“No, I don’t want to disturb her,” he said. “Just…”
“I’m keeping an eye on things, Tyler. I won’t let you down.”
“I know. You’ve done a remarkable job all the way around-and under difficult conditions.”
“Not at all. You’d be surprised by how peaceful it is around here this afternoon. Especially now that Rebecca’s out on her own. Ron and Brad keep making up rude nicknames for each other, but that’s all by way of male bonding.”
“You’re very understanding.”
“Me? I grew up as a tough guy’s only child. One-hundred-percent tomboy.”
“I have a feeling that Ron would say, ‘Not quite one hundred percent.’”
She was still laughing when they ended the call.
He drove Shade to the corner of Bledsoe and Foothill, where a cemetery dating from the 1870s stood. They walked around the outside fence for a while, but again Shade seemed only mildly interested. He gave Tyler a look, one that seemed to say, “Are we done here?”
“All right, but I’m just trying to follow orders. ‘Take good care of that dog.’ Not that I find the duty unpleasant, mind you. And I’m sorry if I’ve been distracted lately.”
Shade looked off at the horizon, avoiding Tyler’s gaze. Nearly two centuries in the dog’s company led Tyler to interpret this as a signal of disappointment or disapproval.
“Forgive me, I’m just a stupid human.”
Shade looked at him and wagged his tail.
“You really don’t need to agree so readily to that.”
Shade wagged his tail harder, then romped over to the van.
“Home it is, then,” Tyler said.
As they got into the vehicle, Tyler asked, “Should I tell her?”
Shade gave a sharp bark.
“Easy for you to say. I don’t know how to begin to talk to her about this.”
Shade stared at him.
“All right, all right. I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it, just that it would be difficult.”
Tyler found Amanda in the library, perched on a rolling shelf ladder, removing a slender volume from one of the upper rows of books. A stack of some of his oldest books was piled on a table. Shade’s reaction when they entered the room told him the ghosts were present, apparently hovering in midair somewhere behind her.
Amanda looked down when she heard him enter and smiled, her pleasure in seeing him written plainly on her face. This was, he thought, part of what attracted him to her-she did not hide her feelings from him.
All the turmoil he had been caught up in over the last week eased for the moment. He stood just inside the doorway, watching her, savoring his own sense of happiness and well-being. When was the last time he had felt anything close to it?
She was glad he was home, and he was equally glad to be here with her. A simple thing, he supposed, but a pleasure he had not shared with another person before Amanda had come into his life.
“Sorry I was gone so long,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“Research, in my limited way.” She made a face and began her descent. “I’m not sure it could even be called researching.” She sat at the table and gestured to him to take the chair next to her. “I can’t even identify the languages half of these books are written in. But the pictures in them make me think the ghosts were right about them.”
“Back up a moment-researching what?” he asked.
“Dogs. Cemetery dogs. I asked the ghosts for help. They’re really excited about this one,” she said, holding up the book she had just retrieved. “It took me a while to figure out that they wanted me to go up the ladder.”
“I’m sure Shade must be flattered that you’re going to all this effort.”
“Oh, well-forgive me, Shade, but I was trying to see if there was something about the new dog.”
He froze. “New dog?”
“Yes! The one that’s been coming around my house.”
He felt himself pale.
“Tyler? What’s wrong?”
“You’ve seen the dog? It looks like Shade?”
“Could be his twin. Slightly smaller than he is, I think, but not by much.” She described seeing the two dogs at the same time. “But it ran off into the woods.”
“We have to find it,” he said, coming to his feet. “We should look for it immediately.”
“Tyler-wait. Please, tell me what’s wrong. Do you think Adrian wants that dog?”
“That’s just one of my fears. But yes-it’s possible he knows there is another cemetery dog in the area, and if he does, he will definitely try to make it his own.”
He started for the door, but Shade suddenly blocked his way.
“Shade, what is it?”
“Um…the ghosts keep pointing toward the books,” Amanda said.
Shade wagged his tail.
“Now?” he asked. “Under the circumstances, don’t you think books can wait?”
Shade stared at him.
“All right, all right.” He went back to the table.
Amanda handed him the book from the upper shelf. “Do you know what this language is?”
He sat beside her and looked at the text. “I think it may be Euskara.”
“Of course. I should have recognized it right away. What the hell is Euskara?”
“Basque. Linguistically unique-it doesn’t seem to be related to any other language.”
“Do you read it?”
“No.”
“Oh. But you told me about being able to read texts to break the curse on the ring…”
“Let’s hope that works again. Perhaps it depends on the book rather than the reader,” he said, slowly turning its pages.
“Magic books, eh? Well, why not? This one is amazing-I glanced at the illustrations. The book is full of beautiful woodcuts. I could swear some of them are pictures of Shade.”
“I think that’s why I bought it. I admit I haven’t looked through it since then, though.”
“Do you have a Basque dictionary?”
“Sorry, no.”
“Basque country is near the border of Spain and France, right?”
“Yes, although the Basque have been scattered across the world.”
“I just wondered-well, for a couple of reasons. Alex mentioned Navarre as one of the places Eduardo visited.”
“Right-and she mentioned that he had stayed there a little longer than elsewhere.” He looked at the book with new interest.
“I also wondered about the book-because it seems as if it was published privately, by someone in Los Angeles.”
He glanced at the title page. “Yes. But that’s not so strange. There have been Basque enclaves in Southern California for many years. In Los Angeles, Orange County, Bakersfield, and other places. Similar to hundreds of thousands of other people, lots of Basque men came to California during the gold rush.”
“So they were miners?”
“Some were, but many then turned to raising sheep and cattle-they fed the miners. You could usually make more money selling supplies to the miners than being one.”
“Were you a miner or a supplier?”
He smiled. “I tried both, but I spent most of my time in the West as a doctor.”
“A doctor!”
“Don’t look so impressed. I wouldn’t try my hand at it now. When I first came to America, the requirements for a medical education were quite different from what they are today. Then, it just took a few months of study and an apprenticeship. I had decided on the profession even before I immigrated.”
“I suppose a doctor could move around a lot?”
“Yes. And I was often called to the bedsides of the dying.”
“This was before anesthesia, right?”
“And so much more. I tried to help my patients as much as possible, but when I think back…” He shuddered. “Let’s just say things have come a long way since then.”
“Something else to be thankful for.”
He tried to let go of his anxieties about her, about the new dog, about the ghosts, tried to open his mind to whatever the pages might offer. Shade insisted he stay here-why? Because of Amanda, the ghosts? No, he told himself, feeling worry return-relax, let go.