Page 99 of The Meaning of Love
The brothers kept pace on either side.
“Perhaps,” Felix said, “we have a stray?”
“Generally, strays avoid attracting attention,” Julian pointed out.
They reached the barn, and the yips and yelps rose in a crescendo. The heavy doors were barred by a wooden beam supported on iron brackets.
Felix lifted the beam clear and stood it against the side of the barn, and Julian hauled open one of the wide doors.
A dim, cavernous space, illuminated by the sunshine streaming in through the open door, greeted them. Dust motes danced in the air as Melissa walked in, looking around. “Ulysses?” She turned, searching, expecting the golden puppy to come streaking to her as he usually did.
Instead, the frantic barking escalated in both pitch and fervency.
“Where are you?” The frantic yelps were echoing off the tin roof and bouncing around the largely empty space, making tracking the actual source near impossible.
“He’s obviously here somewhere.” Julian was turning this way and that, trying to decide in which direction to search.
Felix was doing the same. “The echoes are confusing.”
Julian waved him toward the far end of the large barn. “Go that way. We’ll try this way.”
They separated, with Felix walking to the right and Julian to Melissa’s left, while she went directly forward, trying to discern in which direction the barks were loudest.
The barn was largely empty, with just a few bales of straw stacked here and there. She’d nearly reached the back wall before she felt confident in turning to her left. “He’s this way!” she called.
A stack of bales partially filled the left rear corner of the barn. The bales seemed to be solidly stacked, yet the closer she drew the more certain she became that Ulysses was somehow trapped behind them.
She reached the bales as Julian approached; they rose to her waist. “I think he’s trapped behind them. He must have wriggled in and not been able to find his way out again.” She hiked up her skirts. “Help me up.”
Julian closed his hands about her waist and lifted her up, then scrambled up as well.
Felix jogged up. “Is he there?”
“Sounds like it,” Julian said.
It was too difficult to walk on the straw. On her hands and knees, Melissa crawled to the corner of the building. “There’s a gap here, between the bales. Right in the corner.” She reached the hole and peered in and saw Ulysses leaping up, frantic and overjoyed to see her.
She slumped down and reached into the hole, but although she could touch the leaping pup, she couldn’t get a firm grip on his wriggling body.
Julian reached her, and she drew back her arm and turned to him. “My arms aren’t long enough. I can’t catch hold of him.”
Julian looked into the hole, saw the problem, sighed, and stretched out full length on the prickly straw. He reached into the hole. Ignoring the puppy’s furious licking, he stretched and felt around with his fingers and managed to curl them into the pup’s ruff. “Got him.”
Gripping firmly, he started to carefully hoist the squirming puppy up.
The light started to fade.
“What?” Felix swung around. “Damn it—we’re in here!” He strode for the door, then Julian heard his brother swear and break into a run.
Julian hauled Ulysses clear of the hole and rolled onto his side.
Melissa grabbed the puppy, and Julian scrambled back across the bales to where he could look toward the front of the barn.
By then, the door had shut.
The beam rattled into its brackets an instant before Felix rammed his shoulder into the door.
The door didn’t budge.
