The Middle of Somewhere

by J. B. Cheaney

  Gee didn't answer, but he snuggled a little closer. I had to admit, he felt a little like a teddy bear on a scary night— though squirmier than most.

  I guess we wore ourselves out enough to sleep, because dawn light woke me up. That, and a noise outside the tent.

  Slowly I turned toward the east and the pale pink glow throwing silhouettes against the nylon wall. The rain fly still sagged over the zipped-up window. And underneath it was a hulky bearlike shape.

  I bolted upright in the sleeping bag. First thought: there really was something out there! And second thought: it ate my brother! But then came the unmistakable sound of Gee whispering, which is louder than most people talking. Easing out of the bag, I crept through the open door of the tent, then stood up and tiptoed around the corner.

  What had seemed like only one creature was really two—my brother and a big shaggy dog with a thumpy tail.Gee looked up at me with a huge grin and said, “His name is Leo. And he's mine.”

  He'd always wanted a dog but couldn't have one, because since Daddy died, every place we'd lived had a “no pets” policy. His asthma was a factor, too, though less of one now. Mama told him she'd think about it when we moved to Partly, but so far she'd had too many other things to think about. I knew she thought a dog would be good for Gee—teach him responsibility, be a loyal companion, and all that—but I was pretty sure she had something a little smaller in mind.

  As for me, I don't have anything against dogs, but never especially wanted one. They're messy and in the way, and more so the bigger they are. This dog looked like he could stop a truck.

  “He's probably covered with fleas!” I said. “We're going to have to spray you with Raid before you get back in the RV!”

  At the sound of my voice, the dog scootched back and hung his head. “You hurt his feelings!” Gee said.

  “Pop's gonna hurt more than that.” My eye fell on an empty hot dog package. “You didn't feed him, did you?”

  Stupid question. I stepped closer and pushed aside the long hair on the dog's neck, while he wiggled his butt like he was trying to corkscrew himself into the ground. “He has a collar,” I said. “That means he belongs to somebody. Maybe somebody in this campground.”

  “But he doesn't have any tags!”

  “How do you know his name, then?”

  “I just do. Right, Leo? Whoever he belonged to turned him loose, and now he belongs to me.”

  The dog burrowed his nose into Gee's chest as if begging, Protect me! Like he didn't even know he could have me for lunch. I sighed. “Somehow I don't think Pop'll see it that way.”

  No surprise there. Our kindly old grandpa got up with the sun, chipper as a bluebird after his peaceful night, and emerged whistling from the RV. “So, how'd you two survive? Looks like we got a little rain. We'd better—what the heck?”

  The sound of a man's voice sent the dog straight to Panic City. He lunged out of Gee's arms and made a bolt for the trees, where he stood quivering like a cornered mouse. “Where'd that thing come from?” Pop demanded.

  Gee explained, sort of: “He's a dog and he stayed by our tent last night and he likes me and I want to keep him! Please?”

  Pop was shaking his head even before Gee got to the “I want” part. “No way, José.”

  “But why?” The “why” came out long and whiny

  Pop started ticking reasons off his fingers. “Number one: I couldn't afford to feed him. Two: no place to keep him. Three: he's probably loaded with fleas. Four: he's been spooked. Whoever had him before probably didn't treat him right, and that's why he's so jumpy. Watch this.” Pop stamped a foot toward the dog and clapped his hands sharply. “SCRAM!” Leo whirled and ran, then turned back, whining.

  Pop's reasonable reasons just made Gee wail louder.While we packed up the tent, he was clutching Leo under the trees as though he'd never let go.

  “Before we take off, he's going to the shower,” Pop told me. I knew he meant the boy, not the dog. “And be sure he washes his hair.”

  So I dragged Gee off to the shower, and then back to the RV, where Pop was impatiently waiting for us. The dog had crept closer, inch by inch, until he crouched on the edge of the campsite, thumping his tail. I took Gee firmly by the arm and pulled him up the steps. Pop lobbed a rock in Leo's direction, yelling again, “Scram!”

  Gee dissolved in tears then, and I decided to sit with him until the crisis was over. When we pulled out of the campsite, I caught a last glimpse of the dog, looking so sad and lonesome I could almost forget about the fleas.

  Don't be afraid to expand your community.

  Even the hottest team needs a dash ofnew blood

  now and then.

  —Kent Clark

  When Gee gets really, really upset, he either pitches a screaming fit or he shuts down like a Game Boy with a dead battery. Since we were on the road, I was relieved when he didn't throw himself on the floor and rearrange the furniture. But the shutdowns are just as bad in a way, like that instant during a lightning storm when everything goes still and you realize the electricity's off.

  He sat across from me at the dinette table, clutching a rolled-up piece of paper. When I asked, he un-clutched it just enough for me to recognize the Human Cannonball promotional card he'd picked up in the Big Brutus gift shop. That's one of his little quirks: when he was younger, and he got anything new, he would take it to bed with him for the first night. I mean anything. I've seen him sleeping with bundles of socks or toothbrushes still in the package. In moments of stress, he still grabs his latest special thing and cuddles up for dear life, even if it's something spiky like a G.I. Joe action figure loaded with bayonets.

  I hate it when he makes me feel guilty, like maybe I should have spoken up for Leo. “Want to play Go Fish?” I asked. He shook his head. “Battleship?” He shook it evenharder. “How about that game Mama taught us, where you look for all the letters of the alphabet in highway signs, but you have to find them in order?”

  His answer was to unbuckle his seat belt and drop out of sight below the table. When I looked, he was curled around the table leg, still hugging that goofy card.

  I moved up to the passenger seat. Pop took an open bottle from the cupholder and offered it to me. “Vitamin C?” I shook my head. He already told me he took one C tablet per day for general immunity, but since this trip began he seemed to be increasing the dosage. “Is Gee okay?”

  “He's asleep.” After a pause, I added, “Neither one of us slept much last night.”

  “Hmmm,” was his reply.

  If I was fishing for an apology, he wasn't biting. I leaned my head back and watched the road through half-closed eyes.

  The land stretched out in all directions like it had nothing to hide. And not much to show, either. Overhead a bunch of clouds moved in the same direction as the wind, but slower. Each cloud cast a clean-cut shadow on the ground, all nearly the same size and about an equal distance apart. They were like a huge flock of sheep that happened to be grazing three hundred feet off the ground. Kansas was full of this kind of stuff, like the flat ponds and the trees that all bent one way—all natural, but just a little … weird. I was trying to think how to describe it to Mama.

  “Hey,” Pop spoke up. “You didn't want to keep that dust mop of a dog, did you?”

  “Nope.” Not for myself, anyway—too big, too hairy, too scaredy-cattish.

  “Good.” My eyelids drooped as the straight horizon blurred. There was one tree at the right corner of the windshield—just one, and it looked like the only tree in the world. “We're headed for southwest Kansas, but there's a wind farm on the way I want to take a look at. The only one in the state—so, far, that is.…”

  To tell you the truth, wind power was not a spellbinding subject to me just then. I was asleep even before he got going.

  I woke up, only a little later, when we pulled into a gas station in some town. The towns all looked pretty much alike—what made them special was that they were so far apart. After an hour of open empt
y landscape, you're hungry for a Conoco sign or a stoplight. “This is the last pit stop between now and noon,” Pop said. “Make the most of it.”

  He got out and unholstered the nearest gas nozzle. Gee woke up mad, bucking my hand off his shoulder when I tried to steer him out the door. Instead of racing for the convenience store like always, to load up on sugar snacks that I would make him put back, he stalked toward the back of the RV. Then he stopped short with a gasp.

  From the motorcycle trailer came a sound I knew well already: a thump and a whine. Cozied up to Pop's Yamaha was a big shaggy dog.

  Gee grasped the situation quicker than I did. GrabbingLeo's collar, he hissed, “Come on, boy! You've gotta hide!” That seemed as do-able as sticking a Lay-Z-Boy recliner under your mattress. Leo was halfway under the rear axle of the Coachman when Pop caught him, alerted by the sound of a tail thumping.

  Gee threw his arms around the dog's neck. “See? He wants to keep us, too. Pleeeeease?”

  Leo squeezed up against Gee, shivering, like he thought he was no bigger than a chihuahua. It was a sight to melt the stoniest heart, but Pop's heart was granite; all he said was, “If you want anything, get it now.” Then he marched off to the store.

  Gee crawled from under the RV and squatted on the curb, still hugging Leo. “Pop's not going to change his mind,” I told him. “I'm sorry, but after all, he only agreed to two fellow travelers, not three.” Gee just clung harder. Shaking my head, I wandered over to the bench next to the store entrance, where a chunky young guy was drinking a Coke.

  His shirt had A-1 AUTO embroidered on one pocket and CLINT on the other. He remarked, “Picked up a stray, huh?”

  “He picked us up. Or not all of us, just my brother.”

  “Uh-huh.” A minute passed. “Probably full of fleas.”

  This seemed to be everybody's first thought. “I don't think so. If he was, we'd all be itching our heads off by now.”

  “Huh.” Clint was a man of few words.

  After a while, Pop came out with a bottle of Diet Mountain Dew and a doughnut bag. I guess he figured that if his supplements kept him healthy, his food wouldn't haveto. When he saw my companion, he paused and pulled a five-dollar bill out of his wallet. “Clint, can you do me a favor? Hold that dog until we're five minutes down the road. Then you can let him go.”

  “Sure, man.” Clint stood up and ambled over to the Coachman, where Pop literally had to pull Gee and Leo apart, handing the boy to me and the dog to Clint. Leo whined and Gee yelled, but old Granite-Heart didn't even seem to hear.

  After Pop moved around to the driver's side, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Turning, while Gee struggled in my arms, I came face to face with Abraham Lincoln. On the five-dollar bill, I mean. “Give this back to him at your next stop,” Clint said. Then he winked. “Every kid needs a dog.”

  I wasn't sure I needed a dog. But what if Leo's long-term goal of finding a master had been rewarded? After a second, I nodded to Clint and whispered a few words to Gee, who shut off like a faucet.

  For the next leg of our trip, Gee looked like he was holding three aces and trying not to show it. Pop was probably too grateful for the silence to notice. I sat up front and worried that all we'd done was prolong the agony. What if at our next stop Pop simply tied Leo to a tree and drove off? The tree wouldn't have sentimental thoughts about boys and dogs, and Gee would have gained nothing but another heartbreaking good-bye. Of course, I thought, scanning the landscape, Pop would have to find a tree first. …

  Or what if we just kept hiding the dog? Not a likelyscenario. Besides, we had to feed him, and there was no money in the budget for a mountain of hot dogs.

  Gee kept jumping up to get glasses of water or go to the bathroom until Pop yelled that he'd run the tank dry if he didn't sit down and stay down. When Gee buckled himself in for the fifth or sixth time in less than thirty minutes, I slipped back to the dinette table and said, nice and low, “Okay, tell me: how are you going to hide a furball as big as a Volkswagen?”

  “No problemo!” He wiggled with joy. “As soon as we stop, I'll jump out the door and run to the back and pull Leo between the back tires. And you keep Pop busy so he won't notice.”

  “He won't notice you snuggled under the RV with Bigfoot?”

  He sighed, as if I were the one being unreasonable. “I won't stay under. I'll just tell Leo to stay until we get moving again. Then he can jump back on the trailer.”

  “Since when do you speak Dog?”

  He just grinned, and I wondered if I was being too negative. Suddenly, my stomach flipped—the RV was slowing down! Then it slowed more, even though a quick glance out the window showed me nothing but flat plains and barbed-wire fence.

  “Battle stations!” I hissed. Gee's eyes got big, and he jumped up so fast I had to grab his shirt. “But wait till we come to a full and complete stop.”

  The full and complete stop happened right after, and he bolted out the door just as Pop turned around to say, “Behold the future!”

  I moved up to the passenger seat, and my jaw dropped. There must have been hundreds of them, stretched into the sky, set in perfectly straight and even rows like sunflowers planted by a finicky gardener. They were such a pale gray that the rows farthest away sort of dissolved into the white horizon. Each one had three blades near the top, some turning fast, some slow, some not at all. Even though I knew they were windmills, all those tall, silent poles in rows looked like they might have been planted by space invaders. Did they come in peace, or what?

  “Let's get out and take a look,” Pop suggested.

  That brought me back to the immediate problem. When he opened his door, I scooted out the passenger side and peeked under the back wheels. Gee was there, holding Leo's tail to keep it from thumping. I gestured frantically for him to come out and leave the dog, while he shook his head, equally frantic, waving me forward to distract Pop.

  But Pop didn't need distracting. “Just listen!” he said when I joined him. The blades turned with a steady row-row-row and a faint metal buzz.

  “How come they're moving at different speeds?” I asked.

  “Wind doesn't hit'em all the same. You can see a few where the blades aren't turning at all—they might be stalled. It's not a very windy day, for here.”

  You could have fooled me. Little pellets of sand were blasting my legs, and black-eyed Susans along the road nodded like crazy old ladies. “Are they working right now, or just on really windy days?”

  “They're working all the time, blowing up enough power for this whole county.”

  “And you're going to look for another spot like this?”

  “Yep. Starting tomorrow, I'll do some reconnaissance. We'll camp at Meade Lake for three, four days while I take readings. Think you kids can stay out of trouble?”

  “Uh-huh.” With him being gone so many hours in a day, it might be easier to keep Leo out of sight. A cloud of dust approached us on the farm road, and I watched it just because it was the only thing happening on the ground. That is, until I glanced behind me and saw way too much happening: namely, Gee chasing the dog around clumps of prairie grass, trying to get him back under the RV. Leo would let him get close enough to grab his collar before breaking loose again, like it was a big game. At least he had the sense not to bark—Leo, that is.

  “Where's Gee?” Pop asked.

  “He's okay—just running off some steam,” I said quickly. “Look, Pop—somebody's headed our way.”

  The cloud of dust rolled closer and coughed up a blue-and-white pickup truck. It slowed to a stop as the driver pulled even with us. “Are y'all having car trouble?”

  I glanced at him—then glanced again. Under that John Deere cap was a kid not much older than me, sitting kind of low in the cab but leaning his left arm on the window and his right hand on the wheel like he'd been driving all his life.

  “No car trouble, son,” Pop said heartily. “Just admiring your windmills.”

  “They're not mine, sir,” the boy said wit
h a little smile.

  “I don't even like 'em that much. When the wind's real strong, they keep me awake at night.”

  While Pop reassured him about the wave of the future, I looked way down the road to where a ranch-style house crouched under the towering windmills, like it was terrified of its own crop. Glancing behind me again, I caught sight of a dog's tail and a boy's legs chasing back toward the road.

  “Well, good luck,” the boy in the truck was saying as he shifted gears. My head snapped around when he said, “Nice dog.”

  “Yeah, it's a real nice day. Have a good one.”

  Pop didn't seem to hear that little exchange. The boy squinted at me but didn't say anything as he revved the accelerator and rolled on. Another quick glance showed me that Gee had just about succeeded in herding Leo back to his hideaway, so I distracted Pop a little more. “That kid was just a kid! How come he's driving?”

  “Farm-state laws. You can get your license at fourteen or fifteen. Makes sense out here—there's not much to hit.” He raised his voice. “Gee! Wherever you are, get on board—we're leaving!”

  I didn't see either the boy or the dog, but as soon as Pop walked around to the driver's side, they popped out on the passenger side, with Gee still chasing a happy, loopy Leo. Hearing Pop's door slam, I opened the RV door for Gee. He climbed in all sweaty, giving me a high five while Leo sat in a clump of black-eyed Susans, swishing his tail. I could tell just by looking at him that he knew the drill: as soon as we started rolling, he'd hop on board.

  Kent Clark talks about expanding your community, but he probably didn't have mutts in mind. Instead of one hyper traveling companion, I now had two. Our little community had expanded to a little madhouse.

  By the time we got to the state park, I had a plan. Sneaking a piece of nylon rope from the storage bin under the sofa, I whispered to Gee, “When we pull up to the campsite, you need to distract Pop somehow. Somehow that doesn't make him mad. I'll tie this rope to the dog's collar and take him—I don't know, somewhere out of sight—and tie him up. Then we'll take it a step at a time, okay?” Gee nodded with his whole body and grinned as wide as Big Brutus.