White Dog Fell from the Sky - By Eleanor Morse Page 0,76
with water and left it on the floor, with the door open to the outside.
He carried out another bowl of canned food, along with a bucket of water, to where White Dog sat. When she’d finished the second bowl of food, she lapped a little water and lay down again on her side with a small groan. “Do you want to come with me?” he asked. The tip of her tail lifted and fell. He thought of his five young savages at home. “On second thought, you’ll be better off here. Best not to eat any more tonight. Your stomach won’t handle it. I’ll be by with more in the morning … You’re waiting for him, aren’t you. For Isaac.”
At the sound of his name she lifted her head. She watched Will open the door to his truck and get in. Through the rearview mirror, he saw her following him with her eyes until he was out of sight.
Will returned the following morning and found White Dog sitting in the same place where she’d been lying before. The water beside her was nearly gone. He gave her two cans of food and more water, and she stood to eat, her tail wagging softly. When she’d finished, he said, “I’m going to see if I can find Isaac. In the meantime, I’ll be by every day. You’ll stay here, all right?”
He fed Mr. Magoo and went through the house again for signs of anything out of order. Among Isaac’s things was a letter postmarked from South Africa, but he didn’t feel right checking the contents. Out in the garden, he found the lettuces pretty well dead. The tomatoes had hung on, along with some low plants, still alive. He touched the skin of a tiny pepper and placed his finger on his tongue. Hot. He turned on the hose and gave them all water, then returned home and talked to Greta.
They agreed he should stop in at the police station on the way to work, see Roland, one of Greta’s countrymen who worked there. Not the sharpest tool in the shed but decent enough. Will was out the door when he thought he should try to ring up a wildlife assistant in Sepopa to see if he could get a message to Alice. He came back in, and his youngest son rushed him and grabbed his knees. Will hobbled over to the phone and placed the call, but it didn’t go through. Just as well. There was nothing she could do from there. Leave her in peace. He threw his son up in the air, caught him, set him down outside the kitchen door, and was off.
It turned out that Roland was in Francistown helping to orient three new officers and wouldn’t be back for a week. Will asked a middle-aged officer at the front desk if he could see the deputy chief. “His mother is ill, rra. He has gone to Mochudi.”
“Do you know when he’ll return?”
“No, rra, I have not been told.”
“Is there someone else I can speak with? It concerns a missing person.”
“You can speak with me, rra. I am the officer on duty.” M. Molosi, his nametag said, pinned to a well-nourished chest. Will told him the story. When he was finished, M. Molosi said, “This is quite common, rra, for a gardener to disappear. Perhaps he was dissatisfied with the madam.”
“That was not the case,” said Will, who wanted to tell him he’d been in the country for twenty years and didn’t need to be told the kind of thing that made gardeners disappear. “He left all of his personal effects, as well as his dog. He was very devoted to his dog and would not have left her behind.”
“I see, rra. Then perhaps it was a matter of thinking that she was eating more than he could afford. He might have left her with a sad heart. There have been cases like this.”
“This is true,” said Will, mastering his impatience. “But why would he have left everything else behind, including a clean shirt and a clean pair of pants? Not only that, he left mabele on the table, untouched.”
This made an impression. “Where is the house?”
“In the Old Village.”
“When I am free, you will take me there.”
They agreed that M. Molosi would call him at work when another officer could relieve him.
Later, Will accompanied him to Alice’s house, showed him through it room by room, introduced Isaac’s dog, but he could find no explanation for