I grabbed the big flashlight Aunt Lyssa kept in the kitchen cupboard and sprinted back to where Roger was squinting into the darkness of the crawlspace below the shed. The first thing my flashlight beam picked up was a dark, wet spot in the dirt. I touched it and then looked at the red stain on my finger.

“Oh no,” I said, “it’s blood.”

Roger nudged my shoulder. “Back farther, Mad, way back under there. I think I see something else.”

I was really dreading what I’d see, but I directed the bright shaft of light back to the farthest corner under the shed. There was a huddled shape with a matted red coat. Bootsie. I felt numb. I just knew that she was dead. I handed the flashlight to Roger.

“I’m going after her,” I said. “Hold the light so I can see.”

Roger didn’t try to protest. He knew how I was when I set my mind to something. That was why I went back to running two months after the accident, even though the doctors had said it’d be a year before I could exercise again. They doubted I’d even be much of a runner again with one hand so messed up. But I set my mind to it and proved them wrong, winning my first ten K before the end of that year.

I squeezed myself farther under the shed. The space was so low that I scraped my back as I crawled forward on my elbows. It was only a dozen feet, but it seemed to take forever. At last I could reach my good right hand out far enough. When it touched Bootsie’s back, my heart leaped. Her skin was warm.

She trembled at my touch and whimpered. It was the same sound she used to make when she was a tiny puppy hiding from the rumble of thunder. I got hold of her collar and began to inch back, trying to drag her limp, unresisting body with me. Roger grabbed my ankles and pulled. Between the two of us, we managed to get her out into the sunlight.

As soon as Bootsie felt the light, it was if her On button had been pushed. She scrambled to her feet and started to bark. She licked my face and Roger’s hands, jumping around us in the kind of glad hysteria that Irish setters go into when they’ve been alone a really long time—like say five minutes. Roger helped me calm her down.

“Mad,” he said, getting down on his knees, “check this out.” He gently lifted her right front paw. As he did so, Bootsie whined and made a little chewing motion toward his hand, but she didn’t bite.

“Here’s where the blood came from, Mad,” Roger said. “Once a dog gets a cut on its pad, it just bleeds like a stuck pig. Probably caught it on a loose nail.”