The Dog Who Saved Me, page 8
“Boyfriend?”
“Fiancé, then? The fellow you were with at the tavern last night.”
“My brother?”
“Even the best detective in the world couldn’t have deduced that by observation.”
“We look alike.”
“Can’t say I saw the resemblance. So, next time your brother comes, you’ve got something to feed him.”
“Okay, I’m not going to keep playing pass the lasagna with you. I’ll take it, but then you’ve got a meal owed.” She takes the pan out of my hands with a little jerk.
“Thanks for coming. And for the wine.”
“Thank you for asking. Neighborly, right?”
Why do I feel wrong-footed? “I’ll walk you out to your car, fend off the skunks.” I grab my flashlight, the big serious one that I use when trying to locate kittens or bunnies or snakes stuck in odd, dark places. Given that I now know that she’s single, there is a whole new matzo ball hanging out there. Should I kiss her good night? A cheek kiss? Both cheeks? Something Continental? Boy, am I out of practice.
“See you. Thanks again.” She’s in her car, keys in hand, lasagna pan on the seat beside her, but her door is still open. “Hey, good luck with that dog.”
Screw it. I lean in and give Natalie a gentle kiss on the cheek. Nothing overtly meaningful, just a friendly, neighborly peck on the cheek.
The way she smiles at me, I know that I may have blown the evening but that I’ve gotten that just right.
* * *
It was getting harder to get around. At first, the wound had been exquisitely painful, but after days of licking at it and lying in the soothing mud at the edge of the pond, the dog had managed to adapt to the constant ache of the pellets embedded in his hip. He was more hungry than hurting after a week. Instinct and experience kept him away from humans, but not from human habitation. As his mobility briefly improved, his ability to focus on finding food also improved. A visual learner by nature, he observed the raccoons, which tolerated his presence, neither threatened by him nor very interested. But he was interested in their habits, their routes into the neighborhoods that grew out of the woods and fields. He watched as their clever paws lifted trash-can lids and they hoisted themselves inside. The mouth-watering scent of offal and rotted vegetables encouraged him to limp closer. A flash of wisdom and he chased off the raccoons, taking the contents of the trash barrel for himself.
Other creatures, crows and skunks, led him to compost heaps. He attempted to chase a skunk away from its feast only once. Ignoring the pain in his hip, the dog fled, stopping every few yards to try to roll the stinging, stinking spray out of his eyes and off his skin.
It was the clever coyote who led him to the chickens. He followed her at a distance, upwind, so that she wouldn’t know he was there. They’d met only through scent marking, hers distinctive from the older, potent male who owned this territory, but the dog knew her the moment her rangy gray form slipped out from between the dense trees and glided silently down the hill toward the house and barn. He stayed behind, keeping to the trees, aware that there was a dog somewhere on the property. He watched as the coyote bitch circled the quiet pen, poking a paw here or there to see if there was an opening. Suddenly, she raised her head and looked right at him. There was no challenge in the look. The dog licked his lips, yawned. Nervous, tempted.
He took her invitation and in an awkward three-legged trot came down the hill, his clumsy noise alerting the sleeping hens. At the first squawk, the coyote was gone. The back door of the house slammed open and the yard lights burst on. Fighting the weakness in his leg, the dog bolted for higher ground, the double shotgun blast reminding him of the treachery—the danger—of humans.
* * *
As the weeks have passed, it’s grown harder and harder to travel any distance away from his makeshift den. Not only has his hip wound festered but every bone in his body screams with a feverish ache that makes even sitting painful. He’s been living mostly on crickets and what frogs he can catch, and the cold penetrates his now-fleshless body.
His dinner of crickets has not satisfied him by any means. He’s spent all day limping along, sniffing every likely hiding place for some edible and catchable creature, with limited success. Grass and water are all that he can depend on. It’s too much now to venture as far as the houses that have trash barrels. He’s tucked into his den, exhausted. His acute ears hear the man who approaches at a run. The scent of fresh meat is somehow attached to him. The dog gets up and moves gingerly through the tall grass to where he can observe.
He watches as the man sets up the crate in the middle of the path that he runs along every day. He pulls the meat-scented package out of his pocket and opens it up. The overpowering scent of raw meat fills the air, bringing saliva to the dog’s mouth. He swallows, yawns. Keeps his eyes on the man as he places chunks of the meat inside the crate, the bright cone of battery-powered illumination casting the man into shadow but the meat into the spotlight.
Now satisfied with the arrangement of the meat and the openness of the crate door, the man gets to his feet. He stands over the crate, walks around it, examining the ground with the sweep of his light. The dog is fixated on the scent of the meat within the crate but is unwilling to reveal himself. He waits, patient as a statue, for the man to go away. Finally, he does, striding quickly along, following the beam of his flashlight. The dog hunkers down in the tall grass, unaware that if the man’s flashlight should sweep his way, his wide open eyes would give him away.
The man is gone, and the dog hears the cabin door shut, the sound of windows being cranked back in. He hears the man’s human sounds without paying them any attention. His eyes and nose are on the meat. And he understands the price to be paid for getting it. He remembers the crate he was placed in by humans. He remembers how the door was shut and latched and how he was lifted into the back of a truck. He remembers only pain and torment after that.
The meat has attracted others. A red fox tiptoes out of the cattails, his brush outstretched and proud. The fox is startled off by the sudden advent of a larger predator. The adolescent female coyote sniffs the air but doesn’t come close to the meat-baited box. The dog understands. There is too much human scent lingering around it. Of the three members of the Canidae family, only he has had true contact with these two-legged creatures. But she makes no move to leave, and the dog sees that this tantalizing offering is subject to loss. He may be afraid to retrieve it, but he doesn’t want anyone else to have it. Even as emaciated as he is, he’s still bigger than this adolescent coyote. He emerges from his cover and walks toward her. He growls. She lowers her head, waggles it, then bolts.
Alone now with the crate and the untouched meat, the dog lies down in the path, his nose pressed up against the mesh of the cage. He breathes in the odor of the fat, the bones, and the stringy red flesh. He sticks his tongue in, stretching it as far as he can against the obstruction of the wire mesh, and is rewarded by a taste. He struggles to his feet and circles the crate, standing for a long time in the obvious entrance. Some deeper caution prevents him from entering. The meat is a full body length away from the opening, too far to commit to trying to get at it. He settles down beside it once again, protecting from others that which he cannot, will not, get for himself.
Then another, stronger scent of coyote comes to him. This isn’t the young female. This is the coyote who has left the scent marks defining his territory, his range. The dog has been aware of living within that range, and the inherent danger of it. And now this big male will demand that meat. The dog struggles to his feet. Once upright, he lowers his head, pulls his lips into a snarl, vocalizes his possession.
The male coyote, bigger than the dog, heavier and healthy, stiff-legs toward him, his hackles up, his yellow eyes fixed and hostile.
10
Even before the lazy sun fully lights up the pond, I’m up and dressed and tying on my venerable L.L. Bean boots. I’ll run later, if I run at all. Right now, I want to get out and see if the dog is in the trap. I’ve got a catch pole and a second Baggie of food and every expectation that a dog, no matter how feral it’s become, won’t have been able to resist the smorgasbord of meat products I baited the trap with last night. I’m less certain about what I may have captured—whether it will be a domestic dog or something I’ll have to call the Wildlife Service to come deal with.
I check my messages as I walk out the door. Nothing this early from the communications center. Good. A voice-mail message from Max, wondering if I want to come over for the game. Better. And a text from Natalie saying she enjoyed herself last night and asking if I’d like to take a riding lesson sometime. Best. I text a quick yes to Max, saying I’ll bring the beer, and, before I can overthink my response, text a yes to Natalie.
There is something that appeals to me about the idea of having an activity in place of an awkward reciprocal dinner. I do much better when I’m doing things, rather than just making conversation. Gayle and I spent the first few months of our courtship hiking and biking and river rafting. It was a long time before I realized that conversation with her was no longer contrived, but natural. And it was even longer before I realized that we both saw silence as a welcome thing. And then my silence went from a comfortable manifestation of our relationship to being withdrawn and guarded and maybe even hostile. No wonder she found a new guy.
Knock it off. Enough with the thoughts of that which is no longer in my control—id freakin’ est, my marriage.
The October morning is lemon-colored, and I tilt the bill of my hat as I head due east toward the location of the trap, catch pole over my shoulder like a kid going fishing. I swing left along the path, and when the trap is only a few yards away, I start talking, alerting the animal, should he be incarcerated, of my approach, and my nonthreatening intentions. “Hey, boy. Good fella. Did you enjoy your meal?” I whistle, a dog-calling “Come to me” whistle like the one I used for long-gone Snoopy and the one I used to call Argos back from his dog park free time. A towhee mocks me with its own sharp two-note upbeat whistle. Tow Hee!
The trap is in shadow, but I can see right away that not only is it empty but it’s overturned; the trap’s door is sprung and the bait is gone. I wish I was enough of a tracker, a hunter, to thoroughly assess the clues. There are definitely paw prints, but of a size to be the dog’s? Maybe. Maybe not. It’s also possible that there are two sets of prints. There’s definitely fur. I pick up a silvery tuft. I need forensics out here. There’s something very dark brown spattered on the pounded-down grass beside the trap. Another hunk of fur, this one with a little skin attached. More pale yellow than silver.
* * *
Max hands me a bowl of popcorn and a beer.
I set the bowl down on the coffee table and flop onto Max’s ancient leather couch. I’ve been telling him about my failed attempt at capturing the feral dog. “He’s not the first fugitive I’ve had to pursue using a couple of different methods.” I take a swallow of beer. “I may have to track him and see if I can get him with a tranquilizer gun.”
“If that’s what you want to do, let me know and I’ll give you the right dosage.”
I don’t mention that my tracking skills are nonexistent. Despite a couple of years in the Boy Scouts, I never earned a merit badge for tracking. Even when Bull offered to take me hunting, teach me how to find rabbits, I declined. Not out of any squeamishness, but because I didn’t want to be anywhere near Bull and a gun. Later, professionally, my tracking was all done via canine nose.
We settle to watch the Patriots beat up on the opposition, and the conversation is essentially nothing more weighty than cheers, second-guessing referee calls, and epithets. By halftime, the Patriots are well ahead and Rocco’s, the one pizza place in town that delivers, has brought us dinner.
“Maybe you shouldn’t try trapping him. Maybe something a little less aggressive would work better with a dog like that.”
“What do you mean?”
“He needs to be brought back into the fold, so to speak. The human fold. If he is a runaway, or a lost dog who’s figured out how to survive without humans, he needs to be reminded that people are okay.”
“How do I do that?”
“Don’t try to trap him.”
“I should just invite him into the house?”
“Something like that. Be around. Get him used to you.”
The game is back on and that’s it for conversation.
* * *
Jenny Bright isn’t at the shelter when I get to work on Monday morning. I know that she’ll pull in any minute now, and, because it’s Monday, she’ll be carrying a bag of what she calls her “go-to-work-on-Monday incentive.” Harmony Farms, so far, has avoided any chain doughnut shops, and what those shops offer cannot be classed in the same genus as what she brings from Darlene’s Bakery. Homemade, still warm, not quite perfectly ovoid, tantalizing doughnuts in a waxed white bag, wafting out of which is the scent I believe heaven might smell like.
My job is to get the coffee started. That set, I do something I should have done far earlier—pull out my logbook and review all the lost, missing, misplaced dogs over the past few weeks. Dogs wander, dogs get lost, but usually they find a human and turn themselves in. It’s also possible that whoever lost this dog never thought to alert the dog officer. Some folks in this town are still unaware that they even have a dog officer. Still, my finely honed animal control officer instincts tell me that this is an abandonment case. His avoidance of humans is suggestive of human-caused trauma. Something I understand.
There’s nothing logged that remotely resembles a missing midsize yellow dog with a limp. I look at the reports of garbage tossing, plus Deke’s chicken harassing, add in my own sightings, and there develops a territory of sorts where this stray dog is hanging out. My cabin’s in the dead center.
I slap the book shut. Jenny has arrived and the sweet scent of freshly made doughnuts preceding her makes all else unimportant.
“Is that coffee ready?” she asks.
I get us both mugs from the chipped collection as Jenny divvies up the contents of the bakery bag. The first time Jenny brought doughnuts to the office, she made some remark about cops and doughnuts. Nothing particularly witty. I gave her a deadpan lecture on profiling and how making assumptions most often leads to personal offense. She blanched even whiter than she normally is under her Goth makeup and fell all over herself apologizing before I laughed and made a cop and doughnut joke myself. Jenny is the daughter of the golden couple of my first year in high school. Mark Bright and Olivia something. The homecoming king and queen, the couple all the other couples wanted to be. I know the story, but I’d never say anything to Jenny, who is the daughter of their teenage passion. College scholarships lost, the golden aura tarnished. Mark is in his father’s business, plumbing, and Olivia works as a bookkeeper somewhere. Good people. Raised a quirky, if nice, kid. Their only child.
“I take it you didn’t catch that dog, the one you took the big Havahart for?” Against her Goth-blackened lips, the white sugar of her powdered doughnut makes an interesting contrast until she licks it off.
“I’ll get him. I was just checking to see if we had any reports on a lost dog in that vicinity, but the only unaccounted-for missing dog is that Lhasa apso that went missing a year ago.”
“Coyote, my guess.” Jenny breaks off another piece of doughnut and dips it into her black coffee.
“Probably.”
Jenny pops the last of her doughnut into her mouth. “Poor family. It’s tough not knowing.”
“They’re telling themselves that some well-meaning but misguided Samaritan picked it up and took it home. Home being a penthouse overlooking the Charles in Boston.”
“You have to tell yourself whatever you must to gain acceptance of the unanswerable.”
“Wisdom from a chick with seventeen piercings and a tattoo of Cookie Monster on her bicep.”
“Yes, my son.” Jenny crumples the paper bag and tosses it, then heads to the rest room.
I brush the crumbs from my glazed doughnut into my palm and then, with an eye to the closed rest room door, lick them off. Jenny’s offhand pseudophilosophic remark floats in the air. Maybe she’s right, and I wonder what I’m telling myself to get through my own unanswerable questions.
* * *
I pull into the uphill driveway of the Haynes brothers homestead, ignoring the array of NO TRESPASSING signs nailed to the stockade fence, as well as various other signs, all variations on the same theme: Stay out. BEWARE OF DOG. NEVER MIND DOG, BEWARE OF OWNER, PROTECTED BY MAGNUM. Sweet boys, Len and Bob. I’m here because I’ve gotten a call from an anonymous whistle-blower reporting animal cruelty. Anonymous because no one wants to be on the wrong side of the Haynes boys, but I’m pretty sure it’s the electric company’s meter reader.
Behind the stockade fence, the Haynes property makes Bull’s shabby Poor Farm Road house look pristine. Blue tarp on the roof, random piles of salvaged wood, roofing shingles, rocks. A rusted-out John Deere sits cattywumpus against the side of a tilted outhouse. It’s not deer season, but there’s a carcass hanging from an oak tree, gutted and bled out. At least I think it’s a deer. The Haynes are meat-on-the-table hunters, not sportsmen. Some speckled hens scrape at the dirt. So far, no one has called out to warn me off the property. But my instincts tell me that I’m being observed. The big Suburban with the town seal is announcement enough of who I am, and probably why I’m here. I climb out of the SUV, stand tall and bold as I take a quick survey of the yard. And there they are, three mongrels attached to short chains, which are fixed to a bare wheel rim from some kind of big vehicle. They fan out like spokes on a wheel and their chains are so short, they can’t reach one another. No water. No food. No shelter. Feces everywhere.
They are on their feet, big dogs, hounds, by the look of them. They growl and then, at the approach of the two men, grovel.
“You got a warrant?”
