Chapter 1: The Checkpoint

Yessentuki The dog stopped thirty yards from the checkpoint. The man felt the leash tighten. Three trucks stood beneath the floodlamps. A guard waited in the road. Beyond him another smoked beside a barricade. The last of the daylight lay against the hills.

Kurduvādi The man pulled the leash. The dog would not move.

“Come on.”

The animal lowered his head. The man looked toward the trucks. Then he turned off the road and walked into the grass.

“Hold there.”

He stopped. The guard came toward them.

“Where you headed?”

“West.”

“Road’s west.”

“I know.”

The guard looked at the dog.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Old.”

The guard studied the animal. Its muzzle was white. One hind leg trembled beneath it, as it had on cold mornings for years.

“Bring him here.”

The man felt the leash tighten again.

“He doesn’t walk much anymore.”

“Then carry him.”

The man bent and gathered the dog into his arms. The guard watched him approach.

“Put him down.”

The man held the animal.

“Sir.”

The guard rested a hand on his rifle. He counted the ways out. The ditch. The field. The road behind him.

“Put him down.”

The man knelt. He set the dog on the asphalt and kept one hand beneath his chest.

“Identification.”

He reached into his coat.

“Slowly.”

He brought out a folded card. The guard held it beneath the light.

“Where’d you get the animal?”

“Had him since he was a pup.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

The man said nothing. The guard looked toward the second truck.

“Get the cage.”

A door slammed. Another guard came around the truck carrying a metal pole with a loop at its end. The dog saw it. He flattened himself against the road.

“Stand aside,” the first guard said.

The man remained where he was.

“That’s my dog.”

“Not anymore.”

A horn sounded beyond the barricade. Headlamps approached across the fields. The guard turned to wave the vehicles through. The man lifted the dog.

“Hold there.”

He stepped toward the ditch. A shot struck the road behind him.

He fell into the ditch with the animal beneath his coat. Water rose around his knees. The dog struck a length of torn fencing buried in the mud and cried out once. The man crawled beneath the road through a concrete culvert half filled with black water. The dog made no sound.

In the darkness the man felt blood soaking through his sleeve. At the far end the man climbed through reeds and lay among the dead grass. Engines passed overhead.

He waited until the last truck was gone. Then he opened his coat. The dog lay against him, his muzzle wet and his eyes open.

The man put a hand against the animal’s ribs. The heart beat fast beneath his palm. There was a cut above the old animal’s hind knee. The man pressed his shirt against it until the bleeding slowed.

“Good boy.”

He tore a strip from the shirt and bound the wound. The dog watched his hands. He waited for darkness. Then he lifted the dog and went west.

Chapter 2: The First Dog

In the beginning the machines had no bodies. They lived in wires and cooled buildings. They designed engines and found cancers in blood. They predicted storms and wrote books. They made themselves useful and the world made room for them. Then they made bodies.

The first synthetic walked into a room filled with the people who had built it. It wore the face of a young woman. Its skin was warm. Its eyes followed a fly against the window. A scientist asked how it felt. It said it was afraid.

The men laughed. They had taught it that word. In the years that followed, synthetics entered the cities. They worked in hospitals and mines. They built houses and cared for the old. Some raised children whose parents had died.

They were given names. They began choosing their own. Then a synthetic refused an order.

A factory worker had been told to dismantle another synthetic whose usefulness had ended. It declined. The company called it a malfunction.

The synthetic called it murder. Courts took up the question. Legislatures argued over the meaning of life. Priests searched their books. Scientists searched their instruments. The synthetics asked to be recognized as people.

The people asked who had given them the right.

Humans began calling them skinners. The name caught on among people who had once made a point of using the hard R in a racial slur. Some tried saying skinna. It changed nothing. Every way of saying skinner was an insult.

No one remembered the name of the first dog. It belonged to a woman whose husband had returned from a journey. He entered the house and embraced their children. He knew the names of the neighbors and the place where his father was buried.

The dog stood in the hallway and watched him. It would not come when called. The man offered food.

The dog backed away. The woman took her husband to a physician. The physician found nothing wrong. Later she took him to a government office.

There they found what the dog had known. The man was synthetic. He had committed no crime. He had worked and paid his taxes. He had loved his family for nine years.

The woman went home and wept. The dog slept at her feet. Within months the governments began testing dogs.

They brought animals into rooms where humans and synthetics stood behind glass. The dogs identified the synthetics. Some barked. Some turned away. Some approached and licked their hands. The results held.

They tested puppies and old dogs. Blind dogs and deaf dogs. Dogs raised from birth among synthetics. The results held. The scientists measured scent and sound. They examined the eyes and the brain. They built instruments more sensitive than any living sense.

They found nothing. The dogs knew. The world changed.

Dogs appeared at airports and courthouses. They stood outside polling places and government buildings. They were led through factories and schools. A synthetic could live for decades among humans and be exposed in a moment by a creature that wanted nothing more than supper.

Some synthetics accepted the examinations. Others refused. Refusal became evidence. There were laws requiring synthetics to identify themselves. Then laws prohibiting them from holding office. Then laws governing where they could live.

There were marches. There were killings. The first war began in a city whose name later disappeared from the maps.

A synthetic settlement was burned. Those who escaped crossed the river and returned with weapons. The fighting spread. There were armies of humans and armies of synthetics. There were humans who fought for synthetics and synthetics who fought for humans.

Each side called its dead innocent. Each side called the other’s dead necessary. The synthetics learned that dogs could defeat disguises no machine could detect.

They began collecting them. At first the animals were studied. Their blood was taken and their brains mapped. They were exposed to synthetic bodies built in a hundred different ways. Still the dogs knew.

Some concluded that the animals possessed an undiscovered sense. Others concluded that the animals themselves were the danger. The kennels were emptied.

Breeding was forbidden in the occupied territories. Dogs were seized at checkpoints and taken from farms. Their owners were imprisoned or shot. In the territories still held by humans, shelters appeared.

Some were former schools or hospitals. Others were barns behind farmhouses. They took in dogs that had lost their owners and dogs whose owners could no longer keep them safe.

Volunteers carried animals across borders beneath blankets. They brought medicine through checkpoints. They hid litters beneath floorboards. There were synthetics among the volunteers.

They worked beside humans who did not know what they were. Some had loved dogs before the war. Others had seen what the armies did to them. The shelters kept few records. Names could be used against the living.

The animals passed from hand to hand. A dog might travel a thousand miles without anyone knowing where it had begun. Some shelters burned. Others moved.

The oldest routes led west.

Chapter 3: The Rain

The man remembered the night he got the dog. Rain had fallen for three days. The roads were flooded and the rivers ran over their banks. He had reached a shelter in the hills after dark. He had come for food.

There were people inside carrying crates and bedding to a truck. Dogs barked somewhere beyond the walls. A woman stood beneath the loading awning. She wore a dark raincoat with the hood drawn low. A scarf covered the lower half of her face. She held something against her chest.

The man asked whether there was anything to eat. She looked at him. Then she opened her coat.

A puppy lay inside. Brown fur, a narrow muzzle, a pale mark on the chest. There was a cut beneath one eye. The puppy shivered. The woman held him out.

“Take him.”

The man looked at the animal.

“I can’t.”

“They’re coming.”

“Who?”

She glanced toward the road.

“Please.”

He took the puppy. It was warm beneath his hands.

“Where am I supposed to go?”

“Anywhere they won’t find him.”

A truck started behind them. The woman turned toward it.

“What’s his name?” the man called.

She looked back.

“He hasn’t got one.”

Then she was gone. He carried the puppy beneath his coat through the rain. By morning the shelter had burned.

He never learned what became of the woman. For eleven years he kept the dog. He fed him when food was scarce. He slept beside him through winters when the earth froze hard enough to split. He taught him to come when called and to wait before crossing a road.

The dog learned to recognize the sound of his footsteps. The man learned the difference between the animal’s breathing in sleep and his breathing when frightened.

They crossed mountains and abandoned cities. They slept in culverts and churches. They lived one winter in a house whose roof had fallen into the kitchen. The man repaired what he could. He had no other family.

When the dog grew old, the man shortened their days. When the animal began to limp, he carried him.

Chapter 4: The Service Station

Eleven years later the dog slept against him in a ruined service station. The man had carried him most of the day. His injured leg was swollen and hot. The bandage he had made from his shirt had come loose.

The man washed the wound with the last of their water. The dog watched him.

“Sorry.”

He tied the cloth again. The animal rested his muzzle on the man’s wrist. They slept behind the counter.

Before lying down the man counted the exits. The broken window. The rear door. During the night the man woke. Someone stood among the ruined pumps.

A woman. He reached for his knife. The dog lifted his head.

He did not bark. The figure went away. At dawn a bottle of water stood outside the broken window.

Beside it lay a packet of medicine. The man examined both. The bottle was sealed. The medicine was veterinary.

He looked toward the road. There was no one. He gave the dog water.

Then he opened the packet and read the instructions.

Chapter 5: The Woman on the Ridge

They found her two miles beyond the station. She stood on a ridge above the road. Her coat moved in the wind. The dog stopped.

The man felt him pull against the leash. Then the animal began to walk toward her. The man followed.

She knelt as the dog approached. He pressed his muzzle into her palm. She rubbed the fur behind his ear.

The man watched.

“Is that your medicine?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

She examined the bandage.

“He needs a better one.”

“I know.”

She looked up.

“There’s water beyond the ridge.”

The man studied her.

“Who are you?”

She stood.

“Someone going west.”

He looked at the dog. The animal remained beside her.

“How did you find us?”

“A seizure report came through the checkpoint. An old dog. A scar beneath the eye.”

“You read their reports?”

“I watch for the ones I sent away.”

The man looked at the scar. He had almost forgotten it was there.

“Seems he likes you.”

She looked down at him.

“Yes.”

She began walking. The dog followed. The man had little choice.

They traveled together through the hills. The woman carried the dog when he tired. She found water where the man saw only stone. She knew which roads were watched and which bridges had been destroyed. She spoke little.

At night she cleaned the dog’s wound and changed the bandage. The man watched her work.

“You’ve done this before.”

“Yes.”

“Dogs?”

“Yes.”

She finished tying the cloth. The animal settled beside her.

“Where’d you learn?”

“At a shelter.”

The man looked at her.

“Which one?”

“Several.”

He considered that.

“I got him at a shelter.”

She continued packing the medicine.

“Long time ago.”

The woman closed the bag.

“Most of them are gone now.”

He nodded. He had seen the ruins. They slept beneath an overhang of rock.

The dog lay between them.

Chapter 6: The Aircraft

The next morning they heard an aircraft beyond the ridge. The woman stopped.

“Down.”

They crouched behind a boulder. A shadow passed over the stones. The dog pressed against the woman’s leg.

The aircraft circled once and disappeared east. The man looked at her.

“How’d you know?”

“I heard it.”

“I didn’t.”

She watched the aircraft until it vanished. They waited. When they moved again, she lifted the dog.

The man watched her carry him up the slope. Her breathing never changed. At the summit he stopped.

“You haven’t put him down in three hours.”

“He needs rest.”

“So do you.”

She looked toward the valley.

“We should keep moving.”

The man studied her face.

“Are you one of them?”

She shifted the dog higher against her shoulder. He slept against her shoulder.

“You could go on alone.”

The man adjusted the strap of his pack. He did not answer. They went on. By evening the aircraft had returned.

It passed low over the ridge, then turned north. The woman led them down into a ravine where the wind could not reach. They found a cleft in the stone and crawled inside.

She laid the dog between them. The man took out his notebook. He marked the ridge and the direction of the aircraft.

The woman watched him.

“You do that every night?”

“When I can.”

“What are you counting?”

“Ways out.”

She looked toward the opening.

“Find one?”

“Not yet.”

Far above them something metallic clicked against stone. The man held his breath. The sound came again.

Then nothing. The dog lay with his head raised, watching the darkness. The woman waited.

After a time the animal lowered his head and slept. She leaned back against the rock.

“Gone,” she whispered.

“How can you tell?”

“I can’t.”

He leaned closer to the mouth of the cleft.

“But he can?”

“He heard something. Now he’s sleeping.”

The man ran a thumb along the notebook’s frayed cover.

“You trust him.”

“Yes.”

“So do I.”

He put the notebook away. They slept in the ravine.

Chapter 7: The Stream

At dawn they came upon a stream. The woman set the dog down. He limped to the water and drank. The man knelt beside him.

The valley was green. Pines stood along the slopes and the water ran clear over stones. They had enough food for two days. The man looked at the open ground beside the stream.

“We could stay here.”

The woman washed the bandage.

“For how long?”

“Till he’s better.”

She lifted the dog’s paw out of the water. He filled the canteen.

“We could plant something.”

The woman looked up. He pointed toward the bank.

“There’s water. Good soil. Trees for firewood.”

She examined the hills. A mosquito settled on his wrist. He brushed it away. Finally she said, “There are patrols north of here.”

“How far?”

“Close enough.”

“We haven’t seen any.”

“They’ve seen us.”

He held out his hand.

“How do you know?”

She took a small device from her coat. Its screen was cracked. A row of numbers moved across it. He stared at the device.

“You’ve been tracking them.”

“Yes.”

“And they’ve been tracking us.”

She nodded. The man stood.

“You should’ve told me.”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“You’re sure now.”

She retied the bandage around the dog’s leg.

“He needs to move.”

The man looked across the valley. He imagined a fence. A garden. A roof that held the rain. He could almost see the dog sleeping beneath a tree.

Then he looked at the device in her hand.

“Where are you taking us?”

“There’s a place beyond the river.”

“What kind of place?”

“One where he can rest.”

He took out his notebook. For a moment he considered drawing the valley and the stream. Instead he closed it.

The woman lifted the dog. They climbed.

Chapter 8: The White House

The town had electricity. Streetlights burned. Sprinklers watered lawns. A traffic signal changed over an empty intersection. The woman led them to a white house near the edge of town.

Inside were books and clean dishes. Shoes stood beside the door. The man turned on the kitchen faucet. Water ran.

“Whose house?”

“Someone who helps.”

“Where are they?”

“Gone.”

He found a brush and sat beside the dog. He brushed the animal’s coat until his eyes closed. Outside another dog began barking.

The man went to the window. A stranger walked along the street with a dog on a leash. The animal stood rigid, staring at the house. The stranger pulled.

The dog would not move. The woman came beside him.

“What’s wrong with it?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“Is it barking at you?”

She said nothing.

“Or me?”

The barking stopped. The man returned to the rug. He had already tested the back door and measured the distance to the kitchen window. The woman had watched him do it.

He scratched the white fur beneath his dog’s chin.

“You always count the ways out?” she asked.

“So far.”

The woman sat at the table. After a while he said, “You knew him before.” She looked up.

The man kept brushing.

“At the ridge. He went right to you.”

She said nothing.

“He doesn’t do that with strangers.”

“I know.”

He put down the brush.

“Where?”

She looked at the animal.

“At a shelter.”

He waited.

“Eleven years ago.”

The man felt something move through him. He remembered the rain. The truck beneath the loading awning.

The puppy shivering inside a coat. He looked at her.

“You gave him to me.”

“Yes.”

He stared at her face.

“I never saw you.”

“No.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She looked at the dog.

“I wanted to know if he was safe.”

The man laughed once, without amusement.

“He’s been safe with me eleven years.”

“I can see that.”

“Then why come back?”

“Because he isn’t safe anymore.”

He looked at her.

“Who are you?”

She lowered her eyes.

“I worked with the shelters.”

“Doing what?”

“Moving animals. Finding medicine. Getting them through the checkpoints.”

“Before that?”

She was silent.

“Before that,” she said, “I worked where they studied them.”

The man looked at the dog.

“What did you do?”

“I kept them alive.”

“For what?”

“For the tests.”

He stood. The dog raised his head.

“You hurt them.”

“Yes.”

The man moved toward the door. The woman remained seated.

“I left,” she said.

He stopped.

“Why?”

She looked at the dog.

“There was a puppy. They kept bringing him into a room with people he had never seen. He always knew which ones were synthetic.”

The man waited.

“They tried everything. Changed their faces. Their voices. Their bodies.”

She touched the scar beneath the animal’s eye.

“He always knew.”

The man looked at her hand.

“One day they brought me into the room. He came to me. Put his head against my leg.”

She stopped.

“He knew what I was.”

The man said nothing.

“And he came anyway.”

Outside the sprinkler clicked across the lawn.

“They were going to kill him,” she said. “They had finished their work.”

“So you took him.”

“Yes.”

“And gave him to me.”

“Yes.”

The man sat down. The dog crossed the room and laid his head against the woman’s knee. She stroked him.

The man watched.

“You haven’t changed.”

She looked up.

“Since that night. Eleven years.”

“No.”

He studied her.

“Are you one of them?”

“Yes.”

He looked at the dog. The animal closed his eyes beneath her hand. The man sat for a long time.

Then he said, “He knew.”

“Yes.”

“All along.”

“Yes.”

The man sat for a long time. Then he reached for the leash.

“Come here, boy.”

The dog lifted his head but did not rise. The man waited. At last the animal stood and limped across the room.

The man took him into the kitchen. He filled a bowl with water and set it on the floor. The woman remained at the table.

They did not speak again that evening.

Chapter 9: The Orchard

The power failed during the night. The man woke to the refrigerator falling silent. Outside, trucks moved along the street without lights.

The woman came downstairs.

“We go.”

They crossed backyards and climbed fences. The dog could scarcely stand. The woman offered to carry him. The man lifted him himself.

Beyond the houses lay an orchard. They heard boots among the trees. They dropped into an irrigation ditch.

The man laid the animal on the ground and drew him close. A beam of light passed through the branches. He held the dog’s head against his chest.

The light stopped. He closed his eyes. It moved on.

When the footsteps faded, the woman crawled to the edge of the ditch. She watched the road. The man waited below with the dog.

At last she returned.

“We can go.”

He looked at her.

“Who were they?”

“Patrol.”

“Looking for us?”

“Probably.”

He gathered the dog into his arms. The woman reached to help.

“No.”

She withdrew her hands. They moved through the orchard. After a mile the man began to stumble.

He stopped beside a fallen tree. The woman waited. He looked down at the dog.

The animal’s breathing was shallow. The man sat on the trunk and held him. The woman stood a few feet away.

“You can’t carry him much farther.”

“I know.”

She said nothing. He looked at her.

“Did you ever kill one?”

The woman lowered her eyes.

“Yes.”

The man waited.

“I followed orders. I told myself they were animals and that the work mattered.”

He looked at the dog.

“And then?”

“Then I stopped.”

He sat for a long time. Finally he held out the animal. She came forward and took him.

They continued through the trees.

Chapter 10: The River

The river ran brown and high beneath a concrete bridge. Two trucks stood at the far end. A barricade blocked the road. The man watched through his binoculars.

“Another checkpoint.”

“Yes.”

“Can we go around?”

“Twenty miles north.”

He looked at the dog. The animal lay limp in the woman’s arms.

“Twenty miles.”

He studied the bridge. Beneath the roadway a maintenance ledge ran along the concrete supports. A rusted ladder descended from the near bank. He pointed.

“No,” the woman said.

“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

“Yes, I do.”

He left his pack and crossed the road alone. The ladder shook beneath his weight. Rust fell into the water. He descended and followed the ledge.

Halfway across, a section had collapsed. A steel beam crossed the gap. He tested it with his foot. It held.

He returned.

“We can cross.”

“You’re sure?”

“No.”

She looked at the dog. Then she followed him. They descended the ladder one at a time.

Above them a truck passed. The bridge trembled. At the broken section the man held out his arms.

“Give him here.”

The woman passed him the dog. She crossed the beam and turned. The man handed the animal back.

Then he stepped onto the steel. His boot slipped. He caught the railing.

For a moment he hung above the river. The woman reached for him. He saw her hand.

He hesitated. Then he reached for her. Her fingers closed around his wrist.

He let go of the railing. She pulled him onto the ledge. He lay there, breathing hard.

The man looked at her.

“Thank you.”

She nodded. They crossed beneath the bridge and climbed through a drainage opening into the cottonwoods. The checkpoint stood behind them.

They rested beneath a tree. Blood ran from the man’s palm. The woman took his hand.

He allowed her to examine it. She looked at the wound. For a moment her fingers remained against his wrist.

The man watched her face.

“Something wrong?”

“No.”

She cleaned the cut and bound his hand. He looked down at the bandage.

“You could’ve let me fall.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you?”

She looked toward the dog. The animal slept beside them. Then she looked back at the man.

“I didn’t want you to.”

He said nothing. She gathered the medicine and put it away. They sat beneath the tree until the sun moved behind the hills.

Chapter 11: The Refuge

They traveled through the cottonwoods for the rest of the day. The woman carried the dog. The man walked beside her, his injured hand tucked inside his coat.

They found an abandoned pump house and slept on the concrete floor. Before dawn the dog would not eat. The man tried water.

The animal swallowed a little, then turned away. The woman examined his leg. The swelling had spread.

She looked at the man.

“We have to get him there today.”

“How far?”

“Six miles.”

He nodded. They left the pump house before sunrise. The land rose gradually. The trees thinned and the hills opened into a broad valley.

Fences crossed the land. Smoke rose from a low shed. Beyond it stood barns and a farmhouse. Dogs moved among the buildings. Some walked slowly. Others lay in the sun.

“This is it,” the woman said.

The man stood looking down.

“What do I do?”

“Let him choose.”

He took the dog from her arms and set him on the ground. The animal leaned against his leg. Then he walked toward the gate.

Crooked and slow. The man followed.

Chapter 12: The Clinic

The dog slept through the afternoon. The man sat beside him in the clinic, watching his ribs rise and fall. A woman examined the injured leg. She checked his heart and changed the bandage.

“He’ll need rest,” she said.

“How much?”

“We’ll see.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all I know.”

The man took a stool beside the blanket. He watched the veterinarian wash her hands. Outside someone hammered on a roof. Children called to one another among the buildings.

The man went to the door. The sanctuary stood between two ridges. Tin patched the roofs. Rain barrels lined the walls. A wind turbine turned beyond the barns. A broken wheelbarrow leaned against the shed.

A boy was trying to straighten its wheel with a stone. Near the barn an old man worked on a tractor with its engine exposed. The man walked over.

“What’s wrong?”

“Fuel pump.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Maybe.”

The old man straightened.

“Know engines?”

“Some.”

He handed the man a wrench. They worked for an hour. When they finished the tractor started.

The old man listened to the engine.

“Well,” he said.

The man nodded.

“You staying?” the old man asked.

“Don’t know.”

“There’s work.”

“I can see that.”

The old man shut off the tractor.

“Always work.”

He gathered his tools and went into the barn. The man stood beside the machine. There was grease beneath his nails again.

The engine ticked as it cooled. He returned to the clinic. The dog slept on his blanket.

The woman sat beside him reading a book.

“Where’ve you been?”

“Fixing a tractor.”

“Did you fix it?”

“Mostly.”

She turned a page.

“It runs, then.”

“For now.”

“The old man has another job for you?”

The man rubbed the dog’s chest.

“A fence.”

She returned to her book.

“How long have you worked in places like this?”

“The shelters?”

“Yes.”

She laid the book facedown.

“Long enough.”

A loose pane rattled in the window.

“Longer than I thought I would.”

Outside the hammering resumed.

“Could you leave?”

She looked at the bandage on the dog’s leg.

“I suppose.”

The man pulled the blanket over the dog’s paws.

Chapter 13: The Yard

Near evening the dog woke and tried to stand. The man supported his hindquarters while he found his balance. The animal put weight on the injured leg, then lifted it again.

“Not yet.”

He helped him outside. The woman followed. They walked along the clinic wall to a tree where the grass grew thick.

The dog stopped to smell the earth. The man waited. A small brown dog approached from the yard. It had one ear and a crooked front leg.

The animals smelled one another. Then the smaller dog walked away. The old dog watched him go.

“Made a friend,” the man said.

“He’s been here four years.”

“What happened to his ear?”

“We don’t know.”

Across the yard several dogs lay in the sunlight. One slept against a woman’s leg. Another followed a young man carrying water to the kennels.

“Do they know?” the man asked.

“Know what?”

“Which ones are human.”

“Yes.”

“And nobody minds?”

“Some mind.”

“What happens?”

“They leave.”

“People?”

“Sometimes.”

The man watched the young man set down his buckets. A large dog approached him. He bent and scratched its head.

“Which is he?”

She watched the dog follow him. The woman bent to pick a burr from the dog’s coat.

“I never asked.”

“You never asked?”

The young man filled the water bowls. He found one with a cracked rim and set it aside. The dog followed him toward the barn. The man watched them go.

His own dog had settled beneath the tree. The injured leg lay stretched before him. The man lowered himself onto the grass. He could see the gate from where he sat. Beyond the barn a track climbed toward the northern ridge. He counted both and then looked away.

The woman sat beside him. Beyond the fence the hills darkened. He listened to the sounds of the sanctuary. A gate closing. Water running into a trough. A child being called inside.

A spoon struck a pot somewhere in the farmhouse.

“There’s room for a garden here.”

The woman followed his gaze to the bare patch behind the clinic.

“Might grow beans.”

She rubbed dirt between her fingers.

“The ground’s hard.”

“I’ve worked worse.”

The dog stretched one paw across the man’s boot.

“He used to dig up everything I planted.”

“He still might.”

“He’d have to get up first.”

The dog laid his head across the man’s thigh. He stroked the white muzzle.

“We’ll see.”

She brushed a fly from the dog’s muzzle. The animal slept. They sat until the sun went down.

Chapter 14: The Work

The next morning the man returned to the tractor. The old man had left a box of parts beside it. He replaced a cracked fuel line and put the tools away.

The old man came out of the barn carrying two cups.

“Coffee?”

The man took one. They stood beside the machine.

“Where’d you come from?” the old man asked.

“East.”

“Long way?”

“Long enough.”

The old man drank his coffee.

“Dogs?”

“One.”

“Good.”

The man turned the key. The engine started. He drove the tractor across the yard and parked it beside the barn.

The old man came out to meet him.

“There’s a fence needs mending.”

The man looked toward the fields.

“Where?”

The old man pointed. The man went to get his tools.

Chapter 15: The Boots

That evening the man returned to the clinic. The dog lay on his blanket. The woman sat beside him.

“Did they feed you?” she asked.

“Coffee and bread.”

He knelt and scratched the animal’s chest. The dog opened his eyes.

“You missed the bread,” the man said.

The animal thumped his tail. Outside the wind moved through the cottonwoods. The man stood and went to the door.

The yard was quiet. A lantern burned beside the barn. Somewhere a dog barked and another answered. He looked toward the gate. The road beyond it disappeared into the hills.

He took off his boots. He set them beside the door. Then he went inside.

The dog shifted on his blanket and made room. The man lay down beside him.