This is another story improvised on the fly. One solution to boredom, when my studying-brain won’t work: I send it wandering, and it brings back souvenirs. I find that these mental excursions strengthen my mind and my focus when my studying-brain does work. (Jung might have been onto something, there.) It’s also very satisfying to feel capable of nothing, yet still produce something. I mean, wow, how cool is that?
Enjoy.
Shasta suggests a dog
Dark wings overhead. Are they angled up in a V, or flat across? Flat. Oh. Time to get the kids in.
She ran back towards the house, waving and barking. “Eagle! Eagle!” she snarled, when she was close enough to be understood.
Denny reacted quickly. He extended one gangly arm and snapped open two gates so that the pasture led straight into the barn. Then he followed Shasta, who had raced back up the pasture and was getting around behind the herd, shepherding them in. Danny called out the goats’ supper-call, but the goats didn’t take that well. They knew it wasn’t anywhere near suppertime!
Shasta‘s more direct approach got them going. She hustled and hassled the goats, coaxing here and pushing there, taking attitude from the harder-headed nannies and dishing it out in return. Fortunately, the billy was a lamb. Figuratively speaking.
Making soothing noises, Denny stood near the gate and persuaded the disgruntled herbivores, despite their complaining and nagging, to shuffle along and take a break in the barn.
Shasta sneezed after the last little goat, making it skip, jump up, and bounce off its mother’s side. Or, at least, giving it an excuse to.
Denny swung the barn door shut and sighed. The goats farted and burped, some of them eating their breakfast for lunch, settling in to hurry up and wait.
“So now we’ve got eagles,” Denny said. “I thought the hawks had that niche filled.”
“That pair of red-tails didn’t come back last year, and I saw a peregrine in the road yesterday,” Shasta muttered. “And now there’s baby goat,” she sighed.
Denny shrugged and walked back to the cabin. Shasta shuffled after, looking back moodily now and then.
“C’mon, old girl, let’s go in and have a cup of coffee.”
Coffee made and distributed, Denny sat down hard with a woof. Shasta flopped on the rug.
“I don’t know what to do about eagles,” Denny fretted.
Shasta blinked agreement.
There was a long silence.
“I know what,” said Shasta, pushing up on her hands. “Let’s get a dog.”
Denny looked at her with light slowly dawning. “You’ve got that friend,” he started.
“Who breeds kuvasch,” Shasta finished.
Denny sank down, cross-quartering the idea for feasibility.
“Let’s call,” she said. “It can’t hurt to ask about it.”
Denny’s face didn’t change, but something in the air smelled of masculine resistance to asking.
“I’ll call,” Shasta rephrased. “Time I caught up with him anyway.”
She came back with a bag of peanuts and a grin. “He’s moving and has one pup left from the last litter,” she said, “so we get a deal, if it works out. We need the right kind of dog, because most of them don’t look up. Not normally. Not unless they’ve got a really tall owner, I guess. Kuvasch are enormous, and they’ll take on anything that attacks their flock, up, down, or sideways. They’re left in charge of herds for months at a time, they’re that good. We get to meet the puppy and try each other on, but in two weeks he’ll be gone, so he’s kind of on the fence about it.”
That was a long speech from Shasta.
Once Denny recovered from the verbosity, he gave his head a little shake and said, “He’s on the fence about it? What does that mean? Doesn’t he want to get rid of the dog?”
Shasta offered him the peanuts. “He’s a breeder. A real one. It’s not about unloading the dogs for a profit, it’s about spreading the kuvasch love and covering his expenses.” She chewed thoughtfully. “These are good peanuts,” she remarked. “Fresh.”
She examined the label while Denny absorbed that.
“Okay, so what’s so special about kuvasches?” he asked, making it an honest question, not snarking.
Shasta passed him her smart phone, with a search on “kuvasch” already done. “In rural Turkey, my parents had trouble finding childcare for me and my little brother. They were going to get a kuvasch, but then the neighbor’s sister came home from a bad marriage, and she became our nanny instead.” She shrugged. “Worked out for everyone. The dog was considered a reasonable solution, though.”
They went to meet the puppy three days later. He would scarcely even acknowledge Shasta‘s presence.
Half an hour later, after Denny had escorted a shell-shocked Shasta to the car and helped her to sit, he just sat and looked at her for a long moment.
Finally, she said, “He wouldn’t even look at me.” She turned to Denny. “How could he not even look at me? Dogs love me.” She turned away, sinking her chin. “I love dogs. Even that one, the rotten ratfink little bastidge.” She shook her head, tears trickling beside her nose. “I love dogs. I never met a dog who didn’t like me. I don’t understand.”
Worse still, in Denny’s mind, was the increasingly suspicious looks cast at Shasta by the breeder. Some friend. Even now, he was peering through the blinds, as Shasta wept over his churlish pup. (The sire and dam had been delighted with her, within the cat-like restraint typical of the breed. Only the pup had snubbed her.)
Denny gave up the pat-pat-there-there routine, cast a look of good riddance at the tacky suburban front of the breeder’s house, and drove off.
He was keeping his thoughts to himself, but they weren’t nice ones. He didn’t realize he was muttering nasty things under his breath, imagining the conversation he would have *liked* to have with the supercilious breeder.
Shasta noticed. She poked him.
He turned to her. “What is it?”
“You’re mutt–“
Denny checked the road just in time, swerved, ran the car off the road and stopped after several vaulting leaps over curbs, hummocks and undergrowth.
The car went pink-pink-pink. Denny and Shasta looked at each other with big eyes. Then they unbelted, cursed a bit as they got their feet under them, and tottered shakily back up to the road.
Yup. There was a green gym bag in the middle of the lane. And it was wiggling and whining.
Later, back at the cabin, Shasta, who was having the most talkative day of her adult life, puzzled some more. “Who would abandon such a beautiful pup?” She was on the rug with their new find, or new friend, stroking the drizzle of white that ran from nose to tummy through the short black fur. “She can’t be more than a few months old.”
The youngster looked at her worshippingly, as Shasta‘s hand traced the white drizzle again.
The next day, at the vet, Denny asked if the vet could identify the dog.
“Well, pit bull of some kind, I’d guess a thinking breed rather than a musclehead like most of them are.” The vet looked at the dog with her head cocked on one side, her fabulously chic lopsided fade blending up into a gorgeous cap of kinky curls. She was the sharpest vet for hundreds of miles, and even though she looked out of place in the country, there was something in her air — like the way she cocked her head — that made it impossible not to feel you’d found a good ally in troubled times.
“Hang on,” she said. “I’ll see if there’s a chip.”
There was.
“I have to look it up,” she said, clearly rather sorry.
Denny nodded.
She rattled at the keyboard for several minutes, shifting screens several times. Then she picked up the phone. “Mr. Mess? Hi, I’m the veterinarian at –“
She looked at the phone, surprised. She hit Redial, and began again. “Hi, Mr. Mess, I believe we were just disconnected. … Uh huh. Yes. … I’m sure you do, but I can hear you perfectly, so …. Why yes, it is about a dog with your chip in it. … Uh huh. … Uh huh. … Oh dear. … I didn’t hear about that. Oh, you did, did you? Well, I go home every night to the county sherif, and he never mentioned that call to me. … Oh, I see.”
Denny saw a vein start to throb in the side of her forehead.
“No, he would not have forgotten, because I’m the only forensic vet in the county. He would certainly have let me know. … Uh huh. … I see. … I think that would be best. … No, we are not a shelter, we’re a vet hospital. Howev-” she had clearly been interrupted, but was listening .. for another moment, anyway. “Let me say that there’s someone who might be interest –” Interrupted again.
The vet made eye contact with him, made a gesture to be quiet, and put the call on speakerphone. A grating male voice came out.
“– and then there’s the vet bills, vaccinations and so forth, plus five weeks of dog food,” the guy said, clearly compiling a bill to see how much he could get for the dog he’d abandoned for free. “And wear and tear on the furniture. And the makeup. That stupid bitch got into my wife’s Lancôme! Do you have any idea how much that crap costs? I’m seriously out of pocket here, and if someone wants that dog –“
She tried to intervene. “Mr. Mess, you misunder–“
He rode right over her. “And then there was the gas to take the dog out to where she could be found. That was not a short trip, you know.”
Denny had had enough. Shasta had long ago told him that she didn’t say much because she hated being interrupted or ignored, and men always interrupt women and most of them never listen.
He stepped up to the phone and, in his most alpha tones, rumbled, “Mr. Mess. This is Mr. Grill. If you’re interested in an accounting, then you should know that this dog has required treatment for damage due to her injuries on the road. As Dr. Smart stated, this is not a charity, it’s a veterinary hospital. If you are saying that, despite endangering and abandoning your pet, you still claim legal ownership, then we will be happy to send you a bill payable on receipt. It’s only fair to say that, even if your lawyer can persuade a judge to grant you everything you’ve listed, you’ll still owe us –” he stretched the word out — “thooooouuusands.”
He took a breath, then pulled on the velvet glove. “If, on the other hand, you relinquish all claim to the dog, then of course what happens after you abandoned it, illegally and in a manner which endangered both the animal and all traffic on that road, then of course this bill is not your problem. And, naturally, your expenses up to that point are yours and yours alone.”
There was a stage wait. Dr. Smart used the time to pick her jaw up off the floor and try to compose herself for speech.
There was a shaky little mumble, in which the word “relinquish” was barely distinguishable.
Denny needed to make this vaguely legal, so he added, “Would you like to conclude your business with Dr. Smart?”
Obliging gurgling sounds. Denny backed off the phone.
Dr. Smart said, very precisely, “Do I understand you to say that you relinquish all claim to this dog?”
Obliging hiss, probably a yes.
“And I can reassign ownership however I want?” She added briskly, “And speak up, I can barely hear you.”
“Sorry. Yes. Do whatever you want. She’s not mine anyway.” He muttered nastily, “Stupid black bitch.”
Dr. Smart reared back, took one look at Denny’s expression, and hung up.
She said to Denny, crossing her arms and leaning back slightly, “You do know she’s all right, don’t you? And this visit is not much more than a well-puppy checkup? And, although I appreciate the good intentions that made you run interference, I can’t support lying, and I and only I am in charge of what happens in my practice?”
Denny thought fast. He reached carefully over to point at one paw. “Um, I think she stubbed a toe. That was related to her being abandoned on the road. Right?” He spoke humbly. It was b.s., but it was obvious b.s., and he radiated apology.
She smiled, unbending just this once. “She certainly could have gotten much worse. Now take her home and teach her to watch the skies for eagles. Something tells me she’ll be good at that, in spite of the odds. I’ll update the microchip database for you.”
Denny reached into his pocket. “What do I owe?”
She smiled wryly at him. “Thooooouuusands. Now get home before Shasta starts worrying.”
Denny said, offhandedly, “Shasta never worries. She’s too sensible.”
The vet gave him a look, a very womanly and very smart Look. “She just doesn’t tell you about it. Good afternoon, Mr. Grill. And good driving.”
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