The Old Man(105)

“I can’t tell. It’s a big black car with weird plates.”

“What do you mean, weird?”

“White.”

She stopped moving and listened, begging God or the universe that he wouldn’t say “US government.”

“White with a big mountain on it,” he said. “Washington.”

She set down the knife, wiped her hands on a dish towel, and went into the living room. It occurred to her that Carol and Dave weren’t barking, but she didn’t dare draw the obvious conclusion from that. She could barely breathe.

She stepped to the door and opened it. There he was. He looked fine—tanned and in shape.

“Hi, Doc,” he said. “I thought I’d come by and pick up my dogs.”

He got the word “dogs” out, but barely, before the two black beasts shot through the doorway, whirled, and leapt around him like dancers, and then the two grandsons arrived and hugged him at about belt height, making it difficult for him to take a step inside and hug his daughter.





40


Bill Armitage walked along the beach, staring out at Puget Sound. He loved taking this walk in the morning, and he’d been doing it nearly every day at six for over a month. He always scanned the Sound for the sight of black dorsal fins, hoping to spot a pod of killer whales. It hadn’t happened yet, but he was pretty sure it would. He was a patient man, he was very watchful, and he knew the ways of predators. They appeared after you got tired of looking.

He liked to start at the parking lot of Fort Casey State Park. As soon as he got there, he would get out of the car and go to the back door, open it, and let Carol and Dave jump out and run around a little, then scout ahead of him as he made his way to the beach. After a few minutes they would get used to the salt air laced with the strong smells of seaweed and washed-up sea creatures and fall in with him, orbiting him as he walked.

Armitage liked to go at least as far as the old Admiralty Head Lighthouse before they turned and made their way back. At low tide he could easily pick out his own straight, steady footprints and the meandering, circling, zigzagging prints of the two big black dogs. A few hours from now, the prints would all be washed away by the rising tide as though nobody had ever been here.

He wore two leather leashes around his neck, and he felt them swinging as he walked. He almost never needed to use them, because he and the dogs were usually alone on the beach in the early morning. He knew that in time he and the dogs would use up this walk and move on to others, taking each for a month or two before they were satisfied that they knew it. Whidbey Island had a great many possible walks, and if those were ever used up the world held others.

THE END