The Searcher, стр. 28
The pup’s eyes are closed tight and his head wobbles on his neck. He gnaws at Cal’s fingertip with tiny toothless gums, looking for milk. He has a tan face and black ears, with a white blaze running up his nose; the black patch on his tan back is the shape of a ragged flag flying. Cal strokes his soft floppy ears.
“Been a while since I got a chance to do this,” he says.
“They’re nice to have about, all right,” Lena says. “I’d no wish for puppies—or for two dogs, come to that. I fancied having the one, so I got Nellie out of a shelter, after the pair of them were left on the side of a road. The people that took Daisy didn’t bother spaying her; when she came up pregnant, they dropped her back to the shelter. The shelter rang me. At first I said no, but in the end I thought, why not?” She reaches into the basket to tickle a pup’s forehead with one finger; the pup nuzzles blindly into her hand. “You take what comes your way, I suppose.”
“Mostly doesn’t seem like there’s much choice,” Cal agrees.
“And of course the pups are some mad mix. God knows who’ll want them.”
Cal likes the angle of her next to him: not tilted towards him like a woman who wants him or wants him to want her, off balance as if he might have to catch her any minute, but planted solid on her feet and shoulder-to-shoulder with him, like a partner. The byre smells of cattle feed, sweet and nutty, and the floor is scattered with strawy golden dust. The riverbank cold is starting to thaw out of his bones.
“Some retriever in there, I’d guess,” he says. “And that one at the end’s got a little terrier around the ears.”
“Pure mutt, I’d say. No way to know if they’d be any good for hunting. And beagles are no use as guard dogs. You’d get more savagery out of a hamster.”
“They any good as watchdogs?”
“They’ll let you know if someone’s on your land, all right. They notice everything, and they want to tell you about it. But the worst they’ll do to him is lick him to pieces.”
“I wouldn’t ask a dog to do my dirty work for me,” Cal says. “But I’d want one that’d let me know if something needs doing.”
“You’ve a good way with them,” Lena says. “If you want one, you can have one.”
Cal wasn’t aware, till that moment, that he was being evaluated. “I’ll take a week or two to think it over,” he says. “If that’s all right.”
Lena, her face turned to him, has that amused look again. “Did I give you a fright, with all that talk about the blow-ins packing it in after one winter?”
“It’s not that,” Cal says, a little taken aback.
“I told you, most of them last six months. You’re here, what now, four? Don’t worry, you won’t be setting any records if you cut and run.”
“I want to be sure I’ll do a dog justice,” Cal says. “It’s a responsibility.”
Lena nods. “True enough,” she says. There’s a slight lift to her eyebrow; he can’t tell whether she believes him. “Let me know whenever you make your mind up, so. Is there one that takes your fancy? You’re the first person I’ve offered; you can have your pick.”
“Well,” Cal says, running a finger down the runt’s back, “I like the looks of this one right here. He’s already proved he’s no quitter.”
“I’ll tell people he’s spoken for,” Lena says. “If anyone asks. If you want to come up and see how he’s growing, give me a ring first to make sure I’m about—I’ll give you my number. I work odd hours, some days.”
“Where do you work at?”
“In a stable the other side of Boyle. I do the books, but sometimes I give a hand with the horses as well.”
“Did you use to have those? As well as the cattle?”
“Not of our own. We boarded a few.”
“Sounds like you had a pretty serious operation here,” Cal says. The runt has rolled over in his palm; he tickles its tummy. “This must be a big change.”
He’s not expecting her swift curl of a grin. “You’ve got it in your head I’m a poor lonesome widow woman devastated by losing the farm where she and her man worked their fingers to the bone. Haven’t you?”
“Something like that,” Cal admits, grinning back. He always did have a weakness for women who were a step ahead of him, although look where that got him.
“Not a bit of it,” Lena says cheerfully. “I was only delighted to be rid of the bastard. We worked our fingers to the bone, all right, and Sean never stopped worrying that we’d go bankrupt, and then he started drinking to ease the worry. The three things between them gave him the heart attack.”
“Noreen told me he died. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“It was almost three years back. I’m getting used to it, bit by bit.” She rubs behind the mama dog’s ear; the dog narrows her eyes in bliss. “But I held it against the farm. Couldn’t wait to get the place off my hands.”
“Huh,” Cal says. It occurs to him that Lena is talking pretty freely to someone she’s hardly met, and that most people he’s known to do that were either crazy or looking to lower his guard for their own purposes, but from her it doesn’t make him wary. He’s aware that, however revealing this conversation might appear to be, the vast majority of her is held so far apart as to be imperceptible. “Your husband wouldn’t leave it, huh?”
“Not a chance. Sean needed the freedom. He couldn’t stick the thought of working for some other man. For me”—she tilts her head at her surroundings—“this is freedom. Not the