Fly by Night

by Andrea Thalasinos

  “Aw, I’m not gonna hurt you.” She sat down and scooted closer, counted two moving bodies, a third appeared still. She touched it and recoiled. It was frozen.

  The air smelled like sour milk and hay.

  Her coat sleeve swished against the edge of the wadded clothes. She moved closer, they cried louder, either imploring or terrified, their faces oriented toward her as they stood on bent, wobbly legs that trembled.

  “You’re right, Bryce,” she called. “I think they’re puppies. So tiny.”

  Each was about double the size of her hand. The closer she got, the louder they cried and grunted. Both reared away but then approached, not sure of which. Their eyes were bright blue, not quite in focus. Their stubby legs pushed their disproportionately large bodies toward her as they head-butted and collided, reminding her of a deadlocked rugby team at the University of Rhode Island.

  She touched the back of one pup and lifted it. It was cool to the touch and shivering. “Oh no,” she said. Two white sticks like plastic picks at a buffet table stuck straight out from the side of the pup’s head.

  Amelia touched them. The pup yipped. Parting the fur, she could see a puncture wound, puss, and blood.

  “Porcupine quills,” she mumbled, not knowing why she knew. “I’m sorry,” she said to the pup before gripping the end, wrapping the cuff of her parka around it to get a better grip. “Gotta do this.” She yanked it out. The pup shrieked. She then pulled out the other.

  Quickly she unzipped her coat partway, unbuttoned her sweater, and held the one close. As she tucked the pup against her skin, it felt cold. “Oh gosh.” She picked up the second, pulled out a quill, and tucked the pup in with the other. Zipping up her coat Amelia cradled and leaned to share her warmth, rocking them she could feel their bones.

  “Where’s your mom?” she asked softly. They stopped crying and began grunting, almost in contentment, pressing their faces and biting her collarbone. She felt one sucking on her skin in its frantic struggle for existence. She reached in to touch the mouth of the other. It immediately rooted and began sucking her pinky.

  “Aw, you’re so hungry.” She closed her eyes, feeling warm from the little mouth as needlelike milk-teeth tried to draw fluid out of the tip of her finger. One started a howl-like cry and the other soon joined in.

  She heard Bryce grunting and thrashing his way toward her as he crawled around the hay bales.

  “No signs of the mom?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he said as he reached her. “Can I see ’em?”

  She unfolded the top of her collar as he looked in. “They’re shivering so bad.” Their bodies were chilly next to her skin.

  He reached in and felt one of them. “They’re cold, alright.” He looked up at her, worried. He pinched the skin, it didn’t spring back. “Shit. Dehydrated too.”

  Bryce looked closer. “Eyes look like they’ve just opened. See how they’re struggling to focus? Probably two or so weeks. Three tops.” He peered in closer. “Bet their ears just opened too.” He looked up in surprise. “Jeeze, these guys are newbies.”

  Amelia showed him the quills, the ends bloody.

  “Someone’s mixed it up with a porcupine.”

  Bryce bent over and parted the fur, looking at the wound. “Might be infected. There’s puss.” The pup began furiously licking the side of his face and it made him chuckle. “Infections are not good for little ones.”

  “Hey there, kid,” he said and looked at the other pup. “Yep, this one’s festering too. They’ll need antibiotics or it might get serious.”

  “Bet TJ’s got some,” she said and didn’t like the way he looked at her. As if it was too much of a long shot.

  “Yeah, Am, porkies are amazing. Have antibiotics in their skin so that if they fall out of trees and stab themselves with their own quills, they won’t get infected. Go figure.”

  “Well that’s convenient,” she said, thinking too bad there wasn’t such a slave for the human heart. She then glanced at the break in the lattice, anticipating the outline of a returning mother yet the fear of dogs felt distant, like someone else’s story. Yet she knew how protective nursing marine mammals were. Prolactin, a hormone produced when nursing, enhanced acceptance and care for their young but could make them viciously protective. Once as a grad student intern while inadvertently stepping between a nursing harbor seal and its pup, the mother’s growling and head thrusting was frightening. Amelia assumed it was the same with topside mammals.

  “Let’s sit here a minute,” he suggested. “Maybe warm ’em a bit. Too early in the game for them to regulate their body temps—they’re not like marine mammals. They rely on proximity to Mom’s body temps and warmth from her milk to keep them from freezing.”

  Bryce faced her and scooted closer. Wrapping his legs around her, he pulled her close and hunched over, resting his head on her coat. She leaned on the front of his jacket near the side of his neck as he circled her with his arms.

  “Bet they heard us,” he said. “Probably smelled you.”

  She felt the warmth of his breath past her collar and on her neck.

  “Bet the vibration of our footsteps triggered the crying.”

  “One of them rooted and is sucking my finger.”

  She felt Bryce raise his head to look around. “Poor kids. Something must have happened, looks like Mom’s been gone for a while. Good thing nothing else showed up.”

  “What about the porcupine?”

  “They’re herbivores—eat twigs, leaves—I’m talking about foxes, coyotes looking for a meal.”

  Amelia clutched them tighter as she reached in and stroked their backs. Their fur felt slick like seal pups.

  She bent over and breathed on them again, cradling them against her skin. It was bad. Tucking her chin on top of them she began the universal rock of comfort, feeling them shiver as she pressed her body to generate comfort and warmth. Their scent was nutty and gamey. She couldn’t quite place it, it was so different.

  “Hope their organs aren’t shutting down,” he said.

  She knew they might be in the latter stages of hypothermia, more serious than being half-starved.

  “Your coat smells like sausage patty,” she said into the fabric.

  “Yours like sea horse krill.”

  They were quiet for a few moments, hoping to generate more warmth.

  “I know what Juney did,” he said.

  She looked up at him.

  “I found out before we left Rhode Island,” he said. “Jen knows someone in the grants office. Juney went against us for the grant.”

  Amelia tucked her nose into her coat, smelling the pups’ scent. One was making soft grunting noises. She decided not to mention that she knew.

  Bryce took a breath. “Jen went ballistic—called her everything but a white man. We didn’t want to tell you.”

  “Why would Juney do that?” She looked up at him.

  He sighed deeply before speaking. She felt his body shake. “To hurt you.”

  “Me? For…” she asked and then rested her face against Bryce’s coat near his neck.

  “For believing I was in love with you and couldn’t love her.”

  The warm, sweet scent of chest hair at the neckline of his Sea Life shirt was a surprise. She felt his skin with her nose. And while the three of them had slept huddled together on boat docks in different places around the world, she’d never been close in this way.

  “So…” She turned back to nestle in with the pups, confused by the moment with Bryce, inhaling their nutty smell to cancel out her feelings. She rested the tip of her nose against both skulls as she held them together.

  Amelia felt him pause, considering whether to come out with it. “So … she knows a lot of people in power.”

  She never wanted to hear of Juney again.

  They sat a while longer, listening as quiet snowflakes began to fall.

  A few moments passed. She lifted her face toward him.

  “Hey, Bryce?” She looke
d up at him.

  “Hey what?”

  Their eyes met.

  “Yeah, I know.” He looked away. “We’re keeping them.”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  She sighed and relaxed deeper into his coat for a few minutes longer.

  “Think they’ll make it?”

  “Better head back to the Jeep,” he said, withdrawing his embrace.

  Amelia began to stir.

  “I’ll crank the heater,” he said. “Better find an open pharmacy, grocery store, somewhere to get baby formula, bottles. At least give ‘em a chance.”

  “Wish we knew where TJ lived,” she said. “There’s only a P.O. box.”

  “Maybe he’s called.”

  She hoped to find a message in her phone back up at the Jeep.

  “Being a wildlife biologist—bet he’s got all the right shit,” Bryce said.

  One of the pups yelped as she moved. “Oh, sorry,” she said, moving into position to begin crawling, holding them with one hand.

  She looked over at the dead pup.

  Bryce turned to look.

  “It’s dead,” she confirmed.

  He picked up a twig and reached to poke it. The body moved in one frozen piece.

  “Dead for hours I’d guess.”

  He stopped to listen.

  “Thought I heard something,” he said. They both listened.

  “How ’bout you crawl out first,” he said. “I’ll make one last sweep; make sure no one’s left behind.”

  As she crawled toward the opening she heard him lumbering around, grunting as his large frame bumped into garden rakes and broken clay flowerpots. She trusted Bryce to not leave until satisfied.

  Once outside, she stood up and opened her coat to check. The pups had stopped crying, though they were still quaking as she used her breath to warm them. One lifted its head to sniff her breath; the other was sucking on her chin as it tickled.

  “You’re giving me a hickey,” she said and moved the pup.

  She watched as their rib cages rose and fell with labored breathing. They looked bony. One was almost solid black except for white tufts on its chest and head; the other was solid charcoal. Their flipper front arms and back legs were out of proportion to their enormous heads.

  As Bryce climbed out, he struggled to get through the hole that was small for even her. He stood, arched his back, and looked up at the sky.

  “Better skedaddle,” he said. “That’s one mean-looking sky.”

  He began the trek back up in their initial tracks. Fluffy snowflakes had blurred the crisp edges of their earlier footprints; falling heavily where moments ago it had been lackadaisical.

  Pewter snow clouds spilled into Chequamegon Bay, gobbling up each island as it advanced toward the lakeshore. The clouds undulated as they approached, almost roaring. It was as frightening as it was exhilarating and had it not been for the urgency of the pups, Amelia would have planted herself in that spot to watch it roll in, see what it would do. After Madeline Island became enveloped, clouds spilled into the bay down to the waterline before advancing to cover the docks, moving up the hilltop aiming right for them.

  “Hey, Bryce?” she asked as they stepped up onto the ridge where the Jeep was parked.

  “Hey, yeah?”

  “Sure you didn’t see any tracks?”

  “None. Nada, Am. Nothing. No traces, no indications. Let’s go.”

  She understood motherhood in a way he couldn’t. And while he’d already scoured the landscape looking for the white-on-white tracks of a mother, Amelia felt unsettled. Picturing the mother hurrying to get in before the storm. What might she feel after returning with hard-earned food, hungry and tired, crushed and panic-stricken to discover they’d whisked away her pups? She was stealing someone’s babies. That much she knew.

  Her chest tightened as she opened the door and reached on the dashboard. No missed calls. Nothing.

  The Jeep started right up, still warm from the drive.

  Amelia paused before she climbed in, looking down at the house, scouring the landscape for signs of movement. Tears stung her eyes. “Forgive me,” she said, feeling the mother dog’s emotions. Her throat ached. The air smelled like snow. Knowing next to nothing about dogs, Amelia felt grief. Marine mammals never abandoned their young. Especially newborns. It was almost unheard of. She guessed it was the same with topside ones. Something must have gone very wrong. Their tiny paws pushed against the skin of her breast—still cold.

  “Let’s go,” he urged. “It’s really coming down.”

  She guessed they hadn’t eaten in hours—too long for as young and fragile as they were. She climbed in and shut the door.

  Bryce flipped on the heater.

  “It’s still warm.” Bryce held his hand up to the air vent.

  He turned to look behind as he put the Jeep in reverse and then revved it over the wall of snow as they skidded into the road.

  Bryce braked, and then turned the wheels downhill, feeling the air vents again with his hand.

  The windshield was blanketed in seconds. He set the wipers on high.

  Amelia looked out the windshield. The puppy drama had distracted them from the seriousness of the storm.

  “God, this is slick.”

  She didn’t like the sound of his voice or the feel of the Jeep sliding sideways down the steep hill.

  Then a large-looking dog ran across the road. Bryce swerved to avoid hitting the animal.

  “Oh shit.” The Jeep’s wheels locked. He steered toward the crusted snow for traction but it was too late.

  “No,” she yelled. The Jeep began to spin. It was that sick feeling of being at the mercy of nature and physics, spinning with a velocity that makes you fully live those final moments before impact.

  The steering wheel spun like it was possessed. Bryce let go.

  They spun in circles downhill until a tree broke their flight.

  Silence for a moment.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” She took a quick inventory. “You?”

  “Yeah.”

  She looked over at him; he seemed just as stunned. Amelia peeked in her coat.

  “Them?”

  “Think so,” she said. Both pups looked up. “That was one big dog.”

  “Uhh … don’t think it was a dog,” Bryce said, rolling his shoulders to try and release the tension.

  Her breath had fogged up the inside window. She wiped it off with her sleeve. “Think it was the mom?”

  “Don’t know,” he said, wiping off the windshield with his hand as they both looked toward the trees.

  The Jeep had landed in the opposite lane, facing downhill, driver’s side wedged into a snowbank that butted up against a large tree trunk.

  She unhooked the seat belt and pushed open her door; it made crunching sounds. Getting out, Amelia held the pups in her coat and began to assess the situation but then slipped and fell, banging her knee so hard she could have cried. Bryce climbed over the passenger seat to help but fell in the road too.

  “Oh man,” he said and crawled toward her, pulling her out of the road.

  She grabbed the door frame and rose to her feet. The pups began licking her face. Then something caught her attention off to the side in the woods. Standing by the tree was the animal, half a face peering at them from behind a tree.

  “Bryce,” she whispered and motioned with her chin. Afraid to move, to make noise, afraid it would run off.

  She could see the one eye, the fur ruff of his neck, tufts defined like a collar, the colors of gray, black, reddish brown, and ivory.

  One golden-brown eye watched her. The eye shifted to Bryce once he saw the animal too. The wolf shifted his eyes from Amelia to Bryce as if trying to make up his mind about them. Both pups sniffed, watching from out of her coat. Neither moved. She held her breath. They stood for several moments until the wolf turned and ran off as if called. Her eyes memorized his profile, not wanting to forget the outline of his head.

  T
he entire driver’s side of Jeep was embedded in a wall of snow as if it had become part of it. The wheels were buried up to the top of the front end.

  Bryce tried to rock it. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Well, shit,” Bryce said as they both climbed back in. “Maybe get the heater working,” he said. But the engine wouldn’t turn over.

  Her arm grasped both pups. At least she hadn’t fallen on top of them. The outline of the animal’s head was emblazoned in her mind. When she blinked she could see its head and eye as it watched her with curiosity. She churned with the idea that the animal might be their mother.

  “Maybe we should go put them back,” she said. “Maybe it was their mother looking for them.”

  “Listen to me.” Bryce turned and slid his hands on either side of her face, holding it to get her attention almost nose to nose, his eyes set on hers. “There were no tracks; these guys are on the verge of death, I’m not letting you take them back.” He let go.

  She looked toward the woods and then closed her eyes, seeing the brush of its tail as it had run off.

  “Let’s focus on getting out of here,” he said and tried to start the engine again.

  At least they were off the road. Hopefully no one would come sliding down the hill and crash into them.

  After a few more tries the engine slowly wound down with the inevitable groan of a dying battery. Bryce quit.

  “This is useless; I’m just draining the battery.” He rested his head on the steering wheel.

  Amelia watched his form, draped against the wheel. He looked exhausted but not from lack of sleep. There was an air of defeat about him, like he would cry; she’d never seen him like this.

  She looked at the dash. Her phone had two bars. As a scientist and mariner, she knew when to call mayday. They knew how to wait as the bilge pump worked, searching horizons for the Coast Guard or for the foreign equivalent, or else abandon ship into the Zodiacs and if all else fails, scuba up and swim for the closest land. They’d done it all before. This was one of those moments. Her toes ached, her knee throbbed.

  “Fuck TJ.” She dialed 911.