Exhaustion dulled Harmon’s mind. Yet he once again struggled to sleep that night following his fight in the supermarket. His mind would not accept dreams. Harmon’s thoughts instead focused on his failures. He had always believed himself to be a skilled trainer of dogs, and of men. But he feared he had for too long overestimated his abilities at molding strong beasts. Should he have allowed John to visit the town theater on weekend nights so that his son might’ve had the opportunity to meet friends? Had he tripped Tonka’s mind into wild chaos by too often administering negative reinforcements? Should he have given John a cellphone, so that the boy might’ve learned how to flirt with the girls, so that he was not alone as his body changed into that of a man’s? Had he tweaked Tonka’s aggression too often, until his favorite dog depended on his bite instead of his cunning? Had he been too protective? Had he been too stubborn? Had he kept the leash too tight when the young needed the freedom to learn through failure?
The dogs refused to settle within their kennel, howling into the darkest hours of the night, whimpering such a din that spiked Harmon’s anxiety. Something more than John’s absence must’ve accounted for the pack’s unease. Harmon’s ebony pack possessed an uncanny intelligence, but those dogs were not so smart, surely, to understand the rift between the father and the son, or to understand that John would likely not return to tend to them. Wouldn’t the dogs naturally still expect John to arrive in the coming morning, and to exercise them once more according to customary schedule? Something else must’ve put that pack on edge.
So Harmon owned one reason more to keep his good eye open. He couldn’t calm in the brief, silent moments between the dogs’ howling. Harmon strained his ears in those intervals of quiet, listening for the sound of intrusion, for the sound of strangers lurking upon his property. Harmon peeked at his bedroom window, expecting at any moment to see that deadly third man grinning back at him. Could those strangers have followed that school administer through the twists and turns that lead to Harmon’s home on the day Mr. Powell answered John’s letter? Had John somehow betrayed his father’s sanctuary during a trip into town to purchase groceries? Or did Harmon have only himself to blame? Had the commotion he caused in the supermarket put those strangers upon his trail?
Had all those years when Harmon Fowler ruled the streets like a prince finally caught up with him when he turned old?
He felt powerless through the remaining night. He remained awake, his hand never leaving the grip of that old revolver hidden beneath the top blanket. In the morning, he could ready his favorite weapons. In the morning, he could temper the mettle of his dogs.