To Sam’s relief, Miss Violett picked up her baby and frantically tore off the blanket that still wrapped him. She and Hamish scanned the naked child and seemed reassured by what they saw. Little Bruno smiled up at his mother as if it was a game.
Sam could see Heidy, crouched on her knees and crying, staring at him but not moving closer.
“Don’t worry, Heidy,” said Sam quietly. “Everything is okay. The baby’s safe. Why aren’t you coming to me?”
Then he saw Cassius move close to Miss Violett, now on her knees as well, holding baby Bruno close. Cassius stared at Sam carefully while he pushed his mouth in close to the bundled baby.
Closer.
“No!” exploded Sam. “Stop him! STOP HIM! DON’T YOU ALL SEE? CASSIUS WILL KILL HIM!”
Sam didn’t realize that he was snapping his jaws again, lips curled into a frenzied rage. Instincts—cold and unsparing—ruled his actions now, and his feet clawed the snow wildly in a desperate attempt to get between Cassius and Bruno once more.
The others backed away from the writhing, snarling little dog lying in the snow, now red with his blood. Uncle Hamish pushed away a sobbing Heidy with an arm across the girl’s chest. Then Sam watched in a shocked daze of incomprehension as Hamish raised his rifle again. He pointed it directly at him.
Sam closed his eyes and said simply, quietly:
“Heidy.”
But Heidy had leapt at her uncle and knocked the muzzle toward the ground. Sam’s hearing had returned enough to hear her scream, “NO, UNCLE!” Sam watched the man crouch before Heidy on her knees and hold her shoulders. He looked into the girl’s horrified eyes and spoke something slowly, carefully. Sam could only hear a few words: “Can’t touch him,” “very sick” and “must be destroyed.”
The girl collapsed into her uncle’s arms, shaking with sobs. He held her. Maybe for the first time. Violett reached out and laid a hand on the girl’s back while she held Bruno close.
Sam’s mind swam in confusion, the pain from the bullet pushed to the background. He tried to stand, to reach Heidy, to tell her that everything was okay, to lick the underpart of her nose, to kiss her.
But he couldn’t.
Instead he felt himself being wrapped in a cloth, maybe a bathrobe. Uncle Hamish carried him, but not in the direction of the house with the others. They were going over the stone wall, toward the aspen forest. Sam caught a final fleeting glimpse of Heidy being pulled up the hill toward the house by Miss Violett. The girl kept turning back to look at Sam. Cassius moved next to her, leaning in. Protectively. Possessively. Sam looked farther up the ridge and saw Mrs. Beaglehole standing serenely, watching it all without emotion.
As Hamish carried a limp and increasingly faint Sam into the forest, Sam heard the last of Heidy’s voice—halting and desperate—calling to him, blending with the growing howl of the wind.
“Forgive me,” she was yelling.
Then blackness descended on Sam’s world.
FIFTEEN
MEN
Sam opened his eyes to see Hamish looking down at him with a tortured look. He lay in snow between two large roots extending from a huge fig tree. His head hurt less now, but he still couldn’t stand up.
Hamish held his rifle to his chest, his fingers tightening on the stock, turning white from the cold. He swung the barrel toward the dachshund and held it there, his hands shaking. With the other hand he wiped the falling snow from his eyes awkwardly.
“I don’t understand what has happened,” said Sam weakly. “Why is everyone afraid of me?”
Hamish listened to the faint sounds coming from the animal he fully expected would one day be the most famous and celebrated show dog in the world . . . but who now lay before him as a wounded, fatally sick creature from whom he needed to protect his family.
His robe was still around Sam, and Hamish began shaking from cold. He dropped the rifle muzzle and put a palm to his eyes, drying the moisture, angry. Then he pulled a large piece of tamarack bark over to Sam and laid it across the two roots, making a sort of roof over the dog. He tucked the folds of material around him, being careful not to get near Sam’s mouth, which he still believed carried a dangerous disease that had made the small dachshund go mad.
Hamish had instinctively grabbed his phone before running from the house. He pulled it from the pocket of the robe tucked around Sam and made a call.
“Sheriff. It’s Hamish McCloud. Yes, I know what time it is. Just listen: call animal control and tell them that there’s a dog that needs picking up on my property. He’s sick, crazy—tried to harm one of my own, George. I winged him, but he’s still alive. No . . . I can’t finish it. You need to fetch him and . . . do whatever needs doing. He’s under the big fig tree next to my eastern gate. They can’t miss him. He’s . . . uh, wrapped in my bathrobe. Yes, you heard me.”
Hamish closed the phone and looked down at the unmoving dog, breathing hard, looking back at him. He swung the rifle up toward the sky and fired it once, the blast echoing through the hills and making Sam flinch. “She’ll need to hear that,” Hamish said. “She’ll need to know it’s over and . . .” He trailed off.
He pulled his pajama collar high around his neck and leaned over Sam, looking into his eyes for the last time. He whispered, “You’ll be warm, Sam.” Hamish looked up into the sky and then back down, pain written on his face. “Thank you . . . for bringing me back to Heidy.”
He turned and disappeared into the curtain of snow. Sam rested, panting. He licked some snow, moistening his dry mouth, and then ate some ice. The robe’s warmth was soothing and he closed his eyes, trying hard not to think more about this day of horror and madness. He was more tired than he’d ever been in his short life and was only dimly aware when other men arrived and he felt himself being lifted and carried through the trees. He was even less aware of being placed into a metal box in a truck and the door closing with darkness, once again, falling upon him.
SIXTEEN
LASSIE
Several hours later the light returned to Sam like drapes in a black room opening very slowly. After a few moments he remembered that his heart was broken.
Things were blurred. Shadowy. Wet.
Wet? thought Sam.
He was being kissed all over the face.
Licked.
Slowly, the face on the other end of the oddly rough tongue doing the licking came into focus, inches from his. She was beautiful. A miniature greyhound, maybe—of exquisitely delicate features.
Slurp.
“Am I in heaven?” asked Sam.
“Certainly,” cooed a voice like velvet. “And I’m Bambi’s dead mother.”
Sam picked up his head and looked around. Ancient bricks oozing water and slime curved over his head. Black, rusted bars stretched across in front of him. A round, dungeon-like space lay beyond, bathed in a familiar misty blue light. He could hear music and voices somewhere, echoing through watery tunnels. No, not heaven.
“Actually, my name is Madam. And you’re still in Vermont. Fifty feet below it.”
“Why are you licking my face?” said Sam.
“Because it’s such a cute one. I’m also tidying it up.”
Sam realized his head didn’t throb with pain anymore. With a paw he felt that the bullet’s gaping cut on his scalp had been sewn shut and the dried blood was gone. A needle and thread lay nearby on the filthy floor. Madam shrugged.
“I’ve . . . gotten quite good with that.”
Sam rose unsteadily and walked toward the bars to look out. A crumbling spiral staircase descended from the darkness above. A single beam of pale moonlight found its way down from some distant filthy window. In the middle of the round brick room sat a single old desk with piles of paper, a video player and a small TV on top: the source of the blue light that flickered across the bricks.
A sign on the desk said:ADOPTION FORMS HERE.
Seven dogs sat piled on and around a single chair in the dark, watching the tiny screen. They turned their heads to l
ook at Sam and said in chorus:
“Evenin’!”
Then they turned back to the old movie playing on the TV.
Sam noticed that his cage door was open. He moved out toward the desk. One of the dogs turned to Sam and said in a hushed, excited voice, “It’s the last scene! Sooo, so great. Lassie was taken from her little boy and sold and sent away, then escaped and spent months lost and crossing the country struggling to get home and she’s nearly dead and crawling to his school where the little boy has come out and spotted her . . .”
Sam looked at the screen. He watched the boy in the movie run to the filthy, wounded collie and embrace her. “Lassie, you’ve come home!” he said.
The mesmerized dogs erupted in a cascade of mournful howling and sobs, making Sam jump. They turned to each other and hugged happily. One gargantuan beast turned to Sam, wiped a tear and said, “SUCH a good flick!”
“How . . . many times have you all seen it?” asked Sam, wide-eyed.
The dogs looked at each other. One started counting on his paws.
“Well, lessee. . . . Every night for . . . for . . . how long, Blue?”
“Years,” said the dog next to him. A blue pit bull. With lavender spots and chartreuse ears.
As an astonished Sam moved closer to them, he suddenly realized that they were the seven most ridiculous dogs he had ever seen. The seven most ridiculous anything he’d ever seen.
“Meet the neighbors, pilgrim,” said Madam, pointing to the biggest one, indistinguishable from a furry rhinoceros. “This is Tusk. His love of mailmen is a one-way affair.”
A terrier mix the size of a yard mole stepped forward. “Wee Willy,” said Madam. “Willy liked to lick noses. Alas, from the inside.”
A nearly hairless mutt walked out with a face overwhelmed with wrinkles, piano wire hair and bulging eyeballs. “Here’s Bug,” said Madam. “An underappreciated beauty.”
The blue pit bull mix stood up, the color of gummy bears. “Dear, sweet Ol’ Blue. She clashed with her last owner’s couch. She actually clashes with all couches.
“Fabio, stand up, please,” urged Madam. Fabio—a lanky greyhound-pointer-beagle mix of some sort—did exactly that, standing on his two rear legs, which was good since he had no front legs whatsoever. “Fabio was born missing some things. But not a healthy self-image.”
A bassett mix ambled out, tripping over jowls that draped like beach towels. “Here’s Jeeves. Very important that he avoids breezes.
“And then finally, we have Pooft. Come out, dear.”
A tiny black curly-haired mutt hopped forward. Sam stared. Seemed normal. “Wait,” said Madam. Suddenly a three-foot flame rocketed out from his exhaust port accompanied by the sound of an old Chrysler backfiring. Pooft shot forward and hit the wall next to Sam. Behind, all the papers from the desk had blown off, leaving a few singed and smoking with a faint odor lingering in the air of, thankfully, French toast.
Pooft looked at Sam, somewhat embarrassed. “Bad kibble,” he said.
Sam stared at the dogs, perplexed. “What breeds are you?”
The dogs glanced at each other, confused.
“We’re dogs,” said Madam.
“What kind?” said Sam.
Madam thought. “With skin,” she said, satisfied.
Sam looked at them in horror. “Where am I?”
Then he knew. “Wait. I’ve heard about these places! It’s the scary bedtime stories that dog parents tell their puppies about where they’ll end up if they’re not clean or groomed or . . . perfect.”
Sam looked at the bars with disgust.
“This is a dog pound.”
Madam moved in closer toward Sam. “No, no, no, handsome. It’s not just any dog pound. It’s the country’s worst. It’s where they send the hopeless cases. It’s the end of the road. The unholiest of the unholy. The National Last-Ditch Dog Depository. And you . . . are the newest depositee.”
Sam looked stunned. Then angry. “I’m no depositee. I’m an Austrian red dachshund.”
The dogs looked back at him politely.
“I have a Duüglitz tuft!” said Sam.
Fabio stood on his only two legs, cleared his throat and struck a pose. “I have twelve nipples.”
Sam looked around frantically. “I’ve gotta get back home. Which way is out?”
Madam pointed up the spiral stairs. Sam dashed up several and then stopped.
“The door’s not locked,” said Madam.
Sam looked surprised.
Madam smiled slightly. “They know we won’t leave. We don’t want to.”
“Then what do you want?”
“Why, to be taken.”
Sam frowned, then turned to go higher. He stopped again and looked down at Madam. “Come with me. You’re not like those others. You’re perfect.”
Madam reached up with a paw, pushing off her fake, expertly sewn dog muzzle made of leather and snipped fur . . . revealing the snubbed flat nose of a cat.
“Nobody’s perfect,” she purred.
SEVENTEEN
BETRAYED
Sam dashed out of the ancient fort and into the frigid night. He looked back to see a series of crumbling walls hewn from massive red granite. It looked like what it was: a forgotten prison from a long-ago war, rotting in a frozen marsh. A sign, leaning from the wind, read: ADOPTIONS ON TUESDAYS, 1 P.M. TO 1:15 P.M.
Someone had scratched out the times with a marker, scrawling underneath: DON’T BOTHER.
Where was he? The hills looked familiar. He was at the edge of a familiar city. He sniffed the freezing air. A thousand scents flooded in, but it wasn’t difficult picking out the smoldering alder wood in the fireplace of Hamish’s upstairs study. He sniffed. Home was about five miles away. Maybe four. He’d follow the river.
As Sam started off, he looked back at the gloomy stone citadel from which he’d just emerged. Won’t be coming back here, he thought.
Back inside and below the old fort, down in its darkest recesses, the homeless, unwanted lost dogs of the National Last-Ditch Dog Depository pushed the start button on the VCR and huddled together as Lassie Come Home started again. Madam looked up the winding stairs that the strange new dachshund had just ascended. The others noticed her looking and looked at her. Then, on cue, they all said in a chorus: “He’ll be back.”
Staying to the shadows of the riverbank, Sam ran west. He would find Heidy and she would somehow understand that everything was a mistake—that it was Cassius, not he, that was the danger.
Breathing hard, Sam loped through the fresh snow, lit brightly by a newly emerged moon. His head throbbed as he reached a low draw in the hills where the wall crossed a stream, now frozen. A large drainpipe emerged below the stonework: the way he and Heidy would sneak out of the estate when she was supposed to be doing her chores. Sam stepped into its darkness. He froze at a familiar voice in the blackness inches from his face:
“They say poodles are the smartest breed. Alas, dear, departed Sam. ’Tis true.”
Sam backed from the pipe, startled. Cassius emerged into the moonlight and stood over the dachshund, now balanced awkwardly in the rocks of the frozen stream. “Move aside,” said Sam, regaining his composure.
“Poor, beautiful, perfect Sam the Lion. Your Heidy . . . she doesn’t love you now, dear boy. You’re . . . well, let’s review.” Cassius thought carefully, fluffing the curled fur around his ankles with his lips. “. . . Imperfect. Sick. Violent. Ugly.”
The words cut into Sam and found purchase in a mind still trying to make sense of the senseless. But he raised his head higher. “Move, Cassius. She still wants me.”
“No. She has me now,” said the poodle.
The words stung Sam as if they’d slapped him. The terrible truth behind the unspeakable events of the day came tumbling down upon Sam, and he grew dizzy. Everything had been a cruel hoax. Cassius was never after the baby. He was after him.
“Move away, Cassius,” said Sam, desperation edging into his voice.
“You’re not clear on this, dachshund. She doesn’t want you now. You’re not the perfect dog you were.”
Sam looked at his reflection in the ice. A filthy, ripped face looked back, blood still caked to his fur.
“I will be again,” said Sam. But Cassius was already stepping toward him, the perfectly combed balls of poodle fur blocking the moonlight and casting Sam into shadow. Sam stepped backward while Cassius lowered his head, stared intently and spoke low, each terrible word falling from his mouth with a rolling puff of steam into the frigid air:
“You know, dear Sam, some believe that for the dirty, unwanted, broken stray mongrels of the world . . . there is a guardian angel. I think that must be true. Those lesser dogs have nobody else, do they? Nobody but an angel would want them. They say she’s quite beautiful . . . descending down a glimmering beam of blue light when death arrives . . . offering the flawed, unwanted souls a second chance. I think it’s time you met her.”
Cassius again stepped toward Sam, who again stepped backward. “I’m not unwanted!” Sam said, his voice rising. “And I’m not flawed!”
Cassius smiled oddly and forced Sam backward another inch.
“Yes. You are.”
At that precise moment, Sam’s left rear foot stepped back onto the trigger plate of an open steel leg trap, freshly set for the winter beaver season. The jagged metal jaws came together several inches above Sam’s foot, crushing the bone, the sound echoing off the Vermont hills like a rifle shot. Sam rolled onto his back, reflexively kicking the air, his mouth flying open in a tortured howl of pain swallowed up by the cruel silence of the falling snow in a day at long last exhausted of heartbreak.
EIGHTEEN
ABYSS
A cold dawn broke slow and heavy over McCloud Heavenly Acres. Downstairs, Uncle Hamish sat silently at the breakfast table, alone in his thoughts. Violett brought him coffee, which he took without speaking. He took the cup but held her hand and stared ahead blankly. Violett laid her other thin hand atop his unruly hair and gently smoothed it. Upstairs, Mrs. Beaglehole stood stiffly in the threshold of Heidy’s bedroom door, peering in, as if waiting. In the large window seat before a dark sky, Heidy sat with knees curled to her chest, arms holding them tight. She stared out dully over the now white Vermont hills with spent eyes. There was simply no more moisture left in her body.
Flawed Dogs Page 5
