had failed. I would go back, I told myself. Before it was too late. But some impulse made me roll over before I had strength enough to stand.
I looked up into a circle of rustling wings and cadaverous faces. Up into beady, red-rimmed eyes that glittered with anticipation. Then broad wings blotted out the sky and pain lanced through my neck as they crowded forward. A heartbeat later, and the carrion eaters’ hooked yellow beaks were tipped with bits of flesh and crimson.
I awakened with a crick in my neck and a scream on my lips.
A nasty night.
A morning that begged for buttered toast and comforting ritual.
Almost every morning, I made wheat toast for Highball and me. Butter on his. Butter and something sweet on mine. What had started as a girl’s indulgence of a too-thin stray had evolved into a predictable moment for an adult at the start of almost every day.
In years past, I’d bring Highball in from his kennel in the barn before dropping his two slices of bread into a squatty aluminum toaster. He would pace the kitchen floor until, cued by the sound of the toast popping up, he would race to my side, tail wagging expectantly, watching intently as I slathered one piece of toast with butter, then put the other on top.
Now, as I had for many months, I dropped his toast sandwich into the dish beside his bed in the kitchen.
“There you go, Highball, baby.”
He raised his head and tipped it to one side, as if digging through memory for the meaning of the familiar sounds. Old age was robbing him of memory and vitality. Failing eyesight had made him cautious. He waited, relying on his other senses to provide more information, to give him a reason to expend precious energy.
I counted the seconds until he registered the smell. One, two, three. Four, five, six. Seven, eight, nine. Ten. Ten seconds before he sighed and slowly stood. He stretched, stepped away from his cushion and lowered his grizzled muzzle into the bowl. Eating was accompanied by the slow back and forth swing of a curly tail. Happiness, if not enthusiasm.
A week earlier, it had taken him only five seconds to remember the joys of buttered toast. A few weeks before that, only two. And earlier, in his prime, Highball could have located toast from several miles off.
I glanced at the percolator, noted that the coffee bubbling into the glass knob on its lid was nearly the proper shade of brown, and dropped a single piece of bread into the toaster for me.
Out in the yard, Possum began barking and howling, demanding my attention, demanding his breakfast. More than any of the other puppies I had looked at two years earlier, he’d had the best combination of instinct, intelligence and remarkable sense of smell. Possum had the potential to be better at his job than Highball ever was. He had a level of energy that Highball had never achieved and, for the promise of a tennis ball, would do whatever was asked of him. Highball’s only goal in life was to please me and, for that reason alone, he had excelled at search-and-rescue.
Possum could never replace Highball as my companion.
Pity, more for myself than the elderly dog, was interrupted by the smell of smoke. I turned away from my contemplation of Highball and saw that the toaster was smoking. Fire, fueled by my toast, licked up the blue-and-white gingham curtains covering the nearby window.
I yanked the toaster’s plug from the wall, then doused the growing flames with the liquid nearest at hand—the entire contents of my coffeepot. Then I followed up by yanking the still-smoldering curtains from the window, dropping them in the sink and soaking them with water.
When I was sure the fire was out, I looked at Highball.
In the old days, he would have been underfoot, excited by the smoke and activity, frantic to help or protect me.
He had returned to his cushion and was almost asleep.
After cleaning up the disaster in my kitchen, I didn’t bother searching for an alternative to toast or making myself another pot of coffee. I pulled on jeans, hiking boots and a hot-pink T-shirt—not a fashion statement, but a color that would make it easy for Chad to see me when we were down in the ravine. Then I drove to Statler’s seeking caffeine, carbohydrates, conversation and another tankful of gas.
The first thing I noticed when I pulled into the filling station was a colorful