Ruby pulls into the Cumberland Farms gas station to fill up her van. The Hitchhiker puts her paws on the dashboard, little spaniel nose pointed in the direction of the wall that usually sports Bull Harrison leaning against it like some kind of urban mural. There’s no sign of him or his dog. Normally that kind of thing would hardly be worth noticing, but at this time of day, Bull, a creature of habit, is notably missing. Ruby was hoping to see him this morning so she could ask him if he has any memories of a psychic in a local head shop. Now there is a trickle of premonition zizzing into Ruby’s heart.
She’s on her way. Finally. If she can get a decent start this morning, Ruby plans on catching up with Joe Benini and his crew late today. He’s already in Maine, but not too far up. Doug fiddled with the muffler and the rumbling has diminished, so she isn’t that worried about the Westie being up to making the journey. Ruby taps the last drop out of the nozzle and locks in the gas cap. That blank wall seems so much bigger without Bull leaning against it.
“I need a coffee,” she says to the dog. “Hang on a minute.”
“Treat?” thinks the dog.
Inside Ruby grabs a Farmhouse blend and a granola bar. She adds a package of Pup-Peroni, an indulgence for sure, but it’s going to be a long ride.
“Is that all today, ma’am?” The usual clerk is behind the counter.
“It is.” Ruby puts a ten on the counter. “Have you seen Bull around lately?”
The boy hands her her change. “Can’t say that I have. Not for a few days anyway. A week maybe?”
Ruby sets her coffee in the cup holder, opens the package of Pup-Peroni for the dog, who is yipping in excitement at the scent of the fake jerky. She’s thinking about the last time she saw Bull herself and cannot. Was it in the Country Market? Pushing his bike along County Road? She and Doug went to the Lakeside last night and he wasn’t there, nor had she seen him there the first time they went out. Ruby pulls out her phone and calls Polly. She’ll know what’s going on.
“Nope, can’t say that I’ve seen him either.”
“Is this normal? It seems to me that he’s always around. Does he go anywhere?”
“Not that he’s ever said. His son Cooper comes up and sees him from time to time.”
“Maybe that’s it. Maybe he’s had company.” But even as she says it, Ruby knows that’s not the case. “Maybe I’m a worry wart, but I’m going to swing by on my way out of town.”
“Good idea. Out of town, huh? For long?”
For long. Forever probably, but Ruby doesn’t say that. It’s why she never says goodbye. And then she thinks, she’s never really had anyone she’d needed to say goodbye to before. And now she seems to have collected a trio of them. “I don’t know. At least through the fall.”
“Will you come back?”
Ruby says, “I don’t know. I usually go south in the winter.”
Doug hadn’t asked that question, not the one of how long, or the other one, will you be back. Doug had been nonchalant about her declaration of intent. All he’d said: “You’ll keep in touch?” And all she’d said was “Yes.”
Boy is sitting outside on the back steps. No sign of Bull in the yard. The dog fairly lopes over to Ruby as she gets out of her van. He and the Hitchhiker nose each other briefly before he reaches Ruby. He sits, waits. Knows that she will touch him and what he has on his mind she will understand. Ruby does, cupping both hands over his skull, over his eyes, along his cheeks. Her mind is filled with the sour sweet odor of fever. The images coming from the dog prompt her to run to the back door, shoulder it open when it sticks, and call out Bull’s name.
“In here.”
Ruby finds Bull in his one soft chair, the television on but muted. Mountain Dew cans litter the side table, surrounding an ashtray full of butts. Dressed in stained sweats topped with his favorite Patriots sweatshirt, he is more gray than usual and clearly gasping for breath.
“Pardon me if I don’t get up.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Just a bug. Nothing.” But the look on his face belies this attempt to downplay the pain he is obviously feeling. He suddenly looks at Ruby with panic on his face. “It hurts.”
The dogs have followed Ruby into the living room. Boy sits with his head on Bull’s lap, his powerful nose pressed against Bull’s middle. He moves away, sits in front of Ruby to tell her something. “Deep sick. Inside him.”
Ruby has heard that there are dogs who can sniff out illness, cancer, epilepsy, diabetes, but they are trained in what to look for. She doesn’t discount that the dog might have an instinctive sense of trouble within, but she cannot imagine that he has diagnostic capabilities. “You need a doctor, Bull. Let’s get going.”
It is no mean feat to haul a hefty guy like Bull out of a soft chair, but Ruby does. She points him toward the back door, grabs his wallet sitting on the counter, and guides him toward the van. He is wobbly and stops every few steps to bend over in pain. She struggles to counterweight him when he leans too far to the right. Just when it begins to seem like an impossible effort and she’s going to have to call an ambulance, she manages to get him into the van, not into the front seat but up onto the bench seat where he doesn’t fit. His feet are still on the floor, but he can presumably be more comfortable in a mostly reclining position. The dogs jump in, Boy to lie on Bull’s big feet and the Hitchhiker to take up her usual passenger seat position.
There is no hospital in Harmony Farms, so she heads to the local urgent care facility. By the grace of God, she gets him out of the van and into a wheelchair and into the building. The dogs stand in the open doorway of the Westie, and she points a finger. “Stay, do not move.”
Bull is quickly taken out of Ruby’s hands. She can answer no questions, she knows nothing more than what she has seen, so they quickly dismiss her as the good Samaritan and the hiss of automatic doors concludes her part in the drama. She goes back to the van and is pleased to see both dogs framed in the open slider. And then it hits her. If something happens to Bull, if he’s hospitalized, what is she going to do with Boy? She can’t leave town with him. She can’t leave now at any rate, not until she knows what’s going on with Bull. Once again, Ruby finds herself trapped by circumstance. She looks at her watch, relieved to see that it is only just past ten o’clock. If she can get on the road by noon, one o’clock at the latest, she can still get to Maine by nightfall. She and the Hitchhiker can sleep in the van, meet up with Joe Benini in the morning. “Okay. We’ll just head out a little late. No biggie.” She strokes Boy’s head. “It’ll be fine, big guy. He’ll be fine.” Even as she says this to the dog, she has a hard time believing it herself, and he picks up on her doubts, heaving a great sigh and a soft whimper.
Ruby sits on the edge of the van between the dogs and calls Polly to let her know what’s up. Polly is on patrol, so within a few minutes she shows up in the animal control vehicle. “Any word?”
“Not yet. You know how these things are. Besides, they aren’t going to tell us anything. Do you have a way to get hold of that son of his?”
“I already did.” Polly settles her utility belt around her broad hips. “Unfortunately, he’s not going to be able to get here any time soon. He’s on a missing-persons search with his K-9. I promised we’d keep him posted.”
“This could be serious, Polly.” Ruby is thinking of Boy, of how he pressed his nose into Bull’s belly, how he spoke of “deep” sickness.
Polly’s radio crackles and she reaches into the cab of the truck to pull it out. Ruby doesn’t pay close attention to the back and forth, keeping her hands on the dogs, reassuring Boy that she’s there for him. Letting the Hitchhiker know that she’s a good girl.
“I’ve got a dog versus car incident, so I’ve got to go. I’ll come back as soon as I can. Call me if, well, just call me if you need to.” With that, Polly heaves herself into the truck and speeds off. Boy raises his head to watch her go. Ruby checks her watch. Still only a little past ten.
Herein lies the rub of being in one place for too long, the complication of other people. The complication of human decency. She could just drop the dog off at his house and get going, but Ruby knows that she won’t. These are no longer strangers. After leaving Madame Celestine’s camper van lo those many years ago, Ruby has not allowed herself to become attached to anyone other than her family. The clinging strings of friendship serve only to contain her forward movement. Case in point, sitting here in the parking lot of an urgent care facility with a dog not her own, miserable in his separation from his person, dashing any escape plans for today. Ruby cannot leave without knowing what is going to happen with Bull and she hasn’t got even the slightest glimmer of psychic intuition—good or bad—to release her from this vigil.
Occasionally, she has dealt out a pattern of tarot cards suggesting a bad illness to come or one already there and unknown. She is not a doctor, a shaman, or a healer, and predicting an early death is not her style. She might suggest a visit to the doctor but couch it in terms of maintenance, not bad news. The one thing she has come to accept in her business of reading the futures of other people, almost no one ever lets her know if she’s been right. Never any follow up. She is left to sit at her table and wonder if that man with the card pointing to death will heed her advice and seek medical attention. Or, even if getting help, will die anyway.
Ruby shakes the grim thoughts out of her head. “You stay put.” She slides the door mostly shut, not confident that the pair of dogs won’t get out of the van. She notices that the wheelchair she had commandeered for Bull is back in its place as she walks up to the reception window, taps to get the attention of the woman behind the glass. “I’m here to check on Bull Harrison.”
“I’m sorry, who?”
Ruby realizes that she has no idea what Bull’s real first name is. “The older man, gray sweatpants, Patriots sweatshirt. Great pain? I brought him in an hour ago.”
“Are you a relative?”
Why not? “I’m his cousin.” It just pops out.
“You can wait in chairs.” She points at the rank of chrome and blue vinyl chairs.
Ruby doesn’t care for the grammatical construct. “But I’d like some information.”
“The nurse practitioner will come out to talk with you.”
“So, you do know what’s going on?”
“No. I didn’t say that. I have no information. You have to wait.”
Grumbling to herself, Ruby chooses a chair as far away from the rest of the waiting patients as she can get. She drops a quick text to Polly to get Bull’s actual name so that she can play this fake cousin game a little better. Barton, Polly quickly replies.
A nurse comes out, calls a name, and a sniffling sneezing young guy goes in. Another nurse, another patient. And another. Ruby shifts in her seat, studies her nails. Waits another beat before going back to the window to get the same response. At least this time she can ask for Barton Harrison. It is to no avail and she is sent back to wait it out in the seating area. It strikes Ruby that all this waiting is not a good sign, that Bull Harrison isn’t going to come out from the back of this place with a prescription in his hand. What is she going to tell his dog?
When she is just about to give up, a nurse practitioner comes through the door. Ruby knows that, this time, it is she this woman is looking for, so she quickly gets to her feet. “I’m with Barton Harrison.”
“Are you a relative?”
“Cousin.” Fingers crossed that this woman doesn’t actually know Bull and who he’s related to. It is, after all, a very small town.
“We are having him admitted to U-Mass Medical. We’re just waiting for transport.”
Ruby doesn’t ask what’s wrong, will he be okay, or any of the usual responses to this sort of news. She just asks if she can go in and see him. Ruby really doesn’t want Bull to think he’s been abandoned, or, more important, to worry about Boy.
There is a definite reluctance, but the nurse finally nods. “For a minute. Maybe you can collect his things, take them home for him.”
Ruby is led to where Bull is lying in a mechanical bed, tilted up at a mild angle. He looks pale and gray but no longer in pain. He also looks frightened. “How are you feeling?” It’s such a silly question.
“Nothing a little Jack and a Marlboro can’t fix.” He wants to laugh, but he manages only a grunt.
“I don’t think that there’s a prescription for that. They’re pretty set on you going to the hospital. I can take your stuff home, if you want.”
“And Boy? Where is he?”
“He’s with the Hitchhiker, in the van. Don’t worry about him. He’ll be fine for a couple of days without you.” A couple of days.
“You’re a good friend, Ruby Heartwood.”
“Actually, these folks here think I’m your cousin, or else they wouldn’t let me in.”
“Hey, who knows. You ever get that DNA stuff back?”
As a matter of fact, as she’s been sitting and waiting, Ruby has gotten the email from the Family History Lab. She didn’t want to open it on her phone, or in a public place, so she’s letting the anticipation build until she can settle in for the day. Settle in at Bull’s.
Before Ruby can answer, a pair of young men in dark blue uniforms with the ambulance company logo on their shirts come in and take over the room. Ruby steps out as they begin the transfer of Bull from hospital bed to gurney. As they roll him out of the tiny room Ruby reaches out and takes his big mitt of a hand. “Polly’s been in touch with your son. I’ll take care of Boy and you get better.”
“You got it.” But the strained look on Bull’s face suggests that he might have a hard time keeping up his end of the bargain.
The touch of Bull’s hand in hers floods Ruby’s intuition with unwanted vibes, an unwanted psychic message that Boy is right. There is disease deep within Bull.
Ruby reports back to Polly, who will relay the news to Cooper Harrison. She backs the van out of the parking space and points herself back to Bull’s. Boy remains on the floor in the back, the Hitchhiker in her usual shotgun position. It’s after two o’clock. Time enough to get partway to Maine before dark, but Ruby knows that she’s not going anywhere. When she got into the van, Boy had come up to her and put his great big head in her lap, crying out for reassurance that this upset in his life was temporary. Since the day that Cooper gave the dog, only barely rehabilitated from his traumatic weeks as a semi-feral runaway, to his father, the pair have been inseparable. She understands exactly how that feels. What would she do if she had to be hospitalized, heaven forbid? Who would take care of her dog while she was away? This is something Ruby hasn’t considered in her wholehearted conjoining with this happy beast. And yet the worry is familiar, and she recognizes it from her very early days with infant Sabine. The dread that something would happen to her and her child would be left to strangers. Much as she had been herself.
Ruby backs into her space in Bull’s yard, lets the dogs out. She scrolls her “favorites” and hits Sabine’s number.
“If anything happens to me, will you take my dog?”
“Hello, is this my mother?” Sabine at her wittiest. “Of course, but is there something you need to tell me?”
“No. It’s just that a friend of mine…” She relates to her daughter the past few hours, and how it has made her think of potentialities. Made her think of her time being the only person responsible for a child.
“You never told me this before, how afraid you were. I only knew about your anxiety about having me taken away from you, not you from me.” Sabine pauses. “You don’t have to worry; the kids would love nothing better than to add a dog to the family, but we’d really like it if you came along too.”
“I know, I owe you all a visit and I will, once I get back from fair season.”
“And yet you haven’t left Harmony Farms.”
“Don’t tell me about it. I was literally on my way out of town when I had this premonition to check on Bull. It was a good thing to do, but now I’m stuck for yet another couple of days, at least till we know what’s going on and what I should do with his dog, Boy.”
“Has it yet occurred to you that you’re supposed to stay?”
“Is this a prognostication?”
“Maybe. It’s odd, but I’ve never been to Harmony Farms, but I picture you there perfectly. When I think of some future event, like Christmas or Molly’s birthday, I see you coming to us from there.”
“Well, stop it.”
“By my calculation, it’s the longest you’ve stayed put in many a year. How many weeks? Two months?”
“Three and a half, four almost.”
“A record for you.”
“Change of subject. I got the DNA results back.”
“And?”
“I haven’t looked. I will, after I hang up with you and grab a bite.”
“How can you wait?”
“I guess maybe because I’m afraid of disappointment, that nothing in the report will lead to answers.”
“Call me tonight when you’ve digested the information. Let me know if I have to add long-lost relatives to my Christmas card list.” Sabine signs off as it is suddenly school pickup time, which makes Ruby think of Doug. She should really let him know she’s not on the road. And even having that slight suggestion of common courtesy gives Ruby pause. She has never before considered someone else having a need-to-know position in her life. Sometimes, not even Sabine.
Still in school, Doug doesn’t answer so Ruby leaves a message. “Unavoidably held up. Still in Harmony Farms. Give me a call and I’ll explain.”