Whisper in the Dark

by Joseph Bruchac

  We both started whistling and calling her name.

  “Boots, here, girl. Come on, Bootsie.”

  But she didn’t come. The sick feeling in my stomach got worse and worse.

  “Mad,” Roger said in an urgent voice. I turned. He was on his knees, looking under the shed. “There’s something here. Got a torch?”

  I grabbed the big flashlight Aunt Lyssa kept in the kitchen cupboard and sprinted back to where Roger was squinting into the darkness of the crawl-space below the shed. The first thing my flashlight beam picked up was a dark, wet spot in the dirt. I touched it and then looked at the red stain on my finger.

  “Oh no,” I said, “it’s blood.”

  Roger nudged my shoulder. “Back farther, Mad, way back under there. I think I see something else.”

  I was really dreading what I’d see, but I directed the bright shaft of light back to the farthest corner under the shed. There was a huddled shape with a matted red coat. Bootsie. I felt numb. I just knew that she was dead. I handed the flashlight to Roger.

  “I’m going after her,” I said. “Hold the light so I can see.”

  Roger didn’t try to protest. He knew how I was when I set my mind to something. That was why I went back to running two months after the accident, even though the doctors had said it’d be a year before I could exercise again. They doubted I’d even be much of a runner again with one hand so messed up. But I set my mind to it and proved them wrong, winning my first ten K before the end of that year.

  I squeezed myself farther under the shed. The space was so low that I scraped my back as I crawled forward on my elbows. It was only a dozen feet, but it seemed to take forever. At last I could reach my good right hand out far enough. When it touched Bootsie’s back, my heart leaped. Her skin was warm.

  She trembled at my touch and whimpered. It was the same sound she used to make when she was a tiny puppy hiding from the rumble of thunder. I got hold of her collar and began to inch back, trying to drag her limp, unresisting body with me. Roger grabbed my ankles and pulled. Between the two of us, we managed to get her out into the sunlight.

  As soon as Bootsie felt the light, it was if her On button had been pushed. She scrambled to her feet and started to bark. She licked my face and Roger’s hands, jumping around us in the kind of glad hysteria that Irish setters go into when they’ve been alone a really long time—like say five minutes. Roger helped me calm her down.

  “Mad,” he said, getting down on his knees, “check this out.” He gently lifted her right front paw. As he did so, Bootsie whined and made a little chewing motion toward his hand, but she didn’t bite.

  “Here’s where the blood came from, Mad,” Roger said. “Once a dog gets a cut on its pad, it just bleeds like a stuck pig. Probably caught it on a loose nail.”

  The cut was clean, as clean as if it had been made with a razor. But it didn’t explain her fear. There had to be something more. I slid my right hand carefully along Bootsie’s body. She began to tremble as I got close to her right hip, where the fur was matted and dark. She went down onto her side and tried to roll away, but Roger kept a firm grip on her collar.

  “Look here,” I whispered.

  Roger let out a soft whistle. There on Bootsie’s flank were four more slash wounds. No loose nail made them. It was if they were made by a handful of knives—or by four razor-sharp claws.

  7

  THE DEEP END

  MY FINGERS WERE turning red from the blood welling out of the deep cuts on Bootsie’s flank. Everything around me began to slow down. I knew that Bootsie was still whimpering, but I could no longer hear her. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t breathe.

  When I was six years old, I fell into the deep end of the swimming pool at the park and sank to the cool bottom. I didn’t think to try to use my arms or legs to save myself. My eyes were open, and I could see the blurry shapes of other people swimming, their legs kicking above me. None of them seemed to know I was there. I could no longer hear voices, and there was just a soft roaring in my ears. It wasn’t scary. It was kind of calm at the cold bottom of the pool, peaceful. Then, just as I couldn’t hold my breath any longer and was about to close my eyes, someone grabbed me from behind and pulled me up to the surface. There was a rush of water, then the cold touch of the air and people shouting and shaking me.

  Shaking me. The way Roger was shaking me, making me breathe. A trembling breath that was almost a sob.

  “What should we do, Mad?” Roger was saying.

  I looked up at him. Roger is tall for his age, taller than a lot of grown men. He’s really strong and his shoulders are broad, much broader than the usual kid who’s a good long-distance runner. That’s why the high school football coaches kept trying to get him to come out for the team. But Roger was determined to be a runner, even if he wasn’t built right for it. And he succeeded. That determination of his kept him going when others would quit in that last uphill half mile before the line. Determined as he was, though, Roger was looking at me, expecting me to tell him what to do. I reached into the shed and pulled out an old, clean beach towel.

  “Take this,” I said to Roger. “I’ll lift her up a little, and you can wrap it around her like a bandage. We’ve got to get her to Dr. Fox.”

  Then I ran back inside and grabbed my backpack and cell phone. As I walked around the house closing it up, I used the phone to first call for a taxi. Then I tried Aunt Lyssa’s office. As I expected, I just got her machine. Everything that was happening was too complicated and confusing to explain in the twenty seconds I had to leave her a message, so I just said that Bootsie got hurt, but she’d probably be all right, and that Roger and I were taking her to our vet. I made sure the windows were latched—upstairs and down. I locked all the doors, not just the front and back, but also the big heavy one that leads down to our old stone-walled, earth-floor cellar. But I was still feeling nervous.

  I felt a little better when the taxi driver arrived. He’d been to my house before, and he knew us. His name was Raj Patel, and he was from India. He was a nice man with a shy, friendly smile and a gentle voice. He didn’t object one bit when Roger climbed in with Bootsie, even though it was clear from the red stain on the towel that she was still bleeding. He just shook his head and said, “We must hurry her to the veterinarian.”

  It was only a couple of miles to our vet’s clinic, but it was long enough for me to reach his receptionist on the cell phone and tell her we were coming in with Bootsie and it was an emergency. It also took us longer than usual because we had to take a detour just before the TURN OFF RADIOS BLASTING IN PROGRESS sign. As a result, good old Doc Fox was waiting outside when we pulled into his driveway, looking like a big, unkempt bear that had somehow been thrust into a neat white surgeon’s coat.

  “Here,” Doc Fox rumbled, thrusting out his huge arms to take Bootsie and whisking her back into the clinic.

  I tried to pay Mr. Patel, but he waved his hand at me.

  “It is all right,” he said. “You are a regular customer.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I was feeling emotional, and his kindness touched me so much that it was hard not to start crying.

  Mr. Patel smiled. “Don’t mention it. I am just glad to see that your dog was not killed like all the other ones.”

  “All what other ones?” Even though it was a warm day, I felt a chill, like cold water trickling down my back.

  Mr. Patel shook his head. “Have you not heard? There have been several dogs killed, just near where you are living. Some fierce animal, it appears, attacked them. Most strange, indeed.”

  I could hardly feel my feet touching the sidewalk. I was back in the deep end of the pool.

  8

  WAITING

  ROGER AND I sat and waited. I thought of how concerned Doc Fox had looked. By the time we got there, Bootsie had gotten much weaker. She’d barely been able to lift her head to lick his shoulder.

  “Good girl,” he’d growled. Doc Fox never talks much, and when he do
es it’s in half sentences. I also don’t know if anyone has ever heard him use the personal pronoun for himself.

  “Take a seat,” he’d rumbled, motioning toward his waiting room with his chin. Then he and Bootsie had vanished into the back.

  And after that, time, which had been speeding along like a runaway train, slowed to a crawl. The hands on Doc Fox’s old-fashioned clock seemed welded in place. I tried counting under my breath. One and one thousand, two and one thousand.

  I made half an hour pass that way. We were still waiting. I was as fidgety as a squirrel trapped in a cage, but Roger just sat there, calm, his hands in his lap. I like that relaxed quality of his. He almost always seems at ease, comfortable with himself. He isn’t one of those annoying people who talks just to make noise or flails his arms around to get attention. He generally does just what’s right for the occasion. Just then he knew all he could do was wait, so that was what he was doing. He wasn’t even reading one of the tattered old National Geographic magazines that were stacked like a messy yellow mountain on the wicker table in the waiting room.

  Me, I was rapidly becoming one of those annoying people. I kept standing up, sitting down, looking at the door, at the desk, out the window. I flipped through the one copy of People magazine that had infiltrated the table with those National Geographics like a rock star who accidentally stumbled into a retirement party. Famous people, pretty clothes, new houses, hot cars. I tried to read it, but it made me think of movie popcorn, overpriced and mostly air. Nothing could take my mind off Bootsie or what had been happening…or what might happen next.

  “Roger,” I said.

  “Uh-huh,” he answered, putting his hand on my shoulder.

  Then neither of us said anything more. I had a friend close by right now. That made me feel a little less scared.

  I thought of calling Aunt Lyssa. Maybe I would hear her real voice this time—not just that recorded message telling me to speak at the sound of the tone. It was almost time for her to be back from her lunch break at the library. I thought, too, of calling Grama Delia. If anyone would understand what was happening, she would. Even though some folks think she’s full of superstitions and old beliefs that mean nothing, I’ve always known different.

  The last time I was there a bird had flown in through the open window of her little house. It was a small brown flycatcher. It had darted around, fluttering its wings and chirping. But it hadn’t seemed frantic and it didn’t touch anything before it flew out again. Grama Delia and I had looked at each other.

  We had both smiled. She didn’t even have to tell me that we had just experienced a good omen.

  A good omen. I looked back up at the clock. Only one more minute had passed. I needed a good omen now as I sat in the waiting room. But I didn’t call Grama Delia. I couldn’t make my fingers press the numbers. I just couldn’t call anyone until I found out how Bootsie was.

  At least three full years went by before Doc Fox came out into the waiting room, even though the clock on the wall tried to pretend it had only been forty-five minutes. He was shaking his head.

  I stood up, so quickly it made me feel a little dizzy. I just knew he was going to tell me that my Bootsie was dead. It would be just like it was when I was in the hospital and I woke up and they told me….

  But Doc Fox thrust out his hand, motioning for me to sit down, be calm. “She’s okay,” he said. “She’ll be fine. I’ll keep her here overnight.” Then he held out both his big paws, palms up.

  “Madeline,” he asked, “what?”

  I knew what he meant by that single word. What happened to Bootsie? What did that to her? I shook my head. He nodded his head back at me and growled under his breath. It was like we were two bears, communicating like bears do when they move their heads back and forth to show they are feeling amicable.

  “I worked awhile,” he said, “at a zoo. Two tigers had a fight. Had to sedate ’em, stitch them up.” He paused and looked up at one of his degrees on the wall, as if some kind of answer was written there.

  I nodded, getting this creepy feeling that I knew where he was going with this.

  “Thing is,” he said, “Bootsie’s wounds are like that. Wide, deep, like tiger claws.”

  9

  SOMETHING WORSE

  AS ROGER AND I walked down the hill toward the center of Old Providence, I wasn’t really sure where I was heading. I’d thought of walking home or maybe down to Aunt Lyssa’s library. There was nothing more we could do at the clinic. Doc Fox had said that he needed to keep Bootsie there overnight and so we might as well go home.

  As for what it was that had attacked her, Doc Fox had finally suggested that perhaps someone had a big pet cat, maybe a cougar, that either escaped or was just let go by someone who got tired of caring for it. It had to be some private owner because he’d put in a call to the Roger Williams Park and learned that no dangerous creatures had escaped from there lately—or ever, for that matter. It was illegal, he’d explained, for a private citizen to own such dangerous predators, but that kind of law has never stopped people who are wealthy and insensitive enough. There’s a big trade smuggling exotic animals and endangered species into this country. South American mountain lions, ocelots, African leopards.

  “Strange, though,” he had added, “that this mystery cat wasn’t declawed.”

  By that he’d meant that most people who purchased a huge feline predator as an illicit pet had the animal’s claws removed when it was little—and not just to save their furniture. You know how it is when your pet kitty cat gets cranky and takes a swipe at you? Imagine a mountain lion doing that! What it meant for the animal was that a life in captivity was its only option for survival. Just last year there’d been a story on TV about a hunter in Maine shooting an animal that turned out to be one of those declawed captive mountain lions someone had let go. The poor creature had been nothing but skin and bones.

  Doc Fox had said he’d be letting the police know that there seemed to be a cougar or leopard or something of that sort on the loose. My intuition, though, wasn’t accepting that. I didn’t know what the real answer was, but I just felt that it was something worse. That’s one problem with intuition. Sometimes it’s as if you’re hearing someone tell you something really important—but they’re speaking in a language you can’t understand.

  We were strolling along, but my thoughts were running. I’d tried calling Aunt Lyssa again. No luck. Still just the recording. I’d also decided not to go back to the house. The thought of what had happened there was creeping me out. First the phone calls, then the scratching on the door, and then Bootsie. Just thinking of it made me feel like screaming. Instead I was babbling on about something I’d just seen in that issue of People magazine.

  “Did you see that picture of her dress? How can anyone live that way. And what kind of car was that?”

  Roger just nodded. There was no way to reply to the kind of wacky monologue I was delivering. Even I wasn’t sure what I was talking about. It was like my mouth was on autopilot while my brain was in a crash dive. I felt as if I needed to run away, find a safe place to hide, but instead I kept walking. We could have headed toward the library, to find Aunt Lyssa, but when we came to the turn, I went the other way. Aunt Lyssa is always so upbeat about everything that at times it drives me crazy. Like just the other day when I was complaining about how greenhouse gasses were causing global warming, she replied that it might be nice to have warmer summers and shorter winters. I wasn’t ready to see her yet, to be reassured that everything was all right. I just needed to talk and keep walking. And that was what I did, thankful that I had Roger there.

  Roger is so great. Like the good friend he is, he was sticking by me and not asking questions. He knew, despite the fact that I was talking and laughing like some TV valley girl, that I was anything but carefree right now.

  I’d said all that could possibly be said about that issue of the magazine. So now I started talking about the weather, about the summer cross-country meets t
hat were coming up, about stopping off at the next New York System weiner stand because I was feeling starved. But when we did come to that hot dog stand, I couldn’t stop. I was trying to keep my voice calm and light, but I could feel it getting higher in pitch and almost hysterical.

  I think people were turning to look at me as we went down Benefit Street. I’m usually quiet on that street. I really appreciate all those old restored buildings and like to look around at them. If you’re a nut for brick sidewalks and cobblestone alleys, mansard roofs, gables, and wrought-iron railings, Benefit Street is like heaven for you. But I might as well have been walking through the mall for all the attention I paid to the architecture this time. I didn’t even point out the Governor Hopkins House where George Washington slept. Twice.

  Finally we reached Market House down by the river, which is always busy. It was the first marketplace of Old Providence. Before that it was the crossroads where the trails met that led from the Pequots in Connecticut and the Wampanoags in Massachusetts. Even before the coming of foreign sailors from across the sea, this had been a meeting place of different nations, each with their own ways and their own histories to tell.

  Here, close to the water of the Providence River, with lots of people around, with all that remembered history surrounding me, I felt better. That is kind of a strange thing to say, I suppose, considering how much of that history is painful to remember if you are an Indian. After all, the coming of the Europeans brought warfare and diseases and laws that took away first our land and then even our tribal status, like in 1880 when the Rhode Island legislature declared our whole tribe extinct. Thinking about it, feeling the melancholy pain of being Indian that Dad and I used to talk about, made me calmer, because it was so familiar. Because I’d felt that way a thousand times before while standing here looking out at our river that leads down into Narragansett Bay.