The Heart of Dog
Page 15
"That why you bought the little green doggie house with all the bows on it?"
"No. I bought that because he liked it when we were at the store."
"He liked it?" Brandon asked.
"He ran right inside it. And he looked so cute..."
"Has he used it since you got it home?"
"Well, no, he actually prefers his dog bed."
Brandon tipped the brim of his ball cap up to scratch at a thin scar on his forehead. "That be the one on the dining room table?" he asked.
"Well, yes, he likes to be near me when I work, don't you boy?"
Lucky reached up to paw at George's knee and receive a soapy scratch behind the ears.
"You are so whipped," Fred noted in mild disgust. "How much did all this shit cost you?" he asked, holding up a rawhide shoe the size of his fist.
"If you must know Judy gave me a deal on the dog beds and the sweaters, not that it's any of your business, really," George answered primly. He crossed the room to pluck the shoe from Fred's hand. "Here, Lucky."
Brandon shook his head as he watched the dog try to drag the shoe under the couch. "Beds?"
"Well, he needed more than one, didn't he?"
"You've only got one."
"That's different."
"Uh-huh." His cousin lit a new cigarette with an unconvinced expression and Lucky poked his head out from under the couch to bark at him.
"Exactly," George agreed. "If you have to smoke can you at least do it outside, Bran. Lucky doesn't like the smell."
Brandon looked from one to the other. "Fred's right," he observed as he made for the front porch.
Glancing down, his brother noted the smug expression on Lucky's face, and shook his head. "You are one spoiled little rat-dog, you know that?" he asked.
Lucky ignored him.
~~~
A few minutes later, George eyed Brandon's car with a worried frown. "Perhaps we should take my car," he offered as he watched a few more rust flakes settle to the ground.
Brandon just shrugged. "Suit yourself, if you want your fancy sport ute up to its ass in mud."
"Mud? I thought we were going to your place."
"We're meetin' at my place, then we're goin' to the Island."
George's eyes widened in alarm. "I can't take Lucky Charm to Blind Duck Island. It's full of snakes."
"So?"
"So! He'll get eaten!"
"Keep him close. He'll be fine."
"They're all underground by now, anyway," Fred added with a grin as he blew a smoke ring into the air. "It's October."
"So, why are we going in October?"
"All four families are gonna be there."
"Again, why?"
"Because Kevin and Gail are havin' another baby."
"Oh, good Lord."
With a resigned expression, George gingerly undid the bungee cord that was tying the back passenger side door closed.
~~~
The change-flea was getting hungry. He could feel it tickle against his mind with an itch he couldn't reach. An itch he didn't want to reach. The change-flea would make everything different; he could sense that already. It would make him see things he didn't want to see, know things he didn't want to know: like how much time his beloved Urge had before the sparkles would fade, leaving his heart as cold and silent as Roos'. But it would also make Lucky himself stronger, more able to push that time farther and farther away maybe. But either way the change-flea was getting hungry. There was a big sparkly place of power growing closer by the minute and when it arrived he would have to decide what to do about that flea, because one way or another its tickling was becoming really annoying.
Tucked in the back of Rand's "go for a drive" machine with four children, two other dogs, a large cooler that smelled of food, and three cardboard cases full of bottles, Lucky began to whine as the now familiar power of the family rose up on the smell of dead fish, rocks, and cool water. One of the girls caught him around the waist and lifted him up so he could see out the window.
~~~
"I think, Lucky has to go pee, Uncle George."
George turned an anxious glance on his little dog, then smiled.
"He's all right, Caitlin," he assured her. "He's just excited.
Lucky began to paddle his front paws against the glass and George reached over the seat to pluck him from the eight-year-old's grasp and set him on his lap. Lucky leaned over to snuffle the baby strapped into a car seat next to him, then spun about to peer out George's window.
"Maybe he can sense the Island," one of the boys in the back offered and Fred craned his neck past his wife Lisa's ample shoulders to glance at him.
"Can you?"
The boy gave a perfectly timed shrug of indifference. "Sure I can."
"Joe's a Mynaker," George said proudly. "Even I can sense it a little. I think."
"You oughta, you've been here nearly a year," Fred noted absently as he fished through a pile of empty cigarette packages on the floor. As he pulled out a crumpled Players, it flung itself into the overflowing ashtray. He turned a aggrieved look on Brandon's girlfriend, Cheryl, and she glared back at him.
"You're not smoking with Kaley in the car, Fred," she said sternly.
"Aw, can't you just mojo the smoke out the window?"
"No."
"We're almost there anyway," Brandon offered as he eased the over-laden station wagon onto a steep and muddy dirt road. A dozen cars were already pulled up on the nearby, rocky beach while, across the water, the family Island shimmered invitingly in the morning sun.
George smiled as he felt the faintest of tingles work up his spine. This was why he'd come to the county in the first place, to learn about his family's history. As it had turned out, he'd learned a lot more than he'd bargained for.
~~~
Blind Duck Island was the hereditary home of four separate but very inbred county families, the Geoffries, Frawsts, Akormans, and Mynakers. Half a mile away, deep in the waters of Lake Ontario, a strange anomaly gave off a powerful energy that, if experienced before birth, gave the members of these four families—all descendants of two very gifted and mysterious immigrants, Samuel and Mary Essen—four very distinctive abilities: Geoffries like Brandon and Fred could create frighteningly real illusions, Brandon's girl friend Cheryl and the other Frawsts could levitate objects and people, the Akormans such as Lisa and her father, Art, could manipulate any engine or machine no matter how complicated, and the Mynakers had the Sight. Before she'd moved away to nurse during the first World War and marry Harvey Prescott, George's grandmother had been a county Mynaker. George had been born three hours away in Toronto, but the Island still called to his Mynaker blood, making his mind twitch in the throes of a half remembered dream, forever on the far edge of wakefulness.
That was why Kevin and Gail Geoffries were going to spend a cold and inhospitable winter on Blind Duck Island—despite the very real possibility of birth defects—so that their fifth child might share in the Essen legacy. And that was why all four families were congregating on the Island today. Most would come and go throughout Gail's pregnancy, keeping the couple supplied with food and company until the ice grew too thick to row across, then they'd drive. Every one of them had been born within sight of the anomaly and every one of them, young and old, could feel the transforming nature of its power.
On George's lap, Lucky began to whine again.
~~~
"He sure is one licky dog, Uncle George."
Caitlin watched as Lucky very carefully washed all the barbecue sauce off her cousin Debbie's face.
They had been on the Island most of the day— long enough to polish off the constant stream of steaks, hamburgers and hot dogs that Brandon and his father had cooked on a wide grill across an ancient, brick-lined fire-pit—and Lucky had thoroughly investigated the plates, cups, and willpower of every person foolish enough to let him get his nose close enough to their lunch. Which was most of them.
Beside her, George chuckled.
"It's okay, I think she likes being licked," Caitlin observed as Lucky continued with his ministrations, causing Debbie to smile happily.
"Yes, still, I think it's time he had a walk. Your cousin Jesse fed him so much hamburger I'm surprised he didn't burst."
The girl giggled. "That wasn't Jesse," she replied. "That was Uncle Fred."
"What, and after he called my pup a spoiled little rat-dog? We shall have to see about that." Scooping Lucky up, he snapped a small, red collar around his neck. "C'mon boy, we have to go see a man about a sneaky inconsistency."
Setting him onto the grass, George headed for the knot of men drinking beer by an upturned fishing boat.
~~~
Ebbie was ill. Even without the change-flea's interference he'd felt the sickness coursing through her blood, making her pale and weak. Her mind was all wrapped in fog, but when he'd pressed his paws against her jacket he could feel the sparkles weaving through her heart, keeping it, at least, healthy and strong. She didn't need him. Not yet.
The change-flea hovered just on the edge of awakening and he pushed it away. It was too soon. He didn't want to be aware so soon. He was still so young and there was still so much fun to be had. Urge didn't need him yet. Ebbie didn't need him yet. He still had time. Hovering on the edge of the change-flea's infuriating tickle was the most intoxicating odor he'd ever smelt. If he could only get Urge to unsnap his collar he could investigate it in peace. Then maybe he would think about the change-flea after. After the smell.
~~~
"Lucky? Lucky!"
George looked anxiously from side to side. The little dog had worried at his collar until he'd pulled it over one ear, so George had reluctantly removed it, telling him firmly to stay. He'd sat so obediently that George had forgotten to glance down every five seconds to insure that he hadn't been carried off by a mutated garter snake, but now he was nowhere in sight.
"Lucky!"
Brandon tossed his cigarette butt into the water before nudging the older man with his elbow.
"He's just over there."
George turned to see four tiny, brown feet waving in the air behind a piece of weathered driftwood. The image of a giant sea snake trying to swallow his little dog had him sprinting across the beach. The sight of Lucky rolling joyously in the remains of a dead seagull stopped him cold.
~~~
"Ew! Uncle George, why does he smell like that?"
Holding Lucky at arm's-length with the first two fingers of each hand, George grimaced. "Because," he wearily explained to the collection of wide-eyed children who'd gathered around them, "He's a dog, a teeny weenie dog, but still a dog. Anyone want to help me give him a bath?"
The children scattered.
~~~
He was mortified. The lovely smell he'd discovered was gone and in its place was the nasty, overpowering odor of soap. The only very small consolation was that afterwards Rand's mate, Iryl, had given him a long towel dry and a brush-out—Urge would have done it himself but he wasn't speaking to Urge right now—or to Rand either for that matter. Rand had tossed his beautiful dead bird far out into the water.
But the worse insult of all was that Jak had laughed at him. Jak, a dog who could barely understand three words Red said to him other than his name, a dog whose sparkles were so deep down inside him he probably didn't even know he had any, a dog who wouldn't know a change-flea if it bit him on the—he struggled to form the word he'd heard Rand use earlier but it eluded him—rear end, Jak, had laughed at him.
Lucky's ears pressed down against the side of his wide, apple-domed head. He didn't like being laughed at.
The change-flea tickled his mind, but he snapped at it and it subsided. It was the change-flea that was making him think these thoughts. Without it he wouldn't have cared if Jak had laughed at him. Well, maybe he would have cared, but he wouldn't have spent all this much time thinking about it. He'd of just bitten him. And hard too.
Warming to the image of biting Jak, he forgot to resist when Urge lifted him up and tucked him into his jacket. All right, fine, he would snuggle down against Urge's chest because it was getting cold and he didn't like being cold any more than he liked being laughed at—but he wouldn't lick him, just see if he wouldn't. And he wouldn't feel for his soft, uncertain heart any more. He would be a regular dog. He would scratch the change-flea away and that would be that. He stuffed his nose into Urge's armpit and was rewarded with an involuntary jump. Why did he have to make this choice anyway, he thought resentfully. None of the other family dogs had a change-flea. Jak and Maggie and Tex and Dot; they all played and barked and... rolled in lovely smells, and cared for their companions just fine, without the knowledge that one day their companions might... leave them. Why did he have to have it?
Grumbling low in his throat until Urge began to gently rub his back, he eventually fell asleep.
~~~
Much later, after he'd taken Urge to the wonderful little shack with all the incredible smells, and they'd both relieved themselves—Urge in and Lucky on the shack—and after the sun had gone down, leaving the sparkly Island to the frogs and the crickets and the stars, he'd sat with his head poking out of Urge's jacket, absently chewing on his front toenails. Most of the family were sitting on lawn chairs about the big fire Rand and Red had made, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, with dogs and children sprawled all around on the grass or on blankets. Half dozing, he pressed against Urge's chest, feeling his heartbeat grow stronger this close to the family power. He could almost hear what he was thinking and he smiled contentedly, knowing that he was mostly thinking about him.
But after a time he grew restless—he had important things to do after all, a dog couldn't spend his entire life cleaning his feet—and he struggled out of Urge's jacket. After a slight argument about the collar and leash, which Atlin won by promising to look out for him, he made the rounds of each person, begging a bit of marshmallow here or a bit of candy there, scratching at their hand to be picked up and pressed against their chests. Atlin laid her cheek against his and he snuffled into her hair, breathing in the wood smoke and bubble-gum scents on her hair. Isa tucked him inside Debbie's jacket for a while and he sent all the strength and sparkles he could to her, knowing it wouldn't really help but doing it anyway. He played tug of war with Jo and Jesy and even a little "steal my bone" with Jak before he felt the need to go off and mark something. Scratching at Urge's arm, he made him leave the fire and take a nice, long walk down by the water. You never knew, his lovely dead bird might have washed ashore by now.
He had a squat, marked a couple of rocks, then sat at the water's edge, staring out at the pulsing power place far away. Urge sat down on an old log beside him and for a long time they just sat and stared out at the dark, distant waves together. It felt so familiar and so peaceful that, when Isa's father, Urt, joined them, smoking his sweetly smelling burning thing, Lucky didn't even bother to woof at him.
~~~
Art took a long draw on his pipe, then gestured at the log.
"Ya mind?"
"No, not at all." George moved over and Art perched himself on one end.
"Thanks, They're startin' to argue about hockey up there an' I can't hear a thing without my ears in."
"Your... ears?"
"You know, my hearin' aids."
"Oh, yes, of course."
They sat in companionable silence until Art's pipe went out.
"A nice night," he said, fumbling through his breast pocket for his pouch.
"It is that."
"They say its gonna to be an open winter."
"Well, that will be good news for Kevin and Gail."
"Yup."
The silence lasted through another pinch of tobacco, then Art stirred.
; "So, how's the old ticker?"
"Not bad. My Doctor's pleased that I've lost weight. I imagine I'll lose more what with having to take his little Lordship here out every half an hour or so."
Art chuckled. "It's funny," he said after a moment. "That little dog looks right familiar. The way he looks up at you as if he knows exactly what your sayin'. Irene Mynaker's girl, Donna, has a dog looks just like that. A little chi-bitch named Pippy. Had a litter of puppies right here on the Island around this time last year before she went to Kingston for nursin' school."
"Oh?" George glanced over at the other man with interest. "What happened to them? The puppies, I mean."
"Oh, they all got sold off. There was one, little brown fella now as I remember it, had a white front paw just like Lucky's there. Got bought by an old lady, what was her name, Rose Cook, I think it was, from Torawna. Seemed right pleased with him she did, gave him some fool name only an little old lady would give a animal with teeth in his head. Heartsease."
Heartsease.
Lucky raised his head, staring up at Urge's cousin Urt as Urge chuckled. The change-flea tickled at his mind, but he ignored it. Urt had known Roos. Urt had known Roos, and his mother, and his name before it was Lucky Charm.
Heartsease.
The change-flea took up the word, rolling it about on its tongue. The word grew larger as the sparkly power out in the water began to pulse in time with his heartbeat.
~~~
Heartsease.
~~~
He'd been born on the Island. Like Rand and Red, and Isa and Iryl, like Atlin and little baby Aley.
But not like Urge.
Lucky glanced up, seeing the lines of care and age on the man's face, feeling the strain on his heart as his sparkles fought against the fog that blocked them from making him strong, almost like Ebbie's were blocked, but not quite.
The change-flea bit down and Lucky shivered.