Seize the Night

said.
    Lilly turned. “Got what?”
    “A trail.” When he reached the backyard, Orson broke into a trot.
    “Badger,” I said, “don't tell them Orson and I were here.”
    A weight of fear pressed her voice thinner than a whisper, “Don't tell who?”
    “The police.”
    “Why?”
    “I'll be back. I'll explain. I swear I'll find Jimmy. I swear I will.”
    I could keep the first two promises.
    The third, however, was something less meaningful than wishful thinking and was intended only to provide a little hope with which she might keep herself glued together.
    In fact, as I hurried after my strange dog, pushing the bicycle at my side, I already believed that Jimmy Wing was lost forever. The most I expected to find at the end of the trail was the boy's dead body and, with luck, the man who had murdered him.

2
    When I reached the rear of Lilly's house, I couldn't see Orson.
    He was so coaly black that even the light of a full moon was not sufficient to reveal him.
    From off to the right came a soft woof then another, and I followed his call.
    At the end of the backyard was a freestanding garage that could be entered by car only from the alley beyond. A brick walkway led alongside the garage to a wooden gate, where Orson stood on his hind legs, pawing at the latch.
    For a fact, this dog is radically smarter than ordinary mutts.
    Sometimes I suspect that he is also considerably smarter than I am.
    If I didn't have the advantage of hands, no doubt I would be the one eating from a dish on the floor. He would have control of the most comfortable easy chair and the remote control for the television.
    Demonstrating my single claim to superiority, I disengaged the bolt latch with a flourish and pushed open the creaking gate.
    A series of garages, storage sheds, and backyard fences lay along this flank of the alley. On the farther side, the cracked and runneled blacktop gave way to a narrow dirt shoulder, which in turn led to a line of massive eucalyptuses and a weedy verge that sloped into a canyon.
    Lilly's house is on the edge of town, and no one lives in the canyon behind her place. The wild grass and scattered scrub oaks on the descending slopes provide homes for hawks, coyotes, rabbits, squirrels, field mice, and snakes.
    Following his formidable nose, Orson urgently investigated the weeds along the edge of the canyon, padding north and then south, softly whining and grumbling to himself.
    I stood at the brink, between two trees, peering down into a darkness that not even the fat moon could dispel. No flashlight moved in those depths. If Jimmy had been carried into that gloom, the kidnapper must have uncanny night vision.
    With a yelp, Orson abruptly abandoned his search along the canyon rim and returned to the center of the alleyway. He moved in a circle, as though he might start chasing his tail, but his head was raised and he was excitedly sniffing spoor.
    To him, the air is a rich stew of scents. Every dog has a sense of smell thousands of times more powerful than yours or mine.
    The medicinal pungency of the eucalyptus trees was the only aroma that I could detect. Drawn by another and more suspicious scent, as if he were but a bit of iron pulled inexorably toward a powerful magnet, Orson raced north along the alley.
    Maybe Jimmy Wing was still alive.
    It's my nature to believe in miracles. So why not believe in this one?
    I climbed on my bike and pedaled after the dog. He was swift and certain, and to match his pace, I really had to make the drive chain hum.
    In block after block, only a few widely spaced security lamps glowed at the back of the residential properties that we passed. By habit I steered away from those radiant pools, along the darker side of the alleyway, even though I could have sailed through each patch of lamplight in less than a second or two, without significant risk to my health.
    Xeroderma pigmentosum—XP for those who aren't able to tie their tongues in knots—is an inherited genetic disorder that I share with an exclusive club of only one thousand other Americans. One of us per 250,000 citizens. XP renders me highly vulnerable to skin and eye cancers caused by exposure to any ultraviolet radiation. Sunshine. Incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. The shining, idiot face of a television screen.
    If I dared to spend just half an hour in summer sun, I would burn severely, though a single searing wouldn't kill me. The true horror of XP, however, is that even minor exposure to ultraviolet