Flee, Fly, Flown by Janet Hepburn

Author:Janet Hepburn [Hepburn, Janet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Literary
ISBN: 9781927583043
Google: MgF0lAEACAAJ
Amazon: 1927583039
Barnesnoble: 1927583039
Goodreads: 17655769
Publisher: Second Story Press
Published: 2013-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

10

We settle into the cushioned seats until the sound of someone pounding on the hood of the car startles us.

It’s Rayne. He has Shadow in his arms. “Look who I found tangled in the undergrowth.”

He walks around to the side of the car and lays Shadow gently down on the blanket that was left in a heap on the sand. The dog just stays there, moving only her head in an effort to keep Rayne in her sight. There are scratches on Shadow’s face and bits of clotted blood stuck to her hair everywhere. Her left hind leg has an open wound, the blood still glistening wet but no longer streaming down, as it clearly must have been. She whimpers and makes a feeble attempt at wagging her tail.

“Shh. Quiet, Girl. It’s okay.” Rayne holds his hand on the side of her belly to soothe her. “It’s okay now.”

“Lillian,” he says. “Could you just stand here and talk to her? Try to keep her still if you can.”

I move in beside Shadow. Rayne pulls a T-shirt from his big pack in the trunk and tears it into strips. He pours some water from the jug onto some pieces and cleans the dirt and blood from the wounds. He uses the remaining strips to wrap her back leg securely. Audrey fills the bowl with clean water so Shadow can drink.

“I don’t know how badly she’s hurt,” Rayne says after watching her lap up the water. “She isn’t even trying to get up. Her collar was caught on a branch and she must have struggled so hard to get loose, that she got all scratched up. Or maybe she had to defend herself. There’s lots of wildlife around here.”

I shoot him a look of surprise. “We slept outside. What kind of wildlife?”

“Black bear, moose, deer, fox. That’s why I stayed up and kept the fire going until just before dawn. I had it under control.”

“I’m glad I slept in the car,” Audrey says.

I pat Shadow softly. “Do you think she could defend herself against a bear?”

“No, especially not snagged like that, but she could make a lot of noise and in the dark, that might scare it away.” Rayne says.

“Can we go?” Audrey asks. “I’m gonna pass out from starvation.”

“Yeah. We need to get moving,” Rayne agrees.

We pack everything back into the car, shake out the blanket and shape it into a nest on the seat beside me. Rayne lifts Shadow onto the blanket and she falls asleep before we get back to the highway.

We stop at the first restaurant we see. It has a huge parking lot, big enough to hold dozens of transport trucks and cars. There is only one truck and ours is the only car.

Rayne checks the clock on the dash. “Nine-thirty—too late for truckers to be eating breakfast and too early for morning coffee break. Good timing,” he says. “The place isn’t busy.”

We open the windows a couple of inches and leave Shadow resting in the car. Rayne chooses a table in the corner.

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