“That’s your reason?”
Tommy shrugged.
“Sometimes that’s enough.”
Tommy was sixty-two and built like the kind of man who had lifted heavy things for most of his adult life whether anybody paid him to or not. Before sanitation work, he had spent years in a feed mill. Before that, he had served four years in the Army and returned home with a repaired knee, a practical view of life, and no intention of ever pretending that routine was unimportant. Routine is how people notice what’s wrong, he liked to say. It is also how people talk themselves out of noticing it. Most folks choose the second one because it’s quicker.
He pulled the truck back in front of Evelyn’s house and set the brake.
Luis peered past him.
“The cart’s still up there.”
“I can see that.”
Tommy took the small gallon jug they kept in the cab during warm weather, climbed down, and walked to the porch first. He knocked. No answer. He knocked again, louder, then called, “Miss Evelyn?”
Nothing.
He looked toward the side yard and saw Buster at last, not at the fence but lying close to the house beneath the shade of the porch overhang. The dog raised his head, but only barely.
That decided it.
Tommy went to the gate. It was latched but not locked. He opened it and stepped into the yard slowly, saying the dog’s name before he moved closer. Buster made no sound, which was nearly as alarming as his not coming to the fence. His tail gave one tired sweep against the boards beneath him, and then stopped.
The bowl near the steps was dry.
Tommy poured water into it. Buster struggled up, crossed the short distance stiffly, and drank so fast that Tommy had to tip the bowl back from him once to slow him down. He put more water in and let the dog finish. Buster leaned into Tommy’s thigh for a moment when he was done, and Tommy scratched the side of his neck before standing again.
He knocked once more at the side door, harder this time.
No answer.
Luis remained by the truck watching all this with growing seriousness.
“Should we call it in?” he asked.
“We’re going to.”
Tommy returned to the cab, lifted the radio, and asked dispatch to contact the sheriff for a welfare check. The dispatcher on duty, Melissa Wayne, had known Tommy long enough not to ask whether this was really necessary.
“What’s the concern?”
“Evelyn Cross on County 18,” he said. “Trash not out. No answer at the door. Dog in the yard with no water and looking rough.”
Melissa hesitated only long enough to write it down.