matter. I'd just keep doing it until I got what I wanted. It was only a trick to soothe my conscience, a way to escape responsibility for my cowardice. I was too scared to go.
'Yes,' I said. 'I'm here.'
'You're not a policeman. You don't know anything about guns.'
I didn't say anything. I flipped the coin over in my palm so that the tails side was facing up.
'Hank?'
'It's all right,' I said quietly. 'I'm coming home.'
I CALLED Carl and told him that the baby was vomiting, that Sarah was in a panic.
He was full of concern. 'Linda's here now,' he said. 'She's done some nursing in her time. I'm sure she'd be willing to drive out with you if you need some help.'
'That's awful nice of you, Carl, but I don't think it's that serious.'
'You sure?'
'Positive. I just want to get her to a doctor to be safe.'
'You head straight home then. I'm sure we can manage on our own. You didn't really see anything anyway, did you?'
'No. Nothing at all.'
'You said you heard it on the south side? By the Pederson place?'
'Just a little ways past it.'
'All right, Hank. Maybe I'll give you a call when we get back, let you know how it went.'
'I'd like that.'
'And I hope everything's okay with the baby.'
He was about to hang up. 'Carl?' I said, stopping him.
'What?'
'Be careful, okay?'
He laughed. 'Careful of what?'
I was silent for several seconds. I wanted to warn him, but I couldn't think of a way to do it. 'Just the rain,' I said finally. 'It's supposed to get colder later. The roads'll ice up.'
He laughed again, but he seemed touched by my concern.
'You be careful, too,' he said.
I COULD see Carl's truck from my window -- it was parked in front of the church -- so I waited there, hidden behind the blinds, to watch them leave. They appeared almost immediately, walking side by side. Carl had on his dark green police jacket and his forest ranger's hat. The rain was falling in a thick mist now, forming puddles in the gutter and adding a rawness to the day, a cold, aching feeling, which I could sense even through the window.
Carl's truck was like a normal pickup, except it had a red-and-white bubble light on its roof, a police radio hooked to the underside of its dashboard, and a twelve-gauge shotgun hanging from a rack on the rear window. It was dark blue, with the words ASHENVILLE POLICE written in bold white letters on its side. I watched as he climbed in behind the wheel, then leaned across the seat to unlock the agent's door. I heard the engine start, saw them put on their seat belts, then watched the windshield wipers begin to slide back and forth, clearing the glass of rain. Carl removed his hat, smoothed his hair once with his hand, and put the hat back on.
I stood there, crouching beside the window in my darkened office, until they pulled out onto the road and headed off toward the west, toward the Pederson place and the nature preserve, toward Bernard Anders's overgrown orchard and the plane that lay within it as if in the hollow of a hand, awaiting, while the rain freed it from its veil of snow, their imminent arrival.
Before the truck disappeared down Main Street, its brake lights flashed once, as if in farewell; then the mist fell in behind them, leaving just the town beyond my window, its cold and empty sidewalks, its drab storefronts, with the rain running over everything, beading and pooling, and hissing as it fell.
I DROVE home.
Fort Ottowa was quiet. It was like entering a cemetery -- the winding roads, the empty lawns with their mounds of dirt, the tiny, cryptlike houses. The children were all inside, hiding from the rain. Occasional lights dotted the windows; televisions flickered bluely behind drawn curtains. As I made my way through the neighborhood, I could picture Saturday-morning cartoons; card tables littered with jigsaw puzzles and board games; parents in bathrobes sipping mugs of coffee; teenagers upstairs sleeping late. Everything seemed so safe, so normal, and when I reached my own house, I was relieved to see that -- at least from the outside -- it looked exactly like all the others.
I parked in the driveway. There was a light on in the living room. Mary Beth was sitting beneath his tree in the rain, Buddha-like, his fur plastered wetly to his body.
I got out of the car and went into the garage. There was a small shovel hanging from a hook on the wall there, and I was just reaching up to pull it down when Sarah opened the door behind me.
'What're you doing, Hank?' she asked.
I turned toward her with the shovel. She was standing in the doorway, a step up from the garage. Amanda was in her arms, sucking on a pacifier. 'I'm going to shoot the dog,' I said.
'Here?'
I shook my head. 'I'm going to drive him out to Ashenville. To my dad's old farm.'
She frowned. 'Maybe this isn't the best time to do that.'
'I told Carl I'd return his pistol to him by this afternoon.'
'Why not wait till Monday? You can have a vet do it then, and you won't need the gun.'
'I don't want a vet to do it. I want to do it myself.'
Sarah shifted Amanda from her right arm to her left. She was wearing jeans and a dark brown sweater. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, like a girl's. 'Why?' she asked.
'It's what Jacob would've wanted,' I said, not sure if this was actually the truth or merely a continuation of the lie I'd told Carl earlier.
Sarah didn't seem to know how to respond to this. I don't think she believed me. She frowned down at my chest.
'The dog's miserable,' I said. 'It's not fair to him, keeping him out there in the cold.'
Amanda turned to look at me when I spoke, her round head swiveling on her neck like an owl's. She blinked her eyes, and her pacifier fell out of her mouth, bouncing down the step into the garage. I came forward and picked it up. It was damp with her saliva.
'I'll be back in an hour or so. It won't take that long.'
I held out the pacifier to Sarah, and she took it from me, grasping it between two of her fingers. Our hands didn't touch.
'You aren't going by the nature preserve, are you?' she asked.
I shook my head.
'You promise?'
'Yes,' I said. 'I promise.'
She watched from the front window as I untied Mary Beth and led him toward the car. Jacob's things were still loaded in the back, and when the dog got inside, he began to sniff at the boxes, his tail wagging. I climbed in behind the wheel. Sarah was holding Amanda up to the window, waving the infant's tiny hand back and forth.
I could see her mouth moving in an exaggerated fashion. 'Bye-bye,' she was saying. 'Bye-bye, doggy.'
MARY BETH slept the whole way out to the farm, curled up in a ball on the backseat.
The weather didn't change. A fine drizzle fell from the sky, dissolving into the mist. Houses materialized around me as I drove, ghostlike beside the road, surrounded by barns and silos and outbuildings, their colors
