A Dog's Way Home

by Bobbie Pyron

  She rolled her eyes again. “You saw that?”

  I shrugged.

  “Yeah,” she said. “That’s the place. We have an old farmhouse and about sixty acres out there. I even have a couple of horses.”

  “Why’d you move to town?” I asked.

  “My mom hates the country. Too far from shopping and the country club. She doesn’t even like going out there on the weekends.”

  I told her all about our place in Wild Cat Cove, about the apple orchard and Lake Inferior and the llamas, about Clear Creek and the willow tree.

  We were both quiet for a while, then she said, “How come you know so much about dogs?”

  I really hadn’t planned on it, but the whole blessed story of Tam just came pouring out. And do you know what? She listened, really listened.

  “I know it sounds crazy and all, but I just can’t shake the feeling he’s coming home,” I said. “That’s a big part of why I was so upset when we had to move here.”

  Cheyenne shook her head. “I don’t think it’s crazy. Haven’t you ever read Lassie Come-Home or The Incredible Journey?”

  Before I could answer, she jumped off her bed and went to one of her many bookcases. I thought Olivia had a lot of books, but Cheyenne had enough books to practically fill the Balsam County Library at home.

  She tossed two books onto the bed. “Take them home with you. I’ve read them a million times at least.”

  I glanced at the clock on her wall.

  “Holy moley, I got to get home,” I said.

  The tires of the black limo hissed on the rain-wet streets as we eased down my street. Mama’s truck was in the driveway.

  “I had a real good time today,” I said to Cheyenne.

  She smiled. “Mutual.” She held Dusty to my cheek. “Kiss Abby good-bye,” she cooed. Dusty gave my cheek a dainty little lick.

  “Bye, Mr. Richard, thanks again,” I said.

  Mr. Richard touched the edge of his cap. “You’re most welcome, Miss Abby.”

  I ran up the walkway, jumped up onto our saggy little porch, and burst in the front door. I heard Mama and Daddy’s voices in the kitchen. “Hey,” I called. “You’ll never guess what!”

  Mama raced out of the kitchen and locked me up in such a ferocious hug, she about broke my ribs.

  She held me away from her. Her face was red and wet. “Thank the Lord, you’re okay!”

  I glanced from her to Daddy, standing in the doorway looking like a whipped puppy. “Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Where in the world have you been?” Mama asked. “I’ve been crazy with worry!”

  “I went for a walk,” I said. “I told Daddy.”

  “That was hours ago, peanut,” Daddy said.

  “Oh, well, I walked and walked and do you know the next thing I knew I was right in downtown Nashville, and then there was this girl hollering for help because her little-bitty dog had gotten loose and was about to get squashed out in traffic, so I—”

  Mama whirled on Daddy like some crazy person. “See? What did I tell you, Ian?”

  Daddy held his hands up like he was fending off a rabid dog. “Now, Holly, she’s okay, isn’t she?”

  “Mama,” I said, tugging on her sleeve, “let me tell you the rest of what happened. I’m just getting to the really good part.”

  Ignoring me, Mama said, “Don’t you get it? This is not home! It’s one thing in Wild Cat Cove or even Harmony Gap to let Abby go off on her own exploring all day. But not here!”

  “But Mama…”

  Mama glared at me. “Go to your room now, Abigail Andrea Whistler,” she snapped.

  Later that night, Mama came into my room. “Can I come in, Abby?”

  I set aside Lassie Come-Home. “If you’re done yelling at me.”

  Mama sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “I was scared.”

  She climbed in beside me on my bed. She wrapped me in her arms—something she hadn’t done in a long time—rocked me just a tiny bit. I listened to the thump thump of her heart.

  Finally she said, “Tell me the rest of the story about your day, Abby,” and I did. I told her all about riding in the limousine and how Cheyenne’s house not only had big white pillars on the outside, but on the inside too. “And do you know what, Mama? Cheyenne even has a little kitchen in her bedroom, and a bathroom, and a fireplace too!”

  “Good gravy,” Mama said.

  Then I told her about all the things Cheyenne and I have in common and how she misses her home in the country too. “You sure can never tell about folks, can you, Mama?”

  CHAPTER 30

  Tam

  A car door slammed; the faint sound of voices. Tam raised his head from the icy river and cocked his ears toward the house.

  He worked his way up from the riverbank through the new snow. Maybe the old woman was back and she would feed him dinner, stroke his head. Two days had passed since she left, and all the kibble was gone.

  He heard that name that was almost his name but not quite. “Sam!” floated down through the woods from the cabin. Tam stopped at the edge of the woods. It was not her voice.

  Doc Pritchett cupped his hands around his mouth and called again. “Sam! Come here, Sam!”

  Randall ran his hand through his black hair. “How the heck was I supposed to know she had a dog? She never told me she had a dog. I’d sure never seen one.”

  “And when was the last time you actually visited your mama?” Doc Pritchett said.

  Randall shrugged. “A couple weeks before Christmas, I guess. For a day or two.”

  The vet didn’t say anything, just studied the front yard.

  Randall pointed to the tracks on the porch. “Looks like he’s been here, though. Maybe he’s just out sniffing around, chasing a rabbit or something.”

  The vet shook his head. “He’s a sheltie, not a hound. Shelties don’t hunt.” He squinted at the tracks in the snow. “If he’s close by, why doesn’t he come? Lord, your mama’s going to pitch a fit if we don’t find that little dog. She’s gotten real attached.”

  Tam watched the two men on the porch. If it were just the old man, he’d have shown himself.

  But the tall, dark man was there too. The one who had yelled at him and hurt him. As hungry and lonely as he was, Tam would not show himself to that man. Ever. He turned and followed his own tracks back down to the river.

  As dusk stretched across the meadow, Tam went back to the cabin. The car was gone. No sound came from inside the house. The scent of the two men was faint.

  And the front door, closed.

  Tam barked once. This was what he had done at another home—a big white house at the top of a hill—when he was ready to come in. Someone always came. This time, no one did. Tam barked again, louder. Then he scratched at the door, something that always brought the words, “No, Tam!” But the door would open for him anyway. Not this time.

  Tam trotted down the steps and around to the back of the house. Sometimes the old woman came and went from that door. It was closed too, and no amount of barking and scratching opened it.

  Tam went back around to the front of the cabin. He had lived there for more than two months. She had always been there. Food and warmth had always been there. Now the cabin was silent. No smoke spiraled up from the chimney; no light in the windows.

  He lay on the mat in front of the door with his bewilderment. He licked his paws over and over, a distraction from the hunger gnawing at his belly. He watched a barn owl hunting low over the far fields. A fox barked. Cold wind blew. Tam whimpered and curled up tight, nose buried under his tail.

  The next morning when he awoke, he shook himself and stretched. Still, the fine web of his night’s dream clung to him and burrowed in his heart—a dream of watching a sweeping meadow from the edge of a porch; hearing the music of a girl’s—his girl’s—voice calling, “Tam! Come here, Tam!” the voice lifting him, carrying him to the safety of her arms.

  He trotted d
own the porch steps and stood in the front yard. His wet black nose worked back and forth. The wind from the south held a certain sweetness. He took two tentative steps toward the cabin and stood in indecision. Tam whined.

  Then another sense rose in him—the homing sense. It pulled on him like the needle on a compass. He looked back at the cabin. There was nothing there to hold him. Home was not this place with the old woman; home was not at the side of his coyote friend. Home was his girl. He belonged with her.

  He shook himself again. Like a traveler waking from a long dream, he struck out and resumed his journey south.

  Tam followed the New River as it ran south and west of the old woman’s home. The hard freezes at night kept the top crust of the snow firm enough for Tam to walk easily on it. He set a steady pace, covering many miles.

  On the third day, Tam hesitated. The river turned abruptly north. He followed it for two or three miles, then stopped. This going did not feel right. The farther north he went, the more his compass told him to turn back.

  He came across the remains of a deer carcass. Foxes, coyotes, and bobcats had stripped most of the meat. Tam hadn’t eaten for three days. He managed to work loose a few strips of meat and skin.

  Tam drank from the river, then napped in the pocket of the roots of a fallen birch.

  The next morning, he left the New River and struck out south. By evening of the next day, Tam crossed the invisible line from Virginia into North Carolina. He had no way of knowing that. He had no way of knowing he had more than two hundred forty miles behind him, and that the mountains would now rise higher, the forests would now become wilder.

  What Tam did know was that the wind had shifted direction. The air smelled wet and sharp and urgent. By late afternoon, thick gray clouds piled against the tops of the mountains and ridgelines. Late that night, as Tam slept tucked up tight under a rocky outcropping on a high ridge, a storm roared in from the north. Great gusts of wind-driven snow curtained the ridgetop.

  When he woke the next morning, a light blanket of snow covered his body. Weak light filtered into his makeshift den. A thick wall of snow sealed closed the opening from the night before.

  Tam pushed against the snow with his long muzzle. The wind had packed the snow as hard as concrete. Tam scratched at the snow wall with one paw. His claws barely left a trace.

  Tam barked, then listened. The only sound was the beat of panic in his chest.

  Then Tam heard a faint call from the laurel cove beneath the craggy rocks. He stopped panting and cocked his head to listen. The music of a coyote’s howl drifted across the cove and up the rocky slope to Tam’s white prison.

  Tam barked in reply. The howl came again. He cocked his head to one side. Was it closer this time?

  Tam clawed furiously at the wall of snow. His efforts made little difference.

  He found a weaker spot in the wall. He felt a slight give beneath his paws. He clawed all the harder. Blood stained the white snow. His feet had grown soft during his months with the old woman. His shoulder ached.

  He stopped and listened. Silence. He barked a high, seeking bark. Again, he heard the answer from below.

  Feet bleeding, pain shooting through his shoulder, Tam broke through the white wall and into the sunlight. He fell onto the wind-packed snow, panting and blinking against the bright light. He licked the blood from his cut pads. One nail was torn away. He studied the snowbound forest for the coyote. He saw nothing. He barked once, then listened. His only answer was the caw of a raven.

  He limped down the hillside to the laurel cove, his bloody footprints leaving a trail behind. If he could only find the coyote, he would be fine.

  But there were no tracks of her. There was no musky smell of her, either. There were only the tracks of small birds, squirrels, and chipmunks.

  Tam barked and listened. Then barked again. And again and again. At first he thought he heard her, but it was only his own voice echoing in reply. The coyote was not there. Tam threw back his head and howled his loneliness to the sky.

  CHAPTER 31

  Abby

  “So anyway,” Madison said, as if the sun rose and set by the latest school gossip, “I heard that Robert Lee asked Savannah Stiles to go to the seventh-grade spring dance!” Bree and Courtney gasped.

  I glanced toward the cafeteria door, wishing Cheyenne would hurry up and get here. “What’s so bad about him asking her?”

  They all exchanged their Abby-is-so-clueless look. “He was supposed to ask Kristen Pettigrew.”

  Courtney nodded. “Yeah, everybody knows that.”

  Finally, Cheyenne strode into the cafeteria. Her eyes found me at the table with the others. She raised one eyebrow and nodded over to the window.

  I wadded up my paper sack and stood. “I’ll see y’all out at recess.”

  And just like every other day since Cheyenne and I had become friends, they looked on in disbelief as the little hillbilly went and ate lunch with the coolest girl in eighth grade, not to mention the whole school.

  Cheyenne picked at her salad and fruit. Cheyenne Rivers was a vegetarian. She says she doesn’t eat anything with a face. I had read about vegetarians before, but until I met Cheyenne, I’d never seen one.

  “So what book does Olivia say we should read for our book club?” Cheyenne asked.

  “She liked your suggestions best. She votes for To Kill a Mockingbird,” I said.

  Cheyenne smiled. “Good. I’ve read it a bunch of times, but I think you’ll like it. You and Scout have a lot in common.”

  I’d told Cheyenne all about Olivia and me reading the same books together. Cheyenne thought that was a great idea, and now the three of us had our own online book club.

  “They made a movie of it too,” Cheyenne said. “I have it at home. We can watch it when we’re done with the book.”

  The sun coming in the cafeteria windows tickled my hair and shoulders. It was the first sun we’d had all week. I was itching to get outside at recess.

  “How come you don’t ever play kickball or four-square with us at recess?” I asked. “Other eighth graders do.” Our games at recess had gotten so popular, practically everybody played.

  Cheyenne shrugged. A little bit of red crept up her face. “Why should I care about a stupid game?”

  So you can bet, that afternoon, when I picked my team for dodgeball, I pointed at Cheyenne over to the side, leaning against a tree like she didn’t care a thing in the world. “I pick Cheyenne Rivers,” I said real loud.

  I’m here to tell you, you could’ve heard a pin drop on that playground. Half the kids looked at me like I was crazy, the other half watched Cheyenne to see what she’d do.

  I was just as surprised as everyone else when she yawned, pushed herself off that tree, and said, “Sure, whatever.”

  At first, everybody on my team stayed way out of her way, and nobody on the other team tried to hit her with the ball.

  I blew Miss Bettis’s shiny silver whistle and called a time-out. “Kyle,” I said, pointing to a seventh grader. “You and I are swapping sides.”

  I blew the whistle again, grabbed the ball, and took solid aim. It was time to show them that Cheyenne Rivers was just like everybody else.

  That night at supper (Harris Teeter fried chicken again, I am sorry to say), Mama said, “Your daddy’s going to be gone six weeks on this tour with the band, so I’m going to need extra help from you.” Mama twisted and untwisted her long braid around her fingers like she does when she’s extra unhappy with the world.

  “Sure, Mama,” I said. “It’s not like he’s around that much anyway.”

  Mama’s face went white and her eyes got big as cat heads. Once again, I’d managed to stick my foot in my mouth.

  “Oh my stars,” Mama breathed.

  I turned around to see what she was looking at. “Great bucket of gravy,” I said.

  There, in the living room, stood my daddy. At least, I think it was my daddy. Gone was the long, wild hair that had a life of its own; gone
was the big red and silver beard he used to tickle my face. His hair was all short and slicked back. It looked like it’d never have a thought of its own again. And instead of his usual patched-up jeans or overalls, he wore fancy-stitched black pants, a cowboy shirt all tucked in, and a belt with a silver buckle as big as a hubcap.

  My daddy had had a makeover.

  “Ian,” my mother whispered, her hand covering her mouth, “what happened to you?”

  Daddy stuck his hands in the pockets of his fancy pants and stared down at his pointy-toed boots. “Mr. Katz,” he mumbled. “He said we have to project a ‘Nashville image’ when we go out on tour. Not a Harmony Gap image.”

  “Did you all have makeovers, Daddy?” I asked. Daddy winced and got all red in the face. Mama snorted behind her hand.

  “Yes, sugar.” Daddy sighed. “We all did. Cue Ball and the Stuarts were not too happy, I can tell you.”

  I cocked my head and studied Daddy. He looked an awful lot like Cheyenne’s daddy. I’d seen pictures of him at her house.

  I went and gave Daddy a big hug around his middle. “Don’t feel too bad about it, Daddy. Mr. Randy Rivers dresses just like that and he’s a millionaire.”

  Daddy smiled down at me and smoothed the top of my head. “Thanks, peanut. Right now, though, I think I’d pay a million dollars to get my hair back. My neck is darned cold.”

  The night before he left, Daddy came into my room. I was snuggled under my quilt reading.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and tapped the back of my book. “To Kill a Mockingbird, huh? That’s one of your Meemaw’s favorite books.”

  “Me and Olivia and Cheyenne Rivers are reading it for our online book club. Cheyenne said I’d like it because of Scout and me being a lot alike.”

  Daddy laughed. “From what I remember about the story, I’d say she’s right.”

  Daddy picked at a thread in Meemaw’s quilt. “I’m sorry I have to be gone so long, Abby.”

  And do you know what? He sounded like he really was sorry.

  “That’s okay, Daddy,” I said. “You got to follow your north star, right?”