him he can’t leave till we validate his parking ticket.”
Barefoot, he descended the steps and crossed the dunes to look down the
steep incline to the beach. Someone could have been lying on that
slope, watching the cottage from concealment.
Bobby walked along the crest of the embankment, heading toward the
point, studying the slope and the beach below, turning every few steps
to survey the territory between him and the house.
He held the shotgun ready in both hands and conducted the search with
military methodicalness.
Obviously, he had been through this routine more than once before. He
hadn’t told me that he was being harassed by anyone or troubled by
intruders. Ordinarily, if he was having a serious problem, he would
have shared it with me.
I wondered what secret he was keeping.
Having turned away from the steps and pushed his snout between a pair
of balusters at the east end of the porch, Orson was looking not west
toward Bobby but back along the horn toward town. He growled deep in
his throat.
I followed the direction of his gaze. Even in the fullness of the moon
which the snarled rags of cloud didn’t currently obscure, I was unable
to see anyone.
With the steadiness of a grumbling motor, the dog’s low growl continued
uninterrupted.
To the west, Bobby had reached the point, still moving along the crest
of the embankment. Although I could see him, he was little more than a
gray shape against the stark-black backdrop of sea and sky.
While I had been looking the other way, someone could have cut Bobby
down so suddenly and violently that he had been unable to cry out, and
I wouldn’t have known. Now, rounding the point and beginning to
approach the house along the southern flank of the horn, this blurry
gray figure could have been anyone.
To the growling dog, I said, “You’re spooking me.”
Although I strained my eyes, I still couldn’t discern anyone or any
threat to the east, where Orson’s attention remained fixed. The only
movement was the flutter of the tall, sparse grass. The fading wind
wasn’t even strong enough to blow sand off the wellcompacted dunes.
Orson stopped grumbling and thumped down the porch steps, as though in
pursuit of quarry. Instead, he scampered into the sand only a few feet
to the left of the steps, where he raised one hind leg and emptied his
bladder.
When he returned to the porch, visible tremors were passing through his
flanks. Looking eastward again, he didn’t resume his growling;
instead, he whined nervously.
This change in him disturbed me more than if he had begun to bark
furiously.
I sidled across the porch to the western corner of the cottage, trying
to watch the sandy front yard but also wanting to keep Bobby-if,
indeed, it was Bobby-in sight as long as possible.
Soon, however, still edging along the southern embankment, he
disappeared behind the house.
When I realized that Orson had stopped whining, I turned toward him and
discovered he was gone.
I thought he must have chased after something in the night, though it
was remarkable that he had sprinted off so soundlessly.
Anxiously moving back the way I had come, across the porch toward the
steps, I couldn’t see the dog anywhere out there among the moonlit
dunes.
Then I found him at the open front door, peering out warily.
He had retreated into the living room, just inside the threshold.
His ears were flattened against his skull. His head was lowered. His
hackles bristled as if he had sustained an electrical shock. He was
neither growling nor whining, but tremors passed through his flanks.
Orson is many things-not least of all, strange-but he is not cowardly
or stupid. Whatever he was retreating from must have been worthy of
his fear.
“What’s the problem, pal?”
Failing to acknowledge me with even as little as a quick glance, the
dog continued to obsess on the barren landscape beyond the porch.
Although he drew his black lips away from his teeth, no snarl came from
him.
Clearly he no longer harbored any aggressive intent; rather, his bared
teeth appeared to express extreme distaste, repulsion.