Dogs of S.T.E.A.M.

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  “The ghosts are restive,” Groucho said, watching shadows flit among the wilting flowers and flickering candles.

  “Something has disturbed them,” Smokey agreed. “Back home they are called poterchas, those unable to leave this world when their time to cross over comes.”

  “Companions?” Groucho asked, shuddering, glad he could not see the restless shadows as well as canines could.

  Smokey nodded. “There is also a spirit-cat in my homeland.”

  “A ghost?” Groucho asked. “One who has lost his way to the Rainbow Bridge?”

  “No, not lost, not reluctant, but refusing to cross,” the big cat explained. “It is a ghost, you could say, but it is also a demon. We call them nocnicas, or night creatures; sometimes kikmoras, as kik, of the dark, and mora, a nightmare. They are deadly, and hungry.”

  “Have you ever seen a kikmora?” Groucho asked.

  “Once,” Smokey said. “It was almost the death of me.”

  “Well, the trilling could not have anything to do with the strip mall or the ghosts at the memorial,” Groucho said, eager to turn the conversation away from night-terrors. “And I can’t think how it could involve any houses on Zenith over on the other side.”

  “No, I think not,” Smokey agreed.

  “That leaves the abandoned church.”

  The church directly across Third was surrounded by a chain-link fence. The main door, facing Zenith, was boarded, as were the windows on that side. A few painted windows facing Third had gaping holes where rocks had been thrown through. The outside of the church was defaced by graffiti, some marking territory, others boasting of violent crimes.

  “Do you think we should try to find a way in?” Groucho asked.

  “I do not think so, not just the two of us” Smokey replied.

  Groucho was surprised by Smokey’s hesitation. In the years he had known the former ship’s cat the tom had never shied from any potential danger. Surprise registered on his face.

  “Do you not see the darkness clinging to it?” Smokey asked.

  The Calico peered intently at the once-sacred building. It was gloomy and foreboding, but to him it seemed no worse than any of the other dilapidated buildings littering Otay. He shook his head.

  “Perhaps only Old World cats can sense it, we who still know something of the ancient ways,” the tom said in his deep Slavic accent. “I see a building touched by evil.”

  “I don’t see it, Smokey, but I do see something else,” Groucho said. “In the window of the house almost directly across the street from the church. See how the curtains move now and then?”

  “Yes, the dog has been watching us for awhile,” the larger cat noted. “He is fearful, that one. He has no doubt seen something he wishes he had not seen. Perhaps he will talk to us.”

  But he would not, the Gordon Setter who dwelled within that cheese-box house reeking of fear and rancidity. At first he tried to ignore Smokey and Groucho, but they were persistent. Finally he had to answer their calls or risk attracting the attention of roving packs or clowders, both of which he feared equally.

  “Leave me alone,” the dog in the house whispered through a cracked window. “Go away.”

  “We just want to talk,” Groucho said.

  “I just want to be left alone,” he shot back.

  “What happened at the church?” Smokey asked.

  A long period of silence passed, then: “How should I know? What makes you think anything happened? Or that I saw anything? I saw nothing! I saw no one! It’s nothing to do with me!”

  “Tell us about the giant hound,” Smokey purred.

  Groucho glanced quickly at his friend, but said nothing.

  After an even longer period of silence, the dog said: “Go away! That dog doesn’t even know I exist, and I want to keep it that way. I did not answer the summons. He did not whisper to me.”

  “What’s your name?” Groucho asked. When it became clear the dog in the house had retreated fully into silence, he added: “My name is Groucho and my friend is Smokey; we work with the Three Dog Detective Agency, and we’re trying to solve the mystery of the trilling sound.”

  “Artemus Gordon,” the dog said after what seemed an eternity. “My name is Artemus Gordon.” Another moment, then: “Dogs? Dogs who are detectives? You can’t…” He lapsed into silence.

  “Cannot what?” Smokey prompted. “Work with dogs?”

  “Not cats,” Artemus Gordon said. “Dogs travel in packs, cats in clowders, and they’re both dangerous…deadly. If you’re not one of them, then you’re prey. No animal helps another. That’s life.”

  “Not in our neighborhood,” Groucho countered. “There, dogs and cats know they can turn to the Three Dog Detective Agency for help, for justice, for protection. What you see around here does not represent life everywhere. You can hope for more.”

  Artemus Gordon wanted to believe the claims of the two cats, but he lacked faith. Whatever faith he had possessed as a pup had burned away long ago, reduced to ashes by the crushing weight of reality, the stark brutality of life, the unrelenting cruelty and hatred that surrounded him, found in both Companions and other dogs, and the utter hopelessness for anything better.

  For years, he had considered himself weak because of his dreams, his flights of imagination into other worlds and ages that could not exist. He wanted to believe Groucho and Smokey, but he feared disappointment.

  “Go away and leave me alone,” Artemus Gordon finally said. “I don’t believe you. And I don’t want to talk about the church. It’s none of my business. I want no part of it!”

  They heard the dog move away, the lonely padding of his paws fading to silence in the empty house. They tried to reengage him, but eventually realized the futility of their efforts.

  “Whatever that dog knows could bust this whole thing wide open,” Groucho said. “There has to be a way to get to him.”

  Smokey shook his head. “He is too full of fear, too suspicious, too filled with disappointment from a wretched life. He will not talk to us, but he might talk to Levi.”

  “I am worried about those three,” Groucho said. “That area is even worse than Otay, what with constant skirmishes between the border packs, and predators lurking at every turn.” His fur stood on end and his tail shook with emotion. “Well, I’ll just be glad when we meet up with them.” He looked to Smokey. “When do you think that will be?”

  “Not for some time, I am sure,” the big cat replied. “Directions from hobo cats are reliable, but at times very obscure. It will depend on how long they speak with the Shih Tzu dogs, if they can; then will come the journey here.” Before Groucho could rephrase the inevitable question, he added: “Remember, the trek from South San Diego to Otay is nearly as long as it was to get there from central Chula Vista, and it will be through much wilder terrain.”

  Groucho sighed as he thought of the journey facing his canine friends. Levi, he knew, could take care of himself, for he was the one dog in the world who had taught Smokey a thing or two about fighting. With Sunny and Yoda, he was less confident. Sunny had her size and weight to go with what Levi had taught her, but Yoda was a puffball—a scrappy, sharp-toothed, snarky, and fearless puffball, but a puffball nonetheless.

  “We should keep nosing around,” Smokey suggested, trying to distract Groucho from his concerns. “They will eventually arrive, and it would be best if we had more than rumors, nightmares and a reluctant witness to share with them.”

  The Calico looked at the abandoned church across the street. Any other building in a similar state would have looked foreboding behind its chain-link barrier, but the fact that it had once been a place of worship, sacred to the All-Creator, now desecrated and running to ruin, gave it a more sinister cast. He still thought they should try to find a way in, have a look around, but he respected the older cat’s keen senses. More than once, Smokey had sensed danger long before he became aware of it himself. He caught up with Smokey at the intersection.

  It had been some
time since they had eaten, and while Groucho was all for more investigating, he thought they might also find time to interrogate a couple of fish tacos.

  Another bus rumbled through the night, this one heading north. The cats moved well back from the road, into a weedy corner lot. They glanced up at the passing bus, into the brightly lit windows, and saw a foxy black face surrounded by a dark nimbus of the wildest hair imaginable.

  “Yoda!” Groucho exclaimed. Then: “Riding a bus?”

  “Come on, Groucho, the bus will be stopping soon.”

  “How can you know…”

  The bus skidded to a halt, tires smoking and brakes wailing in frenzied protest. The rear door of the vehicle hissed violently open and three canine detectives erupted from the interior, Sunny first with Levi bringing up the rear. A flurry of invectives followed them, but were cut off when the doors banged shut and the bus resumed its interrupted journey.

  “Wow!” Groucho exclaimed. “How in the name of Bast did you three cage a ride on a city bus? I mean, jumping into the bed of a pick-up truck is one thing, but actually getting past the driver, riding it all the way here, and then getting it to stop where…”

  “Run, dodge and duck!” Yoda exclaimed, still excited by their escape from the bus.

  “Run, what and which?” Groucho asked.

  “When a bus stops to pick up a Companion, we run in through the rear door, dodge to the nearest empty seat, then duck so the…” Yoda started to explain.

  “That can wait,” Levi interrupted. “The investigation has taken an unexpected turn.”

  “Yeah, a turn into Weirdsville,” Yoda said. “That is, if Levi’s right about time-traveling dogs from the past.”

  “Time travel…” Smokey’s voice trailed to silence. “Yes, I can see how that would explain much.”

  They moved away from the road, Sunny and Smokey sticking with Levi as he related what they had discovered in their interviews with Kelsey and Sammy. Groucho hung near Yoda; he was curious about time-traveling dogs, but he was more intrigued as to how the canine detectives boarded a bus and took it to a specific destination, something no cat in his right mind would have attempted.

  “You duck behind a seat so the driver doesn’t see, but you also have to make sure no Companions are around to make trouble,” Yoda told the fascinated Calico. “Some Companions will even help you. Old ladies are the best. Not only will they not wise-up the driver, but will pat you on the head and give you treats.”

  Groucho shook his head in disbelief. “How do you get the bus to stop where you want it to? I mean, what if there is no Companion getting off where you want to get off? It’s not like you can jump up and pull the cord.”

  “Getting off is the easy part,” Yoda claimed. “We just pop up from behind the seats and let the driver see us in his mirror. Don’t even have to bark. He hits the breaks as fast as…well, you saw the way the bus stopped back there.”

  Groucho nodded, vaguely disappointed by Yoda’s explanation. He had expected something more complicated, more ingenious and clever. It was something any cat could have done, not that he ever would, and he certainly would never have accepted a treat from a Companion’s hand. No, there were just some things a cat would never do, no matter what. But he had expected more.

  “…points to the intersection of Third and Zenith,” Levi was saying when Groucho and Yoda caught up with them. “How have your enquiries here gone?”

  “We, too, traced the trilling to where Third and Zenith cross, in particular to an abandoned church,” Smokey reported. He told them of the many interviews with stray cats and dogs, with the house pets who would speak to them, how the intersection became their focus. “We suspect the church is the focal point, but the only witness who could settle the matter will not speak to us.”

  “A dog?” Levi asked.

  “A very frightened dog,” Smokey said.

  “He clammed up when we tried to question him,” Groucho said. “He’s paralyzed by fear.”

  “Nightmares and visions,” Smokey added. “I suspect the giant hound has come to him in dream, even though he denies it. In his denial is revealed the lie that is his truth.”

  Groucho and two of the dogs tilted their heads in confusion as they tried to sift their way through the meaning of Smokey’s words. Only Levi nodded.

  “Do you know his breed?” Levi asked.

  “We did not get a good look at him,” Groucho said. “He said his name was Artemus Gordon.”

  “Now why does that sound…” Yoda’s eyes went wide. “I think it’s from an old TV show.”

  “Whether he named himself or he was named by another, it might be significant,” Levi mused. “If nothing else, it could give us an approach, a way around his fear.”

  Smokey and Groucho led the way back to the house where their reluctant witness lived. They took a roundabout path, avoiding the roadway, snaking through unfenced yards.

  “Levi, I think we are being watched,” Sunny said.

  “In this part of town, it would be unusual if we were not,” Levi pointed out. “There’s a strong gang element, and the house-bound pets are sure to be very curious.”

  “It’s more than just lurkers and peepers,” Sunny said.

  “Miss Sunny is correct,” Smokey said. “There are ghosts and spirits among the watchers and…” He paused. “The forces of evil wax strong tonight.”

  “As if I wasn’t nervous enough already,” Yoda muttered.

  “I know what you mean,” whispered Groucho, the only one close enough to hear Yoda’s complaint. “Over on the other side of the road is a memorial and there are ghosts there.”

  Yoda’s hair stood on end.

  “And Smokey talked about demon cats.” He paused. “Say, do you think that cat June saw in the tree could have been a demon?”

  “Dream hounds, ghosts, demon cats, time-traveling dogs,” Yoda grumbled. “Give me an outlaw pack any day!”

  “He lives there,” Smokey said, gesturing across the way with his muzzle.

  They were down the street from the abandoned church.

  “You two did not enter, did you?” Levi asked.

  “No,” Smokey replied.

  “But I wanted to,” Groucho added.

  Levi gave Smokey an approving nod. “Best to stay clear for the moment. There is something unwholesome about the place.”

  “Looks haunted to me,” Yoda murmured.

  “I hope that’s all it is,” Levi said. “But I doubt it.” He looked at the sad little home of the frightened dog. “Sunny, I want you to come with me; the rest of you, stay here, keep a low profile.”

  “What about me?” Yoda demanded, a little miffed at being left with the cats. “I know all about Artemus Gordon…well, the one from TV. That may help.”

  “From what Smokey told me, this dog is fragile,” Levi said. “I want our approach to him to be gentle and non-threatening. Sunny has a very calming effect on nervous dogs.”

  “And I don’t?” Yoda asked.

  “Oh, it’s a well known fact that Pomeranians are calm and not at all excitable,” Levi said. “But the dog may not know that.”

  Yoda searched Levi’s face for some trace of wry humor, some faint hint of mockery, but saw only sincerity. He decided he never wanted to play poker with Levi.

  “You may have a point,” Yoda conceded.

  He joined Smokey and Groucho at the edge of the walkway, hidden by long grass. He watched Levi and Sunny cross the empty street, and ignored Groucho’s soft sniggers.

  Levi and Sunny approached the house. The slight swishing of the curtain told them the dog within had seen their approach through the front window. They moved to the side, out of sight of the street, blinded from any other house. A screen door hung on one hinge and the wooden door beyond was rotted.

  “If they had anything worth stealing, it would be gone,” Sunny commented. “A stiff breeze could knock that door open.”

  “That would certainly make him nervous,” Levi said. “Most
dogs need a sense of security to maintain a balanced life. Without it, they either move toward aggressive territorialism or paralyzing fear. The advent of such strangeness as we’ve seen, adding in what is obviously a negligent Companion, and our dog might be bereft of all reason, hope and faith.”

  “Do you think we can break through?” Sunny asked.

  “We have to find a way to…” Levi fell silent, his ears pricked up. He whispered: “He’s on the other side of the door, listening, trying not to breathe.” Levi’s nostrils quivered. “Fear hangs about him like a thick cloud…and almost as much sadness.” He sniffed gently but deeply, drawing in a long stream of scent molecules. “He’s a Gordon Setter.”

  “And named Artemus Gordon?” Sunny said softly. “Someone was being cute.”

  “Or, hopeful, seeking to escape a wretched life.” Levi moved closer to the door. “My name is Levi, and my friend is Sunny.”

  “Hi, Artemus,” Sunny greeted.

  “Artemus Gordon,” the dog inside corrected.

  Levi whispered: “The entire name has become his identity.”

  “Hi, Artemus Gordon,” Sunny said, projecting concern and a sense of maternal tenderness. “We really want to talk to you, dear. We need help that only you can give us.”

  “You know those cats who came by?” Artemus Gordon asked.

  “That’s right, Artemus Gordon,” Levi confirmed, keeping his tone level and calm, yet firm with the implied authority of an alpha. “They are friends of ours. They are helping us.”

  “You’re a detective, the two of you…detectives?” the Gordon Setter said. “Three Dog…the cats, well, they said…”

  “Yes, the Three Dog Detective Agency,” Levi supplied.

  “We help those who cannot help themselves,” Sunny said. “We protect the weak and bring justice for the innocent.”

  “No,” Artemus Gordon moaned. “The world is not like that. It is filled with brutality and hopelessness, violence and cruelty.”