Sierra had to keep reminding Molly to stay with her; she had to keep reminding Beau, for that matter. Beau was a trailblazer—he liked to get out ahead of them and nose around. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if Beau cornered an elk buck or a bear. She had the small canister of mace in her vest pocket but she didn’t think it would do much good on an angry bear. She had dog treats in the other pocket and her water in her backpack.
She kept telling Molly how good she was, how well she was doing, stopping every so often to work on voice commands. They were starting to experiment with “Down!” She had to add a little incentive, a gentle push on the head until Molly was in the down position. And she couldn’t help but fantasize her dog becoming the best trained dog in the universe. Of course Sully only said, “Let her get to be about four years old and you might really have something. Those goldens are the best-natured dogs.”
The walks, at least one a day and sometimes two if she didn’t have to work at the diner, were good for the dogs. They were both less trouble, calmer. Well, except for bunny chasing. She probably shouldn’t have, but she hadn’t been able to resist letting Molly join Beau on a little chase. It just filled Molly with such joy. But Molly’s chasing days were now done. The problem came when the dogs had actually caught one. Beau, being older and better trained, just loped off to find Sully and present his catch and Beau soft-mouthed his catch so Sully could just release the bunny, usually back behind the garden shed. But Molly had brought Sierra a bunny that had been mortally bitten. “Oh God, what do I do now?” Sierra had wailed, horrified.
“Dig a hole,” Sully had said. “City girl.”
Well, she was the farthest thing from a city girl, but there were parts of this country living that were alien to her. And difficult. But it was still better than the life she had lived before.
Out here, on one of the many paths and trails that led into the mountains, it was easy for Sierra to let her mind wander. Gratitude was almost automatic, something that was a struggle under other circumstances. When she was out here in nature, she could think about how lucky she was to be alive. When she’d been struggling in the city, in rehab, at work, it was too easy for her to feel sorry for herself. Addicts had the market cornered on self-pity. They were experts at it.
She and the dogs were well out in the wilderness on a very good, well-traveled trail when it happened. She stepped in a hole, her ankle twisted and she heard it crinkle almost like tissue paper—crunch, crunch, crunch.
“Shit,” she said as she landed on her butt. Molly immediately began licking her face. “Not now, Molly,” she said. She sat there a minute, trying to assess the damage. It didn’t really hurt. But she knew it was probably time to go home so she called Beau, who came trotting back to her.
“Sorry, kids, but I think I might’ve sprained my ankle. At least.”
She hoisted herself up and stepped gingerly on her right foot and pain shot up her leg to her knee. “Whoa,” she said. “Damn!”
She took a few careful steps, only able to set her injured foot on her toes. She bit her lip and went slowly and carefully. She was only a half hour out from the campground so if she went slowly, carefully, she could get there. She could probably slide on her butt and it would only take her... Hell, it would take most of the day. She took ten slow steps and the pain brought tears to her eyes. “Holy macaroni,” she said to her companions. “Too bad one of you isn’t a horse.”
Ten minutes and maybe a hundred steps later she sat on a boulder. She rolled down her sock and looked at her ankle. It was already swollen and was turning a very unhealthy color. She decided she’d just wait a while, someone would be along. There were lots of hikers around. Then she heard thunder. “Perfect,” she said.
In five minutes she felt the first drops. As far as she could remember, there hadn’t been a cloud in the sky when she set out on her hike. And now there would be no hikers coming along. It was going to be a long, wet afternoon waiting until someone noticed they’d been gone too long.
*
Connie moved to the front porch with his coffee cup. Personally, he loved the rain. But it was a little inconvenient around a campground. People were driven indoors and most of the time that meant a tent. A couple of campers came jogging across the grounds to the store; they might buy snacks to help them hunker down in their tents or they might decide the porch was a good place to wait it out.
It wasn’t long before Sully was on the porch, holding a cup of his own. He just sat down and watched the rain make a mess of the grounds. Surprisingly, it was only the two of them on the porch.
“There’s going to be a wet girl and two wet mutts coming along pretty soon,” Connie said.
“Yup,” Sully agreed. “They won’t melt. The dogs’ll love it.”
“They’re gonna track up everything—house, store, everything.”
“Yup, I hate that part.”
Ten minutes later Connie said, “You’d think she’d be making tracks. Rain and all.”
“Hurrying won’t make her less wet,” Sully said.
Ten minutes later Connie said, “You suppose she holed up under a big tree, waiting for it to pass?”
“Likely,” Sully said. “You waiting around for her or something?”
“Nah, I should probably just go. Unless I can lend you a hand?”
“I got nothing to do I can’t get done. We’re going over to that barn for supper, me and Sierra. I’m closing the store at six thirty.”
“I ought to make a run by that barn one of these days, see how it’s coming along,” Connie said.
“If you can tell, you’re a better man than I am. They keep squawking about all the progress they’re making and it still looks like a barn under construction to me. I reckon we’ll be eating at that indoor picnic table.”
Connie laughed at him. “I built my house, you know. I mean, I had some help. I had a general contractor, mostly for looks and for getting inspections. But I did a lot of the work.”
“Oh, I know,” Sully said. “Can’t remember you talking about much else for a couple of years.”
“I love that house,” he said. He hadn’t thought he could do so well and he’d poured himself into it thinking one day he’d be telling his sons he’d built the home they lived in; his wife would tell her friends she picked out every detail from faucets to door handles.
Shortly after the house was done, he threw his woman out for cheating right in his own bed. He bought a new mattress and all new bedding. For the next year Connie had hardly said a word about the house.
The rain eased up to a dribble, ready to stop. “She’ll be along now,” Connie said.
“You are waiting for her,” Sully said.
“Well, I wasn’t but now I am—she and the two dogs have been missing in the rain for quite a while now and I’ll just feel better knowing she got back. That they all got back. That’s a nice little dog she got herself.”