Dog Tales

by Jack Dann

  “No.”

  “You should. It’s like silk. Warm and soft and alive under your fingers. My God, it’s the most sensuous dog I’ve ever seen.” He backed off and studied them both. They continued to watch Rose Ellen. “Come on and feel them. You can see how tame they are.”

  She shook her head. “Put them out, Martin.”

  “Rose? What’s wrong with you? Are you afraid of them? You’ve never been afraid of dogs before. The poodles . . .”

  “They’re not dogs. They’re animated toys. And I have always been afraid of dogs. Put them out!” Her voice rose slightly. Martin went to the door, calling the dogs. They didn’t move. She had known they wouldn’t. Slowly she walked to the door. They followed her. Martin watched, puzzled. She walked out on the porch, and the dogs went too. Then she went back inside, opening the door only enough to slip in, not letting them come with her. They sat down and waited.

  “Well, they know who they like,” Martin said. “You must be imprinted on their brains, like a duckling imprints what he sees first and thinks it’s his mother.” He laughed and went back to the table for his coffee.

  Rose Ellen was cold. She wasn’t afraid, she told herself. They were the quietest, most polite dogs she had ever seen. They were the least threatening dogs she had ever seen. Probably the most expensive ones she had ever seen. Still she was very cold.

  “What will we do about them?” she asked, holding her hot coffee cup with both hands, not looking at Martin.

  “Oh, advertise, I guess. The owner might have an ad in the paper, in fact. Have you looked?”

  She hadn’t thought of it. They looked together, but there was nothing. “Okay, tomorrow I’ll put in an ad. Probably there’ll be a reward. Could be they got away miles from here, over near Lexington. I’ll put an ad in Lexington papers, too.”

  “But what will we do with them until the owner comes to get them?”

  “What can we do? I’ll feed them and let them sleep in the barn.”

  Even the coffee cup in her hands couldn’t warm her. She thought of the gold eyes watching all night, waiting for her to come out.

  “Honey, are you all right?”

  “Yes. Of course. I just think they’re . . . strange, I guess. I don’t like them.”

  “That’s because you didn’t feel them. You should have. I’ve never felt anything like it.”

  She looked at her cup. She knew there was no power on earth that could induce her to touch one of those dogs.

  Rose Ellen woke up during the night. The dogs, she thought. They were out there waiting for her. She tried to go to sleep again, but she was tense and every time she closed her eyes she saw the gold eyes looking at her. Finally she got up. She couldn’t see the porch from her bedroom, but from Juliette’s room she could. She covered Juliette, as if that was what she had entered the room for, then she started to leave resolutely. It was crazy to go looking for them, as crazy as it was for them to keep watching her. At the hall door she stopped, and finally she turned and went back to the window. They were there.

  The hall night-light shone dimly on the porch, and in the square of soft light the two animals were curled up with the head of one of them on the back of the other. As she looked at them they both raised their heads and looked up at her, their eyes gleaming gold. She stifled a scream and dropped the curtain, shaking.

  On Saturday morning, Joe MacLaughton, the county agent, came over to help Martin plan for a pond that he wanted to have dug. He looked at the dogs admiringly. “You sure have a pair of beauties,” he said. “You don’t want to let them loose in those hills. Someone’ll sure as hell lift them.”

  “I wish they would,” Rose Ellen said. She was tired; she hadn’t slept after going back to bed at three-thirty.

  “Ma’am?” Joe said politely.

  “They aren’t ours. They followed me home.”

  “You don’t say?” He walked around the dogs thoughtfully. “They don’t come from around here,” he said finally.

  “I’m going to call the paper and put an ad in the Lost and Found,” Martin said.

  “Waste of time in the locals,” Joe said stubbornly. “If those dogs belonged around here, I’d know about it. Might try the kennel club over in Lexington, though.”

  Martin nodded. “That’s a thought. They must know about such valuable dogs in this area.”

  They went out to look at the proposed pond site. The dogs stayed on the porch, looking at the door.

  After the agent left, Martin made his calls. The kennel club president was no help. Weimaraners? Martin said no, and he named another breed or two, and then said he’d have to have a look at the dogs, didn’t sound like anything he knew. After he hung up, Martin swore. He had an address in Lexington where he could take the dogs for identification. He called the newspaper and placed the ad.

  All day the sound of hammering from the barn where Martin was making repairs sounded and resounded. Annamarie and Jennifer came in and volunteered to gather apples. Jeffrey helped his father, and Juliette tagged along with one pair, then the other. She tried to get the dogs to play with her, but they wouldn’t. After patting them for a few minutes she ignored them as thoroughly as they ignored all the children. Rose didn’t go outside all day. She started to leave by the back door once, but they heard her and walked around the corner of the house before she got off the steps. She returned to the kitchen. They returned to the porch.

  They wouldn’t stay in the barn. There were too many places where creatures as thin as they were could slip through, so Martin didn’t even try to make them stay there. They seemed to prefer the porch. No one wanted to go to town to buy collars for them in order to tie them up. Martin didn’t like the idea of tying them up anyway. “What if they decide to go back to where they came from?” he asked. Rose didn’t press the idea after that.

  At dinner she said, “Let’s go over to Lexington to a movie tonight?”

  Martin sagged. “What’s playing?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Something must be playing that we’d like to see.”

  “Another night? Tomorrow night?” Martin said. “Tell you what, I’ll even throw in dinner.”

  “Oh, never mind. It was a sudden thought. I don’t even know what’s on.” Rose and Annamarie cleared the table and she brought in apple pie, and coffee. She thought of the dogs on the porch.

  “Next February I’ll spray the trees,” Martin said. “And I’ll fertilize under the trees. Watch and see the difference then. Just wait.”

  Rose Ellen nodded. Just wait. Martin was tired, and thinner than usual. He worked harder here than he ever had anywhere, she was sure. Building, repairing, planting, studying about farming methods, and his school courses. She wondered if he was happy. Later, she thought, later she would ask him if he was happy. She wondered if that was one of those questions that you don’t ask unless you already know the answer. Would she dare ask if she suspected that he might answer no? She hoped he wouldn’t ask her.

  Martin was an inventive lover. It pleased him immensely to delight her, or give her an unexpected thrill, or just to stay with her for an hour. They made love that night and afterward, both drowsy and contented, she asked if he was happy.

  “Yes,” he said simply. And that was that. “I wish you were, too,” he said moments later. She had almost fallen asleep. She stiffened at his words. “Sorry, honey. Relax again. Okay?”

  “What did you mean by that?”

  “I’m not sure. Sometimes I just feel that I’ve got it all. You, the kids, the farm now, and school. I can’t think of anything else I want.”

  “I’ve got all those things too, you know.”

  “I know.” He stretched and yawned and wanted to let it drop.

  “Martin, you must have meant something. You think I’m not happy, is that it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what it takes to make you happy.”

  She didn’t reply and soon he was asleep. She didn’t know either.

  She doz
ed after a while, and was awakened by a rhythmic noise that seemed to start in her dream, then linger after the dream faded. She turned over, but the noise didn’t go away. She turned again and snuggled close to Martin. The bedroom was chilly. A wind had started to blow, and the window was open too much. She felt the air current on her cheek, and finally got up to close the window. The noise was louder. She got her robe on and went into the hall, then to the window in Juliette’s room. The dogs were walking back and forth on the porch, their nails clicking with each step. They both stopped and looked at her. She ran from the room shaking, and strangely, weeping.

  At breakfast she said to Martin, “You have to get them out of here today. I can’t stand them any longer.”

  “They really got to you. didn’t they?”

  “Yes, they got to me! Take them to Lexington, leave them with the kennel club people, or the dog pound, or something.”

  “Okay, Rose. Let’s wait until afternoon. See if anyone answers our ad first.”

  No one called about them, and at one Martin tried to get them into the car. They refused to leave the porch. “I could carry them,” he said, doubtfully. They weren’t heavy, obviously. Anything as thin as they couldn’t be heavy. But when he tried to lift one, it started to shiver, and it struggled and slipped through his arms. When he tried again, the dog growled, a hoarse sound of warning deep in its throat, not so much a threat as a plea not to make it follow through. Its gold eyes were soft and clear and very large. Martin stopped. “Now what?” he asked.

  “I’ll get them to the car,” Rose said. She led the two dogs to the car and opened the door for them. They jumped inside. When she closed the door again, they pressed their noses against the window and looked at her. “See if they’ll let you drive,” she said.

  They wouldn’t let Martin get inside the car at all, not until Rose was behind the wheel, and then they paid no attention to him. “I’ll drive,” she said tightly. Her hands on the wheel were very stiff and the hard feeling in her stomach made it difficult to breathe. Martin nodded. He reached out and put his hand on her knee and squeezed it gently.

  He was saying it was all right, but it wasn’t, she thought, driving.

  The kennel club was run by Colonel Owen Luce, who was a Kentucky colonel, and wanted the title used. “Proud of it, you know,” he said genially. “Got mine the hard way, through service. Nowadays you can buy it, but not back when I got mine.” He was forty, with blond, wavy hair, tall and too good looking not to know it. He posed and swaggered and preened, and reminded Rose of a peacock that had stolen bread from their picnic table at Sunken Gardens in Florida once.

  “They’re handsome dogs,” Colonel Luce said, walking around the hounds. “Handsome. Deerhounds? No. Not with that silky hair. Hm. Don’t tell me. Not wolfhounds. Got it! Salukis!” He looked at Rose, waiting for approval. She shrugged. “I’m not certain,” he said, as if by admitting his fallibility, he was letting her in on a closely guarded secret that very few would ever know. He didn’t ignore Martin as much as bypass him, first glancing at him, then addressing himself to Rose. Obviously he thought she was the dog fancier, since the hounds clung to her so closely.

  “We don’t know what they are,” she said. “And they aren’t ours. They followed me home. We want to return them to their owner.”

  “Ah. You should get quite a reward then. There aren’t many salukis in this country. Very rare, and very expensive.”

  “We don’t want a reward,” Rose said. “We want to get rid of them.”

  “Why? Are they mean?” It was a ridiculous question. He smiled to show he was joking. “I always heard that salukis were more nervous than these seem to be,” he said, studying them once more. “And the eyes are wrong, I think, if memory serves. I wonder if they could be a cross?”

  Rose looked at Martin imploringly, but he was looking stubborn. He disliked the colonel very much. “Colonel Luce, can you house these dogs?” Rose asked. “You can claim the reward, and if no one shows up to claim them, then they’d be yours by default, wouldn’t they? You could sell them.”

  “My dear lady, I couldn’t possibly. We don’t know anything about a medical history for them, now do we? I would have to assume that they’ve had nothing in the way of shots, obviously not true, but with no records.” He spread his hands and smiled prettily at Rose. “You do understand. I would have to isolate them for three weeks, to protect my own dogs. And give them the shots, and the examinations, and then have an irate owner show up? No thank you. Owners of valuable dogs tend to get very nasty if you doctor their hounds for them without their approval.”

  “Christ!” Martin said in disgust. “How much would you charge to board them then?”

  “In isolation? Eight dollars a day, each.”

  Rose stared at him. He smiled again, showing every tooth in his head. She turned away. “Let’s go, Martin.” She took the dogs to the car and opened the door for them. She got behind the wheel and Martin got in, and only then did the dogs sit down. The dog pound was closed. “They won’t get in the car again,” Rose said dully. “Can you think of anyplace else?” He couldn’t and she started for home.

  The bluegrass country that they drove through was very lovely at that time of year. The fields rose and fell gently, delineated by white fences, punctuated in the distance by dark horses. Stands of woods were bouquets in full bloom, brilliant in the late afternoon sunlight. A haze softened the clear blue of the sky, and in the far distance hazy blue hills held the sky and land apart. Rose looked at it all, then said bitterly, “I shouldn’t have let you do this.”

  “What?”

  “Come here. Bring me here.”

  “Honey, what’s wrong? Don’t you like the farm?”

  “I don’t know. I just know I should have told you no. We should have tried to work it out without this.”

  “Rose, you didn’t say anything about not wanting to come her. Not a word.”

  “You might have known, if you hadn’t closed your eyes to what I wanted. You always close your eyes to what I want. It’s always what you want. Always.”

  “That isn’t fair. How in God’s name was I supposed to know what you were thinking? You didn’t say anything. You knew we had to do something. We couldn’t keep the house and the boat and everything, we had to do something.”

  “You didn’t even try to get a job!”

  “Rose. Don’t do this now. Wait until we get home.”

  She slowed down. “Sorry. But, Martin, it’s like that with us. You say you want to do this or that, and we do it. Period. It’s always been like that with us. I never had a voice in anything.”

  “You never spoke out.”

  “You wouldn’t let me! It was always decided first, then you told me. You always just assumed that if you wanted something then I would too. As if I exist only in your shadow, as if I must want what you want without fail, without question.”

  “Rose, I never thought that. If I made the decisions it was only because you wouldn’t. I don’t know how many times I’ve brought something up for us to talk about and decide on, only to have you too busy, or not interested, or playing helpless.”

  “Playing helpless? What’s that supposed to mean? You mean when you tell me we’re moving I should chain myself to a tree and say no? Is that how I could have a voice? What can I do when you say we’re doing this and you have the tickets, the plans, the whole thing worked out from beginning to end? When have you ever said how about doing this, before you already had it all arranged?”

  He was silent and she realized that she had been speeding again. She slowed down. “I didn’t want children right away. But you did. Bang, children. I didn’t want to move to Florida, but you had such a great job there. What a great job! Bang, we’re in Florida. I might have been a teacher. Or a success in business. Or something. But no, I had to have children and stay home and cook and clean and look pretty for you and your friends.”

  “Rose.” Martin’s voice was low. He looked straight ahead. “
Rose, please stop now. I didn’t realize how much of this you had pent up. But not now. Or let me drive. Pull off the road.”

  She hit the brakes hard, frightened suddenly. Her hands were shaking. She saw the dogs in the rear view mirror. “They wouldn’t let you drive,” she said. “Will you light me a cigarette, please?”

  He gave it to her wordlessly, staring ahead. She reached for the radio and he said, “Let me do it.” He tuned in country music and she reached for it again. He changed the station to a press interview with someone from HEW.

  Rose rubbed the cigarette out. “Martin, I’m frightened. We’ve never done that before. Not in the car anyway, not like that.”

  “I know,” he said. He still didn’t look at her.

  She drove slowly and carefully the last ten minutes and neither of them spoke again until they were inside the house, the dogs on the porch. “Why’d you bring them back?” Jeffrey asked disgustedly. He thought that dogs as big as they were should be willing to retrieve, or something.

  Martin told them about the colonel and Rose went upstairs to wash her face and hands. Halfway up the stairs, she turned and called, “Martin will you put some coffee on, please.” And he answered cheerfully.

  It was the dogs, she told herself in the bathroom. They had made the quarrel happen, somehow. She couldn’t really remember what they had quarreled about, only that it had been ugly and dangerous. Once when she had glanced at the speedometer, it had registered eighty-five. She shivered thinking of it. It had been the dogs’ fault, she knew, without being able to think how they had done it, or why, or what the argument had been about.

  Annamarie had made potato salad, and they had ham with it, and baked apples with heavy cream for dessert. Throughout dinner Rose was aware of Martin’s searching gaze on her, and although she smiled at him, he didn’t respond with his own wide grin, but remained watchful and quiet.