Читаем The Hunter полностью

It surfaces in Trey’s mind only gradually that her dad never had any intention of staying around. It seems like an obvious thing, something she knew all along, if she had bothered looking. She could have just fucked off to Lena’s and waited him out, without ever thinking twice about the shite he’s brought with him.

She would have done that, if she’d realized. She’s glad she didn’t. She sits in the field a little longer, running Banjo’s soft ears between her fingers and weighing up her different revenges in her mind.

“Come on,” she says to Banjo, in the end. She hoists him up in her arms and gets him draped over her shoulder, like a huge baby. Banjo is delighted with this. He snuffles at her ear and gets drool in her hair. “You weigh a fuckin’ ton,” Trey tells him. “I’m gonna put you on a diet.”

The warm, smelly weight of him is welcome. Trey feels, all of a sudden, savagely lonesome. What she wants to do is bring all this to Cal, dump it at his feet, and ask him what to do with it, but she’s not going to. Whatever Cal is at, he’s made it plain that he doesn’t want her in it.

“Salad,” she tells Banjo, as she starts down the road. “That’s all you’re getting.” He licks her face.

Trey was worried Lena would have gone to bed, but her windows are still lit. When she opens the door, music comes out from behind her, a woman with a throaty voice singing something restless and melancholy in a language Trey doesn’t recognize. “Jesus,” Lena says, raising her eyebrows. “What happened to you?”

Trey had forgotten her lip. “Tripped over Banjo,” she says. “He went under my feet. I stood on his paw. Will you have a look at it?”

Lena’s eyebrows stay up, but she doesn’t comment. “No problem,” she says, pointing Trey to the kitchen. “Bring him in here.”

At the sight of Nellie and Daisy, Banjo starts wriggling to get down, but when his paw touches the floor he lets out a pitiful yelp. “Ah, yeah,” Lena says. “That’s at him, all right. Out,” she says to Nellie and Daisy, opening the back door. “They’ll only distract him. Now. Sit, fella.”

She turns off the music. In the sudden silence, the kitchen feels very still and restful. Trey has an urge to sit down on the cool stone floor and stay there.

Lena kneels in front of Banjo and makes a fuss of him, rubbing his jowls while he tries to lick her face. “You get behind him,” she says. “Stand over him and hold up his jaw, in case he snaps. If he cuts up rough we can muzzle him with a bitta bandage, but I’d rather not.”

“He won’t,” Trey says.

“He’s hurt. Even the best dog in the world changes when it’s hurt. But we’ll try it this way first. Come here, fella.”

She takes up Banjo’s paw, very gently, and feels her way around it. Banjo squirms against Trey’s hand, goes through his full repertoire of whines and moans and yelps, and finally brings out his deepest, most impressive bark. “Shh,” Trey says softly, into his ear. “You big aul’ baby. You’re grand.” Lena, running her fingers over his other paw for comparison, doesn’t look up.

“I wouldn’t say anything’s broken,” she says in the end, sitting back on her heels. “Bruised, only. Don’t let him do much, the next few days.”

Trey releases Banjo, who goes in circles trying to lick them both at once, to show he forgives them. “Thanks,” she says.

“He oughta stay here for the night,” Lena says. “He shouldn’t walk all the way up that mountain.”

“I’ll carry him,” Trey says.

Lena gives her a look. “In the dark?”

“Yeah.”

“And if you trip once, the pair of ye’ll be in worse shape than you already are. Leave him where he is. Anyhow, if it’s worse in the morning, we’ll have to bring him to a vet for X-rays. You can stay too. The bed’s still made up from last time.”

Trey thinks of the wide cool bed, and of her dad waiting at home to fidget and nudge at her. She asks abruptly, “Do you know who done that on my brother?”

They’ve never talked about this before. Lena doesn’t show any surprise, or pretend not to understand her. “No,” she says. “No one was about to tell, and I wasn’t about to ask.”

“You could guess.”

“I could, yeah. But I might be wrong.”

“Who d’you guess?”

Lena shakes her head. “Nah. Guessing games are for who’s messing with your scarecrow, or who done a shite on the Cunniffes’ front step. Not this.”

“I already hate all of ’em round here,” Trey points out. “ ’Cept you and Cal.”

“There’s that,” Lena acknowledges. “If you knew who done what, would you hate the rest of ’em any less?”

Trey considers that. “Nah,” she says.

“Well then.”

“I’d know what ones to hate more.”

Lena tilts her chin, conceding the justice of this. “If I knew for definite,” she says, “I’d probably tell you. It might be a bad idea, but there you go. But I don’t.”

“Reckon that was Donie McGrath,” Trey says. “The Cunniffes’ step, not the scarecrow. ’Cause Mrs. Cunniffe gave out about him playing his music loud.”