The Buried (The Apostles) by Shelley Coriell

ocean wave.
    “Good Lord,” Hatch said with a wave of his hand. “What died in here?”
    “My central plumbing.” She opened the windows in the living room, and Hatch unlatched the panes in the small dining area and over the kitchen sink.
    In the kitchen she took a plastic bag from the refrigerator. “You know I don’t have time for this,” she said to Allegheny Blue, who hobbled behind her as she opened the back door, the molding shifting from the doorframe so it tilted like a fun-house door. The old dog had dislodged it two days ago chasing after a big cat caterwauling by the creek. Outside she fired up a propane stove on the porch. Setting a small, dented pot on a burner, she dumped a dollop of chunky liquid from the bag into the pot and tried not to gag.
    Hatch joined her, sniffing the air. “Remind me to say no next time you invite me to dinner.”
    She stirred the offensive liquid. “It’s for his foot.”
    “What is it?”
    “Bear grease, pitch, and kerosene. Hunters have used the stinking concoction for years to treat the pads of their hounds’ feet. I refuse to heat it inside.”
    Hatch’s dimples carved slashes on either side of his face, and he laughed.
    “It’s not funny,” she said as Blue plunked down beside her. “This is my second batch.”
    Hatch gave the old dog’s ears a ruffle. “He seems to like you.”
    “The feeling is not mutual.”
    Hatch hopped up on the porch railing, the old wood straining and groaning. She waited for the decrepit railing to break, but it held, as did Hatch’s gaze.
    “I’m fine, Hatch,” she said again. “I’m rattled and mad as hell, but I’m fine.”
    Hatch finally relinquished his eagle-eye stare and pointed to Allegheny Blue. “So what’s the story?”
    She gave the pot another stir. Hatch loved a good story, and he’d told so many that summer as they walked the white sand beaches of St. George Island and glided along Apalachicola Bay tonging for oysters. He told tales of hunting for treasure in three-hundred-year-old Spanish ships shipwrecked in the Florida Keys and adventurous yarns about his ’round-the-world trip with his great aunt Piper Jane. It was so easy to get lost in the music and magic of a good story. And maybe that was what she needed tonight, a good story to get her mind off Lia.
    With most of the fat melted, she took the pot off the stove. “Once upon a time there was a really, really stupid dog.” A rumble sounded from Hatch’s chest, and she rested her butt against the table holding the stove. “Said dog belonged to the former owner of this place, Lamar Giroux, an eighty-four-year-old hunter who never married and spent most of his waking moments in the company of dogs and critters they chased. Earlier this year, Lamar broke his hip and moved to his sister’s place in Tallahassee. He sold off all of his canine companions except his favorite, Allegheny Blue, who got a nice new cushy dog bed at Lamar’s sister’s two-bedroom patio home, complete with central air and a therapeutic Jacuzzi. But the canine hero of this tale did not buy into the new living arrangements. The really, really stupid dog walked from Tallahassee to Cypress Bend. Took him three days, and by the time he landed on my front porch, he’d torn the pads from his feet and was nothing but skin and bones.”
    “That’s almost a hundred miles. He walked it all?”
    “Twice.”
    “Huh?”
    “I told you, he’s double the stupid.” She dropped a dollop of the bear fat mixture on her wrist. Still too hot. “After Allegheny Blue’s first trek, Giroux’s nephew drove down, got the dog, and took him back to Tallahassee, but Blue took off the next day. A week later he arrived on my front porch, this time in worse shape. I called the vet, who made a house call and said Blue wouldn’t make it through the night. The vet offered to take him to his office and put him down, but it didn’t seem right, taking the old dog away from a place he so clearly longed to