“What’s his name?”
“Ares.” Her voice was still trembling, and I didn’t know if it was the dog, the escape, or all of it together. This was going to be down to me, then.
I crouched down, held out my hand, and did my best. “Come on, boy. Come on, Ares. Who’s a good dog?” His father would have been Bane, probably, and Bane, despite the scary name and his job guarding the alpacas, had been gentle with kids.
Leaving the dogs had been a wrench. A pure one, because the emotion had been unmixed.
I filled my heart with the feeling of Bane’s tongue licking over my tearstained cheeks, kept my hand out, and said, “Come on, Ares. Come see me.” I told Obedience, “Get down here with me, so he sees I’m not threatening you.”
She did it, even though I could feel her fear. She was used to doing what people told her. I didn’t take my eyes off the dog, who’d stopped walking, his tail losing some of the stiffness but his head still high, alert. I said, keeping my voice low, “Gray.”
“Yeh.” Still calm.
“Crouch down with us. Put the shovel down. Hands open.”
He could’ve argued. I wouldn’t have blamed him. He’d run into a freezing river tonight and been shocked by an electric fence, and now, I was asking him to make himself defenseless to a dog who could easily kill him.
Well, probably not easily. I had a feeling Gray would fight back.
I felt rather than saw him crouching, a half-step behind me. Ares’s gaze flicked among the three of us. He stood poised, but hesitant, as I said, “Good boy. That’s a good boy. You recognize me, hey. Your dad was my friend. Your mum, too. Come say hello.”
Slowly, slowly, the huge, tawny animal came forward, close enough for me to see the black on his handsome muzzle, his floppy ears. I said, “You’re a pretty boy. Yes, you are. Come on. Come have a scratch.”
Obedience whispered, “It’s going to be getting light soon. It’s nearly milking time.”
I said, “I know.” Not whispering, because whispers carried, and they sounded too fearful. “But that’s all right. We’re fine. We’re going to be fine.”
Ares made his decision. He took the final steps to us, and I put out the back of my hand for him to sniff, then rubbed it over the big head and down his shoulder. I told Obedience, “Give him a pat.”
She did it, but when Gray put out his hand, the dog took a step back. I said, “That’s OK, Ares. You don’t have to love him. He’s big and scary, eh.”
“I resent that,” Gray said, and despite myself, I smiled. Maybe the smile did the trick, because the dog wagged his tail. Not much, but some. I stood up, still slowly, took the light from Gray, and said, “Come help us find Fruitful, boy. Come help us get her out.”
Gray picked up his shovel and held it for the first time as if he were carrying a shovel and not a weapon, and Obedience rose to her feet as well. I took her hand. It was freezing, and she was still shaking. She’d been out in that cold shed for so long, and I knew that her mind would have strayed back, over and over again, to the pillow and the extra dress and aprons she’d rolled and stuffed under her blanket, the curtain she’d pulled closed across her bunk. She’d have been seeing our mum’s hand pulling it back, hearing her call to our dad, hearing him rouse the rest of the men, waiting for the shouts to come closer, for the door to open.
I knew all that, because I’d seen those same scenes in my own head twelve years earlier.
I kept a hand on Ares’s shoulder, taking comfort from the feel of the coarse fur, kept the other hand laced through Obedience’s, and headed toward the Punishment Hut. The anxiety twisted in me at approaching that terrible place, but I didn’t allow my steps to drag. This time, I hurried instead, because this time, it wasn’t about me.
I didn’t dare use the light, and the second time I stumbled over the rough ground, Gray came up and put a hand under my arm. He had to nudge the dog aside to do it. The man had ice in his veins.
We were getting closer to the feed stores now, to the milking shed. You couldn’t smell the alpacas despite their numbers, out there somewhere in