Chase Dad leaned forward. “How did it go?”

  “Oh, about as you’d expect. Maybe worse. You could feel both of us wishing the conversation would hurry up and end.”

  “Tell you the truth, I don’t talk to him much, either. My birthday. Father’s Day. It’s always awkward between us.” Chase Dad sighed. “Miss my mom. She would have known how to put Humpty Dumpty back together.”

  There was a noise in the house, a trilling tone. Chase Dad stood up. “Hang on, I’ll get that.” He left us, and a moment later the noise stopped.

  Grant clapped a hand on ZZ’s arm. “You look good, ZZ.”

  “You well also.”

  “How is Li Min? And Wenling?”

  “Both were fine, thank you.”

  “And, uh … is Wenling married? I mean, what is she doing now?”

  “He in school to be agricultural engineer.”

  “Oh wow. That’s great.”

  “She was not married. He lives with her boyfriend. His family will be from Qinghai province a long time.”

  “Ah. I think I get it.”

  Chase Dad pushed the door open and stepped out. I wagged. “You’re not going to believe this. Ward’s not coming to get his dog this time. He says if Riley likes it out here so much, he can just stay. Never even asked how I felt about it. Sounded drunk as a lord and it’s not even noon.” He sat down and frowned at me. “Now what?”

  Grant scratched my chest with a finger. “You know what? I’ll take him. He seems pretty smart. What do you say, Riley? Want to live here with me for a while?”

  “Oh, we know he likes the farm,” Chase Dad observed.

  I yawned, wondering when my boy would get here.

  I slept on Grant’s bed that night.

  Burke did come, but it wasn’t until the apples were filling the air with their scent. I sprinted across the yard, sobbing, and tackled him the moment he stepped out of his car. “So you’re Riley!” he greeted with a laugh, kneeling so I could climb on him and kiss him. He fell back and I climbed on top of him, rolling on him and loving him with frantic cries. “Okay, good, that’s enough. Whoa! Okay!” He stood, slapping his pants. “So where is everybody?”

  We walked out to the fields together, me dashing in circles around him, my joy uncontainable. When Burke saw Grant he began to run and then Grant was running, too, and they crashed into each other, laughing and slapping each other’s backs. I jumped around excitedly, exultant that we were all finally back together. Dad came dashing across the fields, grinning, and joined his sons, holding them both.

  Li Min made delicious beef in the kitchen and I followed her every move, ready to pounce if she dropped something. Everyone sat at the table and ate, and a tiny piece of meat fell from Grant’s hand. I could always count on Grant!

  “So tell us more about this Stephanie,” Burke asked.

  Li Min made a small noise and I glanced at her, hoping she was planning to feed the dog beef as well.

  Chase Dad’s leg, which always twitched a little, went still. “Not much to tell. She’s a companion.”

  Burke laughed. “That’s what people your age call it?”

  “She’s a hard person to get to know,” Li Min observed.

  “She’s a groupie for the Not Very Good Old White Guys’ Band,” Grant said slyly.

  “She is not a groupie,” Chase Dad corrected testily. “You come up for Thanksgiving, you’ll meet her then.”

  There was a silence, finally broken by Grant. “What? We’re actually going to get to meet one of your girlfriends?”

  I turned back to Grant and waited patiently for more beef.

  Later, in the living room, Grant, ZZ, and Chase Dad sat while my boy and Li Min poured water on plates at the sink. The men were eating peanuts, so I picked the living room over the kitchen.

  Chase Dad threw a peanut in the air and caught it with his mouth, just like a dog. “I wish you wouldn’t leave, Grant.”

  “I’ve already stayed longer than I intended, Dad.”

  “ZZ and I could really use the help. And look, Grant, you were born to this work.”

  “Dad.”

  “I mean it.”

  ZZ stood up. “I see if I help him.”

  He passed into the kitchen and I was about to follow but just as I stretched and shook myself, Grant leaned forward and snagged some peanuts, so I did Sit, being extra good.

  Grant sighed. “I appreciate it, but I need to make some real money.”

  “We’re profitable here.”

  “Barely.”

  “With your help…”

  Grant held up a hand, the peanut odor wafting off it so powerfully I involuntarily gave the air a lick. “Can we not talk about this, Dad?”

  They were quiet for a time. Chase Dad shrugged. “What about Riley, then?”

  I jerked my head up at my name. Peanuts?

  Grant leaned over to look at me. “Could he maybe stay here with you? I’m not sure where I’ll be living.”

  “Sure. We’re getting used to him.”

  Later I was disappointed when Grant dug into the box of dog toys and pulled out his nylon bone. “Hey, Riley, want a bone? Huh?”

  I did Leave It on the nylon bone, pulling out a rope toy and shaking it. Now that was fun!

  Life was different now that I was Riley. Grant and Burke did not do School. They both left the farm for long amounts of time, but then they would come back and sleep in their old bedrooms with me. They were never at the farm the same time, though.

  Sometimes a woman named Stephanie came to visit, and I liked her because she always threw the squeaky toy for me. The first time she helped Li Min in the kitchen I thought Stephanie was very clumsy because the pots and plates all rang with loud impacts on the counter. Then when Chase Dad cooked and Stephanie helped and there was no excessive noise, I realized that it wasn’t her, it was Li Min making all the clatter. It happened every time Stephanie came to see Li Min and ZZ and me and have dinner. It seemed like Li Min’s version of an angry walk.

  Stephanie and Chase Dad liked to sit at the table and play “cards,” a word I came to associate with no food being tossed down for me to catch. “You know Li Min doesn’t like me very much,” Stephanie complained.

  I heard a light slapping sound: one of the “cards.”

  “That’s ridiculous, Stephanie.”

  “She’s never smiled at me. She barely speaks to me.”

  “She’s a quiet person.”

  I turned and chewed at a particularly vicious itch on my foot.

  “This is outright hostility, Chase.”

  “Well. Maybe she thinks you’re out to steal ZZ away from her.”

  Another slap, but Stephanie’s legs had gone very still. “Why would you make a joke like that?” she asked quietly.

  “What? I didn’t mean anything by it, Steph.”

  “It was really inappropriate.”

  “I’m sorry. I apologize.”

  “If anything, I feel like I’m stealing you from ZZ. The two of you are so close. Hard to believe what you said, that at first you two didn’t like each other very much.”

  “It wasn’t him, it was me. All I needed to do was hear that he was employed by TMH and I built up a whole myth about him that was completely false. I’ve apologized to him for it a bunch of times. Like you said, we’re on pretty good terms. I couldn’t make this place work without him; he does most of the heavy lifting.”

  Another slap of a card. Why weren’t these people hungry?

  “And I know ZZ will take over when you retire.”

  “Retire?” Chase Dad laughed. “Farmers don’t retire, they just wind up under the dirt one day instead of working on top of it.”

  “Well, but you said you’d like to travel, see places.”

  “Right, and I’d like to wake up in the morning without sore knees. Not going to happen.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  I flopped onto my side and closed my eyes.

  “Even if I had that kind of money, take off to Tahiti, I couldn’t do it, Steph. The farm won’t let me go. There’s always something that needs to be fixed, even in the winter.”

  “Well, then you could sell the farm.”

  “It’s for the boys, you know that.”

  “The boys? Then where are they? If they want to inherit it so badly, why aren’t they here?”

  “That’s between me and them, Steph. A father and his sons, working through some things.”

  “Only you aren’t working through things. You said they still don’t speak to one another, and they never call you, either.”

  Chase Dad didn’t reply.

  “The first time I met you, you were this carefree guitar player.”

  “Careless, you mean.” Chase Dad laughed. “The only reason I sound good is because everyone else in the band is worse.”

  I wagged sleepily at the laughter.

  Stephanie sniffed. “I’m trying to say you seemed so fun. So unburdened. Here on the farm, you are this whole other person. So serious all the time.”

  “Farming is a serious business.”

  A long silence was broken only by the sound of the cards and my long sigh.

  “What are we doing, Chase?”

  “Sorry?”

  “We’ve been going out for more than a year. I’ve got shoes in your closet and a drawer in your dresser. And that seems to be it, as far as you’re concerned.”

  “Honey…”

  “I do not want to waste any time, Chase. I’m too old for that.”

  “You think we’re wasting time?”

  “You think you’ll ever get married again, Chase? No, I don’t mean to me, just in general. In life. No, you don’t, do you? No matter what.”

  “I don’t understand how we got on this topic.”

  Stephanie stood and I looked at her hopefully, getting to my feet as well. “I’m going to need some time, Chase, to think about all this.”

  “Think about what?”

  Stephanie stopped coming over after that. I guess she didn’t like cards after all.

  I didn’t know Chase Dad realized there was a dog park nearby until the day he drove me to town and then steered over to the same place Burke used to take me! I was so excited to mark everywhere and sniff so many dogs under their tails and run around. I expected to encounter Heavy Boy Buddha, but there was no sign of him. Instead I received a shock when a frisky dog galloped up and play-bowed. I knew this dog—she was Lacey’s puppy! My puppy, all grown!

  She didn’t recognize me at all—that was obvious by the way she carefully examined my mark, getting to know me.

  It had never occurred to me that a puppy I had known when I was Cooper would not recognize me when I was Riley. I knew Lacey, but this dog, named Echo, didn’t know me.

  I didn’t understand any of it. Were Lacey and I somehow unique among dogs?

  We played and played, Echo and me, with that easy freedom dogs feel when they like each other. Somehow it didn’t matter that she didn’t know who I was.

  That winter, when the snow was deep, Grant drove up the driveway and there was another car right behind him, being driven by a horse I soon learned was named Lucky.

  Lucky the horse seemed to me to be one of the most worthless animals I had ever encountered. She never came in the house—she obviously couldn’t figure out the dog door, though I went in and out of it several times to demonstrate. She never chased a ball or a stick. And she never ate food, just chewed on dry grass without throwing up.

  Chase Dad patted Lucky’s nose. “Never heard of renting a horse before,” he told Grant. He stood back, regarding Lucky’s car. “Nice trailer, too.”

  “Want to take a little ride?”

  When Lucky the horse did Steady it went all wrong and Chase Dad wound up stuck on her back for a time while she trotted around.

  “Haven’t done this in a while,” Chase Dad called, grinning.

  That night, Lucky was in the barn, but when I went to check on her she just stared at me, not even lowering her nose when I lifted my leg on some straw in a friendly fashion. I gave up on trying to be nice to a horse. Inside the house, Chase Dad and Grant played cards. I groaned and lay at their feet. If anyone would give me a treat during cards it would be Grant, but he was as distracted as everyone else.

  Slap. That was the sound of cards. I decided I didn’t like it. “Time you leaving in the morning?” Chase Dad asked.

  Slap.

  “Not too early. You want to come?”

  “Nah. I never was much of a camper. Especially in winter.”

  “It’s not really camping. The route takes me to cabins and a lodge.”

  “Guess if I want nature I’ll just hike up to my apple orchard.”

  Slap.

  “I mean, it would be nice to spend the time with each other doing something besides working,” Grant suggested softly. I picked up something like sadness and sat up to lick his pant leg.

  “You’ll have more fun without having to drag me along,” Chase Dad replied.

  The next morning Grant took me for a long car ride with Lucky the horse following right behind us—I smelled her the whole way. I did not understand how Lucky took a car ride by herself.

  We parked and Lucky stopped her car at the same time. I had no idea what we were doing.

  I was surprised when Lucky did Steady and Grant got stuck on top of her and we took a walk on a trail in the snow. There had been a lot of horses before us, as evidenced by their leavings, which had frozen solid and were even less interesting as ice than when they were fresh. We stopped along the way at some three-walled buildings that had nothing interesting in them, just piles of stale grass that Lucky chewed out of ignorance. We slept in a small wooden house by a frozen stream among other, similar houses, and Grant spoke to a few people. The air was thick with the tang of smoke. Lucky spent the night with some other horses, but they didn’t play, they just stood around trying to think of something to do.

  We went farther into the woods the next day. When we stopped that afternoon, Grant brushed Lucky and put her in a place with other horses while I played and wrestled with a big black dog and a smaller brown dog. A few horses watched jealously.

  “Let’s go to the lodge now, Riley,” Grant called when he came out of the horse house. I followed him into a big, warm building with many smells and hallways with many doorways. A popping, spitting fire in a stone wall sent acrid odors and heat into the large main room, which rose up to a very high ceiling. Grant stood and talked to some people at a tall table.

  Then I was jolted by an unmistakable scent, coming to me faintly, separating itself from the smoke and the people and the warm food smells.

  Ava.

  { TWENTY-EIGHT }

  I put my nose to the air and, now that I had detected Ava’s presence, there were signs of her everywhere. I tracked back and forth, searching. She had been in this big house, with its creaky wooden floors and couches and people laughing and drinking coffee. Been here not long ago—her scent was fresh, recent. I knew instinctively that I could find her, as if Find were a command, like Steady and Assist.

  But I would have to venture outside. Grant was still standing at a table, talking to two women and not watching me, while I followed Ava’s track right up to the front door. She was somewhere on the other side of it.

  I did the trick that worked with Ward’s farty friends at the back gate—I sat close to the threshold and waited impatiently for someone to go out or in. Finally the cold air rushed in and I rushed out. “Oh!” a man exclaimed as I streaked past his legs.

  “Riley!” I heard Grant call sternly. But I was able to separate Ava from the other people who had trod the snow, and I was off on the hard-packed surface, following a path well traveled by people and horses and dogs.

  When Grant yelled my name again, far behind me, I could tell that he had stepped outside the big house, but I felt driven to continue, lured forward, as if it was my purpose to find Ava the way it seemed to always be her purpose to find me.

  The trail branched off several times, but her scent was gradually getting stronger, and I confidently picked the correct direction each time. Daylight was failing quickly now, the woods growing dark in the thickets, the snow glowing under my feet. I was panting but not tired—I felt full of energy, absolutely compelled to continue the course I had started.

  Fewer people had taken the next turn, making the snow less compacted and therefore more difficult for me. I had to proceed more slowly, but I also, for the first time, smelled Ava on the air. She was much closer, now. I ran on as best I could, my legs sinking with each step.

  The trail took me to the lip of some high rocks. I followed, realizing that only a few people had come this way and that she was one of them. Ava was just ahead. In the direction of Pull Right was a steep fall to flat, unmarked ground.

  I arrived at a rope strung across my way. Here, all other tracks halted except one. I crawled under the rope. Now the snow was punctuated by a single set of footsteps that weaved in and out of sparse trees. Ava had come alone at this point, making her own pathway.

  And then the scent trail ended and the footsteps stopped. I halted, confused. I could still smell her—it seemed as if she were right there, very close, but where? I squinted in the dim light.

  Then I heard a small sound; a hopeless, diminished cry. I crept forward slowly, mindful of the sharp drop. When I peered over the edge, I could see a woman lying facedown in the snow, her long, light-colored hair splayed out in front of her.

  It was Ava.

  I did not know what to do. She was not looking at me. She was breathing harshly in shuddering breaths that communicated pain and fear.

  Distressed, I whined and saw her go completely still at the noise. “Hello?”

  I waited for her to tell me what to do. When she slumped back into the snow, I barked.

  “Oh my God! Dog?” she rolled onto her back and cried out as she did so, a sharp, agony-filled exclamation, but then she was looking up at me. “Dog! Come! Please come help me!”

  I wagged in confusion. She was much too far away to do Come. I could not jump down to her. She would have to climb up to me.

  “Please! Come! Come here! Come! Come!”