The big soft eyes got wider and less focused. His gaze moved around the room, looking for someplace to settle.
”I haven’t been near her since he said.“
”How’d you get to know her in the first place?“ I said.
Pomeroy shook his head.
”Why not?“ I said. ”What’s not to talk about?“
Pomeroy looked at Phillips. I nodded, lifted my jacket off the back of the door and shrugged it on, lifted his off and handed it to him.
”You cover it here,“ I said to Phillips. ”Wilfred and I will take a walk.“
”You need me to back you up?“ Phillips said.
”No, I’ll be okay,“ I said.
When the dogs saw Pomeroy put his jacket on, all three of them were at the door, mouths open, tongues lolling, tails wagging. I opened the door and they surged out ahead of us and stopped in the yard looking back.
”Come on,“ I said.
Pomeroy went past me and I followed him and shut the door. The dogs moved out ahead of us in a businesslike way, sniffing along sinuous spoors, wagging their tails. The woods were empty at this time of year except for squirrels. The midday sun was warm in the southern sky and water dripped from the tree branches and made half- dollar-sized holes around the trees in the crust of the old snow. We followed the dogs along a path among the trees that had been pressed out by footfalls.
”Phillips is a mean bastard,“ Pomeroy said. He never looked at me as he spoke, and his speech was soft.
I nodded. Pomeroy seemed to sense my agreement even though he didn’t appear to be looking at me. ”These dogs are like my family,“ he said.
”Yeah,“ I said.
”I don’t have anything else,“ he said.
”Yeah.
There seemed no purpose to the path we were on. It meandered through the second-growth forest. llndcr the evergreens, where the snow was thin, dark pine needles and matted leaves were slick with ice and snow melt. The dogs ranged ahead of us, sniffing intently at the ground, and swinging back in singly or together to look at us before they ranged away again. We came up a low rise and looked down into a shallow swale where ground-water stood, frozen and snow covered. The flat surface was crisscrossed with dog tracks, and among them, bird tracks, partridge maybe, or pheasant.
We stopped and looked down at the swale. The trees and brush grew thickly right to its banks.
“I was married to her once,” Pomeroy said.
He was staring down into the swale. I didn’t say anything. It was as if he were a shattered cup, badly mended, with the shards of himself barely clinging together. I stayed very still. One of the dogs came back from ranging and sat on Pomeroy’s feet and looked down at the swale too.
“You don’t believe me,” he said.
“Yes,” I said, “I do.”
“I used to tell people, but they never believed me. Most people think I’m a little off anyway.”
He reached a hand down absently toward the dog. The dog lapped it industriously.
“I probably am a little off,” he said.
“Maybe nobody’s on,” I said. “Maybe there’s nothing to be off of.”
He glanced at me for a moment. I nearly lost him. Then he shook his head and shrugged. Spenser the philosopher king.
“Guy lives in the woods with three dogs,” he said. “Guy like that isn’t all with it, you know?”
“When were you married?” I said.
He paused a moment, a little startled, trying to remember what he’d been saying about marriage. “Nineteen sixty-eight,” he said. “I was in the Navy in San Diego, I met her in a bar.”
“Love at first sight?”
“For me.”
“How about her?”
“She was seventeen. She liked the uniform, maybe.”
The other two dogs came out of the woods and circled along the rim of the swale and sat down near us, their tongues out, and looked at us.
“How long did it last?” I said.
“She ran away in a month. I never saw her again.”
“Until?”
“Until she came to Boston.”
