Dog Gone (17 page)

“You got to stop blaming him,” Cub tells me. “It's not his fault your mom got sick. It's not his fault she…”

“I told him not to take her to the hospital,” I spit, cutting Cub off.

“The hospital isn't what happened to her, Dill.” Cub sighs, smart enough to let the subject drop. “Dill, Lyon wants you to…”

“I know what he wants,” I snap, interrupting Cub again. Dead End stops panting, and looks up at me with his head tipped to one side. “I'm not going to that stupid hospital.” I sniff, and wipe at my eyes.

Cub's hands pause from looping and knotting as he squints at me. “Dill, you should be with Lyon and your granddad. That's what your mom would want.”

I stiffen.

“G.D. would tell you to
face this head-on
.” Cub stares at me without blinking. “It's time you did that.” He hands me the new bailing twine collar and leash, double knotted in places. Dead End stops panting. His tail drops, goes limp.

Cub stops kicking at the floor. “You can't bring a dog to the hospital, Dill.”

I drag the back of my hand under my nose. “I'm not. I'm taking care of him the way G.D asked me to. I've got a plan.”

Cub looks confused, like he can't decide between being excited or scared about this.

“I'm going to bring this dog to my room for the night and then sneak him off to the stable early tomorrow morning, before dawn. If we hide in the back of the horse trailer, we can catch a ride with Jerry Smoothers when he goes to Ohio.” I slip the twine collar over Dead End's head. “I'm sorry,” I whisper to him. “It's only for a while.” The pooch sneezes, of course, and then he shakes with everything he has.

I stroke his face, looking into his chocolate eyes. “It isn't safe for you here anymore with everyone thinking that you're a sheep killer.” I start toward the door, the twine leash wrapped around my wrist.

“After you get Dead End inside,” Cub says, “we'll go to the hospital together.”

*   *   *

An hour later, Donny pulls his rattling hunk of a pickup truck up to the front of the big county hospital. “I'll meet you two in the parking lot,” he says, giving me a droopy, sympathetic look.

“Thanks for the ride,” Cub says. Then his hand tugs on my wrist. “Come on, Dill. Room five hundred and twenty-four.”

He pulls me up the sidewalk and through the front doors, apparently clueless that my feet feel as heavy as cinder blocks. All tucked in and brushed off (and as stubborn as ever), he drags me through the carpeted reception area, into wide, bleach-clean hallways soaked in white light. My hands shake and my insides quiver as images of Mom, lying in a bed, force themselves into my head. To fight these off, I try to picture her humming and digging in her garden with Dead End smiling and panting beside her.

Cub herds me into an elevator. My knees go weak when he hits a button and the machinery hums. One by one, numbers light over the door at each floor as a bell chime spells out
NO … TURNING … BACK … NOW,
a word at a clang.

When the number five lights, the elevator stops and the doors slide open, letting in the smells of rubbing alcohol and antiseptic. I push my wrist to my face, but the hospital smells overpower Mom's gardenia scent. In the hallways and rooms that I can see, fragile patients in hospital-gown uniforms look tired of facing life head-on.

Cub gives me a gentle push, then a harder one, guiding me, making me step into another white-lighted hall. “Room five hundred and twenty-four.”

“I, I can't,” I squeak.

Nurses move like robots, crisscrossing the corridors between the rooms and a station in the center of the floor. One nurse steers a woman in a wheelchair past us. This patient has Mom's pale, drawn face. The hopelessness that comes at the end shows in her dull eyes and quiet lips.

To ease a rising panic, I picture Mom brushing Dead End from nose to tail while whispering sweet words into his ears. I see her taking him with her to do the grocery shopping and banking. He would go almost everywhere that she went, sitting shotgun in her old Jeep. But these cheerful images don't last. The sterile hospital air smothers them in the same way that it snuffs out her gardenia perfume.

Cub nudges me. Too worn out to fight him off, I keep moving, and focus on the shiny floor and the light glistening on chrome wheelchairs parked along the wall. I'd have concentrated on bedpans to keep from seeing any more patients looking the way Mom had looked in this place.

As Cub slows, a nurse steps out from a room in front of us. She looks at someone behind Cub and me. “No more visitors for him,” she says in a soft voice, shaking her head in a way that seems too final.

My heart stops.

“Okay,” a female from behind us answers. “Is his son still with him?”

I look up at the numbers over the door.
524
.

“Miss, that's a private room.…”

Lyon sits beside the hospital bed, his elbows on the edge of the mattress, his hands folded and his head down. G.D. lies as still as a statue. His frail body, almost lost beneath the blankets, looks like a shell without its snail. He doesn't smile, doesn't frown. His face has lost the pain-pinched expression.

“Mom.” The word, no more than a whimper, squeezes itself from my strangled throat without my permission.

Lyon whips around. He blinks his red, wet eyes, and then drags his big mitt of a hand over his drawn face. “Dill.” His voice shakes and his lips tremble. “The doctors and nurses made him comfortable. He's been suffering at home. He…”

I back off from his words until my shoulders slam into the wall beside the door. Then, turning, I throw myself out of the room and run down the hall, back the way Cub and I had come.

Cub and the nurses become brief blurs in the white-lighted tunnel of this corridor.

“Dill, wait!”

Lyon's voice makes me run harder. I throw myself into a stairwell and then fly over the steps. When I get to the main floor, I sprint across the lobby and out of the hospital.

CHAPTER 14

OVER

“Dill, it's crazy to take Dead End all the way out to that shelter G.D. talked about.” Cub grinds the toe of his unlaced work boot into the floor outside my bedroom. “What're you gonna do when, or if, you get there?”

While trying to ignore the headache that is hammering my skull, I finger the photo of Mom and Lyon in my pocket, checking to be sure it's still there. My swollen eyes have gone blurry from too many tears. “The last thing G.D. asked…” Dead End snuffles and then licks my cheek. I wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his thick neck fur as a fresh sob, heavy and hot, pushes up my throat, sucking up the little bit of energy I have left. “He asked me to take care of Dead End,” I say when I get a grip on myself and lift my face. “He knows this is what Mom would have wanted, too.” I stuff a tube of antibiotic ointment and a box of bandages for Dead End's wounds into G.D.'s leather knapsack. Weathered as an old boot, the thing holds his smell. A scent something like the inside of a cedar chest full of saddle leather. Whenever he paused from wandering to visit with us, he always had this knapsack. It's hard to picture him traveling without it.

Sniffing, I wipe at my nose, and then drop and reach under my bed for the coffee can that I've been using as a bank, stuffing my stable pay away, saving for a horse or even a stable of my own someday. “I'm going to hide Dead End at that shelter until all the dog pack trouble blows over.”

Cub plants his hands on his hips. “How are you gonna get across the country?”

I pull out the coffee can and sit up. “I told you: Tomorrow morning, when Jerry Smoothers heads to Ohio to pick up those horses for Ms. Hunter, Dead End and I will be hiding in the trailer.” My fingers pluck at the two hundred and sixty-two dollars in the can. Fifty-two cents roll on the bottom as Dead End pokes at the can with his nose.

“What about getting from Ohio to that shelter? G.D. said it's in Utah. That's clear across the country.”

“We'll walk and catch rides the way G.D. used to do when he stopped driving, before he came to live with us.” The brochure and map crinkle as I pull them from the back pocket of my jeans. “I found these in G.D.'s trunk.” Cub leans into my room, squinting as I point at the brochure. “The address is right here.”

“Dill, that shelter is too far away. It's not safe to
catch rides
.”

“If I don't go, Dead End could be…” Unable to say
shot
or
put to sleep,
I return the map and brochure to my back pocket and then stuff my savings into my front pockets.

“What about Lyon?”

I grab my jean jacket and put it beside G.D.'s knapsack. “He'll probably be relieved to be rid of me. You know, like he's relieved to be rid of Seymour the goat, the rabbits, and Double and Trouble, the cats.”

“You're wrong, Dill.”

“Whatever,” I choke out, my head spinning, my chest tight. “I'll call Lyon when Dead End and I get to Ohio.”

Cub shakes his head, looking disappointed.

“Come with me.” I stare smack into his eyes. “Why not? You'll get away from all your chores, your brothers, and your responsibilities—you know, the garden and all the church functions.”

Cub squirms, not looking at me straight on. “Donny and Danny never told my dad or Mr. Peterson about Dead End.” And then he shrugs. “That garden and all those church functions aren't all that bad.” Cub stays focused on his unlaced boots. “Truth is, watchin' you these last few months, seein' how bad it is to be without a whole family…” He hesitates, jabs his toe at the molding again. “Guess you've shown me a thing or two about appreciation, Dill.”

“Good.” My voice has an edge of resentment. “It's about time you realize what you have.” My envy is raw and obvious now because I'm too worn out to tamp it down any longer.

Neither of us says another word for a long moment. Cub shifts from foot to foot. When Dead End goes to him and pushes at his hand, asking for pets, Cub ruffles the dog's ears and takes in a big breath. “I don't think you should leave, Dill. Runnin' off isn't going to make this mess go away.”

I look away from him because something tells me he's right. Still, I stuff another bottle of water, a paper plate, and a small plastic container (for Dead End's food and drink) into the knapsack and yank the zipper closed. “I got to go” is all I can get out.

*   *   *

I close Dead End and myself into my room early, and crawl into bed before Lyon gets home so we don't have to see him. And by some miracle, he leaves me be, doesn't even knock on the door after returning from the hospital.

I don't set my alarm because I don't need to. There's no way sleep will be coming my way tonight. The minutes crawl because I won't breathe easy until Dead End and I are in the trailer, rolling toward Ohio. But eventually, hours later, the pooch and I sneak out of the ranch without getting caught. We make it to the stable by four
A.M.

All around the spare stall where we sit hidden behind bales of hay, waiting for the first sign of sunrise, horses snort and stamp. I consider going to Crossfire, but I'm not sure I can take saying good-bye to him. Besides, the stable darkness feels mud-thick. Bats squeak in the rafters. Rats and mice skitter behind the walls.

“Eat up,” I tell the dog as I dump kibbles from a plastic bag onto the paper plate. And then I pour water into the plastic container. “Once it's light, we'll go find the trailer.”

I barely finish the sentence when Dead End's head pops up from his food. He stops chewing and his ears lift. His body goes rigid.

The door at the front of the barn rolls, sliding open. Slow, booted steps, heavy and too familiar, echo on cement.
Thud … thud … thud …

Click
. Yellow light, more startling than an explosion, fills the stable. “Dill, it's me. Where are you?”

Lyon. Every inch of me goes as stiff as a plank. “Be quiet,” I whisper low, stroking Dead End's back. “Be a good dog.”

“Dill. I know you're in here. Cub couldn't stand the thought of you running off. He called the house, told me what you're about to do.”

My fingers curl as if around that kid's scrawny neck.

“Come on out, talk to me.” A long pause. “I know you're upset about G.D., but he'll be okay. Weak from a few health problems that we'll have to cope with, but he'll be home today.”

I gasp, leap up, and almost run to Lyon—until Dead End tips his head, questioning me with his big eyes.

Lyon sighs. “Dill…” His voice shakes. It never does this. “Come out. Talk to me the way you used to do. Please.”

He might as well have stomped on my heart with his huge work boots. Since I can't sit still a second longer, I wipe at my eyes and under my dripping nose. I tie Dead End's leash to the twine of a hay bale because I don't need the dog getting all worked up and excited over seeing Lyon right before we leave. Then I kiss the pink-scraped snout. “Be good. Stay,” I whisper in a quivering voice.

He sneezes, thumps his tail.

Hay rustles as I push past bales, wiping leftover tears off my face. I can hear the echo of Lyon's steps, can picture him moving back and forth and side to side in that awkward shuffle that shows he doesn't know what to do with himself.

He turns around when I clear the corner, his dark hair still sleep-messed, his eyes wide and full of fear. He chews hard on the end of a toothpick. Then he shoots at me—a two-hundred-pound bullet in a denim shirt.

“Dill…” His voice evaporates as his big arms wrap around me in a bear hug. The old Lyon. He still smells of the hospital, but I don't care. “You're too young to take off, go wandering the way G.D. did,” he says into my hair. “And I'm nowhere near ready to let you go.”