Me & Jack (7 page)

chapter 11

T
ysko's sat on the corner down from Ray's house. We rode past a farmer driving a tractor on the road and turned into the parking lot. Picnic tables sat in front of the store and it looked like a lot of people had the same idea as we did. We leaned our bikes against a table and hurried into line just as a lady was getting her cone.

When she stepped away from the window, I had eyes only on her triple scoop with sprinkles; I didn't notice Jack snuffling up to her legs.

She let out a jagged sound of surprise and backed up so quickly, one vanilla scoop plopped onto the ground. No hesitation on Jack's part—he immediately started lapping it up.

I looked at her face. She wasn't that old, maybe in her twenties. “Sorry about that,” I said. “He was just trying to be friendly.”

“He scared the heck out of me,” she said. She smiled, but her body tensed against the serving window.

An older woman leaned out and spoke to me like a teacher. “Better hold your dog a little closer, okay?”

“Yes, ma'am.” I was just about to offer to pay for that scoop when the older woman said she'd give the girl a whole new cone.

When she got it, she edged away in the direction opposite of Jack. It bothered me. I wanted to fix her impression of him. “He won't bite,” I said.

She laughed at herself and shrugged, walking away.

“Guess she's scared of dogs,” Prater said.

Oh, yeah. He left that wide open. A million zingers sprang to mind, but I didn't let any of them loose. I wanted this afternoon to work out. Whatever Prater's problem was, I was hoping the ice cream would help solve it. So even if he didn't know it, not saying anything was the second nice thing I did for him. Buying the ice cream was the first.

Three double scoops sent us to the picnic table we'd parked our bikes next to. Prater sat opposite me, at another table facing us. He was as far away from Jack as he could get while still sitting by Ray. I looped Jack's leash around my handlebars a couple of times and set down a cup of water for him.

We didn't talk for a few minutes, too busy eating our ice cream. Jack lapped some of the water, and then sat straight, watching and listening. Some little kids ran laughing around another table. Their mom had a baby on her lap, and ice cream smeared his face like a chocolate beard.

“So you're going to that show, then?” Ray asked Prater. He had to turn away from me to do this, Prater had separated himself so well.

“Yeah, Blackbeard's in it.”

“Is Blackbeard one of your horses?” I asked.

Prater twisted his cone for a better angle. “One of our
champion
horses.”

“That's cool.” I bit into a chunk of butter pecan and my front teeth froze. “Do you ride them in the shows?”

“I ride Alexander; he's a quarter horse, but my dad rides Blackbeard, and my uncle rides The Great White North.”

“What?” A grin crossed my face.

“That's the horse's show name,” Ray said. “The Great White North.”

“But we call him Pete.”

“Pete? The Great White North is
Pete
?” It seemed funny to call a horse Pete. The show name sounded so much more powerful.

Prater was down to his last scoop. “Guess what color he is?”

It seemed obvious, but maybe it was a joke, like how that bald guy on
The Three Stooges
was named Curly. I went for it anyway. “White?”

Prater nodded, swallowed his ice cream.

“You should see all the trophies they have,” Ray said to me.

“Yep,” Prater said, warming to the subject. “And Shadow is next.” I realized he was talking to me like maybe I was a friend. Yep, the ice cream was definitely a move in the right direction.

Ray nodded. “I bet—”

All of a sudden, Jack whined and strained against the leash. Snapping and growling, he reared up on his hind legs, then he jumped and bolted. The bikes fell like dominoes and the leash slipped out. Jack tore across the parking lot like a torpedo.

I shot out of my seat. “Jack!”

He ran through the grass on the other side and I saw a small dark shape scuttle through the weeds. Then, with me and everyone else watching, Jack leaped through the grass and clamped his jaws down on a rabbit. Some ladies gasped and one covered her eyes with both hands. “Look at what that dog did!” a little boy shouted. A tiny girl at the next table started crying.

Jack trotted toward me with the body in his jaws, the rabbit's lifeless head flopping with each step. “Oh, oh,” a woman moaned. Some of the ladies pulled their kids back in tight arms as Jack passed between the tables. Jack's ears were erect and flushed with a deep rose color. I stood, frozen. Ray and Prater were also standing.

Jack stopped in front of me, laid the rabbit down, and looked up expectantly.

“Whoa!” Prater said. “A kill.” When he peered over to inspect, Jack lowered his head and snarled. Prater snapped upright. “Geez!”

“That dog killed a bunny rabbit!” a boy shrieked.

“Come over here, Troy!” the lady with the baby shouted.

Loud wails and sobs came from the little girl. Her mother held her tightly while staring right at me. “What's wrong with you?” she shouted across the tables. “You don't bring a dog like that around children.”

“Joshua,” murmured Ray. I couldn't respond. “Come on, Josh, we have to do something.”

“Let's get out of here,” Prater said. He'd finished his cone and was now mounting his bike.

Jack remained at my feet, his offering before him.

Some of the little kids had gathered on the other side of the picnic area and shouted their version of what happened. “He growled like a lion.” “He's got rabies!” “He tried to eat me but I ran too fast.”

I crouched and held Jack's leash. Blood pooled under the rabbit's neck. I felt sick and hollow. I looked into Jack's face, but I saw no meanness—he was still Jack.

One of the ladies marched over to us, her eyes narrow as slits and her hands clenched. “Get that vicious dog out of here before I call the police,” she said. “What are your names?” She sounded like a teacher.

“It's
his
dog,” Prater said and pointed at me. He put one foot on the pedal, ready to make his escape. “He's your crazy dog—no wonder he was at the pound.” I looked at him, speechless.

“Shut up,” Ray said.

I was still crouching beside Jack. Would she really call the police? Could they take Jack away?

Ray glanced at his house and then at me. “We could bury the rabbit in my yard. I'll go get a shovel.”

I stood up and nodded. Ray crossed the side street to his house. Prater pressed down on his pedals, standing as he rode. “Later, gator,” he called out.

The angry lady stepped forward. She looked down and her lips pulled back in disgust. “Keep that dog in a pen, or I
will
call the police next time.” She spun around and joined the other mothers ushering their kids into their cars.

I was alone. I tied Jack up to a nearby table, pulling the knots hard and checking them. Bending down, I touched the rabbit's back. It was soft and still warm. It should have been out playing, not lying dead here on the concrete. My first time touching a rabbit. I wished I could be petting him alive.

Ray came back with a shovel and a piece of cardboard. I held the cardboard down while Ray used the shovel to push the rabbit over. Its body rumpled, like an old doll that had lost some of its stuffing. The ice cream I'd just eaten turned sour in my stomach. Ray laid down the shovel and picked up the cardboard, and I untied Jack, wrapped the leash around my fist, and grabbed the shovel with the other hand. We walked in silence the short distance to his house.

“Let's go around up here,” Ray said, motioning with his chin to the far corner of his house, the side that shared a space with that old lady's house. “Easier to get to the shed.”

As we passed, the old lady watched us with disapproving eyes. “Hi, Mrs. Brenner,” Ray said. She tilted forward on the rocker, taking in the scene while clutching the black-and-white cat in her arms.

She shook her knobby finger at me. My heart beat double time and I quickly looked away from her, but that didn't stop what she said next. “He's a devil dog. Yella eyes, ears like horns—I saw what he did.” She leaned back, puckered her face, and spoke from her chair like a judge giving a sentence. “
Devil dog
.”

I swallowed and bent my head. “Did you hear what she said?” I whispered to Ray as we walked into the shady area behind his shed.

“Don't worry about her,” Ray said. “She sits all day with that cat, just watching what everyone does. No one pays any attention to her.”

I tried not to pay attention either, but I couldn't help it.

Ray got another shovel while I cinched Jack's leash around a tree. As we dug, thoughts tumbled around in my head—Jack, a devil dog; bloody rabbit fur; all those people yelling at me.
I'll call the police.

My eyes watered. I kept my face down as I worked. It felt weird to throw dirt on top of the rabbit. I remembered hearing about how, in the old days, they buried people with a string in their coffin. The string led up to a bell above the ground. If the dead person wasn't really dead, they could ring the bell and someone would dig them out. But I knew the rabbit was dead. I had pressed my hand on him and felt no heartbeat, no breathing.

Ray patted the last chunk of grass over the little grave. Wiping his forehead with his arm, he said, “Well, that's it, then.”

I sighed. “Yeah.”

He put the shovels in the shed, I untied Jack, and we plopped down on the steps of the back porch.

My head hung down. “I can't believe he did that.”

“Yeah,” Ray said. “But he didn't really do anything wrong.”

“What do you mean? He killed that rabbit.”

Ray scratched Jack's ears. “We used to have a cat that would leave dead birds at the front door,” Ray said. “My mom said that was the cat's way of taking care of us, like he was trying to feed us.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, so that's like what Jack was doing.”

I leaned back and thought about that for a minute. The whole scene replayed in my head: Jack, still tied to the bike, trying to tell me he saw something. Instead of paying attention to him, I was busy listening to Prater, trying to get in good with him. Well, that didn't really work. One word from those ladies and Prater had no problem pointing his finger at me. On top of that, he didn't even say thank you for the ice cream. Then he took off, saving his own skin.

But not Ray, who sat beside me now, stretched out along the steps with Jack pushed into his side. I didn't know if he was a fast runner like Scott, but I knew I could be friends with him. Even if it meant dealing with Prater.

chapter 12

D
ad was not happy when I told him what happened. He stared at Jack lying in the middle of the living room floor and shook his head. “Did he go near any of the kids? Did he threaten them?”

“No! All he did was chase a rabbit and bring it to me.” I didn't tell Dad how shocked I'd felt. “Just like how cats leave birds for their owners.”

He turned and leveled his eyes at me. “Jack is a lot different from a cat. Look at him—he's wiry, he's got those ears, that pointy face—”

“So what?”

Dad raised his eyebrows. “So what? We're lucky he didn't attack a kid.”

“He would never do that!” Jack yawned, his jaws opening wide. He let out a squeaky sound. I gestured toward him. “You
know
he would never do that.”

Sighing, Dad leaned back on the couch. “I don't think he would either. But I can see how other people might think that.” He crossed his arms. “Maybe we
should
build him a pen.”

“No way!” I said. “I don't want him stuck in a cage all the time.” The sound of the news program on TV filtered in, and I heard the reporter say they were rolling the antiwar protest from earlier in the day.

“We have to do
something
.” Dad's attention wavered between me and the television. “We can't live with this commotion all the time.” He focused on me. “First the trash cans, now this—we're not making good neighbors, I can tell you that right now.”

“You want to put him in jail because of the neighbors?”

Dad rolled his eyes. “Don't be so dramatic. I'm not saying put him in jail. He just needs to be …” He paused, searching for a word. “Contained.”

“But
not
in a cage.”

He leaned against the arm of the couch and rubbed his chin with his fingers. “I can put up a run for him in the backyard—I'll give him enough line to cover the yard without leaving it. What do you think?”

I could live with that.

My gaze drifted to the TV. A bunch of guys and girls waved hand-painted signs:
MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR. EIGHTEEN TODAY, DEAD TOMORROW.
A couple of guys came up behind the reporter and shouted, “One, two, three, four; we don't want your
bleeping
war!” Even with the bleep, it wasn't hard to figure out what they'd said.

The picture flashed back to the newsroom, and they played a newsreel from the war. Our soldiers advanced through tangled-looking woods and palm trees. No choppers in the air, only blue sky. If you just looked up, you wouldn't even know there was a war.

Then the scene cut to soldiers rushing out from a ditch. One soldier ran right past the camera. His face was dirty and had cuts on it.

“More than forty-five thousand American soldiers have lost their lives so far in Vietnam,” the anchorman said. Two soldiers crossed the television screen carrying a dead soldier on a stretcher. Blood splattered over his eyes; his ear was obliterated. “Loved ones at home want to know if the sacrifice is worth it.”

Dad pressed his fingers to his eyes. I turned the TV off.

“Dad?” I lay on the floor beside Jack.

From behind his hand, Dad answered. “Yeah?”

“Is that guy—what happened to that MIA guy?”

He lowered his head. “I called the family the other day, talked with the father. They don't know anything. I told him I'd try to help.” He put his hand down and looked at me. “The father's retired army. His older son did a tour in 'Nam a couple of years ago.”

I'd absentmindedly stopped petting Jack as I listened, so he rolled over and pawed to get me started again. One father and two sons in the army. Some families were like that—it just ran in their blood. Dad never talked about me going in and I didn't know if I wanted to. I mean, I thought about it sometimes, especially when we went to air shows and the Thunderbirds roared in formation over our heads, blasting out our eardrums with the power of their engines. But when I saw things like that dead soldier—or even the other soldiers running to the fight with their guns—it scared me to think about really being there.

Fumbling behind me, I grabbed Jack's toy and threw it. He leaped up, his legs tangled for a second like a baby deer's, then he ran after the toy and brought it back. Dropping it, he backed up a step and took on a ready position. I faked him out to the left, then threw it right.

The government said we were over there to protect democracy. That sounded like a good thing. I didn't understand why people were against that. I didn't understand why, just a couple of months ago, the news showed all these veterans from the war tearing off their medals and throwing them on the ground in Washington DC. They earned those medals by being brave. One soldier said he was ashamed of what his country made him do. It was all mixed up.

More parents had been calling Dad the past couple weeks to yell at him for talking to their sons about the air force. “I know you don't want to hear this,” I heard him say to one parent, “but there's a war going on. He's got no deferment. I believe the air force will give him the best of all options.”

Dad always looked drained after these phone calls, like he did a few minutes ago watching the news. I determined right then that Jack wouldn't be turned into a problem. I would keep him in line. I would stick up for him. If I could, I'd stick up for Dad, too. I'd slam the phone down on those people yelling at him.
He has medals, too
, I'd yell.
He was in the Korean War.

No one wants to fight, but sometimes you have no choice.