“How much do you get for a dog?”
“Depends.” They passed a row of trucks: big ones, little ones, all closed-bodied. They passed a rusty old corncrib, just a tin roof over wire mesh. The corncrib held twenty dogs. Most of them were alive.
A dog skull was half stuffed into the broken foundation. A single hole in the top of the skull, about the size of a twenty-two bullet. Ralston saw Nelson spot the skull. “Of course, I can’t sell every dog I buy. Some months it hardly pays me to put my trucks on the road. I don’t like to kill a dog, but the dogs I keep have to be just about perfect—intelligent, healthy, and I won’t keep no vicious dog.”
The dogs in the corncrib jumped at the mesh. Several did tricks that humans had taught them.
Ralston faced Lewis. He knew who his enemies were. “You see these dogs? These dogs’ll bring me some bucks. Doberman skins look like sealskin and German Shepherd fur—you know those big expensive down parkas? Wolf fur to trim the hood.” He pointed to the Setter. “Red Fox.” He spread his hands to include all the dogs: “It’s the newest thing—fun furs.”
Nelson pushed right between the two smiling men. “We came for your dog. What was his name?”
“Nop. His name is Nop. He’s a black-and-white Border Collie.”
“That’s what I thought you said,” Ralston said. “I should have told you. I don’t have no Border Collies, but,” he added, lifting the heavy padlock out of the hasp, “you’re welcome to look inside.” With a flourish he skidded the double doors open.
Lewis looked in every pen. He narrowed his heart down to his single purpose and checked every cage and even prowled behind the heap of farm machinery.
Sergeant Nelson’s day off was irretrievably spoiled. Though he stayed in the receiving pen, he couldn’t help seeing some of the cages: hundreds of dogs; all the breeds he knew and some he didn’t. He lit a cigarette. It smelled better than the smell in the barn.
Like a too amiable guide, Ralston accompanied Lewis on his excursion. “This pen here, young bitches. Most of them’ll go to the puppy farms. Regular little puppy machines, they are. The puppies’ll go to pet stores.”
“You got papers for them?”
Mock surprise. “Why? Do you have some papers to sell?”
Lewis bit his lower lip and continued his inspection. He was looking for Nop so he couldn’t see that bright-eyed German Shorthair and he refused to meet the eyes of those Beagles who looked so ill.
He ignored the pen of black Labs. Must have been twenty Labs, brown eyes set in deep black heads—older dogs—each, someone’s boon companion.
“You’d be surprised who we do business with: all the big med schools, U. Mass., Harvard, U. Va., all those.” Ralston waved airily. “That’s top dollar. The smaller pharmaceutical houses aren’t so particular—but”—philosophical shrug—“they don’t pay so good either.” He poured dry dogfood into a trough and the dogs fought to get at it.
“What’s wrong with that one?” A Weimaraner had won a place at the trough but was having great difficulty eating.
“I pulled his teeth.” Ralston stooped to croon to the dog, “You thought you were such a tough dog, didn’t you, sweet baby?”
Lewis wore a stone face. The chills ran up his arms and into his cheekbones. He didn’t trust himself to utter a word. When they completed the circle back to the receiving pen, he jerked a nod of disappointment.
Nelson asked, patiently, “Where’s the dog? Black-and-white Border Collie with a bent ear?”
Ralston shrugged. “I’ve shown you all my dogs.”
Nelson stepped on his cigarette butt. “I got a witness places that stolen dog on your truck yesterday morning. The state animal warden tells me you got to keep animals you buy for twenty-four hours, federal law. If that dog ain’t here, you’re in trouble.”
Ralston laughed.
Stiff-legged, Lewis went outside. He didn’t dare take his hands from his pockets. Lewis looked at the horizon, the brush in the gully bottoms.
“I don’t want to pee on your parade, Sergeant, but paperwork mistakes happen all the time.” Ralston’s laugh was a rich, juicy chortle. “Dogs get misplaced. You think a court’s gonna get excited about that, then, you just go ahead and take me to court.”
“Uh-huh.”
Lewis’s gorge rose in his throat. It was painful swallowing it down.
The sergeant put his face in Ralston’s and said, “You won’t do any more business in my town. I drove all the way down here for a dog and, by Jesus, I’ll go back with that dog. Otherwise, next time your truck parks in Cincinnati, gonna be a black-and-white parked right beside it. How many people gonna come around to sell you dogs if there’s a couple officers watching every transaction? I’ll ask a couple patrolmen who own dogs. Maybe the cops who train our German Shepherds. Those guys love their dogs more’n they love their wives. I’ll have an answer out of you, Ralston, and I’ll have that answer now.”
Ralston licked his lips. “I think I remember a black-and-white dog going out to Detweiler Labs this morning. It must have been a paperwork mistake. I thought we picked up that dog three days ago. Honest mistake.”
“Detweiler Labs, where?”
Ralston told him. He stepped deeper into his barn to cut the light switches. Swiftly, Sergeant Nelson moved outside, sliding the big doors shut and snapping the laminated chrome padlock.
“Hey! Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Open this door!”
When Ralston started hammering the door and kicking, the policeman moved a few steps away where it was quieter. He fired a cigarette and drew the smoke deep. “Don’t take it to heart, Burkholder. People are scumbags. You just got to get used to the fact.” With his toe he nudged the dog skull under the foundation—out of sight. “How long you been foolin’ with dogs?”
Lewis swallowed. “We always had dogs on the farm, but I’ve been running trials for eight years now.”
“I never saw no stockdog trial. I never did have no special fondness for dogs.” When he plucked the latch pin on the corncrib door, the metal door swung open of its own accord.
The dogs were suspicious of the opening.
“I can’t help you no more,” Nelson went on. “Law says I can inspect a dealer for stolen dogs, but I can’t go into no research facility without a regular warrant. I got no pull in Kentucky.”
A Shepherd slipped through. An Elkhound. A pair of Dobermans. None of them wasted a glance on the humans.
“I’ll go by myself,” Lewis said.
Nelson was rocking on his heels as the dogs streamed out of the cage. One of two looked back, wistfully, at the humans, but most of them were running flat out and the stragglers soon followed. A hunting dog bayed as they sped through the fields, running like a pack, dodging stubby cedars and brush piles.
The barn door shook. Ralston threatened to “have somebody’s badge.”
Nelson said, “Let me know when you get your dog back.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Look at that red dog run. Rate he’s traveling, he’ll be in the next county by nightfall. Jesus! Look at the way he cleared that fence. He’s got the pedal to the metal.”
“Those Irish Setters can run. Fellow back home has a Setter, name of Rusty. Nice Setter. Runs right behind his pickup wherever he travels. Dog’ll do twenty, twenty-five miles without breathing hard.”
TWELVE
When Dogs Run Free
By nine o’clock, Detweiler Laboratory’s executives were seeking their numbered parking spaces and car doors slammed and people exchanged how-de-dos and the building’s machines started up (the air conditioner, lab machinery and computers). The smell of fresh coffee drifted out to the dogs on the loading dock and they could hear the lab techs gossiping and joking.
Nine-thirty, the forklift came for the cage. The driver scribbled the dog count on his clipboard. When the forklift’s electric motor whirred and the cage shook under their feet, several dogs moved nervously, a couple growled.
&nbs
p; The forklift rolled down a wide concrete passageway, pausing at labs J-l, L-3 and Chemo-16, dropping a few dogs here, a few there. The driver wore heavy elbow-length leather gauntlets, but the dogs were too apathetic to bite.
Nop lay in the farthest corner, very still. His brain was frantic but he was motionless as the Brittany bitch. Her eyes were wide open, but she wasn’t seeing anything. Her breath was quick and shallow. She had given up on her puppies.
As the forklift purred toward the front of the building, the lab doors changed from plain metal to wood veneer.
Checked his clipboard: five for 312.
Six for 314. Dr. Barnhardt. Right.
Just two more dogs. Oops, Dr. Oblenz wanted six. Two’s what we got. Two’s what he’ll get.
When the driver lifted the Brittany bitch into the lab cage, he knew she was dead or dying but that was none of his concern. Let Oblenz sort it out. He kept a good grip on Nop’s collar and Nop knew this wasn’t the time.
One wall of the lab was cages from floor to ceiling. Some of the cages still held food and water dishes from previous occupants but there were only two dogs: Nop and the Brit. Nop lay with his snout between his paws. The Brit was on her side, heaving and gasping.
Nop didn’t watch. Death comes to us all.
An interior room, the lab was windowless, lit with fluorescents. Their soft steady hum was punctuated by the irregular plink of water dripping into the stainless lab sink. A laboratory table with shrouded instruments. An old office desk pushed against the wall. Opposite: the heavy doors of a walk-in cooler. The wall phone was beside a message board. The messages on the green composition board were standard industrial messages concerning safety and nondiscrimination and curled notes (and cartoons) from the last experiment.
Dr. Oblenz was a short, stocky man smoking a Balkan Sobranie cigarette in a dark amber holder. His eyes darted left and right. His hands were gripped behind his back. He entered with the authority of a limousine. His assistant hurried behind. She was awry.
His gold hair was plump and slick and couldn’t quite conceal his widow’s peak. He rubbed his hands together. He opened desk drawers and dumped them: erasers, paper clips, a tin of aspirins. “You’ll take care of this trash, Wendy, hmm?”
Too much eye shadow and her lipstick was too dark for her pale complexion. She was a little thing and her light brown hair was sun streaked. She brushed a wisp of hair from her eyes. “Yes, Dr. Oblenz.”
They propped the hall door open while the stubby doctor emptied drawers and files and his assistant stacked them outside. He was, perhaps, fifty. She was half that. He wore his confidence like a tailored suit. She was always banging into sharp edges and handled lab glassware very, very carefully.
He paused to insert a new cigarette in his holder. With a slight flourish he laid a brightly colored folder on the desk. Oblenz was Middle European and flamboyant in small things. “We will be repeating Barnhardt’s experiment,” he said.
“Repeating it?”
“Ah, yes. Dr. Barnhardt’s experiment indicated that our client’s additive fed in great concentrations produced cancerous growth in the kidney and liver of test animals. Our client, naturally, was displeased by this result so we shall repeat the experiment using lower doses. Simple, yes?”
“Won’t the FDA … ?”
A paternal chuckle. Oblenz beamed. “Wendy, I am sure the client has anticipated that objection. In any case, it is not our concern. We shall replicate Barnhardt’s work. It should not be too arduous.”
Rubbing his hands, he turned to the cages. As chance had it, he saw the Brittany first. He bowed to look closer. He ran his right hand through his hair. “Dead,” he announced. “This specimen is dead. It is quite filthy and it is dead. Who has brought me this specimen?”
Nop had one eye on the propped-open hall door. His nerves sang to the anger in the man’s voice. When men get angry, they make mistakes.
Perhaps some ancestor had survived lying doggo, feigning unconsciousness under some prehistoric sky. Perhaps Nop had a genuine idea. Nop let his head slide off his paws and relaxed his jaw so his tongue hung down and lay on the cage floor. His eyes slid back so far in his sockets he couldn’t see. Only the whites were visible. He shuddered. Shuddered again. “This too! Dying!”
Nop could smell the cigarette smoke. He shuddered, kicked one leg.
Rather sadly, Oblenz said, “I am a scientist. It is my work.” Though he turned to Wendy, her ears were only representative of the many ears he wished to hear his complaint. “How am I to experiment with specimens like these? I have spoken to the director. To the director I have said, this supplier brings us filthy, unhealthy animals. We are not a veterinary clinic, yet we must clean and make healthy the specimens he brings us. I ask for six healthy specimens and here are two: one dead, one dying.”
The smoke from his cigarette swirled around his head. Nop didn’t change his position but he didn’t shudder either. Behind half-closed lids he was watching everything.
Oblenz went to the wall phone, dialed, paused to draw himself up before he punched the final number. His voice was smooth as fresh cream. “Jeannie? Dr. Oblenz. I wish to see the director on a matter of some urgency. I see. No. The assistant director most definitely will not do, as he is the one who awards suppliers with our contracts. So, when the director has concluded his long-distance call, perhaps he can do me the great honor … No!” He lifted his cigarette like an exclamation point. “I shall speak with the director, myself.” Dr. Oblenz hung up. “Wendy, I want you to take the dogs from their cages and lay them on the big table. I shall bring the director here so he can see this outrage!”
Nop’s heart sank when he closed the door.
The assistant parked herself on the corner of the desk and made a face. “Heavy,” she said. She checked her makeup in her compact mirror and refreshed it. She hummed, “We all live in a yellow submarine,” as she rolled on a pair of disposable surgical gloves. She slid a stainless-steel trolley under the Brittany’s cage and wrinkled her nose and said, “Yeech,” without breathing. The Brittany was skin and bones and swollen rock-hard dugs. When she arranged the Brittany on the lab table, she set it up on its paws so the dugs wouldn’t show but the Brit’s legs trembled and twitched and the corpse fell over. “Uck,” she said, through her nose.
Though Nop hated to have anyone hold his forepaws, he didn’t tense when she hauled him out of the cage onto the smooth cold cart.
“Doggy,” she said through her nose, “you stingk.”
She grabbed at him when he moved but missed altogether. His claws found no purchase on the smooth steel but he caught himself on all fours once he hit the floor and went out immediately for his balance point.
“Oh,” she said, hand to mouth. “Now I’ve done it.”
Nop came around, facing her in his working stance. His crouch was low and precise. His tail flicked once to the side, catching her eye.
She hated that tail.
His jaw inches off the floor, his neck muscles tense, his shoulders slipping forward in the familiar stalking pattern.
She hated his eyes.
Wendy took a step back. “Hey,” she said, “don’t you do nothin’ now. Don’t you hurt me. Nice doggy. Nice doggy.”
Nop’s tail flicked. He forced her retreat. Her eyes shifted between him and that instrument on the wall. Nop didn’t know why she wanted the instrument but he was determined she shouldn’t do anything beyond his control.
She darted around the lab desk.
That instant Nop was on the lab tabletop, at the very edge, facing her.
Like a timber wolf. Just like a timber wolf!
Nop had herded five-hundred-pound calves driven wild by rodeo ropers. He had faced down heifers protecting their first calf. His eyes were hot and empty. He was so delicate, so extreme.
And Wendy’s heart beat like it was going to burst.
If she had challenged him, he would have leapt into her face, just like he would have stopped an angry cow, but s
he did not dare and backed steadily into the farthest corner of the lab. She started to cry. He shifted gracefully to the left so he could hold her and still be near the door.
The hall door was bound to open again. Nop knew that much. Sooner or later, that hall door would open and he’d be through it.
The girl’s tears were frightened and bitter. Her face ran. Nop was a free dog, strong and skilled. Pitiless. Without taking his eyes from her, he lay down and cleaned his forepaws where she had touched him.
Should he lock his car? Lewis Burkholder didn’t know. He never locked in White Post. He always locked on the road; that was the general rule. On the farm or visiting a near neighbor, he never took his key out of the ignition. Who would want to steal the VW? He supposed it was possible. There was a sandlot baseball diamond right across the street from Detweiler Labs and half a dozen kids playing but none of them looked old enough to drive. He’d never had a vehicle stolen. There was always the first time. Lewis Burkholder was dithering. He took a deep breath and dropped the key into his shirt pocket. He cranked down the front windows and popped the rear windows open so Nop would have plenty of air.…
The little car was parked in a visitor space in front of Detweiler Labs. That’s what the sign said on the metal standard with its ring of night floodlights clustered on the lawn.
Why would anyone want to be able to read Detweiler’s sign at night? Maybe because they’d be unfamiliar with this little Kentucky town and had a truckload of dogs to deliver.
The laboratory was a long industrial shed. The front end was faced with brick beneath plate-glass windows. Though it was a pleasant morning, the building looked like it would be hot inside and the window blinds were drawn.
Through the glass door Lewis could see right into the reception room. The receptionist doubled as the switchboard operator. She wore one of those headphones and was pecking something out on the typewriter. The door was locked so Lewis rapped. Rapped again, harder. She looked up, annoyed. Mouthed words. Gestured. There was a button and metal speaker grille on the doorpost. Just like a drive-in hamburger place.
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