Tysko’s sat on the corner down from Ray’s house. We rode past a farmer driving a tractor on the road and turned into the parking lot. Picnic tables sat in front of the store and it looked like a lot of people had the same idea as we did. We leaned our bikes against a table and hurried into line just as a lady was getting her cone.
When she stepped away from the window, I had eyes only on her triple scoop with sprinkles; I didn’t notice Jack snuffling up to her legs.
She let out a jagged sound of surprise and backed up so quickly, one vanilla scoop plopped onto the ground. No hesitation on Jack’s part—he immediately started lapping it up.
I looked at her face. She wasn’t that old, maybe in her twenties. “Sorry about that,” I said. “He was just trying to be friendly.”
“He scared the heck out of me,” she said. She smiled, but her body tensed against the serving window.
An older woman leaned out and spoke to me like a teacher. “Better hold your dog a little closer, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I was just about to offer to pay for that scoop when the older woman said she’d give the girl a whole new cone.
When she got it, she edged away in the direction opposite of Jack. It bothered me. I wanted to fix her impression of him. “He won’t bite,” I said.
She laughed at herself and shrugged, walking away.
“Guess she’s scared of dogs,” Prater said.
Oh, yeah. He left that wide open. A million zingers sprang to mind, but I didn’t let any of them loose. I wanted this afternoon to work out. Whatever Prater’s problem was, I was hoping the ice cream would help solve it. So even if he didn’t know it, not saying anything was the second nice thing I did for him. Buying the ice cream was the first.
Three double scoops sent us to the picnic table we’d parked our bikes next to. Prater sat opposite me, at another table facing us. He was as far away from Jack as he could get while still sitting by Ray. I looped Jack’s leash around my handlebars a couple of times and set down a cup of water for him.
We didn’t talk for a few minutes, too busy eating our ice cream. Jack lapped some of the water, and then sat straight, watching and listening. Some little kids ran laughing around another table. Their mom had a baby on her lap, and ice cream smeared his face like a chocolate beard.
“So you’re going to that show, then?” Ray asked Prater. He had to turn away from me to do this, Prater had separated himself so well.
“Yeah, Blackbeard’s in it.”
“Is Blackbeard one of your horses?” I asked.
Prater twisted his cone for a better angle. “One of our champion horses.”
“That’s cool.” I bit into a chunk of butter pecan and my front teeth froze. “Do you ride them in the shows?”
“I ride Alexander; he’s a quarter horse, but my dad rides Blackbeard, and my uncle rides The Great White North.”
“What?” A grin crossed my face.
“That’s the horse’s show name,” Ray said. “The Great White North.”
“But we call him Pete.”
“Pete? The Great White North is Pete?” It seemed funny to call a horse Pete. The show name sounded so much more powerful.
Prater was down to his last scoop. “Guess what color he is?”
It seemed obvious, but maybe it was a joke, like how that bald guy on The Three Stooges was named Curly. I went for it anyway. “White?”
Prater nodded, swallowed his ice cream.
“You should see all the trophies they have,” Ray said to me.
“Yep,” Prater said, warming to the subject. “And Shadow is next.” I realized he was talking to me like maybe I was a friend. Yep, the ice cream was definitely a move in the right direction.
Ray nodded. “I bet—”
All of a sudden, Jack whined and strained against the leash. Snapping and growling, he reared up on his hind legs, then he jumped and bolted. The bikes fell like dominoes and the leash slipped out. Jack tore across the parking lot like a torpedo.
I shot out of my seat. “Jack!”
He ran through the grass on the other side and I saw a small dark shape scuttle through the weeds. Then, with me and everyone else watching, Jack leaped through the grass and clamped his jaws down on a rabbit. Some ladies gasped and one covered her eyes with both hands. “Look at what that dog did!” a little boy shouted. A tiny girl at the next table started crying.
Jack trotted toward me with the body in his jaws, the rabbit’s lifeless head flopping with each step. “Oh, oh,” a woman moaned. Some of the ladies pulled their kids back in tight arms as Jack passed between the tables. Jack’s ears were erect and flushed with a deep rose color. I stood, frozen. Ray and Prater were also standing.
Jack stopped in front of me, laid the rabbit down, and looked up expectantly.
“Whoa!” Prater said. “A kill.” When he peered over to inspect, Jack lowered his head and snarled. Prater snapped upright. “Geez!”
“That dog killed a bunny rabbit!” a boy shrieked.
“Come over here, Troy!” the lady with the baby shouted.
Loud wails and sobs came from the little girl. Her mother held her tightly while staring right at me. “What’s wrong with you?” she shouted across the tables. “You don’t bring a dog like that around children.”
“Joshua,” murmured Ray. I couldn’t respond. “Come on, Josh, we have to do something.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Prater said. He’d finished his cone and was now mounting his bike.
Jack remained at my feet, his offering before him.
Some of the little kids had gathered on the other side of the picnic area and shouted their version of what happened. “He growled like a lion.” “He’s got rabies!” “He tried to eat me but I ran too fast.”
I crouched and held Jack’s leash. Blood pooled under the rabbit’s neck. I felt sick and hollow. I looked into Jack’s face, but I saw no meanness—he was still Jack.
One of the ladies marched over to us, her eyes narrow as slits and her hands clenched. “Get that vicious dog out of here before I call the police,” she said. “What are your names?” She sounded like a teacher.
“It’s his dog,” Prater said and pointed at me. He put one foot on the pedal, ready to make his escape. “He’s your crazy dog—no wonder he was at the pound.” I looked at him, speechless.
“Shut up,” Ray said.
I was still crouching beside Jack. Would she really call the police? Could they take Jack away?
Ray glanced at his house and then at me. “We could bury the rabbit in my yard. I’ll go get a shovel.”
I stood up and nodded. Ray crossed the side street to his house. Prater pressed down on his pedals, standing as he rode. “Later, gator,” he called out.
The angry lady stepped forward. She looked down and her lips pulled back in disgust. “Keep that dog in a pen, or I will call the police next time.” She spun around and joined the other mothers ushering their kids into their cars.
I was alone. I tied Jack up to a nearby table, pulling the knots hard and checking them. Bending down, I touched the rabbit’s back. It was soft and still warm. It should have been out playing, not lying dead here on the concrete. My first time touching a rabbit. I wished I could be petting him alive.
Ray came back with a shovel and a piece of cardboard. I held the cardboard down while Ray used the shovel to push the rabbit over. Its body rumpled, like an old doll that had lost some of its stuffing. The ice cream I’d just eaten turned sour in my stomach. Ray laid down the shovel and picked up the cardboard, and I untied Jack, wrapped the leash around my fist, and grabbed the shovel with the other hand. We walked in silence the short distance to his house.
“Let’s go around up here,” Ray said, motioning with his chin to the far corner of his house, the side that shared a space with that old lady’s house. “Easier to get to the shed.”
As we passed, the old lady watched us with disapproving eyes. “Hi, Mrs. Brenner,” Ray said. She tilted forward on the rocker, taking in the scene while clutching the black-and-white cat in her arms.
She shook her knobby finger at me. My heart beat double time and I quickly looked away from her, but that didn’t stop what she said next. “He’s a devil dog. Yella eyes, ears like horns—I saw what he did.” She leaned back, puckered her face, and spoke from her chair like a judge giving a sentence. “Devil dog.”
I swallowed and bent my head. “Did you hear what she said?” I whispered to Ray as we walked into the shady area behind his shed.
“Don’t worry about her,” Ray said. “She sits all day with that cat, just watching what everyone does. No one pays any attention to her.”
I tried not to pay attention either, but I couldn’t help it.
Ray got another shovel while I cinched Jack’s leash around a tree. As we dug, thoughts tumbled around in my head—Jack, a devil dog; bloody rabbit fur; all those people yelling at me. I’ll call the police.
My eyes watered. I kept my face down as I worked. It felt weird to throw dirt on top of the rabbit. I remembered hearing about how, in the old days, they buried people with a string in their coffin. The string led up to a bell above the ground. If the dead person wasn’t really dead, they could ring the bell and someone would dig them out. But I knew the rabbit was dead. I had pressed my hand on him and felt no heartbeat, no breathing.
Ray patted the last chunk of grass over the little grave. Wiping his forehead with his arm, he said, “Well, that’s it, then.”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
He put the shovels in the shed, I untied Jack, and we plopped down on the steps of the back porch.
My head hung down. “I can’t believe he did that.”
“Yeah,” Ray said. “But he didn’t really do anything wrong.”
“What do you mean? He killed that rabbit.”
Ray scratched Jack’s ears. “We used to have a cat that would leave dead birds at the front door,” Ray said. “My mom said that was the cat’s way of taking care of us, like he was trying to feed us.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, so that’s like what Jack was doing.”
I leaned back and thought about that for a minute. The whole scene replayed in my head: Jack, still tied to the bike, trying to tell me he saw something. Instead of paying attention to him, I was busy listening to Prater, trying to get in good with him. Well, that didn’t really work. One word from those ladies and Prater had no problem pointing his finger at me. On top of that, he didn’t even say thank you for the ice cream. Then he took off, saving his own skin.
But not Ray, who sat beside me now, stretched out along the steps with Jack pushed into his side. I didn’t know if he was a fast runner like Scott, but I knew I could be friends with him. Even if it meant dealing with Prater.