The Buffalo Soldier (9 page)

"I saw them from the top of the ridge, and I knew they couldn't cross back over the river. What do you do? Do you take your children and run so they, too, won't see? Or do you go to your husband? Maybe some people would have run, but I didn't. I couldn't. I stayed."

VERONICA ROWE (FORMERLY POPPING TREES),

WPA INTERVIEW,

MARCH 1938

*

Laura

There had been a period in the nineteenth century when the headstones for the children who died were shaped like sleeping lambs. At least that had been the fashion in northern Vermont. One epidemic in 1857 had resulted in whole clusters of the small granite and marble animals in the Cornish cemetery.

Laura's girls' headstones were more conventional--each was an arch--though she had insisted on the whitest marble that could be found, and each had a slightly abstract carving of an angel chiseled into it: an angel's shape and an angel's wings, but no features or face.

She found the two-year anniversary easier than the first, though that by no means meant it was easy. But this year she and Terry went alone, they weren't accompanied by her parents from Massachusetts--her fine, dignified parents, he a senior officer on the verge of retirement after a distinguished career with the Federal Reserve in Boston, she his regal wife, the perfect complement to an upper-echelon financial manager--Terry's mother, or his sister and brother. They had been joined by this considerable group last year, a reenactment in too many ways of the massive funeral that had packed the small church a few days after Hillary and Megan died, and then everyone had gone back to the house, where they'd looked at pictures of the girls and tried to be cheerful. A year ago, she and Terry had taken the day off from work.

This year they hadn't. As soon as Terry had reminded Alfred not to act up at recess and the boy had climbed onto the school bus, they had walked together up the hill to the cemetery, holding in their hands two of the lilies Terry had brought home the day before, as well as a few of the gerbera daisies. They'd made two bouquets they could leave on the plots.

The girls were buried in the newest section of the cemetery, at least two or three acres away from the 1857 sheep. Laura wasn't positive, but she believed Alfred never visited this section when he wandered up here alone. It wasn't as interesting as the older parts, nor was it as panoramic. But although you couldn't see Mount Ellen or Abraham from the girls' spot, there was a nice view of the hills that rolled south into the state forest. Sometimes both Terry and Laura wished there was a tad more shade, but that wasn't a big deal and they both knew why there weren't more trees nearby: In the days after the girls' death--days in which most decisions were made with little or no thought--Laura had said something to someone about wanting the location to be sunny. And so it was.

When they arrived at the twin tombstones, Laura knelt and placed the flowers on the ground and allowed herself to cry freely. She was about to get up when she felt Terry crouching behind her, one of his hands on her shoulder, and she decided to stay where she was. The earth was still soft and spongy from the warm front that had arrived on Tuesday, but she didn't mind.

Before leaving, she brought her fingers to her lips and then pressed them for a long time against each of the slick and solid marble slabs.

SHE CHOSE A black-and-white Border collie with fur that was thick and soft, and walked into the cement pen with the animal. Then, almost in a single motion, she rotated the collar around the animal's neck so the metal loop was at the back and clipped the collar to the clasp at the end of a long canvas leash.

She runs and she barks, but she's very gentle, Laura said to Alfred as the animal pulled her out of the cage. Trust me, she's a real sweetheart.

She handed the leash to the boy and watched as the good-sized dog yanked the boy's arm so it was almost parallel to the ground. The dog really wasn't all that big, but then neither was the boy. Sometimes when he'd move in a certain way and she'd see the shape of his knee or the width of his thigh in his blue jeans, she'd realize just how baggy the pants were on him and how thin his legs really were. One time at dinner she noticed his wrists, and they were so small that she feared he could probably have worn a napkin ring like a bracelet.

And I should take her up the dirt road in the back? he asked as the dog pulled him down the hall toward the door.

That's where most people walk them, she answered, but take her wherever you'd like. Then the boy and the dog were off. They raced out the shelter's back door, and the moment they were out of sight she experienced the slight tremor she always felt when the child was in her care and she couldn't see exactly where he was. Something would happen, and she would be powerless to stop it. To save him.

She stood there until the sensation had passed, and then she went back upstairs to her office. It was the Monday before Thanksgiving, and the schools were closed for the week. She hadn't been sure what she would do with Alfred, and she'd considered taking the week off herself. She had no meetings of consequence over the next couple of days, and there was nothing critical she couldn't accomplish from home. But today, at least, Alfred had wanted her to go to work and he had wanted to go with her. He'd been to the shelter before that fall, but never for more than half an hour at a time.

The county shelter was built into the side of a hill, and only the first floor was visible to any cars that happened to pass by. It had two and a half undeveloped acres around it, and around that was the road on one side and forest on the three others. In the back there was a dirt road--what had once been a logging trace--that went into the woods, and it was here where the volunteers usually walked the dogs.

Upstairs, a mother with a baby in her arms and a seven- or eight-year-old girl beside her were still looking at the cats. The baby's nose had been running so long, there was a crust above his lips the color of melon, but he didn't seem unhappy. They'd been there for almost an hour, and had probably considered at least a dozen of the animals so far. Briefly Laura wondered if they had no intention of adopting an animal but were simply here as an outing. Perhaps they needed someplace to go with the schools on vacation, and Mom had decided the shelter was about as close to the zoo as you were going to get if you didn't want to drive all the way to Quebec.

The girl looked nothing at all like Laura's own daughters, and she was glad.

For a moment she joined the group and watched as Caitlin, one of the women who worked at the shelter for Laura, took a massive gray cat from a cage and gently placed it on the floor beside the little girl.

The cat was named Rikki, and Laura knew it wouldn't be a good fit with this family. It was an ottoman and it was old. If this family really wanted anything, they wanted an animal that would chase string and jump after moths. Something cute. Rikki was eight, unfortunately, and pretty set in her ways. She'd been at the shelter close to three months now, and Laura knew she wouldn't be there much longer: Either a miracle would occur and she would be adopted, or they would have to put her down. No animal should have to live that long in a cage.

Nevertheless, she thought she should put in a good word for Rikki before returning to her office. She knelt on the floor and ran two fingers along the top of the cat's head, and said to the mother, Rikki's very good with small children. Sometimes the feistier cats will scratch a little one by mistake, but not Rikki. She is incredibly serene--perfect for a house with a little baby.

The girl joined Laura on the floor and started to stroke the cat. The animal stretched out a paw and then glanced up at the child with a look of complete indifference on her face.

LAURA FIGURED ALFRED would spend about ten or fifteen minutes with the Border collie before returning. She figured the next dog she would give him would be the sheltie, and after that it would be Gilligan--a mutt that was part black lab and part something considerably smaller. Gilligan looked a bit like a dwarf.

If Alfred wanted to walk still more dogs after Gilligan, she'd have to give the subject a little more thought. The other seven dogs at the shelter that day included German shepherds, Gordon setters, and a couple of mongrel strays. The dogs were generally sweet-tempered and happy to be around people, but they were big and unused to being walked on a leash. And though Alfred was strong for his size, he was still only ten and he had never been around dogs this large in his life.

One of his homes had had some breed of small dog, but it didn't sound as if he was ever walked. Alfred said they only had him for a couple of months. The owners would tie the dog to a clothesline in the backyard in the morning and then bring him in at night. When Alfred and an older child who lived at the house came home from school, the dog would start barking, but the kids weren't allowed to bring him inside the house. Until it got too cold, on occasion Alfred would go outside and play with the animal. But the dog wasn't trained, and it didn't sound as if Alfred spent much time with him. There wasn't much you could do with a dog on a clothesline. Alfred was too young to have serious homework then, but an older child--a girl, Laura believed--said the dog's yapping made it impossible to study. The neighbors complained constantly of the noise, and eventually the owners grew tired of the protests and got rid of the animal. Alfred had no idea what that meant. And so although Laura could only hope that what she was saying was true, she told the boy the owners had probably returned the dog to their nearby animal shelter, where the creature had, with any luck, found a good home.

She wondered if the boy made any parallels between himself and these dogs. She hoped not, and they certainly hadn't discussed it. Still, the boy could read, and each animal had a clipboard on the front of its pen that listed, among other salient details, why it had been brought to the shelter. Most of the time the staff simply wrote, "My owner couldn't keep me," their all-purpose explanation for a litany of reasons that usually had everything to do with the owner and nothing to do with the canine. Often people moved and the dog was no longer convenient, or they had a child and the dog abruptly became too much work. Sometimes the dog wasn't belligerent enough for the sort of young tough who would return his animal to the shelter in the back of his pickup, or it was too aggressive for a home with young children--it wouldn't tolerate the poking, prodding, and handling that even a well-meaning three-year-old will inflict upon a dog. Nine times out of ten, she guessed, the animals in the building had done absolutely nothing wrong to wind up in their four-by-seven pens. They'd simply been dogs.

It was odd, but one of the first things she and Terry had discussed when SRS told them there was a ten-year-old boy in Burlington in need of immediate placement was the possibility that the child would want to bring home a dog from the shelter. They had both liked that vision very much--a boy and his dog--and had even said something to that effect to the woman from the state who had brought them the news. But then she reminded the couple that they should only get a dog for the boy if they themselves wanted the animal, because the boy obviously would not be taking it with him if--and Laura couldn't tell for sure, but she thought that the woman had almost said
when
--the child was placed somewhere else.

My owner couldn't keep me.
Suddenly Laura disliked their umbrella expression, and she worried about Alfred. She turned her attention to the handwritten messages on her desk, wondering if there were one or two there that could be dealt with in the time the child would be with the Border collie--anything to take her mind off those words. There really wasn't, and so she carefully read the final draft of the shelter's end-of-the-year fund-raising letter, and penciled in a pair of small changes she wanted as director. Then she placed a yellow Post-it note on the top of the draft with her approval.

As she was about to start down the stairs to greet Alfred, her personal line rang. Instantly she knew it was Terry. She wasn't sure how she knew, or why she was so sure. But she was. It was her husband. Ever since he returned from deer camp last week, he had been unusually solicitous and kind. Not that he had ever been unkind. But he had never before been this attentive, he had never before been so interested in the inconsequential nothings that comprised a life. He had never before seemed to listen so carefully to every single thing that she said.

The bouquet he'd brought home the other day had been the first flowers he'd given her since the one-year anniversary of the girls' deaths.

She picked up the phone before her voice mail kicked in, and sure enough it was Terry. Off and on over the past week there had been something in his voice that she found troubling, and she heard that something loud and clear now.

How's your day going? he asked.

Where are you? she asked in return, a reflex, before realizing that she hadn't answered his question.

Just south of Shoreham, near the county line. You and Alfred having fun?

Yup, we're fine, she said, and instantly she understood why she'd asked a question before responding to his. It was as if she had suddenly stopped trusting him. These days, wasn't she always asking him where he was the moment he called?

What's he doing?

Right now he's walking a Border collie. A girl named Rascal.

Can he handle her?

Yup.

You need me to bring anything home for dinner? Pick something up in Middlebury, maybe?

Dinner's taken care of, she said, and a moment or two later they said good-bye and hung up. When the phone was back in the cradle, she stood for a moment next to her desk. Outside the window she saw the dog leading Alfred back to the shelter, the leash between them as taut as a tightrope. They were walking into the sun, and Alfred was wearing the cap with the cavalry insignia the Heberts had given him.

She wondered if there was a way she could ask Terry's brother if something had happened at deer camp. She didn't think there was, but that didn't stop her from pondering the idea.