“General gave a low growl that came deep in his chest. At first, I thought he was growling at the men. But then I saw what it was that had drawn his attention. A dust storm was coming. Like a giant wall of sand, it was quickly rolling toward us.
“I took a step backward and glanced at Ma. She’d seen it too, and her eyes widened. ‘Bertie, get inside. Walter and I will handle this.’
“The horses were getting antsy, shuffling from side to side as their owners issued subtle threats. A shotgun was attached to each man’s saddle—plus a coil of rope, a sleeping roll, a blanket, and a canteen.
“‘So what exactly can we do for you? My husband will be back soon. Maybe you should speak to him.’
“The three men laughed. ‘No, you’ll do just fine. We like this place. Looks like you got more than others around here.’ “My eyes were glued to the dust cloud. There’s a moment before it hits when everything goes still and it feels like the air is getting sucked out of the sky. The dust on the ground rises slightly, as if it’s levitating. Then the suffocating cloud rolls over.
“With their backs to the storm, the men must have thought the panic that showed on our faces was due to them. But all at once, all hell broke loose. General’s growling turned into a ferocious bark. He leapt at the leader’s horse, gnashing his teeth at the animal’s legs.
“The front door of the house slammed open. Bertie stood there with the shotgun aimed at the leader’s chest. Then the first swell of the cloud blew up around us, blinding me.
“Through the swirling cloud of dust, I saw General lunge at another horse. It wheeled and reared, almost throwing the rider off. Bertie fired the gun, and it went off with a blast, missing the men but scaring the horses.
“‘Get inside!’ Ma yelled. Dust filled our mouths and lungs. I coughed and pulled my shirt up over my face. Bertie had left the door open, and I grabbed onto the doorframe so I could stand up.
“‘General!’ I called, but my voice was torn away by the wind. I squinted in the direction of the horsemen. The horses were spinning about in confusion and didn’t know which way to go. The riders shouted at their horses and each other.
“General—my three-legged attack dog—chased them into the dust cloud, barking like a blood-thirsty beast. I called for General again. But he didn’t come.
“‘Get inside!’ Ma bellowed, and yanked me by the arm.
“I wouldn’t go. I held on to the doorframe, searching for General. The dust storm blinded me. I couldn’t see farther than the nose on my face.
“‘General!’ I hollered. I couldn’t leave him outside, not with the bandits and their stamping horses’ hooves. He could get caught underfoot and trampled, or buried in the mounds of sand deposited by the storm. Ma tugged on the door, battling the wind. Already the floor of our house was covered with drifts of sand, as if we were being overtaken by desert. But this wasn’t the Sahara; it was the prairie.
“‘Walt!’ she screamed. ‘Help me!’
“It took all our strength to pull the door closed. But even with the front door shut tight, dust came in under the door, through the cracks between the windows, and down the chimney.
“Sylvia was hollering and crying. The boys had her hidden under the bedcovers. Ma shoved me under the table beside Bertie, who had buried her face between her knees. I took the shotgun from her and clutched it against my chest, trying to protect it from the swirling grit.
“I crouched there, listening to General bark until he went silent. All I could do was pray that he’d be okay.
Chapter 30
Maggie
It is a half hour before dismissal when Maggie is called to the office. She knows it has to be something about Harvey. Her heart hammers in her chest. Is it bad news? For a minute, when she closes her classroom door behind her, she hesitates. If it were bad news, her mother would wait until she was home to tell her. So maybe, just maybe, it is good news. Maggie stands in the hall with balled fists. She squeezes her eyes shut, wishing with everything in her that Harvey has been found.
Maggie’s mother is standing outside the office door. Maggie picks up her pace, resisting the urge to yell, “Did you find Harvey?” down the corridor.
Her mother isn’t smiling, so Maggie knows she hasn’t found him. Her shoulders sag.
Maggie’s mother puts a hand on her shoulder and leans down so they are face to face. “I got a tip,” she says. “A woman saw a Westie in a red harness. He was on Broadway.”
“Broadway?” Maggie gapes at her mother. “That’s downtown!”
“I know! But if it was him, we’ve been looking in the wrong places all this time.”
“We have to go down there! Put up posters!”
Maggie’s mother pulls a sheaf of them from her bag. “Get your things. I already signed you out. Dad is going to pick up the girls from daycare.”
Tears well in Maggie’s eyes, and she throws her arms around her mother. For the first time since Harvey’s disappearance, Maggie feels hope. It spills out of her like an overflowing cup as she races to her locker to get her jacket.
Please, please, let us find him, she prays.
Chapter 31
Austin
The way Mr. Pickering told it, even though the dust from that storm settled so long ago, I felt as if I were caught in it with Bertie and his family.
“The storm lasted all day and into the night. It was like a blizzard. We were trapped in the house. I worried about General. He could have been trampled by one of the horses, got lost in all the sand, or buried.
“Bertie kept saying he’d be okay. Animals seem to know how to keep safe. ‘Probably found his way into the barn,’ she said. The two of us were tucked under the table, holding wet rags over our mouths. Ma had Sylvia cradled in her arms, a blanket covering both of them. The twins lay under their bed, playing Xs and Os in the dust on the floor.
“‘It was my pa,’ she seethed, ‘who sent them thieves.’
“Bertie was as loyal as General. I knew how much it hurt her to think bad of her pa, never mind say it out loud.
“I didn’t know what those men had been planning to do to us. Rob us for sure. But what else? It got me shaking, thinking about what could’ve happened if the dust storm hadn’t rolled through.
“‘They might come back,’ Bertie said quietly.
“I made a silent promise to myself that if there was a next time, I’d be ready. I swallowed back a lump of shame at how I’d failed to defend our home. I was man of the house, but it was Bertie who’d had the sense to get the gun. And it was General who’d caught them off guard. Wait till Pa heard that I’d stood by uselessly while a girl and a three-legged dog chased the men away.
“The morning after the storm, I had to climb out a window at the back of the house. The sand drift in front of the door was too high for me to open it.
“‘General!” I shouted. I got nothing back but a mouthful of dirt. We’d had to conserve water by then. My first job of the day was to go to the well to fill the bucket.
“‘General!’ I called again. Bertie was behind me, doing the same.
“We saw no sign of the bandits. ‘General!’ Bertie hollered.
“The door to the barn creaked open, and a flurry of squawking chickens exploded out. We could hear the cows moo to be milked and fed.
“And then we heard a yelp.
“General ran out, looking none the worse for wear. He circled excitedly around Bertie, who laughed and pointed at me. ‘Go see Walt!’
“I put the bucket down and got to my knees. General bounded over to me and licked my face. He probably got a mouthful of dust too. I put some water in my hands and let him lap it up. Then he went back to racing between me and Bertie.
“Later that day, we swept sand out of the barn by the shovelful. Bertie stopped working and said, ‘I hate him, Walt.’ The thought of her pa had probably b
een gnawing on her all day. ‘Not like I hate Herbie Caldwell, or leeches—but in this other way.’ She broke off and shook her head. ‘It’s like I’m frozen with it. It scares me sometimes. I think I could kill him.’
“I looked at her. The days were long and the sun hadn’t set yet. The sky was dusky purple through the open barn door.
“‘If he’s in Prince Albert, that’s only a few hours away. There’s no reason he couldn’t send for me, or come back to make sure I was okay.’ Bertie shook her head. ‘He left me to starve or freeze to death. What kind of a man does that? He’s supposed to be my father, look after me. I hope he rots in hell.’
“‘Bertie,’ I started, thinking I could say something to ease her mind. She gave me a hard look, her chin jutted forward and her eyes narrowed. I kept quiet. Bertie wasn’t one to say anything she didn’t mean.
“Pa came home later that evening. A cloud of dust billowed up behind him as he drove the horse into our yard. The twins blurted about the bandits before he’d even stepped down from the wagon.
“‘General scared them off,’ Nigel said. ‘Bit one of the horses!’
“Pa looked at General and raised an eyebrow. If he’d been home when the dog lost his leg, Pa probably would have shot General.
“‘No kidding.’
“‘And Bertie got the gun!’ The twins mimicked her shooting at the bandits. Millard pretended to be shot as he clutched his chest and fell to his knees in a death scene. Pa looked at me. I lowered my head. I didn’t want to tell him that I’d just stood there while Bertie’d had the sense to defend our home.”
All of sudden, Mr. Pickering stopped. He took a gaspy breath. I rose half out of my seat. “Mr. Pickering?”
But then he took a deeper breath. It rattled through his chest, and he closed his eyes.
“I’ll get a nurse,” I said, and started for the door.
“No,” he said. “Not yet. Please.”
I hesitated.
“I have more to tell you. About Bertie.” He took another breath, a little easier this time. “And General.”
“You don’t look so good, Mr. Pickering.”
“I’m fine.”
His eyes were still closed, so I thought maybe he just needed a rest. I waited, watching him anxiously.
“Sit down.” Mr. Pickering’s voice was steady. “I want to finish.”
I swallowed my doubts, but I did what he said. It took him a few minutes to pull himself together. The whole time I was ready to spring up and call for the nurse. I stared at him, willing the color to come back into his cheeks. When he finally started talking again, his voice was quiet. I had to lean in close to hear him.
“We lived on edge for a couple of weeks. One day, Mr. Hackett said that three men had been caught trying to rob another homestead close to Prince Albert.
“There weren’t many of us left on farms by the end of the summer. It seemed that every day another family decided they’d had enough and packed up what little they had and made for somewhere else. A few headed farther west. Some moved to the cities.
“Pa made plans to head into the bush for another season with the lumber company. I didn’t want him to go, but I knew his wages were keeping our family afloat. By an unspoken agreement, Bertie stayed on with us. She helped Ma with Sylvia and the other chores around the house. I think Ma liked having the company, especially with my pa gone so much and me and the twins out of the house all day, looking after the animals or hunting.
“I’d become a better shot and took to bringing the gun with me whenever I left the house. General and I would roam over a wider and wider territory, looking for game. I knew Bertie wanted to come too. But as she got older, Ma didn’t think it was proper for a girl to be out in the woods. I think she worried that some of Bertie’s wildness would come back if she was left to her own devices. Keeping her safe on the farm had domesticated her. She could bake a pie now almost as well as Ma. She often made dinner for all of us.
“Pa was working on a neighbor’s tractor. Ma had taken Sylvia and the twins to town with her. It was the boys’ birthday and they’d each gotten fifty cents to pick out something at Hackett’s. I’d teased them that if they weren’t twins, someone would have gotten a whole dollar.
“I was cleaning out the chicken coop, and the smell of ammonia from their droppings was making me see double. I had to use Pa’s rubber boots now that I’d outgrown mine—they were still too big on me and my feet swam in them as I clunked around the mud-packed floor.
“Bertie came out to find me. General had followed her and stood just outside the coop. Bertie stood in the doorway, hands in the pockets of her apron. Her red hair had darkened to auburn. She still kept it short; it hit the bottom of her earlobes. Her bare neck stuck out of the collar of her dress. She’d gained weight since she’d come to live with us, but it didn’t seem to stick anywhere in particular on account of her shooting up. She was almost as tall as I was.
“‘You gonna do this all day?’ she asked, sitting down on a bucket.
“‘Hope not.’
“‘Wanna go hunting?’ she asked hopefully.
“‘I was thinking about it.’
“‘Let’s go now before it gets too hot. You can clean this out anytime.’ I didn’t need to be asked twice.
“As we left the stink of the chicken coop behind, General ran after us, excited that we were moving again. In the house, I grabbed a hunting knife and a canteen of water, and slung the shotgun around my neck. Bertie came out of the bedroom wearing a pair of the twins’ old pants, patched a few times over the knees. She put a coil of rope over her head so it hung off one side like a cowboy’s lasso. A slingshot hung out of one pocket. With her short hair and freckled face, she didn’t look like a girl; she didn’t look like a boy either. She looked like herself. I felt a flush of admiration for her—and maybe a bit of jealousy too.
“‘What?’ she asked.
“‘Nothing,’ I said, and whistled for General. We were a ragtag hunting party—that was for sure. But the day stretched out in front of us with promise. It had been a long time since the three of us went out together. Too long.
“Soon as we left our property line, the wind picked up. Bertie and I had to shield our eyes from the itching, stinging flecks of sand that blew into them. The smart thing to do would have been to turn back. A dust storm could rise up at any minute, and I stole glances at the horizon, half-expecting to see one billowing up. But neither of us spoke up.
“Soon as we got into the bush, the trees protected us. They were dry and brittle; the air crackled. It was impossible to walk silently. My foot snapped something everywhere I stepped—a leaf, a twig, a branch. No animal would be surprised by our approach. Bertie was in the lead, with General close behind, and me bringing up the rear. The butt of the shotgun knocked against the back of my thigh. I wasn’t paying attention to where Bertie was leading me till it was too late.
“‘What are we doing here?’ I asked her. It had been months since I’d last seen her shack, and time hadn’t been kind to it. The roof had collapsed, probably under the weight of the snow from the past winter. The walls sagged like they were too tired to stay upright. I sniffed the air, curling my lip at the stink that surrounded us.
“‘Some kind of dead animal,’ I muttered.
“We pulled our shirts up over our noses and went to investigate. The drought had left the bush quiet—birds kept to the shade and there weren’t any mosquitoes, just lightning-fast flies. General’s tail went down as we moved closer to the shack. He was antsy, coiling himself around our legs. He didn’t like it there any more than we did. It dawned on me that maybe it wasn’t a dead animal making that stink. Maybe it was something else.
“Bertie had probably already had that same thought, but I grabbed her arm anyway. I didn’t want to go any farther. ‘Let’s go back,’ I muttered.
“She looked at
me, her eyes steely. ‘I gotta see.’ She shook her arm free and walked to the window. I hesitated for a second, then followed. There were just a couple of shards of glass left in the panes, and the smell got stronger as we drew closer. My stomach heaved and I had to fight back the vomit rising in my gut. I’d smelled plenty of dead things by then, but nothing like this.
“I stood beside Bertie, and we both peered through the window. A man was stretched out on the bed, half-tied boots still on. There was no doubt he was dead. His mouth hung open and his face was sunken. Where the eyes should have been, there were empty sockets. I imagined a crow sitting on his forehead poking its beak into a juicy eyeball.
“Bottles lay on the floor, some upright, some fallen over—all drained of whatever drink they had contained.
“‘It’s him, isn’t it?’ I asked.
“Bertie nodded. She gagged, then threw up against the side of the shack. I knew she’d wished him dead. But actually seeing him like that, well, no one would be prepared for such a thing. No one.
“‘I’m sorry, Bert,’ I said, which I guess I was. Sorry for her, anyway. For knowing how her pa had died, alone in a shack. Bertie had been at our place, a short walk away. It would have been nothing for him to look for her. But he hadn’t bothered. Maybe he just didn’t care.
“She held up her hand, a signal for me to stop the condolences. She took a swig of her water and spit it out. ‘He deserved what he got.’ She looked at me, dry-eyed. ‘We should burn the place down.’
“I wasn’t sure she was thinking straight. ‘It’s too dry. The whole thicket would go up.’
“She fixed me with one of her dark looks. ‘I can’t know he’s here.’
“‘We’ll tell someone,’ I suggested. “My pa, or Reggie. They’ll know what to do. We can bury him proper, if that’s what you want.’
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