Free A Dog's Way Home by Bobbie Pyron Page A

rabbit back up to the fence. They found the rabbit’s den beneath the crumbled remains of a stone chimney. Together they dug beneath the snow where the earth was still warm. Tam flushed the frightened rabbit. The coyote caught it in two bounds, snapped its neck, and carried it back to Tam.
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    Three days after it appeared, the snow was gone. The tree branches once again stretched toward the sky; rhododendron and mountain laurel thickets regained their fullness. Squirrels, rabbits, and chipmunks busied themselves gathering the last of their winter food. Birds filled the trees. This first snow of the high country was gone, leaving behind a sense of urgency.
    Tam awakened that morning with the need to continue south. Leaving the warm shelter of the shed, he and the coyote slipped under the fence and crossed the creek.
    As they descended into the Roanoke Valley, the thick forests gave way to hay fields, rolling farmland, and the occasional homestead. By late afternoon, they found themselves in an old apple orchard, long abandoned.
    Tam chewed a shriveled wild green apple and watched the coyote on the edge of the orchard. She turned her head to one side, cocking an ear. Her body tensed. Almost imperceptibly, she lowered her haunches, arched her back. From a dead standstill, she sprang straight up into the air, arcing over the tall grass. Two more pounces in quick succession and she emerged with a large field rat hanging limply from her jaws. Tam trotted over and wagged his tail hopefully. But she did not share her meal this time. This was her kill. Tam would have to make his own.
    Tam scouted the tall grass too. The orchard, with itsrotting apples, was a haven for field rats and meadow voles. Although Tam could not match the coyote’s pouncing technique, he was fast and agile. By nightfall, he too had a full belly.
    That night, as he and his friend lay together beneath a rocky outcropping, stars glittered like ice in the night sky. The next morning, a hard frost coated the ground and studded the grass. Winter followed close at their heels.

CHAPTER 17
Abby
    I sat in my window seat, my sketch pad in my lap and an atlas by my side. From up here in my bedroom window seat, I could see all of the front yard, the smaller barn off to the side, and all the way down to the road where Daddy’d be driving up anytime now.
    I rubbed by thumb back and forth over Tam’s collar while I studied the map of the Blue ridge Parkway in the atlas.
    See, olivia had had this idea:
    I’d gone down to her house to apologize for biting her head off at school the other day when she’d told me not to set my hopes too high on finding Tam.
    â€œI just can’t give up on him, olivia,” I’d said. “I don’tknow how to be Abby without Tam. Does that make a bit of sense?”
    She’d smiled that sad smile she carries around most of the time and nodded. We sat there in her prancing-unicorn-princess room (which she told me she hates, but she loves her grandaddy too much to say), listening to the wind. Finally, she’d said, “Abby, do you think you might have the Sight, just like your grandmother?”
    I frowned. “I don’t think so. She sees into the future and stuff.”
    â€œYes, but doesn’t it run in her family? Didn’t you say her mother and her grandmother had the Sight?”
    â€œWell, sure, but…” It had just never occurred to me before.
    â€œIt may be different for different people,” she said. “And you’ve told me about these dreams and stuff you’ve had about Tam. Maybe that’s how it works for you. Try putting what you’ve seen into one of those maps of yours. And trust your instincts.”
    So that’s what I was trying to do. I’d made a list of all the things I could remember from the dreams and visions I’d had of Tam—the kinds of trees, what the mountains looked like, rivers, creeks, and such. I’d look at the