On the road a semi roared by, its running lights twinkling like earthstars.
"That's one mean road, all right," Crandall repeated thoughtfully, almost vaguely, and then turned to Louis. There was a peculiar little smile on his seamed mouth. He poked a Chesterfield into one corner of the smile and popped a match with his thumbnail. "You remember the path there that your little girl commented on?"
For a moment Louis didn't; Ellie had commented on a whole catalogue of things before finally collapsing for the night. Then he did remember. That wide mown patch winding up through the copse of trees and over the hill.
"Yes, I do. You promised to tell her about it sometime."
"I did, and I will," Crandall said. "That path goes up into the woods about a mile and a half. The local kids around Route 15 and Middle Drive keep it nice because they use it. Kids come and go... there's a lot more moving around than there used to be when I was a boy; then you picked a place out and stuck to it. But they seem to tell each other, and every spring a bunch of them mows that path. They keep it nice all the summer long. Not all of the adults in town know it's there-a lot of them do, of course, but not all, not by a long chalk-but all of the kids do. I'd bet on it."
"Know what's there?"
"The pet cemetery," Crandall said.
"Pet cemetery," Louis repeated, bemused.
"It's not as odd as it prob'ly sounds," Crandall said, smoking and rocking.
"It's the road. It uses up a lot of animals, that road does. Dogs and cats, mostly, but that ain't all. One of those big Orinco trucks run down the pet raccoon the Ryder -children used to keep. That was back-Christ, must have been in '73, maybe earlier. Before the state made keeping a coon or even a denatured skunk illegal, anyway."
"Why did they do that?"
"Rabies," Crandall said. "Lot of rabies in Maine now. There was a big old St.
Bernard went rabid downstate a couple of years ago and killed four people. That was a hell of a thing. Dog hadn't had his shots. If those foolish people had seen that dog had had its shots, it never would have happened. But a coon or a skunk, you can vaccinate it twice a year and still it don't always take. But that coon the Ryder boys had, that was what the oldtimers used to call a 'sweet coon. ' It'd waddle right up to you-gorry, wa'n't he fat!-and lick your face like a dog. Their dad even paid a vet to spay him and declaw him. That must have cost him a country fortune!
"Ryder, he worked for IBM in Bangor. They went out to Colorado five years ago.
... or maybe it was six. Funny to think of those two almost old enough to drive.
Were they broken up over that coon? I guess they were. Matty Ryder cried so long his mom got scared and wanted to take him to the doctor. I spose he's over it now, but they never forget. When a good animal gets run down in the road, a kid never forgets."
Louis's mind turned to Ellie as he had last seen her tonight, fast asleep with Church purring rustily on the foot of the mattress.
"My daughter's got a cat," he said. "Winston Churchill. We call him Church for short."
"Do they climb when he walks?"
"I beg your pardon?" Louis had no idea what he was talking about.
"He still got his balls or has he been fixed?"
"No," Louis said. "No, he hasn't been fixed."
In fact there had been some trouble over that back in Chicago. Rachel had wanted to get Church spayed, had even made the appointment with the vet. Louis canceled it. Even now he wasn't really sure why. it wasn't anything as simple or as stupid as equating his masculinity with that of his daughter's tom, nor even his resentment at the idea that Church would have to be castrated so the fat housewife next door wouldn't need to be troubled with twisting down the lids of her plastic garbage cans-those things had been part of it, but most of it had been a vague but strong feeling that it Would destroy something in Church that he himself valued-that it would put out the go-to-hell look in the cat's green eyes. Finally he had pointed out to Rachel that they were moving to the country, and it shouldn't be a problem. Now here was Judson Crandall, pointing out that part of country living in Ludlow consisted of dealing with Route 15, and asked him if the cat was fixed. Try a little irony, Dr. Creed-it's good for your blood.
"I'd get him fixed," Crandall said, crushing his smoke between his thumb and forefinger. "A fixed cat don't tend to wander as much. But if it's all the time crossing back and forth, its luck will run out, and it'll end up there with the Ryder kids' coon and little Timmy Dessler's cocker spaniel and Missus Bradleigh's parakeet. Not that the parakeet got run over in the road, you understand. It just went feet up one day."
"I'll take it under advisement," Louis said.
"You do that," Crandall said and stood up. "How's that beer doing? I believe I'll go in for a slice of old Mr. Rat after all."
"Beer's gone," Louis said, also standing, "and I ought to go, too. Big day tomorrow."