Tam tensed, readying himself. Surely now, she would run and they could be away from this terrible place.

  But the coyote didn’t move.

  The human held the coyote’s limp body up by the tail. Tam whined. The coyote’s eyes, the eyes that had looked at him so many times in joy and concern, were empty. The strong, lithe body that had warmed his, that had covered more than a hundred miles beside him, hung lifeless.

  Tam’s heart broke. He threw back his head and howled his pain for his friend.

  “What the—” The human whirled. He dropped the coyote to the ground, squinting into the swirling fog. He grabbed his gun, aimed at the rhododendron, and fired.

  The blast of the shotgun boomed in Tam’s ears. In a panic, he darted out into the clearing. Between him and the far side of the clearing was the body of the coyote, the trap, and the human with the gun. Tam crouched and looked side to side for some way to escape.

  “Well, looky here,” the human said, grinning. “It’s a New Year’s Day two-for-one special: a coyote and a fox.” The human raised the long black barrel of the shotgun. Tam pulled back his lips and snarled, taking one step toward his friend. She had saved his life more times than he could remember. How could he leave her now?

  Tam rushed the human, slashing his leg as he streaked past.

  The human cried out in surprise and pain. “A dog! Must be rabid.”

  With helpless rage, Tam stood over the body of the coyote, hackles raised, teeth bared. A low growl rumbled from his chest. His hard eyes, filled with pure hate, fixed on the human.

  The man raised his shotgun to his shoulder and squinted at Tam. “Only one thing for a rabid dog.”