“Any preferred brands?” I asked.
He didn't answer.
I suspected Boyd would eat just about anything but boiled eggs.
I was stuffing wrappers into the carry-out bag when Ruby shot out the front door and grabbed my arm.
“Quick! Come quick!”
“What is—”
She dragged me off the swing and into the house. Boyd danced along, nipping at my jeans. I wasn't sure if it was Ruby's urgency that excited him or his entry onto forbidden turf.
Ruby pulled me straight to the kitchen, where an ironing board stood with a pair of Levi's draped across it. A wicker basket rested below, heaped to the rim with crumpled laundry. Neatly pressed garments hung from cabinet knobs around the room.
Ruby pointed to a twelve-inch black-and-white TV on a counter opposite the board. A ribbon at the bottom of the screen announced fast-breaking news. A newscaster spoke above the graphic, his face grim, his voice serene. Though reception was poor, I had no trouble identifying the figure over his left shoulder.
The room receded around me. I was aware of nothing but the voice and the snowy picture.
“. . . an inside source revealed that the anthropologist has been dismissed, and that an investigation is under way. Charges have not yet been filed, and it is unclear if the crash investigation has been compromised, or if victim identifications have been affected. When contacted, Dr. Larke Tyrell, North Carolina's chief medical examiner, had no comment. In other news . . .”
“That's you, isn't it?”
Ruby brought me back.
“Yes,” I said.
Boyd had stopped racing around the kitchen and was sniffing the floor below the sink. His head came up when I spoke.
“What's he saying?” Ruby's eyes were the size of Frisbees.
Something snapped, and I rolled over her like a tsunami.
“It's a mistake! A goddamn mistake!” It was my voice, shrill and harsh, though I hadn't consciously formed the words.
The room felt hot, the smell of steam and fabric softener cloying. I spun and rushed for the door.
Boyd flew after me, paws jumbling the carpet runner as we raced down the hall. I burst out the door and across the lawn, the bell jangling in my wake. Ruby must have thought I was possessed by the Archfiend himself.
When I opened the car Boyd bounded in and centered himself in back, his head protruding through the gap between the seats. I hadn't the will to stop him.
Sliding behind the wheel, I did some deep breathing, hoping to turn a page in my mind. My heartbeat normalized. I began to feel guilty about my outburst, but couldn't force myself to return to the kitchen to apologize.
Boyd chose that moment to lick my ear.
At least the chow doesn't question my integrity, I thought.
“Let's go.”
* * *
During the ride into Bryson City, I answered call after call on my cell phone, each a reporter. After seven “no comments,” I turned it off.
Boyd shifted between his center spot and the left rear window, reacting with the same low growl to cars, pedestrians, and other animals. After a time he ceased serving notice on everyone of just who he was, and stared placidly as the sights and sounds of the mountains flashed by.
I found everything I needed at an Ingles supermarket on the southern edge of town. Herbal Essence and Gillette Good News for me, Kibbles 'n Bits for Boyd. I even sprang for a box of Milk-Bone jumbos.
Buoyed by finding the razors, I decided on an outing.
Approximately three miles beyond the Bryson City line, Everett Street becomes a scenic roadway that snakes through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park above the north shore of Lake Fontana. Officially the highway is called Lakeview Drive. To locals it is known as the Road to Nowhere.
In the 1940s, a two-lane blacktop led from Bryson City along the Tuckasegee and Little Tennessee Rivers to Deal's Gap near the Tennessee state line. Realizing the creation of Lake Fontana would flood the highway, the TVA promised a new north-shore road. Construction began in 1943, and a 1,200-foot tunnel was eventually built. Then everything stopped, leaving Swain County with a road and tunnel to nowhere, and with wounded feelings as to its low rank in the universal order of things.
“Want to take a ride, boy?”
Boyd showed enthusiasm by placing his chin on my right shoulder and running his tongue up the side of my face. One thing I admired about him was his agreeable nature.
The drive was beautiful, the tunnel a perfect monument to federal folly. Boyd enjoyed racing from end to end while I stood in the middle and watched.
Though the outing cheered me, the improvement in my mood was short-lived. Just after leaving the park, my engine gave an odd ping. Two miles before the town line it pinged again, chunked repeatedly, then segued into a loud, ratchety, persistent noise.
