Legend of the Ghost Dog (6 page)

Caspian dropped to the ground after Daddy hit him with the stick, like everything had gone out of him, like he remembered where he was and who he was again.

Silla and I tried to go to Caspian, but Daddy wouldn't let us. Finally he let Vernon, one of our best dog handlers, treat Caspian's wound. Then Daddy made Vernon lock Caspian up in a pen by himself. If Silla had not been crying and begging so hard, I think Daddy would have been done with Caspian right there and then. Jim was badly bitten, and my father believed that a dog who had bitten a human once could never be trusted to work a team with other dogs or humans.

But Caspian was our heart dog. Silla and I loved him as fiercely as we loved each other. And Daddy would listen if Silla begged him for something very hard. He loved her more than he loved the rest of us, and she was
the youngest and the prettiest so we all loved her too and didn't mind. Because Silla pleaded, Daddy let Caspian stay in the kennel. After his wound healed, Caspian was even let back with the other pups. Caspian grew into a fine, powerful young dog.

Still, Silla and I both knew that Daddy never trusted him, especially around Silla, who had always been small and fragile, prone to terrible chest colds and other ailments that often made it difficult for her to breathe. She was delicate, it was true. But Caspian would never have hurt her. He would not have hurt anyone. Though I could not prove it, I believe it was Caspian who saved the pups that night. Vernon had found the tracks of a single wolf circling the kennel. Silla and I believed that the wind blew open the unlatched door to the pups' pen and the wolf crept in during the night. Then, we were sure, Caspian had charged that wolf to lead it away from his terrified brothers and sisters.

Of this we had no proof, but it was what we felt. It was what we read on the wind. It was what we knew in our hearts had happened that night.

Jack was standing in the hallway when we came through the front door. His hair was poking out in three distinct directions, and the imprint of his pillow was still clear on one side of his face.

“Where were you?” he asked sleepily.

“Just taking Henry for a little walk,” I said, trying to disguise the huffing and puffing I was doing after the fast march all the way back to the house.

“What do you look so weird for, then?” Jack asked.

“Who's calling who weird?” Quin said, stepping around to stand next to me and giving my brother a long, appraising look. “Let's see — Batman pajamas, wind-tunnel hair, a drool trail on both sides of the mouth — I'm thinking
you're
the one that looks weird.”

Jack's mouth hung open, and he seemed frankly astonished
to see Quin standing there. He decided to pretend she did not exist.

“Do we have Cap'n Crunch?” he asked me.

“We had two boxes yesterday, and no one else in this house would actually eat the stuff,” I said.

“'Cause you're stupidy-dumb,” Jack told me, darting toward the kitchen.

“Stupidy-dumb, huh? Impressive vocabulary,” Quin said. “How proud you must be, Tee.”

I grinned at her.

“You have no idea,” I replied. Lowering my voice, I added, “I don't think he realized we were gone.”

I heard the sound of a spoon and a plastic bowl hitting the kitchen floor and bouncing. I rolled my eyes.

“Let me just go get him set up with his cereal,” I said. “My room's right in there — we can hang out. I'll get us some juice.”

“Okay,” Quin said easily, unzipping her fleece as she walked into the room I had pointed to.

Jack had abandoned the bowl and spoon where they fell and was sitting at the table eating Cap'n Crunch by the handful out of the box, reading an old He-Man comic book. He barely seemed to notice me as I placed the bowl and spoon on the table, filled the bowl with cereal, and poured
milk over it. When I handed him the spoon he scooped up a heap of cereal and crammed it into his mouth, his eyes still never leaving the comic book.

“What do you say?” I asked, grabbing the pitcher of juice and a couple glasses.

“Thapp yuh,” Jack said as politely as he could with his mouth full.

“You're welcome,” I replied. “Quin and I are going to hang out in my room for a while. You and I need to get online and check what work you have to do after. At least do some of the long-division stuff. One hour, okay?”

Jack nodded and gave me a little wave, which probably meant he hadn't actually listened to what I was saying. Fine with me. We had one thing in common — neither one of us wanted to deal with third-grade long-division assignments via the Internet.

When I walked into my room, Quin was standing by the shelf where I'd unpacked all the books I'd brought with me, her head tilted to one side as she scanned the titles. I was dying to get back to talking about Shadow now that I wasn't huffing and puffing, but seeing Quin there made me realize why I felt like I knew her. She reminded me of myself, in many ways. For example, if I went to someone's house and noticed a bookshelf, I did exactly the same thing.

“The vampire book was a gift — don't hold it against me,” I said, setting the glasses of juice down and sitting on the edge of my bed.

Quin turned and gave me a mischievous grin that said she was already holding it against me.

“Suuuuurrrre,” she said. “And you're just holding this
Zodiac Guide to Besties and Boys
for a friend, right?”

I smacked my hands over my face and flopped backward on my bed.

“That one's mine. I like the quizzes, okay?”

“I love astrology quizzes,” Quin said, plopping down next to me. “Let's do me. I'm a Libra.”

I sat up.

“So am I!” I said.

“Look at us — we're living
The Parent Trap
,” Quin said. “In about a week of comparing notes we'll realize that we're identical twins who were separated at birth.”

“Except you're tall and have red hair, and I'm short and have black hair,” I pointed out.

“Excuse me, but I have
strawberry blonde
hair and I'm considered medium height,” Quin said. “And you aren't short.”

“I'm shortish,” I said.

“Petite,” Quin corrected, flipping through the book.
“‘Question one. On your ideal date, would you most enjoy (a) a dinner at a trendy new restaurant, (b) a long walk on the beach, or (c) a burger and an evening of bowling?' That's it? Those are my only choices?”

“I choose (d) spinsterhood,” I said.

“Right,” Quin agreed. “Or (e) browsing the stacks at Barnes & Noble.”

“Plus, we need to know who the date is with,” I said. “Bowling can be dangerous if your partner has terrible aim.”

“And we need to know what state we live in,” Quin added. “Is this beach we might walk on in Malibu or Maine?”

“Yeah, and this hypothetical burger at the bowling alley … I mean, does it come with fries or anything? Can I get a milkshake?”

“Definitely not enough information,” Quin said. “Let's move on to question two. ‘When you and a boyfriend call it quits, do you prefer to (a) stay friends, (b) never speak again, or (c) take a break then try to hang out after things have cooled down?' Wait, we're calling it quits already? After one lousy burger? That's so harsh!”

“Boys stink,” I declared.

“‘Question three. You meet your dream guy at last, and he's perfect in every way. Except for one. You have a dog, and he is allergic to them. Do you (a) try to find another
home for your dog, (b) work night and day vacuuming to keep the allergens to a minimum, or (c) break up with your dream guy?'”

“Break up with the dream guy,” we both said in unison.

Quin slammed the book closed.

“What a question, even. Who's going to choose some guy over her dog? Seriously?”

“I know,” I agreed. “If you farm your dog out just so you can have a boyfriend, you didn't deserve the dog in the first place.”

“Exactly,” Quin declared. “I prefer most dogs to people, to be honest. Gatsby was all the best friend I needed.”

“Gatsby?” I asked.

Quin's face clouded. “Yeah. He was my dog — a German shepherd. He got loose last year, took off. He was hit by a car before we even knew he was missing.”

Tears filled my eyes.

“Oh, Quin, I'm so, so sorry,” I said.

She waved her hand in the air in a let's-not-talk-about-it gesture.

“Anyway, enough of this book,” she said, tossing it aside.

“Totally,” I said. “Now … I mean, do you feel like doing something else? What would you normally be doing if you weren't here?”

I wanted to ask her a million questions about Shadow. How she knew he wasn't just another dog, when he looked like one — when I could see him there, plain as day. But she had clammed up on the walk home, and I wanted to be careful. I was really getting to like Quin, and I didn't want to blow it.

“Reading,” Quin said. “Hiking.”

Only my two favorite things to do, in that order. I sat up and stared at her. She was lying on the bed with her feet propped up against the wall.

“Seriously, Quin, you're like … me. But in a different body. It's a little freaky.”

“I know — I've noticed it too,” Quin said. “I almost never meet anybody my age I can stand at all. How long are you staying in Alaska?”

“Two weeks — at least, that's what our dad told the school to get permission to pull us out. In reality, though, it all depends on when he feels like he's got enough done on the book. I suppose it's possible we could end up leaving before that, but I don't think that's going to happen. He's in this major writer's-block place right now. He's waiting for the lightning bolt of inspiration to hit him.”

Quin began to peel one of her socks off using her other foot as leverage.

“Doesn't sound so bad, if you don't mind total unpredictability,” Quin said. “Where do you actually live, anyway?”

“At the moment? Woodstock, in upstate New York. Before that, Vermont. And before that, Cape Cod. My mom is a lawyer, and companies hire her for specific jobs, so she doesn't have to live near some main office. This past year she's been traveling a ton. And Dad's obsessed with finding the perfect writers' town.”

Quin started in on removing her other sock.

“My parents split,” she said. “Six years ago. My mom hated living here, hated everything about Alaska. Finally ditched Nome, and us along with it, for New York City.”

“That's terrible,” I said.

“I guess,” Quin replied quietly. “It's better this way, just me and Dad. We understand each other.”

We lay on the bed together in silence for a few moments, Quin examining her feet. I could tell she didn't want to talk about her parents, and I couldn't leave the other question unasked any longer.

“Quin, how did you know that was Shadow?” I asked. “It's not that I don't believe you. I'm actually
sure
you're right. I just didn't know until you said it. Did you see something I didn't?”

Quin pulled the elastic band from her hair, unbraided her ponytail, and began rebraiding it before answering me.

“Well, it's not so much what I saw, it's more what I could feel. I've always had a really good way with all animals, but especially dogs. When I'm around a dog I sort of pick up what they're feeling and what their temperament is. I got it right away from your beagle — that first day I came here and you got back from the walk with him. I knew he'd had a scare. And when I'm getting this kind of feeling thing from a dog, something happens where it seems like the dog
knows
it. In some way, it's like we're communicating.”

Quin looked at me, as if she still thought I was going to accuse her of being nuts. I nodded, though, hoping she'd go on, and after a moment, she did.

“But that dog this morning? There was nothing there that I could feel. Not in the way I usually do. It might as well have been a hologram or something. The really weird thing is that when I realized that, I sort of adapted. I started picking up on the dog anyway. And I could see he was picking up on me. He was interested in Henry first, though, because who gets a dog better than another dog?”

I rolled over onto my stomach and propped my chin on my hands, in the same position Quin was now in.

“That makes sense,” I said. “And Henry sort of adapted
also. He was really scared that first day. But the second time we were near Shadow, he was more … expectant. And today, he didn't seem scared of Shadow until the snarling started, and then we were all scared. Yeah, it all fits now. It's amazing — I've never heard of a dog ghost.”

“Well, if people can be ghosts, why couldn't dogs?” Quin asked. “Doesn't it ever irritate you the way humans always assume that they're so above every other form of life? I had this teacher once who I ran into when I was walking Clancy — he was our dog when I was little. And she said something along the lines of ‘what an expressive face — it's almost like he's thinking something.' Why would anyone assume that dogs don't think and feel and dream and do everything we do, and probably more?”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “Like when scientists say they might have proof that dolphins are communicating with each other. There needs to be proof of that, like it's some wackadoodle Life on Mars theory?” I paused. “What would make a dog haunt a place, though?”

Quin slipped one of her socks onto her hands, then pulled it off and rolled it into a little ball.

“Whatever the usual people reasons would be,” Quin mused. “Something bad happened there. Or unfinished business. Or a warning.”

I thought of the dog ghost's face — the dark fur and strangely pale blue eyes — the strength evident in his barrel chest and powerful legs. Poor thing. What could have happened to him?

“I wonder how old that cabin is,” I said. “And why someone would have built a cabin smack in the middle of nowhere.”

“It isn't really in the middle of nowhere, not by Alaska standards,” Quin said. “That trail goes up toward Dorothy Creek, where miners were panning for gold. There could easily be any number of abandoned miner's cabins out there.”

“When was that?” I asked.

“The gold rush started at the very end of the 1800s,” Quin told me. “There's just no way to know when that particular cabin was built, though. Like I said, there are abandoned ones all over the place.”

“If we went back and really looked, maybe we could find something in all that rubble with a date on it. Or even a name.”

Quin started unraveling her braid again, her blue eyes on mine. I noticed the smattering of freckles on her nose and cheeks for the first time.

“What's so important about finding out who built the cabin when?” she asked.

“Well, if we found that out, we might be able to learn something about the dog. I don't know, maybe we could help him or something. Like that TV show where the girl helps ghosts understand they're dead so they can move on.”

“
Ghost Whisperer
meets the
Dog Whisperer
,” Quin said.

I laughed.

“Exactly. We'd be dog-ghost whisperers.”

“How would we help a dog ghost, though?” she asked.

“I don't know,” I said, truthfully. “But the thing is, I think you're totally right that Shadow picked up on Henry first, but then he sensed you. When you spoke to him, put your hand out — he stopped growling. He relaxed a little. And he was looking right at you. He didn't get aggressive again until we walked inside that cabin. Didn't you get the feeling Shadow is asking for help?”

“Yeah, I did,” Quin said. “He definitely wants something or needs something, and it's really important. I felt it. I don't even know where to start, but we've got to find a way to help that dog.”