CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Mollie
Best Friends had much to be thankful for as the holidays approached. For one thing, they were still standing. For another, the special Christmas newsletter they had sent out was proving a huge success and generating a bonanza of donations.
Then again, the number of their supporters was growing bigger every month, which meant that many more copies of the magazine needed to be printed and mailed. The count had grown to the point where Michael and Steven began to hold “label parties” to handle the mailing: Whoever was in the canyon when that month’s issue was ready to send was shanghaied to The Village to stick on address labels.
The gatherings gained in raucous inventiveness as membership increased. In the sedate beginning they had Coca-Colas to help them along. Soon the general consensus was that things did not only go better with Coke. Beer, potato chips, nuts, and pretzels, coupled with rowdy cheers as they ploughed through each state’s mailing, became the new order of the night.
Michael likened the atmosphere to that of a bingo parlor with people shouting out zip codes as if they were winning numbers. He also noted that subscriptions were coming from all over the country, with heavier concentration from New York, Florida, and the Northwest—which surprised him somewhat. But then that was how Mollie, the pot-bellied pig, came to Best Friends.
“She’s not really a pig. I mean Mollie’s more like one of the family. She watches television with my wife and me, and sleeps on the bed.” The voice sounded young and very distraught.
“I understand perfectly,” Estelle Munro commiserated.
“One of my parishioners gets your magazine. That’s why I called.”
“Parishioners?” Estelle queried.
A nervous laugh. “I’m an assistant pastor in Pocatello, Idaho.”
“Why don’t you tell me about Mollie?” Estelle encouraged and settled in to listen.
The story the pastor told was of the transition of a farming community to a spreading township, and of the disruptions that inevitably follow. Mollie was the couple’s dearly loved companion. She was house trained, “as clean as a whistle.” Mollie came when called, never left their sides, was never any trouble.
But as always, growth forced change. The new ordinances decreed no farm animals within the town’s limits. Mollie had to go. “It would kill us if we thought she’d end up as . . .” The pastor couldn’t voice the horrible idea of Mollie being bacon. “We can tell you’re good people. We’d have some peace if Mollie was with you.”
To Estelle had fallen the job of deciding which critters Best Friends would continue to take in. If an animal was healthy, young, and eminently adoptable, Estelle would gently direct the caller to a local adoption organization.
If, on the other hand, the animal was old, infirm, had special needs, or held little chance of living out its life in safety and comfort, then Estelle would likely welcome the innocent into their fold. Still, nobody had tried to give them a pig before. But it was the week before Christmas, and it was Estelle, not Good King Wenceslaus, who looked out onto the pristine whiteness of their wonderland and gave silent thanks. “It’s a long drive,” she cautioned the boyish-sounding minister.
The joy that flowed through the telephone wires made it all worthwhile. “We’ll leave tomorrow. God bless you. God bless you.”
None of the Best Friends made any salary yet, so it was a little hard to go on a shopping spree. And yet nobody felt deprived. A big old stove crackled and filled The Village with the nostalgic fragrance of burning sage and piñon. The Christmas tree sparkled with homemade ornaments. Heaped under its greenery were who-knew-what inventive goodies. And everyone was coming home for the holidays.
Michael and Faith, hanging the last of the decorations this late afternoon, thought it was one of their own when they heard a car stop outside the meeting room. They didn’t pay any attention as the front door pushed open. “Hello?” a tentative voice called. “Have we got the right place?”
Their visitor had the gangling skinniness of youth. His eyes were solemn behind their wire-framed glasses, the sandy brown hair primly short. Although casual in jeans and parka, the man had a definite . . . Faith searched for the word . . . pious look. From what Estelle had reported this could only be one person. “You’ve brought Mollie?” she said smiling.
The tension drained from the pastor’s face. He almost managed a smile, but worry won out. “She’s outside with my wife,” he said and ducked back into the cold.
A small, pale girl with straight bobbed hair stepped hesitantly into the room, led by a black potbellied pig on a silver-blue leash. Her husband struggled in behind them with a carved wooden bed that appeared custom-made.
“Do you need any help?” Michael offered. The pastor shook his head and placed the bed next to the pig and left once more.
Michael stared at the sleek, confident swine, who gave him the eye in return. Mollie had to be the cutest potbelly he had ever laid eyes on. Then Michael reminded himself he had never met an animal he didn’t like. Still, Mollie had to be the epitome of adorable. Michael knew that pigs were among the most intelligent creatures on earth, but wondered how many more city ordinances would be changed before the current craze petered out.
The pastor returned with a soft, brown blanket and a wicker basket. Twice more he whisked outside to bring in shopping bags of toys and treats. His wife stroked the pig’s rump continuously, the hurt plain on her face.
Finally, all Mollie’s possessions lay beside the door. “You have a nice, clean place here,” the girl ventured, “but excuse us, we’d like to know where Mollie might be living. She’s used to being inside with us, you see.”
“I’ll show you the sanctuary, if you like,” Faith said.
The pastor flushed scarlet. “We already took a drive around. I hope you don’t mind.”
Mollie had stood like a statue during the whole proceeding. Now she raised her head and Michael saw the soft, pink nostrils twitch. The little potbelly backed against her mistress’s ankle and oinked once. The girl dropped the silver-blue leash and bent to her pet. “What is it, sweetheart?”
Big mistake. Michael had recognized Mollie’s expression. Sun was the master at flaring his nostrils before the plunge for whatever food was in the vicinity. “Wait a minute. . . .”
Too late. Mollie plummeted forward with the velocity of a bullet, straight for the Christmas tree—and the presents. With unerring accuracy, the pig snuffled out a square box wrapped in shiny gold paper. Before they could stop her, Mollie had ripped open the gift and pushed her snout into the See’s Candies.
“No! They’ll make her sick,” Faith yelled as she and Michael dove for the recalcitrant animal. Still Mollie managed to gobble two chocolates before they could wrestle the box away.
An ember caught in the fire and a log spat blue-green flames into the shocked silence. The wife sniffled, “Oh Mollie, how could you?”
Faith read the card on the lost present. “For me.” She smiled. “Thank you, Mollie. I shouldn’t eat chocolates anyway.”
Michael had to laugh. With no more interest in anything else the tree might offer, Mollie ambled back to her persons and looked up at them like a naughty child.
“She’s usually so well behaved,” the pastor apologized.
Faith knelt and gently caressed Mollie’s ears. Michael knew what she was thinking. What do we do with this “pig who is a person?” Faith spoke softly. “It’s not like your home, but my place is warm and the doggy door’s big enough. What do you think?”
Mollie looked from her persons to the woman who was whispering so sweetly in her ear. “It’s all right, Mollie.” The wife couldn’t hold back her tears any longer. The pastor slowly lifted his foot and surreptitiously nudged his pet’s backside forward. Mollie knew what was expected. She hesitated only fractionally, then trotted straight into Faith’s arms.
Which was exactly where the newspaper reporter from Salt Lake City saw her three months later.
First Validation
Chris Smith wasn’t in the best of moods. It wasn’t enough that the story he had been pursuing had evaporated along with his source; he’d hardly gotten two winks of sleep in the rundown 1950s-era motel he had checked into across the Arizona state line.
The roving reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune was no stranger to lumpy beds salvaged from the Second World War—it was the loud lovemaking coming through the wafer-thin walls that had him looking at his watch at 3:00 A.M. It wasn’t until he heard the thud of two pairs of knees hitting the carpet, followed by fervent prayers for forgiveness, that he wondered what deity he had offended this time. Still, he couldn’t help smiling when he saw the prim, gray-haired couple emerge from the adjoining room the next morning.
On his way back to Salt Lake, Smith stopped to fill his tank in Fredonia. Sure enough, there they were again, the cute donation cans for Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. He had been noticing them for over a year now, every time he stopped for gas. The professional journalist in him appreciated the picture of the puppy wrapped around a kitten. Pretty smart idea. Somebody knew how to take a damn good photo.
Maybe it wasn’t a wasted trip south. Animals were always good for a story on A1 or B1 of the paper, and there had to be an angle here. Who would put an animal sanctuary in the middle of nowhere—even if it was awesome country?
Chris Smith’s first foray took him into Kanab. It was always a sound idea to hear what the local folks had to confide. He wasn’t fazed to find that the objects of his inquiry were still viewed with deep suspicion by some of the older generation. After all, he was told, they were newcomers, been there less than a decade.
It got more serious when it was sworn by persons who should have known better that Best Friends practiced voodoo and routinely sacrificed animals in bloody rituals. “After all, what else would they be doing with all those worthless creatures? Not like they’re breeding purebreds.” That kind of outlandish fabrication didn’t sit well with the reporter, but there might be a story.
After lunch he phoned the number on the donation can. “Would you mind holding a minute?” a woman asked pleasantly.
A beat later a male voice said, “Can I help you?”
“Chris Smith, Salt Lake Tribune,” he introduced himself. “I’d like to come see your place.”
“I think we can arrange that. When would you be arriving?”
Chris Smith smiled at the proper English accent. No wonder these people were viewed askance by some of the locals. “How about twenty minutes? I’m in Kanab.”
The smallest pause. “I’m Michael Mountain. Do you need directions?”
“I’ve had plenty of people tell me how to get there.”
“I’ll be happy to show you around,” Michael said.
Michael put down the phone. From the reporter’s tone he sensed this was not going to be your usual appreciative tour. He would bet his last dollar that Chris Smith had gotten an earful in town. The Salt Lake newsman would be looking for a scam. Michael sighed and walked out to his truck.
There was no doubt who was coming to visit when the silver Toyota 4Runner pulled into the canyon. The newspaper’s logo emblazoned across the car’s exterior was hard to miss. A tall, thin man with questioning eyes opened his passenger door as Michael approached. “Why don’t we ride in my car,” he said.
Chris Smith made no comment as Michael pointed out the ancient caves, the underground lake, Turtle Rock. He kept his counsel as they cruised past meadows still in winter’s icy grip and his guide introduced the horses and goats by name.
Michael sensed the reporter’s impatience as he showed him Angels Landing. The man hadn’t come to view scenery. “Why don’t we go to The Village,” he suggested.
Quite a few of the Best Friends had gathered for lunch in the meeting room: Francis, Paul, Steven, John, Estelle, Charity, and Faith—as fate would have it, with Mollie in her arms. Michael noted the reporter’s quizzical expression at the pig’s obvious contentment. He also observed how the man ran his keen gaze over the place, looking for . . . what?
“So tell me about your pig,” Smith said after introductions all round. “What else have you got here?” was the next question after the story of Mollie and the pastor. Michael duly escorted the reporter from the Salt Lake Tribune back to his car for the drive to Dogtown.
Smith instinctively retreated before the cacophony of barking and rushing of fences that greeted his arrival. He stopped at each and every enclosure, eyes missing nothing. “You don’t go in for fancy, do you?” he said, indicating the simple horse fencing. “But your animals seem to have it pretty good”—this last in the tone of a grudging compliment.
Even the professional trained to see beyond the obvious couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice when Michael pointed out Faith’s home in passing. “The director of your sanctuary lives in a trailer?”
Smith was quiet as his tour guide finished Victor’s story and offered to demonstrate how the bigger, more aggressive dogs simply would not cross the Dogfather’s invisible line. He looked at Michael speculatively, as if he were measuring him for a suit. “I’ve been told some things,” he began.
“Interesting, I hope,” Michael said. “Did you hear the one about how we trained attack dogs for the CIA?”
He had to give it to the man. Smith didn’t blink. “No, why don’t you fill me in?”
Michael obliged. He told the newsman how they came to Angel Canyon during President Reagan’s era. “It was during the time of the war in Nicaragua. The rumor was we were secretly training dogs to fight with the Contras.”
“Interesting,” Chris Smith said, mimicking his host’s poker face. Both men smiled.
Catland was last. Michael could still feel the questing tension in the reporter, the nose sniffing for the story. Finally, only one shaded wooden building remained to be explored. Michael opened the door into the tiny foyer and let the reporter precede him into the main cat area. He didn’t feel the need to talk anymore. The little felines would vocalize for themselves the beauty of their beings.
Smith walked in purposefully. He stopped and gazed upon the ones with no ears, with three legs, the snow-white-furred ones whose genetics had bred them to cancer, the incontinent, blind, circling Timmie, burned Sinjin, sneezing Tomato, three-legged Blackjack, and—leading the curious parade to the man’s ankles—Sir Benton.
The silence stretched to five, ten minutes. The newsman squatted and allowed Tong to teeter on his shoulder. Tomato only had attention for Michael, but a crowd of purring cats clustered around their new visitor. Michael slipped outside to let the man be alone.
When he joined Michael twenty minutes later, Chris Smith didn’t bombard his host with the usual tough questions. He didn’t have much to say about anything. Michael was not to know that the Salt Lake Tribune reporter had looked in vain for the trappings of excess, the clues that the money they might persuade people to donate was going to something other than the well-being of the animals.
As he drove back to the city that night, Smith was glad his original lead had turned out to be a dead end. He was the first in the newsroom the next morning. For once he didn’t participate in the usual camaradie that went with the coffee and doughnuts. He sat, intense, serious, writing the story that would take A1 space in his paper.
Chris Smith wasn’t to know that Best Friends had been ambivalent about allowing a reporter into their midst: a local story would surely inundate them with so many more needy animals.
Despite their concerns, however, his article was to be their first validation, the first printed acknowledgment that Best Friends was truly a haven of healing and love. A place where a less-than-perfect animal could find refuge in a world all too ready—as it was with its people, as well—to reject and consign them to the garbage heap.
The article appeared on March 9. For Best Friends, Chris Smith was the first outsider to give credence to the right to life of all creatures. He was not
to be the last.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Confluence of Events
Gregory Castle had gravitated toward Salt Lake City for his tabling efforts. It didn’t take long for the quiet philosopher of Best Friends to learn the power of the press. “I read about you in the Tribune,” was the oft-repeated announcement after Chris Smith’s article appeared, and with it came a willingness to listen with open curiosity instead of cautious skepticism.
Judy Jensen’s attention was caught by the photos of Bucky and Sparkles. She, too, had seen the newspaper piece and was thrilled to chat with Gregory. The correctional officer at the Utah State Prison took her love of the big equines a step further. Judy Jensen went to the sanctuary to see for herself.
A week later she was in veterinarian Rich Allen’s clinic with her mother’s sick cat. The door of the waiting room was ajar, and she heard the doctor waxing enthusiastic about a recent visit to Kanab where he went horseback riding.
“I couldn’t help overhearing,” Judy Jensen said to the veterinarian when it was her turn. “When you were in Kanab did you hear anything about Best Friends?”
“Can’t say that I did.”
“They’re the most wonderful people, and they could really use some help. Their vet died last year.”
The rich Dixie drawl made Faith smile when she answered the phone that afternoon. “I like to ride a bit. Thought I’d come see you all,” Rich Allen stated.
Faith laughed. “We’re an animal sanctuary. We don’t rent horses. You must have misunderstood.”
“Judy Jensen was telling me you didn’t have a vet, either. Did I get that confused too?”
“No, you got that right.”
Dr. Allen’s Southern accent became more pronounced. “How primitive. How do you manage?”
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