When she didn’t seem ready to broach what had just happened, Gabe decided to focus on the dog. “I was thinking he might try going home after he calms down and runs off some energy. Not to his pen, per se, but to the house.”

“That makes sense. A lot of sense, actually.”

They rode in silence, and when she didn’t seem ready to talk, Gabe turned up the radio, scanning stations until he landed on one with good reception. It was bluegrass, and whatever was playing had a catchy fiddle and banjo melody.

By the time they were headed down the dirt road again, it was close to fully dark, but mercifully the rain was ceasing. “What do you know. Maybe we won’t be building arks after all.”

As she smiled, Olivia’s white teeth were illuminated by the soft light of the dashboard. “That’d be nice. It’s been so long, I can’t remember the way it feels not to have the ground squish under your feet with every step you take.” Gabe was pulling into the tattered driveway of the house when she added, “And around here, I bet everyone’s ready to not have rivers filling people’s backyards.”

He slipped the truck into park and shut off the ignition, scanning the heavily littered front yard for any sign of the dog. The windows were dark, without even a hint of digital light shining out of any of them, causing Gabe to suspect the power was out. The level of trash strewn about the front yard and the general disrepair of the home made it difficult for him to give the benefit of the doubt in terms of a caring pet owner residing here. Maybe there was a genuine excuse for why the dog had been left behind. Maybe there wasn’t.

Perhaps the owners were out of town and not keeping track of what was going on in their hometown. Perhaps it was the fault of someone else entirely. But whoever was responsible for that pointer should’ve pulled him out yesterday at the latest.

“Dogs are smart, but do you ever wonder how much they understand about how much of their condition is the responsibility of their owner?”

“I was wondering the same thing,” Olivia said as she unbuckled her seat belt. “If he knows that human error left him nearly drowning in a locked pen. The other thing I thought of was I don’t think those kids were telling the whole story.”

“How so?” Gabe asked as they stepped out.

“The dead bolt. From what I could see, it looked like it was submerged a foot at least.”

“It was. Maybe a little deeper. I wondered that too. How those kids knew to ask for someone to bring bolt cutters when they didn’t get more than halfway to him.”

“Yeah, the river’s rising fast, but not that fast.”