Miss Julia Rocks the Cradle (26 page)

“
Miss Julia!
” Lillian hissed, as she stuck her head in the door. “Hurry up, that dog still cuttin’ up.”

“Just one more minute.” As I recalled Thurlow’s dog, I remembered it as being stiff and grizzled, much like Thurlow himself, and unlikely to be allowed to roam free. I was sure the dog would be kept inside on such a cold night. The truth of the matter was that after my first flash of fear, I was now too intent on what I was doing to pay attention to the sound of long-distance barking. Thurlow would think a cat was roaming around.

Carefully guarding the beam of the flashlight, I walked over to the two stacked bags and played the light over the cleared space around them. Large footprints were visible in the soft dirt, which could’ve been Richard’s or, most likely, those of investigating deputies. I shivered, picturing Richard’s final moments in this lonely shed, the pungent smell of mower gas and fertilizer filling his last conscious sense. At the thought of his dying moments, I swung the light beam around in case his ghost was hovering in a corner. I had to grit my teeth to keep from running out the door, screaming.

Making a mighty effort to be sensible and do what I needed to do, I turned the light back onto the stacked bags. There’d be no clues, I was sure, for the shed would’ve been thoroughly searched. Still, those bags put me in mind of something, and positioning myself to face the wall, I gingerly sat down on them, figuring that the indentation would perfectly fit somebody’s rump. It did, for it fit mine fairly well.

I sat for a minute looking at the blank wall, then moved the flashlight beam so that it threw a shadow against the wall. Right at eye level I saw a knothole in a board. Easing up close, I looked to see what I could see.

Well, of course it was black as pitch outside so who knew what Richard had been able to see. I couldn’t see a thing, but it was a hole to the outside because I could stick my fingers through it.

Pressing my eye to the knothole again, I suddenly gasped, “Oh, Lord!” I sprang up and headed for the door. A kitchen light in Thurlow’s house had come on, his back door swinging open as a huge, four-legged shadow came leaping out.

“
Run, Lillian!
” I grabbed her and took off, that dog baying behind us.

“Oh, Jesus! ” Lillian gasped, making tracks as fast as she could. In fact, she passed me, holding out a hand that I grabbed and was dragged along with her.

Just as we reached the hedge, I felt something nudge up against me—from the back and unnervingly close to a personal place. I yelped and Lillian turned around, waving her arms.

“Get away! Shoo, dog! ” she hissed, but the dog turned its attention to her, its tail flapping against my side hard enough to give me a whipping. “Get, dog! Get from here!”

After recovering from the first shock, I realized that Ronnie wasn’t barking and that Great Danes are generally a friendly breed. I began to breathe again. Lillian, who generally steered clear of all breeds, was bravely pushing me behind her and trying to hold off the dog.

“He’s friendly, Lillian,” I whispered. “He’s not going to hurt us. Let’s just go and he’ll go home.”

That’s all we could do, so we did it, retracing our steps beside the hedge until we reached the sidewalk, our new addition dogging every step we made, his inquisitive nose all over us. We scurried along with backward glances at Miss Petty’s house, hoping it would stay dark. Ronnie kept right behind us, nudging Lillian now and then as she jumped and gave out a muffled shriek with each nudge.

“Go home, Ronnie!” I said as we hurried along the sidewalk, the dog bounding along with us. “The meat, Lillian! It’s the meat he smells. Give it to him and let’s get away from here.”

“Oh, Law, I forget.” She took the chunk of roast beef from her pocket and unwrapped it. Then she threw it behind us, and Ronnie jumped for joy, taking off to gobble it up when it landed.

We hurried along, practically running, especially after faintly hearing Thurlow calling and whistling for Ronnie. Expecting more than a snack, though, Ronnie wasn’t interested in going home. I looked over my shoulder as we neared Mildred’s house and saw the ungainly dog loping up behind us, his rear end slightly out of line, his tongue hanging out and a toothy grin on his face. He followed us every step of the way home.

“How we gonna get in? ” Lillian asked, as we turned into our yard. “And what we gonna do ’bout
him
? ” She pushed Ronnie’s big head away, but he kept stepping on her feet and snuffling around her pocket.

“Look.” I pointed toward the back of our house where yellow light spilled from the kitchen windows. “Somebody’s up.”

As we approached the back stoop, I could see Etta Mae at the counter, preparing bottles. I tapped on the door, saw her head jerk up and her eyes widen in fright.

I pressed my face against the window in the door so she could see who it was. She took one look at my absurdly capped head, let out a shriek that would wake the dead, and hightailed it out of the kitchen.

Lillian rattled the doorknob, calling, “Miss Etta Mae! It’s us—let us in!”

I kept tapping smartly on the glass, but Etta Mae disappeared down the back hall, yelling, “Hazel Marie! Call the cops, they’re breaking in!”

Babies started screaming and so did Hazel Marie.

“Oh, Lord Jesus, what we gonna do?” Lillian moaned. “They gonna put us in jail.”

“
Ronnie!
” I yelled, turning on the dog, which had pushed his head under my arm. “Get away from me. Go home! ” The dog apparently had had enough of night roaming and wanted inside, where it was warm. He shouldered his way between Lillian and me, stood on his hind legs, and looked through the window. Throwing his head back, he started baying.

At my wit’s end by this time, what with the racket inside and out, I thought of running over to Mildred’s and using her phone just to get into my own house.

Just then, the swinging door from the dining room pushed open and Lloyd stumbled into the kitchen. Still in his pajamas, his hair standing on end and without his glasses, he peered shortsightedly around, looking for the source of the din.

Lillian and I tapped and rattled harder to get his attention. He looked our way, his eyes squinched up, trying to make out who was there.

“Lloyd, it’s us!” I shouted. “Let us in.”

Recognition partially dawned, and he crept closer to the door to be sure. Just as he put his face against the window on the other side, Ronnie leaped up again, looking at him eye to eye.

“Whoa! ” Lloyd said, springing back. Then I heard him yell toward his mother’s room. “It’s all right, Mama! It’s just a dog.”

Then, thankfully, he turned the knob, unlocking it, and the three of us—Lillian, Ronnie, and me—fell forward into the kitchen. Ronnie was delighted. His tail wagging with joy as it thumped against everything within reach, he licked Lloyd’s face with abandon.

“Who is it?” Lloyd yelled, pushing the dog away and scrambling away from us. “What d’you want?”

“Lloyd,” I cried, “it’s us! It’s us!” Realizing that the world was fuzzy to him without his glasses, I snatched off the cap, feeling the static electricity crackle in my hair.

He jumped back another step at the sight and screamed, “
Mama!
”

Hazel Marie came running from the back hall, swinging a lamp with the cord trailing behind her. Babies cried. Ronnie barked, and Lillian took off her coat and closed the door.

“Everybody jus’ hush up,” she said, having reached the end of her rope. “Nobody be breakin’ in. We jus’ let the door lock behind us, that’s all.”

“Oh, Lordy,” Lloyd said, patting his chest. “You scared the daylights out of me.”

Hazel Marie lowered the lamp—it was the one shaped like a rabbit that she’d bought for the nursery they didn’t yet have.

“What in the world?” she asked, looking around, trying to figure out what was going on.

“Miss Julia an’ me,” Lillian said without turning a hair, “we hear something outside an’ we go see what it was. That’s when the door locked up on us, but it was jus’ this ole dog an’ we all get locked out.”

Every one of us turned to look at Ronnie, who’d found a heat vent. He circled it a couple of times, then flopped down across it with a great sigh. Putting his head on his front paws, he looked up at us with his great, mournful eyes.

“Well, for goodness sakes,” Hazel Marie said, as Etta Mae eased up behind her, holding both squalling babies. “I thought something awful was happening. Etta Mae was about to run out the front door with the babies.” She took one of the babies and jounced it a little, with no effect. “Let’s get them fed, Etta Mae. Lloyd, you all right?”

“Yes’m, I think so. I didn’t know who it was. All I saw was that dog.” We all turned to look at Ronnie again, asleep now on the heat vent. “He sure does smell bad,” Lloyd said, as the sour odor of old dog permeated the kitchen.

“Jus’ wait,” Lillian said darkly, remembering our first meeting with Ronnie a few years back when the activity of his digestive system nearly ran us out of the room. “He gonna smell worse’n that ’fore long.”

I could hardly wait to get in bed, so drained from trekking around in the cold and from the spurts of adrenaline brought on by fright that I was asleep by the time my head hit the pillow. Lillian and I had been gone only a little more than an hour, although it felt like a good bit more than that, so there was time for a few more hours of sleep.

We’d not lingered in the kitchen, even though everybody but Latisha had been up. The babies had soon quieted and gone back to sleep, as had Hazel Marie and Etta Mae. Lloyd, still in his flannel pajamas, had squatted beside Ronnie for a few minutes, crooning and petting him.

Lillian, who could hardly keep her eyes open, edged up to me. “What you gonna do with that dog? He need to go home.”

“Well, I’m not about to take him home now or call Thurlow to come get him either. I’ll call him first thing in the morning.”

“It already mornin’,” she grumbled, “an’ none of us have a lick of sleep.”

“Let’s go back to bed,” I said, heading out of the kitchen. “There’s time for a good long nap. Come on, Lloyd. That dog will be here when you get up.”

Lillian looked at me with disbelief. “You jus’ gonna leave him here in my kitchen?”

“He’ll be fine, Lillian. We’ll close all the doors so he can’t wander around. Besides,” I said, gazing at the slumbering dog spread out now over the vent and half the kitchen, “who’d be able to move him?”

So the house fell quiet as we went to our separate rooms and crawled back into bed. I’d intended to spend a few waking minutes going over the significance of Richard’s watching not Miss Petty’s house but Thurlow’s, but as I’ve said, I went immediately to sleep.

So deeply did I fall into sleep that I could not rouse myself when I heard Sam come in downstairs and push through the swinging door to the dining room. Instead, as my heart leaped with joy, the peace of having him home, regardless of the time of night, spread contentment and satisfaction throughout my limbs, dropping me further into sleep. He was home where he belonged, and I dreamed of the many ways I could welcome him back. I wanted to tell him how happy I was, and I wanted to hold him close, yet I couldn’t bestir myself enough to hold out my arms when he crawled into bed.

“Sam,” I mumbled, snuggling up against his back, “I’m so glad you’re home.” I felt his warmth enfold me, letting me know that whatever had come between us was now resolved. It was over and done with. I think I smiled the rest of the night.