Part 2
Russ put the cane against the feed sacks and opened the folder again. This time he wrote three names on the receipt, then turned it around so Owen could see the total.
Owen took out his money. Russ counted it twice, slower the second time, and folded the receipt around all three sets of records. By then Tucker had stopped reaching through the door.
Three dogs needed a sound enclosure before he could let them out that night. Owen looked at the tools in his truck. What if there was nothing left of the cabin’s fence?
They loaded the crates separately, using a ramp from the store. Russ could manage the light end if Owen did the lifting; neither mentioned that arrangement. Once the crates were secured to the truck’s anchor points, Owen worked along the straps, pulling each one and checking the doors again.
A cover kept weather off the forward end without shutting out the air. Water bowls were clipped inside, and Russ pushed a bag of their usual food behind the passenger seat. Owen put the records where they would stay dry.
Before Fern’s door closed, Russ rubbed two fingers along the fur between her eyes. She leaned into them. He withdrew his hand and stood looking at the latch until Owen reached past him to finish it.
“Give them time,” Russ said.
Owen nodded. He could promise food, water, and a sound fence once he had built one. He had no useful answer to the rest of what stood between them, so he thanked Russ for the food and got into the truck.
The old man remained under the awning as Owen pulled out. Tucker turned a tight circle in his crate; Boone stayed upright. Fern faced the place they were leaving until the road curved and the feed store went out of sight.
Beyond Alder Creek, the survey map led Owen to a leaning mailbox with HART faintly visible on its side. He stopped to check the route, then put the truck into four-wheel drive. Grass brushed the underside, and wet branches closed behind him.
Twice he got out with a folding saw. The dogs watched him cut through fallen limbs and drag them aside; he checked their straps before climbing back in. By the last bend, darkness was collecting under the trees and he was talking aloud simply to let them hear him.
“Nearly there,” he said, without knowing whether it was true.
The cabin appeared above the windshield. Its left porch corner had sunk, a dark gap interrupted the roof beside the chimney, and vines had climbed past a broken rear window. Owen parked without approaching the porch.
He had remembered a bigger house. He could still picture his grandfather coming through the door carrying firewood against his chest, but the doorway itself looked narrow enough for Owen to touch both sides. He left the dogs secured and went to see what would hold his weight.
The steps would not. He entered from the sound side of the porch after working oil into the front lock. Inside, his flashlight found a table, two chairs, an old bed, and the gray outline left by something removed from the wall.
He moved slowly, testing the floor as he went. The rear room was soft beneath the broken window; he shut it off and secured the door. Main beams looked better, but he would not put a fire under an unexamined chimney, and the kitchen pump drew nothing except air.
Outside, he made a small enclosure from the usable fence panels stacked behind the shed. Rotten boards went aside, sound ones closed the gaps. He checked for sharp ends at dog height before bringing the ramp down.
Boone descended first. He walked the enclosure’s perimeter on his lead, inspecting Owen’s joints, then stood looking toward the northern trees. Owen followed his gaze and saw only timber descending into darkness.
Fern stayed beside the truck until she discovered the water bowl. Owen waited without drawing her toward it. When she finally drank, he let the lead hang in a loose curve between them.
Tucker came down fast enough to make Owen plant his boots. Inside the pen he encountered a discarded bucket, struck it with one paw, and leaped away when it rolled. After a prolonged examination from a safer distance, he hit it again.
Owen laughed. The sound surprised the other two dogs more than the bucket had; Fern raised her head from the bowl. He bent to retrieve the bucket, but Tucker got there first and barked at its open end.
“You’ve made your point,” Owen told him.
He carried the box inside, set it on the table, and went back for plywood. Whatever Samuel had wanted him to read could wait until the rain had somewhere else to go. Owen covered the broken window, swept the main room, and put pans below the worst marks on the ceiling.
His flashlight caught a pencil line on the bedroom frame.
There were several, with dates beside them. His father’s initials stood near two old cuts; higher up were the measurements of an aunt Owen scarcely remembered. Halfway along the frame he found O.H. and the year he had turned twelve.
He put his palm below the mark. Samuel had pressed a carpenter’s level onto his head while Owen tried to lift his heels off the floor. He remembered the old man making him stand flat, then checking again as solemnly as if somebody had hired him for the job.
A lead brushed Owen’s wrist. He had brought Fern to the doorway while the males waited in the pen; she stood outside, watching his hand against the wood. He lowered it, gave her room, and she stepped across the threshold.
Later he brought in Boone and Tucker. With the unsafe rooms blocked off, the dogs could settle in the main room, under his eye. Boone chose the front door, Fern a place beyond the foot of the bed, and Tucker the space beneath the table.
Owen heated canned stew on the portable stove outside, then carried the pot in and ate with it resting on a folded towel. The dogs had separate bowls of Russ’s food. Tucker finished first and had to be reminded that the others still owned their dinners.
Rain found the roof after midnight. Owen lay inside his sleeping bag and listened to water hit the pans, trying to separate each small sound from the next. His boots stood beside the bed where they always stood.
In the dream, he needed to answer a voice and could not get enough air to do it. Metal shook beneath him. The years on SEAL teams had ended; the part of him counting people in the dark had never received the news.
He woke with one hand reaching toward the floor. His body still expected the weapon that had once stood beside his bunk.
Bare boards met his fingers. Owen held himself still while the sounds rearranged themselves: rain, a loose window covering, a dog’s breathing beneath the table. His shoulder ached from the saw work.
Boone had raised his head. Fern watched from beside the bed, too far away for Owen to touch. Neither came closer, and he found he could bear that better than an eager greeting.
He drew his hand back onto the blanket. The dogs did not yet know what to make of him, and he had brought them to a house that leaked. For the moment he could do one useful thing: lie still, lower his voice, and let the room become quiet again.
“It’s all right,” he said.
Fern stayed where she was, looking at him. Owen pulled the sleeping bag over his shoulder and waited for his breathing to stop disturbing hers.
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