The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances (24 page)

“Drop it,” Louise commanded. “
Drop
it.”

Shadow opened his mouth like the day he first barked again, in the snow at the inn. The ball landed on the floor one instant before Louise tossed the second one.

Off he went to get it. Down she bent for a pickup. Again she raised her arm, poised for another throw. When he brought the second ball to her, she didn't have to tell him what to do. He dropped it at her feet and went into a sit to wait for the next one. I looked at the way his body trembled with excitement. His tongue was out and so was his tail.

It took eighteen times (I counted) of two-ball back-and-forth before he graduated into being okay with having a ball in Louise's pocket that was hers, unthrown, and a ball that was tossed, which needed to be brought back and dropped.

The dogs were soon bored with the show. They went into states of drowsing. Tasha snored lightly, as if she'd decided on her own to make some background music.

I had never felt so awake.

S
PRING WAS ALMOST
coming. The level of snow was lower than the top of my boots. I was out in the yard with Tasha for leash work, while doing some planning for the agility course. On a short leash, Tasha had to walk with me to blaze a trail for fence lines around an imagined playing field. I had realized that we needed a fence before the equipment could go in. That's how I was okay with being respectful, for now, about the decision to block that UPS delivery. My eyes were on the future.

Alfie was with us, in his own way. He was wearing one of those woolen, blanket-like dog coats from the closet of stuff the Sanctuary receives as donations. Lying nearby in a hollow I'd dug for him with Tasha's help, he looked bundled up and content. I'd come up with a theory that he didn't want to pee or poop outdoors because, like any new transplant from a warm climate, he hadn't yet developed a good relationship with winter. I was trying to put his problem in a reasonable light. I wished I could have let him know how much I'd been thinking about him.

I was feeling proud of Tasha. She was turning into a pro at being leashed. Whenever she pulled too hard, forgetting to be mindful of a human arm connected to her, she turned to express her feeling of, that was a little mistake, not a relapse. When she jerked too roughly, she was willing to apologize. I'll try harder not to do that again, her eyes would say. This was something that came from Louise. She was the one who'd handled Tasha from the start. You don't have to be big yourself to hang around with an enormous dog, she had told me. I'd seen what she did when Tasha yanked her so strongly, her eyes watered from the arm and shoulder pain, never mind the fear of being toppled and possibly dragged on the ground, like a plow attached to an ox. She knew Tasha hadn't meant to hurt her, but she'd let out a cry of
ow, you hurt me!
She appealed to the Rottweiler's conscience. With Louise, who never otherwise raised her voice, it only took a few times for Tasha to get it. With me, things needed to be a little more dramatic, as in,
Tasha, I'm in agony! Stop trying to kill me right now!

Right now I was humming to her. It was opera this time, from
The
Marriage of Figaro.
My pacing had made me think of what happens right after that major arousal of an overture: Figaro counting off steps around the space of his future marriage bed.

In between hums I was telling Tasha about the time a company of puppet people came to my college to put on
Figaro
with lip-synching marionettes. The music and voices came piped through speakers. This was when Formerly Known As Made Me Happy and I were still new with each other. We went to see the show because we felt we should do something together that wasn't about sex. But we didn't last long. While Figaro the marionette took his steps, his soon-to-be-wife, the marionette Susanna, looked at him with eyes that were asking, even though she was wooden, “Why should we wait for a bed?” Formerly Known As Made Me Happy and I went into a mind meld because of the power of suggestion. We jumped up and rushed out. It was late autumn. We made love in fallen leaves under trees behind the theater. I loved what it was like to go back to my room and look in the mirror and pick leaves from my hair and point out to myself, oh my God I just figured it out that I'm sexy.

“But I don't want you to think all I think about these days is how I never have sex, Tasha,” I was explaining.

That was when the Buick of the people we rescued Dapple from appeared, its tires crunching on the snowy road. I recognized that car right away. It came to a stop as soon it reached the flattening where the Jeep was. Its fender was almost touching the Jeep.

A woman was at the wheel. She wasn't wearing a coat. She wore a collared big sweater and a knitted cap, both of which looked homemade. The man in the passenger's seat wore a similar cap and sweater. Hers were blends of yellow and turquoise. His were blue and brown.

They were not ugly-looking people. They were not people whose faces looked like faces of criminals. They looked neighborly and agreeable, with ordinary, middle-aged human skin, ordinary eyes, ordinary everything. The first thing I thought of was how unbelievable it was that a woman who was a knitter would sit in her kitchen or living room or bedroom, knitting, while down in her cellar, Dapple was in that cage. I'd known knitters in my former program. If you wanted to hang around someone who'd be nice to you, you sought out a knitter.

Then I remembered the grieving owner of a fighter on Giant George's laptop, talking about loving his dog. He didn't look like a criminal either. My hand holding Tasha's leash tensed up. Maybe it was the change in my grip that alerted her. Maybe it was something else. Maybe it was dog ESP and she
knew who these people were.

The man opened his door and stepped out of the Buick. He clung to the open door to keep his balance. It was icy over there. Of course he wouldn't know I was a trainee, not a Sanctuary staffer. He shouted to me in a tone that wasn't belligerent, wasn't hostile in any way. He was almost polite about it, as if he needed to yell to merely be heard.

“We're here to get our dog! People can't be taking other people's dogs!”

He was looking at the front windows. He seemed to think Dapple would be there with her spots and sadness, pining to go home with them. But the dog in the window was Boomer. His barks came out to us muffled and old-dog weak, which didn't matter. He was definitely sounding an alarm.

I didn't let go of Tasha's leash on purpose. Gone for the moment were all her lessons. We had entered a state of emergency, she felt. She had to serve. She had to protect. She had no other choice but to activate her Rottweiler genes and
go for it.

She was yanking me in a way that made me concerned about my shoulder in its socket. Even though I had gloves on, the loop of the handle pressed into me. I told myself that if I didn't let go of the leash, I'd never have the use of that hand again.

I saw her bare her teeth. I saw the opening of her Rottweiler jaws. I heard the snarl coming out of her, low and raspy and rumbly, and I knew, for the rest of my life, I'd have a sound built into my memory to go along with the word
menacing,
with a
very
in front of it, perhaps two or even three.

She took off toward the car at a gallop, dragging the leash in the snow like an extra tail. I didn't see Alfie getting up to his feet to join her. You'd think an alarm to run a race had gone off in him, even though there wasn't any track, and it seemed to me that everything he knew about running had been coiled in his body, tense and ready, waiting for a reason to explode. He shot by me in a flash, in a silent, glorious streak, his paws barely touching the ground.

I must have failed to tightly secure the straps of his dog coat when I'd put it on him. It flew off his back in the middle of his dash. Then it lay in the snow like the shell of a bug a butterfly just emerged from.

Hey, Alfie, I messaged him, even in that chaos. I want to see you run someday for no reason, just to do it, and I want to see you as happy about it as a goddamn brand-new butterfly. I'd caught a glimpse of his face, his eyes. He was grim and fierce. He looked as if some drug had entered his system, some upper.

Tasha was mad that he beat her to the Buick. She was even madder to find that the man made it back inside, door closed, before either dog reached him. I couldn't do anything but watch them rush around the car, jumping the driver's side, the passenger's side. Screaming barks, they took turns: Tasha at the man, Alfie at the woman, Tasha at the woman, Alfie at the man, again and again and again, their nails cutting into the finish in scratches I hoped would never come out.

And Boomer was still barking in the window, and inside the lodge somewhere, Shadow had started a siren of baying. I was about to feel bad for Josie, who was maybe barking too and getting drowned out, but then I saw Louise. She positioned herself near Boomer, with Josie in her arms like a baby. Josie wasn't making noise. She was too thrilled.

Suddenly, at the next window, there was Giant George, holding Dora. She had the same expression as Josie. Their little faces were
ecstatic.
And there was Shadow! He'd jumped up, paws on the sill, copying Boomer. He squeezed beside Giant George and kept howling. No one was telling him to stop.

I could see that the woman and man in the car were having trouble deciding what to do. On the one hand, they wanted to get out of here, even if it meant, perhaps, running over and murdering two animals. On the other hand, they wanted to follow through on their mission.

I remembered everything about those cages, that darkness, that smell. I felt I was on a high. My adrenaline was so pumped, I was almost shaking. I felt I'd never seen anything in real life as thrilling as those two dogs
in attack mode.
I felt that Alfie had plugged into his memory of being trained to be a racer—he was thinking of the man and the woman as rabbits inside that car. And Tasha was finally getting to use her size and her facial expressions to scare the shit out of people who very much needed to have the shit scared right out of them!

Things entered their final stage when the front door of the lodge opened.

Coming out, a coat thrown over her shoulders, was Agnes, descending the steps with all her tallness, all her terrier inner self. She picked her way carefully in the snow, as if she'd caught a fear of falling from Margaret. When she reached my side, she leaned down so I could hear her in all the racket.

She spoke to me calmly, fully composed.

“You lost control of dogs you were in charge of,” she said.

I couldn't believe it. We were in this situation, and she was talking to me about me, like the problem out here was
me?

“Alfie's moving,” I pointed out, as if that were the only thing that mattered. I knew I sounded like a child, sticking up for myself and doing it badly. I didn't care.

“Evie,” she said, “please don't make the mistake of imagining he loved to run, just because you're seeing him love it today.”

Around and around the car he went, faster than Tasha. He didn't slip on the ice like she did. She was starting to get weary. He looked like he was just warming up.

“But he's having a good time,” I said.

She didn't look at me with disappointment, or as if I'd flunked a test I'd been cocky enough to think I'd pass, when I'd done nothing to get ready for it. She just gave me an order.

“Go inside,” she said. “I'll take over.”

She left me and headed for the car. She only called to the dogs once, each of them by name. They didn't look happy about being interrupted, but they went to her, panting, sweaty, fierce with self-importance. Agnes took hold of Tasha's leash. She made it look easy.

Alfie stood by her in trembling stillness. When he moved away from her, I thought he'd changed his mind about being obedient. But he'd thought of something else. He trotted to a wheel of the Buick and lifted his leg and peed on it.

Alfie peed outside!

I was glad I saw that. I was glad Agnes hadn't turned to see if I surrendered to her command. I did, but I told myself I was ready to go inside anyway. I waited until I saw the window of the driver's side rolling down. The woman was turning her face upward to find out what Agnes had to say. The two dogs flanked her in sits, as good as if someone drew a picture of them with haloes over their heads.

On my way up the steps, I saw Giant George take hold of Dora's paw. She was squirming in his arms, getting upset now. She had realized she needed to express her feeling that no one should be the center of attention but herself. Giant George waved her paw, like she was saluting me herself. I waved back, faking it that I was feeling okay. I wanted Boomer. I knew he'd be worn out from keeping his stance at the window on his sore back legs. He'd need me to rub him before he went to his crate for a nap. I liked how it felt to know my hands would soon be in his fur. My gloves hadn't kept out the cold. I'd tell him I wanted him to warm me, so he wouldn't feel I was rubbing him just because I felt sorry for him for being so old and arthritic. But really I needed some comfort, having crashed from a high I never should have been on. I thought about
control.
I thought, if they're going to throw me out, I hope they get it over with quickly.

When I returned to my room, I stepped on the note someone slipped under my door. Of course it was from Agnes. It said, “If you don't understand what you did today, please come and talk to me in the dining room. I sincerely hope I wait for you in vain.” Then there was a postscript, after her signature. “PS. If you think you're right about Alfie, please consider this an invitation to prove it.”

I'd never be told what Agnes said to those people, but I had the feeling we'd never see them again, and I was right. Giant George told me later that when he waved Dora's paw to me, he was trying to distract her from obsessing about getting outdoors and into the action. She was the one who greeted me as I entered, not that what she did was a greeting. She tried to slip out before I closed the door behind me. I had to hold back laughing at her for the bristling of her fur, her scowl, her sulk. I didn't want her to think I didn't take her seriously. But it would have felt good to laugh, long and hard, if only to take the edge off of what it was like for me to really, really want the people in that car to be hurt by teeth of dogs.