beyond Town Road No. 3 and Camber’s Garage, Foreign Cars Our Specialty, and Castle Rock. She might have taken Brett to Connecticut with the express purpose of asking her sister how much a small apartment in Stratford would cost.
But it had only been a twitch of the curtain. That was all. She had seen Lady Luck for a bare, brief moment, as wonderful, puzzling, and inexplicable as a bright fairy dancing under mushrooms in the dewy light of dawn . . . seen once, never again. So she felt a pang when the ticket disappeared from her view, even though it had robbed her sleep. She understood that she would buy a lottery ticket a week for the rest of her life and never win more than two dollars all at once.
Never mind. You don’t count teeth in a gifthorse. Not if you were smart.
They went out to Portland Machine and she had written the check, reminding herself to stop at the bank on their way home and transfer enough money from savings to checking so that the check wouldn’t bounce. She and Joe had a little over four thousand dollars in their savings account after fifteen years. Just about enough to cover three quarters of their outstanding debts, if you excluded the mortgage on the farm. She had no right to exclude that, of course, but she always did. She could not bring herself to think about the mortgage except payment by payment. But they could dent the savings all they wanted to now, and then deposit the Lottery Commission check in that account when it came. All they would be losing was two weeks’ interest.
The man from Portland Machine, Lewis Belasco, said he would have the chainfall delivered that very afternoon, and he was as good as his word.
Joe Magruder and Ronnie DuBay got the chainfall on the truck’s pneumatic Step-Loader, and it whooshed gently down to the dirt driveway on a sigh of air.
“Pretty big order for ole Joe Camber,” Ronnie said.
Magruder nodded. “Put it in the barn, his wife said. That’s his garage. Better get a good hold, Ronnie. This is a heavy whore.”
Joe Magruder got his hold, Ronnie got his, and, puffing and grunting, the two of them half walked it, half carried it into the barn.
“Let’s set it down a minute,” Ronnie managed. “I can’t see where the hell I’m goin. Let’s get used to the dark before we go ass over cowcatcher.”
They set-the chainfall down with a thump. After the bright afternoon glare outside, Joe was mostly blinded. He could only make out the vague shapes of things—a car up on jacks, a workbench, a sense of beams going up to a loft.
“This thing ought—” Ronnie began, and then stopped abruptly.
Coming out of the darkness from beyond the front end of the jacked-up car was a low, guttural growling. Ronnie felt the sweat he had worked up suddenly turn clammy. The hairs on the back of his neck stirred.
“Holy crow, you hear that?” Magruder whispered. Ronnie could see Joe now. Joe’s eyes were big and scared-looking.
“I hear it.”
It was a sound as low as a powerful outboard engine idling. Ronnie knew it took a big dog to make a sound like that. And when a big dog did, it more often than not meant business. He hadn’t seen a BEWARE OF DOG sign when they drove up, but sometimes these bumpkins from the boonies didn’t bother with one. He knew one thing. He hoped to God that the dog making that sound was chained up.
“Joe? You ever been out here before?”
“Once. It’s a Saint Bernard. Big as a fucking house. He didn’t do that before.” Joe gulped. Ronnie heard something in his throat click. “Oh, God. Lookit there, Ronnie.”
Ronnie’s eyes had come partway to adjusting, and his half-sight lent what he was seeing a spectral, almost supernatural cast. He knew you never showed a mean dog your fear—they could smell it coming off you—but he began to shudder helplessly anyway. He couldn’t help it. The dog was a monster. It was standing deep in the barn, beyond the jacked-up car. It was a Saint Bernard for sure; there was no mistaking the heavy coat, tawny even in the shadows, the breadth of shoulder. Its head was down. Its eyes glared at them with steady, sunken animosity.
It wasn’t on a chain.
“Back up slow,” Joe said. “Don’t run, for Christ’s sake.” They began to back up, and as they did, the dog began to walk