Grain spatters into a steel garbage can. “No big deal.” Cub lowers the bag of feed and looks smack at me. “Has Dead End come home?”
Focusing on the toes of my dusty riding boots now, I shake my head. “No.”
Cub grunts. “I was hopin’ you were late because he’d shown up.”
“No. I was late because G.D. wanted to talk more about how I need to face life head-on.” I grind my boot heel into a corn kernel, mashing it, sick of hearing about what I should and shouldn’t do. “He keeps trying to get me to go with Lyon to…” I hesitate. “You know.”
“Fairfax.” Cub goes to one of the traps that Jerry Smoothers keeps placing around the stable, trying to cut down the mouse and rat populations. With a kick, Cub springs the trap, making its jaws bite closed so that it becomes harmless. I swear the kid would sacrifice a toe to keep even a mangy rat from getting a whisker caught in a trap. “How’s G.D.?”
“He slept right through our usual breakfast time. Another reason I’m late.”
Cub makes a grunting sound which might as well say that’s not good. He knows G.D. usually gets up before the rooster crows.
I suck in a breath. Even during my lesson, I couldn’t shake the image of G.D., looking too brittle, making his way from his bedroom to the kitchen. “He’ll be fine once Dead End comes home.” My voice, like my insides, trembles.
Cub raises his eyebrows, showing his doubt.
“Once Dead End comes home, everything will be great,” I say again, barely getting this out, trying to believe it. But even Mom’s words sound weak today.
“What if Dead End doesn’t come back?”
“I’ve told you—he will,” I snap. “He’s a good dog. Sad, but still good.”
Cub kicks another trap shut. “Dill, maybe the dog bein’ missing isn’t what’s bothering your grandfather. Maybe G.D. really does need to go to the hospital.”
I shake my head hard because I don’t have any more words to argue with.
Cub flips over the now-useless trap with his boot toe. “And that’s why Donny has started calling you Cleopatra, Queen of Denial.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Because you never come over anymore and won’t talk to my dad about what’s happened. Because you won’t deal with…” Cub stops. “Well, you know.”
I don’t breathe. Donny talking about me? Cleopatra sounds great, but Queen of Denial? Calling me Queen Freak would sound better.
“Get it?” Cub grins. “Denial sounds like Nile. Cleopatra was the queen of the Nile.”
“Yeah, I get it,” I bark.
Before I can get all over Cub about whatever else Donny might have said about me, the sound of boots coming fast down the aisle stops me. Ms. Hunter pauses in the grain room doorway, her eyes wide with alarm, the fingers of her right hand wrapped around her small cell phone. “Dill, Cub. Have you seen Dr. Kitt?”
Cub jerks his thumb left. “Black Bart’s stall.”
Ms. Hunter whips around, her long red braid flying. The frantic thud of her riding boots echoes through the stable.
“Come on,” I say low to Cub, waving at him to follow me.
At the end of the aisle, I stop, and stick my arm out to stop Cub from shooting past me. As we peer around a corner, Ms. Hunter jogs past two stalls and then slows at Black Bart’s space.
“Give us a look at that leg, Bart,” Dr. Kitt says in his raspy, sandpaper voice. He always refers to himself as us or we when he speaks to his animal patients.
Ms. Hunter grabs either side of the doorway of Black Bart’s stall as if she needs to hold herself up. “Ian, Ned Jonas shot a dog. About ten minutes ago.”
I gasp, slapping a hand over my mouth. Cub makes a sound like he’s about to lose his breakfast.
“Shot a dog?” Dr. Kitt’s question comes out breathless. “Ned Jonas wouldn’t swat a fly if it bit him.”
I grab Cub’s arm and yank him into an empty box stall.
“Your wife called a few minutes ago.” Ms. Hunter lifts her cell phone. “Ned Jonas got ahold of her. She said he sounded frantic. Something about dogs chasing his sheep. He shot at them. Hit one!”
“Ned doesn’t even own a gun.”
“Apparently, he does now,” Ms. Hunter adds, her voice dropping.
Cub jabs me in the ribs with his elbow—his own weapon. “Old Mr. Jonas probably got that gun from the new store,” he spits in a whisper.
All at once I feel like I’ve swallowed a gallon of milk gone sour.
Metal clinks—has to be Dr. Kitt throwing his veterinarian tools into his bag. “Something has to be done about that dog pack before every farmer in the county starts shooting at anything that moves.”
Cub gulps. “What if…?”
A zipper rips—probably on Dr. Kitt’s medical bag—interrupting Cub. “Tucker, could you call my wife?” The man sounds tense. “Tell her I’m on my way to Ned’s place.”
I grab Cub’s arm. “We’ll go to the Jonas’s farm, too,” I whisper, my voice shaking.
The quick beat of Ms. Hunter’s riding boots comes back at us. “Ned told your wife that he’d be at his barn with the dog, waiting for you.”
“I’m as good as there.” Dr. Kitt’s steps follow her.
As they pass us, Cub and I drop and press against the stall wall to keep from being seen. When the footsteps fade, I straighten. “If we cut through Drake’s Farm on our bikes,” I whisper, “we could get to the Jonas place almost as quick as Dr. Kitt.”
Cub gives me one of those big grins that announce he’s up for anything. “Sounds like one of your plans, Dill.” His eyes almost twinkle. “I’ve missed those.”
“Aren’t there a couple sheds sort of near the Jonas barn?”
“Yeah.” Cub’s face twists as he considers this. “We might be able to sneak into one without being seen, but we’ll have to be real careful about it.”
“Good enough,” I say. “Let’s go.”
* * *
“The tractor shed is the safest building to get into,” Cub tells me as he herds me through the tall stalks of a cornfield behind the Jonas barn. “I’m not sure what we’ll see from there, but if we try to get into any of the other buildings, we’ll be spotted for sure.” With that, he leads me into a three-sided, shadowy plank shack close to the corn.
My heart punches a rib-busting rhythm to the beat of Dead End couldn’t have been shot, Dead End couldn’t have been shot. My quivering fingers wipe sweat droplets from my forehead. What will I tell G.D. if something bad has happened to our dog? The man can’t take much more loss. None of us can.
“I discovered this shed last summer, when Danny and Tommy made me help them bale hay for old Mr. Jonas.” Cub squeezes past ancient and oily tractors, plows, and wagons—metal dinosaurs that smell of gasoline, corn, and hay. “I’d sneak off and hide in here to get a break,” he whispers. “They never could find me.”
I scrape past a tractor tire. “How are we going to see anything from in here?”
Cub jerks his thumb at the gaps between the warped planks.
Once we get to the back wall, I squint into a space almost as wide as my hand. “Cub,” I breathe, “I see Dr. Kitt.” It’s hard to miss his floppy green-and-blue plaid hat. Short and stocky, he’s kneeling over something laid out in front of the huge barn—a stone’s throw from Cub and me. Wiry Mr. Jonas stands close by Dr. Kitt. The three grown Jonas boys hover beside him, towering over their dad. Given Dr. Kitt’s back, Mr. Ned Jonas’s back, and the tree-trunk legs of the Jonas sons, Cub and I can’t see even the fur of the flat-out patient.
“I got a bad feelin’,” Cub mutters.
My stomach hiccups, but a distant metallic rumble, growing louder by the second, stops me from agreeing with him.
“A truck.” Cub throws himself over plows and bounces off a tractor tire, scrambling to a gap in the side wall. “A blue pickup tearin’ down the driveway,” he reports. “Mr. Crowley’s truck.”
I groan. “That hothead has a habit of causing tons of tr
ouble.” Even Lyon, who gets along with everybody, had a run-in with Mr. Pete Crowley once. “Remember when Mr. Crowley went berserk because Lyon wouldn’t let Blackie wander around the store off her leash?”
Cub rolls his eyes. “Yup,” he says as the truck skids to a stop, spraying dirt and gravel that pelts our shed like bullets. “Jeez.” He backs away from the wall. “Mr. Crowley looks as mad as a wet cat.”
As I wipe at my eyes and spit dust, Cub throws himself back at the wall facing the barn, almost cracking his leg bone on a plow.
The truck door whips open. “Ned! What’s going on?” Mr. Crowley’s voice explodes like a cannon.
I find a gap, peer out at hairy-armed Mr. Crowley—a grizzly bear in denim and suspenders. He stands scowling with his big hands on his hips, poised for battle. The knot of men in front of Cub and me shift and turn to stare at him.
It doesn’t matter that I’d pass out if I saw yellow fur, I still shift and dip, trying to see past all the legs and sagging denim butts. Mom always warned me that curiosity could kill cats. This had never stopped me before, but now something tells me that I should hang on to her words.
Mr. Pete Crowley storms toward the group. “Ned, why’d your wife call me over here?”
Dr. Kitt straightens and turns, giving Cub and me a glimpse of half of his face, enough to reveal a sadness that hangs on him like a bag of wet sand. The wall of bodies breaks apart around what has to be the shot dog as Mr. Jonas and his boys step back.
“Blackie.” Cub’s elbow slams into my already bruised ribs.
“Not Dead End.” There could be no better medicine for G.D.
But Mr. Crowley jerks back. All color leaves his face. “Blackie?” For once, his voice doesn’t thunder. He blinks as if he doesn’t believe his eyes.
Dr. Kitt sighs. “I’m sorry, Pete. I did what I could.”
My breath lumps in my throat. My heart suddenly feels like it’s on the prongs of a pitchfork.
Cub jerks back from the wall as if it has bitten him. “Mr. Jonas shot Blackie?”
All relief and joy from knowing Dead End hasn’t been hurt evaporates. Blackie, the playful Labrador with a tail that never stopped. A smiling sweetheart of a dog. The mother of the pup Cub’s parents wouldn’t let him keep.
“I just took care of her a couple weekends ago,” Cub mutters, his tone disbelieving. “Brought her a new tennis ball.”
Images like photographs pop into my head: Blackie barely able to sit still, her brown eyes bright and anxious as she waits for Cub to throw a ball; Blackie paddling across the Crowley’s pond to retrieve a stick; Blackie smiling, proud of the four adorable, fat and wriggling pups around her.
Cub turns away from me, sniffs, wipes at his eyes.
With clenched fists, Mr. Crowley turns on Mr. Jonas. “What’d you do to my dog?”
Mr. Ned Jonas points a gnarled finger back at Mr. Crowley. “She went after my sheep. You should have kept her on your own property.”
Mr. Crowley’s face goes crimson. I’d have bet my stable pay that he’d squash Mr. Jonas like a bug, but Dr. Kitt pushes between them, his hands up in stop signals. “You two don’t need to make this situation any worse.”
Another engine rumble interrupts. Within a minute, gravel and dirt spray the driveway side of the shed again. Everyone turns to the black-and-white sheriff’s car as it slides to a stop near Mr. Crowley’s truck.
Cub sniffs again, and then slides the back of his hand under his nose.
The driver’s side door of the patrol car flies open. Sheriff Tom Hawks jumps out from behind the steering wheel, reminding me of a Doberman pinscher guard dog. As he yanks his mirrored sunglasses off his face, his dark eyes narrow on Mr. Crowley. “What’s going on here?”
Cub presses his face to the gap. If he doesn’t become a vet, he’ll be a sheriff.
Dr. Kitt tips his head at Mr. Jonas and Mr. Crowley. “Ned here shot Pete’s Blackie, Tom.”
“Because that Blackie and some other dogs went after my sheep!”
Sheriff Hawks growls something about stinkin’ dog packs, and then points at Mr. Jonas. “Got a license for the gun, Ned?”
“Yup. Got it the other day from that new store in Blacksberry.”
Cub moans low in his throat, sounding like he might hurl.
Mr. Crowley waves a tight fist. “I don’t care if Santa Claus brought him the damn gun! He shot my dog!”
“I might have clipped another in the pack, too,” Mr. Jonas mutters. “Can’t be sure.”
The sheriff turns to Blackie, stares at her, his eyes heavy with a sadness I don’t expect. More than once, Mom and Lyon have used this man as an example of the tough, no-nonsense type who practices patience and fairness. Whenever I lose my temper, like the time I’d called Jeanie Snipes a low-life tramp, even though I hadn’t a clue what that meant, Lyon reminds me of the fair and generous ways of Sheriff Hawks.
“Any witnesses?” The sheriff kneads his forehead.
“The missus and Ida Gilford,” Mr. Jonas says, exhaustion weighing on his tone. “They were havin’ coffee in the kitchen when they looked out the window and saw dogs take after my sheep.”
“I’ll have to speak with those ladies.” The sheriff takes a deep breath and turns to Dr. Kitt. “Cause of death?”
Death stabs my ears, pierces through my center as if I’m made of butter.
“Bullet wounds,” Dr. Kitt states.
Mr. Crowley drops his face into his hands and turns away from everyone. A strangled noise escapes from Cub.
The image of Dead End smiling pushes into my head. Suffocating sadness wraps around me, and squeezes the air out of my lungs.
“Poor Blackie,” Cub whispers.
Sheriff Hawks pulls out a pad of paper and a pen. “What a mess,” he says while scribbling. “I’m sorry about Blackie, Pete, but Ned had a license. I’ll check out his statements, but it seems Blackie was part of that dog pack we’ve been dealing with.”
Mr. Crowley stiffens. His top lip curls up in a snarl. The guard dogs at Rusty’s junkyard look less vicious. “Blackie’s never gone after sheep.”
“Pete,” Dr. Kitt says. “We all know Blackie was a fine dog—a good pet.”
Another strangled noise escapes from Cub.
The sadness I’ve been struggling to keep down bubbles up into my chest. My bottom lip begins to quiver and my eyes fill. An urge to run back to the stable, jump onto Crossfire’s back and ride hard and long, gallop away from this mess, even if that means leaving Virginia itself, almost takes me over.
“A Labrador retriever isn’t a killer,” Mr. Crowley says. “Especially not Blackie.”
He sounds like me defending Dead End.
Dr. Kitt sighs. “Often, when a dog experiences pack hunting and the thrill of chasing animals … when a dog tastes blood…” He scans the group before he looks back at Mr. Crowley. “It can’t stop killing. Instinct takes over.”
Again Cub jabs me. “Like Dead End and that poor groundhog.”
I’m too busy fighting back a sob to speak.
Sheriff Hawks slides his sunglasses back onto his face. “I’ve seen dogs come together in a pack before and it’s not pretty. I’m sorry, Pete.”
Dr. Kitt nods.
Cub covers his face with his hands and turns away from me.
Mr. Crowley drops to Blackie, lifts her body, and stomps back to his truck. “This dog pack business is a load of crap!” He lowers Blackie into the truck bed as if she is sleeping and he doesn’t want to wake her. Standing there a minute, staring down at her, he wipes a hand over his face. Then he throws himself behind the steering wheel of his truck and slams the door closed.
“It’s tough to accept,” Dr. Kitt says as the blue truck tears back down the driveway.
Sheriff Hawks stuffs his writing pad and pen back into his pocket. “But unfortunately, the only way to stop a dog pack is to get rid of all the animals in it.” He sucks in a deep breath. “And it’s my job to make sure that happens.”
I step back as if slapped. Lyon’s voice explodes in my ears: Dogs that go after livestock should be destroyed.
CHAPTER 10
CAUGHT
Only twenty-four hours later, Blackie’s death hangs over me, too close to another loss only three months old and a missing pooch with golden eyelashes. Even being on Crossfire’s back isn’t pushing all other thoughts aside. I’ve lost what Ms. Hunter calls my edge, and almost fell off twice already during the last hour of my lesson. Instead of concentrating on trotting and cantering and jumping, I keep going back to sitting with G.D. at breakfast, trying to tell him about Blackie, but only listening to him talk about the importance of facing troubles head-on.
“Did you hear the good news, Dill?” Ms. Hunter crosses the center of the ring now that Crossfire and I are walking, cooling down. “Bob Kryer thinks he and his son caught one of the pack dogs. A blond husky.”
I almost fall off Crossfire again. “Oh? Really?” My voice seeps out high-pitched and strangled. Thank goodness Ms. Hunter doesn’t know all the dogs around here, and may not realize that Dead End is as yellow as corn. For once, I’m glad she doesn’t allow dogs in her stable, a precaution to keep her goats and the barn cats safe.
“Apparently, Bob lured this dog into the barn with Mrs. Kryer’s stew.” Ms. Hunter chuckles at this.
I picture Mom serving Dead End some of her famous stew, one of his favorite meals. Whenever he gulped it down, he’d give her happy dog grunts and wag his tail in big O’s. Afterwards, he’d lick Mom’s face in thanks, which she never turned away from, even though he had beef-gravy breath.
Ms. Hunter gets more serious as she focuses on me again. “Hey, sit up straight, Dill. Shoulders back. Walking Crossfire out doesn’t mean you can ride like a rag doll.”
I suck in air and squeeze my shoulder blades together, wishing I could shake off the image of Blackie lying like roadkill on the driveway of the Jonas farm.
“What’s Mr. Kryer going to do with that dog?” My voice wobbles as my mind pictures G.D., his grin covering his face like paint, smothering Dead End with pets.
Dog Gone Page 9
