A Single Shot

“My lawyer’s going for an order of protection tomorrow, John. From now on, you’re to stay away from the house.” Moira’s calling from a pay phone. John hears voices in the background. “You can’t just go around breaking windows and leaving rancid meat in people’s—John?”

“Yes?”

She lowers her voice some. “Are you in trouble?”

“What?”

“Did you…?” Her voice becomes a whisper. “John, for God’s sake, where did all that money come from?”

“It’s for you and Nolan.”

“There’s over four thousand dollars there!”

“A few months’ advance.”

“Advance?”

“There’ll be more.”

“More?”

“We can buy a new home if we want, Moira.”

“What’s going on, John? Are you all right?”

“You at school?”

“Yes. Look, John—I can’t spend this.”

John watches out the window as Mutt makes a blind rush for the woodchuck, which whistles harshly, then dives into its hole. Mutt puts its nose to the hole and starts sniffing.

“Some son of a bitch looks like Ichabod Crane was fucking the babysitter when I showed up.”

“Carla told me…”

“I had every right to call the social services.”

“You can’t believe I knew about it!”

“I could go for a change in custody.”

“You don’t want custody, John. You don’t even want to babysit!”

“Who’s Obadiah Cornish?”

“Some friend of Carla’s. I didn’t ask him over.”

“What else?”

“I don’t know what else. I only met him a few days ago. He used to live around here, he said.”

“He ask about me?”

“Just chitchat—about hunting, that sort of thing. He said he remembered you were quite a hunter—made some joke about your poaching.”

“What do you know about the guy he hangs around with?”

“Who?”

“Heavyset guy, dark—they came out of Puffy’s together.”

“I don’t know anything about him.” A recorded voice comes on the line and tells Moira to deposit another twenty-five cents. “John—I’m giving the money back.”

“I won’t take it.”

“I’ll put it away someplace, then. I don’t know what you’ve done, John, but…”

“What’s it like there?”

“Where?”

“School?”

“I don’t know. It’s school, John. That’s all. A lot of work…”

John hears what sounds like a rifle shot outside. He watches Mutt’s body lift a foot in the air, fall to the ground, and lie still. “Jesus…”

“John?”

“I got to go. They shot Mutt!”

John cries when he sees him. Half his head’s been blown off. He’s got a mouthful of grass and foam and lies on his side like he’s been thrown there. The bullet’s buried itself in the dirt or flown off into the woods. The shot looks to have come from down the hill, on the town side of Nobies’.

Cecil answers John’s call on the barn phone. John hears mooing, buckets clanging, the whir of milking machines. “He leave?”

“What, John?”

“The son of a bitch shot Mutt!”

“Who shot Mutt?”

“Who was there?”

“The one in the black Chevy Blazer. Had a picture of some girl. Wanted to know if we’d seen her.”

“What’d he look like?”

“Long drink a’ water. Said he was a private investigator hired by the girl’s family. Her boyfriend’s from these parts. S’posedly they was seen two days ago headin’ into the east entrance the preserve. That’s why he’s been nosin’ round.”

“He show ya a badge?”

“Somethin’ in plastic. Said the parents are offerin’ twenty thousand dollars to whoever helps find the girl. I said he ought to talk to you, seeing as how half your life’s lived in the woods round. He didn’t come see ya?”

“No.”

“If the girl’s found—dead or alive—with all her b’longings, the twenty thousand, he said, ’ll be paid no questions asked.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Go figure.”

“He involve the law?”

“Weren’t my bus’ness ta ask.”

“Bastard killed my dog, Cecil! Didn’t ya hear the shot?”

“I can’t hear nothin’ ’bove this racket. Why would he shoot Mutt?”

“I’d like to know. You watch him leave?”

“Had better things to do. I saw him walk out the barn, get in his car, and head for the hollow road’s all. You gon’ call the sheriff?”

“I ain’t. Don’t you neither.”

“I got nothin’ ta say to him.”

The first time he showed up at the trailer he had a faceful of porcupine quills. Moira and John had been married less than a year. They spent two hours with pliers, pulling the quills out. Mutt, who was only half grown, never even whimpered. “You’re one tough mutt, Mutt,” Moira kept telling him.

He was a fighter. He fought for fun—raccoons, foxes, even a bobcat once. Following his bouts, he’d drop in at the trailer, showing off his wounds, looking to be patched up, fed, patted, bedded down for a few nights on the living-room floor. Then he’d get restless. He was a good dog. Never caused any problems. Just lived his life. Someone had house-trained him once or he’d learned himself. Moira was real impressed with his cleanliness. She called him “a mannered rogue.”