ON SUNDAY THEY WORKED in the shed side by side, tackling the items that took two people to move, like the wringer washer and the old furnace. Henry connected a hose out to the spigot on the house and started a fire in the burning barrel. They fed it old newspapers, gray split fence posts with stringers of barbed wire that glowed red, busted-up wooden chairs. Henry chopped the wagon’s tongue in two with an axe and upended the halves, hardware and all, into the barrel. A gout of orange cinders flew into the air. By the time the fire settled, it was late in the day. They sat on the stoop eating potato chips and looking at the remaining debris.

“I know a trailer we can use to haul this stuff away,” Henry said. “Maybe I can get it next weekend.”

Your car doesn’t have a hitch, Edgar wrote on the newspaper. Before he handed it over, he completed 14-down in the crossword puzzle: a ten-letter word for “a short movement connecting the main parts of a composition.” The second letter was N and it ended with O.

Henry looked at the word Edgar had written: intermezzo. He squinted over at him.

“You ever think about entering a contest or something?”

Edgar shook his head.

“Well, you ought to. And a person can rent hitches.”

Tinder limped over. Henry was a soft touch for treats and as soon as Tinder began crunching a chip, Baboo started working Henry over. Edgar finally told them both to stop. A rapport was developing between Henry, Baboo, and Tinder. Only Essay stayed aloof. She didn’t mind Henry, that was just how she was. With Essay, more than with any other dog Edgar had known, trust was something you had to earn.

THAT WEEK HE SCRAPED flakes of paint from the sides of the shed and caulked the holes. Henry had purchased barn-red paint for the outside. Inside, it was to be whitewashed. Applying whitewash was lonely work-the old farmer had stopped appearing as soon as the last of the junk was out. The days were hot and the skies filled with monumental clouds. Late each afternoon, Henry turned his sedan up the driveway. When he got out of the car, he squatted and let the dogs wash his face, then inspected Edgar’s progress. “It’s a pretty good color,” he said, after Edgar finished painting the exterior. “Makes the house look shabby, though.”

Nights, they went on careening drives, Henry glowering and accelerating through curves while tree trunks strobed past and the dogs slid across the back seat. When they returned, Henry cracked a beer and gravitated to the Skyliner. Often he ended up sitting behind the wheel. Tinder would limp over and scramble onto the seat alongside him.

And somewhere along the line, between the crossword puzzles and the records from the library and the beer, Henry asked Edgar to teach him about the dogs. They went out after dinner and Edgar taught him a few signs. Then he and Essay demonstrated something simple: guided fetches. He put two sticks on the ground and asked Essay to go to them. It was a variation on the shared-gaze exercises, and all of the dogs knew how it worked. When Essay reached the targets, she looked back at Edgar. When he looked at the stick on the left, she snatched it and brought it to him, tail swinging. Edgar took the stick and ran a hand across Essay’s cheek. After another demonstration with Baboo, it was Henry’s turn. He chose to work with Tinder, a good choice. Something about the dog’s injury and enforced convalescence had taught Tinder an extra measure of patience, which he needed, because at first, Henry was hopeless. And yet the dog persevered, as if he had decided to take on Henry as a personal project. At times, Tinder even forgot about his foot and stopped limping for a few steps.

To begin with, Henry’s sign was vague, neither a recall nor a release nor a request to go out, but Tinder got the idea and walked to the sticks. There was no skill involved in the next step, and yet somehow Henry managed to confuse the dog, who patiently did not pick up either target but stood waiting. Then, for some reason, Henry gave the release command again. Tinder’s ears dropped. Henry walked forward. He was about to lift the stick up to Tinder’s mouth in desperation when Edgar stepped in and gave the command correctly and looked at the rightmost stick. Tinder snatched it off the ground at once.

Edgar forked two fingers sternly at Henry’s eyes.

Watch the target. They know the difference.

“Okay, okay.” Henry took the stick from Tinder, forgetting to thank him, and set it on the ground. Edgar let this breach of etiquette slide, and they retreated. When Henry started to sign a release instead of a go-out, Edgar grabbed his hands and moved them until the sign had been correctly formed. Henry blushed. But the next time, he signed the request perfectly. Without hesitation, Tinder limped across the lawn, looked at Henry, and brought him the target.

And at that moment, Henry got it, whatever it was-the difference between commanding Tinder and working with him. When Henry had signed that go-out, he’d looked at Tinder instead of his hands; when Tinder checked back, he’d trusted the dog to read his face. And then the cascade of revelations began, just as it had for Edgar. He could tell by the expression on Henry’s face. Edgar thought of all those letters between Brooks and his grandfather, the endless argument about companionship and work, how his grandfather had argued that there was never a difference, how Brooks, in exasperation, had refused to discuss it further. He thought, too, of the question his mother had posed to him a million years before: what were they selling, if not dogs?

And there stood Henry Lamb, beaming. Until that moment, Edgar had never seen the man smile without some fatalistic reserve that said he knew the joke would ultimately be on him. And though Edgar was no closer to putting it into words, for the first time he was sure he knew the answer to his mother’s question.

“WHERE WERE YOU HEADING, anyway?” Henry said. It was later that night, and they sat at the kitchen table. “I’m not trying to pry. Don’t answer if you don’t want to.”

It’s okay, Edgar signed. He jottted Starchild Colony on a sheet of paper and handed it to Henry. What was interesting was that, before the words had appeared on the paper, he hadn’t been sure himself what his answer would be-at least, not to say it so flatly that way. But he’d always been veering northwest, hadn’t he, to get past the tip of Lake Superior, and then start the walk along the lakeside to sneak past the Canadian border? Then, somehow, find the place? That had been the plan. Alexandra Honeywell had said they needed people, people who were willing to work hard. He was willing to work hard. So that’s where they had been going.

Henry whistled. “The place on the news-Alexandra What’s-Her-Name? Up by Thunder Bay?”

Edgar nodded.

“You know somebody there?”

No.

“Anyone know you’re coming?”

No.

Henry shook his head. “That’s a couple hundred miles. What were you going to do, walk the whole way?”

Edgar shrugged.

“I guess you could. I’m not sure what a person would do for food.”

Edgar scuffled his feet at the memory of looting Henry’s kitchen.

“Can Tinder make it on that foot?”

And that was the question, wasn’t it? Tinder’s foot wasn’t bandaged anymore, but mornings, the dog gimped badly. Edgar didn’t know when Tinder would be ready, if ever.

He shrugged his shoulders. There was no answer except to try.

ON FRIDAY, HENRY ARRIVED home with a trailer hitched to the sedan. He got out and he knelt and, grinning at Edgar, let the dogs accost him. He gestured at the trailer, where four inflated tires lay.

“I had retreads put on the wheels for the Skyliner. Tomorrow, she’s gonna roll for the first time in, oh, fifteen years.” He pulled a bag of groceries from the passenger seat of his car. “Chicken on the spit and potato salad,” he said. “Ordinary or not ordinary?”