Sable (4 page)

“Wanders?” Doc Winston asked. “Couldn't you put in a fence?”

I looked at Pap.

Pap shook his head. “A fence big enough for this dog? Yours would do fine, but you've seen her run, Doc. It wouldn't be fair, shutting a dog like this up in anything smaller…” Pap's voice trailed off. I'd watched Pap play cards with Mr. Cobb and all. Something about the way Pap talked to Doc Winston felt like cardplaying.

“I can see she'd work wonders keeping down the rabbit population. She any good as a watchdog?” Doc Winston asked.

“Sure is,” Pap answered. “She knows how to keep her eye on things, doesn't she, Tate?”

I had a real uneasy feeling about what was happening here.

“Look, if you're really thinking about giving her up,” Doc Winston said, “I might take her.”

Something twisted inside me.

“Would you?” Pap asked.

“Pap!”

“Listen, Tate,” Pap said. “We couldn't find a better home for her than here.”

“I've been thinking about getting another dog. It's been years since we lost Damon,” Doc Winston said.

Pap nodded.

“You wouldn't need to worry about her, Tate,” Doc Winston told me. “And you could come back to visit her anytime.”

Black specks floated in front of my eyes. Come back to visit her! She was my dog!

“What do you think, Sable?” Doc Winston asked, stooping down. “You want to stay? You'd have a good home here. Plenty room to run.”

I turned and glared at Pap.

Sable sat panting softly in the green grass, surrounded by Doc Winston's land. She held her sleek brown head high, gazing into the distance.

“Good dog,” Doc Winston said, running an admiring hand down her.

I couldn't watch anymore. I ran to Pap's truck and slammed myself inside.

Pap had planned on leaving Sable here all along.

Pap poked his head inside the truck cab. “Come say good-bye to her, Tate.”

I bit my lip and swallowed. “No, sir,” I said.

As we backed out of the driveway, Sable trotted along beside us. Her head tilted to one side as Doc Winston closed the gate, locking her in. When we disappeared around the corner, Sable started barking like crazy.

I squeezed against my side of the truck cab, digging my fingernails into my palms.

The muscles worked up and down in Pap's jaw, but he kept on driving.

7 / The Empty Bed

I shut myself up in my room and wouldn't come out. Right about then I hated Mam and Pap. I really did.

“Why don't you see how Pap's doing in the shop?” Mam said, coming into my room that evening after supper, a supper I had refused to eat.

“I don't care to,” I answered.

Mam looked like she wanted to argue, but then she changed her mind and went back to the kitchen.

Pap came in and asked if I'd like helping him on a project in the shop.

Pap's asking like that made me angrier than ever.

I turned my head to the wall. “You never asked me to help before.”

Why did he have to ask now? Now, when he knew I wouldn't!

When I finally left my room for school on Monday morning, I found Sable's empty bed off in the corner of Pap's shop, on top of a tall pile of stickers. Grandmam's blanket, newly washed, hung on the line, drying. I lifted the box and carried it gently back to the shed, tucking it away where it would be safe.

That's when I decided. I could make a fence good as Doc Winston's.

That afternoon I sorted through Pap's stickers, picking out the best ones. It took ten trips, carrying all that wood behind the shop. Mam's cat watched from the back porch.

After busting open a couple garbage bags, I slithered around in the crawl space under the shed, spreading the bags out. That plastic would keep the damp earth from rotting the stickers till I was ready to use them.

With Sable gone, I didn't need money for food anymore, but I kept working at Tom's anyway, saving for a hammer, nails, a saw. I bought the saw first, using it to cut sharp points on the ends of the stickers.

By late May, I had the other things I needed too.

*   *   *

Dragging the sticks out from under the shed, I carried an armful at a time across the yard.

I dropped each load with a clatter near the path to the secret place.

“What are you up to, Tate?” Pap asked.

“I'm building a fence, sir,” I said.

“What you building a fence in the middle of the yard for?” Pap asked.

“'Cause we need one here,” I said.

I started by laying long pieces of wood end to end on the ground until I had outlined a run big enough for Sable. Spreading the stickers out along the frame, I began hammering, two nails at the top of each stick. I bent plenty nails, but that was all right. Sometimes I missed the nail and hit the ground, or I'd hit the wood and mess up the row of stickers not yet nailed down. Sometimes I smashed my thumb.

But slowly, the sections came together. When I finished hammering the last one, they looked like big hair combs laying there.

Now I needed to stand the sections up and drive them into the ground.

I lifted the first piece and started pounding. Immediately, I hit rock.

Digging out smaller stones, I lugged them over to Pap's rock pile. But some were just too big to move. I shifted the fence sections instead, and tried again in softer ground till I got them standing.

With the last section though, I hit more than rock. I struck ledge.

“I'll just make the gate out of this piece,” I decided, “where Sable can go in and out.” With rope, I tied one end to a section I already had standing. On the opposite end, I screwed in a hook and eye. It took some tinkering, but I made a gate out of it.

For days I worked, whipping those stickers into a fence. My hands filled with splinters and blisters. My thumbnail turned black. Every part of me ached.

But in the end, when I stepped back and looked, I'd done a good job. It had to be good. It was for Sable.

8 / The Runaway

Pap and Mam planned a trip to Hartford to visit Aunt Aurelia. I wasn't going. Aunt Aurelia kept a stash of candy in her pantry. That part I liked. But she always made me sit on the itchy sofa with her and talk about school. And she kept the temperature in her house hotter than July.

I had other plans.

“I guess you're old enough to stay on your own for a while,” Pap said.

I listened for the sound of the truck engine firing up. Seemed like it took Mam and Pap half the morning to leave. Finally I heard the crunch of gravel under tires. I saw the dust kicked up behind them as they turned onto the road.

Now it was my turn. I was going to Concord to get Sable.

I had been walking for fifteen minutes, maybe, when Elton Cobb pulled up alongside me.

“Where you heading, Tate Marshall?” Mr. Cobb asked.

“Clear to Concord,” I said. “To fetch my dog.”

“Your folks know about this?” Mr. Cobb asked.

“No, sir,” I said.

“Get in, Tate,” Mr. Cobb said.

He drove me back home.

“Where
are
your folks?” he asked when he pulled into the empty drive.

“Off to Hartford,” I said. “Visiting family.”

“You look like you mean to get back on the road as soon as I drive away, Tate.”

“I do, sir.”

“Look. I have business in Concord on Tuesday,” Mr. Cobb said. “You get permission from your folks and I'll take you with me. We'll drop in on that dog of yours.”

“Yes, sir!” I said.

I spent the rest of the day counting how many hours there were between now and Tuesday. I was going to Concord.

*   *   *

Mam and Pap pulled in a little after seven that night, hours later than I'd expected. I'd already done my chores and fed Eden. I wasn't hungry myself. My stomach kept fizzing up at the thought of bringing Sable home.

Mam and Pap sat at the kitchen table, looking exhausted.

“What took you so long?” I asked.

“Aunt Aurelia didn't recognize us,” Pap explained. “She wouldn't let us in.”

Pap cleaned his fingernails with the blade of his pocketknife as he spoke. “She thought Mam was from some agency,” Pap said, grinning.

“I'm beat,” Mam said, scowling at the stove.

I knew this wasn't the best time to be asking about Sable. I should have let them settle down. But I couldn't help myself.

“Could we bring Sable back now?” I asked.

Pap spread his hands out on the tablecloth and studied them, sighing.

“I built a fence, Pap.”

“There's other things you could have done around here a lot more useful than that,” Mam said.

Mam and I glared at each other.

Then she dragged herself out of her chair. “I'll fry up some eggs for supper.”

I had to make Mam understand how important it was to me, bringing Sable back.

“You sit down, Mam,” I ordered. “I'll cook dinner tonight.”

Mam gave me a funny look, but she settled back into her seat.

I fried up potatoes and onions, eggs and ham.

Pap made soft noises as he ate, dipping his bread into a puddle of egg yolk.

“Thank you, Tate,” Mam said, finishing the last of the potatoes. She wiped her mouth with a napkin. “That was real good.”

“My fence is good, too,” I said.

Pap sighed.

“Can I at least go down and visit her? Doc Winston said to come anytime.”

They stared at me.

“Mr. Cobb will drive me. He said he'd drive me on Tuesday if you gave permission.”

Pap rested his hand over top of Mam's. She studied me a minute, then she nodded.

Pap sat back in his chair. I poured out two cups of strong coffee, and set one down in front of each of them.

9 / The Storm

I tested my fence once more before I headed over to Mr. Cobb's house.

The sun chinned itself over the mountain. The trees above the ridge swayed, a high wind tossing them, but it was windless and hot down in the valley. I sat on Mr. Cobb's porch steps, waiting.

The Cobbs' hound, Truman, sat on the steps beside me.

“Morning, Tate,” Mrs. Cobb said, coming out onto the porch. Truman got up, tail wagging, and waddled over to her.

Mrs. Cobb had already set the coffee to perk on her woodstove. She had bacon sizzling in the pan. “You care for some breakfast?”

“No, ma'am,” I said, watching Truman follow on her heels. “I'm just waiting on Mr. Cobb.”

*   *   *

“You got directions to that doctor's house?” Mr. Cobb asked as we wove our way over the mountain and turned onto Route 9.

He drove real slow, slow enough I could have run alongside and got there faster. Mr. Cobb's driving nearly drove me crazy. I just wanted to get to Concord, to Sable.

“Yes, sir,” I said, bringing out the paper Pap had sketched a map on last night. I smoothed the directions out on Mr. Cobb's dashboard.

“I don't like the look of that sky,” Mr. Cobb said. “See if you can tune in some weather, Tate.”

I fiddled with Mr. Cobb's radio. I couldn't get much more than static.

The sky had turned yellow and still. Nothing moved in it. No birds, no clouds. You couldn't see the sun. Just a pale yellow sky. Made me feel twitchy in the stomach.

Mr. Cobb got us close to Concord, then followed Pap's directions. Suddenly I recognized a stand of pine. And then the beginning of Doc Winston's fence.

“That's it,” I said.

“Good. This storm looks nasty. I don't want to be driving in it someplace I don't know.”

*   *   *

Mr. Cobb parked outside the gate. I opened my car door. The hair stood up on my arms. It was still as death outside Doc Winston's house. I heard no barking. Peering through the gate, my eyes searched for signs of Sable.

As I stood there, the sky opened. In a moment my overalls and T-shirt were soaking wet. Rain beat down through my hair and trickled along my scalp.