PART 4 – The Boy Who Followed Pawprints
That night, Jamie slept with the photograph under his pillow—the one of his dad, young and smiling beside Hollis and puppy Buckshot.
In the half-dark, the image felt like proof. Not just that the woods were real, or the dogs, or the old man who spoke like time had folded in on itself—but that his dad had once known joy. Known laughter. Known this place.
In the morning, Jamie woke before his alarm and packed a small bag. He stuffed in a pair of socks, his sketchpad, and three graham crackers wrapped in a napkin.
The grahams were for Buckshot. The sketchpad was for him.
At school, everything felt different. Not easier, not exactly. The kids still buzzed around like bees too busy to see him. But Jamie didn’t feel hollow in his chair anymore.
He had somewhere to go.
Someone waiting.
After the final bell, he walked straight out to where his mom had said she’d park.
She was waiting, thermos in hand, hair tied up in a red bandana like she used to wear before everything changed.
“Ready?” she asked.
Jamie nodded.
They didn’t talk much on the drive. Just passed the thermos back and forth—hot chocolate this time, rich and too sweet.
At the edge of the woods, Jamie spotted the rusted gate again. This time, he saw something else too—scratched into the iron:
“HOME IS WHERE THE DOG REMEMBERS YOU.”
He paused, ran his fingers over the words.
They weren’t etched by machine. They looked clawed, maybe even scratched by hand.
“Did Dad write this?” he asked.
Hollis, already waiting on the porch, shook his head. “Nah. That was me. Long time ago. After a dog I loved found his way back from three counties over.”
Jamie smiled. “What was his name?”
“Cinder. Only dog I ever knew who hated the rain but loved the river.” He chuckled. “Figure that out.”
Buckshot barked from the yard and loped toward Jamie, tail high, ears bouncing.
Jamie knelt and held out the graham crackers.
Buckshot sat obediently and waited until Jamie gave the nod.
Marnie appeared from behind the house, hauling a battered rake. “Got a job for you today,” she said. “Something important.”
Jamie stood. “Okay.”
She pointed with her chin. “That corner there—by the woodshed. We buried Greta last night. Old retriever. Slept in the sun every day for thirteen years. Wouldn’t go inside even when it rained sideways.”
Jamie’s throat tightened. “She died?”
“Peacefully. Head in my lap,” Marnie said. “Now we need something to mark her spot.”
Jamie looked down at his sketchpad, fingers twitching.
“Could I draw her?” he asked.
Marnie blinked. “Draw?”
“I mean, I could make a sign. For the grave. With her picture.”
Marnie didn’t say anything. Then she gave a quick, short nod. “If you’re gonna do it, do it right. None of that cartoon junk.”
Jamie smiled. “Okay.”
He sat on the porch steps, Buckshot beside him, and began to draw. At first, the lines were stiff—retrievers were hard. Their softness didn’t always show up on paper. But slowly, Greta came alive in pencil. Shaggy ears, kind eyes, the faint slouch of age in her shoulders.
Marnie hovered behind him, arms crossed.
When he was done, he handed her the page without a word.
She stared at it.
A long silence.
Then she cleared her throat. “I’ll see if Hollis has varnish.”
She turned before he could see her wipe her cheek.
As the days passed, Jamie fell into a rhythm.
School. Woods. Dogs. Drawing.
He learned the names and stories behind each one.
Gravy, the toe-missing shepherd.
Elvis, a pug who snored louder than the chainsaw.
Junie, a deaf border collie who spun in circles when excited.
And then there was Buckshot.
He never strayed far from Jamie’s side. He walked him to the edge of the woods at dusk and was waiting by the gate each afternoon.
One evening, after helping Marnie patch up a torn fence post, Jamie asked Hollis, “Why did you let the place go invisible? I mean, nobody in town talks about it.”
Hollis sat back in his chair, watching the sky bruise into twilight.
“Sometimes places like this get forgotten because folks don’t want to remember the hard things,” he said. “I was a vet. I saw things in war I can’t unsee. Came back with a leg that won’t sleep and a heart that don’t know what quiet feels like.”
Jamie waited.
“I started bringing home dogs no one wanted. Broken ones. Like me. Folks called me crazy. Some still do.”
“They shouldn’t,” Jamie said.
Hollis looked at him then—really looked. “That’s the first time someone’s said that without flinching.”
Jamie shrugged. “I know what it’s like to feel invisible.”
Buckshot nudged his foot.
“Not anymore,” Hollis said softly.
On Friday, something changed.
Jamie was brushing Elvis near the garden beds when Buckshot began to growl.
Low. Deep.
Not playful.
Jamie stood. “What is it?”
Buckshot’s eyes fixed on the woods. His fur bristled along his back.
From behind the trees, something moved. Quick, shadowed.
Jamie stepped toward the fence. “Hello?”
No answer.
Then Hollis was beside him, cane in hand, eyes sharp.
“Get inside,” he told Jamie.
“But—”
“Now.”
Jamie obeyed, heart pounding.
Inside the cabin, the air smelled of ash and lavender. Marnie locked the door behind them.
“What was it?” Jamie asked.
“Likely nothing,” Hollis said. “Fox or coyote.”
But Jamie saw the glance Hollis and Marnie shared. Tight. Quiet.
It wasn’t nothing.
And Buckshot stayed at the door for an hour, unmoving, growling at the dark.
PART 5 – The Boy Who Followed Pawprints
That night, Jamie couldn’t sleep.
Even with the sketchpad still open on his nightstand—Elvis’s half-finished eyes looking back at him—even with the window cracked to let in the sound of cicadas, he couldn’t stop thinking about the look on Mr. Hollis’s face.
It hadn’t been fear. Not exactly.
It was older than that.
Like he’d seen something come back that should’ve stayed gone.
The next day, Jamie asked.
He waited until they were alone, stacking firewood behind the shed, sweat stinging his neck. Buckshot lay a few feet away, eyes alert.
“What was in the woods?”
Hollis didn’t answer right away. He picked up a log, turned it in his hand like it might offer an excuse.
“Sometimes folks think what you’re doing out here ain’t right,” he said. “Taking in dogs that bite, or limp, or won’t come when called. Some think we’re harboring sickness. Or waste. Or worse.”
Jamie blinked. “But that’s not true.”
“No,” Hollis said. “But truth don’t matter to people who’ve already made up their mind.”
Jamie felt the weight of those words.
“Was it a person?” he asked.
“Maybe.” Hollis sighed. “There’s a man—used to live near the train tracks, real bitter sort. Lost his own dog to old age a few years back. Swore it was something we did. Said he’d burn the whole place down if we ever touched another stray.”
Jamie felt a chill ripple down his arms.
“Why haven’t you called the police?”
Hollis looked at him then. “Son, you don’t call the law on ghosts. You just make sure the dogs sleep close and the doors stay locked.”
That evening, Jamie drew
Not a dog this time.
He drew a shadow. Not quite a man, not quite a monster. Just an outline standing at the edge of the woods with no eyes, watching the cabin where the dogs slept. Buckshot stood in front of the porch in the picture, teeth bared, tail rigid.
When Jamie finished, he folded the page in half and slipped it under the mattress.
He didn’t want Hollis to see it. Not yet.
The next few days passed without incident.
Jamie learned to clean wounds, boil rice in a dented pot, and scrape out the water bowls before sunset. He learned which dogs couldn’t be near each other and which ones needed a blanket on cold nights to stop them from crying out.
He also started sketching signs for each dog’s shelter.
Junie’s had a swirl of music notes—Marnie said she always danced in circles during fiddle songs.
Elvis’s had a half-moon, because he only settled once the sky darkened.
And Buckshot’s? That one he couldn’t figure out.
Jamie tried pawprints. A bone. A tree.
But nothing felt right.
“He’s not just a dog,” he told Marnie as they cleaned out the feed shed one afternoon. “He’s more like… a guardian.”
Marnie gave him a long look. “Then maybe don’t draw him like a pet.”
Jamie stopped what he was doing.
“Draw him how he feels.”
Later, he took his pencil and traced slow, careful lines: a curled tail at Jamie’s feet, watchful eyes, the faint curve of a scar below one eye—and behind Buckshot, rising faint in the background, the outline of Jamie’s father, hand resting gently on the dog’s back.
He didn’t show that drawing to anyone either.
He just slid it into the sketchbook and pressed it closed.
Then, on a Wednesday, the gate was open.
Wide.
And no one had opened it.
Hollis stood frozen on the porch.
“Check the pens,” he barked.
Jamie ran. Buckshot beside him.
The older dogs were still there. Junie. Elvis. Gravy. All untouched.
But the food shed had been ransacked. Cans smashed. Bags torn open. Dog biscuits crushed under heavy boots.
“Someone was here,” Marnie said, fury in her voice.
Jamie’s stomach twisted.
“Anything missing?” he asked.
Marnie scanned the mess. “I don’t think so.”
But Hollis wasn’t so sure. He moved slower than usual, checking locks and windows. His mouth was set in a grim, unreadable line.
Jamie followed him to the far side of the property, near the river slope, where a faded wooden sign hung on a split post:
“PRIVATE. NO TRESPASSING.”
It was shattered.
Snapped right down the middle.
Jamie’s voice was small. “Are they going to come back?”
Hollis didn’t answer.
Instead, he knelt slowly—painfully—and pushed something aside in the dirt.
A cigarette butt. Still warm.
And beside it, a single deep bootprint.
“You should stay home tomorrow,” Hollis said without looking up.
Jamie opened his mouth to protest—but Buckshot was already pressed against his leg, trembling slightly, nose low to the earth.
And in the wind, Jamie thought he heard something move beyond the trees.
PART 6 – The Boy Who Followed Pawprints
Jamie didn’t sleep that night—not really.
He lay in bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling, waiting for a sound that never came. His sketchpad rested on his chest like a weight. Even Buckshot’s drawing—the one with his father in the background—felt heavy now.
By morning, his mother already knew.
“You’re not going out there today,” she said, setting down his oatmeal too hard. “Not after what Mr. Hollis told me on the phone.”
Jamie sat up straighter. “But nothing happened.”
“Yet,” she snapped.
He flinched. She rarely raised her voice.
She sighed and dropped into the chair across from him. Her hands were wrapped tightly around her mug, fingers white at the knuckles.
“When your dad used to go out there,” she said, “I thought it was a phase. A way to deal with the nightmares. But it never left him.” Her eyes were distant. “Even when he was home, a part of him stayed in those woods. With the dogs. With Hollis.”
Jamie spoke quietly. “That’s not a bad thing.”
“No,” she said, “but it left less of him for us.”
That landed like a slap.
Jamie looked down. “You don’t want me to become like him.”
She didn’t answer right away. Then she whispered, “I don’t want to lose you the way I lost him.”
Jamie pushed back his chair. “You already did.”
He didn’t mean it to hurt. But it did. He saw it in her face. She didn’t stop him as he walked out the door.
The path to the sanctuary felt different this time.
The trees weren’t just tall—they were looming. The sky not just overcast, but crouched, like something was waiting to fall. Even the birds were quiet, the usual flutters and caws replaced by a silence thick as wool.
At the gate, Buckshot was waiting—tail still, body tense.
Jamie knelt to greet him. “I wasn’t supposed to come.”
Buckshot leaned his head into Jamie’s chest, like he understood anyway.
Inside, the yard was quiet. Too quiet. No Elvis snoring in the dirt. No Junie circling her blanket.
Jamie rounded the corner and found Hollis by the woodshed, hammer in hand, sweat darkening the collar of his shirt.
“I told you to stay home,” Hollis muttered, not looking up.
Jamie kicked at a stone. “I needed to come.”
Marnie emerged from the cabin, eyes tired, holding a half-burned sign.
Jamie recognized it—it had once read GRETA in careful letters, with his drawing etched below. Now it was scorched at the edges, curling like paper left too close to flame.
“They came back last night,” she said flatly.
Jamie’s voice cracked. “The dogs?”
“All safe,” Hollis said. “But someone lit a small fire. Just enough to scare.”
Jamie’s hands curled into fists. “Why would someone hate dogs so much?”
Hollis paused, lips pressed together.
“It’s not the dogs they hate,” he said. “It’s what they remind people of. Loyalty. Memory. Kindness. Some folks can’t bear to be reminded.”
Marnie added, “And some just want to watch things suffer.”
Jamie’s knees felt weak. He sat beside Buckshot, burying his fingers in the dog’s coarse fur.
“We have to stop them.”
Marnie gave a humorless laugh. “You planning to stand guard with a rake and a pencil?”
Jamie blinked. “Actually… maybe.”
She raised an eyebrow.
He reached into his backpack and pulled out a small sketchpad and three of his best markers.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “We could put up new signs. But not just names. Stories. Portraits. Real ones. So when someone looks at these dogs, they know who they are. What they survived.”
Hollis stepped closer, looking down at the boy. “That won’t stop a man with a match.”
“No,” Jamie said. “But it’ll show we’re not scared.”
There was a long pause. Then Hollis nodded once.
“Start with Junie.”
By evening, Jamie had finished three new signs.
Junie: Deaf, rescued from a flooded barn, spins to feel vibrations.
Elvis: Abandoned on a highway. Howls when left alone.
Greta: Loved sunbeams. Buried under the oak. “Still warm in our hearts.”
Each sign bore their faces, hand-drawn and gentle, taped onto weatherproof boards Marnie helped him seal.
When the signs were planted, Jamie stood back, dirt on his cheeks, proud.
And for the first time, the sanctuary didn’t feel hidden.
It felt seen.
That night, Jamie and Hollis sat by the fire in the cabin, while Marnie took first watch outside.
Jamie sipped weak tea and stared into the flames.
“Did you ever lose a dog?” he asked quietly.
Hollis’s eyes didn’t move from the fire. “Dozens.”
“Which one hurt most?”
The old man was quiet for a long time.
“His name was Kip. Brown mutt. Found him near a bomb crater in ’68. Wouldn’t eat unless I sang. Stayed with me through four surgeries, a divorce, and my mother’s funeral.”
Jamie leaned in. “What happened?”
“He died on the porch. Right over there. Waiting for me to come back from town. Just laid down and didn’t wake up.”
Jamie swallowed hard. “What did you do?”
Hollis poked the fire. “I cried. Then I built another doghouse.”
Jamie looked at him, blinking tears.
“Why?”
“Because grief,” Hollis said, “is just love looking for somewhere to go.”
And in that moment, Jamie felt something inside him shift.
Not heal. Not yet.
But settle.
Like a pawprint pressed into wet earth—soft and deep, waiting for the next step.