The first bark came from above us.
I looked toward a red ledge
where the last sun lay.
“Buck,” I called.
His name came back twice,
once sharp, once thin.
Neither voice was his.
Ada waited on the sandy path.
She had a paid hour left
before she must turn for town.
Her daughter would be waiting
outside the bakery,
watching the bread cool.
I had paid Ada to find my dog.
Now I wished she’d stayed home.
I’d heard him.
I knew which way to go.
I stepped onto the slope.
Loose stones slid past my heel.
Ada said my name.
“Joss. Look here.”
I looked up instead.
The canyon walls narrowed above me.
A dark crack ran through the red ledge,
just wide enough, I thought,
for a dog to hide.
Buck had slipped away
while I watered the horse.
He’d spent the morning trying to catch
the shadow of a hawk.
I’d laughed and let him run.
Now his collar bell was silent.
“There,” I said.
“He can’t get down.”
Ada put one boot beside a print
in the soft sand below me.
Four toes,
one small pad,
another print beyond it.
“He came this way.”
“He could have climbed after that.”
“He could. These tracks don’t.”
She waited while I climbed
the few feet back down.
The red ledge was farther away
than it had looked from the ground.
My hands had gathered dust
and nothing else.
Another bark hit the high wall.
I turned at once.
Ada lifted her palm.
“Wait for the rest.”
The bark came back from behind us,
smaller now,
then from the narrow bend ahead.
It sounded like three dogs,
all lost in different places.
Ada walked to the other side of the path.
She faced the high wall
and called my name once.
Joss.
It rose above us.
It crossed behind me.
It thinned down the bend.
“Stone sends a voice back,” she said.
“It doesn’t bring the speaker with it.”
I stared at the red ledge.
The crack was empty.
When I was small,
my uncle said an old rider lived here,
buried with his horse,
and called to anyone who passed.
He’d always made the rider say
exactly what we feared.
Ada had heard that tale too.
“My uncle’s rider wanted a new saddle,”
she said. “He always charged two coins.”
“Did you believe him?”
“I kept my coins.”
She pointed at the dog prints.
They went into a stripe of shade
along the canyon floor.
The sun had left the red ledge.
Ada looked toward the mouth of the canyon.
“We go back when that light leaves
the tall stone at the entrance.
We can return in the morning.
I won’t lead you farther in the dark.”
I wanted to say
that I’d go alone.
Then Buck barked again,
and I couldn’t tell where he was.
“Show me the next print,” I said.
Ada stepped aside.
I knelt beside the first one.
Beyond it lay another,
then one beside a torn tuft of grass.
I could follow them
without trusting what I heard.
We walked around the bend.
The path stayed low and level.
A fallen tree reached across it,
thin branches holding the last dry leaves.
Buck stood on the far side,
his head turned toward us.
One low branch had slipped
through the loose loop of his collar.
He could step forward or back
only as far as the branch would bend.
The little bell hung against the wood.
Each time he barked,
his tail hit the dead leaves.
“You fool,” I told him,
in the voice I use
when I’m afraid.
I ducked beneath the branch
and stood beside him on the path.
Ada held the branch still.
I loosened his collar
and slipped it clear.
He came free all at once,
licked my chin,
and tried to chase
the shadow of Ada’s hand.
I held him close enough
to feel his warm ribs.
There was no blood.
There was no buried rider.
There was a dog
who wanted to run again.
I put his lead on
and took the dangling bell
off the collar.
I kept it in my palm.
At the canyon mouth,
the tall stone still held
a hand’s width of light.
Our horses waited by the post
where we had tied them.
Ada checked the saddle straps.
“Will you be late?” I asked.
“Not if you stop asking the cliffs
where the bakery is.”
I tied Buck’s lead to my belt
while we led the horses toward the road.
The bell knocked once against my thumb.
“Thank you, Ada,” I said.
This time I looked at her.
“You’re welcome,” she said,
and her voice stayed beside me
until we reached the road.
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