Legend of the Ghost Dog Read Free Page B

She knelt next to him, running her hands slowly down his back, her eyes half-closed. I knelt down too. He was my dog, after all.
    â€œHe’s still shaking a little,” she said. “What trail were you on?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “We picked it up right by the house and it headed, well, mostly west, I guess.”
    â€œSounds like you might have been near Dorothy Creek,” Quin said. “Some miners built cabins there back during the gold rush — they thought there was gold in the creek bed. There are more abandoned mines and cabins around here than anyone really knows. There are stories … there are things out there that would spook any dog.”
    â€œThings?” I asked. “Like animals? I thought maybe it was a snake or something.”
    â€œI’m not talking about other animals,” Quin said.
    â€œWell, then … what?”
    She didn’t answer.
    The sound of my father and Joe laughing boomed from the other room. Henry seemed to be listening to Quin, his head cocked to one side and his eyes on her face.
    â€œIt isn’t FUNNY!” I heard Jack yell. I knew all of Jack’s voices, and I could tell he was genuinely upset about something. Moments later, a door slammed hard. Henry made a tiny, puppylike noise in his throat. Quin’s hands were still on his back. She squeezed his haunches gently, and he gazed up at her.
    It was everything I could do to stop myself from snapping, Get off my dog! I couldn’t help it. When it came to Henry, I was definitely the jealous type.
    My father appeared in the doorway.
    â€œTee, Jack’s gotten himself in a state about something. Can you go talk to him? He’s in his room.”
    I stood up with a quiet sigh.
    â€œSure,” I said.
    Quin murmured something to Henry, rubbing one palm in a circle over the base of his spine. He got to his feet, took a step toward his bowl, and began eating his food.
    What was this girl, some kind of beagle whisperer?
    At least Henry was eating now. That should be the only thing that mattered.
    Quin was strange, and aloof, and maybe even rude. But Henry liked her. He was finally eating his dinner. I wanted to dislike Quin, but something wouldn’t let me.
    I had to figure out how to get her to tell me exactly what she meant. About the kind of thing that could scare my dog, but wasn’t a person — wasn’t any kind of animal at all.

When the latch on the puppies’ kennel was not fastened properly, the gate could swing open in the wind. It might have been Silla who was responsible, or it might have been me. To this day I don’t know. I just know we were wakened before dawn by the sound of every dog, pup and adult, barking at the top of their lungs. They only did that when something was circling the kennel, and only two creatures ever stalked the dogs’ enclosure. Bears and wolves.
    We all ran down together, my folks, Silla and I, and our brother Jim, who was temporarily home on leave from Vietnam. The sky was dark, and I remember seeing the northern lights in the sky — the amazing living ribbon of color and energy that usually left me breathless. But today, I was breathless from fear. Whatever had frightened the dogs had run off, but the gate to the pups’ pen was wide open.
    For one terrible moment I thought they were gone, every last one of them. But when Daddy shone the light inside I saw them huddled in a corner of the pen, one on top of the other. Only one of them was missing.
    Caspian.
    Daddy locked up the pens tight, and Silla and Jim and I went calling for Caspian as loud as we could. We were desperate, Silla and I — both of us knew something had happened to him. It was as if his fear had been written in the wind — we could feel it, fresh, like the smell of blood. Silla begged Daddy to let us go into the woods to look, because she felt Caspian was lying there, hurt — that he couldn’t get back to us