With (47 page)

She walked on, not even able to see very well the direction she was going, because of her poor eyesight. She began to feel panicky, having no idea which way to go. The afternoon came and passed and it began to get dark. Although the day had been very warm, as darkness fell it grew cold, and her bare body was chilled. She kept on going, although the woods seemed to get deeper and darker. She never found any sign of an old trail or path, although she wondered if maybe she walked long enough and far enough she might come eventually to some path that might lead to a road, or even to somebody’s house, and she might finally find a way to get home, home meaning her old home in Harrison. But the thought of that gave her a bad scare. She couldn’t take Paddington with her. She couldn’t take any of her animals. She had a flash image of a possible scene where she tried to introduce Sheba to her mother, and her mother screamed.

No, she didn’t want to find her way home, not to
that
home. She wanted to find her way home to
her
home.

Paddington caught a chipmunk and ate it for his supper. She had nothing for hers, and she was getting very cold as well as hungry. But she kept on walking, hoping that she might find something familiar, or any of the landmarks she passed earlier. She did not. And then it was full dark. She was afraid of stepping over a bluff, and her fear of falling made her stop. She was so tired. She lay down and pulled Paddington to her and they snuggled up. His fur kept her from freezing. “I guess we’ll just have to try to sleep,” she said to him. But he didn’t seem to be in the mood for sleep. He snarled a few of his cusswords and was restless, and when she tried to hold him close to get warm he pulled away from her and stood up and began to growl. He sounded like a grown-up bear might sound. And she realized there was another animal nearby that Paddington was growling at. The other animal made a hissing and then a distinct “
WOO
” sound that she recognized.

“Robert!” she said. “Is that you, Robert?”

It was a bobcat, but it wasn’t Robert. It was a bobcat who wanted to eat Paddington, and was getting ready to pounce. Robin grabbed a stick and clubbed the bobcat over the head. The first blow stunned it, and while she couldn’t see very well in the dark, she kept swinging the stick down where the bobcat had fallen, and kept on hitting with the stick and hitting with the stick and finally she must have killed the bobcat. The thought of having killed it made her sad, because it was one of Robert’s cousins, but it was either Paddington or the bobcat and she was not going to let anything harm her cub. He was making a kind of woofing sound that expressed his thanks to her for doing away with his enemy. They settled into sleep.

She was starving the next morning, and when Paddington caught a rabbit for his breakfast she was tempted to take a few bites of it herself, but did not, and of course had no matches or anything to start a fire to cook the rabbit. But for his breakfast dessert Paddington found in a glade a patch of wild strawberries, and she picked as many as he did, or more. They were delicious.

With something in her stomach, she had the energy to resume the aimless search for a way home or a way off the mountain, whichever came first, she really didn’t care, although she hoped it would be home. She hiked determinedly onward. Eventually she came to a small creek, and Paddington slaked his great thirst, and she decided it would be okay to drink the water too. Then she made another decision: using her head, she figured out that the force of gravity made creeks continue
downward
from the source, and therefore if she just followed this creek she might come eventually to a larger creek and then to a river, and if she followed the river she was sure to come to a town or a place where people lived.

So she followed the creek, even as it tumbled down boulders and meandered through the forest. Her eyesight was not good enough to detect the place the creek suddenly disappeared, and she was on the verge of disappearing with it when Paddington swatted her, knocking her down again, and again drawing blood. “You bastard bear!” she hollered at him, but the she saw why he had knocked her down. She had almost stepped over the edge of a high bluff, where the creek turned into a waterfall that fell a long way down. She had mistaken the gurgling sound of the waterfall for Paddington’s constant babbling comments on the world. She peered over the edge but her weak eyes could scarcely see to the pool far down below where the waterfall splashed. All around the pool in every direction was a great glen or holler, with caverns opening into the bluff-faces. It was a magnificent woodsy place, and she looked for some way to get down to it. She crept cautiously all along the top of the bluff, first in one direction from the creek and then in the other direction, but she could not find any way to get down…except, finally, she discovered a kind of vertical gorge that looked as if human beings had cleared away the brush in order to make a descent. Was this possibly the place where Adam had fallen and broken his bones? Was this the same place where, every day from the first to the fourth grades, he had to climb down to get to school and then climb back up to get home from school?

It was an awesome drop…and an even more awesome climb if there were any way to get down. Studying it, and realizing there was no way she could possibly get down there, at least not without a rope, she had a renewed respect and admiration for Adam, and she began to be more determined than ever to find her way home, so that she could tell his
in-habit
what a wonderful boy Adam had been.

It occurred to her to back away from that drop and search for any signs of the trail that had once led from here all the way to the house, the so-called South Way that Braxton Madewell had once blazed for the benefit of the doctor who would come for the birth of Adam’s father, Gabe. Sure enough, there were places where Adam’s daily hiking of the trail had left a faint but discernible indentation in the earth: a path, a way.

With Paddington eagerly following her, as if he too sensed that they were finally heading home, she happily climbed that South Way on and on, up through the hickory forest, up a long and slippery slope of some kind of gray slatey rock, up through a crag of boulders to a towering lone pine tree. At that pine tree she lost the path and a long search would not reveal any further trace of it. She walked this way and that. She saw wildflowers of every color and every shape but could not stop to study them, and Paddington saw butterflies of every color and every shape but could not stop to swat at them. She found no more evidence of the trail.

And that day too waned and the dark came and they were lucky to find a kind of cavern to shelter them from the cold.

Chapter thirty-nine

S
he didn’t even notice the first night Robin failed to return home. She knew that Robin and the bear were in the habit of going into the deep woods almost every day, and for a while it had given her some unshakeable feelings of jealousy that Robin was paying so much attention to the bear and neglecting her other animals. When was the last time Hreapha had received a pat on the head or even a kind word? But after a while it no longer bothered her. She knew that it was a phase Robin was going through, not just of getting through her crucial twelfth year but also of pretending to be Paddington’s mother and teacher, just as Hreapha herself had been mother and teacher for her brood. It had been a long time since any of Hreapha’s offspring had truly needed her or even asked her a question, and the last time she had even been made to feel useful was when they’d gone out to locate the bear cub and Hreapha had given some important advice, especially about getting Dewey to absorb the dead bear sow’s scent so that the cub would ride home on his back. At the same time that Hreapha could feel worthwhile for having made the coming of the bear cub possible, and thereby having discharged her birthday duties to Robin for this year, she could understand that the more animals were on the premises the less time Robin would have for Hreapha. It didn’t matter. Hreapha was happy as long as she could find something to eat. The fact that Robin had not been able to feed her anything for a long time, except occasional scraps from the table—a leftover biscuit or the dregs in some canned goods (and Robin was down to her last few cans)—was also part of the reason Hreapha was slow to notice that Robin was no longer around the house, nor was Paddington.

Still, she didn’t do anything about it, not until after Robin had been gone overnight for two nights. And then she simply remarked to Hrolf, Have you seen Mistress?

Come to think of it, not lately, he answered. I’ll ask around.

She was proud of Hrolf that he had become practically overseer of the demesne. He was not only Top Dog but also Top Critter save for Robin herself. And Hreapha wasn’t envious to admit that Hrolf was probably the smartest of them all, smarter even than herself. Robert was craftier, Ralgrub had more manual dexterity, Dewey was faster, Sheba was more cunning, and Hroberta was sexier, but Hrolf possessed not only brains but leadership qualities.

Thus when he reported back to his mother that nobody, not even Adam, had seen Robin or the cub for two nights, she asked him, What would you suggest?

Let’s see if we can’t pick up their scent, he suggested. Hreapha gladly accompanied her son as he went off sweeping his handsome nose over the ground (she reflected that the older he got the more he looked like his father) for quite a distance around the haunt until finally he stopped and said, There, take a whiff of that.

It was the faintest trace of the bear’s odor, and they followed it for a long ways off into the woods, far from the house, catching along the way a few traces of Robin’s scent too. But their quest eventually played out, and they changed their direction and went for a long distance without picking up any further smells of Paddington or Robin. They continued into the afternoon exploring the southern and eastern flanks of Madewell Mountain. Hreapha was pleased to note that they encountered no traces of the coyotes, who had probably deserted the environs entirely during the great drought. She wouldn’t have minded seeing her son Yipyip again, but she was glad to know that they didn’t have to share the mountain with the wild dogs.

Circling back northward toward the house, Hreapha found that they were in a ravine that seemed very familiar to her, and trying to place it without any olfactory clue she finally realized from some obscure crevices of her memory that this was the place where she had rounded up those chickens that had got loose when the man was trying to transport them from the truck to the house. Yes, if she went
that
way she’d find the route she’d driven the chickens to make them arrive at their new home. But she did not go that way. Something gave her a hunch to go the other way, which involved some difficult climbing along the side of the bluff, with Hrolf having just as much trouble as she did, until they reached another ravine or gorge which contained the burnt steel remains of the man’s truck. Hreapha’s heart leapt up: if she could somehow climb the bluff from this point, she’d locate perhaps the end of the road that led northward down the mountain.

As they tried to climb, Hrolf exclaimed, Shoot far, Ma, we’ll never make it up there.

Son, she answered, if we
do
make it up there, we’ll be on a road that could take us eventually to meet your father at last.

Why didn’t you say so? he said, and with a burst of energy clawed his way to the top of the bluff, with her right at his heels.

And sure enough, there was the trail that the man had driven his truck over so many times to bring all the food and drink and stuff up to the mountaintop, the trail that Hreapha had taken when she had run away from him and had found her way back to Stay More. As she loped happily down the trail, she realized she ought to have told the
in-habit
not to expect them back before nightfall.

Much of the trail had been obliterated over the years by hard rains, but she and Hrolf managed to follow the traces of it and in time reach the foot of the mountain where the trail met up with a road. They had headed only a short distance along that road when they heard many sounds of the names of their kindred being announced, and Hreapha clearly recognized one of them: “Arphrowf!”

She had scarcely returned her own name, “Hreapha!” when she caught sight of her former brief friend, the good old country lady that she had chatted with on her first and only trip past this place. Now Arphrowf was practically surrounded by other dogs, all of whom resembled her.

Don’t I know you from somewheres long ago? Arphrowf asked.

Yes, I stopped by here and we chatted one day about five or six years ago, Hreapha said.

All of them took turns sniffing one another’s afterplaces. Hrolf was delighted to discover that two of the dogs were comely young bitches. While he was shamelessly flirting around with them, Hreapha brought Arphrowf up to date on what had been happening since last they’d chatted.

Well fan my brow! Arphrowf said. You don’t mean to tell me that such things has been a-going on right up yonder on the mountain top! Why, I’d of come to visit!

You’ll recall you told me you’d never been up there because it was too far and snaky for you? Well, let me tell you about Sheba…

And Hreapha told her all about the friendly harmless queen snake, and the friendly bobcat who was in love with one of Hreapha’s daughters, and the friendly raccoon and the fawn grown into a friendly deer.

Can you beat that? Arphrowf exclaimed. In all my born days I never heared tell of such marvels.

And then Hreapha told her about the bear cub and the fact that the girl-now-woman, name of Robin, had been missing for two days with the cub and Hreapha was searching for them with the help of her handsome son there, Hrolf.

Them there’s my lovely young’uns, Arphrowf said, indicating the several other dogs. ’Pears like your boy is taking a shine to ’em.

Indeed it was difficult persuading Hrolf to leave when it was time to go. Arphrowf said, I declare, don’t you’uns be a-rushin off. Stay more and spend the night with us.