Her legs responded to the emergency. The sandy gravel tried to drag her down, but she pushed off with each step as if nothing else mattered. She hit the paved road just past Melissa’s house and she got up on her toes and ran like she had seen sprinters do. There was one hill as she rounded the main island road and gravity took an extra measure from her. She heard the ferry blast its departure horn. She tilted her head back to suck in more oxygen and pumped her arms as she blew past the closed fudge shop and T-shirt shop. She skidded around the corner to the dock. The ferry was already churning up water and was fifty yards out. There was only one car on the ferry, and she could still see the top of Cooper’s black head through the window. She reached the end of the dock and without wanting to, she yelled, “Cooper!” The cold restraint of the metal chain barricade pressed against her thighs.
She thought she heard his deep, resonant bark over the wind and the engine as she collapsed to her knees and the ferry carried him away.
Chapter 23
Melissa knew something was wrong when she saw Rocky running, really running, not jogging for exercise. It was not normal for adults to run unless they had on running gear: slick running pants, matching shirts, and windbreakers. But she was quickly diverted from anything that might be happening in Rocky’s life. This was a weekend when her father was going to be away, so she could stay home. She would stay home more often on weekends, but she didn’t want to hurt her father’s feelings.
Her room, and all her stuff, was here; this is the house where she was born. After the divorce, when she had been eight, her father hadn’t really known how to set up a house so that it felt like a home, although he had tried. And her mother had offered to help him at first, buying him dishtowels so that he wouldn’t keep using the same two that he left with. But her bedroom at his house never felt like she could escape into it; she was a guest.
Later in the morning, she noticed Rocky walking back. Rocky looked pissed off in a major way, but oddly shrunken, like she was caving in on herself. Melissa didn’t dare approach her when she looked that mad. She already knew what Rocky was like when she was just being her regular annoying self, and that was bad enough. Melissa tried to think of reasons to ridicule the woman so that she wouldn’t think about the reaction that she had to her at the athletic club, or that she had taken Rocky’s lingerie and kept it for days before sliding it back into the laundry basket on one of her dog-feeding missions.
She waited until late in the afternoon of the next day and knocked on Rocky’s door. Lloyd loved to go with her for slow jogs on the beach and she needed a break from studying. Rocky answered the door in what looked like the clothes she had slept in, dark blue flannel pants. Melissa considered that the woman might be sick. She peeked around her to see the inevitable rush of appreciation from Lloyd.
“I’m going for a run, a slow run, I know you don’t want Lloyd really running until his leg is all the way healed, so I’ll make it a slow jog,” said the girl. “Where’s Lloyd? Can he go with me?”
Melissa didn’t like speaking with adults and her words came out in a rush. Then she remembered Rocky’s journal and the rambling entries and wondered if she was still suicidal because she didn’t look right and she took too long to answer. She wondered if Rocky was crazy and if she was, that somehow made it easier to be around her.
“Oh my God. You don’t know. His name isn’t Lloyd. Melissa, a lot has happened in the last two days. I found out that his name is Cooper. And he left the island yesterday,” said Rocky.
“He left? You mean he’s gone? With who?”
“His owner died, that’s why no one was looking for him. She had died over in Orono. Her parents came to collect Lloyd…Cooper, yesterday.”
Melissa put her hand on the doorframe to steady herself. She had been caught off guard. Despite her best efforts to control her world, she was assaulted by the news, struck hard in her midsection and it felt like her ribs were going to break.
“You let him go? I would have taken him! If you didn’t care about him, then I did!”
“Do you want to come in? I can tell you the whole story. I didn’t want him to go, but they were the dead woman’s parents and Cooper was part of the estate, he was their property,” said Rocky.
Melissa didn’t make a move to come in. Her eyes filled with hot tears and her skin flushed red, starting low on her neck and racing up to her cheeks.
“You have ruined everything! I wish you’d never come here,” she cried and ran off the deck and down the dirt road, her body exploding with the urgent need to fly apart. She took the path to the ocean first. She knew all the paths that twisted and turned, that invariably confused tourists during the summer. Melissa did not want to remember her life before the dog; she did not want to remember who she had been before he had come to the island. Why had Rocky done this? Even Rocky, stupid, horrible Rocky had loved the dog. How could she have let him be taken away?
If Melissa had known, she would have taken the dog, she would have broken into Rocky’s house, slid like a shadow through a slit in the door, through a mouse hole, down the chimney, and taken the dog, Cooper, and hidden him away. Even on this island, there were hiding places. She and Cooper could have lived in the dense bittersweet jungle, or the barn at the old Hamilton place, deserted since early fall, or she could have taken the ferry to Portland and gone to her father’s house. Would he have understood? She had not tested him with anything important, anything that came from the dark, empty tangle of her foodless center, and like the guerrilla fighter that she was, she wondered if he was friend or foe, enemy or comrade, and she didn’t know if he could be trusted. Could she show up on his doorstep and say, “This black dog is Cooper and I eat four kibbles from his dog dish and he is teaching me to eat again and when I am ready to scream in terror at the food sliding down my throat into my stomach, this dog presses his head into my palm.”
When she got in from running along the labyrinth of trails, her mother was on the phone in the kitchen and looked up at Melissa with dark eyes.
“That was Rocky. She told me about the dog. I’m sorry he’s gone,” said her mother. And for the first time in nearly a year, Melissa let her mother wrap her arms around her.
Chapter 24
Cooper was stunned by his exile. There had not been one minute with the woman, the one who had saved him, that he had doubted her. And then she sent him away. The First One was gone. Liz, Liz. He knew the sound of her name. He had known of her death, felt it, but the waves of death scent in the old house had confirmed it. That was where she had died, in the house where they had lived together. There had been a human death and it was the First One, Liz, the one he had known since leaving the litter, the one who had urged him on, trusted him, loved him beyond all others. She had been tremulous at times, speeding up like a storm, making her unaware of simple things, and he had learned to sniff the change before it came and he increased his vigilance then and would refuse to leave her side. He knew that he held some power to calm her, even as her illness raged.
A good life, a very good life, is finding one person who knows you, who shares the joy in chest rubbing, the pleasure of eating, of running damp and happy in the heavy dew of morning, of sitting with you while you chew with abandon on a fresh stick. But it is more than that, it is a look in the eyes of the human, and the smell, the thousands of smells that they offer. A good life is finding one such human. And he had found two.
The death scent was old but unmistakable. He had run around the house three times in the ancient way of saying goodbye that he had not known before that moment, but which came to him out of the merging with all the canines before him who had come in from the wild to be with humans. Three times around the site of death, barking a heralding cry to let the other side hear of their coming. She was no more.
Now the New One, the woman who was a tracker in her dreams, had changed course. She had been another miracle; she had found him when he was broken and feverish. She also needed watching and as soon as he wa
s able, he took up his post with her. He dreamt with her, nudged her awake when her dreaming went badly, and he had been calmed by her touch as well. She offered a new rhythm, older than his Liz, without the perilous spirals of energy that kept Liz from sleeping for days and days. And the look, he could hardly believe the New One had the look that canines seek, or at least those who have their wits about them.
He had settled into his new life with the New One. And then suddenly, she let two people, the man and the woman, take him. She had hesitated, she struggled, her scent turned to fear and sadness, yet she did it. He heard her say it when the man and the woman opened their car. She said, “Get in, Cooper,” and he had obeyed.
These two are Liz’s parents. He had been in their house long ago. The house held ghostly scents of memories for him, when there was rage and frustration between his Liz and her parents. They did not know how to soothe her like he did and he has taken a protective stand between Liz and her parents.
As soon as the long car trip ended, during which they did not stop so that he could relieve himself, he was led through the house and taken out through sliding glass doors in the kitchen where he was put outdoors, tied to a lead that ran along a high wire. The yard was surrounded by a solid wood fence, higher than even he could jump, and he could see nothing of the surrounding area.
He had never been tied before and he was ashamed. There was no one else to see him and for that small gift, he was glad. They brought food outside and placed it in a bowl. They brought water as well. They left the house during the day and did not return until the light began to fade. When they returned they came to look at him and brought him more food. More time passed, darkness settled, and they allowed him into the kitchen. He made the mistake of trying to follow them as he thought he should, down the hallway to their bedroom. But the woman scolded him, smacking a newspaper with her hand to make a sharp noise, and put up a barrier to let him know to stay in the kitchen. It was a minor thing, this barrier, he could have easily jumped it, but he understood the message to stay away.
The next night, after the man brought him food and left him in the yard, he saw the glow of the woman’s cigarette in the kitchen. She sat in the dark smoking. Cooper could feel her looking out and wondered if she could see the nightshine from his eyes. If allowed, he could help her. He would permit her to weep as humans did and to drain the anger and sadness from her blood by stroking him. He could urge her outside and drag her senses to stick throwing and the thrill of physical exhaustion. But she would not permit it, she would not see him as he was.
He knew this was it; there would be nothing else. Already in this life he had had two people who were beyond what he could have hoped. He had seen other dogs who had not fared as well, and he was grateful. But the New One had sent him away to this place and he could not understand why. He stopped eating on the second day and no longer hoped for the New One to come for him.
Chapter 25
They were all gone. Isaiah and Charlotte were in North Carolina for the holidays, Tess was on the mainland with her ex-husband and their two children and grandchildren, and even Hill had disappeared to points unknown. Rocky had not asked him where he was going when he called to say that their lessons would not resume until after the New Year, and she hoped that her disappointment did not show and if it did, that it meant she was dedicated to archery, not that she would in any way miss him. In reality, she had wanted to tell him about Cooper and the terrible mistake that she had made.
Rocky had refused to meet with her family over the holidays. “I just can’t. Not this year. I refuse to pretend that I am celebrating anything,” she told them. Caleb and his wife went to California to be with their mother. Rocky assured Caleb that he could come to the island in the spring.
Isaiah had replaced the battery on the truck for her the day after the Townsends took Cooper. Rocky watched him from the house. She had refused to speak to him, and he knew not to come to the door. She called Charlotte and said, “I’m not mad at you, and I probably won’t be able to stay mad at Isaiah much longer, but I think we made a huge mistake. Tell him thanks for fixing the truck. And I’ll feed your cat while you’re gone.”
She had not been able to go to sleep the first night until dawn and the second night was not much better. She napped during the day. She missed Cooper’s breathing, his scent, his demand to go outside, to draw her out, his soft eyes, and his need of her. She missed the sprawl of his body, his satisfaction after his meal, his enthusiastic tail wagging when she walked in the door, or watching him gnaw on a stout stick until some artistic culmination caused him to stop and add it to a pile of similar sticks on the deck. She kept picturing him running around Liz’s old house in Orono three times. Had he really done that? He came and stood by her when he was done. She spent days picturing his ritual and in an early morning bout of insomnia, she suddenly realized what had happened. He had completed what he needed to do with Liz and then there was nothing old between them; he had signed on with Rocky completely.
This was a miserable job and she regretted taking it. When Isaiah returned, she would tell him that she was resigning before she did any more harm. She had hurt Cooper by getting too close to him and letting him get too close to her. He couldn’t understand about property laws and estates.
The island was muffled in the silence of empty houses. Christmas came and went. She drove the truck around the island twice each day. No stray animals were reported, no lost animals needed finding, and no dead animals needed removal.
She went to Tess’s house and practiced archery for hours each day, letting her thumb slide along the edge of her jaw as Hill had demonstrated. She wore silk long underwear under her jeans so that she could stay outside as long as possible to shoot again and again at the target. Pull and release. Fewer arrows strayed to the outer edges. She allowed her muscles and bones to take over. Nothing was going right in her life; there was no reason for archery to be any different. The light was fading and she wanted a few more shots.
She pulled back her right arm, and the arrow and the bow became a part of her, extra appendages that attached firmly to her ligaments. She sighted the target and saw, before she released the arrow, exactly where it would pierce the target. Rocky took a breath and released the air in a slow and perfect stream. She suddenly saw it, the place between breaths that Hill had talked about. What he had not told her was that it was as real as a spot on the map, like Portland or Boston, and that she could step into it. There was nothing between her and the target. She released the arrow and followed it to its certain home, dead center. Rocky felt a tingle of exquisite light run up her spine, unimpeded from her tailbone to the top of her head. She shot for several more minutes before the new and strange sensation left her as unannounced as it had arrived.
When she returned home, she called information for the Townsends’ phone number in Providence. It was still her job to see how Cooper was doing. They were unlisted. When Isaiah and Charlotte returned, she’d get their number from him. How else could she reach them? Then she remembered that she had the obituary from the newspaper. She’d send them a note in care of the funeral home who would forward it to the Townsends. She tore a sheet of paper from her black journal that she had not touched in days. The edge of the paper bore ragged tears from the metal spiral binder and she evened it out with a scissor.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Townsend,
If love is the reason that you want Cooper, then I am glad and I wish you well. But if you took Cooper in order to repair something that was broken between you and your daughter, then I ask you to look into your hearts and think about what Liz would want and what the dog wants. I think you know. I think he belongs with me. I will take him back any time. I will come and get him and I will take care of him for the rest of his life.
She dropped the letter in the mail drop box outside the grocery store. There were a few more hours of thin daylight left and she didn’t want to go back home yet. Even Peterson the cat seemed disgusted with Rocky and avoided
her, refusing to sit on her lap.
In the evening, she tried Hill’s number again and this time she left a message, and then wished she hadn’t.
“Hill, this is Rocky. I know we don’t have another lesson until next week, but would you like to meet me in Portland, um, for coffee? Oh, you probably don’t go out for coffee. Could you agree to meet me on a street corner? What I mean is, that the dog that I told you about, well he’s gone…” Beep.
Hill had his message machine on a timer to keep messages short. Why didn’t he say so upfront, as in, “Leave a message and make it short. You have thirty seconds starting now.” Rocky called back.
“It’s Rocky again and I think you should warn people about the time limit. Aren’t people in Maine the slowest talkers in the country? Most people will just get to hello when they are beeped out. But here’s the thing, everyone on the island is gone, or everyone I know, and I’m going to resign my job and I wanted to talk it out with someone…” Beep.
If he put those two messages together, he would get something, but she wasn’t sure what. He already had her phone number; he had it on the checks that she had written to him, so he must have written it down. Or did he? She admitted that she was a bit flustered when she was around him, and she couldn’t for the life of her remember if she had given Hill her phone number. No, wait, he had called her last week and left her a message so he had to have it. She did not want to sound one bit needier than she already did on the other two messages.
“Hi, it’s me again. I hope this message comes before the other two that I’ve left you. If so, don’t listen to the next two messages from me. It’s not that it was hard being Christmas and all and this was the first Christmas since my husband died, which I hadn’t told you up until this moment, but it’s that I had to give the dog to people who won’t understand him. Some people shouldn’t have dogs; they shouldn’t have gerbils. And I thought I could stop this one bad thing from happening…” Beep.
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