A Dog's Way Home (2 page)

I
rose up and up from dark, watery sleep, my heart beating a million miles a minute. The light was bright. I tried hard to focus my eyes, to see all the familiar things in my room. My rock and feather collection on top of my bookcase. My story maps pinned to the wall. My old guitar. The trophies and ribbons Tam and I won the last two years. And Tam's warm body pressed next to mine.

Tam! right there on the edge of my brain…I'd had a dream, something bad had happened to him. I couldn't quite grab it and remember, but I had to.

I tried to sit up. “Oh!” I cried.

A warm hand pushed me back. “Lie still, Abby.” Mama's voice.

Slowly she came into focus. Her arm was in a bright
blue sling, the other arm bandaged in layers of white gauze. One side of her face was swollen and bruised. The scariest part, though, was the look in her eyes.

“What…where am I?” I asked, trying to sit up again.

“You're in the hospital, Abby. We were in a bad accident. Don't you remember?” She smoothed the hair back from my forehead like she'd done a million times before when I'd been sick or sad.

“Daddy's on his way,” Mama said. “He should be here anytime.” She talked faster and faster. “As soon as the doctors say you can leave, we're going home. And not on the Parkway this time. I knew that was a bad idea. I don't know what I was thinking—”

“Tam!” I said, cutting her off. Panic turned my insides to ice. “Where's Tam?”

She sighed and looked away.

“Mama?”

Her eyes filled with tears. A fist grabbed my heart and squeezed hard. One thing about my mama is that she
never
cries. Not when her favorite llama died this past spring; not when she cut her finger open slicing apples for the pie I wanted; not when Daddy's gone off for weeks and weeks with his band.

She pulled up a chair and sat down. She made little folds over and over in my blanket. “When we swerved off the road and went through the guardrail, Tam's crate was thrown from the back of the truck.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. Little flashes were coming back to me: the first-place medal Tam and I won in the agility trial. The winding road high up on the Virginia end of the Blue Ridge Parkway. A sudden flash of brown. The truck going every which way. Then…blackness.

Tears trickled down my face. “Is he dead?” I whispered, hardly able to get the words out.

No answer. I opened my eyes. “Mama?”

“I don't know, Abby.”

“What do you mean, you don't know?”

Mama looked at me with her gray eyes. The same eyes as mine. “I say I don't know because his crate was thrown from the truck. And he was in it.”

“Didn't you look for him?”

She walked to the window. “Abby, we were in a very bad accident. We were both out for I don't know how long. When I came to, there was blood everywhere…you weren't responding.” She turned her back to me. In a voice I could hardly make out, she said, “I didn't know if…”

“But Tam—”

She turned around, cut me off. “My first priority was
you
, Abby. To be honest, I didn't even think about Tam. I had to get help as fast as possible.”

“He could still be out there!” I cried. “He could be hurt!”

“I told the police about Tam,” Mama said. “They
promised to send a couple of officers and Animal Control to look for him.”

“And have they looked?” I asked.

Mama grew still. “They haven't found him yet, but they promised they'll keep looking.”

I couldn't breathe. Every crack and crevice in my brain worked to put all the pieces together.

Just then, the door swung open. Daddy's wide shoulders filled the doorway, his wild hair flying around him. Worry pulled his eyebrows together when he saw Mama. But when he saw me, his face went white.

In two long strides, he crossed the room and gathered me carefully in his arms. For the first time, I let myself cry. “Oh, Daddy,” I sobbed into his shirt. “I've lost Tam.”

I grabbed on to my father's hand. “We got to go back up there, Daddy, and look for him. He could be hurt bad.”

He looked at Mama, eyebrows raised.

Mama shook her head. “Abby, you not only have a concussion, but your ankle's got a big crack in it. The doctor's not going to release you today.”

“I feel fine,” I said, pushing the covers off. “Tam's probably right there where we crashed, waiting for us in that crate.”

Mama and Daddy exchanged another one of those looks. Daddy said, “Peanut, it's been a whole day since the accident.”

How could that be? “Then we
have
to get up there. He's looking for me. I can feel it.”

“We can't, Abby,” Mama said. “The doctor says I have to be in Asheville day after tomorrow to meet with a specialist about my shoulder at the hospital there.”

I was trapped, but I had to get to Tam!

Mama turned to Daddy. “Could you drive up there, Ian, and take a look around? I can give you directions.”

“No,” I said. “I have to go too.” I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. The pain about made me throw up.

Mama clamped her good hand on my shoulder. Hard. Her face was gray. “Be still, Abby. First things first. Let's talk to the doctor and see when he thinks you can be released. As soon as he says you can go, we'll head back up to the Parkway and look for Tam.”

“But—” I started to protest.

Daddy placed a finger on my lips. “Hush now, honey. Who knows? Maybe someone's found him already. He has ID tags on his collar.”

“And he's microchipped,” my mother added.

“Besides, he was in the crate,” Daddy said. “He's not going anywhere soon.”

They both smiled, but their eyes said they didn't really believe what they were saying.

S
unlight burned off the mist hovering over the creek. By the time it reached the bed Tam had made under a fallen birch, the forest had been awake for a long time. Squirrels and chipmunks busily gathered acorns to store against the winter months ahead. Red foxes lined their burrows with leaves, and geese passed overhead, pointing the way south. Life in the Appalachian Mountains in late October was a race against time.

Tam knew nothing of the ice and snow just weeks away. As he tried to rise from the damp earth, all he knew was how much his bruised, cold body hurt and how hungry he was.

With a groan, Tam limped down to the creek and
drank, careful not to get his feet wet. He lifted his head, nose reading the damp air crisscrossed with scents. Any other time, Tam would have followed his nose through the streams of scent, like a fish hooked on a line.

But Tam was hurt. And a hurt dog knows only one thing to do: be still.

Tam took one last drink, then limped back to his shelter. He lowered himself to the ground with a whimper. He didn't stir when a large gray squirrel ran back and forth across the fallen tree. He slept as two white-tailed deer slipped down to drink from the creek. And as the moon rose over the ridge and a great horned owl hunted the far meadow, Tam dreamed of hot gravy and chunks of beef set before him next to the woodstove in his home with his girl.

D
addy sucked in his breath. “Good Lord.” He stared at the crumpled guardrail and the skid marks of our tires.

“Tam,” I said. “Remember?”

“Right,” Daddy said.

It had been a whole day before the doctor let me out of that putrid hospital. Time to find Tam was a-wasting.

Daddy and Mama got out of the van. I opened the back door and tried to maneuver the crutches in front of me. Mama hurried over. “No, Abby, you stay here. The road's too narrow. Daddy and I will call him.”

“But he needs to hear
my
voice,” I said. “If he's scared or hurt, he might not answer you.”

With a sigh, Mama helped me stand and brace myself against the car. Filling my lungs with hope, I cried out as loud as I could, “Tam! Come here, Tam!” We listened for any sound—a bark, a jingle of tags. Nothing. I called again. And again and again and again. Until my voice was broken.

Daddy studied the place where the truck had plowed through the trees and bushes. Shattered limbs and glass marked the path. “Seems like the crate would have been thrown down this way,” he said. “I'll take a look.”

“The crate should be easy to spot,” Mama said.

Daddy disappeared through the trees. I held my breath so I could hear him call,
I found him! He's okay!

My all-time record for holding my breath was one minute and forty-three seconds. I broke that record and then some that day. But all I heard was wind and birds and Mama tapping her finger on the door of the van.

She reached out and pushed my hand away from my mouth. “Stop chewing your hair, Abby.”

I dropped the wet end of my braid. “It's been hours, Mama. What's taking him so long?”

Mama looked at her watch. “It's only been fifteen minutes. I imagine he'll be back any second.”

Daddy scrambled over the guardrail. His face was flushed and sad. He shook his head.

“No sign of him, peanut.”

“Not even his crate?” Mama asked.

Daddy wiped his hands on his jeans. “Trouble is, the embankment goes right to the edge of a little cliff. Then it drops straight down to the creek. There's not a shore or anything. Just rocks and a lot of water.”

A huge lump lodged in my throat. I blinked back tears.

“Daddy, there must be a place farther along the creek to get down to the shore,” I said.

“I was thinking the same thing,” he said.

We drove a ways up the road. Daddy climbed the guardrail and went off into the woods while I called Tam. Nothing.

Then we drove down the road and did the same thing. I called, waited, and listened. The sun topped the trees. After a time, the sun stood straight over us. Maybe it was a good sign Daddy was gone so long. Mama lay down in the backseat. She didn't look so good. I stayed beside the van, watching the spot where Daddy would surely appear—with Tam.

But he didn't. He walked out of the woods alone. “I'm sorry, honey,” he said.

“But Tam has to be
somewhere
,” I said.

Mama sat up. “Okay then, let's head up to the Visitor Center and talk to the rangers.”

I knew she was right, but I didn't want to leave. Surely Tam would come back here, if he could.

Putting his arm around my shoulders, Daddy said, “Come on, peanut. Let's go.”

I jerked away from Daddy's arm and pushed off on my crutches. I got to going pretty fast, once I got the rhythm down.

“Abigail Andrea Whistler, you stop right now!” Mama called.

“I've got to find him, Mama,” I called back over my shoulder. “I just know he's—”

The tip of my left crutch missed the edge of the road. I pitched head over heels into the gravel. Daddy was pulling me into his big arms before I had time to blink.

Mama brushed the rocks and dirt from my face. She grabbed the end of one of my braids and gave it a shake. “Honestly, Abby. When God handed out stubborn genes, you got the mother lode.”

Daddy lifted me into his arms. “Come on, Abby honey. Tam's not here.”

T
am lapped water from the creek, eyes closed. His shoulder and hip still ached. His stomach grumbled. He had not eaten since the morning of the accident.

Then he heard it. So faint at first, even Tam, with his keen hearing, wasn't sure it was real. He threw his ears forward, water dripping from his muzzle.

Silence.

Just as he lowered his head, he heard it, stronger this time. Every muscle in his body tensed. Fainter than any human ear could possibly hear, Tam heard her voice. “Tam! Tam!”

Tam barked once, twice, then listened again. Her call came from the north. He fixed on the direction, barked
again, and picked his way along the creek bank. He did not know that between him and the girl lay miles of rhododendron and mountain laurel so thick a person couldn't push through it. He could not know that it would take hours to work his way back upstream.

All he knew was she was calling. For all the years he could remember, this voice was his world, his compass. And when the person he loves most in the world calls, a dog can do nothing but go.

“I
heard about your accident,” the ranger at the Humpback rocks Visitor Center said after Mama explained who we were. “We get deer-related accidents up here all the time. you'd think they'd learn.”

I wasn't sure if he was talking about the deer or the drivers.

I cleared my throat. “My dog was in a crate in the back of the truck. When we hit the guardrail, he was thrown out.”

“We just drove back to the spot where they went off the road,” Daddy said. “I looked all around. We even drove a half mile back up the road and went down to the creek there, and the other way too. I didn't see any sign of him or the crate.”

The ranger sighed. “Folks lose dogs up here a lot.”

I thrust the flyers with Tam's photo at the man. “This is Tam. He's not just any dog. He's a champion.”
And my best friend
.

The ranger studied the picture and smiled. “A little Lassie.”

“You're familiar with Shetland sheepdogs?” Mama asked.

“My wife grew up with them. She loves these little dogs. We'd have one if our son wasn't so allergic.”

Daddy placed the rest of the flyers on the desk. “Any chance you could post these around for us?”

“We're offering a reward,” I said.

The ranger ran his finger along the edge of the picture. “Agility champion, huh? I seen that on TV once. My wife watches Animal Planet all the time. Generally speaking, we don't post private notices, though.”

Mama said, “He's
very
,
very
important to my daughter, sir. And to us.”

He looked me over with my crutches and Mama with her bandaged arm and complicated sling. “There's some bathrooms and picnic areas fairly close. I reckon I can post a few of these around.”

Daddy's face broke open with relief. “We'd really appreciate it. We're heading home, but if anyone finds him or knows anything about him, they can call us collect. The phone number is right on the flyer.”

The ranger glanced down at our number below Tam's picture. “That a North Carolina number?”

Daddy nodded. “About forty-five miles south of Asheville in a little place called Harmony Gap. We live just outside of there in Wild Cat Cove.”

The ranger whistled. “The other end of the Blue Ridge Parkway. That's a heck of a ways from up here in Virginia.”

“If somebody finds him, we'll come get him right away,” I said. It couldn't be that far.

The ranger sighed and gathered up the flyers. “Let's hope someone does and soon, honey. Winter's not far off up here. Once it sets in, most of the Parkway closes down. Nobody will be back up until spring.”

My heart dropped down to my sneakers.

 

After Daddy settled my leg on pillows in the backseat of the van, I said, “Can we go back and look one more time?”

“No, Abby,” Mama said.

“But he might be there.”

“It's almost ten miles back. Besides, it'll be dark soon.”

“So?” I said, not caring how much Mama hates it when I say this. “We could spend the night in Waynesboro again, come back up tomorrow and look some more.”

This time Daddy turned around. “Abby, we need to get both of you
home
. Your mama has to see that doctor in Asheville tomorrow, and your grandmother's worried sick.

“Besides,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, “we just don't have the money to be spending on all these nights in motels.”

“But Daddy, we can't just leave without Tam. He's—”

His blue eyes, the eyes that always laughed, turned hard. “A dog, Abby. He's a dog. I know how much he means to you, but you and your mother are more important to me right now.”

Daddy turned around, steered the van onto the road.

I was so shocked by my daddy's hard heart, I felt like I'd been slapped full in the face.

“I bet by the time we get home, someone will have called,” Mama said. Touching Daddy's shoulder, she added, “And I'm thinking we'll try and get back up here in the next weekend or two.”

“But Mama, if he's trapped in that crate, he'll starve or thirst to death.”

Daddy glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “It's the best we can do right now, sugar. Besides, Tam's a tough little dog.”

Every foot, every bit of mile we went down that road tore at my soul. “Promise?” I asked. “Promise we'll come back?”

Mama reached back and squeezed my hand. “We'll try.”

We took the turnoff for Roanoke. The forest and trees closed behind us like a green, secret wall.