Tango: The Tale of an Island Dog (12 page)

Beau opened his sleep-heavy eyelids.

Seeing Tango’s eyes shining with excitement, Beau was reminded that he still had work to do. That somehow this kinship was working for the greater good.

“Beau! Beau!” Tango yapped.

“Are you listening?” Beau heaved a sigh. “Yes, Tango, I’m listening.”

“McKenna Skye has my silver collar! McKenna has my collar—I saw it!”

“The chain that held your silver heart?”

“Yes! Yes!”

“How can you be sure? Certainly such items are common enough among humans, and—”

“No! It’s mine!” Tango insisted. “You’ve known McKenna all her life—has she always worn a silver chain around her ankle?”

“No, I cannot say that I have seen such a chain. But—she keeps herself well covered.”

“I want it back.”

Beau closed his eyes. A memory returned. The bay. The calm after the storm. The lobster trap. He’d been in the wild rose thicket, watching.

The beach. McKenna digging. Nigel scratching.

Perhaps Tango was onto something. Maybe… McKenna had found Tango’s silver link collar. Maybe… Nigel Stump had found the heart-shaped charm.

Was it possible?

If so, it would be so simple. Get the silver collar. Get the silver heart. Tango gets identified, Tango goes home.

Tears veiled Beau’s eyes. In his mind, he saw Tango and Tawny standing side by side in a garden of pink flowers, both out of reach. Unless—

“Beau, Beau! Are you going to help me, or not?”

“I’m sorry, Tango. Let us go into the sunshine.”

Beau felt deeply conflicted. Didn’t Tango realize how good he had it here? How much he meant to Miss Gustie? How much Tango meant … to him?

Tango followed Beau along a barb-wired fence, where rose red fireweed sparkled, lupine lined the ditch, and daisies, bluebells, and buttercups flowered among the weeds. Weary and out of breath, Beau fashioned himself a bed in the long, sun-warmed grasses.

“Tango, this is what I remember: the morning you washed ashore, I saw McKenna pull something shiny out of the sand. I thought nothing of it. She put it in her pocket. Later, Nigel Stump came and scratched the sand where she’d been standing. When Nigel lifted his head, he had something in his mouth. When he saw me, he took off.”

“Are you sure? Are you positive?”

“Enough!” Beau said in a voice laced with exasperation.

“Beau, please,” begged Tango. “Let’s go find Nigel—now.”

“Not so fast.… We need a plan.”

Rising, Beau glared at Tango. “Do not—I repeat—DO NOT approach Nigel on your own.”

“Even if—”

“Those cats are despicable.” Beau spat in the grass. “Promise me—”

“But, but, but,” Tango sputtered.

Gently, Beau placed his paw on Tango’s forehead. “Promise me that you will not go anywhere near the Pitiful Place.”

“Okay … okay,” Tango agreed reluctantly. “I promise.”

A few nights later, Beau, unsettled and unable to sleep, ventured out of his den. The lights of the Cody house were blazing, the television blaring. Inside, the pack of children was rough-housing, shouting and laughing so loudly that Beau all but expected one of the little humans to tumble out of an open window. McKenna was in Miss Gustie’s barn again, making candles.

Beau was worried about McKenna. Earlier, he’d heard a sweet tune wafting out of McKenna’s stuffed bunny—a signal that she was deeply troubled.

Big Bart Cody and his wife, Jeannie, were sitting outside at the picnic table, talking. The tip of Jeannie’s cigarette burned red. Wisps of smoke rose above whispered words that sparked into an angry exchange.

“Explain it, Bart,” Jeannie demanded. “Explain it to me one more time.”

Jeannie was a hard, brittle twig of a woman. Her voice was like stone scratching rock.

“I’m not going over this again, Jeannie,” Bart said coldly. “I’ve told you what I know. Now drop it.”

“McKenna is—or so she says—your sister’s child?” asked Jeannie. “Pamela, who died in a car accident—ten, eleven years ago?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

They were talking about McKenna! What concerned McKenna concerned Beau. He slipped between two lilac bushes near the picnic table.

“You’d never seen McKenna, not even once, before the night she showed up on our doorstep?”

“I told you, maybe once.”

“When?”

“Let me see…”

Big Bart lit one of Jeannie’s cigarettes. Now two reddish orange lights glowed in the dark. Beau took a couple of steps back, retreating from a swirl of smoke that had drifted uncomfortably close to his hiding spot.

“Little Art and I were both in the Coast Guard, stationed halfway to the North Pole. We got word that our sister married that bum, Lyle. Months before the wedding, Lyle and I’d had words—almost came to blows. Lyle was bad news—thought he was big stuff, with that fancy red Mustang.”

Beau’s stomach recoiled. The car that killed Tawny. Red and mean.

“I told Pam that Lyle was trouble. But would she listen? No. Next thing I know, we hear she has a kid. At her funeral, there’s Lyle, carrying a black-haired kid who’s screaming her head off. Then I met you. We got married. We moved to Victoria. I never heard from Lyle again.”

If only Beau could speak the human tongue, he’d tell Big Bart the whole story. The real story. Somebody should know. Now that she was old enough, McKenna herself should know.

“McKenna’s getting on my nerves. I think she’s sneaky.” Jeannie patted her belly. “Plus, we’ve got enough to worry about without her.”

Bart raised his voice. “I told McKenna she can stay the summer, and if I say she can stay, she stays.”

Beau let out a sigh of relief. Bart Cody, Beau sensed, was a gentle soul at heart, but he was no pushover.

“Somebody must be looking for her,” Jeannie said.

Bart swung his leg over the picnic bench, stood, and crushed his cigarette butt into the ground. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

To Beau’s ears, it sounded like the kind of trouble that had followed McKenna ever since the woman in the red car, Pamela Skye, got killed.

Sighing, Beau sat back on his haunches. At times like these Beau felt very, very old—weary with concern for his beloved McKenna. So much had happened since she’d called out, “Hey, fox! I’m leaving! For good. You coming, or not?”

At the time, Beau had no idea that the confused, impetuous girl would journey any farther than she had before, when she’d run away from these human homes called “foster.” Being raised by so many different people seemed unnatural, Beau lamented anew. In the fox world, adoption is lifelong, the bond permanent.

Saddened by the scene he’d witnessed in the Codys’ backyard, Beau returned to his den. He’d always thought that if he followed McKenna around long enough, someday he’d see her in a place she could call home.

Up until to night, Beau felt certain that McKenna had finally found her human pack, here in Victoria-by-the-Sea.

Now he wasn’t sure.

When it came to McKenna Skye, Augusta felt like Hansel and Gretel, following a trail of bread crumbs. McKenna let slip pieces of information—Pamela Skye, an auto accident—as she and Augusta worked together to perfect the candle-making process (far more complicated now that McKenna insisted on stirring certain ingredients—heaven knows why—into the wax).

Was McKenna lying? Did she, in fact, know her birth mother’s name? Had McKenna discovered where this woman now lived? Was it Toronto? Or was McKenna going there by herself, thinking that all her problems would go away once she lost herself in a big city?

One evening, McKenna offered Augusta a few more crumbs.

“Some county lady’s been snooping around,”
Mc Kenna remarked, offhandedly. “Big—I mean—Uncle Bart, acted like he hadn’t seen me, but said if he did, he’d let her know.”

“That sounds like something Bart Cody would do.”

“Uncle Bart says he doesn’t place much stock in government.”

“Is that so?”

“She left a card. It’s that Mrs. Gaspé. She’s a social worker. I figured she’d have given up on me by now.”

“And what about the Codys?”

“Jeannie says I can’t stay. She doesn’t like me.”

“You’re her husband’s niece, for heaven’s sake! Maybe you could help her more,” Augusta suggested. “Take care of the kids, and—”

“Take care of those brats? No, thanks.”

Later, inside her house, Augusta walked past the sepia portraits in gilded wood frames on her parlor wall. Her parents: born and raised here, her grandparents, too. All village folk, in the same house for over a century. Augusta couldn’t imagine how adrift McKenna must feel. No roots. No deep soil.

The next morning, Augusta shared what she knew with Jack Tucker, and wouldn’t you know it—he went ahead and did some checking.

A few days later, Jack stopped by in time for afternoon tea. Washing a bite of freshly baked shortbread down with a swallow of tea, Jack explained, “I was
up in Queens County, anyway, vaccinating a flock of lambs, so I made a few stops, asked a few questions.”

He handed Augusta a photocopy of a newspaper article from about eleven years earlier. Augusta skimmed the article:
A woman killed instantly… head-on collision … the causeway bridge … two survivors … a toddler … alcohol involved.

The photo of the two mangled cars was gut-wrenching.

“My Lord, Jack, whatever you do, don’t show this to McKenna. And what’s this about a stuffed rabbit?”

“Seems the toddler—McKenna, if it really was McKenna—had the rabbit in her hand when they pulled her out of the wreck.”

“Oh my gosh.”

Jack pushed himself away from the table. “And there’s more.”

Augusta leaned down and pulled Pup, who was wearing the dark green knitted scarf, into her lap.

“As Priscilla tells it, a lady from Queens County was up at the post office asking where Bart Cody lived. She was looking for a girl named McKenna Skye—had Priscilla seen a girl by that name around? Seems that McKenna is a ward of the county—a runaway.”

“Oh, my,” Augusta murmured.

“Priscilla sent the lady Bart’s way. When the lady asked Bart, he didn’t exactly lie, but he didn’t exactly tell the truth, either.”

The bells above the shop door tinkled. Pup barked and squirmed out of Augusta’s lap. Jack followed Augusta as she hurried out of the kitchen and into her shop, with the little dog in the lead.

Augusta waited patiently as a short woman pillaged through the sweaters and scanned the wool scarves. Nothing, it seemed, caught her eye. Then she pointed to Pup, now poised on the padded seat of the rocking chair.

The well-dressed woman fingered the fringe of the tiny scarf on Pup’s neck. “Do you have any more of these? I assume you made it?”

“You mean his scarf? Yes, I made a couple, but just for him.”

The woman plucked a business card out of her wallet. “I’ll be back on the island next month. I’ll take three dozen.”

Augusta glanced at Jack, who had an odd smirk on his face. He flashed ten fingers.

Augusta’s tone of voice was crisp and businesslike. “I’ll need ten dollars per piece.”

“Fine. It’s a deal.”

“I’ll be doggoned,” Jack said after the woman left the shop. He took Augusta’s binoculars off a hook
near the front door. “Looks like a New York license plate.”

Pup jumped off the rocking chair. He bounced up and down, scratching at the screen door, trying to open it.

Augusta eyed the business card and handed it to Jack.

“Pandora’s: THE Place for Pampered Pets.”
Jack grinned.

Augusta frowned, unable to get the disturbing newspaper story out of her mind. “Listen, Jack. Maybe I should call up there, find that social worker.”

“It’s none of your business, Augusta, and you know it. It’s Bart Cody’s business. He’s the one who’s sheltering McKenna. He’ll handle it the way he sees fit.”

“But Jeannie said that McKenna can’t stay. There’s no room. With a baby on the way, and half the kids living in the attic…”

Jack smiled down on the little dog, who was back in Augusta’s lap. “So, what did you decide to name him?” he asked, changing the subject.

“If Pup’s still here at summer’s end, I’ll name him. If no one’s come by then, I guess they won’t.”

Pup sat up and stiffened. His black button nose pointed up and off to the side.

“Sometimes,” Augusta puzzled, “I swear that Pup
understands every single word someone says … quite uncanny.”

“For conversation’s sake, mind you, what would you name him—if you were to name him, I mean?”

A long-ago memory caught Augusta unawares.

She’d been about McKenna’s age. She’d written a report about dogs—dogs like King Edward VII’s dog, Caesar; Ulysses’ dog, Argus; and Grey Friar’s Bobby.

Caesar—a terrier, Augusta recalled—had walked ahead of kings and princes in his master’s funeral procession in 1910.

“Argus, Bobby, Caesar—what difference does it make?” Augusta griped. “He’s not my dog.”

Jack ruffled the fur on top of Pup’s head. “What do you think, little guy, should we call you Caesar?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Anyway, back to McKenna. You know as well as I do: it’s possible that half of what the girl says isn’t true,” Jack said. “These foster parents are checked out by the county. They’re probably good people who have turned themselves inside out trying to help her.”

“I don’t think we know,” Augusta half-heartedly acknowledged. “And, like you said, it’s none of
my
business.”

Tango couldn’t believe his good fortune. The mystery was almost solved. His two pieces of silver had slipped off his neck when he slid into the sea. McKenna had the chain. Most likely, Nigel had the heart. McKenna Skye was the key to putting the pieces together.

Tango was sure she’d understand. Hadn’t McKenna known exactly what to do when he expressed his desire to save the jellyfish, just as they had saved him?

Oh, what fun they’d had!

He’d race ahead, zigzag across the sand, and when he located a jellyfish, he’d bark. McKenna would skip, barefooted, over to where Tango was, and with her shovel, scoop the jellyfish into her bucket. At the edge of the sea, McKenna tossed the jellyfish back into its watery home. Sometimes,
they found only one or two, but other days, ten, even twenty, jellyfish dotted the sand.