It wasn’t working.
Pete leaned forward and reached up as far as he could, flipping the latch on the gate. He swung the gate open wide.
He had intended to say one more thing before moving his body away from the open gateway. Though he hadn’t yet decided exactly what it should be. Some sort of more formal goodbye. Words he could remember in his head next time he missed his wolf-dog so much it snuck up on him and made him cry.
Prince lunged in his direction, as if planning to bowl Pete over and escape right through him. At the last moment, just as Pete braced for impact, the wolf-dog’s feet lifted off the ground and he deftly sailed over Pete’s head, landing on the other side of him. Then Prince froze, his head and shoulders out into freedom. He looked both ways, as though it might be some kind of trap.
Pete figured he might have been able to count to three in his head while Prince stood still.
Seconds later Pete was struggling to his feet, watching the animal lope a wide arc around the horse pasture—where the pig now lived as well—on his way to the woods. Prince still favored that rear leg. He ran with something of a limp. But his overall movements were fast and sure. He was back to one hundred percent power.
Pete took a few steps out into the yard.
“You can come back if you ever want to,” he called after Prince.
Prince slowed to a trot, but kept going.
A moment later Justin and the doctor came to stand by his side.
“I’m sorry,” Pete said. “I should’ve thought to ask if you wanted to say goodbye, too.”
“I’ve been saying goodbye to him for days,” Justin said. “Hey, look. He’s coming back.”
Pete looked up to see Prince trotting back in their direction around the whitewashed boards of the pasture fence. Pete took a handful of steps forward, and they met in the middle.
“You came back!” Pete said.
He instinctively reached his hand out. Prince touched Pete’s palm with his muzzle, his nose wet and cold. He licked the hand three times.
“That’s so wonderful,” Pete said.
But he should have said that formal goodbye instead. Because Prince turned and loped off into the woods again.
Pete watched him go, willing him to turn back a second time. A minute or two after the animal disappeared into the woods, Pete sighed deeply and walked back to Justin and Dr. Lucy, still not trying to hide his tears.
“He didn’t come back,” Pete said. “I thought he was going to come back.”
“But I liked the way he came back for a minute and said thank you to you,” Justin said. “That was really great. He couldn’t have said it any better if he could’ve opened his mouth and started speaking English.”
“You did a good thing,” Dr. Lucy said, rubbing the back of Pete’s neck.
“Then why do I feel so bad?”
“You did the best thing for him. He’s happy.”
“What if he hates it out there?”
“Well, like I said . . . he knows where to find us.”
Pete stayed at the doctor’s house for lunch, but for the first time he could remember he wasn’t hungry. He picked at the tuna sandwich. Asked permission to wrap it up to take home.
When he realized he could have fed it to Prince on any other day, he had to work not to cry again.
While the doctor gathered up the lunch dishes, Pete slipped out into the backyard and leaned on the top rail of the fence and stared at the woods. He was straining to see something, but in truth he didn’t expect to.
But a moment later he was almost sure he saw two ears. He changed position for a better look, and saw what could have been a wolf-dog sitting between two trees, staring back at the house. At least, he thought so. But a second later he wondered if it was his imagination. It was so far away. It was frustratingly hard to tell.
He changed position again and bumped into Justin, who reacted with a kind of “oof” sound.
“Oh. Sorry. Justin, is that Prince?”
“Where?”
“Way off in the distance there. In the woods.”
“Wait. I can’t see much. My glasses are all smudged. Let me clean them off.”
Pete waited, hiding his impatience, as Justin huffed steam onto each lens of his glasses, front and back, and wiped them on his shirttail. Pete was afraid Prince would lope off into the woods again. If indeed he really was sitting there in the first place. And then Pete would never know for sure if he had imagined the sighting or not. But he didn’t say so, because he didn’t want to be harsh with Justin or hurt his feelings.
“Hmm,” Justin said, his glasses back in place on his head, peering off into the woods. “Oh. There, you mean?”
He pointed to the spot Pete had been watching.
“Yeah. That’s him, isn’t it?”
“Hard to say. It looks like some kind of big dog/wolf sort of animal. I can’t figure out why any of them except Prince would be up there looking back at us. But it’s so far away. It’s hard to say for sure. And, you know . . . these glasses are pretty good but they’re not as good as the ones you can get when you can go into the place yourself and have the eye test. But I still like them. I still appreciate how you guys got them.”
“But it’s definitely an animal.”
“Yeah. Like a big dog.”
“And, like you say, what other dog besides Prince would be up there staring at the house?”
He looked over at Justin, anxious to hear more thoughts that might verify his own thinking.
When he looked back to the woods, the animal was gone.
Pete rode his borrowed bike home soon after, because it felt too tragic to hang around at the doctor’s house without Prince. At least, in that moment it was too much to bear.
He stashed the bike in the garage the way he always did.
He stuck his head inside the house.
His dad was up and walking around. Pete could hear the footsteps. He stuck his head into the kitchen, saw no one, then was startled by his father’s voice just behind his left shoulder.
“Here’s a question for you, Petey boy. You home for the day?”
“No, sir. I have to go out again.”
“Have to. That’s a strange couple of words for a kid on summer vacation. What exactly do you have to do? Summer is for play. You don’t have to play. Am I right?”
Pete said nothing for a time, and while he wasn’t answering his head swam. He couldn’t believe this question was coming up now. He’d been working a schedule of two short shifts a day for nearly two months. He’d figured he was home free after all that time. He’d figured if his father cared he would have asked a long time ago.
“The thing that feels strange about it to me is how rhythmic it all is,” his dad added.
“Rhythmic, sir? I don’t get that.”
“You always seem to go out around the same times in the day.”
“Why are you just asking me this now?”
“Because waiting for you to volunteer the information isn’t working out, Petey boy. Summer’ll be over in a couple or three weeks and you still haven’t seen fit to tell me where you’re going.”
Pete turned around and looked up at his dad’s face. Mostly to see how angry the older man looked.
He loomed over Pete, wearing his work pants and blue denim work shirt. Pete wondered if that was a sign of health—that he had gotten dressed again.
He couldn’t read his father’s face.
“Well, you know there was that dog. I been visiting him all summer.”
“Was? Past tense?”
Pete didn’t answer.
“And did he need you to visit on a set schedule?”
“No, sir. I don’t suppose he could tell time.”
“Well, I’m running out of patience with the honor system, boy. I’ll give you a day or two to come clean on your own. But not much more, let me tell you.”
Pete felt the words come up from his gut. Felt them in his mouth, waiting to be said. He tried t
o hold them back, because they might bring repercussions. It didn’t work. He lost control of them immediately.
“And after a day or two? Then what?”
“Then I’ll damn well find out what I need to know on my own.”
“Yes, sir,” Pete said. Because he had no idea what else to say.
After Pete’s second shift at the ranch, and after a dinner so silent it almost killed his appetite, he took a bath and brushed his teeth and changed into pajama bottoms for bed.
He dropped his dirty work clothes into the hamper on the way to his room.
It wasn’t even dark yet. More of a heavy dusk. It felt too early to go to bed, but Pete was exhausted and wanted the day to be over.
He stood looking out the window of his bedroom for a moment, over the backyard. The moon was rising, a few days off full, but Pete didn’t know if it was headed for full or on its way back from it.
He saw the streetlights come on out front, even though he couldn’t see the lights themselves. He could see the illumination they cast over the yard—the shadow of his house, and a spill of glow back toward the empty space that eventually turned into woods. But Pete couldn’t see the woods.
But what he saw nearly stopped his heart for a split second: a pair of glowing eyes. The light reflected off two spooky-looking eyes, sitting up on the low hill behind his house.
Pete slipped out of his bedroom and through the mudroom, then barefoot out into the warm night. He stood still a moment, letting his eyes adjust. After a few seconds he was sure enough of who and what he was seeing to move in that direction.
“Hey, Prince,” he said, keeping his voice steady and light. As if Prince sitting behind his house was no big deal. “You change your mind? How did you even know where I live?”
But even as he asked the question Pete knew the wolf-dog must have followed him home. Or followed his scent trail home. Unless he knew this town so well that he had known where everybody lived all along.
Pete was only steps away now, and he slowed down because he was afraid of chasing Prince away.
“It’s good to see you, boy,” he said, and reached his hand out. “This’s a real happy surprise for me.”
Prince sniffed the hand and licked it once, briefly.
“Come on in the house. I’ll show you where I live.”
He turned back to the house and motioned for Prince to follow. But the wolf-dog only backed up three steps.
Pete’s heart fell. He could feel the crash of it.
“Oh. I guess that’s a no, then.”
He stepped in Prince’s direction again, but the wolf-dog backed up farther and faster in response.
Pete decided he’d better leave well enough alone.
“Well, I’m glad you came by, anyway.” He moved a few steps toward the house, so Prince would know Pete was not trying to catch him. “Come by and see me again, okay?”
As if satisfied by the visit, the wolf-dog turned on his haunches and trotted off toward the woods.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Dr. Lucy
It was about ten thirty in the morning when she heard Pete shouting to her from the front yard. It was a normal time for him to arrive, fresh from his morning feeding and cleaning at the Quarter Horse ranch. But it was not his usual entrance.
“Dr. Lucy!” he shouted. “Dr. Lucy! Come out here. You have to see this!”
Completely unsure whether it was a happy or a dreadful thing she had to see, she dried her hands on her apron and hurried to the front door. Swung it wide.
“Pete. What are you making so much noise about?”
“You have to see who’s here! You’ll never guess who’s here!”
His face said she would be happy when she saw, or could guess.
She looked up toward the street to see Calvin turn onto her gravel walkway and move toward the house. He locked eyes with hers from that distance, and his face lit up. She didn’t have to be any closer to see.
She ran to him.
As she did, it struck her that she reminded herself of one of those television commercials, the ones with the sweethearts running to each other in slow motion through a field of wildflowers. The only thing missing was the wildflowers. That and the perfectly homogenized whiteness of the actors’ skin tones.
He threw his arms around her and she held him close for a moment or two, feeling his freshly shaved cheek against her own. Then she pulled back and examined his face to see if anything had changed.
His lower lip wore a line of scar she hadn’t seen before. Other than that, he looked none the worse for wear.
She looked into his eyes and they drank each other in for a moment, and nothing more. Just the locked gaze was enough.
“I’ve never seen your face look like that before,” he said.
“Like what?” she asked, already knowing it was a compliment.
“You’re smiling from one ear to the other.”
“I’m thrilled to see you. I thought it would be another three or four days.”
Then, as if such a thing had never occurred to her before, she looked over his shoulder to the street to see if they were being observed. He caught the movement of her glance and turned. But there was nothing and nobody there.
“Well, that’s rare,” she said. “The town cut us a break for a change.”
They turned toward the house and walked side by side, and he slipped her hand into his own and held it.
“So how did you get back early?”
“I got a few days off for good behavior.”
“I had no idea they would offer you anything so generous.”
“It wasn’t generosity, believe me. They’d just gotten in a new crop of inmates. They needed the space.”
A movement caught her eye, and she looked up to see Justin barreling in their direction.
“You’re back!” he shouted, and leapt into his father’s arms.
“Oof,” Calvin said. “Did you get bigger? I can tell you’re feeling better.”
“All better. What about you?” He leaned back in his father’s arms and surveyed his face the way Dr. Lucy had done. Touched the line on Calvin’s lip. “You have a scar on your lip. But otherwise you look the same.”
“Yes, well, it’ll go away in time,” Calvin said. “Scars usually do. And even if this one doesn’t, life will go on, scar or no scar. And you got a new pair of glasses. How did you manage that?”
“Pete worked a job so the doctor would have a little more money. And she gave me an eye test here at her house, and then she went into town and got the glasses and fitted them to my head herself.”
“You sure were in the right place, weren’t you?”
“I’ll say. Pete and I rode the horses! Not all of them. But a couple of them. I rode Smokey. And I stayed on!”
Calvin turned his face to her. “If you’ll excuse me, Lucy, I’m going to take a few minutes to talk to my son. And then I’ll be back to give you my full attention.”
She was pouring them each a fresh cup of coffee in the kitchen when he came in and sat at the table.
She sat down next to him, and their hands extended between the coffee cups and came together. And held firmly.
She looked into his eyes, and he looked back. It was a look that came with an intensity and an emotion that almost burned her. It was not like her to do anything but recoil from being so thoroughly seen. But she resisted the temptation to look away.
“There’s that smile again,” he said. “It looks good on you.”
“I had no idea how much I would miss you.”
He offered a little smile in return, but it looked sad. Then he cut his eyes away. She registered that, and the effects of it inside her, but nothing more. She didn’t try to define or explain it. She just waited for the moment to play out.
“Was Justin able to bring himself to admit to you that he still needs Bunny to sleep when he’s upset?”
“Yes and no. Not exactly. But he ended up with Bunny.”
“That’s good to hear.�
� He was still carefully avoiding her eyes. “Two things I need to say to you.” His words felt heavy in her stomach and gut. “First of all, that was a wonderful thing you did. Taking my son into your home and caring for him as if he were your own.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “It’s just what anyone would have done.”
“No, you’re wrong about that, Lucy. You’re more unusual than you realize.”
“What’s the other thing?” she asked, knowing she would not like it nearly as well, and wanting to get it over with.
“I think you know what the next thing is I’m going to say.”
She sat back in her chair, hearing and feeling the thump of her shoulder blades hitting the chair back. She instinctively let go of his hand. Pulled hers into her lap, where it would be safer from the truth of things.
It struck her, as it did several times a day, that a cigarette would be just the thing. But she hadn’t smoked one for over a month, and she wouldn’t this time, either.
“Funny,” she said. “Pete and I had a similar conversation just yesterday.”
“You do know. Right?”
“Yes. And so did he. You’re leaving.”
“I don’t see that we have much choice. Do you?”
She sighed. Looked out the window at the boys, who stood inside the pasture fence fussing over the friendliest of the horses.
“I suppose you’re right,” she said. “Unfortunately. You’re not safe here and neither is Justin.”
“And you’re not safe while we’re here.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Well, Lucy . . . if anyone can, I agree that you can. But sometimes we’re just outnumbered in life.”
A long silence fell. Unusually long. Several minutes. It wasn’t so much a forced silence or a blockage of words. They just sat together for a time and did not speak. Calvin followed her gaze and watched the boys pet the horses. Watched Pete give Justin a leg up to straddle Smokey, the gray gelding, bareback. Watched the pig come close and stare up at them as if he couldn’t bear not to be part of the thing.
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