Dogs (7 page)

I say good night and head back to my place. Good thing I have a flashlight. Mr. Sinclair's corn rises above my head, a forest of darkness. The only sound is my feet on the stones at the side of the road.

Thoughts echo inside my head.
When
did
Mr. McTavish get killed by the dogs? Where was Jacky? Gone with his mother, or dead and buried?

A cornstalk snaps in the field. I stop. Whatever I heard stops too. I scan my light across the cornstalks. Is something hiding in there?

Who
cares? It's likely a rabbit or coyote. Either way, they're scared of people.

I walk faster. There's another crunch from the field. Whatever's out there isn't scared. It's following me. Sounds of panting. Dogs. The dogs. I start to run. So do they. They bound through the stalks beside me.

No, there's nothing there. It's all in my mind—just my sleeves rubbing against my jacket, my feet on the gravel, my breathing
.

I hear Jacky: “I told you. It's all right. They won't hurt you. I won't let them.”

“Leave me alone!”

“But you're my friend.”

“Stop! You're freaking me out. Go away!”

I run up the lane to our farm, cornstalks on either side—see the glow of the house lights over the tassels—make the yard—barrel to the door—race inside.

Mom looks up from the sink. “What's the matter? You look as if you've seen a ghost.”

“I'm fine.” I take off my jacket.

Mom smiles. “Maybe next time you're out at night you'll want a ride.”

“No, I won't, and I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Cameron, I'm teasing. We both know you have an imagination.”

“Right.”
Does
she
have
to
remind
me
I'm crazy?

“So how was your chat with Mr. Sinclair?”

“Okay.” I grab a Coke from the fridge and head upstairs.

“Did he have lots to tell you for your essay?” Mom calls after me.

“Uh-huh.”

“I can't wait to read it.”

You
mean
I
actually
have
to
write
it? Really? Is everyone's mom like this?

I sit at my desk and look out at the hole in the barn wall where I first thought I saw Jacky. Mr. Sinclair said that before Jacky disappeared, he had a raccoon-skin cap. That fits with what I saw, but lots of kids had caps like that, so maybe it means nothing. He also said Jacky left with his mom. So what's the truth? Did Jacky's father kill him? Or did he just move away?

“Jacky?” I whisper. “Jacky?”

Silence. What did I expect?

I have to talk to Cody. What does he know or
think
he knows? My heart beats faster. How do I talk to Cody without making him mad?

I wake up with the answer. If I can get Cody alone, he won't have to act tough for his gang; and if I tell him I believe in the murder, he won't feel embarrassed. He'll think I'm on his side. Who knows? Maybe he'll start to like me. Or at least stop picking on me.

At lunch, Cody's gang heads to the highway for a smoke. I wait inside the door, sweating. When they start to swagger back, I go out to intercept them. A couple of them bark when they see me coming.

I stick my hands in my pockets so the gang won't see them shake. “Yeah, yeah, the dogs, big deal,” I say, like I don't care. “I heard the story. I also heard there's coyotes around. You guys had me going though. And you're right about the house. I want to move—only a freak would wanna live there.”

“No kidding,” Cody says without smiling. He and his buddies keep walking.

“Hold up.”

Cody swings round like he's getting orders from a bug. “Huh?”

I look him in the eye and try not to crap on myself. “Can I talk to you, please?”

Sarcastic “Ooohs” come from the gang.

Cody cocks his head. “What about?”

“It's sort of private.”

Cody waves the guys off. They step back. “Okay. What's so private?”

“It's about the murder at my farm,” I whisper.

“What murder?” Cody's voice is dead cold.

“You know, the murder back in the sixties. You think there was a murder at my place, right?”

“Who says?”

“I don't know. I just heard.”

His fists tighten. “From who? What did they say?”

“Nobody. Nothing.”

“They talk about my great-grandma?”

“What? No!”

“Don't lie to me. If they talked about the murder, they talked about her.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Liar.” Cody shoves me hard on the chest. I go back a few steps. “Who told you? What did they say?”

“Nobody. Nothing. I don't know what you're talking about. I just wanted to say, I think it's true.”

“About my great-grandma?”

“No, the murder. I think it happened.”

“I'll bet you do.” He shoves me again. I fall down. He jumps on top. “Don't ever laugh at my great-grandma. Don't ever talk about my family, you little punk. Got that?”

“I haven't. Not her, your mom, not anybody.”

He lifts my shoulders and slams them into the ground. “Why would you talk about Mom?”

“I wouldn't.”

“Then why did you say ‘your mom'?”

“I didn't mean to. I'm sorry.”

“You don't know anything!” He punches me in the face. I hit back without thinking. He pounds and pounds. A bunch of kids run out to see the show.

“Boys. That's enough.” It's Mr. Abbott, a math teacher.

Cody's buddies yank him off me.

“To the office. Both of you. Now.”

“Why?” Cody rubs his knuckles. “He started it.”

Mr. Abbott takes us to the vice principal. He tells him that Cody did most of the hitting, but he saw me land a punch too.

“What started it?” the VP asks.

“He was talking about my family,” Cody says. “Making fun of my great-grandma. Talking about my mom.”

“Is that true, Cameron?”

“Not exactly.”

Cody glares at me. “I got witnesses.”

The VP shoots him a look. “Cody.” He looks at me over his glasses. “What do you mean, ‘Not exactly'?”

How can I explain without mentioning Benjie, or talking about the murder and sounding nuts? I stare at my hands. “I don't know. I'm not sure. Things didn't come out how I wanted.”

There's a zero-tolerance policy for fighting. We both get suspended till the end of the week: three days. The office calls Mom to pick me up.

The drive home takes forever. I try telling Mom it was all a misunderstanding, but she won't listen. “You don't get suspended for nothing.” I want to say I was bullied, but it's too embarrassing. If she believed me, she'd think she had to do something, and that would make it worse.

Besides, how do I tell her what got said? Even to me it doesn't make sense. What would Cody's great-grandmother have to do with a murder that no one thinks happened? And why would that make Cody go ballistic?

“A fistfight,” Mom says quietly. “That's how it starts.”

I feel sick to my stomach. She thinks I'm turning into Dad.

After supper I go to my room and google Benjie's number. There're only three Dalberts in the area, and the other two are in town. I make the call.

“I told you not to ask Cody about the murder,” Benjie says.

“No, you didn't. All you said was, ‘Don't tell him there wasn't one.'”

“Oh. Right. I should have been clearer.”

“Ya think?”

“Sorry,” Benjie says.

“Anyway, I acted like it was true. And now I'm beat up and suspended, and Mom cries when she looks at me. So what's the deal?”

“Well, first thing you should know: Cody's great-grandma is ninety and deranged. A total whack job.”

“How do you know?”

“This isn't the city. Everybody knows about everybody. And everybody knows Mrs. Murphy drove her car into the Presbyterian church. Well, not
into
the church, but into the front steps. That's when she lost her license, two years ago. Mom says it was about time—Mrs. Murphy had been parking her car in the middle of the highway and walking off, totally lost.”

“No kidding.”

“Wait, it gets better. Last year she tried to burn the house down.”

“What?”

“Okay, so maybe she didn't
try
. But Cody's grandparents woke up from an afternoon nap and there was a huge fire in the kitchen. His great-grandma had decided to fry something and then wandered out to the barn. There were fire trucks and everything. That's when she got put in the nursing home. She's down the hall from my grandpa. I see her every Sunday and after school on Wednesdays when my folks take me to visit him.”

“What's any of this got to do with a murder on my farm?”

“Oh. Yeah. The murder thing.” Benjie's so thick they should use his head to stuff pillows. “Okay. So everything I told you about Cody's great-grandma? Kids laughed about it. Cody got into a lot of fights. See, she's the only one in his family who can stand him.”

“I get the picture, Benjie. Focus.”

“Okay. So anyway, just as Cody's grandparents were getting her into the home, she went mental. Like, swinging-her-cane mental. She screamed they all wanted to lock her up because she knew too much about this murder. Mom told me that, back in the sixties, Mrs. Murphy had accused the man who owned your farm of killing some people.”

“You mean the crazy guy who bought the dogs?”

“Right. Only the police investigated and it turned out that nobody killed anybody. It was all in her head. She went quiet for years. Only now she's old and demento, so nothing stops her from saying anything.”

“She still talks about the murder?”

“Who knows? I steer clear. I've seen her in the social room sometimes. Her lips move a lot.”

My mind whirs:
The
police
investigated. Nobody killed anybody. Repeat that. Believe it.
But I need to know one last thing. “Benjie, do you remember who she thought the crazy guy murdered?”

“Let's see. His wife and her friend, I think.”

“Anyone else?”

“Oh. Yeah,” Benjie says. “His son.”

How do I fall asleep after that?

When I finally drift off, it's into a world of nightmares. Jacky's father stuffs people into Mr. Sinclair's grinder. Then he's got a dog's body and chases me through the cornfields. Then I'm hiding in one of the cow stalls as Dad prowls around with a chain saw, shouting, “Hey, Buddy. You can't run from me forever.”

“Jacky,” I whisper as Dad comes up the aisle, “help me.”

“Why? You want me to go away.”

“I'm sorry.”

“You don't even believe in me. You're mean.”

Dad's standing over me. “I got you now, Buddy.” He revs the chain saw.

“Jacky! I believe in you!
Help!
”

The alarm goes off. I'm in my room, heart beating so fast it practically bursts out of my chest. I shower, brush my teeth, get dressed, and go downstairs.

Mom's calmer this morning, but I keep my mouth shut all through breakfast. “Be good,” she says as she leaves for work.

Normally I'd say, “Always am.” Today I settle for, “You bet.”

I play Zombie Attack and channel surf, then go back to my room and look at Jacky's drawings. I run my fingers over the pages. Half a century ago, Jacky touched the paper I'm touching. He drew what I'm seeing.

What if Cody's great-grandmother is right? If his father murdered him, did Jacky know it was happening or was it in his sleep? I wonder if Dad ever thought about killing Mom and me. What would he do if he knew Mom was working for C.B.?

Stop
thinking
like
that.

I stare out the window at the hole in the barn wall. It'd actually be kind of cool if there
is
a ghost here. At least I'd have someone to talk to. And Jacky, or whatever I've been talking to, has always seemed pretty nice. Weird maybe, but who wouldn't be weird, growing up in the middle of nowhere with a crazy dad and all those dogs? What's wrong with weird anyway? Lots of people think
I'm
weird. Jacky's just lonely. We have a lot in common.

I think for a minute, then whisper, “Jacky? Are you there?” I'm half fooling, but also half hoping, like the time in sixth grade when my buddies and I played with a Ouija board. Part of me was glad nothing spooky happened; the other part was disappointed.

“Jacky?” I whisper again. “Jacky?”

Silence. Oh well, what did I expect? It's not like I believe in ghosts. Even if I did, it's daytime.

“Cameron?” Jacky's voice is coming from the doorway. “You sure you want me here? Because I can go away. I don't want to scare you. I just want a friend.”

I try to act normal. “I'm fine, Jacky. Really. I'm glad you're here. I'm sorry for what I said.”

Jacky smiles. “Good.”

I turn around slowly. There's nothing in the doorway, but when I close my eyes I see him, all shy and awkward. It seems totally real, like something in a dream, only I'm wide awake. It's the weirdest, most amazing thing that's happened to me since, like, forever.

“So, do you want to do something?” Jacky asks.

“Like what?”

“I don't know. Go play in the barn? It's fun out there.”

“Sure.”

“Come on then.”

I open my eyes and hear Jacky calling me from the kitchen. “What's keeping you?” I go downstairs, put on my jacket, and step outside.

I picture Jacky skipping into the barn. I follow him inside. I imagine him in the shadows, sitting on the side of a cow stall.

“I gave the cows names,” Jacky says. “Pepper was in here. She was white with black splotches. Salt was black with white ones. Other cows I named after characters in my comic books. Every fall, Father brought some of them over to Arty's, and his father butchered them for us to eat or sell in town. I cried when he took Pepper, but he slapped the back of my head and told me not to be a baby. Mother said I shouldn't think of them as pets.”

“That's rough. Did you ever have a real pet?”

“Not really.” Jacky sighs. “We had barn cats, but I couldn't bring them into the house. Anyway, if you went to pet them, they'd hiss and run away. That's why I liked the cows. They let you stroke their sides. You couldn't ride them though. I tried to climb onto Pepper once, but she didn't like it. I nearly got stomped.”

“What about the dogs?”

“Are you kidding?” Jacky looks around as if somebody might be listening. “I was scared of the dogs. They did things. Awful things.”

“Like?”

“Like with the rabbits. I saw out my window.” Jacky's eyes widen in terror. He sticks his fingers in his ears and sings, “
La-la-la-la-la-la
!
” like I used to do when Mom and Dad fought.

“Jacky! It's not happening now!”

But he's gone; I'm talking to the air. I'm about to go back to the house when I hear him in the hayloft. I go up the stairs. When I enter the loft, birds fly down from the rafters. I look up and picture Jacky swinging his legs from a crossbeam.

“This is my favorite place,” he says like everything's fine. “Before the dogs, me and Arty played here all the time. The hay was all piled. We'd climb it and slide down. It made us real itchy, but that didn't stop us.”

“Sounds like you and Mr. Sinclair—Arty—were good friends.”

“Best friends. He gave me this cap.” Jacky strokes the raccoon tail.

“That was just before you left with your mom, right?”

“Huh? Who says I left with Mother?”

“Arty.”

Jacky shakes his head. “Mother left without me. Arty knows that.”

“How does he know?”

“It's a secret.”

“Why?”

“Because.” He vanishes.

“Jacky?”

“Over here.”

I turn and see him crouching by the hole in the barn wall.

“Father used to pile all the cow pies under here,” Jacky says. “In the summer the sun dried the outside of them all crusty so they didn't smell. One day, when we were little, Arty and I got tired of sliding down the hay. We crawled through the opening here and slid down the cow pies instead. Arty's folks thought it was funny, but Father gave me the belt.”

“The belt?”

“You know, when your father takes his belt and whips you.”

“Your father whipped you?”

“Only when I deserved it. He didn't want to. It was just so I'd be good. ‘This hurts me more than it does you.' That's what he'd tell Mother and me when we were bad. If Mother had been good, she wouldn't have run away. Then Father wouldn't have gotten the dogs and everything would be okay.” Jacky shudders.

“Are you all right?”

“I can't talk now. I hear things. I see things.” He disappears into the air for good, but his words keep repeating: “I hear things. I see things.” Only he's not the one talking; I am.

I stop and the barn goes so quiet I'm afraid to breathe. It's like I'm in another world: now and
not
now, all at once.

What
did
Jacky
see? What did he hear?

My eyes see double, triple. As things blur, I picture hay sloping up to the back rafters. I imagine the squishy feel of it and the smell. The smell of the cows too—a damp, funky smell—and the sound of them shuffling and snorting in their stalls below. Jacky and Arty scramble up the heap, the hay giving way under their feet. They roll down, laughing.

One blink and my vision clears. Cool. Next I crouch where Jacky crouched and look at the house. I imagine it from Mr. Sinclair's photographs, with fresh paint and a band of petunias on either side of the back shed door. The McTavishes' car is in the drive, a fifties Chevy, green with fins.

In my head I hear a radio playing and Jacky's mother singing along. All of a sudden there's a man's voice and a fight. Jacky's mom screams, “You want to hit me? Hit me where the bruise will show, coward.”

Wait. That's Mom's voice. My heart skips and I'm back in the here and now.
Did
Mom
ever
say
that? Did I ever hear it?

I need some air.