Nop's Trials

by Donald McCaig

  Hack glided around Mark, whistling soundlessly, like a workman intent on his task.

  Mark cautiously tried to match the other man’s jabs. He didn’t quite know what to do with the fencing pliers but used them to block some of Hack’s fast punches. His nose hurt bad. All his face above his mouth swelled like a painful melon.

  Split seconds, shifting distances, pain and blood. Lewis had Sandy wrapped on hands and knees. He rammed Sandy’s head against the wall of the house. The sound seemed loud to Lewis but you couldn’t have heard it at the street.

  Mark’s jabs were ineffectual and Hack batted them aside. Mark hadn’t landed one good blow. Hack stepped back, dropped his arms and shook them out. Lewis rammed Sandy’s head again. Sandy said, “Uh.” Hack grinned and shook his head like an indulgent father watching favorite offspring at play.

  Lewis flung Sandy at the house and hurt him bad.

  A siren growled. It wasn’t far away, already in the driveway.

  Lewis had Sandy’s left arm bent behind his back and Sandy’s neck in a choke hold. He knelt on one of Sandy’s legs.

  Hack straightened at the siren. He said, “Hssst!” and wiped his mouth. Freed from the barrage of blows, Mark paused for a heartbeat or two before he smacked Hack on the side of the face with the flat of the fence pliers. Though the pliers didn’t break bones, there’s plenty blood in the face and it shot out where the pliers landed.

  Hack said, “Oh. Cops. Cops, you idiot.” Hack touched the blood spurting through his fingers into his dangling hair.

  The cops was one cop, Sergeant Nelson, who watched Lewis grinding Sandy’s face against the concrete for a moment before announcing cheerfully, “What have we here? Mr. Hackemeyer, hello. Burkholder, if you keep rubbing Sandy Allbright’s face into the cement, it’s gonna damage his credibility. Leave off! Break it up!”

  Mark’s face was gray and he hunkered down with his back against the house. His legs were trembling and he had to sit flat on the pavement with his legs stuck out in front of him.

  “Let him up, Burkholder. I won’t tell you again!”

  Lewis let his hands drop and leaned back on his knees. “He killed Nop,” he said in a voice the color of lead. “He killed a dog that was a friend of mine.” Lewis got to his feet but never quit looking at Sandy who was bloody and swollen. “I’m not sorry I did this,” Lewis said. “If you put me in prison for it, I’m not sorry.”

  “That bastard hit me with that thing,” Hackemeyer said. “That’s a deadly weapon.”

  “Not deadly enough, Mr. Hackemeyer,” Nelson said. “I know you.”

  That bit of information hung in the air while Hackemeyer wiped at his bloody hair and Sandy crawled into the bushes to toss his lunch and Lewis knelt beside his son-in-law touching his temples. “Don’t even try to breathe through your nose,” Lewis advised. “No sense even trying.”

  “Mr. Whitenaur, he’s a particular friend of yours?” Nelson asked Hack.

  “Yeah,” Hack replied. He was offended trying to comb the blood out of his hair. “Whitenaur hired us to watch his home. He thought these two farmers might try and trespass.”

  “What about the dog?” Nelson asked.

  Sandy turned one ruined eye to the cop. His face looked horrible. His eyebrows had been scraped right off. “There’s one dog won’t yap at anybody again. And what of it? A man can kill a dog anytime he wants to, right? No law against that.”

  Sergeant Nelson said, “Some of your caps are broken, Sandy. It’s gonna cost you to get them replaced.”

  Sandy’s hand went to his mouth. Tentative and amazed. His eyes filled. “Oh, I’ll get you, hayseed. One day …”

  Lewis said, “I believe Mark here’s going into shock. I took the advanced first aid, you know. This is a life-threatening situation.”

  “Call the ambulance,” Sandy said. “I want X rays. I’m gonna sue you, hayseed. Count on it!”

  “I call an ambulance, it’s official,” Nelson said. “I’ll bet you don’t want it official.”

  Very quick off the mark, Hack said, “That’s right, Sergeant.”

  Nelson eyeballed him for the longest time before nodding once, like he and Hack had entered into an agreement between professionals. “I’ll take you two in my car. Burkholder, you follow.”

  Lewis helped Mark walk. Sandy had to make it on his own.

  Lewis drove by habit and reflex. A great calm came over him. What had been was foreordained and likewise that which was to come. His ears registered Mark’s breathing. “You just relax,” he said. “There ain’t that much wrong with you.” Quite unconsciously, he used the strong calm voice of Lewis Burkholder, Chief, White Post Volunteer Fire Department.

  “I’m sorry, Lewis,” Mark said. “It’s a shame.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about Nop,” Lewis said from the center of his great calm. “Nop loved the farm. In two or three days his soul will drift on home. I expect it’ll take a day for him to find his way through the mountains.”

  In the lead car Sergeant Nelson said, pleasantly, “You boys just moved up on my list. I believe you bobbed right up to the top of it.”

  Sandy moaned. “I think my ankle is broken.”

  Hack sat as far away from Sandy as he could.

  “How’d you come to meet a man like Whitenaur?” Nelson asked.

  “Old friends. Mr. D and us are old friends.”

  “That dog you killed was stolen,” Nelson said. “The dog was worth felony money. You boys just hit the jackpot.”

  “You gonna try and nail us?” Hack asked, angrily. “You just go ahead and try.”

  Sergeant Nelson drove without the siren.

  After a bit, Hack said, “The dog isn’t dead, you know.”

  Sergeant Nelson pulled into the emergency entrance of Doctor’s Hospital but didn’t get out or open the door. He faced his prisoners through the steel mesh of the cage. “Spill,” he said.

  “Off the list,” Hack bargained. “Not on your list anywhere.”

  Sandy cursed. He said Hack was a punk. He would have said more except Hack grabbed his wrist and twisted it.

  Tersely, Hack told Sergeant Nelson how he’d left the dog chained to a green dumpster behind Holman’s Bakery. “I gave the dog away,” he said and chuckled. His stiff, bloody hair fell over one eye. “Mutt like that? Five thousand dollars for a mutt like that? He looked like he’d lost every fight he ever fought. I gave the dog to a red-haired bag lady. I never killed him. I just found him a home.”

  Sandy was stupefied. “Why?” he asked and the question came from some place in him deeper than pain.

  “Because he had more guts than you do,” Hack said.

  And Nelson opened the door and Sandy went right into Emergency and Hack snarled, “I don’t need no doctor. I just need a shampoo,” and his figure got small until it was gone.

  The intern took Sandy before he took Mark and Lewis felt a slight perverse pleasure that he’d hurt his enemies more than they’d hurt his kin. Sergeant Nelson took the seat next to him.

  “These emergency rooms are awful sad,” Lewis said.

  “You get used to ’em,” Nelson said. “They didn’t kill your dog. They gave it to a bag lady. There’s a red-headed bag lady named Susie Q. Sounds like the one. I’ll get your dog back.”

  Lewis said, “Don’t be foolin’ with me now. This isn’t a foolin’ matter.”

  So Nelson told Lewis just what Hack said and added he didn’t think the man was lying.

  Lewis chewed on that for a few minutes. “All right,” he said slowly. “So why are you helpin’ us now? You might have helped us earlier and saved considerable grief.”

  “I warned Whitenaur,” Nelson answered.

  “I figured you had,” Lewis said gravely. “Wasn’t anybody else knew we were in town.”

  The intern came out to say they’d taped Mark’s cracked ribs and set his broken nose. They wanted Mark to stay in the hospital overnight for observation.

  “You’re worryin’ he has a co
ncussion?” Lewis asked.

  That was one of the possibilities, yes.

  “You just hang on to him until you’re sure he’s right.” Lewis knew he’d be the one to tell Penny and Beverly. The prospect didn’t please him overmuch.

  Sergeant Nelson told Lewis about the trouble Whitenaur had made after Lewis came looking for Nop before. Nelson said he was on his way to Whitenaur’s house when the police dispatcher reported a burglary in progress and four burglars fighting, trying to kill one another.

  Lewis laughed. It wasn’t particularly funny but he had been dry so long. “Nop’s alive,” he said. “That’s the good news.”

  They phoned the city dog pound from a booth right in the emergency room but no Nop. Nelson called the Ohio State animal officer and asked questions and made a few more calls. No Nop.

  Nelson said he’d put the word out on the street. Finding Susie Q would be “duck soup.”

  Lewis took a room at the downtown Holiday Inn. He showered, changed and went right back out again. Lewis checked the city pound himself. Not everybody knows what a champion stockdog looks like. No Nop.

  He waited until he had eaten dinner (Salisbury steak, medium rare with baked potato and sour cream and the blue cheese salad dressing) before he called Beverly. When he said Nop was alive she said, “Thank God.” She said she had prayed for Lewis.

  “I don’t have him yet, Beverly,” he said. “But we’re close. Sergeant Nelson said finding him would be duck soup.”

  Lewis downplayed the fight and made Mark’s injuries seem quite minor, but Beverly’s voice got quiet and distant all at once. “Lewis, what have you done?”

  Lewis’s excuses didn’t really help.

  Beverly said some of the things a wife says to a husband on these occasions, infrequent though they may be. Lewis hung his head. She said, “Lewis, where would we be if you got hurt or killed? You’re not a kid anymore.”

  “That man bragged he’d murdered Nop.”

  Undaunted, she replied, “But he hadn’t, had he?”

  No answering that.

  After a bit, when she was in a better frame of mind, she forgave him. “Phone in the morning, as soon as Mark is released from the hospital. Don’t dawdle now, or you’ll miss us.”

  Beverly, Penny and the Stink Dog were setting off for the Kentucky Bluegrass Sheep Dog Trials. Yes, they had the camper on the pickup. Neighbors had helped them load. Yes, they had somebody to feed the livestock. “Once you find Nop, you can just drive down and meet us there. Lexington isn’t far from where you are. Lewis, Penny’s so darned excited.”

  “Don’t worry her about Mark. He isn’t hurt bad. I’ll put him on a bus tomorrow and send him home. He should rest up.” Lewis laughed. “He’ll need his strength for when the baby comes.”

  Finding Nop was not duck soup. That night, the Cincinnati P.D. had two murders, an arson and several burglaries to handle. Nobody had time to look for a bag lady and a stolen dog.

  In the morning the hospital released Mark. Mark’s cheeks were black and blue. “It was a good thing you had a hammer,” Lewis joked. “You needed it.” Mark said he’d be glad to get back to the farm.

  By eleven o’clock in the morning, the cops traced Susie Q to the Belvedere. Though everybody remembered her and her dog, nobody knew where they’d gone. Lewis lay around watching afternoon TV. Waiting was hard for him.

  Eight-thirty that night, they finally traced Susanna Cunningham to the House of Naomi. Nelson called Lewis to fill him in. “The address they got for this Leon character isn’t current. We’ll have to catch him tomorrow morning when he comes in to work.”

  “Saturday?” Lewis asked.

  Sourly: “Yeah. Saturday. That’s my day off. Me and the wife had plans.”

  So Lewis ate dinner in the Holiday Inn again.

  Home Box Office was showing Atlantic City with Burt Lancaster. Lewis’d always liked Burt Lancaster because he’d been a real athlete before he became a movie star. It shocked him to see Burt looking so old. That night Lewis slept badly.

  At a quarter to seven, the morning of June 12, Lewis Burkholder was waiting in Mark’s VW outside the steps of the women’s shelter. Just one year ago, he’d been in Lexington watching the first dogs run. Eighty dogs ran on qualifying day and the top twenty would run in the finals, Sunday. Last year Lewis ran the Stink Dog. It had been so green, so very green: the long horse pasture, lifting away. The wild Texas sheep they brought in special, just for the trial.

  Nelson rapped on the car window and Lewis let him in. Nelson wore a red-and-black checked hunting jacket and his tan Hush Puppies were spattered with flecks of white paint. “My wife really loves you, Burkholder. Thanks for the wonderful day off.”

  Lewis turned away wrath. “It’s gonna be a nice morning,” he said. “You ever see a sheep dog trial?”

  Nelson hadn’t. Lewis told him about the Bluegrass Trial, which is the Kentucky Derby of all American trials.

  “All those guys come flying in for this trial? First prize is five hundred bucks? Don’t make sense to me, buying a five-thousand-dollar dog to win a five-hundred-dollar prize.”

  “There’s plenty of other trials with bigger prize money. But the Bluegrass—well, it’s special.”

  “That diddybop comin’ down the street now. Five’ll get you ten, that’s your man.”

  Leon readily admitted selling the dog. The dog was too vicious for the pound, Leon said. “White Truck don’t care if a dog is mean. They take all kinds.”

  “Which white truck?”

  “White Truck, man. White Truck. Parks down behind the Shakey’s Pizza.”

  “A dog dealer?”

  “Sure, what you think?”

  “What’s the dealer’s name?”

  “How should I know? White Truck, man.”

  When Sergeant Nelson called the state animal control officer, he learned about the White Truck. He learned about one or two other dealers, too, but White Truck was the worst. “A real piece of work,” the animal officer said. “Elite Kennels runs that truck.” And he provided an address and a little free advice: were it him, he wouldn’t announce his visit in advance. Nelson was so determined to salvage some of his day that the two men rolled through Goshen, Ohio, by half past eight.

  No sign advertised Elite Kennels. One sign beside the gate said:

  NO TRESPASSING. ATTACK DOGS.

  In black stick-on letters another sign claimed:

  DANGEROUS DOGS. NO VISITORS. TRESPASSERS WILL BE DAMAGED.

  “Where’s their hospitality suite?” Nelson asked, gruffly.

  Lewis was all keyed up and his laugh was sudden and loud. Nelson gave him a look to prove it wasn’t that funny and climbed the gate.

  The road crossed the top of a knoll and the whole place was laid out below them. The fields were overgrown and choked with brush and scrub cedar. Most of the fences were down. A big old barn with a metal corncrib and, some distance away, a newish house. “It’s been some time since this place was farmed,” Lewis observed.

  “Yeah, I suppose so.” Nelson was listening to dogs barking. He had his hand on his hip, not so far from his off-duty revolver.

  The farmhouse was a low brick rancher. It wasn’t very big but everything was new and neat as a pin. The windows were covered with aluminum screen-and-storm combinations and the roof guttering was bright. The brick walk was bordered by low wire guards so nobody would step off and crush the new grass.

  A bearded man opened the door. Lewis hated him on sight. “You can’t read?” Ralston asked. “You want to see what my Dobes can do to your throat?”

  Wordlessly, Nelson flashed his I.D.

  Ralston didn’t take it for granted. He studied the card, “Cinci, huh? You’re a long way from home. So?”

  “You got a federal license, pal. Federal law says law officers got a right to go into your kennels.”

  “I think I’m gonna electrify that gate,” Ralston noted. “Wouldn’t be too hard to do, just use a regular charger and insulate the
hinges. You know how many kooks I get up here? You think the law protects me?”

  “You picked up a stolen Border Collie, black and white, in Cincinnati yesterday morning.”

  Ralston twinkled like Old King Cole. “Jesus Christ, no! My drivers always get a bill of sale. Every dog. You mean some thieving bastard sold us a stolen animal? Mercy.”

  “Yeah, yeah. We go down and look through your dogs and pick up the dog and we’re out of your hair. Let’s go.”

  Lewis disliked Ralston’s beard, which reminded him of the spike on a German helmet. He disliked the neatness of the man’s haircut and thought Ralston spent too much time in front of a mirror.

  Ralston’s rough green flannel shirt seemed an obvious attempt to make the man more rural than he was, and his neat whipcord trousers were too neat and tucked into a pair of comfortably worn L. L. Bean boots. Ralston’s wearing them was the first bad thing Lewis ever knew about Bean boots. Lewis stuffed his balled-up fists into his pockets. What was coming over him? His knuckles were hardly scabbed from his last fight.

  “Who’s your pal?” Ralston asked. “Looks like you lost the argument.” He noted Lewis’s bruises.

  “You should have seen the other guy,” Lewis said, cheerfully, meaning it, every word.

  “He a cop too?”

  “He’s the dog’s owner. He’ll come along to pick out his dog.”

  “Nothing in the law says I have to let anybody look except law officers.…”

  “I could make you so much trouble,” Nelson said, pleasantly enough.

  Since Ralston seemed to be weighing just how much trouble Nelson could actually cause, Lewis said, “I’m Lewis Burkholder from White Post, Virginia, and I’ve come for my dog.”

  Ralston said, “You know, I think I will electrify that gate.” He came out of his house and heeled the door shut.

  Nelson kept right up with him though his feet were hitting the ground about twice as often as the bigger man’s. “You buy many dogs?”

  “We’ll do between five and six thousand a year. I’m just a little guy, kind of a cottage industry.”