Noel

  an Angel Paws Holiday short story

  Jordan Taylor

  * * *

  Copyright © 2013 by Jordan Taylor. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons or dogs, living or dead, is coincidental.

  No trees were harmed in the creation or publication of this work.

  Short Stuff Press

  * * *

  Noel

  Noel lifts her head from her straw bed, ears pricked. Barn windows rattle. The door bangs back and forth. A flurry of snow bursts through the gap at each crash, melting as it touches the cement floor—so warm is the building from huddled bodies of eighteen sheep, three dairy cows, two goats, one horse, and one dog.

  As icy wind gusts and cedar walls shudder, Noel turns her head, eyes wide, nostrils quivering in the nearly black barn. Sheep and cows doze. Goats shift, alert. Boxer, the old Shire gelding snorts in his dark stall.

  As minutes pass and the huge, white dog hears nothing, she finally sighs, dropping her head once more in straw.

  Boxer turns in his stall. The goats murmur in strange, soft tones, like children whispering.

  The door gives an especially violent bang. Again, Noel raises her head, throat tight, a bark sticking there.

  With a glance through darkness to the goats and horse, then a quick look at sleeping sheep, all but invisible despite their white fleece, the big dog heaves herself to her paws. She stands still, straw dropping from her coat, inhaling rich, familiar odors of her barn and her livestock.

  Boxer swishes his tail and paces a circle, ears pricked toward the door.

  Noel watches with ears and nose more than eyes, then faces the banging door and driving snow.

  It’s the middle of the night, though Noel has never been much good with clocks and times. She knows Breakfast Time, Dinner Time, and Time to Fetch the Sheep. Now, she knows it’s the middle of the night. And she knows people do not drive about in snow storms in the middle of the night. And she knows she heard an engine.

  She stalks to the door where she stands with her nose a few inches from it. Bang, crack, crash. Snow gusts over her face. Noel licks her nose and sniffs: ice, wood, straw, rats, corn, oats, horse, goat, cow, cat, leather, wood smoke, motor oil, Peter. Peter’s smell always lingers about the barn, even when he has long gone to bed in the little farm house. But Peter’s truck has not been started tonight. Peter has not tried to drive anywhere since heavy snow began the day before. He is safe in bed. Just where he should be.

  The white dog stands still for many minutes as wind howls, snow gusts, door clatters, and goats and horse watch her in silence. Another long, slow sniff. Listen.

  At last, she turns away. As she does, she feels the goats and horse relaxing. False alarm.

  Rumble, rumble, rumble.

  Noel whirls back to face the door, head up: far, far away, so hidden in wind and snow and distance, it’s as if the sound is an inner knowing rather than a message her ears perceive. But it’s there.

  Boxer stomps. The goats murmur and mew in their odd little voices, tense, watchful.

  She could wait. Perhaps should wait. She’s in charge of the barn. It’s not her place to abandon it in the middle of the night. It’s her responsibility to know all things that happen around her flock. To know who and what and why might be approaching. To protect and defend every goat and ewe and lamb, right down to the cats in the hayloft. All her responsibility. Anything unusual, anything new arriving near her property must be investigated.

  Noel looks around at the mix of alert and slumbering animals warming the barn so pleasantly with their body heat. She twitches her tail, then presses her massive head against the warped door. By shoving her weight into it, she bends the bottom half of one double door and slips between the boards, then out, away, into snowy darkness.

  ~ ~ ~

  Anna glances over her shoulder to the dark backseat, tears in her eyes.

  Everything is going to be okay. Everything is fine.

  She grips the wheel, takes a deep breath, closes her eyes for a moment, then turns the key in the ignition. The sedan growls, grumbles. The engine turns over. Again and again.

  She rests her forehead against her knuckles, clutching the wheel. “Please,” she whispers. “Please, please.”

  Another twist of the key. Rumble, rumble, rumble.

  Anna sits back. Deep breath. So cold. With the heater off, the temperature in the car has already plunged. Again, she glances around at the infant car seat diagonally behind her. All is still and silent. And cold.

  Tiny Lily had squealed upon the solid impact of the car sliding into this snow-drifted ditch. Then sputtered and sighed back to sleep while her mother panicked up front.

  Anna closes her eyes and sits still, praying the baby will remain asleep a while longer. Anna has driven in snow before, plenty of times, she should have been able to manage. Stupid, letting this happen: it’s not only about her now. Not since Lily.

  She shivers, releasing a breath. If she’s going to raise Lily alone, she’ll have to be more self-reliant than this. So close. As turned around as she became in the blizzard, she knows she’s near her parents’. They urged her not to come with the forecast and unplowed side roads, miles from anyone. But the drive is not so far—an hour in good conditions. She has never been away from them on Christmas morning in her life.

  Now Christmas morning is nearly upon her. So close. So far. She knows now she made a wrong turn, nearly blind, crawling in first gear at walking pace for the past ten miles. Still, she should have been there long ago.

  Anna looks out the window to black night and driving white snow gusting against glass in 40 mph wind. At least they’re safe. Yet … how long until they freeze?

  She shuts off the headlights, buried in snow and casting a white halo around the hood of the car. She squints in all directions, leaning over to rub glass with her sleeve and peer through. No sight of a faint streetlight, house light, car light. Nothing.

  A shudder runs up her spine and she sits back, taking a deep breath. She reaches to the passenger seat for her phone, though she tried to call her parents half an hour ago when she started suspecting she had become lost. It wouldn’t go through. She tries again. No service. She tries 911. No service.

  A cheap phone. It had never crossed her mind to think she might benefit from something like a satellite phone. Or a large, four-wheel-drive SUV.

  She pushes the phone back in her purse. Think.

  She cannot stay here all night with Lily. They’ll freeze. She only has their overnight bags for her parents’ place.

  But they cannot leave either. The idea of bundling Lily up and starting down the road with her in this blizzard, no direction, no lights in sight … Anna shivers again.

  A mailbox. A sign. A fence to follow. If she’s anywhere near her parents’, there are small farms and large stretches of open and wooded land. Very large. What if she can’t even stay on the road in this leveling snow and wanders off with Lily through miles of open country without meeting a fence or mailbox or front porch?

  She turns the key, holds it a long time, sits back. No blankets, though she does have extra clothes and a diaper bag in the trunk. And flairs? An emergency kit with a jack and a couple of road flairs. If anyone did drive this way tonight, at least they would see that through the snow in the middle of the road. And if no one comes along? What if they have to spend all night in the car without heat? It won’t take long for the temperature outside to be the same as inside.

  She needs the bags. Get the bags up here. Get into the back seat with Lily, hold her, bundle them both up. They won’t freeze. She won’t let them.

  Anna unbuckles her seatbelt, zips her coat to her chin, pulls the hood over he face, grits her teeth, then pushes open her door. Or tries. The door will not budge. She throws herself into it and it flings wide, caught by wind and thrown open like a gaping mouth.

  With the door closed, Anna leans back against cold metal, lifting her arm to shield her face from the ferocity of biting wind and snow. So cold she feels the moisture in her eyes freezing. Fighting to breathe, arms lifted protectively, she makes her way to the hood, kicking through drifting snow.

  As she fights her way back around the car with the bags, she is nearly blind by wind and cold, snow and darkness. Yet she sees, like a ghost, a polar bear standing beside her car. Anna screams, staggering backward into the icy car, her voice snatched away by the gale.

  ~ ~ ~

  Noel cocks her head, eyes nearly shut against wind and snow. She inhales through her nose, taking in rubber, steel, oil from the partly buried car. Then fearful, soapy orange-mint, alive smell of the woman leaning against it. She hears the woman’s gasping breaths, hears her heart pounding even over the sound of the wind, and knows at a sniff she is young, scared, and a new mother. She knows just as fast, this woman and her suspicious vehicle are not here to disturb Noel’s livestock.

  Nothing to bother about after all. Noel turns to go.

  “Wait!” The woman’s voice sounds sharp and high, as if in pain.

  Noel looks back.

  “Here dog, come on. I’m sorry—you startled me. You looked like a bear.” A short, nervous laugh. She kneels in the snow, her two bags falling beside her, holding out her arms to Noel.<

br />
  “Do you live out here? Surely no one is taking you for a walk tonight.” She lifts her voice, shouting the next words. “Hello? Who’s out there?”

  Noel turns her face out of the wind, listening. The woman seems to be calling for someone, though Noel can smell no other human besides the baby.

  “Hello? My car is stuck! I need help!”

  No answer. Noel glances at the woman, swishes her bushy tail, then again starts away. She must return to her flock.

  “Please, dog, come back.”

  Noel has no use for strangers. Even harmless ones. She’s not even demonstrative with Peter. Other humans are, at best, of little interest or consequence. At worst, menaces to her domain. Still, the woman’s voice stops her: the terror and desperation, and the motherhood smell which attracts her.

  She pushes through snow with massive limbs and broad chest to reach the crouching, shivering woman, who buries her icy fingers in Noel’s white ruff.

  “Good dog.” Her teeth chatter as she tries to speak. “Where are you from?”

  Noel watches her, taking in her smells, sounds, the hammering heart and bitter cold of her fingers reaching down to Noel’s skin under her thick coat.

  “I was driving to my parents’—but I’ve never seen you around there before.” Her voice catches, shaking more than ever. “Will you help me?” She runs her finger around the smooth, old leather of Noel’s loose collar. “Please?”

  They stare at one another for a long moment through darkness, wind crashing against both faces only a few inches apart.

  The woman strokes Noel’s head, then stands up with her bags and pries open the back car door. With the door closed and the car’s inside light on, she works with bags and coats and baby coverings.

  Noel gazes into the car without looking up. It’s nowhere near the size of Peter’s pickup truck with the high tailgate and sturdy running board. Noel could step into this car like stepping into the barn.

  She shakes herself, resettling the fur parted by the woman’s cold touch. She seems to be taking care of her child. Once more, she turns to go.

  The door cracks open against ice and wind. “Wait! Good dog.” The woman climbs out, a thick, grumbling, snuffling bundle in her arms.

  Noel wags her tail. She knows about young, helpless things. How they need to be warm and protected and watched over. She returns to examine the bundle while the shaking woman, now wrapped in more garments herself, bends close.

  “Please, will you take us to your home? Home.”

  Noel sniffs along the bundle, which is whimpering and moving in the mother’s arms.

  “Good dog. Go home.”

  Dog and woman gaze at each other for another long moment, then Noel starts back through the already blown over snow trail she made walking down here. She skirts the post and rail fence by a good distance. Wind has mounded snow on this side of it and the drifts run three and four feet deep against the rails.

  The woman follows, struggling and gasping in Noel’s wake, floundering in deep snow like a young deer. It makes Noel vaguely uneasy leading a stranger toward her flock. Instinct reassures her without her being aware of it. This woman is almost certainly not going to attack Noel’s sheep—with a baby clutched to her chest and hardly able to move through snow.

  When she reaches the fence corner, Noel turns to follow the line directly, the snow lying smooth and shallow this way, wind at her back. She breaks into a trot and jogs easily through darkness and a familiar track.

  “Come back! Wait!”

  Noel pauses, looking around. The woman has vanished. Noel sniffs, listens. There she is. How terribly slow.

  She starts off again. The woman calls to her. She waits. 100 yards on, Noel strikes out across the open field of blowing snow and shifting drifts. This seems to alarm her companion. She pauses for a long time as the panting, terrified woman catches up, tripping and almost falling in the drifts, clutching her bundle against her body.

  The infant is crying. Noel hears a high, shrieking wail over the wind and goes back to sniff once more.

  “I’m sorry. I just can’t go that fast. I can’t lose you out here. If we lose you … we’ll freeze.”

  Noel steps back, watching her nearly invisible figure with eyes almost shut. The woman’s fear and tension boil off her like the baby’s cries—a thick, uncomfortable panic which Noel cannot understand and which makes her uneasy. Why should the woman become more afraid as they near home? She said she wanted to go home.

  Noel walks on, glancing many times over her shoulder to her noisy followers. Peter will know what to do with them. Peter always knows how to help troubled livestock.

  When she glances back once more, the woman has vanished. The infant shrieks against wind. Ice stings Noel’s nose as she backtracks to find the woman struggling on her knees, trying to regain her feet and push through blown snow.

  They never will reach Peter at this rate. Noel trots away, plowing through drifts like a snowmobile. This time, she ignores frantic calls behind her.

  ~ ~ ~

  Peter wakes, listening. He cannot think what has roused him. Wind screams and bangs against the house. It doesn’t usually bother him. Yet, even half asleep, he feels sure a sound woke him.

  Bang, clatter, whoosh. Just the wind after all. Perhaps a branch cracked.

  Rrwwof!

  Peter sits up. The dog is barking. Barking right outside the house, not from the barn where she zealously guards her assorted family. But Noel never barks unless there is truly a problem.

  He scrambles out of bed, hitting the switch on the lamp. Nothing happens. He’d been expecting that. He grabs a flashlight on the bedside table.

  More barking, impatient.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming.” He scrambles into jeans, wool socks, a sweater.

  The house is still warm from lingering electric heat and the glowing wood stove. Peter takes a deep breath before pushing open the back door to find Noel barking up into his face.

  “What?”

  Noel, a huge, white snow beast, steps back, gazing at him as she wags her tail.

  He casts the light around the farmyard, or tries to. The beam illuminates walls of blowing, churning white. He can hardly remember a blizzard like this. And on Christmas Eve.

  He looks back at his dog, aiming the light over her head.

  “What’s up? Want to come inside?”

  The question is a joke. He has tried to get Noel in the house for years. Before they were gone and Peter inherited the farm from them, his parents tried to get her inside. She treats such things with contempt. Her place is in the barn and fields with her charges. Nowhere else.

  Now she gazes up at him, dark eyes squinted in the wind. Calm, unruffled by sheets of snow plastering across her shaggy coat. She does not appear upset, as she would have if one of the animals was ill or injured. Yet, she has seen fit to wake him. He’s only known her to do such a thing in an emergency—a lambing ewe or colicky horse.

  Investigating this nighttime call would mean coat, boots, a trip to the dark barn. Not something he can welcome with open arms just now. If only she would tell him what the trouble is. But that is one thing Noel has never been skilled at.

  “Just a minute.” He closes the door in her face and turns back into the mudroom for his boots and parka.

  Outside, Noel remains silent for about two minutes. After that, she seems to grow concerned lest he return to bed. She starts barking again. A huge, thundering bark which cuts through wind and walls and into his eardrums like explosions. His father used to tell him the only thing more impatient than a woman waiting supper on you was a sheepdog waiting for you to answer a summons.

  Finally, boots, hat, coat, and gloves on, flashlight in hand, he throws the door wide and steps out.

  Noel quits barking, wagging her tail.

  “You’re welcome,” Peter snaps. “All right. Lead on.” Head bowed in the wind, he trudges down steps, toward the barn, light ripped away by ice and wind.

  Noel does not lead on. After a dozen steps, Peter realizes she isn’t even with him. He looks around, just catching Noel trotting away through a glint of light on snow.

 

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