Lucy had stopped watching the gate and started watching Flint. The shepherd stood with his nose against the crack beneath the cabin door, making a sound she had heard once before, when Cal had fallen on the ice and stayed down too long. Once, Flint had helped Cal find her out in the snow. She still remembered his coat around her afterward.
Cal had gone to meet a policeman at the gate. He had pointed to the kitchen window so she would know where to wait, but now snow covered the two cups he had carried outside, and neither man was there.
She had tried the phone. It wouldn’t make the call, even when she held it against the window the way Cal sometimes did. Flint scratched at the door again, and this time she opened it.
The wind pushed her back against the table. She fastened her coat crookedly, got both crutches under her arms, and followed the dog onto the porch. Her left boot, strapped over her prosthetic foot, caught on the threshold; she had to look down and move it with her hand.
Flint waited at the bottom step. He was six, one year older than she was, and usually went down stairs faster than anyone. When she reached him, he moved along the packed tracks that curved away from the gate.
Lucy kept her eyes on his dark back. The snow beside the wheel ruts was too deep for her crutches, and twice she had to pull a rubber tip free with both hands. Cal’s cabin disappeared behind the first stand of pines. A smell like the stove when something spilled on it came through the trees.
Then Flint ran.
The pickup stood crooked across the little forestry road. Orange flickered behind its broken windshield, and smoke rolled from a door that wasn’t quite shut. Lucy knew the truck. She knew the gray canvas bag lying against the side of its bed, too; Cal let Flint carry that bag by its thick handle when they practiced in the yard.
She couldn’t see Cal until she got close enough to touch the tailgate. One of his boots stuck up beside the wheel well, with the lace she had watched him replace that morning. There was another pair of boots beside it.
“Cal?” She hit the metal with her crutch. “Cal, I’m here.”
His eyes opened. A strip of silver tape covered his mouth, and rope ran around his ankles. The policeman lay beside him with the same tape on his face. His jacket had ridden up, showing the empty places on his belt where his things should have been.
Lucy tried the tailgate handle. It moved a little and stopped, and she pulled harder, using both hands while one crutch fell into the snow. Heat touched her cheeks. Above her, Cal shook his head.
Flint climbed onto a fallen limb beside the truck and jumped into the bed. He barked three times at Cal, then backed away from the smoke streaming over the cab. His nails skated on the metal. Cal rolled painfully onto his side and pushed his bound wrists toward the dog.
There was a loose piece of rope hanging from them. Flint caught it, let it go, and sneezed. Cal pushed his hands toward him again.
“Like the bag,” Lucy said. “Get it, Flint.”
The dog gripped the loose end and pulled backward. Cal’s face tightened, and Lucy almost told Flint to stop. Then she saw the fuzzy white strands where the rope rubbed against itself. Flint braced his feet and worried the same place, jerking his head as if Cal were holding the other end of their old tug toy.
The rope gave suddenly. Flint slid into the wheel well, scrambled up, and crowded against Cal as Cal dragged the tape off his mouth. For a moment he could only cough. Lucy stood on her one steady foot and reached over the side, but her fingers couldn’t quite touch him.
“Back from the truck, Lu.” His voice sounded scraped. “Take your crutch. Go behind that bank.”
“You have to come.”
He was already reaching for the policeman. His fingers slipped on the knots, and he tucked them under his armpits for one quick breath before trying again. Lucy watched the fire climb the fabric behind the front seats. She wanted to tell him to hurry, but he was hurrying so hard that she couldn’t say it.
Cal peeled the tape from the policeman’s mouth after freeing his hands. The younger man rolled onto his knees, bent over, and was sick against the side of the truck. Cal worked on the rope around his ankles, then pointed to his own feet. The younger man nodded and began pulling at the last knot.
Something popped inside the cab. Flint crouched, his ears flattened, and Cal put an arm across him until the sound stopped. Lucy could see blood on Cal’s trouser leg now, a dark wet place that hadn’t been there at breakfast.
Cal drove his shoulder against the tailgate while the policeman worked the handle. The latch scraped, held, then let go with a bang that made Lucy stumble. Cal slid down first and caught the policeman under one arm. They landed badly, both of them, and Flint jumped past their shoulders into the snow.
“Bank,” Cal said again. “Now.”
Lucy retrieved her fallen crutch. She couldn’t run the way they meant, and for three dreadful steps the crutch tips only skidded. Then the policeman reached her, caught the back of her coat, and steadied her while Cal pushed them toward the cut in the hillside.
They were below the bank when the truck burst with a heavy, tearing crash. Cal folded over Lucy, pressing her face into his coat. Something struck the ground above them. She felt it through her knees before she heard the small pieces falling into the snow.
For a while all she could hear was a ringing sound. She opened her eyes against the silver safety stripe on Cal’s jacket and saw Flint’s feet planted beside her crutch. One of his paws lifted and stayed lifted.
“You came out,” she said into the coat.
Cal loosened his arms enough to look at her. There was soot caught in the lines beside his eyes. He touched her hood, her shoulder, then the crooked fastening at her neck, checking the places he could reach.
“Yes,” he said. “You got us out.”
She tried to tell him Flint had done the rope. Her teeth kept meeting in the middle of the words, so she pointed instead. Cal reached for the dog, and Flint pushed his hot, smoky nose into his palm.
The policeman sat up beyond them. His name, Lucy remembered, was Owen; Cal had said it at the window. He held his side and looked uphill toward the fire, where a second, smaller burst sent sparks through the trees.
“We can’t stay by the road,” he said.
Cal nodded. He tucked Lucy’s mitten back over her wrist, then put Owen’s arm around his shoulders. They took the narrow path below the bank, Flint close enough that his coat brushed Lucy’s sleeve. She planted her crutches in the marks the men’s boots left.
They had gone only as far as the next bend when Cal stopped. Lucy thought he was waiting for her, and she hurried, lifting the heavy left boot through the snow. He put out a hand as though he meant to take hers.
Then his knee folded, and he went down without catching himself.
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