John Saul - Nathaniel

"Get rid of him?" Ione asked. "What do you mean?"

Amos glared at her. "She means have it destroyed. Don't you understand English anymore?" Ione's lips tightened but she said nothing.

Janet leaned forward. "Amos, I didn't mean that-"

"Well, you should have. The dog's dangerous. I told you that when it first came around, but you didn't believe me. Well, do you believe me now?"

"I-."

But this time it was Ione Simpson who didn't let Amos finish. "Are you sure the dog attacked you, Amos?"

Amos's angry eyes shifted back to the nurse again. "What the hell do you mean, am I sure?"

"We've had a lot of dog bites over the years," Ione replied, keeping her voice calm in the face of Amos's wrath. "Most of them were just nips, but a few of them were good hard bites. And a few years back, a dog about the size of a collie did attack someone around here."

"And?" Amos asked.

Ione shrugged. "At least those people had a break in their skin for their trouble. And remember Joe Cotter? Both his arms were torn up, and he was lucky he survived."

For a long moment, Amos was silent, glowering malevolently at Ione. When he finally spoke, his voice was dangerously low. "Are you accusing me of lying?" Ione shook her head tiredly, knowing arguing with Amos Hall was useless. "I'm only suggesting you might think it was a lot worse than it was. I mean, where are the bites?"

"Goddamn it, it didn't bite me," Amos roared. "It backed me up to the edge of the loft, then jumped at me and pushed me off."

"Amos, calm down," Anna cut in. "No one's accusing you of anything, and I'm sure you think Shadow attacked you. But couldn't you be wrong? Just once in your life, couldn't you be wrong about something?"

"No," Amos snapped. "I know what happened, and I want that dog destroyed. He's dangerous. Sooner or later he'll attack someone else." His attention turned back to Janet. "How would you feel if he attacked Michael?"

Janet stared at the old man, aghast. "Michael?" she replied. "Why on earth would he attack Michael? He adores him. It's almost as if the two of them can communicate with each other."

Amos's eyes darkened. "Well, if something happens to Michael, it won't be my fault."

Suddenly Janet found herself angry with the old man. "Amos, stop it," she said. "Nothing's going to happen to Michael, and if it does, it won't be because of Shadow. Right now, that dog is Michael's closest friend, and unless you can come up with something more than talk to back up your claims that he attacked you, I'm not getting rid of him. Ione's right-if he'd attacked you, it seems to me you'd at least have some scratches. I think you simply stumbled off that loft yourself, and you don't want to admit it. And frankly, you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to put the blame on Shadow." She rose to her feet and left the front room, followed immediately by Anna, who stopped her just as she was leaving the house.

"Janet? Wait a minute."

Her anger already spent, Janet turned back to face her mother-in-law. "Oh, Anna, I'm sorry-I just don't know what got into me."

"No," Anna said softly, shaking her head. "Don't apologize. It wasn't your fault-none of it. I'm sure you were right about what happened. But Amos has always been that way-he can't stand to be contradicted, or criticized, or made to feel he's wrong. He'll get over it. Just give him a little time."

Janet nodded. "Of course." She smiled sadly at Anna. "Is that what happened with Mark? Did he suggest that Amos was wrong about something?"

Anna hesitated a moment, then nodded. "I suppose you could say that." Her eyes met Janet's, and Janet could almost feel the sadness in them. "Don't you do it, too," she pleaded. "Don't turn away from him-from us. I know he's not always easy, but he loves you, and he loves Michael. I know he does."

Janet reached out and touched the older woman's cheek.

"I know," she said softly. "And it will be all right. I won't hold anything against him, and neither will Michael."

Anna stayed by the door until Janet was gone, then slowly wheeled herself back to the living room, where Ione Simpson was giving Amos a shot. Anna sat silently in her chair, her eyes fixed on her husband.

But in her mind, she had gone back twenty years, back to the house where Janet lived now, the house Mark had fled from.

She has to know , Anna thought. Sometime, Janet has to know what happened that night, and why Mark left. And I will have to tell her . But even as she entertained the thought, Anna was not at all sure she could ever tell the truth about that night and what had gone before. Even after all these years, it was still too painful to think about.

She came back to the present, and focused once more on her husband. Silently, she wondered what had really happened in the barn that morning, wondered if Shadow had, indeed, attacked Amos. Or had it been another accident, like Mark's. Like Michael's.

With a shudder, Anna recalled her husband's words on the day Michael's foot had been hurt. The trouble would go on, she realized. The trouble that had started twenty years ago, then erupted again when Mark finally came home.

And suddenly she knew, with dreadful certainty, that the trouble wouldn't end until Amos was dead. Amos, or Michael. Her husband, or her grandson.

Slowly, Anna turned and wheeled herself out of the room.

"Get it, Shadow! Go get it, boy!" The stick had arced through the air, landing with a thud in the dust near the entrance to the cyclone cellar. Shadow took a few steps away from Michael, then turned back to look uncertainly at his master. "That's right, Shadow," Michael told him. "Fetch. Fetch the stick." The big dog hesitated, then as if finally understanding what was expected of him, trotted off toward the little dugout. But before he got to the stick, he veered off to the right, and a moment later began snuffling around the edges of the closed door. At last he looked back at Michael and barked loudly.

"Aw, come on, Shadow, we're supposed to be playing fetch," Michael complained. He began trudging once more toward the piece of wood which had so far entirely failed to capture the dog's attention. When he had the stick in hand, Michael called to Shadow again. "Come on, boy. Look what I've got!" But Shadow ignored him, his nose still pressed against the crack between the doors of the storm cellar. Frowning slightly, Michael dropped the stick and started toward the dog, and as he drew close to the big animal, he began to feel a slow throb begin in his temples. "What is it?" he asked.

As if in answer, Shadow whined eagerly, and pawed at the door.

"Is something in there?" Michael struggled with the door for a moment and finally succeeded in getting it halfway open. Shadow immediately disappeared into the gloom of the little room, but Michael hesitated, searching the darkness for some hint of what had attracted the dog.

And then he heard the voice.

"Michael."

"N-Nathaniel? Are-are you in here?"

"Go inside," the voice instructed him. "Go inside, and close the door."

As if in a trance, Michael obeyed the voice, moving carefully down the steep steps, lowering the door closed behind him. Slowly, his eyes began adjusting to the darkness. Enough light seeped through the cracks in the weathered doors to let him see Shadow crouching attentively in the corner, his ears up, his tail twitching with eagerness.

"Nathaniel? Are you in here?"

"I am in you, Michael. I am in you, and you are in me. Do you understand?"

In the semidarkness of the subterranean room, Michael slid his arms around Shadow's neck, pulling the dog close. "N-no."

"We are part of each other," Nathaniel's voice said. "I am part of your father, and I am part of you."

"My father?" Michael breathed. "Is-is that why Grandpa killed him?"