Bone Dance by Martha Brooks Page A

smell.
    The sky was turning a pale smoky blue when he got back. He hadn’t bothered with eating, hadn’t been hungry. Hollow as old bones, and light-headed, he stood by the refrigerator door, slowly drinking cold town water out of a plastic juice jug.
    Earlier, he’d watched Pop eat two of Deena’s burgers, two bags of fries, a side order of onion rings, and a bowl of creamed corn speckled with Cajun pepper, his eyes lowered the whole time over his food. And now he was back in the workshop. Lonny could see his light from the kitchen window.
    The telephone rang, and it was Robert. Dunderhead had run off again. “Damn him,” said Robert. “You can never count on that stupid dog staying in one spot for ten minutes. Have you seen him?” Lonny said that he hadn’t, and then Robert stayed on the line for several minutes more talking about Tammy, who always had her nose in the air now that she was going out with Richard Dobson, whom everybody knew would end up a lawyer just like his father.
    Lonny interrupted his friend in midsentence, midstream. “Robert, go out and find yourself somebody else.”
    Silence. And, “You think?” And then, just like that, he’s talking about going up to northern Ontario on a fishing trip with his dad and Uncle Daryl. “Crops are in, and it’s a good time to go.
Huge
friggin’ muskies, Daryl says. Real fighters, too. You should come with us, Lon. It’d be great.”
    That day, coming back from the mound after Robert has pedaled furiously home, he comes into the kitchen. His mother is there with her back to him. At the sink, snapping green beans. Snap, in half. Accusingly, into the waiting bowl.
    She says, not turning around, “You see dragonflies up there all the time. They move around like little angels. How many did you see today, my babe?”
    â€˜I
didn’t see any.” A sick wave of heat rises up his body.
    A west wind whispers against the moth-white kitchen curtains, blows them in, sighs through her hair.
    I’ve really got to go now, he told Robert, who had moved on to talking about the ball game he was pitching over at Poplar Bluff tomorrow night. I’ll be there, Lonny said, even though he had no intention of going. And after that, Robert finally got off the phone.
    Earl’s daughter was waiting for the jug of drinking water that had been promised to her, and he couldn’t leave it any longer. He filled up a big blue container, threw it into the truck, and then quickly left, wheels grinding over gravel, spinning out their bad-luck song.
    But three minutes down the road, in the ten-o’clock twilight, here came Robert’s big black Lab, Dunderhead, loping toward him, a red moon rising at his back. He had a sideways gait and a look of purposeful attention.
    Lonny slowed the truck to a stop, reached over, and opened the cab door. Dunderhead, panting, pinktongue lolling, a string of drool whipped over and around his long black nose, gave him a happy look of recognition and began to scramble up into the cab. Lonny had to help him by grabbing the scruff of his neck and giving him an extra boost.
    As Lonny closed the door, Dunder licked his face. Then he settled down just like any other passenger going for a ride, eyes facing out the front window.
    â€œWhere have you been, Dunder?” said Lonny, pulling back onto the road. “Have you been out chasing tail again?” He put his arm around the dog, who continued to pant and drip drool on the seat.
    â€œGuess I’d better drive you on home then.”
    Robert’s farm was a ten-minute drive in the opposite direction of the LaFrenière homestead. The dog had actually been heading home, but who knows what else might grab his attention and veer him off on a new adventure before he got there.
    He remembered back to the year Robert got Dunder, bringing the puppy over in that old blue Snugli that had been used for his little cousin,