Strays (31 page)

“You’re confusing me.”

“At some point, I won’t be able to do it anymore.”

“What are you talking about?” Sarah asked.  “You’ve been great, Tom.  Without you—”

“I know,” he interrupted.  “I get that.  But you …”  He shook his head as if not believing it himself.  “You need someone from your own kind to look after you.”

Sarah could feel her forehead tighten, and she knew her eyebrows were arching in alarm, the kind of affected expression one picks up from watching too many movies, she guessed. 

“Him?” she asked.

“Him.”

“That’s crazy,” she said.  “I’ve seen him.  He can’t ...”

“You won’t get any argument here,” said Tom.

“You’ve seen him too?”

“No.”

“You
know
him then?”

“Not really.  But I get waves, senses … coming from the other cats.” 

“So they see the same thing,” Sarah said.  “They know he’s useless.”

“They do,” said Tom.  “All but one.  The one who is with him.  She sees something else.”  He paused and cocked his head skyward, searching for the words, but the sky was blue and empty.  “I don’t know what she sees.  It’s something I’ve never …”  His words ran out and he had to regroup.  “I don’t know what she sees.”

Sarah reached for his hand again, but his arms were tightly crossed, so she lightly touched his arm.  “You won’t leave me, Tom,” she said.  “Will you?”

“Not if I can help it,” Tom replied.  “As long as it’s my choice.”

*   *   *   *

When the sun was in full bloom, someone could be heard in the kitchen, firing up the gas stove to cook breakfast.  Tom and Sarah went into the kitchen, and Trudy was there, her back to them as she placed three skillets on the fire.  She wore a new skirt, this one with a slightly brighter print, but she still had on the same oversized sweater.

Strawberry was seated at the table, dressed in looser jeans and a gray denim work shirt that was too big for her.  She had rolled up the sleeves to accommodate her arms, and the folds of the shirt hid her elegant curves, something for which Sarah was secretly grateful.  Strawberry may have been at odds with Tom the day before, but that meant nothing in the longterm.  The longer Tom was put off by her, the better, and Sarah liked the fact that Strawberry’s vivacious frame, which would be appealing to just about any man, was hidden by that flag of a shirt.

“Good morning,” Sarah said and sat down beside her. 

“Like my new shirt?” Strawberry said.  “Trudy loaned it to me.  It’s soft.  Feel that.”

Sarah reached over and touched the fabric, and all at once her fingers stung.  It was that same rush of energy she had felt when stroking the Siberian, but this time it was more intense, like placing her hand in a fire.  Something told her to close her eyes, and the moment she did, the world behind her eyelids came into focus.  She was in the woods again, and she could see something moving toward her.  This time, she was not afraid, and when the shape came into focus, she saw a familiar face, a man with silver hair, a welcoming smile, and that very same gray denim shirt on his back.

Sarah pulled her hand away and opened her eyes.  “Your father,” she said.

Trudy’s back was to the table as she worked the pans on the stove, but when Sarah spoke, she let the spatula drop in the nearest skillet.  She turned and looked at her.

“What did you say?”

“That shirt,” said Sarah.  “It belonged to your father.”

“Yes,” Trudy whispered.  “He wore it all the time, whenever he was working the farm.  It was his favorite.”  She smiled with her lips closed and blinked to keep the tears at bay.  “He wanted to be buried in it, but I couldn’t part with it.”

“That sweater too,” Sarah said.  “It was his.”

“Yes,” said Trudy.  “How much else do you know?”

Sarah closed her eyes.  “I know he’s here.  He likes to watch you.”

Everyone was silent, and in her darkness, Sarah felt Tom’s hand on her shoulder.  Sarah let her eyes reopen.

“I don’t know how I know that,” she said.  “But I do.”

“It’s your gift,” said Trudy.  “One of them anyway.” 

“Have I always had it?” Sarah asked.

“Sarah, you’re
born
with something like that.”  Trudy shook her head, smiling.  “You see things.  Well, more like feel them.  And you fix things too, like what you did for Strawberry.”

Sarah looked at Strawberry, who smiled back and winked.

“If I’m born with this,” Sarah asked, “why didn’t I know about it before?”

“Oh, Sarah, that’s not hard to understand.”  Trudy came around the table and kneeled in front of Sarah’s chair.  She reached up and enfolded both of Sarah’s hands in her own.  “There are things in the world,” she said, “things that like to beat the special out of us.  You’ve been surrounded by a lot of those things.  Haven’t you?”

Sarah looked into Trudy’s eyes and nodded.

“Once you get away from those things,” Trudy continued, “it’s like a bird coming out of a cage.  You’re free to fly.  That’s what this place is, Sarah.  A place where you can learn to fly.  Do you understand?”

Sarah thought about it a moment.  “I think so,” she said.  “It’s just that—”

The earth shook then, and Sarah was the only one who could feel it.  It started in her chest, the kind of sweetly sucking sensation one felt when falling, as if the chest was imploding upon itself, sinking in like a crater.  Sarah huffed and pulled in as much air as she could, and the sensation wriggled up the back of her neck and into her brain, making her face tingle and her head seem to bob and weave as if floating on a choppy current.

“Sarah?” Tom said, and his hand on her shoulder tightened.  “You okay?”

“He’s coming,” Sarah said.  “We have to go outside.”

Trudy stood and Strawberry rose from her chair, and together they surrounded Sarah, offering hands and arms to help her up.  Sarah waved them all away, staring at them with annoyance. 

“I’m not an invalid.  I can walk on my own.”

Moments later, the four of them moved out onto the porch.  In the distance, off to the south, a puff of dust was moving down the dirt road toward the farm.  It was large and it hovered in the air, a miniature jet stream tearing out of the hills.  When the dust cloud was close enough that the grill of a vehicle could be made out in its billows, it was obvious that the car was moving very fast. 

It did not slow when it reached Trudy’s turn, but the driver tapped the brakes hard enough to make the rear-end of the car fishtail across the road, spinning and kicking up more clouds of dirt until the tires found purchase and thrust the vehicle into the narrow drive across the culvert by the road.  The dust followed the vehicle all the way into the yard.  The cats had already scattered, clearing a straight path for their new arrival.

At last the car was still, and the dust was softening in the wind.  Sarah saw a long car, older, maybe 1970s model with a Chevrolet logo on the grill.  Not Big Buddy’s truck, thank God.  This was someone else. 

She knew who it was.

The driver’s door opened, and out he stepped, looking more gangling and odd than he had in her dreams.  He wore jeans that didn’t fit quite right and white t-shirt with a Henley collar and forest green jersey sleeves that came just below his elbows.  The words
K-SOUTH
were printed on the chest.  His hair was longish but not trimmed, and the bangs hung in his eyes.

“Am I in the right place?” he said, looking toward Trudy, who remained on the porch.

Sarah took the three stone steps down to the lawn, and Tom followed.  She stopped, turned to Tom, and shook her head.  He understood. 

She walked across the yard, moving with slow steps toward the long car.  As she approached the driver, the passenger side door opened, and out stepped a short, dark-haired beauty even more stunning that Strawberry.  Sarah gave the girl a quick glance and then focused all of her attention on the boy, this tall, hunched, and not terribly attractive boy.  He was turning away, looking across the top of the car at his passenger.

“You sure this is the place, Molly?” he asked.  “Everyone’s acting weird.”

He turned back then and looked at Sarah.  He was silent, marking her cautious approach with a pair of sleepy dark eyes.  He waited, and at last when she was less then two feet in front of him, she lifted her hand.

“What?” the boy asked.  “Can I help you?”

Sarah waited a moment, then placed her hand on the boy’s chest, right on the
O
of
K-SOUTH
.  She waited for it to come, whatever it was she was supposed to feel, but there was nothing, no rush of static coursing through her arm, no flooding of thoughts and memories.  The only thing she grasped was that
K-SOUTH
was
shorthand for a school of some sort and that the boy’s father taught at that school, but other than that, there was nothing, no connection, no … no anything.

She looked up into the boy’s eyes, almost pleading for him to explain, but this time the boy’s face had changed.  His eyes, previously hanging at half-mast from a long night’s journey, were now large and brilliant, and his mouth stretched into a vivid smile.  It was a good smile, warm and assuring, and Sarah sensed then that the boy had inherited it from his father, who offered this quiet expression of joy when he was particularly proud of his sons.

“There,” the boy said, looking at her and nodding.  “There you are.”

The Ogre and the Rhino

Big Buddy claimed to be a prideful man, but he did not often act the part.  If his pride had truly been wounded, his troublesome stepdaughter Sarah (
my girl
, he sometimes called her) would not have eluded him for so long.  A thorough search would have been prompted the moment he stumbled into her empty bedroom room a week earlier, and he may have even involved the local authorities.  Sarah’s face would be displayed during the 6:00 p.m. news on KIRO and perhaps even on the front page of the Tacoma News
Tribune
, not to mention the back a few milk cartons, and in a matter of hours the brat would have been in custody.

But none of the above had happened, for haste and diligence were not exactly Big Buddy’s strong suit. 

In the first few days, Big Buddy dismissed Sarah’s disappearance as little more than a childhood phase.  Since her mother was working odd hours and never got to see the brat anyway, Buddy was able to keep the absence of
his girl
a secret.  But as time passed and he grew tired of fetching his own beer, he decided something needed to be done.  The photocopy fliers he made were a good start, and about a week after Sarah had left, said fliers had produced a phone call from some guy named Rhino who had information as to her whereabouts.  This Rhino had claimed that Sarah was hiding out in the restroom of a convenience store somewhere on the Sea-Tac Strip, but when
that
lead turned into a dead end, new arrangements had to be made.  Of course, Big Buddy did not like the arrangements.  Taking a couple of days off of work (unpaid, of course) to drive down to Oregon and fetch
his girl
was the last thing he needed, but to make matters worse, he had take along this Rhino character, some tattooed punk with a goobered up face. 

On the morning Big Buddy and Rhino departed Tacoma to embark on their journey, Sarah and Tom were arriving in Pendleton and being met at the bus stop by Trudy.  Had haste and diligence indeed been Big Buddy’s strong suit, he might have rolled into Pendleton around 5:00 p.m. that afternoon (provided that punk with the tattoos could show them the way, of course) and had Sarah by late evening.  But once they got past Olympia and tumbled down that section of I-5 south of Olympia, the thirst came at Big Buddy something fierce. 

Something had to be done … indeed it did.

“Hey, boy,” he said.  “You hungry?”

“I don’t know,” the boy wheezed through his nose splint in that stuffy cartoon.  “Is it lunch time?”

Big Buddy looked at his watch.  “Almost eleven,” he said.  “What say we grab a bite in Centralia?”

They took the Harrison Avenue exit and rolled southeast into town, where the road jogged due east on Main Street.  Big Buddy’s head rocked slowly back and forth, back and forth, as he surveyed the landscape, and at last he locked onto his quarry.  It was an older storefront with a huge smoked-glass picture window, and hanging in the window were portable neon signs that said
COORS
,
BUD LIGHT
,
MILLER
, and
OLYMPIA
.  The name on the awning above the door read
BULLDOG’S
.  Big Buddy thought that would do just fine.

“Cute little tavern there, wouldn’t you say?”

The punk with the tattoos snorted and winced.  “Couldn’t we just go through a drivethrough or something?”

“Come on, kid.  All this driving makes a man thirsty.”  In fact, they had been on the road almost an hour.

“Suit yourself,” the punk with the tattoos muttered.  “Just get in and grab something so we can get back on the road.”

It would be well past suppertime before Big Buddy and Bulldog’s Tavern parted ways.

*   *   *   *

While Big Buddy settled into Bulldog’s and started making new friends, Rhino crossed Main Street and walked down half a block to a drab little diner with an awning painted like a checkered tablecloth you might take on a picnic.  Once inside, the décor was considerably nicer than the façade had implied.  The walls were made of oak slats, and the head of a 10-point buck was mounted behind the lunch counter.  It felt like a cozy little hunting lodge. 

Rhino sat at the counter and ordered a bowl of their Soup of the Day, cream of potato, and a side salad with blue cheese dressing.  He could barely taste the blue cheese and nothing else.  The pain in his nose was killing him.  He took a Lortab and washed it down with iced tea.  It was his last painkiller; the doctor had only prescribed enough for two days, citing the addictive nature of opioids.  Rhino waited ten minutes for the Lortab to take effect, then paid his bill and asked directions to the pharmacy.

Down the street he found the drug store with the giant
RX
sign above its door, and he went in and bought a 500-count bottle of ibuprofen and a bottle of water.  He paid and stepped out onto the sidewalk.  He washed down four ibuprofen, then walked back across the street to Big Buddy’s little Datsun.