Lost & Found - Jacqueline Sheehan [34]
Rocky turned off the hair dryer. She saw the strong wave of Tess’s white hair as she walked past the deck, inspecting something along the ground. The dog sat sentinel at the door, knowing that his pack was divided, one out and one inside. His look of distress suddenly lodged in Rocky. She had seen dogs do this before, when she and Bob had taken in foster dogs. Before they knew it, the dog had become part of their pack and took a role that was either protector or protected, either the alpha or the puppy. This was now her world, a dog who could not tell her his secret and a woman who held her ears to keep out the bright green noise of a hair dryer. And she had a palpable yearning to put her hands on a bow and pull back the string.
Despite Tess’s warning about archery, she looked in the Yellow Pages for sporting goods stores in Portland and called while Tess was outside. She phoned the very first one listed, Sporting Equipment Store, and asked if they had archery supplies. Ron Wilcox, the owner, said, “We got all the compound bows. What we ain’t go, you can order.”
When Tess returned to the little house, and the dog visibly relaxed with a sigh, Rocky explained that she had found the store that she was looking for.
“But I didn’t understand something that he told me,” Rocky said. “What’s a compound bow?”
Tess shrugged. “How should I know? I’m a retired physical therapist gone Buddhist, not a sports woman.”
Rocky drove her own car, ever doubtful of the yellow truck’s legal standing off island. Lloyd seemed well enough for a car trip, so she brought him for the ride. He was the perfect passenger.
The mainland seemed suddenly foreign to Rocky. The smell of the ocean was still present along the streets of Portland, but less dense. She had a growing sense of what living on an island meant. She was keenly aware that she was living on the tip of a mountain surrounded by ocean. But more often she felt like the entire island was a loosely anchored raft. She woke in the middle of the night and worried that the island was unsubstantially connected. What would it take for it to break free? On the mainland, the land felt suddenly still, and the 3,000-mile stretch from coast to coast bore down on her as she turned the knob on the Sports Equipment Store. A bell clattered overhead as the door jarred it.
A large-bellied man held open the pages of a magazine. He looked up from behind the desk. Behind him was an arsenal of guns, riflescopes in glass cases, pistols resting like reptiles under the glass countertops. She smelled oil and metal.
“I called yesterday about archery equipment?”
Rocky was suspect of other women who ended statements as if they were questions and now she wondered if women did this when they were afraid. This store felt like the suburban Pentagon and she was an unwelcome delegate from the UN.
“Yeah, over here,” Ron said as if he were a hunter leaving his blind. “Is this for you or someone else?”
“For me.”
“What draw weight are you looking for?”
Rocky was amazed at how quickly she could be stripped naked in places like car garages, lumberyards, or now, sporting supply stores.
“I’ve never used a bow before. I don’t know anything about it. What do you mean, how much weight?”
She followed Ron past the camouflage vests and pants, hip waders, hats with flaps over the ears, folding camp chairs, all the way to the back of the store where archery supplies were lined up.
“I’m gonna expand this section next year. We’ve got more people looking into archery. There’s more houses smack in the middle of the woods, less room to hunt with a gun. With these, you only need a good twenty yards, the closer the better. What do you plan to hunt?”
“Nothing. A target, I guess. I just want to learn how to do it.”
Rocky looked at the bows, complicated devices