Sudden memory hit her; the spring she had found the gravesite scattered, the spring defiled. She sprinted up the hill to it, Druid hanging back, protesting—
Druid, no
!
Brenna stopped short. Someone else's voice, someone else's fear. And the strange sensation struck her again, the feel of her world folding in on itself.
Druid, no!
Fear and grief and desperation and a great flash of light, and then Druid screamed and threw himself back on the leash, flopping and fighting and pulling Brenna back to the cool air against her cheek, the diffuse light of a clear, crystal-edged spring night reclaiming her vision.
"Druid!" she snapped, having had quite enough of the little fits and everything that came with them. "Druid, that's enough!" She put her foot on the leash close to his collar, restricting his fit, and it didn't slow him in the least. Nor did it slow him or even seem to reach him when she crouched close, her foot still on the leash, and said in the most matter-of-fact tone she could manage, "Druid, no. No. No."
When he did stop, his eyes wild and foamy spit on his lips, it was only because he was exhausted; there was no intelligence in his eyes, no response to her quiet words. As soon as something moved, as soon as he got his wind back, he'd start again—she had no doubt. So with coordination that surprised even herself, she set the rifle down, pulled her foot from the leash, grabbed him up, and bounded to the bottom of the hill, where she placed him on the ground.
He stood in disheveled shock, panting, but his eyes no longer wild. After a moment he shook himself off, put his bottom on the ground, and looked up at her as if to say, "Well! Wasn't
that
something!" Brenna took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh of relief. Straightening, she fished for the flopping end of her braid and stuck it in her pocket.
A throat cleared. A masculine sound.
Brenna jerked her attention to the creek, to the other side of it. He stood there, looking back at her, meeting her startled gaze evenly. "Interesting dog you've got there."
"Looks that way," Brenna said shortly, thinking with sinking stomach of the rifle out of her reach. But the creek was between them, running cold between two steep banks, and loud enough to discourage casual conversation. "The fence is there for a reason. This is private property."
He shrugged, not the least affected by the news, and rolled an unlit cigarette between his fingers. No doubt it matched the stubby filter she'd spotted upon arrival. Otherwise, he was not so different from her—dressed in jeans and a vest over a light jacket, hiking boots on his feet. And not a big man, no bigger than she, though with more meat on his bones. His hair, a bright blond, matched a neat but full mustache with glints of gold in it; both were clean and trimmed. Nothing about him to make her wary, aside from her initial resentment of both his presence and his littering.
He gave her that time to look him over and nodded at the .22, up on the hill. "Do you always carry a gun?"
"It's a rifle," Brenna said. "I was target shooting."
"Earlier. Yes, I heard."
"I usually have it," she said, answering his first question—if not with the strict truth, but following sudden instinct.
"I know I'm trespassing," he said suddenly, taking a step closer to the bank as he stuck the cigarette in his mouth and dug in his front pocket for what she presumed was a lighter.
"Don't light it unless you plan on taking it with you," she said, with a pointed look back at the butt on the ground behind her.
Startled, he stopped with the flickering lighter halfway to the end of the cigarette, and then let it go out. "I can wait," he said mildly. "I didn't have to come back when I saw you, you know. If I hadn't wanted you to know I'd been here."
Again, she looked back at the cigarette butt.
He grinned at that. "If I hadn't wanted you to know it was
me
."
She shrugged, an acknowledgment of sorts. Behind him, the southwestern sky deepened, a cerulean warning of impending twilight.
Parker said, "The place means something to me, is all. I was here with some friends, once. Last time I saw one of them before he died. And the other one...buried him a couple of months ago. So the place calls to me, I guess."
Brenna hesitated. She didn't recognize him, which was odd enough; she didn't know all of the names of her most recent neighbors in the divvied-up farmland near Emily, but she knew their faces well enough. And yet he was charming enough. Not her type, but she had no doubt that smile got him plenty of attention. No reason, aside from the discomfiting circumstances of their meeting, to heap rudeness on him. "If I couldn't tell you'd been here," she said, careful with her words, "I might not care."
"Thanks," he said, and bestowed his smile upon her.
"Don't take it as an invitation," she said.
"I'll take it for what it is," he told her, and ducked his head to light the cigarette, glancing up at her as he drew a deep draught of it. She thought it was his parting comment, but as he turned away he added, "Best get inside. I hear there's a pack of dogs running wild in the area."
You don't look so worried
. And he didn't, walking away through the winter-mashed grass with a distinct lack of purpose in his stride.
But she tied Druid to a sapling on the bank and went up to retrieve the rifle, hesitating only long enough to check his footprints in the dimming light, the old against the fainter, newer imprints, mostly obscured by the disturbed turf from his little fit. Long enough to decide that they could have come from the same dog, not long enough—and not enough light—to say for sure.
"Sunny!" she called, her best pasture-spanning bellow. "Suuun-ny!" She slapped her pocket a few times, making the biscuits rattle. Druid made an interested noise, in case she'd forgotten he was there and perfectly willing to relieve her of the burden of carrying all those terribly heavy biscuits. "In a minute," she told him, and switched to escalating tactics. "Co-ookies!"
Sunny might never learn her name, but she knew
cookies
down cold. In moments she galloped up, a clump of last fall's burrs stuck to her neck, her tongue hanging long, and her expression eager. Brenna murmured, "Silly," and tossed her a biscuit, which the hound snatched out of midair. She tossed one to Druid, too, but it boinked off his forehead as he made no attempt either to catch it or to get out of its way. Once it hit the ground he snatched it up fast enough.
"
That
," Brenna said, "is something you'll have to learn if you want to hang around with me."
He's somebody else's dog.
"Yeah, yeah," she muttered to her warning inner voice. Somebody else's
strange
dog. But he was here for now.
Here in her life, along with strange black moods in the night, a stranger at her spring, dog packs roaming the rural woods and farmland, and one really annoying dog trainer.
For now.
~~~
After that, Brenna made daily visits to the spring area, checking for signs of trespass. But since the weather remained dry and the unwelcome visitor had been warned about his cigarette droppings, she couldn't be sure if he'd been there. There were signs of disturbance by the footbridge that crossed the creek a little way to the west—without question, the way he was getting from one side to the other—but raccoons and coyotes tended to hang out there, anyway.
Well, there was a wet weather system on its way in; she'd have a better indication after that.
She caught glimpses of Gil Masera and his healing bruises at the store, and even saw the periphery of one of his rare afternoon classes—a beginners' class from the look of it, with young dogs sproinging off in all directions, owners looking exasperated, and Masera with a new and different expression, something softer than his habitual judgmental preoccupation. He was enjoying himself, she realized. He enjoyed the dogs being dogs, he didn't get uptight at the frustration of the owners. And to judge by his reputation—for she checked, in those days after he'd shoved his card at her—eventually those clownish and clueless wonders from his beginners' class would settle down into respectful canine companions.
And in those days after the encounter at the spring, Druid stayed quiet and normal, and graduated to sleeping on her bed. She began to hope that his fits had been spurred by the trauma of his time spent lost and frightened; he even accompanied her to work several times without reaction.
No one called for him. The vet's office couldn't match the rabies tag partial up with any of the Cardigans in their service. No one placed an ad in the paper. The days added up to a week since his arrival, then two...and even three.
"I just can't imagine someone
not
looking for a dog like this," Brenna told Emily one Sunday evening over soda at the Brecken table, with Emily's husband Sam puttering happily in the basement and the girls watching a movie while they tickled, scratched, and otherwise adored Druid.
Emily looked up from her latest cross-stitch; Brenna had long been accustomed to the fact that Emily could carry on a conversation and handle complex needlework at the same time. "Not everyone feels the same way you do about dogs, Bren."
"No," Brenna agreed, "but anyone who bothers to own a champion quality rare-breed dog usually does."
"Maybe he's not," Emily said, and shrugged. "You know what that woman at the Cardigan club said. Maybe the owners just made up that name for him."
"I need to find out more about the breed, see if I can get someone to look at him," Brenna said. "Maybe send a photo to the club. But I'm betting he
is
a champion. When you see puppy mill pets day after day, you
know
when quality walks in." She craned her neck to get a glimpse of Druid through the kitchen to living room archway; he sprawled on his back with his white-and-freckled legs spread-eagled to the four winds. In the background, Sam's footsteps sounded on the wood-plank stairs. "I'm trying to convince him quality is as quality does. Maybe it's worked—he hasn't freaked since the day I saw that man at the spring."
Sam appeared in the narrow doorway behind Emily, flicking the light switch off as he gave Brenna an alert look, the eavesdropper drawn out. "What man? On your property?"
Emily glanced back at her husband, a short man with a beefy build; one look and it was obvious that the girls took after their slim-boned mother. Round in the face, scant of hair—he at least had the sense to crop what remained short instead of going for a comb-over—Sam had a face that spoke his every thought.
Normally Brenna found that reassuring; she always knew where she stood, and half the time Sam was simply emoting his happiness with Emily and life in general. But at the moment he was guarded and halfway to alarmed. Emily took note, stuck her needle into the hoop-stretched needlework, and twisted to look more closely at him. "I thought I'd mentioned that."
"I'd remember it if you had," Sam said. "Because I suspect I know who it was."
"Who?" Brenna asked immediately. Sam owned a local garage, and if there were a male equivalent of beauty salon gossip, he worked in the midst of it.