Pursuits Unknown

by Ellen Clary

  “Alive or dead, injured or not. Do you care about how many are there?”

  “Sure, though over three is a challenge. Still, I rarely need to know more than that.”

  “One, two, three, or lots,” Mary noted.

  Amy thought for a moment. “Moving or standing, running or walking.”

  Mary said, “Okay, and in my line of work, I care about emotions of the dog, happy, sad, angry, want to bite pushy solicitors.”

  Looking at her notes, Mary said, “So we have the ‘what’ they found, which is usually a human, or possibly a different animal. Then what gender, and what state the found person/animal is in, and we can include emotions here if we wish.”

  Amy said, “Well, that’s multiple categories if you will. We have alive or dead, we have in motion or stationary, and we have all the various emotions, and all of these things can be taught separately.”

  To her notepad, Mary said, “And then, we have whether there is more than one.”

  Amy looked out the window. Holding a corner of her mouth at an angle and frowning slightly, she said, “It would be useful to know if the person was carrying something like a gun or a knife or a club.”

  “Weapon nouns,” Mary wrote.

  Amy shook her head and gesticulated with her hand. “We could write a book, or an entire curriculum.”

  “We might be.”

  LATER ON, Amy was in her mom’s back area with Lars. Alicia, Mary’s very patient assistant, had been nominated as a volunteer. Mary sat in a chair with her notepad at the ready. She read from their list. “Okay, so today we are working on actions like walking, running, standing, lying.”

  “Alicia, I think we owe you a beer for this,” Amy said.

  Alicia smiled and said, “We’ll see.”

  Mary said, “Alicia, could you stand on the other end of the yard?”

  The yard wasn’t very big, so she walked forty feet away and stood.

  Mary, who did not have an empathic bond with Lars, said, “Ask Lars what he sees.”

  Amy looked at Lars, pointed at Alicia, and said, “What do you see, Lars?”

  Lars mentally said to Amy, /Alisha./

  Amy said to Mary, “He just said ‘Alicia.’ This might not work for someone he knows.”

  “It might not,” she said, making a note.

  “Alicia is a person.”

  /Pershun./

  “Yes. I’m also a person.”

  /Amy./

  Laughing quietly, Mary said, “Let me guess, he said, ‘Amy.’”

  “Indeed, he did. I think we’re going to have to do this exercise with strangers.”

  “Let’s try actions. Start with walking. Alicia, can you walk from one end of that side of the yard?”

  Alicia started walking towards them.

  “No, just stay on that side of the yard and pace back and forth.”

  Alicia turned ninety degrees and started to walk across the width of the yard.

  Amy said, “Lars, Alicia is walking.”

  /Wokin./

  “Walking, that’s good.”

  /Woking./

  “Good, that is: Person walking.”

  /Pershun woking./

  “Good boy.” To Mary, she said, “With prompting, he said, ‘Person walking.’”

  Mary said, “Alicia, can you now jog back and forth?”

  Alicia started running very slowly.

  Amy had to keep a hand on Lars to keep him from running after her. To him, she said, “Person running.”

  /Pershun ruunin./

  “Good: Person running.”

  /Persun runnin./

  Amy said, “Alicia, you can walk now.” Alicia resumed walking.

  To Lars, Amy said, “Person walking.”

  /Pershun woking./

  “Good boy.”

  They had Alicia do the running bit again, then Amy asked Alicia to stop and stand there.

  “Person standing.”

  /Pershun andn./

  “Person standing.”

  /Pershun st-and-ng./

  “Good boy, close enough for now.”

  Mary wrote on her notepad, then looked up. “One last term: the one we keep changing.”

  Amy laughed a little. “Okay, Alicia here is where we owe you a beer. Can you lie down?”

  “Back, side, or stomach?” she asked.

  What a tolerant woman, Amy thought. “Doesn’t matter,” she said.

  She lay down on her back and Amy really had to restrain Lars from racing over to check on her.

  She said to Lars, “Person lying.”

  /Pershun ling/

  “Person lying.”

  /Person li-ing/

  “Good boy.” Turning to Mary, she said, “He’s going to need a lot of work on this one.”

  Mary said, “But not now.” She looked up and said, “Thank you, Alicia. And Amy, we have some work in front of us.”

  Alicia got up and Lars charged up to her, nearly bowling her over. Alicia laughed and petted him.

  Amy said to Mary, “Unlike the debate about whether we should be teaching ‘sit’ versus ‘sitting,’ I do have an answer about distinguishing the meanings of lying.”

  Mary held up her pen and looked expectantly at her.

  Amy said, “It’s not up to the dogs to decide if someone is telling a falsehood. They don’t care or have enough information to make such a decision, but they can tell us if the person’s body is overloading on cortisol, the stress hormone, and we can use that information to determine if someone is lying.” Back to Alicia, Amy said, “Next time at the tavern, make us buy you a beer.”

  “Righto,” she said, continuing to pet Lars.

  CHAPTER 41:

  Amy at the Choran Dog Park

  THE PLANE touched down at the small Choran airport and started to taxi back to the hanger. Amy tried to steady herself and repeated to herself for the thousandth time: “I’m just taking Lars to a dog park to throw him a ball. I am a student at Choran Community College, which everyone calls ChorCC or Chorcy. I am studying psychology and also biology, because I’m thinking I want to be a vet. This is going to work fine.”

  No, it’s not, anything could go wrong, that small voice said.

  “And everything can go right,” she said audibly, taking the best meditative breath she could manage. “Geez, I’m not even out of the plane.”

  Small voice said, He probably won’t show up anyway.

  Amy said, “Enough worry,” and unbuckled once the plane had stopped. As she stood up, she noticed Lars looking at her with concern. “It’s okay, Lars, I’m just thinking of something else.”

  /Worry, sad?/

  Damn doggy, being perceptive. “I’ll be fine, Lars, we’re going to a dog park now.”

  /Mmm?/

  “I know you don’t always like dog parks, but this is our job today, and most people don’t get to play for a job.”

  /Job./

  “I know you won’t completely understand this now, but we’re looking for a dog.”

  /Search!/

  Uh-oh, Amy thought, we really don’t need Lars charging up to them. Then she realized she was overthinking things—again. It’s a dog park, that fountain of rude doggy behavior. It doesn’t much matter what Lars does as long as he doesn’t bite a dog or a person or knock over their latte.

  As they approached the dog park, she could see it was about three acres surrounded mostly by a short, low-tech chain-link fence. It was mostly dirt and sand, with the occasional sagebrush and dried native grasses. There were some short hills now and then, and Markus had told her that the scattered, burnt-appearing, black-brown rocks were volcanic.

  It was noontime, so there were a few dogs and owners around, but it wasn’t very crowded. A pretty typical assortment of labradors, shepherds, bully breeds, terriers, and smaller dogs, though no poodles or bichon frises, or much of anything that required a regular trip to a groomer, and there were a lot of mixes. She didn’t see any golden retrievers, which felt a little strange. T
here was a flat area that was devoid of shrubbery, which looked like the place where people and dogs would go for a grand game of fetch.

  She had brought a purple ball because she knew that it was a color that Lars could see and tell apart from all the other balls that littered the ground. She started to throw the ball for Lars, and he was more than happy to oblige. Once in a while, another dog would run alongside barking, but there was, gratefully, no drama. Sometimes Lars would pick up another ball. Then she would say “No, the purple one,” and he would drop the other ball and almost grudgingly go get the purple one. After three times of him trying to bring a different ball, Amy was just about to say, “Forget it, let’s just walk around,” when a voice behind her spoke.

  “He knows the word purple? What a smart dog.”

  Shit, so much for low profile, Amy thought. She turned around to face a tall, pale-looking man close to her age, in jeans, T-shirt and boots, and a baseball cap. His short brown hair poked out from underneath the cap. “Um, yeah sometimes, but sometimes he has other ideas.”

  Spotting a throwing victim, Lars brought the ball up to him.

  “Hi, buddy,” the man said, petting his side, and Lars wagged his tail in that body-bending fashion. “What’s your name?”

  Amy had decided a while back that aliases just weren’t going to work for anything longer than an hour for Lars beyond his full name. “His name is Larson.”

  “Well, what a dignified name: Larson.” He pointed a ways off to a type of dog that Amy mentally had always called Generic Brown Street Dog and said, “Over there is Max. What kind of dog are you, Larson?” Lars had started to play-bow now, and Amy hoped he wasn’t going to try to crash into this guy.

  Amy said, “Shepherd mix,” not wanting to have to explain what a kelpie was and not wanting to call attention to that anyway. It took Amy a moment to click into the fact that this wasn’t the man she was looking for, and she relaxed a little.

  He stood up, offering his hand. “I’m Mike.”

  Taking his hand, Amy said, “I’m Amy, and I think Larson is going to lose his mind if you don’t throw the ball for him, but thank you for shaking hands first before the grubby ball.”

  Smiling, Mike reached down for the ball and threw it a long way. Amy hoped Lars could find it as he jetted off in pursuit. Then, seeming to remember he had a dog here, he called out, “Max, come.”

  Up ran a happy-looking brown dog that could fit in anywhere. He came straight up to her and rubbed his body along her legs. She leaned over and patted his side. “Hi, Max.” Max panted back and went to Mike.

  Amy thought, Mike and Max. Completely forgettable names. They should be the spies.

  Mike petted Max a little and said, “Okay, go on.” Max took off, back to his explorations.

  “I haven’t seen you before, where are you from?”

  Amy, grateful for the chance to practice her lines, said, “I live out of town, but I started at Chorcy this quarter.” She was trying to figure out how much to say. Tyson said to share just enough to keep the conversation going.

  Mike smiled, “My family are ranchers among a bunch of farmers.”

  “Yeah, my family are small farmers that came back during the ‘Buy In,’” she said, referring to a government program aimed at encouraging small farmers to move into the area and grow organic crops.

  “What do you grow?”

  Be vague and change the subject if you need to. Tyson’s words came back in her head. “Ha, you’re talking to the non-farmer in the family. Little bit of everything, as far as I know. How about you?”

  “Cows mostly. We’re also smaller and trying to become organic.”

  Amy wondered silently, You have ranchland and you bother coming to a dog park?

  Mike must have seen the question on her face. “Max here likes to chase the cows, so I take him here. Then I don’t have to worry about him getting hurt or killed by a kick, and people don’t yell at me as much.”

  “Yeah, I could see how that could be a problem. Well, I should go find out what my dog is chasing.”

  She started to leave, but Mike said, smiling just a little, “I was actually wondering if you were in that religious group that lives in town.”

  Amy paused and looked at him. “What religious group?”

  He took his cap off, scratched his head, and replaced it. “I don’t know a lot about them. One friend says they think of themselves as Super Christusians, but in this area that’s nothing new. They live on the edge of town on this sorry-assed farm that someone must have given away. And they all have biblical names like Adam or Eve or Mary or—What’s the leader’s name?—Tomas, without an ‘h’.” Mike had been directing his question to the sky, though Amy was pretty sure that was unconscious, and she had to stifle a chortle.

  Amy tried to think of something insightful to say, but wound up with: “Really?”

  “Yeah, there’s this guy that brings his dog here. He has one of those names.”

  Amy longed to ask her handler Tyson what he wanted her to say, but she had an idea. “So they’ll talk to outsiders? I know some religious groups won’t.”

  “Oh, sure. He has a cup of coffee just like anyone else.”

  “No talking incessantly about God or asking for money?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “You sure this is a religious group and not a bridge club?”

  Mike laughed. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out for him. Take care, Mike.”

  Mike said, “Bye for now.” Amy went looking for Lars. She finally found him emerging out of the bushes smelling of sage. She was grateful that that was all he smelled of.

  “Hi there, what did you find?”

  /Ball Ball Rabbit./

  “Rabbit?” She looked at the bush and saw a small hole and a scamper of a prairie dog ducking out of sight. Ah ha, wrong word, she thought.

  “How about about squirrel?” Which it wasn’t, but squirrel was closer than rabbit.

  /Squi—./

  “Squirrel.”

  /Squr./

  Amy tried talking directly to him: /Squirrel./

  /Squirrl./

  “Good enough. Let’s walk.”

  /Rabbit/

  “Fine, I give up.”

  They walked all around the park and didn’t see any golden retrievers at all. Amy hoped they had the dog breed correct. It seemed out of step to ask team Mike/Max what breed of dog Adam’s was, especially since she officially didn’t know Adam’s name. It was time to admit defeat for this trip.

  As they exited the park, she half-expected Tyson to appear, but he had said that he wanted to meet up at the school after she was done, to avoid observers. She loaded Lars into the car and headed over to Choran City College.

  CHAPTER 42:

  Amy and Tyson at Choran City College

  AMY AND Lars wandered through the small but tidy campus of Choran City College.

  They found the office where Tyson wanted to meet. It turned out to be a shared office with four desks, but as she walked in, he was the only one there. He was still dressed in sweats and a T-shirt, with a mascot of one of the Choran sports teams on it, and no words—it reminded her of a roach, but she knew not to even try guessing.

  “Greetings. So you’re a teaching assistant? A ‘TA’?”

  “I guess so,” he said, leaning back in his chair and motioning to the guest chair on the side of the desk. “So how do you feel about your first time out?”

  “Pretty uneventful. No sign of Mr. Right and his doggy.”

  “Yeah, that can happen over many times, so don’t get discouraged. You did learn that people notice the religious group, so you get an idea of what at least one person saw.”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t sure how far to go with that conversation.” Amy said, distracted by a psychology textbook that she recognized.

  Tyson said, “What you did was great. I might have chatted or speculated a little more.”

  Looking back at him, she said, “S
uch as?”

  “Well, I might have said something silly, like don’t they offer e-pamphlets or ‘God loves you’ tattoos?”

  Amy looked at him, shaking her head, a smile playing on her lips. “I thought religious types didn’t go for tattoos?”

  “Well, it’s different, now that you can remove them.”

  Amy looked a little blank, so he went on. “They didn’t used to be removable. It was a huge deal, as you were marked for life with either the tat or a removal scar.”

  Looking down at her lower leg, she said, “You mean if I decided one day that I didn’t want running doggies on my ankles, I couldn’t just take them off?”

  “No, your doggy would be with you always.”

  She inclined her head, pondering. “You’d think religious people would want a permanent mark.”

  “It’s seen as against the Gods or God and all that. Many of the monotheists worry that during the end of the world, people will be forced to wear a mark.”

  Amy’s religious education had been mostly academic and she wasn’t always paying attention then, so she just said, “Oh.”

  Tyson went on, “I see you missed this fun factoid. There’s a story about a bad guy who will try to take over and will make everyone wear a mark or a tattoo. Some of the monotheists think it will be required for someone to have this mark in order to buy or sell anything.”

  Amy looked incredulous. “Banking?”

  “Well, they would call it trading, but yes. Sort of.” He held up his hand. “Very sort of.”

  Amy paused for a moment, considering. “So, religious stuff aside, was this dog park thing really useful? It’s kind of pricey for a little field jaunt. Even if it was nice to practice.”

  “We’re going to double-check on our camera surveillance and see if his schedule is still the same. Then we’ll have you up again.”

  “I’m not convinced that you specifically need me.”

  “Give it a chance,” Tyson said, smiling. The door opened and another person, presumably a teaching assistant, walked in, saying hello. They both said “Hello” back.

  Tyson said to her, appearing to suppress a wink, “Thank you for coming to my office hours. I hope things make more sense now.”