by Paul Griffin
If the sanctuary took him.
One of the struts blew, and poor Buck bottomed out in a furrow.
“Yup,” Pal said. “RIP, Buckaroo. You got us three-quarters of the way there anyhow. Renz, I think you might want to consider never going home again. For your next trick, any ideas as to how we get Marty through these last three pitch-dark miles to the Heavenly Hills?”
“Now we hike,” I said.
We put fresh batteries into the flashlights and loaded up our sleeping bags and snacks and hoofed it through the nature preserve toward the Kishux River.
39. THE RIVER
Marty kept pulling over to the side of the trail every time he smelled mushrooms. He vacuumed up patches of them. “Marty, let’s go.”
He trotted along happily, nipping at the cuffs of my jeans to get me to chase him. “Easy, boy. We’ll play stick fetch at the river.”
We heard the water before we saw it on Pal’s GPS, which said the Kishux was just on the other side of an evergreen thicket that had grown tall in the middle. The outline of the treetops angled steep like a cathedral roof. The pines broke into a slope of wild grass, and then we were at the riverbank.
The Kishux River was high with the summer rains. The water picked up air when it rushed over the rocks, and the froth was light green. The moon was on the rise now, and we didn’t need flashlights.
Across the river was pastureland overgrown with weed trees. It had been a horse ranch. “Remember when Double took us riding there that time,” I said. “When was that, first grade?”
“Second maybe,” Pal said. “Where’s Marty?”
I nodded toward a patch of high grass. “Peeing. I wonder what happened to them.”
“Who?” Pal said.
“The horses.”
“I wonder too,” Pal said.
“Can you pull up Google Earth again?” I said.
She did and zoomed in on the field. There were all these metallic white mounds and then dusky ones. “What is that?” she said.
“I don’t know about the white stuff, but those gray things look like piles of tires. They turned the place into an illegal dump, I bet. Yup, see all those burned-out cars? I don’t think it’s a good idea to cross it now.”
“People hanging out maybe, getting drunk?” Pal said.
“Could be, but I’m more worried that with all the high grass and garbage and the dark, we’ll run into something sharp or fall into a ditch.”
“Says on the map it’s three-quarters of a scary mile to the sanctuary fence,” Pal said. “I wouldn’t mind staying here until sunrise.”
“That sounds about right,” I said.
“Renz, listen. You hear it? The river’s one long soft whoosh. I like this music.”
We set up camp a few feet from the river’s edge. As hot as it got during the August days, the nights were cold in southwest Pennsylvania. We built a rock pit and got the fatwood starter going and piled deadwood on top, and inside of ten minutes we were sweating as we cooked the ravioli right in the cans. Marty ate a box of dog biscuits and four cans of dog food.
“His burps stink,” Pal said. “C’mere anyway Marty. C’mere boy.” They touched foreheads and Pal whispered to him, what I don’t know.
We misted each other with bug spray and laid out the sleeping bags. The owls hooted, the coyotes yipped, and Marty burrowed into my sleeping bag to hide from the sounds. I stole what bit of sleeping bag I could from him. The ground was soft, all sand. “What did you say in that note to Mom?”
“We went camping, see you tomorrow,” Pal said.
“Went camping, hasta mañana—she’ll love that,” I said. “Your dad too.”
“Yeah, we’re dead. Poor Bella. Her ears will be bleeding right about now.”
“You turned off your phone, right?”
“I told you I did,” she said.
“I don’t want anybody tracking us.”
“You told me. Renz, you watch too many movies.”
“I don’t watch any movies since we got rid of cable.”
“I’d die,” Pal said.
“You wouldn’t.”
“You’re probably right. No, you’re right,” she said.
“You’re missing rehearsal tonight,” I said. “They gonna be mad at you?”
“They understand it’s a family emergency. Hey, you want to talk?”
“What do you call what we’re doing now?”
“Yeah,” Pal said, “I miss talking like this.”
“Me too.”
“I meant talk talk though,” she said.
“I know you did. What’s there to say really? It stinks.”
“You’ll see him again,” Pal said, “and anyway, I’m not talking about Marty. I’m talking about the thing you didn’t want to talk about before.”
I uncrumpled the letter and read it to her.
40. DEAR JENNY,
First, last, always: I love you. Now: Please forgive me.
Maybe if I could just sleep a little I’d wake up tomorrow and this feeling will have passed. I have reason to believe it would. The feeling comes on suddenly, usually. It comes and goes. Sometimes in a day, or an hour, sometimes in a week. A month. The last month, I just can’t shake it. Medication, therapy—I’m trained to know these things can save lives, and I believe in them. Just not now.
Maybe if I’d brought my guitar. Maybe then I could disappear for a while and come back whole. Or maybe I’ve forgotten the chords.
I can’t beat it, Jenny. I close my eyes and I see it. I can’t sleep and I’m afraid to be awake. After witnessing the things people do to each other, the things they don’t do, I’m no good anymore.
Maybe I’ve been lying to you since we met, I realize only now. Lying to myself from before that even, lying forever really. I papered over it so well I fooled myself, I guess, and I’ve forgotten that my true color is blue.
Yes, I’ve seen too many bad things, and they’ll only keep coming back.
That man running toward me, screaming help me, help me, except he’s too bulky under his shirt. He’s wired up to smoke the whole platoon. I had to shoot him.
I had to, I know I did.
I can’t let that seep into you or Pop. I can’t let it get into Lorenzo most of all. He deserves a chance to dream big, to dream clean. I don’t trust myself to be able to hide my sadness anymore. My rage.
See, Jenny, the thing of it is, Hana died today on the way to the clinic. No, she didn’t die. She was murdered, by a sniper. He shot her dead square, in the heart. And you know, after donating all that blood, she didn’t get a chance to receive any herself. She bled out before we could get to her.
Hana was a teacher before they started burning down the schools. Her husband worked at an auto repair he owned. They had two girls, one a future soccer star and the other headed for science teaching, she said.
Her girls, her husband, her home, her life—all burned, all ash and fragments. And yet, somehow, Hana kept going, living in a camp, teaching the kids who sheltered there.
Now here’s the kicker: The blood Hana donated in the past, on at least one occasion, ended up in the veins of her murderers. We found a wounded enemy combatant bleeding out in the middle of a firefight, and we rescued and stabilized him. Without that blood transfusion from Hana, he’d have died. He wasn’t thankful. He tried to choke one of the doctors. I told Hana about it. I said maybe we should have let that sumbuck die. You know what she said? “Thank you for saving him. We all come from the same mother.”
And now she’s gone.
The death of an angel.
I don’t get it. I do, but I don’t, you know?
I’m shivering, Jenny. No warmth here. I miss your touch too much, but I can’t touch you anymore.
I love you. I love Pop. I love Lorenzo.
I’m so, so sor
ry,
Marty
41. PINCHING STARS
Pal had to read it again, to herself this time. And then she read it again. After a while, she said, “Renz, I’m so sad, I can’t cry, you know?”
I knew all right. “It’s just, how could he do that to Mom?” I said. “As he’s writing the letter, he has to know that not long after, somebody in a dark green uniform is going to show up at Maple Clutch and knock on the door, and Mom’s going to open it. And then she has to read that? He was afraid to come back. He said so himself. He was afraid to come home to us.”
Pal didn’t say anything. She just stroked Marty’s scruff. He was watching the fire until there was the soft cracking of a stepped-on branch, and he looked over his shoulder.
A doe watched us from the dimmest part of the firelight, just into the woods. She sniffed and moved on.
“I wish he’d never written that thing,” I said. “I mean, if he had to kill himself, then just do it. All that letter does is leave me wondering about him worse than I was before.”
“I know,” Pal said.
“You don’t know. Your mom left you with la gloria. My dad left me with . . . I don’t know.”
“His guitar,” she said. “His kindness.”
“That only makes it more horrible,” I said, “all the kindness he did.”
“I meant your kindness, Renz.”
Marty groinked for me to pet him.
“I don’t know how to feel,” I said. “That’s the thing that’s messing me up the most. Here he was this artist, you know? Just plain true in his music, in his medicine, taking care of the wounded. You know what? I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
She nodded, and she didn’t tell me it would be all right this time, and I really appreciated that.
I lay back and then Pal did the same, Marty snug between us. She was looking up at the Milky Way, so I looked up too. We were quiet for a while, until Pal said, “I heard that of all the people who ever lived, no two have the same fingerprints, including identical twins.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” I said.
She was holding her hand up to the sky, pinching stars. “I don’t know. I guess I was just thinking that’s a little amazing is all.” She looked over to me. “Don’t you worry, Renz. We’re gonna save Marty.”
42. VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED SHOT
The fire died slowly, the sky slowly lightened. Pal was bunched up in her sleeping bag but her eyes were half open. “I’m awake,” she said.
“I hope so,” I said. “Otherwise you’d be sleeping with your eyes half open.”
We had to shake Marty awake. He woke up with his tail wagging, yawned, shook himself out and farted.
“I won’t miss that part,” Pal said. “Oh, my Marty-moo.”
“Don’t start,” I said.
“I wasn’t,” she said, wiping her eyes.
The footbridge was messed up from the spring floods. Here and there patches of cement had fallen from it, leaving holes big enough for a person or even a 390-pound pig to fall through.
Marty sat at the edge of the bridge and groinked, like, No way I’m crossing that rickety mess. I pulled out a jar of marsh butter, which was a homemade mix of marshmallows and peanut butter. I spooned it onto the safe parts of the bridge as I crossed it, and Marty trotted right along, licking up the plops.
On the other side the old pasture was a jumble of moldy refrigerators and torn tires and worst of all signs posted on every tree, right at eye level, so they would be impossible to miss:
PRIVATE PROPERTY.
NO DUMPING.
NO HUNTING.
NO TRESPASSING.
VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED. SHOT
We leaned in closer to see the small print:
OWNER: MASON REALTY
“Figures,” I said.
“He owns every acre from here to Pittsburgh by now, I bet you,” Pal said.
“Maybe you need to wait here,” I said.
“Oh, you mean the big strong man doesn’t think the helpless little woman can survive this last stretch of the battle?”
“Fine, then you take him the rest of the way and I’ll wait here. They probably have security guards patrolling.”
“Not likely,” Pal said. “What’s there to steal except broken washing machines and burned cars? They’re just trying to scare people enough to keep them from dumping their junk here, and look how well that’s worked. Renz, he’s my friend too. The longer we stand here arguing, the more likely we get caught. It’s less than a mile. Good quick walk, we’re at the sanctuary gate in fifteen minutes. C’mon, Marty.” She went and he followed.
The breeze had stopped and the air felt dead, no bird sounds either, no cicadas. We were maybe three-quarters of the way through the field when Pal said, “So far so good.”
“Keep going,” I said. “Come on, Marty. No time for a pee break.”
But he wouldn’t budge. He kept his leg lifted for a solid minute. “Okay, bud, enough.” I toed him to get a move on. The weed trees broke into a clearing, and the sanctuary fence was in sight, fifty yards away—less.
“I can’t believe we made it,” I said.
“We didn’t,” Pal said. She was looking over my shoulder, pointing at something behind me, and she was pale. I turned around to look at what had her so upset, and there he was.
43. KEETH
I’d never seen a dog so big. He looked like an animal from one of those history shows about the Ice Age. He couldn’t have been the father of Bella’s pups. They would’ve been twice as big by the time we sold them off.
He stood on top of a neat high pile of old refrigerators, like somebody had stacked them to make a viewing platform for a security guard. But there was no human to restrain the dog. He was so still, I thought he was a cardboard cutout at first, the canine version of a scarecrow.
Pal zoomed in on him with her phone. “He’s got the gold stripe on his head, just like Mason said. It’s Keeth for sure.”
The old horse farm was in the dead center of the county, in the middle of all the plots Mason had bought up over the years. I remembered from the model in his office that he planned to build his mansion here. This was the prime spot of his future kingdom. It figured he would keep his best dog here. His worst dog.
“Back away toward the fence,” I said. “Pal? Slowly.”
“I’m not rushing, trust me. I’m lucky if I can get myself to move. I swear I’m about to pee my pants.”
“Me too, if it makes you feel any better.”
“It doesn’t,” she said.
Marty thought we were playing a game, backing away in slow motion. He tried to push a stick into my hand to play fetch.
“Marty, stop, bud,” I said. “Marty, no.”
“Oh man, he’s pacing now,” Pal said.
“Don’t run,” I said. “It’s the worst thing you could do.”
“Okay I won’t, I swear.” Then she screamed, “Run!” and took off for the sanctuary fence.
I didn’t understand why she bolted, because Keeth was still up on the platform, but then I saw it coming from the high grass—another of Mason’s shepherds.
It was smaller than Keeth, but that didn’t make it any less scary. Its muzzle was pulled back off its teeth, its eyes opened too wide. It was streaking right at us and faster than the fastest of the dogs who’d raced at the cinco de mayo.
“Marty, go get Pal!” I kicked him to get him going. He sprinted after Pal, and I sprinted after him. I tried to anyway.
The dog’s teeth sank into the heel of my sneaker. I tripped face-first into a gravelly patch of dirt. I kicked and kicked and the dog kept biting my sneakers until I had to draw back my feet. The dog reared up and pounced for my face. The teeth were bared, and then the jaws opened wide—and then, in a blink, he was gone.
Marty broadsided the dog, and boy was that pig mad. He outweighed the dog four to one, and he tried to bite at the dog’s neck.
What the dog gave up to Marty in weight, he more than made up for with speed. He bit quicker than I thought possible, almost like I was watching life in fast forward. He got in bites all over Marty’s flanks, and the blood was everywhere on him.
I kicked at the dog’s back legs, but this was useless. He was so fast, he could duck me and tear into Marty at the same time.
Marty kept fighting, but he was losing so badly, just a mess of bites, and when the dog bit his back leg, Marty buckled and rolled onto his side.
The dog ripped into his belly.
Pal came with a sharp piece of rubble—a piece of cracked bathroom sink it ended up being—and swung down onto the dog’s back. It let out a yip and went at Pal, but she’d hurt him. He kept spinning on himself to lick the spot down his back where she’d hit him. I picked up that piece of broken sink and swung down on his snout with it, and that was enough for him. That poor dog took off whimpering.
“Oh, no,” Pal said, and the tears were coming down so hard, they ran tracks through the dust on her face and dripped mud onto her shirt. Again she pointed to something behind me.
I didn’t even turn around. I just hoped he’d take me down in one deep bite to my neck so I wouldn’t feel myself dying.
This close up to him, I knew for sure that Keeth was the biggest German shepherd ever born. He brushed against my leg and sniffed at Marty’s blood on my jeans. He looked into my eyes, and then he turned to Marty.
He lowered his muzzle to the holes in Marty’s belly and sniffed Marty’s wounds.
“Renz, he’s trembling,” Pal said.
“I know.”
“No, I mean Keeth,” she said. “He’s scared for Marty. He’s whimpering. You hear him?”
That giant sweetheart of a dog, the supposed terror of the county, went down on his belly and put his head next to Marty’s and licked Marty’s ear to clean it.