Growing Season

by Melanie Lageschulte

  “Wow, look at you, Little Bo Peep.” Angie’s voice brightened. “I bet Hobo was excited. He likes to think he can herd sheep.”

  Melinda said nothing, and concern flooded Angie’s voice.

  “What is it? Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, Angie, Hobo is gone.” Melinda slumped in a chair and tried to keep her voice steady. “I can’t find him anywhere. He’s not in the barn. He wasn’t with the sheep. I have to find him. Kevin called, and …”

  “Does Kevin know about Hobo?”

  “No, I still thought Hobo was in the barn when he called. I don’t know how I’m going to tell him, and Horace will …” She glanced at the clock above the sink. It was already past seven. “I need to get back out there and keep looking.”

  “Listen, don’t call Kevin back tonight,” Angie said gently. “Hobo could have headed for the creek, or he’s hiding in a ditch somewhere, scared but OK.”

  Melinda thought of Stormy and Sunny, how they were safe but too afraid to leave their hiding place. “You’re right.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t want to worry Kevin unless I have to. I’ll check the windbreak again, walk the road.”

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. And don’t worry, I’m sure Hobo will turn up. If nothing else, he’ll get hungry and come home. Just promise me you’ll take a well-charged flashlight and wear study boots. No city-girl shoes, OK?”

  Melinda managed a small laugh. “Yes, ma’am. And you let me know if there’s anything I can do to help over there.”

  Talking to Angie made Melinda feel better. That, and a hastily arranged sandwich eaten in the comforting light of the kitchen. Her friends were safe, but not everyone had been so fortunate. She kept thinking of that ambulance, lights flashing and sirens blaring, as it sped away down the blacktop.

  She changed into an old pair of jeans, thick socks and a long-sleeve thermal top. She didn’t have any boots, but there were rubber waders on the porch she could pull on over dry sneakers. The orange sweatshirt, drying on a peg next to Horace’s chore coat, was replaced with a yellow slicker found in the porch closet. She was anxious to keep looking for Hobo, but she had to get the runaway chickens inside before night came on.

  “Girls, I’ve got a confession to make,” she whispered to the two hens now roosting under the back porch steps. “I’m scared of the dark. At least, out here anyway. There. Doesn’t that make you feel better? Aren’t you glad Horace picked me to look after you? Yep, I’m sure you are.”

  The chickens would be safe inside their coop for the night, but Melinda didn’t like leaving the run open to predators. Besides, she may not have time to fix it in the morning. She found the wire in one of the dusty corners of the barn’s grain room, just as Kevin said she would, and wire cutters in the toolbox on the shelf.

  The chicken run was a haphazard mess, but there was no time for elaborate repairs. Melinda gave one corner a shove with her shoulder, trying to square the frame as much as she could. It took several lengths of wire, crisscrossed this way and that, to pull together the large gap where all four chickens escaped. She made a hurried inspection of the rest of the run, threading smaller pieces of wire through a few other spots where the panels threatened to pull loose from the frame.

  “There.” She stepped back to observe her work. “Is that tight enough to keep out a fox, or a raccoon? Can’t they squeeze through really small spaces? I don’t know. But this will have to do.”

  She heard a faint “cluck, cluck” coming from just inside the windbreak, and hurried out to find the other two hens huddled in a feathery pile under one of the cedar trees. She stared at them for a moment, then had an idea. “Wait right there,” she called over her shoulder as she ran for the house.

  “Good thing I brought all these totes with me,” she said as she bumped across the yard with two of the larger plastic tubs. She slowly approached the hens in the windbreak, then gently set down the containers, their lids already loose. Before she had time to get nervous, she snatched up one chicken, plopped her in the tote and snapped on the top. The other bird tried to scoot away but Melinda was quick, catching the hen just before she got out of reach. With those captives safely inside the coop, she repeated the process by the back porch steps, drawing those frightened ladies out with a bit of cracked corn.

  Melinda allowed herself a moment of elation over her luck with the chickens, then gathered up her totes and started back for the house, the yard already falling into twilight. The reassuring glow of the yard light guided her to the back porch and kept the worst of the shadows away. But the gathering darkness hovered just outside the light’s beam, waiting for her down the driveway and on the gravel road, in the empty, silent places she would have to visit tonight if she had any hope of finding Hobo.

  She discovered a cheerful little red lantern on the porch shelf, then rummaged in the kitchen junk drawer for fresh batteries for both the lantern and her flashlight. With all the farmhouse’s downstairs lights aglow, she pocketed her phone and keys in the yellow slicker and paused on the back steps.

  “If I were a scared dog, where would I go?” she asked the stars, which were beginning to peek out from the thinning clouds. The moon was barely a sliver, unable to offer any additional light for her search.

  She decided to walk the yard first, just in case Hobo had returned while she was inside. Then she would trudge back through the windbreak, where the trees’ leaves trembled in the unexpected chill, and shine her light into the shadows. She passed through the front pasture gate and followed the barn’s foundation with her flashlight’s beam, pausing only to aim it into the foreboding darkness of the windswept grass. She kept close to the barn, too afraid to step away from its comforting walls.

  “Hobo! Hobo, where are you?”

  The only answer was a startled sheep’s “baaa” from inside. She let herself out the pasture gate on the west side of the barn, then traced the concrete footings of the machine shed with the flashlight and skimmed the pile of lumber that used to be the little building. The circle of light next caught the windows of the chicken house and the far edge of the wrecked garden.

  She stepped carefully into the windbreak, the downed limbs and twigs crackling under her galoshes. The flashlight’s beam bounced off the debris, throwing a maze of shadows on the ground. Melinda half expected to flush out a rabbit or even a raccoon, but saw no signs of life. The usual summer-night noises also seemed to be missing, like the incessant chirp of crickets, or the occasional croak of a toad that had wandered away from the creek.

  The creek. Her mind churned, trying to visualize where Hobo might be. If he had seen the storm advancing from the southwest, he might have run toward the waterway. It was lined with shrubs and trees that would signal shelter to a frightened dog, as would the crawlspaces under the bridge.

  As much as it frightened her, she had to go down there. If Hobo was simply hiding in the tall grass of the fencerows, or crouching in a ditch, wouldn’t he have turned up by now?

  “If he’s alive, he would have.” She pushed the rest of that thought from her mind.

  Her sneakers were clumsy inside the heavy-soled rubber boots, the galoshes crunching the gravel as she started down the lane and farther away from the safe glow of the house. Even with fresh batteries, the flashlight’s beam was only a pinprick in the dense darkness. She stopped at the end of the driveway to switch to the plastic lantern, which threw off a wider circle of light. The edge of the metal drainage culvert under the driveway caught her attention. She hesitated, then stepped off the shoulder of the gravel road into the weeds.

  Melinda was glad the rubber boots came up almost to her knees. Who knew what she might stir up in this long grass in the dark? Snakes could be the least of her worries. Anything might be out here, lurking around.

  “Hobo! Hobo, where are you?” Yelling, she decided, might do more than bring Hobo to her. It might scare away anything else crouching in the ditch.

  She nearly slipped on the slick grass, and grasped the
rusted top of the drainage tube for support. Closing her eyes for a second to gather her courage, she crouched down and shined the lantern into the murky blackness of the culvert. It was desolate and empty, a sludge of muck and water clinging to the bottom and clumps of dead leaves plastered to the rusting metal. The wind made an eerie whistling sound through the culvert, and Melinda felt a chill snake down her spine.

  It was good to stand up again, scramble back to the openness of the road. She adjusted her gear and made sure nothing had fallen out of her pockets. The lantern’s pool of light ebbed and flowed as she turned left and then right, checking the ditches for any sign of her friend. She called Hobo again and again, with no answer, as she followed the gravel’s packed-down tire tracks north to the bridge.

  This crossings’ metal guardrails were still square, the “one lane bridge” sign no more dented than it had been that morning, but several smaller branches littered the road. It was maybe ten feet down a steep slope to the water’s edge. The grass here was taller, nearly three feet high in some places, making it impossible for Melinda to see her feet. She nearly lost her balance and decided to slide the rest of the way on her bottom rather than risk a fall.

  She snapped the lantern off for a second, listened for any stealth movements along the creek bank. There was only the rustle of the wind in the bushes and the “swoosh, swoosh” of the creek as it rushed off toward the damaged bridge east of Angie and Nathan’s farm.

  The bank was muddy, so soft that Melinda’s galoshes threatened to keep her rooted in one spot. She began to call for Hobo again, shouting until she became hoarse, as she shined the lantern along the creek bed.

  There were animal tracks in the mud. Some were smaller than others, but they all followed the water’s edge. Melinda wished she had paid better attention in sixth-grade science class, could decipher what creatures might be watching from the shadows. But the younger Melinda could never have dreamed she would be roaming a lonely ravine on a strange night like this, risking a broken leg to find someone else’s dog.

  Tears began to well up in Melinda’s eyes. Hobo was Horace’s dog, but he was her dog, too. Hobo had made her feel at home here, had been her constant companion. He’d eased her loneliness and made her laugh, gave her someone to care for when she needed that most.

  “We’ve helped each other heal,” she said, then raised her voice. “Oh, Hobo, where are you? I need to bring you home. We need to go home. Let me know if you’re out here.” Losing hope, she barely paused for a response before following the tracks to the underside of the wooden-plank bridge.

  The vastness of the black sky and the void of the empty gravel road had been unsettling enough, but the dark tunnel under the old bridge was worse. Melinda shivered as she shined the lantern toward the shadowy recesses where the creek’s banks met the bridge’s support beams, half hoping she’d see a set of eyes glowing back at her, half hoping she wouldn’t. But the crawlspaces were empty. Hobo wasn’t there.

  Or was he? Melinda turned, surveying a pyre of downed tree limbs and waterlogged weeds on the south bank. The creek would have been higher and swifter during and right after the storm, beaching debris as it slowed to make its sharp turn just past the bridge.

  “It must have gone down nearly as fast as it came up.” Her voice echoed back out of the shadows. The ragged stack was over two feet tall, high enough that …

  Her stomach dropped. She didn’t have gloves on, but it didn’t matter. Hands shaking, she set the lantern at her feet and tugged at the closest broken tree limb. The rough bark scratched her palms and the chunk of wood was heavier than she expected. With a grunt of effort, she dragged it aside and reached for another, then another.

  “Please don’t be in here,” she whispered, her voice shaking. She was moving faster now, tossing branches aside with both hands. “I want to find you, but not here. Not here.”

  Her heart filled with despair. Why hadn’t she been home when this happened? The forecast had called for severe weather. Why hadn’t she locked Hobo in the barn this morning? He wouldn’t have liked the change in routine, but he would be safe now. And she wouldn’t be here, in the dark cavern under this bridge, praying not to find her friend buried in the rubble.

  She worked feverishly, stopping now and then to shine her lantern into what was left of the tangled limbs and branches. There weren’t any pockets left where a dog could be trapped, but she couldn’t stop until she reached the bottom, until she was sure. Only when her raw hands touched the slimy muck of the creek bed was Melinda able to stand up and step back, tears of relief streaming down her face.

  “Oh, thank God,” she sobbed, and lowered herself to a large limb, putting her head in her hands. “He’s not here. He’s not trapped under here. But where is he?”

  Hobo could be anywhere, she knew. Any stand of grasses along a fence line. Under any random tree in a field. There were drainage culverts under every farm drive in the county. How would she ever find him? Her shoulders slumped, and now the tears were from exhaustion as well as defeat. “I might as well go home. He might be gone for good.”

  Her arms ached and her back complained as she braced herself to stand up. Stiff and sore, the lantern handle heavy in her scoured hand, she picked her way back along the creek to where she’d slid down the bank. She crawled up through the wet weeds, keeping low so as to not slip on the steep slope. By the time she reached the edge of the field, her old jeans were as soaked and muddy on the front as on the rear.

  Melinda’s heart was so heavy, and her galoshes so cemented with mud, that she wondered how she would manage the half mile walk home. She’d failed. The one thing Kevin had asked of her, the one thing Horace had wanted her to do, was to look after the farm, especially Hobo. She dreaded the call she would make in the morning. How could she tell Kevin that Hobo was missing?

  She was exhausted by the time she reached Horace’s property line but trudged through the ditch again to follow the outline of the acreage, her lantern beam searching through the tall weeds along the fence line. At last she came full circle, passing the front of the pasture and reaching the driveway.

  Melinda remembered her first evening here, when she’d walked down the lane to find Hobo stretched out, head on paws, watching the road for Horace’s return. How she’d rubbed his ears, told him it was going to be OK. They’d sat together in a comforting silence for over half an hour. Hobo hadn’t followed her back up the lane that night as she’d hoped. But the next day it seemed as if something had changed, and for the better.

  In a second Melinda knew what she needed to do. She carefully placed the little red lantern right where the lane widened to meet the road, right where she and Hobo had sat that evening. The lantern’s glow radiated only a few feet, but Melinda was out of ideas. She imagined Hobo, hiding somewhere in the darkness but somewhere close, seeing the lantern’s small beam and heading toward it.

  “Please come back,” she pleaded. “Please be safe and come home.”

  There was nothing more to do tonight. She slowly clomped up the driveway to the back porch, the heavy mud still clinging to her boot, the farmhouse’s soothing glow urging her to take just one more step, then another.

  She kicked her boots off on the porch floor, then trudged through the house and upstairs to change out of her muddy, sodden clothes. She went into Wilbur’s old room, where she could just spot the end of the driveway out the lone window. The battery-powered lantern still glowed down there in the dark, a steady but small and fragile beam. Melinda said another prayer for Hobo and shuffled to her room, collapsed on the bed and fell into a deep sleep.

  CHAPTER 21

  Looks like you could use something stronger than this coffee.” Auggie pressed a warm mug into Melinda’s hands. “Back in the day, your grandpa had a special bottle under the counter, over there on the right side. Just for emergencies, you know.”

  “Don’t worry, Auggie, your coffee is hearty enough to wake the dead.” Doc took an appreciative sip and sighed, the creases ar
ound his eyes more visible this morning. “Even so, it’s going to take a few pots of this stuff to keep me going today.”

  Melinda held the hot coffee as close to her face as she dared, hoping the steam would rejuvenate her senses. Her feet ached, her hands were still raw and her shoulders sore. It felt like she had been up all night, even though she’d fallen into a deep, exhausted sleep once her head hit the pillow. And the moment her eyes opened, there was that heavy sadness in her heart as she remembered that Hobo was gone.

  She called for him again and again, and checked around the outbuildings, but all she found was the silence that had been there the night before. She retrieved the lantern from the end of the driveway and fed the sheep, the ewes all but racing to get out to pasture once Melinda unlatched their door. Sunny and Stormy were still wild-eyed but waiting in the grain room for their breakfast.

  The early-morning light took a critical view of Melinda’s hurried attempts to repair the chickens’ run, but all that mattered was she counted eight hens inside the coop, strutting around as if nothing had happened. The garden got only a sigh and a promise. At least it wouldn’t need to be watered for several days. She called Kevin but he didn’t answer, much to her relief, and she left him a message with the bad news.

  Even with Hobo missing, she had been one of the lucky ones. And while she was tired, her friends had even more reason to nod over their coffee this morning.

  Doc and Bill had been on duty most of the night with the volunteer emergency department, going farm to farm to evaluate the damage and make sure no one was missing. The fire Melinda saw was indeed at the Emmersons’ place. Both Will and his wife, Helen, were still in the hospital, Doc reported, but there had been no fatalities from the storm and only a few minor injuries.

  Bundles of branches and sections of cut-down trees were already being stacked along Prosper’s streets when Melinda drove into town just before seven, the roar of chainsaws assaulting her ears when she crawled out of her car. Jerry had returned late last night and was now over at City Hall, organizing an official cleanup effort.