Banjo staggered back, crouching, ears flat, eyes wild.
Tyrell fired again and again into the trees just above Banjo’s head. Banjo stumbled, turned, and fled.
Tyrell kept following, firing and firing.
Until Banjo disappeared.
16
Crack!
Molly shied, and Meg reined in abruptly, hearing the shot.
One, two, three.
Then two more.
Not close…but not far, either.
Maybe close enough to catch a stray bullet. She quickly pulled Molly behind the biggest tree she could find.
When the shooting stopped, Meg moved out, moving closer to the gunshots. Why, she didn’t know. It wasn’t wise.
Molly slid down a dusty, loose rock gully and lurched up the other side.
Meg reined in to listen.
Everything was still, like in the deep of night.
Spooky.
After a long moment, she and Molly headed home.
17
By the time Danny and Tyrell passed back through Sisters on their way home, the sun was setting.
Usually, Danny enjoyed this drive. But this time he stared at the passing trees with glazed eyes, leaning against the passenger door, one boot up on the dash. It had happened so fast, so final. Tyrell doing what he couldn’t. Danny didn’t know whether to thank him or kick him.
What would he tell Dad? That he’d shot his own dog? Or would he tell him the truth?
He wanted to punch something. You creep! You don’t abandon your dog!
Tyrell slowed as they turned and headed up the dusty road to their house.
Danny looked at him.
“What?” Tyrell said.
“Don’t you feel bad about Banjo?”
“Sure, but what else could we have done? No one around here is going to take a dog that chases livestock. And neither of us could ever shoot him. What was left to do?”
“Maybe we could’ve secretly taken him to the Humane Society.”
“Maybe. But we didn’t.”
Tyrell rolled up his window against the dust off the dirt road. “So what are we going to tell Dad?”
“I don’t know yet.” Danny frowned.
The truth?
Or…a lie?
How could he do either?
They pulled up and parked next to Dad’s truck.
Tyrell tapped Danny’s knee. “Whatever it is you tell him…well…we’re in this together now.”
Danny nodded.
They got out. Danny looked back at the rifle. He slammed the door shut. He didn’t want to touch it.
Tyrell reached in and got it.
Dad was sitting at the kitchen table with his checkbook and a handful of bills, listening to the radio. He looked up. “You boys took your time.”
Danny turned away. He couldn’t look at him. He would know.
Tyrell headed to the fridge.
Danny took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. He wanted to run back to Camp Sherman.
Banjo. Terrified. Alone.
What had he done?
18
In the barn, Meg unsaddled Molly, brushed her down, and walked her out back. Late-afternoon tree shadows spiked over the pasture. Meg turned Molly out and breathed in the sweet aroma of horses and hay.
But the shots…so many shots.
Poachers?
It was hard to let go of the sound echoing through the trees.
She remembered the way Molly had stood, perfectly still, ears cocked forward, as if she’d heard or seen something even before it happened.
Tomorrow Meg would go back and have a look around.
Maybe she’d find what it was.
Or it would find her.
19
The scratchy army blanket on Danny’s bed was tucked and cornered tight, military style. Dad had taught him to make it the way he had in the Marines.
Danny stood in the doorway and stared at it in a daze.
He went in and closed the door quietly, took off his shirt, and sat on his bed holding it.
A moment later, there was a quiet knock on his door.
“It’s not locked,” Danny said.
Dad opened it and leaned against the door frame. “Hungry?”
Danny shook his head.
Dad looked at the rodeo posters on Danny’s wall. “I might be able to pick you up another one of these over in Durango. I’m passing through in a couple of weeks.”
Danny tossed his shirt across the room into the plastic laundry basket. Dad came in and sat next to him. “How you feeling?”
“Kind of horse kicked.” An understatement.
“Where’d you boys take him?”
Danny took his time answering. “Over near Camp Sherman.”
“Did he suffer?”
“No.”
Just like that. Made up his mind even before he said it.
A lie.
He closed his eyes and shook his head.
“I’m sorry, Danny, I truly am.”
Danny said nothing.
“What’d you do with him…after?”
Danny hadn’t thought about that. “Uh…we buried him. I took a shovel.”
Another lie.
“Just where you shot him?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“Don’t know if that’s legal.”
Danny said nothing.
“Well, anyway, it’s done and I’m truly sorry it came to this. I honestly didn’t think that dog would go after stock. Never had before.”
Danny could hear the radio out in the kitchen, a rollicking country song. It sounded way out of place.
“Sure you’re not hungry?”
“I don’t think I could eat for a week.”
“Well, don’t forget the horses.”
“I’ll do it now.”
Danny stood and picked up his hat, then put it back down. It was getting dark out and he didn’t need it. Still, he felt naked without it. He put it on.
Dad pushed himself up. “I know it wasn’t easy.” He paused, then added, “That had to have been the hardest thing you’ve ever done.”
“I think I’m going to sleep in the hay shed tonight.”
Dad nodded, squeezed Danny’s shoulder, and left.
Danny put his shirt back on and went out and called the horses to the feeder. He forked in some hay and alfalfa as they came up from a dark corner, one after the other. When he was done he got his sleeping bag and took it out to the hay shed. He lay where Banjo slept, hands behind his head.
There were times when Danny really wished he had someone to talk to, someone he could open up to. Like his mom. Say what he felt.
But she’d worry and get all over Dad.
This was his problem, and he’d deal with it.
In the middle of the night, Danny rolled up his sleeping bag and headed back to the house. Sleeping in the shed without Banjo was worse than pitching a tent in a cemetery.
At the front door he stopped and looked back.
Somewhere out there a hungry dog wandered in the wild, betrayed by the one he’d loved and trusted most.
20
SATURDAY
The next morning, Meg got up and went about her chores, and it wasn’t until the afternoon that she rode again into the pines, Molly huffing, saddle leather creaking.
Every few minutes she stopped to listen and look for signs that she was retracing the trail she’d taken the day before.
She stopped to eat an apple as Molly drank from a clear stream. All signs of civilization had faded. She was close to where she’d heard the shots. Close enough to spook her. Had the shooters camped overnight? Were they out there crouching in the weeds in their camo jackets
, watching her ride past?
Meg clicked her tongue, and Molly moved on.
Every flick of movement in the corner of Meg’s eye made her stomach leap. “We’re getting close, Molly-girl,” she whispered.
Molly cocked one ear back.
They came to a familiar meadow where long grasses brushed the bottom of Meg’s boots as she rode through it.
As they approached the trees on the other side, Molly shied to the right.
Meg pulled up and bent over her neck. “Easy now, easy.”
This is the place.
Like yesterday, there was nothing unusual about the trees and the meadow. Nothing in the brush, the grass, the rocks.
Standing in the stirrups and looking back, Meg saw only their trail through the long grass. Ahead, the pine forest loomed behind a line of white-barked aspens.
She clucked Molly on, and stood again in the stirrups when Molly stopped and raised her head. There…just ahead in the aspens.
A shadow.
No…not a shadow.
Something dead…or alive.
Molly threw her head and sidestepped.
“Easy.”
Meg tried to get a better look, knowing not to approach without more information. Could be a small black bear.
But a bear would be loping off by now.
Molly was too jumpy. Meg dismounted and led her closer.
There. Under a tree.
“What the heck…A dog?”
21
Meg knelt near the black-and-white dog.
It was alive. She could see it breathing. Its eyes were open, but they seemed almost vacant. Was it sick?
Meg looked up, figuring she was probably about three or four miles from Camp Sherman, too far for someone’s dog to have wandered off.
She didn’t see a campsite. No hikers, no one calling their dog. It was a pet, she could tell that much. A wild one would be long gone at the sight of her. Not this one.
Molly stretched forward to see.
The dog peeked up but didn’t raise its head.
“What are you doing way out here?” Meg said.
Its eyes shifted to hers.
Meg reached out to offer her scent. A small swirl of flies circled the dog’s eyes, making it wink.
Meg turned toward the sun. She should start heading home. Her mom would worry if she came in too late. But she couldn’t just leave the dog. “You want to come home with me?”
There was a long shallow cut on its hip. She could see that it had bled but wasn’t bleeding now. Maybe it got hit by a car on the highway and dragged itself way out here to heal, or die. But the highway was miles away.
She pulled her hand back. What if it had rabies? Or something else?
Meg glimpsed a piece of what looked like a collar and reached in and felt a metal tag. “Well, at least now we know how to find who you belong to.”
No address and no phone number.
Just a name.
“Banjo,” she said.
22
Meg stood and slapped her thighs. “Come on, Banjo. Get up. You can come home with me.”
The dog blinked. Flies rose and circled and settled back down to drink again from its eyes.
Meg frowned. She’d never seen a dog so unresponsive. “I can’t carry you. Come on, now. Get up and follow me home. It’s not far.”
Maybe it was injured in a way she couldn’t see. A broken leg? She sighed. “Okay, listen. I’ll be back soon. I’m going for help.”
Molly sidestepped as Meg tried to get her foot in the stirrup. “It’s okay, girl,” she said softly.
She grabbed the pommel and swung up. She took a last look at the dog and hurried off. It wasn’t the first dog she’d come across in the woods, but it was the first one that wouldn’t even try to get up.
Thirty minutes later she dusted down the trail that led to a gravel road, where she nearly ran into a pickup truck.
Molly lunged sideways and almost sent Meg up and over her head.
The truck swerved off the road and slid to a stop.
Meg bent over Molly’s neck to calm her, though her own heart thundered from the scare. “Whoa, girl. It’s okay, it’s okay.”
Their neighbor Ben Carter poked his head out the window. “Meg Harris, I almost got you. Where you running off to?”
“Home. I need to get Dad.”
“Something wrong?”
“I found a dog.”
“Where?”
“Out there, way out.”
“Injured?”
“Can’t really tell. He won’t get up.”
“Is it wild?”
“No.”
“Whose is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t get near it if it’s sick. Could be rabid.”
“That’s why I’m getting Dad.”
“Better tell him to bring a sidearm case he’s got to put it out of its misery.”
Meg hadn’t thought of that. “I’ll tell him.”
“Slow down before you hurt somebody.”
As he drove off, Meg thought, The last thing I’m telling Dad is to bring his gun.
23
The sky was gray blue when Meg loped up to the house in the final hours of daylight. Time was short. In the dark, she’d never find the dog again.
Dad’s truck wasn’t there.
“Not good,” she said as she slipped off Molly. He and her brothers were probably practicing for football at the high school. She’d have to find a way to do it herself.
“Meg!” Mom called from the barn.
Meg turned. “Mom, I need help!”
“Where’ve you been? I was starting to worry.”
“I found a dog. He won’t get up. He’s way out in the woods.”
“Is he hurt?”
“It’s on his side. I don’t know whose dog it is, but he needs help.”
Mom thought for a moment. “Saddle Sunspot. I’ll leave a note and fill a canteen. Dad and the boys won’t be back for a couple of hours.”
Meg led Molly into the barn and saddled Mom’s horse.
Minutes later they headed into the trees riding single file, Meg leading. In the meadows, they rode side by side, racing the fading light.
Meg found Banjo by following the trail she’d left coming out. “There. Just where I left him.”
They dismounted and hunched down to look at him. “There’s a tag. See? His name is Banjo.”
Mom reached out to let the dog sniff her hand. Banjo opened his eyes, but that was all. Mom stroked his head, then felt along his back, ribs, and legs. When she came to Banjo’s flesh wound, he looked up and nipped the air.
“Looks like he’s got a cut of some kind on his hip,” she said. “Get the canteen. Let’s see if he’ll drink some water.”
Meg got the water and poured some into her hand.
Banjo sniffed it and turned away.
“I tried to get him to come home with me, but he wouldn’t move. Wouldn’t even lift his head. Why’s he like this, Mom?”
Mom stroked Banjo’s neck.
“Could be anything. Maybe somebody drove him far from home and abandoned him. People get rid of unwanted pets that way.”
“That’s sick, Mom.”
“I’m not saying that’s what happened, but it’s possible.”
“Who would do something like that?”
“You’d be surprised.”
Mom sat back on her heels. “You know what I think?”
“He came out here to die?”
“Something like that, but no. Look at him. Look at those eyes. This dog has a broken heart.”
24
It took gentle patience for Mom to lift Banjo across Meg’s lap as she sat in her saddle.
Banjo nipped her when she touched his grazed hip, just to warn. He had yet to make a sound.
It was twilight by the time they got home. Mom carried Banjo into the barn and settled him onto a folded blanket that Meg placed on a bed of hay in an empty horse stall.
“This dog has been traumatized,” Mom said, putting a hand on Banjo’s head. “You poor thing.”
Meg’s eyes began to water.
Mom stood and hugged her. “You okay out here by yourself? I have to start dinner.”
Meg nodded, wiping her eyes with her fingers.
“Don’t forget the horses.”
“I won’t.”
Meg brought Molly and Sunspot in and quickly unsaddled them. She brushed them down and turned them out for the night. On the way back in she filled a tin bowl with water and set it by Banjo.
Banjo didn’t even look at it.
Meg sat down next to him and picked the burrs out of his coat. “I like your name, Banjo. Who gave it to you? And where’d you come from?”
She bent close to look at him. Eyes can tell you so much, but what she saw in Banjo’s was a dying campfire.
“I know!” Meg jumped to her feet and clapped. “Come on, boy, let’s run around the barn, come on.”
Banjo lifted his head, startled.
“That’s it, come on! Get up!”
He settled back down and looked up at her.
Meg leaned forward, her hands on her knees. “Well, I’m not giving up on you, so you can just forget about that.”
Maybe she’d sleep out here tonight.
In the yard, truck doors slammed. The door to the house creaked open. Minutes later, her dad and two brothers came out to the barn and stood around her. “Mom says you found a dog,” Dad said.
Jacob squatted and looked Banjo over.
Meg reached for his tag. “His name is Banjo. No other information.”
“Where’d you find him?”
“Little bit northeast of Camp Sherman.”
“What were you doing out there?” Dad asked.
“Just riding. Mom thinks someone abandoned him.”
Banjo Page 5
