Listen! (9780062213358) (9 page)

Charley remembers a summer when her mother found a yellow jacket nest in the grass by the willow tree she'd planted as part of her campaign to replace lawn with trees. Mr. Sutcliff was always being stung by the yellow jackets in his yard. “The first one that stings you puts a smell on you,” he told Charley once, “and the rest come after you then. Get stung one time, you'll get stung fifty times.” Charley and her mother saw him one day when they were out in the canoe, running from his mower, waving his arms around his head. He dashed into his house, yelling and flailing, and slammed the door. For days afterward his mower sat abandoned as the grass grew taller around it. “If you get yellow jackets, you have to go out in the middle of the night and pour gasoline or boiling water down their hole,” he told them.

But her mother didn't do that. The first day she found the nest, she stood near it as yellow jackets came and went, talking to them. “I've got to mow,” she told them, “but I don't want to hurt you. You can just keep coming and going until I tell you that the next pass will go over the nest. Then you have to either go down inside or stay out till I've passed over. It'll just take a minute or two, and then you can go back to business as usual.”

Her father teased her about it all summer—“My wife, the wasp whisperer.” But Colleen Morgan never got stung a single time. Charley asked her why she didn't tell Mr. Sutcliff that he didn't have to use gasoline, but she said it was better not to challenge people's fixed beliefs. The next year the wasps didn't nest in the Morgans' yard.

Her father does the mowing now, and he just mows, not worrying about what might be in his way. But they've never had yellow jackets again. Mr. Sutcliff still gets stung every summer.

Charley touches the photo, feeling the slick surface under her fingers, as if by touching this page she could touch her mother as she lay in the grass, focusing her lens on a ladybug walking a green blade.

She flips through pages then, skimming, not really looking, not reading, till a photo stops her. It is a beaver, crouched in the water at the edge of the lake among some sort of leafy plants, its wet fur slicked back, silver water drops scattered along its back. It holds a piece of green plant in its front paws, its eyes staring straight off into the distance as if it has stopped eating to consider something.

It is not a picture her mother could have taken when Charley was with her. As hard as she tried, she was never quiet enough for that. If a beaver heard the slightest sound, a twig breaking, a sigh or a cough or a sniffle, it would be gone with a resounding crack of tail against water. Charley doesn't know how her mother stayed quiet enough. She never made a blind for herself, never hid from the animals she photographed. She just sat still and waited.

“‘To understand any living thing,'” the quotation on the facing page says, “‘you must creep within and feel the beating of its heart.'—W. Macneille Dixon.”

Creep within and feel the beating of its heart
. Yes. That's what Charley wants to do with Coyote.

The rain is still drumming on the roof, and she thinks of Coyote huddled under the Davises' picnic table, taking what shelter he can from the rain. The Davises are probably home by now, probably have Sadie inside where she can be drying off. There is nowhere for Coyote to go to get dry. What is he feeling? What is he thinking? Do dogs think?

She closes the book.
Creep within and feel the beating of its heart
. Impossible. She can't even feel her own.

I
t is early afternoon. Charley has eaten her lunch at the table on the gravel terrace down by the lake, where it is shady. While she ate, Sadie lay at her feet, hoping for a piece of sandwich. Coyote stayed under the camellia bush next to the terrace, as close to Sadie as he could get without getting too close to Charley. She has saved some crusts from her sandwich and now that she is finished, gives one to Sadie and throws the other to Coyote. He jumps up and backs away, as if it is a stone she's thrown, but when Sadie starts over to get his crust, he snatches it before she can get near.

Charley hears Bethanne Davis calling for Sadie from across the lake. Sadie's ears prick up, but she keeps her eyes on Charley in case there are any more treats. “Sorry, girl,” Charley says. “That's all there is. Guess you'll just have to go home.”

Bethanne calls again, and then Mrs. Davis whistles, and Sadie heads down to the water. She stands for a moment before starting across, her big, gold plume of a tail waving gently as she tries to decide whether to stay or go. When Bethanne calls once more, she jumps forward into the water and starts swimming.

Coyote follows her to the lake, as always, and stands with his front feet in the water, watching Sadie swim. When she is about halfway across, he whines, but doesn't start after her. She gets all the way across, climbs out of the water, shakes herself, and runs up the hill. Still Coyote doesn't move. He will go any minute, Charley thinks. Of course he will. Much as he hates swimming, he always follows Sadie eventually.

But he doesn't. He stands awhile longer, looking toward where she has disappeared, and then turns around, goes back to the camellia bush, and lies down. Sadie has gone home and Coyote has stayed. He's made a choice. Between Charley and Sadie, he's chosen Charley.

At first she doesn't move. She is afraid if she does anything, makes even the slightest sound, he will realize what he's done and take off.

Liver
. She needs to get him some liver, reward him for staying. Slowly, carefully, looking away from him every minute, she eases herself out of the chair and starts up to the house. “Good dog!” she says as she goes, her voice as low and soothing as she can make it. “Just stay there. Good old boy!”

“Sarita!” she yells when she gets inside. “You'll never…” But Sarita must have been watching from the windows by her puzzle table. She is already coming from the kitchen with the sandwich bag full of liver pieces.

Coyote is still under the camellia. Charley wants to run down the drive and throw herself at him, hug him and rub his ears as if he's a regular dog.
Her
regular dog! It is all she can do to walk slowly down to the terrace, keeping her eyes focused on the table and chairs, and sit down. “Good dog!” she says again, amazed and relieved that he is still there. “Want some liver?”

She has been talking to him about the liver she takes him every evening, saying the word over and over as he comes to get the pieces she puts out so that he'll know that the word means something he really, really likes. And he's been coming gradually closer and closer to get it. But still he hasn't taken the pieces closest to her. She always sees him as she and Sarita drive away, sneaking back to get the last of them.

She turns to look at him now, and their eyes meet. He doesn't bolt. She feels the tremor of their connection. “Liver!” she says. “Every time you stay here when Sadie goes home, you get to have liver!” She takes the biggest piece she can find, holds it between her thumb and first finger so that it sticks out away from her hand, turns her head away, and holds the liver out to him as far as her arm will reach.

Is he coming to get it? She can't tell. She doesn't dare turn to see. She holds her breath, makes herself as still as she can.
Come on
, she thinks at him,
you can do it. Come get the liver!

And suddenly the liver is gone from her fingers. He has taken it so gently she didn't feel his muzzle near her hand. Just one moment the liver between her fingers and the next moment gone. Moving in slow motion, she pulls her hand back and gets another piece of liver. She extends her arm again, and again the liver disappears. Three more times she does it. Then she holds the last piece out in her cupped palm so that he'll have to touch her to get it. It takes longer this time, but he gets it, his nose and whiskers grazing her hand.

At his touch her eyes blur with tears. “Good dog,” she whispers. “Good, brave dog!” The sandwich bag is empty now, so she turns to look at him. He is no more than two feet away. He stands his ground, his ears and tail up, looking at her as if to ask if there is any more.

“All gone,” she says, and shows him her empty hands. He stands for another moment, and then turns and goes back to the camellia. He doesn't run, he doesn't skulk. He just walks back and lies down.

Charley looks up at the windows of the lake room above her. Sarita is there, watching. She smiles and nods, and Charley holds up both thumbs. “Wild forever,” Mr. Heyward said. Not this dog!

Coyote stays in the yard the rest of the day. When Charley's father comes home, he scuttles across the road into the woods for a little, but comes back to his place under the dogwood when Paul Morgan goes inside.

Charley calls Mrs. Davis and tells her that Coyote stayed when Sadie went home. “That's fabulous, Charley,” she says. “The kids said they hadn't seen him, and I was a little worried. I thought something might have happened to him.”

“He's fine.”

“Looks like your hard work is paying off.”

“Anyway, if he stays over here you won't have to keep Sadie inside tonight.”

Mrs. Davis laughs. “And you won't have to risk hearing Buddy Heyward tell you how impossible and dangerous this whole project is!”

After dinner Charley's father goes back to the office. At the time she would normally have gone around to Coyote's territory with the liver, Charley splashes on insect repellent again and goes out to sit on the brick retaining wall. Coyote, under the dogwood, stays where he is, his eyes on her. “Brought your liver,” she says. His ears flick toward her. She holds a piece out toward him, but he doesn't move. “Suit yourself,” she says.

Half an hour later she goes inside, leaving three pieces of liver on the wall where she was sitting. Before she gets to the top of the ramp, he has snatched and gulped them down. Then he goes back to settle into his place again.

The lights on the ramp are on a timer, set to go on before it gets completely dark. A little while after they come on, Charley goes out to check on Coyote. He isn't by the fence where he was before. She checks under the camellia, behind the boxwoods, even goes out to look among the azaleas. He is not there.

When she goes back inside, Sarita looks up from her jigsaw puzzle, a painting of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. The television is on. Other people
watch
television, Charley thinks. Sarita only listens while she does her puzzles.

“He's gone,” Charley says. She had hoped he would stay the night.

Sarita nods. “A good day, though,” she says, and fits a piece into the stream of light cutting across a bank of storm clouds.

The moment she says it, Charley knows that it's more than good. It's the best day she's had all summer.

W
hen Charley goes out the next morning, dressed to walk around the lake as always, Coyote appears from the trees across the road and stands at the head of the driveway, looking at her.

She can hardly believe her eyes. “Good morning, Coyote!” she calls, then spreads out both of her arms like a mother inviting a child to come running for a hug. He doesn't come. But he doesn't back off, either. His tail, a pale golden plume, stands straight up over his back, and she thinks she sees it move, the beginning of a wag. “Want your lunch?” she asks, thinking it is time to change the word to
breakfast
if he is going to eat it first thing in the morning like this.

But he does know the word. As soon as she says it, he takes a few hesitant steps down the drive. Then he sits, watching her expectantly.

“Okay. I'll be right out with it!”

When she takes his bowl outside, he scuttles off into the trees. She puts it down where she has been feeding him lately, on the driveway near his place by the dogwood. Then she goes to sit on the retaining wall. “Come and get it!” she calls.

He emerges from the woods onto the road. His tail is down, now, and his ears back, his shoulders hunched forward. He is a wild thing again.

“What's the matter?” Charley asks. “You took liver from my hand last night!”

At the word
liver
his ears twitch, but he doesn't relax. He's been eating with her sitting and watching for days. What is the problem?

And then she knows. The problem is that Sadie isn't here. It's just him and Charley. “It's okay,” she tells him. “Really it is! You took liver from my hand yesterday, remember? Sadie wasn't with you then.”

But that was yesterday. There was a night to get through since then. Wherever he was, like all his other nights, he was alone. Alone meant having to be on guard, watch out, survive, even while he slept.

Besides, sleeping can wipe out memory so that you have to start over again in the morning. Charley knows how it is to wake up in your old self and all over again have to get used to what has changed in your life.

“Okay, guy,” she says. She goes back into the house. Almost the instant the door slides shut, Coyote comes down the drive and eats. He still leans forward and snatches no more than a bite or two between glances over his shoulder. But he eats, and when he is finished, he flops down in his place under the dogwood.