A Feral Darkness (20 page)

      
And had a sudden flash echo of someone else's voice in her head, saying those words but edged with sheer terror-stricken panic—
Druid, no!
—and she touched the damp earth on the slope above her, suddenly doubting her own sanity as much as Druid's.

      
He quit, then, panting harshly, one of the cuts on his lip reopened and bleeding.

      
"Bring him down a few feet," Masera said quietly. "To a spot where he was okay."

      
When she had him settled there, Masera came up and joined them. "He warned you about that one," he said. "But you said that's not typical."

      
"He usually gets out a whine or two," Brenna said. "It's just never clear
why
, so I don't know till after he's started up that it was a warning. Because sometimes he thinks to himself, too. Like when he's chewing a bone—it's just this whine, like he's thinking really hard and some of the thoughts escape. I don't even think he knows he's making noise. It's pretty adorable, actually," she admitted, scratching the side of her nose with a pebble-gloved finger.

      
Masera gave Druid a rub behind the ears and a gentle thump on the ribs. "I wish I had more to tell you," he said. "You're basically doing the right thing—not making a big deal of it, giving him a chance to stop, and escalating in a low-key way when he doesn't. If he's predictable about the spring, I'd bring him up here frequently. Take him right to the edge of his fear—the last step before he loses it. And sit there a while, giving him lots of love. Give him a chance to think about that. Then take him up, because unfortunately, he's got to learn to work through this fear and to respond to you or you won't have any chance of getting through to him when he flips out under unpredictable circumstances. The instant he stops the fear behavior, no matter how surprised or upset you are, you need to be a little more responsive with praise and petting. Love the hell out of him, if you really want to know. He needs that contrast, so it becomes clear to him—if he's freaking out, there's no love in the offing, but when he quits, he becomes a hero."

      
"And the biting?"

      
He shook his head. "There's no easy answer. You're going to have to decide how important it is to you. He's an outstanding dog with a serious quirk, and any time you grab him while he's flipping, there's the chance he'll bite."

      
Brenna bit her lip and looked away. "It was my own fault. I should have paid attention when he whined. Then he wouldn't have been in my lap when it happened. I guess I was just hoping that he'd adjusted, that he was through with that crap."

      
He reached to touch her arm, but, like in kitchen, let his hand fall away before it quite reached her. "Hindsight's a bitch."

      
He had such a wry tone in his voice that she looked at him and laughed. He shrugged, looking back out at the pasture. "This is a nice spot. I can see why you chose it for your old dog, back then."

      
"He liked to sit at the top of the hill and watch the horses, when we had them here." She crouched next to Druid and bent to kiss his furry head, now surface-damp with the cold drizzle, and looked out over the view with fresh eyes. The creek cut deeply through the pasture, its banks lined with sumac and less identifiable, barely budding brush; some of the low plants were greening, taking advantage of the early sun before the brush turned into thick shadow. Beyond, the pasture stretched to the road, new grass just beginning to shove green blades above the pale remnants of last summer's flattened growth. To their left, the creek curved around and the trees that lined it broke away to form a windbreak between two pasture sections; even in winter, it was hard to see beyond that. Brenna pointed off to the right. "In the summer, wild spearmint grows over there. Just walking through the field is like taking a bath in it. And there it's always shady and cool, and there," she pointed to a spot just left of the footbridge, which was between them and the spearmint area, "
there
, the poison ivy has taken over. Doesn't bother me, but most people can't get near it. Maybe," she said in muttered afterthought, "Rob Parker will walk through it one of these days."

      
Until that moment, Masera had been at ease, following along in her little travelogue, standing just downhill of her with his hands relaxed on his hips. Now he turned back to look at her and said, "
Rob Parker
?"

      
And she stared back at him, startled by his vehemence. Then she said slowly, "Rob Parker. I take it you know him?"

      
"I've heard of him." Masera looked out over the pasture with new interest, her
back off
cues apparently gone to waste. Brenna suspected he'd only now realized that they'd changed direction as they walked to the spring, and no longer faced the same road that ran down the hill from her house. "He lives around here?"

      
"I'm not sure that he does. His family has some old property off that way." She gave a hazy wave.

      
She'd seen bird dogs home in slower on a close covey. He searched the line of woods in that direction, as if there'd be some clue to location of the Parker Homestead.

      
"Oh, here," she said, getting up and starting down the hill. "I'll show you."

      
He hesitated, but she wasn't sure why. Surprise at the offer?
Or maybe he just doesn't want to go there with you in tow
. Ooh, that last one made her wince; uncharacteristically bitchy of her, it was. Not fair. Especially after he'd disrupted his whole day so she wouldn't be alone after losing Sunny to...whatever, and to be here today to work with Druid. "It's what you want, isn't it? It might be for sale, and it's probably good kennel grounds. Maybe a little marshy in spots, but all the land around here tends to that."

      
And at that he turned to look at her again, and to regard her without haste. "Yes," he said. "I
would
like to see the land."

      
So why did it sound like that moment in the kitchen last night, when she'd asked him what he'd been expecting and he'd had that unusual tone in his voice? Not lying, she thought. But not telling her everything.

      
Well, it's not like he owed her anything. No reason for him to lay his business out before her. So she said, "Come on, then," and continued down to the creek, Druid quite willingly at her heels.

      
This part of the creek split around a small, flat island; when she was a child it had held an important and impregnable fortress of She-Ra, but Brenna didn't suppose Masera needed to know that. All that mattered today was that it was a shortcut, and that because she felt the sting of his not-lying despite her own rationalizations, she was pleased enough to make him work for his little tour. She knew the rocks that would get her across this shallow fording spot, and she took them, hoisting Druid in her arms so he wouldn't get soaked. Like a child, he curled gently into her hold, making the task easier...and like a child, he weighed a lot more than it seemed he should. Short he might be, but at thirty-five pounds, he was not an insubstantial dog.

      
Masera followed. Once she reached the island he not only followed, he forged ahead, crossing the other branch of the creek before her, and offering a hand when she faced the steep bank with her arms full of dog.

      
She took the easy way out; she gently launched Druid to the top of the bank, then climbed it herself, murmuring, "That's okay," at his hand. What did he think she did when she was out here on her own?

      
Cold darkness, landing hard enough to make her stumble and gasp, wringing out her lungs and skipping onward.
Brenna found that she had clutched Masera's hand after all, and that Druid braced himself, white-eyed, at the end of the leash. But he relaxed, cautious but under control, and she straightened, disengaging herself from Masera and ignoring the somewhat startled expression on his face—a more open look than usually resided there, as though for once he'd been caught off guard. She blew her bangs out of her eyes and stepped out strongly, with no intention of explaining the inexplicable.

      
Whatever he thought, he said nothing. He kept pace with her long-legged strides, avoided the red-tinged early growth of poison ivy before she pointed it out to him, and seemed to have returned to thoughts that were far from her pasture or Druid's quirks or any conversation they might have made.

      
When they reached the woods line she followed it, taking him to the road, where they had to navigate the marshy ditch that ran alongside the asphalt. Brenna tossed Druid across and made the leap herself, and this time it was she who waited for Masera, and held the dead wire of the old multi-strand electric fence so he could climb through. Once they were at the edge of the road, she pointed down the length of it. "See that break in the trees? That's the head of the old driveway. They don't even have a mailbox there anymore; I don't know where Rob Parker's living, but it's not there. It's a long lane back to where the farm house used to be. I'm not sure what's still standing, at this point."

      
"Guess I'll find out," Masera said, and headed off. When Brenna kept step with him, Druid coming along at a fast marching trot, he gave her a surprised glance. "If you've got something you'd rather do..."

      
Yeah, go home and wash Sunny's bowl.
Brenna shook her head. "I suppose I should let animal control know what happened, in case it
is
connected to a dog pack—"

      
Masera snorted.

      
"What then?" Brenna demanded, wanting to kick him for that feeling she got from him, that
I know something
feeling. Or more because of the other impression he gave off, the
I'm not telling you
. "If you don't think it was the infamous feral dog pack, then what
do
you think it was? Something tore that dog from her run and then ripped her right out of her collar. Do you suppose we've suddenly got an insane
bear
on our hands that no one's managed to sight?"

      
"A bear," he said. "Wonder how fast that one would spread if you started it? Maybe we should have looked for tracks."

      
"You can be a real pain in the ass," Brenna told him, jumping past annoyance and into real anger.

      
"Yeah," he said. "I know."

      
It was only as they approached the driveway—a cleared lane, really, with two rutted wheel tracks running down it—that she realized he'd never answered her question. He'd made her mad, but he hadn't answered her. There were a lot of things he didn't answer, things he held close to himself. Things you learned from talking to most people that he never volunteered in casual conversation.

      
He doesn't owe you anything
.

      
And he didn't.

      
Besides, she supposed they'd hardly had what she'd call a casual conversation. Disagreements and challenges, yes. Last night, when he'd really hardly said anything at all; he'd just been there. And then today—dog talk. Or bits of herself that she somehow found herself sharing with him.

      
Well, keep yourself to yourself, then.

      
"Recent tracks," she said, which seemed reasonably safe, subject-wise. Surface-talk. Not that there was any missing the tracks; someone had been going in and out long enough to stir the mud up pretty well, and there were even a couple of shovels of fresh gravel dumped into the worst of the spots. "Looks like Rob's been spending time here, whatever his plans for the place. Might be there now, if you want to talk to him."