Banjo

by Graham Salisbury

  Jacob scratched under Banjo’s chin. “Hey, dog. Somebody dump you?”

  Banjo wouldn’t look at him directly.

  Jeremy clicked his tongue. “I find out who dumped this dog, I’ll take a whip to him.”

  Dad put a hand on Jeremy’s arm.

  “Sorry.”

  Dad hunched down and felt around Banjo’s body. He stopped when Banjo winced. “How bad’s the wound?”

  “Not too,” Meg said.

  Dad looked closer. “Looks like he was grazed by a bullet.”

  “What!” Jeremy barked.

  “He’s okay,” Dad added. “At least physically.”

  “Mom thinks he has a broken heart.”

  Dad frowned and pushed himself up. “Time for dinner, Meg.”

  Meg sighed. “I’ll be back, sad dog,” she said. “I’ll take care of you. Don’t you worry about anything.”

  25

  SUNDAY

  Tyrell had a summer job at Les Schwab Tire Center in Sisters, so most of the chores were left to Danny. Which was fine with him, because the only thing that seemed to help keep his mind off Banjo was work.

  He tossed hay and alfalfa into the horse feeders, mucked out the stalls, spread new wood chips, and headed out to the pasture with a wheelbarrow full of manure that he unloaded near a stubborn old stump they’d been trying to dig out, attacking it with picks and shovels.

  Dad was at the gate resetting a hinge. “Been thinking,” he called over to Danny. “How ’bout you, me, and Tyrell haul the horses on down to Harney County one day this week? I can take some time off. We can ride up Steens Mountain and see if we can’t get your mind off that dog.”

  Danny set the wheelbarrow down. “Uh, well…this Saturday’s the rodeo, and I’ve got to…you know. Get ready. Practice.”

  The last thing he wanted to do was spend hours in a truck talking about Banjo. “Besides, Tyrell works weekdays.”

  Dad paused, looking at Danny. “I’m sorry you had to do what you did to your dog. Real sorry.” Then, softly, “I know it wasn’t easy.”

  Danny stared at his boots. What could he say? He nodded and moved on, the wheelbarrow wobbling over the uneven ground.

  He probably could have told his mom the truth about Banjo. She’d have understood. Maybe. He’d thought again of calling her but couldn’t do it.

  He wanted to tell the truth. But the truth would only make it worse. It would expose how he’d lied and deceived his dad, the sheriff, and Mr. Brodie. And the whole world would know that he’d abandoned his dog. Worse, the truth would get Banjo locked up.

  No, he couldn’t say anything. At least out in the wild, Banjo had a chance.

  Maybe.

  Danny looked over at the stump. He’d start on that next. Hack on it until his hands bled. There wasn’t enough work in the world to make him stop thinking about Banjo.

  26

  MONDAY

  Just before dawn the next morning, Danny crept into his brother’s room. “Tyrell,” he whispered. “Wake up. We gotta go.”

  Tyrell had to be at work by ten. They didn’t have a lot of time.

  “Huh? Oh.” Tyrell sat up and rubbed his face. “Give me five.”

  The night before, Danny had talked Tyrell and Ricky into going back out to Camp Sherman. Guilt was driving him crazy. He had to fix things…without Dad and Mr. Brodie knowing. If he could get Banjo back, he would hide him somewhere and move mountains to find a home for him.

  The sky was just starting to lighten, the road empty of cars.

  Ricky was sitting on his heels at the end of his driveway.

  Danny opened the door and slid over. “Hey,” he said. “Thanks for coming.”

  Ricky got in. “Kind of a late start, don’t you think?”

  Tyrell grunted.

  They drove on without speaking.

  Danny couldn’t help searching the trees along the way, thinking about all the things he could have done for Banjo, like having Tyrell drive him to Portland or the Humane Society in Bend. Stupid, stupid, stupid! You could have done that!

  “You know that steer of yours?” Ricky said. “The crazy one?”

  Danny turned to look at him. “What?”

  “The crazy steer, the one looks like he’s going to come out and stomp you but never does?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Think I could ride him? I mean, would your dad care?”

  Tyrell laughed. “Now there’s an oddball question.”

  “How can you think of that at a time like this?” Danny said.

  “I bet he’d buck like his tail was on fire.”

  Danny shook his head. “Jeez.”

  They rode the rest of the way in silence, first to Camp Sherman Store, then downriver to where Danny and Tyrell had left the truck the last time.

  “We walk from here,” Danny said, his heart thumping.

  What if they found him dead?

  “Haven’t been out here in a while,” Ricky said, glancing around. “Why do you think he’s still here? Wouldn’t he have run off, maybe looking for a way home or for food?”

  Tyrell sighed. “I told him this was a waste of time.”

  “He’s here,” Danny said, his hands on his hips. “Somewhere…out there.”

  They made their way through the trees to the spot where they’d chased him off. “Let’s get this over with,” Tyrell said. “Break up and meet back at the river in an hour. Good?”

  They found nothing.

  Danny lagged behind as they headed back to the truck. He didn’t even have the will to punch a tree or throw a rock. His anger was gone. In its place was just a hole that good things fell into and vanished.

  They stopped at the Camp Sherman store, where Danny tacked up a note on the information board, asking if anyone had found or seen a black-and-white dog.

  Ricky read the other notices. “Don’t forget your phone number.”

  “Yeah.” Danny added the number and posted the note with a thumbtack he took off the corner of someone else’s.

  Then he ripped it down.

  “Why’d you do that?” Ricky asked.

  “What if someone finds him and calls the house and Dad answers?”

  “Right. He thinks you shot him.”

  “And what are we going to tell him when we get home?” Tyrell said. “He’s gonna want to know why we weren’t there when he got up.”

  Danny crumpled the note. “I’ll think of something.”

  27

  “Well,” Dad said when Tyrell and Danny got back. He was in the barn with Mandingo. “Where’d you two run off to so early this morning?”

  “Black Butte,” Danny said, a bit too fast. “Tyrell drove me halfway up, then I fast-climbed to the top on foot. I thought it would help me get warmed up for…for Saturday’s rodeo…you know?”

  That was pretty thin.

  Dad nodded.

  “I got to get ready for work,” Tyrell said, and headed for the house.

  Dad bent over, reached around the back of Mandingo’s leg, and ran his hand down the inside. “Come on.” He tugged lightly for Mandingo to lift his foot.

  He cupped his hand around the hoof wall. “You could’ve just run down to Redmond and back.”

  “I thought working in a higher altitude would be better.”

  The lies just keep pouring out.

  Dad picked out a clod of dirt from around the shoe and dropped Mandingo’s leg.

  “I…I need to build up my endurance,” Danny added.

  Dad moved to the hind leg.

  Danny avoided his eyes. He knows something’s not right.

  He was just about to back away and leave when Dad said, “You think the dog will affect your roping?”

  “N-no. I can do it.”
<
br />   “Two horns this time?”

  “Two or I quit.” In their last event Danny had only roped one, and that had cost them points.

  “Been practicing on the dummy?”

  “Every day…almost.”

  “If you want to be a winner, you got to get rid of the almost part.”

  Danny nodded and started to leave.

  “Did you put rocks over the grave so’s he won’t get dug up?”

  Danny winced, his eyes darting from Dad to the ground. “Yeah.”

  “Something more on your mind?”

  Danny glanced over, then quickly away. “No.”

  “You can talk to me, son. You know that. When you keep things inside, they tend to get worse.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dad looked at Danny, waiting for more.

  When nothing came, he put a hand on Mandingo’s shoulder and said, “There’s one good thing come out of all of this. It’s taught you how to be brave when things get tough.”

  Danny winced and peeked back at Dad. He thought he looked tired, or sad.

  “Dad, I…I gotta go. Tyrell said I could, you know…hang out with him today.”

  28

  Danny caught Tyrell just as he was heading out to go to work. “Can I come with you today?”

  “Right now?”

  “Yeah. Can I go with you? I told Dad you said I could.”

  Tyrell grinned. “Boy, you’re really spinning the tall tales, aren’t you?”

  Danny looked away. “If I stay here, I’ll go crazy.”

  “There’s always the stump.”

  “I’m serious, Tyrell, come on.”

  “Fine. Can’t hurt to get your hands dirty.”

  Tyrell grabbed the keys to his truck off a table by the door. “I don’t feel so good about what we did, either. Let’s get out of here.”

  “He didn’t do it, Tyrell. He doesn’t chase sheep. That’s the truth.”

  Tyrell grunted. “The truth is getting fuzzier by the day, ain’t it?”

  Danny felt heat rise in his face. But Tyrell had a point.

  Tyrell’s job wasn’t the cleanest. But fixing flats and changing tires paid him enough for payments on his truck and some for college savings.

  All the guys who worked there treated Danny like a little brother. Once in a while they even let him work alongside them. At five foot eight, Danny was big enough. If he could throw a steer, he could lift a truck tire.

  Ann worked in the front office. She was nineteen and had taken a liking to Tyrell, and everybody there knew it. The funny part was that Tyrell didn’t have a clue as to what to do about it. Whenever Ann came up and hooked her arm under his, he went quiet. Ann liked Danny, too. “I wish I had brothers like you guys,” she said once. “Mine don’t even talk to each other.”

  It was a quiet morning. Only one car on the racks. Everett was tightening bolts. Four other guys were sitting around drinking strawberry sodas and digging dirty fingers into a large bag of chocolate chip cookies.

  Tyrell reached in for one. “Breakfast.”

  “Rodeo man,” Wallace said to Danny. “You come to watch big men work on cars today?”

  Danny grinned. “Looks like you’re working on a bag of cookies.”

  Spike, the silver-toothed ex–auto thief, said, “Maybe we should send you out to spread some nails on the highway, work up some business.”

  “That would do it.”

  Danny went into the office to say hi to Ann, who was reading behind the counter.

  “Good book?”

  Ann held it up. Lonesome Dove. “Really good.”

  “You got to Blue Duck yet?”

  “Blue Duck?”

  “Best part in that book.”

  “You’ve read this? How old are you? Ten?”

  Danny jumped up and sat on the counter. “Tyrell read it, too.” He waggled his eyebrows.

  “You twit,” Ann said. “What’d you do to your elbow?”

  Danny turned his arm over and rubbed the bruise he’d gotten in the cave with Banjo. “A tumble, s’all.”

  Ann eyed him.

  He slipped off the counter and flopped down on a chair in the waiting area. He picked up a year-old copy of People magazine, then put it back down.

  Ann watched him. “Tell me,” she said. “You know I won’t let it go.”

  Danny picked up the magazine again. “Banjo’s missing,” he mumbled. “He got…lost, or something.”

  Ann laughed. “Or something? Really? Just tell me what happened, Danny Mack.”

  Danny took a breath. “Actually…he got shot.”

  Ann gaped at him. “Oh, Danny…”

  He told her all that had happened, then tossed the magazine onto the table and put his head in his hands. “We went back to look for him…but he was gone….The sheriff wanted to take him away. He said I might never see him again.”

  “Couldn’t you have found him a home?”

  “We tried—me, Tyrell, my friends. We only had two days. No one would take him because we’d have to tell them he went after livestock, even though I know he’d never do that. But Mr. Brodie…”

  Ann came out from around the counter and knelt in front of him. “I’m so sorry, Danny.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay.” She put a hand on his arm.

  Outside, a shiny black BMW drove up, and Ann headed back around the counter. “Banjo will show up somewhere. Miracles happen.”

  The BMW guy came in, and Danny went back to the service bays.

  Spike drove the guy’s car in and racked it.

  Danny helped him remove four good Pirellis from the shiny chrome rims. The guy wanted new Michelins. He said Schwab could keep the Pirellis. He had no use for them.

  “You still miss Grouch?” Danny asked as they worked.

  Spike stopped and rubbed his forehead with the back of his wrist. “Yeah, I do, but he’s better off where he is now. He was pretty sick.”

  “Was he a good dog?”

  Spike nodded. “Big, dumb, and always happy to see me when I came home.” Spike rolled the four new Michelins over. “There’s this stagnant pond out behind my house. Smells like a swamp. Grouch used to drink from it. I chased him away a thousand times.” Spike shook his head. “He got sick. He was old and couldn’t bounce back.”

  Spike set the Pirellis off to the side. “By the way, sorry I couldn’t take your dog, Danny. Tyrell told me. My wife…you know, losing Grouch…that hit her hard.”

  “Yeah.”

  Spike said, “I think I’ll put these Pirellis on my truck.” He winked and went into the office to do the paperwork.

  Danny sat on a stack of tires, rubbing grime off his hands with a red rag. Spike came back and eased down next to him. “Look at all this filth around my fingernails.”

  Danny snickered. “What do you expect? Look where you work.”

  Spike took a small pocket knife and dug under his thumbnail. “I’ve had grimy hands since I was two years old. What does that say about me, huh?”

  “That you’re a grease monkey?”

  Spike laughed. “And proud of it. So tell me about Banjo.”

  Danny turned away. “I heard you’re quitting.”

  Spike brightened. “You ever heard of Mammoth Lakes?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a ski resort down in California. My cousin offered me a job as a cook.”

  “With those hands?”

  Spike checked them over. “I guess I could get them sandblasted. I’m a good cook, though. Now stop stalling and you tell me about your dog.”

  Danny frowned. “You ever feel like you didn’t have the brains God gave a rock?”

  “Every day, kid, every day.”

  “And th
en one day you do something and wish you hadn’t, and there’s no way you can undo it?”

  “Been there.”

  Spike waited, a slight smile under narrowed eyes.

  “I made a bad mistake, Spike.”

  “Join the crowd. We all do, at one time or another. But hopefully we learn from them. Now tell me what you did you couldn’t take back.”

  Danny looked out the wide bay door at the sunny day.

  “I’m not leaving you alone until you come up with a believable story,” Spike said. “And I can smell a fake a mile away.”

  Danny told him everything.

  In the end, Spike said, “You’re right. That’s a bad mistake. But I made a bad mistake, too…worse than yours.”

  Danny looked up. “Worse?”

  “That stagnant pond that made my dog sick? I didn’t fence it off.”

  29

  That same evening at Meg’s house, a huge pot of steaming chili sat on the kitchen table next to a pan of fresh-baked cornbread.

  They ate in silence for a solid five minutes.

  Without looking up, Mr. Harris finally said, “What are we going to do with the dog? It’s been two days now.” He was casual, the way he’d ask someone to pass him the salt.

  Meg glanced at her mom. She knew Mom thought they already had too many animals around their place.

  “Hey, Dad,” Jeremy said. “Can I get a motorcycle?”

  Jacob choked on a laugh.

  “Nope,” Mom said without looking at Jeremy.

  “What about Banjo?” Meg blurted.

  “Well,” Mom said. “If he’s lost, somebody will be looking for him. If he was abandoned, they won’t. We’ll give it two weeks. See if anyone puts up a sign. The dog needs to heal, anyway. We should take him to the vet, too. Maybe tomorrow.”

  Meg wondered what could happen in two weeks. And what if she had to give him up? That dog needed her.

  “If I had a motorcycle,” Jeremy went on, “I could get myself to school and you wouldn’t have to drive me.”

  “Jeremy,” Mr. Harris said. “You’re too young. You need a license, just like for a car.”

  Jacob stared at the table. “I can’t believe somebody just went and dumped it. You don’t just throw your dog away.”