The Summer of Riley (2 page)

“He is,” I said.

One morning Riley and I went on a whole day hike. Mom wasn’t up yet so we left her a note.

I fixed myself a thick peanut butter and applesauce sandwich. It tastes great when the applesauce has time to soak into the bread so that it’s nice and mooshy. Then I tipped a bowlful of kibble into a bag and added four dog biscuits for Riley. “A pooch gets hungry in the great out-of-doors,” I told him.

Dad had given me a compass once and explained about the magnetic north. I showed it to Riley before I slipped it in my pocket. “In case we get lost,” I said. “Though I don’t know how that could happen since I’ve been in the river woods a jillion times.”

We set off. A boy and his dog go hiking, I thought, and I felt like Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn off on an adventure.

As soon as we got on the river path, I let Riley off his leash. Heck, no sweat if we met another dog. Riley would be cool with it. We’d been through that already.

He romped ahead of me, snuffling at gopher holes, barking at things up trees that I couldn’t even see, rushing down every now and then to lap up river water in great noisy gulps.

“Don’t fall in,” I warned him and he laughed back at me, as if to say, “What do you think I am, a dodo?”

And then it turned out that I was the one who fell in. Actually I just slipped and slithered on my rear end, bumping and banging against rocks, ending up ankle-deep in the water.

Riley scrambled after me, grabbing my wrist in his teeth and tugging fiercely.

“Hey! Hey! It’s all right,” I told him, pulling each
foot out of the sucking mud. “Let go of me, Riley. I’m not drowning here. Give me a break. Look, I’m out already.”

But he held on, bracing his legs and dragging me away from the river’s edge.

“Okay, pal,” I said. I looked back at where I’d been standing and saw that just beyond that, maybe six inches from where I’d stood, the river dropped off into a deep, dark hole. Another step and I’d have been in it, up to my shoulders, or even deeper, over my head.

I wrapped my arms around Riley and he licked my face all over with his warm, rough tongue.

What exactly had happened? Had he saved me? Not exactly. I can swim. I could have pulled myself out. Had he sensed I was in danger? Was he scared for me? Was he trying to protect me?

“Thanks, puppy,” I whispered, my face against his neck, and I had this sudden sureness that Riley would always be beside me, ready to help me if I needed help. “You’re my dog,” I whispered. “And you know something? If you need help, you’ll get it from me. Deal?”

Riley wagged his tail.

“Deal,” I said. “Now how about lunch?”

That night in bed I thought about Grandpa, and it seemed that thinking didn’t hurt as much as it did before. People said time made a difference. That you felt better as the days went on. But I hadn’t felt better. Riley was lying next to me, snoring softly. I stroked his head.

The next day I tried explaining some of this to Grace without sounding too goofy. Grace understands about me and Grandpa, so I figured she’d probably understand this.

“Maybe that’s one of the reasons people get dogs, to kind of close up the empty places inside them,” Grace said.

Sometimes Grace is very smart.

G
race went home at four because she had to go shopping with her mom.

Riley and I went back up to my room to read and listen to music and shoot the bull. I liked talking to Riley, and even though he didn’t answer in words, he said things just by the way he looked at me.

I lay on my bed, watching the sun shadows on my ceiling, my arm around Riley’s neck. Mom was fixing lasagna, probably Stouffer’s, small size, serves two. The good spicy smell wafted into my room.

I gave Riley a bite of my cracker. “The thing is,” I told him, “just thinking about Dad makes me mad. Sometimes. I mean, 1 called him and left a message about you, and he never even called back. Or came.”

Riley watched me carefully, then nodded.

“I’m—” I began.

There was the sound of a car turning into our driveway.

I jumped up and ran to the window.

“Speak of the Devil,” I muttered, and then, so Riley wouldn’t get the wrong idea, added, “Not that Dad’s a devil. That’s just a saying. Anyway, he’s here.”

I watched his car pull up to the front door and stop. He’d left the gate open. Of course he didn’t remember we had a dog now, and a dog had to be kept in. Fortunately, Riley was safe here, with me.

The screen door squeaked open and I heard Mom’s and Dad’s voices in the kitchen.

I was about to grab Riley and rush down the stairs, but then I decided to be cautious. With Mom and Dad, it’s better to scope things out first.

“Be very quiet,” I warned Riley, and grabbed his collar.

Together we padded to the bend in the stairs. You can’t see into the kitchen from there, and whoever is in the kitchen can’t see you. But you can hear. It’s bad to eavesdrop. It’s sneaky and rotten and sometimes you hear horrible things about yourself, which I guess serves you right. But sometimes it’s the only way to find things out. This was where I was when I
first found out Dad was leaving. Then I’d rushed upstairs and crawled under my bed.

“I know it’s a long way and you’re busy,” Mom was saying to Dad in the kitchen. She had this cold, tight voice. “But getting the dog was a big deal to William. He wanted you to be interested. He’s been waiting for you to call. We’ve both left you messages.”

Beside me, Riley yawned a big yawn that might have been noisy if I hadn’t clapped my hand over his mouth. “Shhh!”

“I
meant
to call,” Dad said. “I was up in Seattle at a store managers’ meeting for five days and I just forgot. The dog’s a collie, right? Is that what you said?”

“He’s a Lab mix. Maybe part collie.”

Lasagna smells drifted around us. That small-sized lasagna would certainly not be enough if Dad planned on staying.

“Do you want coffee?” Mom asked.

“Sure.” Dad sounded relieved. Things were easing up for him.

“So how is Phoebe?” Mom asked politely.

“She’s fine, thank you,” he said politely back to her.

I imagined him sitting at the table, long legs crossed at the ankles. Dad’s very elegant, or so Grace says.

I took hold of one of Riley’s big soft paws and squeezed, but not too hard. Phoebe? Who was Phoebe? Somehow I didn’t think she was a dog Dad had gotten for himself for company. All those nighttime phone calls when I never could reach him flashed through my head. Phoebe? She sounded like a disease!

“So, don’t you think it’s about time William was told about her?” Mom asked. “I mean, after an engagement comes a marriage, far as I can remember.”

Nothing but silence and the sound of my own breathing.

He was engaged to the disease.

“Not to change the subject,” Dad said, “but when are you going to get that hole outside filled in? It’s a mess.”

“I’ll talk to William again,” Mom said, and there was a tremendous clatter of dishes as if she was banging them from the cupboard onto the table.

“Not that what we do is any of your business anymore.” She was mimicking the way Dad had said, “Not to change the subject.”

This I didn’t want to hear. This was a private conversation and it made me cringe inside.

It reminded me of the way they’d talked to each other back when they lived together, not privately at all, but out loud. No use me thinking, hoping, Dad would ever come back. And now with this awful, horrible Phoebe…. I took Riley’s collar and the two of us slithered back to my room.

I closed the door silently behind us. I was sweating, so I pulled off my T-shirt and used it to dry my chest and stomach. “Brother!” I said out loud. “How can he even think about getting engaged after being married to Mom?”

“How can he be?” Grace asked, when I called and told her.

“Maybe he’ll change his mind,” she said.

I wasn’t too hopeful.

O
n the last day of July, Grace came bursting into our kitchen., “Peachie’s back,” she said. I polished off my cereal. “Let’s go show her Riley.”

“She’ll be
enraptured
with him,” Grace said. Grace loves important words.

We clipped on Riley’s leash and rode down the driveway, gravel scrunching and sparking beneath our bike wheels.

“I wonder what she’ll think when she hears about Phoebe,” I said.

“Maybe she knows already,” Grace said. “Your mom could have called her.”

“I guess Mom and I are going to have to meet Phoebe sometime,” I said. “That’s going to be the alltime worst.” Thinking about it took away some of my good feelings about the day.

We rode on in silence.

Peachie was out, twisting wire around the top railing of her gate. We reeled in and braked to a stop.

Over at the far end of the field, the Sultan of Kaboor was peacefully cropping the grass, which was studded with white clover, thick as snowflakes. I thought it was a beautiful picture, the kind you’d see in a calendar. The mountains in the distance looked almost fake.

“How’s the Sultan?” Grace asked. “Did he have a good vacation?”

“Yep. We both did.” Peachie leaned over the gate to stroke Riley’s head. “So you got your dog, William! He’s a beaut!”

“Thanks,” I began, pleased that Peachie was enraptured and hadn’t mentioned Phoebe. “I wanted him to meet—” and then it was like a volcano erupting next to me. Riley jerked on the leash, tearing the red handle out of my grip, dashing like a mad creature around the fence.

On the other side of the field, the Sultan had broken into a stately old horse trot, paying no attention to us or to the big yellow dog that was hurtling in his direction. The jerk on the leash had pulled me right off my bike, and it and I were sprawled on the dirt in
front of Peachie’s gate.

Grace was screaming, “Riley! Riley! Come back here,” but Riley seemed beyond hearing.

“Riley!” I yelled. “You come back …”

He leaped the fence. Thinking about it afterward, it seemed as if he cleared that fence the way a high jumper clears a hurdle, with air between him and the top railing. His leash trailed behind him, caught for a second, then freed up. I was still on my stomach, paralyzed.

Peachie was shouting, too. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you touch that horse!”

The Sultan, who probably doesn’t hear all that well anymore, suddenly did hear, or sense, the whirlwind that was launching itself at him. He tried to run. Once, the Sultan of Kaboor had been a great racehorse. He’d won more than fifty races here in Oregon. He’d won the Long Acres Miles back in the eighties, before I was even born. He’d sired champion fillies and colts, but all that was long ago. Now he was just an old, almost blind, almost deaf horse. Peachie was running toward him as fast as she could, but she’s old, too. Her straw hat flew off. Her red shirt puffed up around her.

Grace scrambled over the gate with me right
behind her and then we both stopped in horror. One minute Riley was snapping at the Sultan’s heels and the Sultan was whinnying and kicking back. The next minute the Sultan was down.

Peachie had reached them. She pounded on Riley with her hands, big in her work gloves. “Get away from him,” she screamed. “Git! Git!”

Riley began backing away. I grabbed the red leash handle. “What did you do that for?” I groaned. Beyond him I could see the Sultan, lying there, Peachie on her knees beside him. I don’t know about Grace, but I was scared out of my wits.

“Bad dog! Bad dog!” I whispered, but the words sounded wimpy and stupid and not nearly strong enough. I didn’t know whether to go across to Peachie and the Sultan or run for home.

Grace raced past me. “Oh, Sultan, poor Sultan,” she sobbed. Grace loves the Sultan. She visits him all the time and brings him carrots and apples. She was crying hard now.

I walked slowly behind her, Riley beside me, reeled in tight. He had a slinky look to him, and even though he was walking, he was pulling back. I knew he knew what he’d done was unforgivable. He knew all right.

Peachie had the Sultan’s head in her lap. There was foam on his mouth and Grace was wiping it off with one of Peachie’s gloves.

“I’m sorry, Peachie,” I began.

“Don’t you bring that dog anywhere near my horse,” Peachie said over her shoulder. I’d never heard nice Peachie so filled with rage. “Get him out of here.”

“But … is the Sultan going to be all right? Can I—”

“Go away. Take that dog out of my sight.”

I backed off.

Neither Peachie, nor Grace, nor the Sultan watched us go.

“What did you do that for?” I whispered fiercely to Riley. “That was bad, bad, bad.” I shook the leash every time I said “bad,” jerking on his neck.

Riley stared up at me, squinchy eyed.

“You’re going to be in trouble,” I told him. “Big, big trouble.”

I
blurted out what had happened the minute I got through the kitchen door.

Mom sank into a chair and put her hands over her mouth.

I unclipped Riley’s leash, and he dropped down onto the braided rug and closed his eyes.

“How awful,” Mom said. “Poor Sultan. Poor Peachie. I have to go over there. But what am I going to say to her? That horse is her life. Did she call Doctor Webb?”

Dr. Webb is our local vet.

“I don’t know.”

Mom stood and paced from the window to the front door and back, staring in the direction of Peachie’s house, which you can’t really see from here, across the fence and through the trees. You can see it from my bedroom, but at least she didn’t go up there
to look. She pulled a square of paper towel, wiped her eyes, then pulled another square for me.

“Where’s Grace?” She peered around the kitchen, as if Grace was there and she hadn’t noticed her. “She …”

And just then, Grace arrived.

We stared at her, afraid to ask. I took a deep breath. “Well? How is he? Is he okay?”

“He was able to get up. Doc Webb’s on his way. I called him from Peachie’s.” Grace touched Riley with the toe of her Nike. “How could you do that to the Sultan of Kaboor, dog? How could you?”