Thor. Part 5

He'd never found meat in the wild again until today, but the lesson held. He sniffed the woman's liver and pa.s.sed on.

"Thanks, Ted," Tom said, taking the offered mug of coffee. Tom usually didn't allow himself more than two cups a day, but he always made an exception at Ted's place. Ted ground his own beans for every cup, and the beans he ground weren't cheap. There was nothing else like it in the world. Certainly not the canned coffee Janet got at the supermarket.

"So, let's talk," Janet said. The three of them sat around the small kitchen table. Reflected sunshine bathed them in a diffuse light that made their faces look angelic. Only Ted's face was imprinted with a sadness the soft light couldn't wash away.

"So talk, sis," Ted said. He didn't resent their intrusion, but he wasn't eager to spill his guts, either.

"Ted," she said earnestly, her hand on his. "We know you've gone through a lot. And we respect your desire to be alone. But we . . . I . . . I'm afraid for you. You've been holed up here for months, Ted. You can't go on like this forever. You need to put your life back together."

Tom looked away from the table, embarra.s.sed. He could understand why Janet wanted him to be with her during this discussion, but he wished she could have done it by herself. It wasn't his place to hear this. It was too intimate. He felt like an intruder.

"I don't know what I need," Ted said sullenly. Then he snorted bitterly and said, "Actually, I do know what I need. I just don't have the guts to do it."

"Ted!" Janet gasped.

Tom cringed. This was exactly the kind of thing he didn't want to hear.

"I don't want to hear that kind of talk," Janet said.

Well, Tom thought, at least we're in agreement there. Now can I leave?

He almost laughed, and desperately made himself think of something else before he got himself into trouble he could never get out of. He stood up from the table and sauntered over to Uncle Ted's bookshelves for a browse.

Uncle Ted didn't respond to Janet's outburst, so she picked up the discussion without him.

"Ted, I know you loved Marjorie, but there are other women in the world. You'll find one you love someday, if you'll just go out and meet them. You're just digging yourself into a hole in this place."

"Not deep enough, apparently," Ted said, and snorted. Janet bit her lower lip and tears welled in her eyes. Ted saw her expression and was immediately sorry for what he'd said. He put his hand on hers and held it tight.

"I'm sorry, Janet. You know I didn't mean that. It's just that . . . I have to make up my mind. I . . . right now, I really don't know . . . I don't know what to do with my life anymore . . . There are things you don't know about . . . I just can't say any more than that. Not now. Okay?" Janet said nothing. A tear rolled silently down her cheek. She bit her lip a little harder.

"Okay," she said in a barely audible whisper.

Tom noticed something odd about the books in Ted's shelves. He opened his mouth to say something about it, then closed it. This wasn't the time.

Thor had learned about as much as he could from the carca.s.s. The Wild Animal had eaten some part of the woman's body, but left a dizzying array of organs untouched, organs Thor would have eaten first. There was a lot of damage to the woman's rib cage and the lung underneath it. Whatever the Wild Animal had taken had come from under her left lung.

Thor pa.s.sed no judgment on the killing of the woman. As guardian of the Pack, he himself might be called upon to kill a human someday. Other humans, those not a.s.sociated with the Pack, were not his friends and not his concern. If Thor were to see a strange dog attacking a strange human on the street, he would not a.s.sume the human was Good and the dog was Bad. He would look to the Pack for cues. If he were by himself, he would simply watch.

Still, he didn't like the idea that there was something in the woods that could kill a human by itself - not with the Pack nearby.

Fortunately, all traces of the Wild Animal were a day old; there was no sign that it was still in the area. If there had been, Thor would have gone back to Uncle Ted's house immediately, just in case.

Thor turned his attention to the trail the Wild Animal had left after the attack. It wasn't hard; the Wild Animal's scent stood out in the potpourri of aromas like garlic in a pot of spaghetti sauce. Except that Thor liked the smell of garlic. He didn't like the Wild Animal's scent, though he wasn't sure why. There was something about it that almost worried him.

He picked up the trail a few feet from the corpse and followed it down the hill.

"Ted," Janet said, "I want you to stay with us. For a while. Until you sort things out."

Tom held his breath when he heard that. He was still perusing the books, and wasn't too sure if he should even be in the house. Trouble was, he couldn't think of an excuse to leave.

"Sis, I really appreciate your offer, but I just can't." Tom silently let out his breath. "I have things to work out on my own, and it has to be that way."

"You can stay with us and be by yourself," Janet insisted. "We have a garage with a studio apartment on top. You wouldn't be in our way, and you'd have all the privacy you need. But we'd be there if you need us."

Well, that's better than putting him up in the guest room, Tom thought.

"I don't know . . ."

Uncle Ted got a faraway look in his eyes, and for just an instant his expression changed to one of calculation. He pressed his lips together in a grimace of inevitability.

"You might be right," he said, so softly that only he heard the words. Tom didn't hear anything at all, and Janet only heard him mutter something unintelligible. But she knew her brother, and she accepted the murmur as capitulation.

She felt infinitely relieved.

Thor stopped what he was doing and raised his head. The hairs on the back of his neck rose to attention, and he stood absolutely rigid, smelling the air without sniffing it. Without realizing it, he held his breath for a moment to listen in total silence.

He heard nothing and smelled nothing. It was neither sound nor smell that had alerted him, but a feeling. The same kind of feeling that told him Dad was coming home, only different. That feeling was Good. This feeling was Bad.

Something Bad was coming. Something very, very Bad.

He looked down the hill in the direction of Uncle Ted's house, but it was too far away to be seen.

He'd wanted to follow the Wild Animal's trail, but it would have to wait. He couldn't look around anymore. He belonged with the Pack.

He retraced his steps back to the body, over the deadfall, around the berry bushes and back to the path. He ran all the way down the hill to Uncle Ted's house.

Tom sat down at the kitchen table, thinking the heavy stuff was over, just as Thor came bounding into the room through the open back door.

Thor glanced at Dad, Mom and Uncle Ted, then dashed into the living room to see if anyone else was in the house. Satisfied there was no one else inside, he ran back to the kitchen table to look them over again.

Lacking the ability to count or compile mental lists, he had to imprint his mind with the images of those present, looking back and forth from person to person until his gut told him no one was missing. His job was made more difficult by the fact that the Pack was split up.

Having imprinted the adults in his mind as best he could, he ran through the front door and onto the deck, where he was relieved to find the kids playing right in front of the house. He stood on the porch and looked at the kids, then turned to look at the grown-ups, then back to the kids. In about four pa.s.ses, he was satisfied everyone was here.

He returned to the kitchen to check the mood of the adults. He didn't need to watch the kids as long as he could hear them, but he wished they would come inside.

The adults had a quiet little laugh watching Thor go through his head count. Then they settled into an awkward silence, waiting for someone to restart the conversation. Thor finally calmed down and trotted into the kitchen. He plopped down next to Dad's feet and grunted.

Dad figured it was time to make small talk.

"What happened to your book collection?" he asked Ted innocently.

"I thinned it," Ted said with finality.

Not much of an answer. If Ted had said, "Marjorie took some of them," Dad would have dropped the subject. But he hadn't said that. Surely this couldn't be a painful, personal topic, could it?

"I noticed," Dad said. "Ansel Adams, Minor White, the Westons . . . There's not one book on the shelves that's more than twenty years old."

"I decided to bring myself into the twentieth century," Ted said, shrugging. Thor took the defendant's side. He walked over to Uncle Ted and sat at his feet with the weight of his body against the man's legs. Uncle Ted reached down and patted him appreciatively.

"I thought maybe it was something else," Dad continued casually. He couldn't understand why this had suddenly taken on the feel of an interrogation. What was going on here? "It looks like you got rid of all the black-and-white books. Every photo collection on the shelves is in color. Every single one."

"Well, you caught me, Sherlock," Ted said. "You're right. They're all color." He paused for a moment and said, "I don't like black and white anymore."

"What?" Dad said. "Are you the same guy who lectured me for an hour on the beauty of black and white? About how it's a whole world to explore, and you didn't know if you'd ever discover all its secrets?"

Ted shrugged. "That's what I thought then. I don't now. I'm fed up with black and white. I've seen all the black and white I ever want to see."

"Ansel Adams and Edward Weston?" Mom asked.

"I don't care who shot it, I don't want to look at black and white! I want to see color, that's all. I . . . had a . . . an unpleasant experience. And black and white reminds me of . . . things I don't want to remember."

Mom and Dad just looked at him.

Uncle Ted turned his attention to Thor, scratching his neck roughly, deliciously. Thor threw his head back, mouth open, tongue hanging out, eyes narrowed to slits, and panted his approval. Thor had no idea what Uncle Ted had been talking about.

Neither did Mom or Dad.

They dropped the subject, and Uncle Ted relaxed a little and focused his attention on petting Thor.

At that was the moment when Thor noticed the change in Uncle Ted's touch.

When Uncle Ted petted or scratched Thor, his touch spoke only of love. There was tremendous love in Mom's and Dad's hands, but their touches conveyed other feelings as well. Commitment. Obligation. Consolation. The other feelings didn't bother Thor - on the contrary, he was rea.s.sured by them; Mom and Dad should feel those things. Mom and Dad were, after all, the Pack's Mating Pair.

But Uncle Ted was not part of the Pack, no matter how close he might come. He and Thor were friends, not relatives. Their relationship was based solely on mutual affection; no responsibilities, no debts. It was the kind of single-emotion relationship that could only exist with an outsider. Relationships within the Pack could never be so simple.

But now Uncle Ted's touch was different - no longer the pure, uncomplicated affection Thor knew so well. And it wasn't just Uncle Ted's sorrow, either. There was something new, something different in Uncle Ted's relationship to Thor. Other feelings had crept in. Respect. Caution.

Caution?

Could Uncle Ted be afraid of Thor? The thought shocked him, and he whipped his head around to look into Uncle Ted's face, confused by the ambiguity of his own feelings.

Thor's sudden movement startled Uncle Ted. He s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand away from Thor's neck, realized there was no danger, and put it back.

As if Thor might have turned around to bite Uncle Ted's hand!

He was afraid of Thor. Why?

The wordless question evaporated, and Uncle Ted scratched Thor's neck some more. But Thor didn't drop to the floor and turn his underside to Uncle Ted, as he normally would have. Something had changed, and he didn't like it.

"Well!" Uncle Ted said sharply, startling Thor. "Let's talk about something else. You guys must be hungry by now. How about trying a little recipe I picked up in Nepal, huh? You'll love it!" Thor was glad to hear the conversation lighten up, but he wished the oddness in Uncle Ted's tone (and his touch) would disappear. It was subtle, but bothersome. And it didn't change when Uncle Ted put on a happy face.

Thor made no connection between Uncle Ted's oddness and the body outside. He'd completely forgotten the body for the time being, and wouldn't remember it until he went outside again. The sensation that something Very Bad was coming was also fading.

Uncle Ted opened a kitchen cabinet and pulled out an enormous wok. "The dish I'm going to make isn't normally cooked in a wok, but I can't remember how to cook with anything else . . . any objections?" he said with forced bonhomie. There were no objections - Mom and Dad loved Uncle Ted's stir-fried delicacies.

He put the wok on the stove and poured a puddle of oil into it, lit the burner, and only then opened the refrigerator and rummaged through it for ingredients.

The smell of oil heating in the wok was more than enough to start Thor's salivary glands working.

Uncle Ted emerged from the refrigerator with a treat dangling from his fingertips. Thor immediately recognized the savory odor of hard salami. His eyes locked on the slice of meat. Uncle Ted abruptly tossed it. Thor leaped, snapping it out of the air almost before it cleared Uncle Ted's fingers. It disappeared down his throat before his feet touched the floor.

"Well. Impressive," Uncle Ted said. Thor noticed the nervousness in his voice, the feeling of something being concealed, and something else, too. When his mouth had approached Uncle Ted's fingers, Uncle Ted had pulled his hand back as if it were in danger. Thor had taken meat from Uncle Ted's hand many times in the past. Sometimes his teeth had actually touched Uncle Ted's fingers, but he always knew exactly where they were, and he always had time to pull back if they touched the wrong thing. And Uncle Ted knew it. He'd never pulled his hand away like that before.

What was with Uncle Ted?

Thor didn't like the feeling the unanswered question gave him. It had now come up enough times to fix itself in Thor's mind. From now on, whenever Uncle Ted was around, Thor would discretely keep an eye on him, until he understood what was with him. He would not enjoy the complete abandon he'd known on previous visits. It was a big loss.

Uncle Ted showed Thor his empty hands, fingers splayed, and turned to serious cooking. Thor dropped himself onto the floor. He was a little disgruntled about only getting one measly treat, but he knew Uncle Ted would give him more later on.

He listened carefully to the kids playing outside, and kept Uncle Ted in his peripheral vision.

Soon the house was filled with the smells of burning oil, garlic, onions, meat, and a mult.i.tude of vegetables that Thor would never eat by themselves, but which somehow made the soup of aromas smell even better. Thor waited patiently, knowing there was no rushing a cooking human - you can only annoy them and get yourself into trouble. If he begged now, they'd feed him dog food. The treats would come only when the humans felt like doling them out.

Uncle Ted announced that he was almost done, and Dad called the kids in. Thor watched them enter to be sure they were all here.

"So how are things with you guys?" Uncle Ted asked over his shoulder, still cooking. Tom decided to take another stab at small talk. Maybe he'd do better this time.

"Well, we had a few nervous moments for a while. Someone in our neighborhood was poisoning animals."

"You're kidding!" Uncle Ted said. The oddness was in his voice again.

"I wish," Dad said. "Thing is, it was so general, we couldn't tell if they were trying to kill pets or wildlife, or what. You know, I thought it was such a great place for a dog, with the woods behind the house and all. Then some a.s.shole -" Janet kicked Tom's shin under the table "- some jerk starts in with something like that. I sure didn't want to keep Thor on a leash, but what could we do? Fortunately, I saw a nature show on PBS that solved everything. Some forest rangers had the same problem with coyotes: ranchers were poisoning them. So the rangers flew over the coyotes' territory in a helicopter and tossed out slabs of red meat, laced with cayenne pepper. The idea was to teach the coyotes not to eat meat they find lying around, and it worked. So poor Thor had to learn the same lesson." He looked at Thor sympathetically and grabbed a hunk of the loose skin on the back of his neck, kneading it like dough.

It felt like heaven to Thor. What difference did it make what they were talking about?

"Anyway, it worked for Thor, too," Tom said. "He won't go near a piece of meat outside." Uncle Ted seemed particularly interested in that not-quite-correct statement. He nodded knowingly.

Before Uncle Ted finished cooking, Dad told Teddy to get Thor's food and dish out of the car. What a letdown. Thor had carefully avoided showing his hunger, in the vain hope the Pack might forget the rules and let him snack from Uncle Ted's feast. But Dad never forgot the rules. Everyone else in the Pack might forget or decide to forgo the rules at times, but not Dad.

And the rule was: Eat the Food in You Dish First - Treats Later. As much as Thor wanted to skip the rule today, he felt a deep respect and admiration for Dad's unfailing adherence to rules. Dad was a good Pack Leader.

Mom and the kids were terribly lax compared to Dad, and not just with the rules. Sometimes they forgot to stock Thor's dog food, for example. Dad believed in getting a variety of canned foods for him, a.s.suming (correctly) that dogs get bored with the same old stuff, just like humans. Knowing dry dog foods are generally better balanced than canned (but that dogs invariably prefer canned food), he made sure Thor got a different canned food every day, mixed with dry.

Only sometimes Thor ran out of canned food, and he got a full bowl of dry food instead. Thor hated that, but the Pack always made up for it by giving him extra leftovers after he finished his dry food.