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no way for you to tell it to quit. He thought of one thing or another he might say. That he’d had to take a gambler’s chance. That a poor risk was better than no hope at all. But he was worn out from swimming and struggling, too tired to feel like talking much. Bantry kept on crying, not letting up, and Peter Jackson got himself on his feet and went limping up to the house with the dogs.
    That was what did it for Bantry, though, or so it seemed. Anyway, he was a lot different after that. He acted nicer with the dogs, feeding them treats, stroking them and loving them up, when he never as much as touched one before, if he had a way around it. He began to volunteer to do extra things, helping more around the house and garden, when his chores in the kennel were done. He put on pads and learned to help Jackson train dogs for K-9. He followed Jackson around trying to strike up conversation, like, for a change, he was hungry for company. He was especially nice with Bronwen and Caesar, and Caesar seemed to take a shine to him right back. Bantry had turned the corner, what it looked like. In about two more weeks, Peter Jackson called the courthouse and said they could send somebody out to pick him up.
    As it turned out, it was me they sent. I was still a part-time deputy then, and the call came on a Saturday when I was on duty. Bantry was packed and all ready to go when I got there. Soon as I had parked the car he came walking over, carrying his grip. Caesar was walking alongside of him, and every couple of steps they took, Bantry would reach down and give him a pat on the head.
    “Hello, Mr. Trimble,” he said. He put out his hand and we shook.
    “You look bright-eyed arid bushy-tailed,” I said. “I’d scarce have known you, Bantry.”
    “You can call me Don,” he said, and smiled.
    I told him to go on and get in the front while I went down to take a message to Jackson. It surprised me just a touch he hadn’t already come out himself. He was sitting on his back stoop when I found him, staring out across the lake. Bronwen was sitting there next to him. Every so often she’d slap her paw up on his knee, like she was begging him for something. Jackson didn’t appear to be paying her much mind.
    “Well sir, you’re a miracle worker,” I said. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I’d just been told, but it looks like you done it again.”
    “Hello, Trimble,” Jackson said, flicking his eyes over me and then back away. He’d known I was there right along, just hadn’t shown it. Bronwen slapped her paw back up on his knee.
    “Marvin said tell you he’ll have another one ready to send out here shortly,” I said. Jackson looked off across the lake.
    “I ain’t going to have no more of ’m,” he said.
    “Why not?” I said. Bronwen pawed at him another time, and Jackson reached over and started rubbing her ears.
    “Well, I figured something out,” Jackson said, still staring down there at the water. “It ain’t any different than breaking an animal, what I been doing to them boys.”
    I stepped up beside him and looked where he was looking, curious to see what might be so interesting down there on the lake. There wasn’t so much as a fish jumping. Nothing there but that blue, blue water, cold looking and still like it was ice.
    “What if you’re right?” I said. “More’n likely it’s the very thing they need.”
    “Yes, but a man is not an animal,” he said. He waited a minute, and clicked his tongue. “Anyhow, I’m getting too old,” he said.
    “You?” I said. “Ain’t nobody would call you old.” It was a true fact I never had thought of him that way myself, though he might have been near seventy by that time. He’d been a right smart older than his wife.
    Jackson raised up his left hand and shook it under my nose. I could see how his fingers were getting skinny the way an old man’s will, and how loose his wedding band was rattling. Then he laid his hand back down on Bronwen’s