Again, Joe cursed. And the curse released something that started in the back of his throat like a hard, hot lump and burst forward, and he sat there in the dark and he cried.
he cell phone on the dashboard burred at 10 p.m., and Joe could see from the display that it was Marybeth. He had avoided calling her.
“So, are you coming home tonight?” she asked, an edge of irritation in her voice.
“Yes, I’m just about to leave. I’ll be home in forty-five minutes.”
She obviously picked up on the tone of his voice, the solemnity: “Joe, are you all right? Is something wrong?”
“Maxine ran away,” he said, telling her in as few words as possible what happened.
For several moments, neither spoke.
“I don’t want to tell the girls,” Marybeth said. “We’ll have to.”
“Okay, but in the morning. Otherwise, they’ll cry all night long.” Joe nodded, knowing she couldn’t see the gesture.
“Oh, Joe,” she said, in a way that made him feel guilty for once again bringing pain into their family.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he said.
As Joe drove down the mountain, he kept honking. He wondered if Bud Longbrake could hear him down at the ranch, and figured that he probably could. He called Bud from his cell phone, told him why he was making so much noise, asked Bud to keep an eye out for his dog.
“Your dog?” Bud said, genuine sympathy in his voice. “Damn, I’m sorry, Joe.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“When my first wife left me I didn’t feel nearly as bad as when my dog died.”
Joe didn’t dare respond to that one.
quarter of a mile from where he would turn onto the highway, Joe looked into his rearview mirror and saw something in his taillights. “YES!” he shouted, and slammed on his brakes.
Maxine was exhausted, her head hung low, her tongue lolled out of the side of her mouth like a fat, red necktie. She literally collapsed in the road.
Joe walked back and picked her up, seventy-five pounds of dog, and buried his face in her coat as he took her to his truck. He saw no obvious wounds on her, although she was shaking. He lay her on her seat, and she looked at him with her deep, brown eyes. Filling a bowl with water from his water bottle he tried to get her to drink, but she was too tired.
As he wheeled on to the highway with giddy relief, he called Marybeth, and she burst into tears at the news. He called Bud, and said not to worry about the dog. After punching off, Joe told Maxine, “Don’t ever, ever do that again, or I’ll shoot you like the dog you are.” He meant the first part but not the second. She didn’t hear him because she was sleeping, her head where it always was when he drove, on his lap.
As he pulled into his driveway, he glanced up to see Marybeth at the window pulling the shade aside. The porch light lit up the cab of the truck, and he looked down to see if Maxine was awake. He didn’t really want to have to carry her again.
That was when he noticed something wrong. Her coat seemed lighter than it should.
He snapped on the dome light and simply stared. Whatever she had seen or experienced had scared her so badly that her coat was turning white. “Okay,” Joe said aloud. “Enough is enough. Now I’m starting to get mad.”
Sheridan and Lucy were still up, even though it was past their bedtime, because Marybeth wanted them to tell Joe what had happened earlier on the Logue property. As Joe entered the house and hung his jacket on the rack in the mudroom, he saw two guilty-looking girls in their pajamas standing near the stair landing. Marybeth was behind them in the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel.
“Tell him, girls,” Marybeth said to them.
Sheridan sighed and took the lead. “Dad, we screwed up this afternoon and we’re sorry for it. We went out to that shack on the Logue place . . .” He leaned against the doorframe of his office and listened to Sheridan tell him how they had deceived their mother and how they snuck up to the old shack. She described the contents inside the shack; the bedroll, books, stove, the long line of gleaming silverware on a dark cloth, then the appearance of “Bob” who called her a bitch. Lucy twisted the bottom of her pajama top in her fingers while her sister spoke, betraying her guilt.
“He called Sherry a bitch!” she repeated unnecessarily. “But he didn’t follow you,” Joe said, wary.
Both girls shook their heads. “You’re sure?”
Sheridan nodded. “We checked behind us when we were running. I saw him go back into the shack.”
Joe asked Marybeth, “Did you call the sheriff ?”
“No, I wasn’t sure if you would want him involved. We still can, though.” “Cam Logue needs to call Barnum,” Joe said. “I don’t know why he didn’t the first time the girls saw this guy.”
“I think he was just some homeless guy,” Sheridan said. “I feel bad about bothering him, now. I feel sorry for a grown man who has to live like that.”
Marybeth shot Joe a look. She was admonishing him to hold the line, to reinforce the talking to she had given the girls earlier in the evening. She knew Joe well enough that she feared he would soften. She was right, he thought. He tried to keep his expression stern and fixed.
“Girls, it’s past your bedtime now,” Marybeth said. “Kiss your dad goodnight and get into bed. We’ll discuss your punishment later.”
