Say No More (7 page)

I nudged at Hunter until he lifted a corner of the blanket to peer at me. He glanced toward the kitchen, the corners of his mouth weighed down with a frown.

“It’s my fault, Halo,” he whispered. “I yelled ... but Daddy didn’t hear me.”

Before I could position myself beside him for a hug, he had rolled back up in his little woolen cocoon to shut out the world.

Several taps sounded against the kitchen window. I got to my feet, padded the few steps to the hallway, and looked. It was only the branches of a crabapple tree planted too close to the house slapping against the pane there. Outside, the wind blew hard, leaking around the old windows so that it began to make a howling sound. The soffits rattled something fierce and the front storm door suddenly started banging against its frame every time a gust came along.

It didn’t look like a good day for going to the park to me.

“We’re probably going to lose shingles again,” Lise complained as she rose and went to the front door. When she opened it to pull the storm door shut and latch it, a frigid draft of air rolled through the room. She tossed herself on the couch with a loud
oomph
. “After gutting the kitchen and having it eat up all our spare weekends, you didn’t want to fix anything else. And I get that, Cam. I do. But you also promised me we’d be out of here by the end of the year. And now ...”

For a painfully long time, she stared into space, her gaze finally settling on the buffet table where the family pictures were arranged. On one end was a photo of Cam showing his prize steer at the Adair County Fair. Chin held high, his right hand gripping the braided halter on the steer, he looked back at the camera from beneath the brim of his white hat with an almost arrogant pride. He was younger then, not quite as tall, not nearly as muscular. But Lise had often told him how dashing he looked in that navy blue checkered shirt with the mother-of-pearl buttons and his calf-high cowboy boots. Although Hunter was barely five now, he was already starting to look a lot like his father, with the same straight, sandy blond locks, dark eyelashes, and deeply carved dimples.

Sniffing, Lise tugged the hem of her shirt up and stroked her bare tummy. “Your daddy was a handsome guy, Baby Girl. Oh, I know you’re a girl, all right. I just know.”

Then she put her shirt back down and covered herself with the throw blanket that had been wadded up at the end of the couch. I expected more tears, but maybe she was too exhausted for another round. Instead, she tugged her phone out of her pocket, tapped out a text message, then laid it on the floor and went to sleep.

—o00o—

Find him, Halo
, Cam’s voice whispered.
Find him.

I drifted on the verge between dreaming and waking, as I tried to focus on Cam’s words. But the harder I tried, the less I could hear him.

The phone rang.

Lise sat up straight as a rod, blinking hard. We must have all fallen asleep. Even with the TV blaring and the wind beating at the house like it was going to lift it off its foundations and carry it away to Oz.

Cool air swirled around me, so I crawled my way over to the register and stretched out over it. The heat wasn’t on, but the metal was still hot. Any moment now, I’d hear the familiar ‘clunk’ of the old furnace down in the cellar and its warmth would tickle my stomach.

“Hey, Grace.” Scrunching up her face, Lise rubbed at the back of her neck. “Naw, where would I go, anyway? ... Yeah, sure. This afternoon is perfect. Bring as many boxes as you can fit in your car. I haven’t gotten much of a start — just thinking of it is like ... I don’t know. Frightening. Painful. Like packing up my heart. This place isn’t much, but it was ...
ours
.” She forced the last word out in a raspy whisper, like she was going to fall apart one more time after the hundreds of times she’d already lost it. But never in front of Hunter.

I looked toward the heap of blankets he’d burrowed beneath earlier, but he wasn’t there. While Lise talked on the phone with her friend Grace, I sniffed around. There were traces of him everywhere. But the strongest scent was in the direction of the front door.

Which wasn’t completely closed.

Maybe Lise hadn’t properly latched it? I glanced at her, but she was too absorbed with pouring out her heart to a sympathetic ear. I scratched at the door. Her back was now to me, one hand pressing the phone firmly to her head, the other covering her other ear so she could hear over the still blaring TV. The Lawrence Welk show was on now. A man in a red jacket was playing the accordion and Bobby and Sissy were dancing to The Beer Barrel Polka. Why didn’t she just get the remote control and turn it down? I stared at her awhile, hoping she’d figure it out. Or look my way. Or realize Hunter wasn’t in the room. Something.

But she just went on and on. My agitation was increasing by the second. I retrieved the remote from beside where Hunter had been and sat in front of her. By then, she had a hand over her eyes. I woofed once, softly. As I did so, the remote fell from my mouth. Onto her foot.

“Ow!” Lise straightened. When she saw what I’d brought her, she glared at me. She picked the remote up, wiped my saliva from it, and slapped it on the end table. “Halo, no! Bad dog!”

Rats, I should have brought the blanket over. Then she would’ve noticed Hunter wasn’t asleep there.

In one smooth movement, she scooped me up and marched across the room. I was almost too big for her to carry anymore. My back legs swung against her hip. I felt myself slipping as she hugged me to her side. I squirmed when I saw where she was headed — the back door — but she just held me tighter.

“My friend Katherine suggested I take him to a counselor, but I don’t know that it’d be worth it, Grace. I mean, if he won’t talk, what’s the point? I’d be paying someone a hundred and fifty bucks an hour to babysit him while he stares off into space... Sure, I understand. I really do... Well, I think he just needs time. And I certainly can’t let him go over there again. Talk about trauma. Besides, who knows what could happen if she takes her eyes off of him, even for a minute? With his asthma, I can’t leave him with someone who’s going to just let him wander off like that.”

We had passed through the hallway and were headed into the kitchen. I couldn’t let her do this. Hunter was in trouble. I sensed it. Every second mattered.

So I bit her. Not enough to draw blood, mind you. Just a pinch of my front teeth on the tender flesh between her thumb and forefinger.

She gasped. Then through tight lips, she growled, “You little turd!”

The hand that was holding me latched onto my collar. She swung me down, slamming me onto my side on the linoleum. The air whooshed out of my lungs. I drew in one quick breath and held it, bracing myself.

“Hold on a sec, Grace. Someone’s being a brat... No, not him. The puppy. Be right back.”

Lise set her phone on the floor and clamped down on my muzzle with a death grip. She brought her face close to mine and stared me down.

I didn’t like what I saw in her eyes. Deep down in my soul, it scared me. It was a glimpse of what we’re all capable of when life has exploded around us and we’re desperate to survive. So I looked away. She was angry.
Very
angry. Not just at me. At the world.

Instead of alerting her to a possible crisis, I’d pricked her last nerve.

Every muscle in my body stiffened. I kept my eyes averted, my ears pinned against my head. Lifting my front and back leg of the side nearest Lise, I exposed my belly. Had I been upright, I would have urinated. At times, it is necessary to display total, utter submission. I had terrorized my littermates until they exhibited these very same signals. Because it was important that they understood who was boss. I had learned this from my mother. There was no mistaking the message that I was trying to send to Lise right then: that she was supreme leader, master of all, and even if she was wrong, dead wrong, I would cede to her.

Her hands relaxed just enough so I could breathe through my mouth. Still, I didn’t look at her. It wasn’t safe to do so yet. Gruffly, she lifted me up and attempted to scoot me toward the back door with her foot as she reached for the knob. But I was quicker than her.

I ran.

Past her legs and across the kitchen. I skidded into a turn as I headed toward the living room.

“Halo!” Lise screeched. “Get back here — now!”

A sliver of daylight flashed from around the edge of the screen door. Churning my gangly legs, I bounded across the room, my nails digging into the area rug for added traction, and dove for it. I slammed my nose between the metal frame and the door, the force of my weight propelling it open. I burst through, to the outside, and leapt from the top step onto the concrete of the sidewalk.

Four more strides and I was racing over the front lawn. Papery red and gold leaves crunched beneath my feet as I ran. Ran, and ran, and ran.

Lise’s voice behind me got further and further away, then faded to nothing.

T
he sheep lifted their heads as I sped past, no doubt jealous that they were stuck behind a fence and I was not. A noisy cloud of blackbirds lifted from a stubbled field on the other side of the driveway. I didn’t stop to chase them, either. Ahead, the great woods loomed — dense and dark beneath a leaden sky.

Nose to the air, I searched for Hunter. But the wind had dissipated his scent, wherever he was. I smelled only damp earth and decaying leaves, bruised stems of grass, and wood still green and growing.

I slowed, looked behind me. The house was far away now. Lise had stopped following me, probably gone back inside. My heart thumped against my ribs. My lungs heaved for air. Every breath tasted of water. The rain was coming. A lot of it. My skin prickled. Soon, thunder rolled down from the sky, shaking the ground. I felt it in my bones. In every sinew and hair follicle. In every tooth and nerve.

The first drops of rain followed, cool and gentle at first, then colder and harder, more and more. The wind gained force to drive it across the land like a horizontal waterfall. Until it was hard to see at all.

Knives of rain stabbed at my face. I forced my eyes to stay open, but all I wanted to do was fold to the ground and wait for the storm to pass. I knew, though, that I’d never find Hunter if I did that.

Glancing around, I looked for shelter — for a barn in which to hide or a car beneath which to crawl. Nothing but a gray bleariness surrounded me. An unwelcoming, watery world. I saw no sign of Hunter. Couldn’t smell him. Couldn’t hear anything above the percussive roar of the rain as it hammered at every surface.

To my left, a slash of yellowish-brown moved amongst the woods at the edge of the field. I started that way, but upon coming closer, I could see it was only the leaves of a yet-fully leafed bush waving in the wind. My spirits plunged. The urgency that had gripped me only minutes ago was giving way to panic. The longer Hunter was gone, the harder it would be to find him.

Perhaps, I thought, I should return to Lise and get her to help. I turned back. Trotted awhile. Down a slope. Waded through a swale that had turned into a belly-deep stream. Over clods of upturned earth and channels deep with mud.

Where was the driveway? The sheep field? The house? I couldn’t see any of them. Didn’t know in which direction they lay. But if I went back now, Lise might not be there. Or if she was she would be angry at me for having bolted out the door, only to come back a drenched and dirty mess.

There was no alternative. I had to find Hunter.

And when I did, even if we didn’t know the way home, at least we would be lost together.

I forced myself onward, while rain fell hard and cold around me.

—o00o—

It was desperation that sent me into the woods. That or stupidity.

Youth is bold, you see. It is also quick to hope, for life’s realities have not yet tempered it with the caution that follows experience. Youth believes what is possible; it does not dwell on the many ways we can fail.

It was a blessing that day that I was so young. Because it meant I believed I could do anything, without knowing what I could not. In my own mind, I was invincible. It was all I needed to keep going.

I wouldn’t go home without Hunter. Lise depended on me, whether she knew it or not. She had simply misunderstood me when she tried to usher me out into the backyard. She had not known what I knew.

By now, she did.

When the rain finally began to abate, rifts of blue were showing at the sky’s rim. Low black clouds had given way to gauzy blankets of gray. The wind that had been so fierce and unforgiving not so long ago had diminished to a soothing breeze, whispering in my ears,
Find him, Halo. Find him
.

I wandered until the pads of my feet were cracked and raw. Thorns tugged at my fur. Cockleburs tangled themselves in my britches and feathers. I sniffed and sniffed and sniffed. I smelled a hundred smells. None of them were Hunter.

Often, I stopped to listen. For a cow bellowing. For the plaintive bah of a ewe. For the familiar rasp of truck tires crunching on a limestone road. Anything that might clue me in on where home was, for Hunter couldn’t have gone far. But I heard only the hushed remnants of the wind and the caw of blackbirds scattering from the trees as they arose in a black tornado of wings to blot out the bleary autumn sky.

Tired to the bone, I stopped at a ditch that ran between two fields and drank some water. It was gritty with soil, but I was thirsty from my running. And growing hungry, too. I climbed up the embankment and sank to my belly, mist falling gently on my face. I wanted so badly to rest, to sleep until morning. But this was not a time to think of my own needs. Duty called. As long as I had breath and a heartbeat and strength enough to walk one more step, I would go on searching.

But which way?

From somewhere, I thought I heard a human voice calling my name. A familiar voice, a man’s voice. I held my breath, turned my head to listen. Nothing.

An amber beam of sunlight stretched from below the last of the clouds, just above the nearly bare treetops. It would soon be dark. My energy may have waned with the hours, but my determination had not. There was still hope. Always hope.