A Feral Darkness Part 5

Once out in the pasture, Sunny ran giant circles around them, so pleased with her freedom that Brenna began to doubt the decision to let her stretch her legs. But when Brenna patted her pockets Sunny came charging to her side, so she relaxed. Chill spring, early evening, and she was out of the grooming room and here in her own little corner of the world. Druid settled to a steady trot beside her, his short legs flas.h.i.+ng to keep up with her naturally long stride; together they went down the steep, short bank and then followed the creek to the spring.

The cigarette b.u.t.t caught her eye first thing.

It lay directly down the hill from the spring; shocked, she stared at it in dismay. Not only had someone been here in this place that meant so much to her, he'd flung his trash down and left it, a harsh visual curse for her to trip over. And so stung was she by its presence and all it implied that she didn't attend Druid's sudden worried whine, the series of small jerks against the leada"he who had capered at the end of it in careful compliance and respect of its length.

Sudden memory hit her; the spring she had found the gravesite scattered, the spring defiled. She sprinted up the hill to it, Druid hanging back, protestinga"

Druid, no!

Brenna stopped short. Someone else's voice, someone else's fear. And the strange sensation struck her again, the feel of her world folding in on itself. Druid, no! Fear and grief and desperation and a great flash of light, and then Druid screamed and threw himself back on the leash, flopping and fighting and pulling Brenna back to the cool air against her cheek, the diffuse light of a clear, crystal-edged spring night reclaiming her vision.

"Druid!" she snapped, having had quite enough of the little fits and everything that came with them. "Druid, that's enough!" She put her foot on the leash close to his collar, restricting his fit, and it didn't slow him in the least. Nor did it slow him or even seem to reach him when she crouched close, her foot still on the leash, and said in the most matter-of-fact tone she could manage, "Druid, no. No. No."

When he did stop, his eyes wild and foamy spit on his lips, it was only because he was exhausted; there was no intelligence in his eyes, no response to her quiet words. As soon as something moved, as soon as he got his wind back, he'd start againa"she had no doubt. So with coordination that surprised even herself, she set the rifle down, pulled her foot from the leash, grabbed him up, and bounded to the bottom of the hill, where she placed him on the ground.

He stood in disheveled shock, panting, but his eyes no longer wild. After a moment he shook himself off, put his bottom on the ground, and looked up at her as if to say, "Well! Wasn't that something!" Brenna took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh of relief. Straightening, she fished for the flopping end of her braid and stuck it in her pocket.

A throat cleared. A masculine sound.

Brenna jerked her attention to the creek, to the other side of it. He stood there, looking back at her, meeting her startled gaze evenly. "Interesting dog you've got there."

"Looks that way," Brenna said shortly, thinking with sinking stomach of the rifle out of her reach. But the creek was between them, running cold between two steep banks, and loud enough to discourage casual conversation. "The fence is there for a reason. This is private property."

He shrugged, not the least affected by the news, and rolled an unlit cigarette between his fingers. No doubt it matched the stubby filter she'd spotted upon arrival. Otherwise, he was not so different from hera"dressed in jeans and a vest over a light jacket, hiking boots on his feet. And not a big man, no bigger than she, though with more meat on his bones. His hair, a bright blond, matched a neat but full mustache with glints of gold in it; both were clean and trimmed. Nothing about him to make her wary, aside from her initial resentment of both his presence and his littering.

He gave her that time to look him over and nodded at the .22, up on the hill. "Do you always carry a gun?"

"It's a rifle," Brenna said. "I was target shooting."

"Earlier. Yes, I heard."

"I usually have it," she said, answering his first questiona"perhaps not with the strict truth, but following sudden instinct.

"I know I'm trespa.s.sing," he said suddenly, taking a step closer to the bank as he stuck the cigarette in his mouth and dug in his front pocket for what she presumed was a lighter.

"Don't light it unless you plan on taking it with you," she said, with a pointed look back at the b.u.t.t on the ground behind her.

Startled, he stopped with the flickering lighter halfway to the end of the cigarette, and then let it go out. "I can wait," he said mildly. "I didn't have to come back when I saw you, you know. If I hadn't wanted you to know I'd been here."

Again, she looked back at the cigarette b.u.t.t.

He grinned at that. "If I hadn't wanted you to know it was me."

She shrugged, an acknowledgment of sorts. Behind him, the southwestern sky deepened, a cerulean warning of impending twilight.

He said, "The place means something to me, is all. I was here with some friends, once. Last time I saw one of them before he died. And the other one . . . buried him a couple of months ago. So the place calls to me, I guess."

Brenna hesitated. She didn't recognize him, which was odd enough; she didn't know all of the names of her most recent neighbors in the divvied-up farmland near Emily, but she knew their faces well enough. And yet he was charming enough. Not her type, but she had no doubt that smile got him plenty of attention. No reason, aside from the discomfiting circ.u.mstances of their meeting, to heap rudeness on him. "If I couldn't tell you'd been here," she said, careful with her words, "I might not care."

"Thanks," he said, and bestowed his smile upon her.

"Don't take it as an invitation," she said.

"I'll take it for what it is," he told her, and ducked his head to light the cigarette, glancing up at her as he drew a deep draught of it. She thought it was his parting comment, but as he turned away he added, "Best get inside. I hear there's a pack of dogs running wild in the area."

You don't look so worried. And he didn't, walking away through the winter-mashed gra.s.s with a distinct lack of purpose in his stride.

But she tied Druid to a sapling on the bank and went up to retrieve the rifle, hesitating only long enough to check his footprints in the dimming light, the old against the fainter, newer imprints, mostly obscured by the disturbed turf from his little fit. Long enough to decide that they could have come from the same dog, not long enougha"and not enough lighta"to say for sure.

"Sunny!" she called, her best pasture-spanning bellow. "Suuun-ny!" She slapped her pocket a few times, making the biscuits rattle. Druid made an interested noise, in case she'd forgotten he was there and perfectly willing to relieve her of the burden of carrying all those terribly heavy biscuits. "In a minute," she told him, and switched to escalating tactics. "Co-ookies!"

Sunny might never learn her name, but she knew cookies down cold. In moments she galloped up, a clump of last fall's burrs stuck to her neck, her tongue hanging long, and her expression eager. Brenna murmured, "Silly," and tossed her a biscuit, which the hound s.n.a.t.c.hed out of midair. She tossed one to Druid, too, but it boinked off his forehead as he made no attempt either to catch it or to get out of its way. Once it hit the ground he s.n.a.t.c.hed it up fast enough.

"That," Brenna said, "is something you'll have to learn if you want to hang around with me."

He's somebody else's dog.

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered to her warning inner voice. Somebody else's strange dog. But he was here for now.

Here in her life, along with strange black moods in the night, a stranger at her spring, dog packs roaming the rural woods and farmland, and one really annoying dog trainer.

For now.

After that, Brenna made daily visits to the spring area, checking for signs of trespa.s.s. But since the weather remained dry and the unwelcome visitor had been warned about his cigarette droppings, she couldn't be sure if he'd been there. There were signs of disturbance by the footbridge that crossed the creek a little way to the westa"without question, the way he was getting from one side to the othera"but racc.o.o.ns and coyotes tended to hang out there, anyway.

Well, there was a wet weather system on its way in; she'd have a better indication after that.

She caught glimpses of Gil Masera and his healing bruises at the store, and even saw the periphery of one of his rare afternoon cla.s.sesa"a beginners' cla.s.s from the look of it, with young dogs sproinging off in all directions, owners looking exasperated, and Masera with a new and different expression, something softer than his habitual judgmental preoccupation. He was enjoying himself, she realized. He enjoyed the dogs being dogs, he didn't get uptight at the frustration of the owners. And to judge by his reputationa"for she checked, in those days after he'd shoved his card at hera"eventually those clownish and clueless wonders from his beginners' cla.s.s would settle down into respectful canine companions.

And in those days after the encounter at the spring, Druid stayed quiet and normal, and graduated to sleeping on her bed. She began to hope that his fits had been spurred by the trauma of his time spent lost and frightened; he even accompanied her to work several times without reaction.

No one called for him. The vet's office couldn't match the rabies tag partial up with any of the Cardigans in their service. No one placed an ad in the paper. The days added up to a week since his arrival, then two . . . and even three.

"I just can't imagine someone not looking for a dog like this," Brenna told Emily one Sunday evening over soda at the Brecken table, with Emily's husband Sam puttering happily in the bas.e.m.e.nt and the girls watching a movie while they tickled, scratched, and otherwise adored Druid.

Emily looked up from her latest cross-st.i.tch; Brenna had long been accustomed to the fact that Emily could carry on a conversation and handle complex needlework at the same time. "Not everyone feels the same way you do about dogs, Bren."

"No," Brenna agreed, "but anyone who bothers to own a champion quality rare-breed dog usually does."

"Maybe he's not," Emily said, and shrugged. "You know what that woman at the Cardigan club said. Maybe the owners just made up that name for him."

"I need to find out more about the breed, see if I can get someone to look at him," Brenna said. "Maybe send a photo to the club. But I'm betting he is a champion. When you see puppy-mill pets day after day, you know when quality walks in." She craned her neck to get a glimpse of Druid through the kitchen-to-living-room archway; he sprawled on his back with his white-and-freckled legs spread-eagled to the four winds. In the background, Sam's footsteps sounded on the wood-plank stairs. "I'm trying to convince him quality is as quality does. Maybe it's workeda"he hasn't freaked since the day I saw that man at the spring."

Sam appeared in the narrow doorway behind Emily, flicking the light switch off as he gave Brenna an alert look, the eavesdropper drawn out. "What man? On your property?"

Emily glanced back at her husband, a short man with a beefy build; one look and it was obvious that the girls took after their slim-boned mother. Round in the face, scant of haira"he at least had the sense to crop what remained short instead of going for a comb-overa"Sam had a face that spoke his every thought. Normally Brenna found that rea.s.suring; she always knew where she stood, and half the time Sam was simply emoting his happiness with Emily and life in general. But at the moment he was guarded and halfway to alarmed. Emily took note, stuck her needle into the hoop-stretched needlework, and twisted to look more closely at him. "I thought I'd mentioned that."

"I'd remember it if you had," Sam said. "Because I suspect I know who it was."

"Who?" Brenna asked immediately. Sam owned a local garage, and if there were a male equivalent of beauty salon gossip, he worked in the midst of it.

"Rob Parker. You ought to remember him, Brenna. He's younger than youa"you would have been out of high school before he started upa"but his family's lived around here for a long time. Used to run with a disrespectful bunch, Toby Ellis and Gary Rawlins, mainly."

Emily, whom he'd met at the community college in business cla.s.ses and who had grown up on the other side of the city, just shrugged at him. "Must have been before you lured me here to live with you in the great white north."

"She's never forgiven me for putting her in the path of yet more snow," Sam said, giving the statement a grave face as he moved up behind Emily and gave her shoulder a squeeze. North of Monroe City received considerably more lake-effect snow than south of it, no doubt about that.

"It was a significant sin," Brenna said, trying to look stern.

Emily said, affecting much primness, "You could have opened up a garage anywhere."

"The good school district was here," Sam said.

"Foo," Emily sighed. "I can't argue with that."

Sam grinned briefly, then sobered. "But Brenna, seriously. You might not recall; they got into the worst of their trouble about the time your dad took ill. Then Toby joined the army; word is he was nothing but troublea"eventually went AWOL from basic, got himself killed thumbing a ride homea"dark night, bad weather, stupid choices. Driver never even saw him. Gary'd started a good construction job, could have gone placesa"but he quit it right after. No one really understood what came over him. He never worked steady after thata"but always had plenty of money, if you catch my drift. And Rob took off, went to Ohio somewhere, spent time in auto a.s.sembly."

"He said he'd lost a friend right after the last time he'd been at the spring," Brenna said. "Toby, maybe? And another friend not long ago?"

Sam nodded. "Gary. Couple of months ago. You ought to have seen it in the papera"they followed the story pretty closely for a couple of weeks. Unsolved homicide. He brought it on himself, if you really want to know. Just like Toby. Stupid choices. Good riddance."

"Sam!" Emily said, truly shocked.

Sam shook his head, unrepentant. "I mean it, Em. He was bad news, and he carried it around with him. He might have been lost in Monroe, but this community's too small for someone like him. I'm glad he's not carrying on his smarmy deals anywhere near our girls. And I'm not so happy that Parker came back."

"It's been years," Emily said. "And he hasn't been anywhere near his bad-luck friends. He might not be anything like them."

"Those kind make their own bad luck."

Emily tipped her head to stare at him, evidently no more used than Brenna to hearing such harsh statements from Sam, but he didn't give; he just shook his head once. "See if I'm not right."

"People change," Brenna said cautiously. Though she hadn't. Just the same now as she ever had been, except maybe a little less patient, a little more tired, and a lot more aware of what people did to their dogs in the name of ignorance. Still in her parents' house, the same house she'd been in when Toby died, Gary led his short and seamy life, and Rob had years of life elsewhere. With Dad dead and Mom living with Aunt Ada in Sunset Village, playing bingo, going on bus trips and fancy restaurant trips and tours of the wine country in the southern part of the state. Russell had married, found a partner and bought out the small flooring company where he'd worked since he was sixteen, and been to the community college along the way.

And Brenna was still waiting to remodel the second floor of the farmhouse into the loftlike master bedroom she'd envisioned when she was thirteen years old.

"Some people do change," Sam said, and she realized he was responding to her comment of moments before. "But this one'll have to prove it by me if he has."

Chapter 7.

PERTH.

A Secret Matter

Brenna glanced at the clock as she plunked a hyperactive Westie into the tub and slipped the tub noose around his neck, her fingers automatically adjusting it to fit. Good thing she had extra time for this bath; the dog, a new customer, was actively uncooperative and had a bite or two lurking behind the frenetic look in his eye. He was the last of a long string of morning baths for which she'd stuck Druid in the corner on a towel with a fresh shank bone, jammed foam plugs in her ears to filter out the roar of the dryers and the barking dogs, and gone into bathing mode. Bathing mode . . . zoned out, her body hard at work while her mind wandered off to focus on other things.

Other things, like Rob Parker at her springa"she'd found his footprints the day beforea"and the fact that although random victims of the dog pack kept showing up, Masera-the-trainer had been righta"no one had yet actually seen the dogs. Besides which, dog packs composed of local pets and castoffs tended to form around a b.i.t.c.h in heat, and to break up afterward. By now, the pack members should have been peeling away, returning home, getting caught, or wandering off on their solitary journeys.

More other things, like the argument she'd witnessed in the doorway to the stockroom when she'd gone back to clock in and hang her coata"Masera and Mickey, one of the stockboys. It had been a real argument, too, low and intense and the look in Mickey's eyes surpa.s.sing resentment.

What would Masera and Mickey even have to talk about, never mind argue over?

And you'd think Masera would lay off the arguments for a while, considering that he still sported the fading bruises from the last one he'd been in.

She splashed the gentle shower of water against her wrist, checking the temp, and wet down the dog's legsa"giving her instant cause for thanks that the zen bathing-state left her reflexes not only unimpeded, but faster than any conscious reaction. Cursing a terrier streak, the Westie snapped for the hand holding the nozzle, falling short only because she s.n.a.t.c.hed a hind leg with the other hand and jerked him back.

Ah-ha. So that's the way it was going to be. No wonder these people had come all the way from the other side of the city for this appointment.

They'd already used up the patience of all the more-convenient groomers.

The bellowing treatment wouldn't work for this one; nor would a good shake. Not with the s.h.i.+ning intent in his round black eyes, or the instantaneous way he'd reacted to the water. Holding him stretched against the noose so he couldn't whip around and nail her, Brenna fumbled at the shelves behind the retaining wall at the foot of the tub, searching blindly for the muzzles. They came out in a clump, and she shook them until only the medium-small remained.

The dog complained endlessly about the water running around his toes, snapping repeatedly at the only thing he could reacha"empty air. Druid, recognizing the threat as different from the mindless noise of the crated dogs, barked sharply in warning. Brenna sigheda"a moment ago she couldn't have imagined intensifying the chaosa"and stuck the muzzle strap between her front teeth so she could size it up with her one free hand.

That, of course, was when Masera walked in. Masera, who had already made disparaging remarks about her professional techniques. Masera-the-trainer, who didn't think much of the way she handled dogs.

The Westie snarled at him, too.

But though he looked momentarily bemused by the turmoil, Masera didn't react to the sights and sounds before him. He just stood there, waiting for Brenna to sort things outa"to snag the dog's face with the muzzle in expert efficiency and tighten it down, to turn the dryers to their lower, quieter settings, and to stand by the tub so the dog didn't act on his posture-signaled intent to attempt some noose-slipping. To lean back against the tub, actually, and cross her arms over her wet smock. She felt the b.u.mp of her braid against the back of her thigha"it wasn't doubled today, but hung at full lengtha"and absently tugged it up to stuff in her back jeans pocket under the smock.

"So that's what you were hiding under all that mud," he said.

Brenna shook her head. "Excuse me?"

"The dog," Masera said, nodding at Druid, who was noticeably uneasy at Masera's entrance.

"Close the door, will you?" Brenna said. "I don't need him to go walkabout, especially if you left the grooming room door open."

"Closed," he said, and stepped into the tub room so that door could swing closed as well. "Nice dog. I'm between dogs now, but I'm thinking of a Cardigan for the next one. Do you show him?"

"Someone seems to have," Brenna said. Unless, of course, they had made it up along with the name, as the Cardi national club suggested.

Masera c.o.c.ked his head at her, frowning, and she realized suddenly how little sense that had made to someone who didn't know her history with Druid.

"He's a stray," she said, slipping it in between barks. "I found him the night before you saw him in the parking lot. Can't track down his owners."

He glanced at Druid in surprisea"Druid's huge and expressive ears tilted back slightly. Wary. Noting that he was being noticeda"and then Masera's expression changed to realization. "So when I saw youa""

"I'd had my hands on him for less than twelve hours," Brenna confirmed. "I had no idea he'd behave that way."