The front seat springs creaked as Lu settled into place, and then the big door swung shut with a clang. Lu started the engine.
“Lorde,” I called, “come here, girl.”
Lorde lay flat on her back, all four feet hanging in the air. Her black tongue lolled out of her mouth, and she wagged her tail. Off in the brush behind her, the river sang its endless melody. The smell of mud, green leaves, and warm algae rose to fill my nostrils.
Good smells, living smells. But there was a bit of stink mixed in with it all. Maybe rodent, maybe some other dead critter.
“Such a silly rube,” I said to Lorde. “Come on, let’s see how badly you reek.”
She wriggled in the dirt one last time then stood up and shook, sending a cloud of dust in every direction. Then she trotted over to me, sticking her cold wet nose in my hand.
I petted her and gave her a good scrub behind the ears. She panted, her tail curled up and wagging.
“You stink,” I told her, “but not enough to keep you out of the cab. C’mon. We’ve got a couple hundred miles ahead of us today.”
We circled around to the front of the truck. She jumped up onto the seat and I followed.
“Might want to roll the window down,” I suggested.
“Why?” Lu said, then she wrinkled her nose. “You know the other good thing about Ricky?” She cranked down the window.
“Nope.”
“She has an outdoor bath big enough for Lorde.”
I just grunted and stared out the window.
Lu got the truck turned in the right direction, and in fairly short order, the dapple of shade lost out to bigger and bigger patches of sunlight.
“She is useful,” Lu said after a while. “Ricky.”
I didn’t know if she was poking at me just for fun, or if she was checking in, trying to measure where my head was at.
I reached across our smelly dog, and Lu’s hand immediately dropped into mine. Our fingers slotted together in the way that was just our own.
“She has her uses,” I said.
She kept her eyes on the road, but nodded.
“She gives you a place to bake. I like that.”
She nodded again. It looked like it was taking a lot of effort for her to stay silent, for her to keep her eyes on the road, for her to let me talk this out.
“She has more information on magic because she is a thief and a ne’er-do-well and a, apiratewho has never found anyone else’s fortune to be out of her reach.”
The corner of her lips quirked, as she worked hard to control the smile.
“She’s been good company toyou,” I grumbled, “despite her failings.”
“She cares about us,” Lu added, gaze still on the road. Locked there like none of this mattered all that much to her, like this was a casual conversation instead of what it actually was: us feeling each other out and working to get on the same page.
“She cares about you. She doesn’t even know me.”
A frown tugged lines between her brows. “I’ve told her about you, a lot. Years, Brogan. You are all that I’ve talked to her about for years.”
She wasn’t wrong. “Still, she’s never met me.”
We drove a while in the silence, our stinky dog snoring between us.
