Jim and Thomas had been sitting quietly in the cabin, Jim on the rickety chair under the window, Thomas on the edge of the bed frame, when the racket outside started. “Buddy, where are you, boy?” the colored girl’s voice called out, and Buddy gave a welcoming bark from the yard. For some reason he didn’t like to come inside. Maybe he felt like he needed to stand guard, Jim thought.
They’s folks here all the time now, Thomas said from the bed. Folks and dogs. Don’t like them dogs, though. I know that yellow one yours, and I expect he all right. But that other one? That King? I don’t know about him.
Jim turned and looked at Thomas. So tell me again what happened yesterday?
How many times I got to say it? Yesterday that girl come down in the hole there with me. Wasn’t but ten minutes after you went off chasing after your shadow again. Callie’s what they called her. I tried to talk to her, but she kept slapping at me, like she don’t want me around.
Jim smiled to himself. He’d had that same feeling about Thomas about a hundred times. He wondered if Callie had a little brother or sister, somebody who pestered her all the daylong. Or was she the youngest, like him? He knew Wendell had sisters, so he’d know what it was like to want somebody out of your hair. Only Jim was getting used to Thomas now. Was glad for his company.
The voices grew louder. “Buddy! Come here, boy!”
Jim had been feeling better about things now that Buddy was here. All you need is one good dog, his daddy used to say. A dog’ll stick by you when other folks won’t. That sure was true of Buddy, who had slept at the end of Jim’s bed every night and walked him all the way to school in the morning. He was waiting at the school door at the end of the day too.
Where had Buddy been before that day he showed up at the cabin with Wendell and that girl Callie? And why did he look so old? Fred, too. Strange seeing his big brother look like a man.
Jim leaned back in his chair and tried to do his remembering exercises, but his mind fought hard against him. What had happened to him? When had it happened? He kept seeing a picture of his friends Robert Lincoln and Harry Partin standing on his front porch, fishing poles in hand, and he could remember setting off down the road with them, Buddy trotting along behind them. Must have been headed to the river with all that gear, but Jim couldn’t picture ever getting there. Right there was where his memory stopped.
“Buddy, come here!”
Jim stood next to the door, wondering if someone would push it open so he wouldn’t have to walk through. He wished he could put a sign on the door that said DON’T SHUT DOOR! Wished he could let people know what the rules were.
Go through the window if you don’t want to go through the door, Thomas said, and Jim whipped around to look at him. How’d he know that’s what Jim had been thinking?
Window’s wide open, Thomas said.
How—how do you go out?
Don’t bother me none to walk through a closed door. But I reckon you don’t like it much, way you always waiting around like you hoping God push it open for you.
It makes my stomach hurt to walk through walls, Jim admitted.
You get over that after a while.
But Jim didn’t want to get over it. Getting over it would mean accepting something he didn’t want to accept. If you got used to walking through walls, it meant you were the type of person who could walk through walls. Jim wanted to be the type of person who couldn’t walk through a wall. The type of person who cast a shadow when the sun shone behind him and whose voice made a sound when he opened his mouth to speak.
Go through the window. He guessed that was good advice, so he turned, stepped on the rickety chair, and pulled himself through the opening. He knew he didn’t have to do that, that he could have floated up and out, but no. That’s not how he did things. Not how he wanted to do things.
“That’s a good boy,” somebody was saying, and when Jim turned the corner, he saw Callie snapping a collar on Buddy’s neck, Buddy wriggling this way and that to get out of her grasp. What was she doing, taking his dog? Was she taking him to the vet? Good luck, Callie, Jim wanted to tell her. But what if she had other ideas? She looked like a girl who had the good sense to want a dog like Buddy for her own.
Come here, boy, Jim called in his windy voice. Buddy’s ears lifted, but he didn’t come. Instead he struggled as Callie tried to hook a leash to the collar. Behind her stood Wendell, looking uncomfortable.
“I knew he’d be here this morning,” Callie said, finally getting the leash hooked on. “I think this is where he’s staying all the time now. He looks skinny, too, like he’s not getting anything to eat.”
“I’ll bring him some food this afternoon,” Wendell said, and Jim wished he could say thanks so that Wendell could hear him. He hated to think of Buddy going hungry, but he hadn’t figured out a way to feed him.
“Maybe he’ll go live with Jim’s mama after we bring him over,” Callie said. “Maybe he’ll be happy to stay there.”
“Don’t you think that he’d be staying with them already if that’s what he wanted?”
“Don’t know. Maybe.”
Jim felt a wind rush through him. Wendell and this girl were taking Buddy to his house? Why hadn’t Buddy been living there? Where had Buddy been?
Where had Jim been?
Buddy! he called again, and this time Buddy looked in his direction and sniffed the air.
The girl stood and tugged at Buddy’s leash. “Come on, boy. We’re gonna go see Jim Trebble’s mama.”
You gonna go with ’em? Thomas was standing next to Jim, his back pressed against the cabin wall, as though he was trying to stay as far away from Buddy as possible.
I reckon, Jim said. I’d like to see my mama. I keep hoping to run into her, but I never do.
How ’bout your daddy? You want to see him, too?
I think my daddy—well, I think he’s—
But Jim couldn’t say what he thought his daddy was.
Thomas took a tentative step away from the cabin. I best be going with you, he told Jim. You start fading like you did yesterday, that might be the end of you. Then who I’m gonna talk to?
Jim nodded. He was starting to think it was nice to have someone to talk to. He’d almost forgotten what that was like.