A Dog's Way Home Read online

  “But—” I started to protest.

  Daddy placed a finger on my lips. “Hush now, honey. Who knows? Maybe someone’s found him already. He has ID tags on his collar.”

  “And he’s microchipped,” my mother added.

  “Besides, he was in the crate,” Daddy said. “He’s not going anywhere soon.”

  They both smiled, but their eyes said they didn’t really believe what they were saying.

  CHAPTER 4

  Tam

  Sunlight burned off the mist hovering over the creek. By the time it reached the bed Tam had made under a fallen birch, the forest had been awake for a long time. Squirrels and chipmunks busily gathered acorns to store against the winter months ahead. Red foxes lined their burrows with leaves, and geese passed overhead, pointing the way south. Life in the Appalachian Mountains in late October was a race against time.

  Tam knew nothing of the ice and snow just weeks away. As he tried to rise from the damp earth, all he knew was how much his bruised, cold body hurt and how hungry he was.

  With a groan, Tam limped down to the creek and drank, careful not to get his feet wet. He lifted his head, nose reading the damp air crisscrossed with scents. Any other time, Tam would have followed his nose through the streams of scent, like a fish hooked on a line.

  But Tam was hurt. And a hurt dog knows only one thing to do: be still.

  Tam took one last drink, then limped back to his shelter. He lowered himself to the ground with a whimper. He didn’t stir when a large gray squirrel ran back and forth across the fallen tree. He slept as two white-tailed deer slipped down to drink from the creek. And as the moon rose over the ridge and a great horned owl hunted the far meadow, Tam dreamed of hot gravy and chunks of beef set before him next to the woodstove in his home with his girl.

  CHAPTER 5

  Abby

  Daddy sucked in his breath. “Good Lord.” He stared at the crumpled guardrail and the skid marks of our tires.

  “Tam,” I said. “Remember?”

  “Right,” Daddy said.

  It had been a whole day before the doctor let me out of that putrid hospital. Time to find Tam was a-wasting.

  Daddy and Mama got out of the van. I opened the back door and tried to maneuver the crutches in front of me. Mama hurried over. “No, Abby, you stay here. The road’s too narrow. Daddy and I will call him.”

  “But he needs to hear my voice,” I said. “If he’s scared or hurt, he might not answer you.”

  With a sigh, Mama helped me stand and brace myself against the car. Filling my lungs with hope, I cried out as loud as I could, “Tam! Come here, Tam!” We listened for any sound—a bark, a jingle of tags. Nothing. I called again. And again and again and again. Until my voice was broken.

  Daddy studied the place where the truck had plowed through the trees and bushes. Shattered limbs and glass marked the path. “Seems like the crate would have been thrown down this way,” he said. “I’ll take a look.”

  “The crate should be easy to spot,” Mama said.

  Daddy disappeared through the trees. I held my breath so I could hear him call, I found him! He’s okay!

  My all-time record for holding my breath was one minute and forty-three seconds. I broke that record and then some that day. But all I heard was wind and birds and Mama tapping her finger on the door of the van.

  She reached out and pushed my hand away from my mouth. “Stop chewing your hair, Abby.”

  I dropped the wet end of my braid. “It’s been hours, Mama. What’s taking him so long?”

  Mama looked at her watch. “It’s only been fifteen minutes. I imagine he’ll be back any second.”

  Daddy scrambled over the guardrail. His face was flushed and sad. He shook his head.

  “No sign of him, peanut.”

  “Not even his crate?” Mama asked.

  Daddy wiped his hands on his jeans. “Trouble is, the embankment goes right to the edge of a little cliff. Then it drops straight down to the creek. There’s not a shore or anything. Just rocks and a lot of water.”

  A huge lump lodged in my throat. I blinked back tears.

  “Daddy, there must be a place farther along the creek to get down to the shore,” I said.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” he said.

  We drove a ways up the road. Daddy climbed the guardrail and went off into the woods while I called Tam. Nothing.

  Then we drove down the road and did the same thing. I called, waited, and listened. The sun topped the trees. After a time, the sun stood straight over us. Maybe it was a good sign Daddy was gone so long. Mama lay down in the backseat. She didn’t look so good. I stayed beside the van, watching the spot where Daddy would surely appear—with Tam.

  But he didn’t. He walked out of the woods alone. “I’m sorry, honey,” he said.

  “But Tam has to be somewhere,” I said.

  Mama sat up. “Okay then, let’s head up to the Visitor Center and talk to the rangers.”

  I knew she was right, but I didn’t want to leave. Surely Tam would come back here, if he could.

  Putting his arm around my shoulders, Daddy said, “Come on, peanut. Let’s go.”

  I jerked away from Daddy’s arm and pushed off on my crutches. I got to going pretty fast, once I got the rhythm down.

  “Abigail Andrea Whistler, you stop right now!” Mama called.

  “I’ve got to find him, Mama,” I called back over my shoulder. “I just know he’s—”

  The tip of my left crutch missed the edge of the road. I pitched head over heels into the gravel. Daddy was pulling me into his big arms before I had time to blink.

  Mama brushed the rocks and dirt from my face. She grabbed the end of one of my braids and gave it a shake. “Honestly, Abby. When God handed out stubborn genes, you got the mother lode.”

  Daddy lifted me into his arms. “Come on, Abby honey. Tam’s not here.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Tam

  Tam lapped water from the creek, eyes closed. His shoulder and hip still ached. His stomach grumbled. He had not eaten since the morning of the accident.

  Then he heard it. So faint at first, even Tam, with his keen hearing, wasn’t sure it was real. He threw his ears forward, water dripping from his muzzle.

  Silence.

  Just as he lowered his head, he heard it, stronger this time. Every muscle in his body tensed. Fainter than any human ear could possibly hear, Tam heard her voice. “Tam! Tam!”

  Tam barked once, twice, then listened again. Her call came from the north. He fixed on the direction, barked again, and picked his way along the creek bank. He did not know that between him and the girl lay miles of rhododendron and mountain laurel so thick a person couldn’t push through it. He could not know that it would take hours to work his way back upstream.

  All he knew was she was calling. For all the years he could remember, this voice was his world, his compass. And when the person he loves most in the world calls, a dog can do nothing but go.

  CHAPTER 7

  Abby

  “I heard about your accident,” the ranger at the Humpback rocks Visitor Center said after Mama explained who we were. “We get deer-related accidents up here all the time. you’d think they’d learn.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the deer or the drivers.

  I cleared my throat. “My dog was in a crate in the back of the truck. When we hit the guardrail, he was thrown out.”

  “We just drove back to the spot where they went off the road,” Daddy said. “I looked all around. We even drove a half mile back up the road and went down to the creek there, and the other way too. I didn’t see any sign of him or the crate.”

  The ranger sighed. “Folks lose dogs up here a lot.”

  I thrust the flyers with Tam’s photo at the man. “This is Tam. He’s not just any dog. He’s a champion.” And my best friend.

  The ranger studied the picture and smiled. “A little Lassie.”

  “You’re familiar with
Shetland sheepdogs?” Mama asked.

  “My wife grew up with them. She loves these little dogs. We’d have one if our son wasn’t so allergic.”

  Daddy placed the rest of the flyers on the desk. “Any chance you could post these around for us?”

  “We’re offering a reward,” I said.

  The ranger ran his finger along the edge of the picture. “Agility champion, huh? I seen that on TV once. My wife watches Animal Planet all the time. Generally speaking, we don’t post private notices, though.”

  Mama said, “He’s very, very important to my daughter, sir. And to us.”

  He looked me over with my crutches and Mama with her bandaged arm and complicated sling. “There’s some bathrooms and picnic areas fairly close. I reckon I can post a few of these around.”

  Daddy’s face broke open with relief. “We’d really appreciate it. We’re heading home, but if anyone finds him or knows anything about him, they can call us collect. The phone number is right on the flyer.”

  The ranger glanced down at our number below Tam’s picture. “That a North Carolina number?”

  Daddy nodded. “About forty-five miles south of Asheville in a little place called Harmony Gap. We live just outside of there in Wild Cat Cove.”

  The ranger whistled. “The other end of the Blue Ridge Parkway. That’s a heck of a ways from up here in Virginia.”

  “If somebody finds him, we’ll come get him right away,” I said. It couldn’t be that far.

  The ranger sighed and gathered up the flyers. “Let’s hope someone does and soon, honey. Winter’s not far off up here. Once it sets in, most of the Parkway closes down. Nobody will be back up until spring.”

  My heart dropped down to my sneakers.

  After Daddy settled my leg on pillows in the backseat of the van, I said, “Can we go back and look one more time?”

  “No, Abby,” Mama said.

  “But he might be there.”

  “It’s almost ten miles back. Besides, it’ll be dark soon.”

  “So?” I said, not caring how much Mama hates it when I say this. “We could spend the night in Waynesboro again, come back up tomorrow and look some more.”

  This time Daddy turned around. “Abby, we need to get both of you home. Your mama has to see that doctor in Asheville tomorrow, and your grandmother’s worried sick.

  “Besides,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, “we just don’t have the money to be spending on all these nights in motels.”

  “But Daddy, we can’t just leave without Tam. He’s—”

  His blue eyes, the eyes that always laughed, turned hard. “A dog, Abby. He’s a dog. I know how much he means to you, but you and your mother are more important to me right now.”

  Daddy turned around, steered the van onto the road.

  I was so shocked by my daddy’s hard heart, I felt like I’d been slapped full in the face.

  “I bet by the time we get home, someone will have called,” Mama said. Touching Daddy’s shoulder, she added, “And I’m thinking we’ll try and get back up here in the next weekend or two.”

  “But Mama, if he’s trapped in that crate, he’ll starve or thirst to death.”

  Daddy glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “It’s the best we can do right now, sugar. Besides, Tam’s a tough little dog.”

  Every foot, every bit of mile we went down that road tore at my soul. “Promise?” I asked. “Promise we’ll come back?”

  Mama reached back and squeezed my hand. “We’ll try.”

  We took the turnoff for Roanoke. The forest and trees closed behind us like a green, secret wall.

  CHAPTER 8

  Tam

  Tam sniffed the spot where Abby had stood just hours before. He smelled the woman and the big man too, but he drank in the scent of his girl. It was not quite her usual smell of grass and apples and her body’s own unique mixture, though. There was a smell of pain and fear he did not understand.

  What Tam did understand was she had been there, so he must wait. Often he had waited, long spaces of time, when she left just as the sun topped the ridge and did not return until the sun’s shadows grew long. But she always came back. The big bus would rattle up to the mailbox at the bottom of the hill. His girl would run down the bus steps calling, “Tam! Come on, Tam!”—the sweetest sound the sheltie had heard all day. He would launch himself off the porch, as if he had wings, and race down the hill. When he and his girl were together, everything was as it should be.

  Tam sighed, lay down next to the spot beside the road that held the strongest scent of her, and closed his eyes. The scent of girl and grass and water carried him home.

  For two days, Tam stayed close to the spot with her scent. The occasional car passed by, and always Tam watched from beneath the undergrowth. But the cars never stopped.

  On the third day, rain pushed Tam away from the roadside and into the deep forest. Even under the thick canopy of mountain laurel and impenetrable mesh of honeysuckle vine, the rain found him, soaking his dense coat.

  Tam groaned and curled tighter into himself. He shivered as the rain and wind howled overhead. His stomach growled. Another day passed without food.

  The rain finally stopped. Tam climbed back up the bank to the road. He sniffed the spot where he had smelled the girl. The smell of her and the woman and the big man were gone. As hard as his nose worked the ground, he could not find the scent of her. All he smelled were rotting leaves and the acrid scent of wet asphalt. He stood by the side of the road, bewildered and heartsick. Without the scent of her to guide him, what was he to do? He trembled with utter aloneness.

  The shadows of the late afternoon grew long. Something deep within him stirred.

  Geese know without being told when it is time to head south for the winter. Foxes know when it is time to dig dens for the babies to come. And Tam knew it was time. Time to find his girl.

  Tam scented the air, searching. He trotted north up the road. He stopped, then walked a little farther. He paused and sniffed. The north held nothing for him. He turned and trotted south. The farther he went, the stronger that direction pulled him, true as the needle on a compass. South was the way he must go. Soon, he would see his beloved girl, and everything would be as it should be.

  He could not know the many miles and vast wilderness that lay between him and his home with the girl. A dog does not measure distance in miles or even days. A dog only knows that every footfall, every heartbeat, brings him closer to his heart’s desire. Anyone seeing Tam trotting with his easy gait along the side of the road would see a dog going home.

  CHAPTER 9

  Abby

  I sat on the window seat in my room, listening to the quiet. No jingling of tags on Tam’s collar, no click of his toenails on the pinewood floors. nothing but putrid silence. I felt sick all the way through. The past two days we’d been home felt like twenty.

  My eyes settled on my old guitar sitting in the corner. I’d hardly touched it in the three years since I’d had Tam, I’d been so busy with him.

  Now that my arms and my heart were empty without Tam, I wanted to hold that guitar to me more than anything. I wanted to feel the comfort of its weight and the hum of the strings.

  I’d just started to get up when I heard a peck on my door, and Meemaw opened it. She stood tall and straight as a Carolina pine, her long braid wrapped like a fiery crown on top of her head.

  “Abby honey, you got a visitor,” she said.

  I plopped back down and in stepped my friend Olivia McButtars, the littlest, shyest, smartest girl in the whole sixth grade. Maybe even the world.

  Olivia peered at me from behind her big glasses. Most of the kids at school said her pale green eyes were creepy. They do seem to look right into a person’s soul. But to my way of thinking, that wasn’t a bad thing.

  Olivia crossed the room and sat beside me. She sighed. “I’m sorry about Tam.” No small talk for Olivia. She cut right to the chase.

  “I just don’t know what to
do or what to think,” I said around a big knot of tears in my throat. “And that makes me so mad, I could spit.”

  Olivia touched the back of my hand light as a butterfly. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  And she wasn’t just saying that to be nice, neither. She really did know.

  Right after Christmastime last year, Olivia moved to Harmony Gap from way up in Baltimore, Maryland. She moved here to live with her granddaddy, Mr. Alphus Singer, after her mama and daddy disappeared out over the Pacific Ocean in one of those little-bitty airplanes. Olivia told me once she reckoned her mama was now a mermaid, something her mother always wanted to be. And that gave Olivia a measure of comfort.

  We sat there on the window seat for a long time, not saying a word, just listening to the wind in the trees, thunder rolling around in the far mountains.

  Finally I asked, “Olivia, do you think there’s any chance Tam’s still alive?” Olivia would be honest with me, I knew.

  She didn’t say anything for a long moment. Her eyes drifted around my room, taking in the photographs and drawings of Tam, all my special, handmade story maps of the things me and Tam had done and the adventures I had planned for us.

  Then she turned and looked directly into my eyes. “My mom often said love creates miracles.”

  And that was all Olivia had to say about that. And it was all I needed to hear.

  After she left, I hobbled across the room and picked up my old guitar. It’d been my grandpa Bill’s pride and joy. I don’t remember Grandpa Bill all that well. We moved in here with Meemaw after he was killed in the sawmill accident. But all my memories of him are wrapped around him and this guitar.

  I carried it back over to my bed, ran my hand across the strings. I hugged the guitar against my stomach and felt the chords thrum against my heart. I closed my eyes, dug way back in my memory, and sang the first song I came across: