Echo Mountain - Lauren Wolk Page 0,77

one.”

“Not because of anything you did.”

He shrugged. “Even so.”

I wasn’t likely to knock on my own door, but I wanted to give my mother some warning that I had brought Larkin home with me, so I called out, “Mother!” as soon as we got there and then waited just inside the door until she came.

“Oh!” she said at the sight of him. “Larkin. Come in.” And then, before he had a chance to say a word, she blurted, “I have one of your father’s mandolins.”

He smiled. “My father never knew what became of them, after they left him.”

I thought that was a very lonely thing to say.

“She used to play it all the time,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows at the used to.

“Oh, I’ve just been busy lately,” my mother said. She didn’t seem aware of how her fingers plucked at her skirt. The collapse of her face.

And then Samuel came running out of nowhere, yelling, “He opened his eyes, Ellie!”

And I felt myself swell like a blossom.

But my mother put up her hand, her own eyes closed, and said, “He means Quiet.”

I could not recall ever feeling so disappointed over something I’d wanted so badly.

“Not Daddy?”

She shook her head. “He’s the same.”

“I went out to the shed to give Maisie some water and Quiet looked up at me!” Samuel was fairly dancing. “Come see.”

“That’s awfully soon for a puppy to open his eyes,” I said doubtfully.

Samuel made a face. “He wanted to see us, Ellie. And Quiet’s different from the others.”

Something I’d known since I’d pulled him, dripping and squirming, from a bucket of well water just days before.

“Where’s Esther?” my mother said, looking past us and through the open door.

“Still up there,” I said. “Miss Cate’s leg is worse and we had to come down for honey again.”

“I don’t understand.” She looked more and more confused. “Esther stayed on?”

I said, “Yes, Mother. She wanted to.”

Which made her sigh and shake her head.

Samuel pulled on my hand. “Come see Quiet!”

“Just for a minute,” I said. “Miss Cate’s waiting.”

He led us out to the woodshed and pointed at Quiet, who was the only one of the litter to raise his head toward us, blinking, as we came in from the sunlight.

Maisie, standing over the pups, stared at us uncertainly.

“It’s all right, girl,” I said. “It’s just Larkin.”

Who got down slowly onto his knees and held out his hand.

Maisie looked at me. I nodded. So she went to him, sniffed his hand, looked at me again.

He peered at the pups. “They’re much like Captan was as a puppy. Do you know who their sire is?”

I shook my head.

“I believe I do,” he said thoughtfully. “Unless there’s some other brindled dog on this mountain.”

“Huh,” I said. “You think Captan is Quiet’s daddy?” I liked that.

“Who’s Captan?” Samuel said.

“Do you remember that dog on the path? The one with the rabbit in his mouth?”

“Yes, I do,” Samuel said. “Is he Quiet’s daddy?”

“Maybe so.” I picked Quiet up and looked him in the eye. “You do have some of Captan in you, I think. I bet you’ll look a lot like him when you grow up.” But then I remembered, all over again, that Quiet was not to be mine. That I would not see him grow up, except perhaps from a distance. “I hope you’ll be like him.”

“Brindled?” Samuel said.

“Strong enough,” I said.

Larkin climbed to his feet. “For what?”

“For anything,” I said, holding Quiet closer.

While Samuel was busy with the other puppies, I pulled the footstool below the high shelf where I’d hidden Larkin’s carvings.

“Look,” I whispered to him, tipping my head up toward the shelf.

So he stepped onto the stool and looked at what I’d hidden there. For a long moment, he simply looked.

Then he climbed down and pushed the stool away.

“You missed a few,” he said.

“What? I didn’t find them all?”

He shook his head. “I made a fox. And a bear cub.” He thought back. “And a box turtle.”

“But where?” I hated to think that he’d made me such things and I’d missed them. That they were out there in harm’s way when they should have been with the others, safe. Mine.

“You’ll have to find them yourself,” he said. He sounded . . . unhappy.

“What’s wrong?” I said, leading him out of the woodshed, Quiet asleep in my arms.

He shrugged. “Why are you hiding them?”

Which surprised me a little, coming from a boy who had given those gifts in secret, much as I had kept them that way.

I thought about how