“Smart-ass. Maybe I should howl like a wolf,” he suggested. “Scare her out of hiding.”
“Give it a try.”
But he didn’t. And both of us just stood there listening. After another moment, Johnny asked, “Could it have been a squirrel?”
“It wasn’t like that. Not scurrying. More like starting and stopping. Like someone limping maybe. Or hunkering down in the leaves.”
After a few more minutes passed, I began to convince myself that it must have been a squirrel I’d heard. Or possibly a branch, falling by stages from the top of a tall cottonwood. Then I heard it again. And this time Johnny did, too. It sounded like something scuffing slowly through the dry leaves, and we both turned around in the direction from which it came.
Why had that antlered buck not been frightened into flight? Had he sensed all along that we were no threat, clumping through the forest unarmed? Had he seen us for what we were, boys pretending that they knew his territory as well as he did, boys who thought they had powers greater than men? The buck stared at us and we stared at him for one more long moment, and then he moved on, pausing every few paces to scrape at the leaves in search of food, a being with a real purpose in the woods.
I looked down. If I hadn’t been standing in snow the outline of my foot would have been hard to see. In late November, cold and snow hastened days to a close early in our part of the world, limiting what could be usefully done with the hours. And in the thickening gloom of Frenchman’s Forest, it was already too dark to find footprints or traces of blood.
“We should probably head back,” I said in the reluctant voice of a sensible big brother.
“And just leave her out here?”
“We don’t even know that she’s still out here.”
“We don’t know she isn’t.”
“Come on. In a few minutes we won’t be able to see our hands in front of our faces.”
Johnny kicked back and forth in the snow, perhaps testing my theory.
After another moment, he conceded. “All right.”
As we walked back to the car, I felt discouraged and even humiliated. We had set out with a mission and an accompanying sense of importance, but it seemed most likely that no one, and certainly not Dr. Dunbar, had ever believed we had a realistic chance of finding Louisa Lindahl. It felt now as if our expedition had merely been allowed, indulged as the behavior of children is indulged. Let them go; what’s the harm? And now, like children, we were coming in from our play when darkness fell.
3.
UPON RETURNING TO THE DUNBAR HOUSE, our senses were immediately assaulted. Though the meal had been prepared hours earlier, the aroma of stuffed turkey and pumpkin pie lingered, as inseparable from the house as its warmth from fire and furnace. Then Janet came bounding toward us shouting, “She’s here! She’s here!”
“Who’s here?” Johnny asked.
“The shot girl!”
Julia ran into the room just in time to correct her sister. “The girl who got shot!”
Mrs. Dunbar hurried close behind, trying to quiet the girls. But their excitement had them bouncing in place.
“Mom?” said Johnny, “what are they talking about?”
Mrs. Dunbar put her finger to her lips, as if to indicate that even his question was too loud. “They brought her here shortly after you left,” she whispered.
Johnny and I looked at each other, trying to comprehend what we’d just been told. It felt almost as if we were the victims of a practical joke.
The snow we’d stamped from our boots hadn’t even melted when Dr. Dunbar entered the room. “Well boys, sorry if your search was for naught.” He was still wearing the vest and tie he’d had on at the dining room table, but he’d exchanged his suit coat for a white lab coat.
“She’s here?” Johnny asked again.
“She is indeed.”
“How is she?” I asked. “Is she ... ?”
“She’s seen better days, I promise you that. But all in all, she’s faring pretty well.” He was smoking a cigarette, but he’d only taken a couple drags. He handed it now to Mrs. Dunbar, who smoked Chesterfields as did the doctor, but she held the cigarette as if she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. “In fact,” he added, “I should probably get back in there. She’ll be coming around soon.”
As he turned to walk back through the house to the clinic, something came over me. I don’t really remember deciding to follow the doctor, but follow I did, as surely as if I’d been invited.
Johnny trailed along as well, but to this day I believe he was following me and not his father.
Dr. Dunbar had not gone far before he realized he was being shadowed. He slowed and looked back over his shoulder. “Yes?”
Mrs. Dunbar had also joined our little entourage, but all of us stopped now, and we stood in a small, dimly lit parlor. Back in the bright foyer, the twins were still spinning with excitement.
“What is it?” the doctor asked. I had no doubt that his question was directed to me.
I had no reply.
“Would you like to see the patient?”
Of course I wanted to see the patient, but Dr. Dunbar knew this about me before I knew it myself.
“Oh, Rex,” said Mrs. Dunbar, “do you think that’s a good idea?”
“Let’s leave it up to them. If they’d rather not, that’s just fine as well.” He turned to us. “Well?”
I was instantly ready to say yes, but I knew Johnny had to answer first.
“Is she ... okay?” he asked.
Dr. Dunbar reached inside the sleeve of his white coat and readjusted a cuff link. “She is now,” he said succinctly. “Or will be soon enough.”
“All right,” said Johnny, looking at me. “Sure.” Apprehension flickered in his eyes. He might have hoped I’d say that I wasn’t interested, but there was no chance of that.
“Very well then,” Dr. Dunbar said. “Let’s see if I can teach you something about the treatment of bullet wounds.”
As odd as this situation might seem, there was reason and precedent behind it. Both Johnny and I had expressed an interest in medicine as a career. Dr. Dunbar hadn’t prodded us in that direction, but since he made every endeavor—from casting a spinner into the river to manipulating a dislocated shoulder back into joint—look enticing, it was hardly surprising that we were drawn to his profession. Medicine might not have had as strong an appeal for Johnny as it did for me—among other possible reasons, he didn’t share my ambition to forge a life different from the one I’d been born into in Willow Falls—but once we showed an interest, Dr. Dunbar seemed eager to share his knowledge and experience with us.
I couldn’t be sure exactly when Johnny’s medical education began, but I knew to the minute when mine did. I was eight years old, and I woke on a summer night to find Dr. Dunbar sitting on the edge of my bed. I knew who he was, but only vaguely. At that point Johnny and I were only friends as part of a larger group of same-aged boys, and I didn’t associate him with the physician I’d seen for a school checkup. But that night Dr. Dunbar turned on the light beside my bed and softly spoke my name. “Matthew? Matt?” He patted my leg tenderly.
As soon as he thought I was fully awake, Dr. Dunbar said, “Matthew, your father is dead.”
I barely had time to gasp before he went on. “He was killed in an automobile accident.”