“Well, that’s how I look at it, but not everybody does,” she said with a laugh.
“I know,” he said. “We’re the oddities in that way, aren’t we?” He poured a cup of coffee and said, “Let’s go.”
She was glad he was here to help, but then she stopped. “Hang on a minute. I don’t want you doing any of this heavy lifting,” she said, “if you’re injured.”
He just gave her that flat stare.
She shook her head. “No, you tell me right now what I’m supposed to watch out for. Otherwise no way in hell I’m even letting you pick up one thing.” He opened his mouth, and she shook her head resolutely. “Don’t even start with me,” she said. “I didn’t bring you here to work you to the bone or to get you reinjured.” She added, “So be honest.”
“I had a lot of surgeries,” he said. “I’ve got a new knee on both legs. I’ve got a new hip joint. On the right there’s a bone plate in my pelvis and that right hip,” he said, “and I had various soft-tissue damage, and I lost a kidney.” He added, “There’s some muscle damage on my back and my shoulder, but I’ve been through some pretty intensive therapy, and I’m fine.”
She frowned, as if not sure if she should believe him or not.
He looked at her, smiled, and said, “And thank you for caring, but honestly I won’t overdo it.”
“You’d better not,” she muttered. “That’ll make me really pissed.”
He laughed out loud at that. “Love you too,” he said. “Now can we get some work done?”
She grinned, nodded, and they started emptying one bedroom. It had very little to move, which was a good thing because then she could remove a lot of it on her own. By the time they were done with both guest bedrooms, she looked mighty pleased. “The floors aren’t all that bad in here, are they?”
“Nope, but I think they still need to be done.”
“Yeah, and I’ve got the stuff,” she said, “but the refinishing machine we have to rent from town.”
“Can we get a delivery on the equipment rental?”
She nodded. “We can, indeed.” She quickly made the call, hung up, and said, “About an hour to get it.”
“We’ll have it stripped by then anyway,” he said. He had the liquid stripper in his hands, with gloves on, and he was already taking off as much of the old dull finish as he could.
“It always seemed funny to do it this way,” she said, “when you know that the machine will just sand everything off.”
“Yeah, but the varnish gums it up, and it’s much faster if we do it this way.”
“I know. I did it this way last time,” she said, “but there’s no such thing really as fast. It’s a process.”
“And the process is fine,” he said. “Let’s just get at it.”
By the time the equipment was here, they had the floors of the two upstairs bedrooms prepped. The rental guys brought the machine to the porch. She looked at it and asked, “Could I ask you guys to carry it inside to the top of the stairs?”
“No problem, ma’am.” They quickly picked it up and carried it right to the top. Caleb laughed and said, “Then while you’re on your way down, grab a load.”
The delivery guys laughed and said, “Hey, good timing on you guys’ part.” And they picked up the final mattress set that had to come downstairs, with Caleb behind. She signed off on the paperwork, and he quickly set up one of the beds in the corner of the living room, where Laysha would sleep tonight.
And, before she knew it, they were both back upstairs, he was on his hands and knees, wiping up any residue from using the liquid floor stripper, while she set up the machine.
“I’m absolutely thrilled,” she said.
“Hey, we can get a lot done,” he said. “You know nothing makes me happier.”
And she knew it. They were two peas in a pod that way. And very quickly, with her working on the machine and him working on his hands and knees, then switching, she knew it would take a bit, but they’d be done soon enough.
By the time she went to bed that night—in her temporary bed in the living room, waiting for her floors to dry upstairs—she was more than tired, but she was almost euphoric.
She had wanted to get that done for a long time, but often it took somebody else to come visit before you saw not only how far you had made it but also what you still needed to do. By the time she closed her eyes, she was more than grateful that Caleb had shown up. His brother’s wedding was in two days. She wondered if Caleb had even let his brother know that he was here yet. The last thought in her mind was that she would check with him the next morning.
But, when she got up the next morning, once again he was long gone.
Caleb walked the back of the property that was the last-known location for Beowulf. The cops had left long ago. Forensics didn’t seem to care anymore, as they had done whatever they could do, and Caleb was at the back of the two acres, slowly moving from side to side, checking where the neighbor had said the dog had disappeared. Caleb caught sight of little bits and tufts of hair, and, while possibly still here after all this time, after Beowulf being missing for more than two months, it was also possible that the hair came from a coyote or any other critter that had gone through this place.
Once he found a decent clump of black fur against a bramble bush, he finally felt like he was on the right path. Emboldened by that, he went farther and farther into the brush. When he was four miles off the road, he checked his GPS on his cell for what was close by and realized a small Mexican village was up ahead. Just one of those hit-and-miss kinds of areas.
He had crossed the border.
This section of the border had no divider. Now that he was in the Mexico side of life, the dog could be anywhere. Caleb kept moving, keeping track of where he was, and sending Badger several updates as he walked. Caleb used photos to show what he found, as he kept going. When he came to the village, he stopped and smiled, grateful that he had Spanish as his native language. His last name may sound totally American, like his dad, but Caleb was proud of his mother’s cultural heritage too.
At the small cantina, he asked for a glass of water and then had a cold beer. While talking to the owner, Caleb asked if the dog had been seen around here, showing him a picture of Beowulf. The owner looked at him, frowned, and then nodded. “A big dog came by here a couple weeks ago maybe. Maybe twice that now,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t know for sure if it is this particular dog.”
“Did you ever see anybody with him?”
“Yes,” he said, “but I don’t know who it was.”
“White man or Mexican?”
“White man.” That was an immediate answer.
“But a stranger?”
He nodded. “And that also is unusual. We don’t get many around here.”
Caleb looked around and saw a half-dozen small houses. “He was probably heading into town.”
“Most likely,” the cantina owner said with a shrug. “We don’t care about them here.”
“I know, but you’re so close to the border that it’s an easy place for men to disappear from.”