Bloodlines (29 page)

In spite of my maddening circuit around the garbage, I again had the sense of reaching my goal more quickly than I’d expected. These sheds were smaller than the first. For no particular reason, I’d intended to begin by checking out the one on the left. I’d even begun to search for the door, but the sudden eruption of frantic thumping in the other shed changed my plan. A dog was in there, a dog trying to batter down the door, which turned out to open outward and to be barred shut by a piece of two-by-four suspended on heavy metal hooks. I had the bar off in no time.

Missy? But I was as careful as I’d been at the first shed. I held the door, braced it, and began to inch it open. I had nothing to fear, though. A big, familiar-feeling creature knocked the flashlight from my hand, scoured my face, bounced at my feet, leapt up, popped down, and nearly made it out the door before my groping hands sank into a thick double coat and finally
grabbed a leather collar. I gripped it tightly, retrieved the flashlight, and trained the beam directly on that full mask so much like Kimi’s, the black cap, the bar down the nose, the goggles around the eyes.

My relief was so great that a wave of exhaustion suddenly swept over me, but Missy—thank God, Missy—was all energy. Her powerful body swept back and forth, and her tail sailed joyfully above her back like a plume waving, exactly as the breed standard says. I pulled the leash and collar from my pocket, snapped the leash to one ring of the nylon choke, and slipped it over her head. One goal accomplished. I swept the light over the interior of the shed. The floor was dirt, and Missy had, of course, been forced to soil her quarters. She’d tried to free herself, but had succeeded only in digging a series of holes before she’d repeatedly hit chicken wire. Was there evidence to photograph? The absence of food and water? Weak evidence, at best.

But the third shack, only a few steps away? Because I hadn’t wanted to use the flash outdoors, I’d taken photos of only one dog, a starving dog cruelly confined, of course, but only one dog. Were those photos enough? I was taking Missy with me, but I couldn’t free all of these dogs, not by myself. The elkhound bitch and her three puppies? I couldn’t carry the puppies while leading Missy and the bitch, could I? And the two bitches, oblivious to my purpose, might decide to go for each other’s throats. The golden? Pregnant, emaciated, maybe dying? She was the legal property of Walter or Cheryl Simms, and if my evidence proved inadequate or insufficient, so she would remain.

I hated to leave Missy in that shack, even for a few minutes, but, with a malamute on lead, it would be impossible to check out the other shed. To enter, I’d need one hand for the door and one for the flashlight. If the place, in fact, held a dog? I’d never manage to handle Missy and the stranger while using the flashlight, never mind the camera. So I barred the door on an eager, puzzled Missy, crossed to the neighboring shed, and located
the door, directly opposite the one to Missy’s. Like the first shed, where I’d found the starving golden, this one had a door fastened with an oversize hook and eye. I repeated the cautious procedure I’d used to enter the other two sheds. With Missy almost free and the two of us almost safe, I didn’t want to get careless and end up mauled, maybe even too badly injured to get Missy away. As I eased open the door, I listened hard for the soft pad of feet or for the sound of a dog panting or simply breathing. I heard nothing. I inserted the flashlight and peered in. The other sheds had been barren. This one was piled with junk: a rusted wood stove, a pile of split logs, a chain saw, a pickax, a shovel, a couple of galvanized metal buckets. Still moving cautiously, I opened the door. By now, it seemed to me, my nose should have adapted to the pervasive stench, but when I stepped in, my rib cage contracted in deep, rhythmic waves of nausea. I pulled out the camera and tried to prepare for the sickening task ahead of me. There was a dog in here, after all, a dog beyond the suffering of the others. The dark, dirty shed reeked of death.

With the camera in one hand and the flashlight in the other, I searched for the body. I found it at the far end of the place, shoved behind the wood stove. The body lay on the dirt floor, but the head and shoulders, weirdly encased in clear plastic, rested on a pile of logs, as if he’d stretched out to rest with his head propped up on a hard, rough pillow. His black shoes were muddy, and flecks of wood and bits of debris dirtied his dark suit. The plastic had slipped from the top of the head. The beam of my flashlight shone on crimped white-blond hair.

I shot ten pictures one right after the other. Then I staggered outside and vomited. When I wiped my hand across my mouth, my own skin reeked.

As always, a dog brought me to myself. Missy was thumping and scratching at her door. I closed and
latched the door to the shed that held the corpse. Then I opened Missy’s door, grabbed her leash, shut the door, and barred it. Less than a minute later, she was dashing along the rough track that led through the woods and to my car. I stumbled after her.

Opponents of crate training point out that the ancestors of our domestic dogs were not denning animals, and it’s true that wolves are nomads who use the den exclusively as a nursery for their pups. When the pups are old enough to rove with the adults, the pack abandons the den until the arrival of a new litter. In many respects, both anatomical and behavioral, though, the domestic dog is like a juvenile wolf.
Neoteny
, it’s called, the retention of immature characteristics in adulthood, like the little wolf-pup teeth of grown-up dogs. Face licking? Food begging. And denning? Maybe. But neoteny is no excuse for cruelty; a den is a nursery, not a jail. A crate can be a portable den, welcome protection from car crashes and dog-show chaos, but the dog who’s crated half his life is a dog with atrophied muscles and an atrophied mind.

Normally, then, I’m a crate training mugwump. When Missy and I reached the Bronco, though, I felt grateful to Enid Sievers for what I suspected was an overuse of the Vari-Kennel she’d tried to sell me. Although the crates in my car were wire mesh, not polypropylene, when I opened the tailgate, Missy hopped up and in like a show-circuit veteran and happily settled herself on a threadbare pink blanket. I gave
her a drink of water and a handful of dog biscuits, replenished the supply in my pockets, and latched the cage. The rain had stopped. I pulled off the poncho, stowed it in the back of the car, and closed the tailgate.

Then I headed back.

Why? Neoteny, maybe. I’m an honorary malamute now, but I was raised by goldens as a golden. If I abandoned that bitch? She could go into labor any time, and I wasn’t sure that she’d survive it on her own. The presence of a dead human body would immediately rouse the police, but would they also raid the puppy mill and save the dogs? A raid could involve the MSPCA, the Colley Society, local animal control officials, and the local health department, as well as the state police or a deputy sheriff. Also, a raid would inevitably mean the arrival of a veterinarian, and I was as worried about the vet as I was about delay. Euthanasia is a sad and sometimes necessary fact of raids on puppy mills; the attending vet euthanizes the dogs deemed beyond salvation. The golden? She was filthy, wasted, and miserable, but she’d shown no sign of acute illness or pain. I thought she stood a chance of recovery. But would the attending vet agree? The extra crate was sitting empty in the Bronco; the golden’s miserable, filthy shed was only a short distance from the edge of the woods; and I’d discovered a quick, smooth route that would get me there and back in under ten minutes. A faint prelude to dawn was just beginning to color the sky: I wouldn’t even need a flashlight. If she couldn’t walk? A mature golden retriever bitch weighs about sixty pounds. This one, although heavily pregnant, couldn’t be more than forty-five pounds; if she couldn’t cover the distance on her own, I’d carry her.

It took me less than five minutes to reach the far end of the rough trail through the woods. The predawn light was already reducing the dimensions of the cleared land around the Simmses’ house. I glanced around, stepped into the open, and crossed rapidly to the shelter of the golden’s shed. Then I hesitated. If she’d started to
whelp? I hadn’t promised to save her; I was here only to give her a chance. I pulled out my big flashlight, but, this time, instead of inching open the door, I walked boldly in. The golden hadn’t gone into labor, and she’d eaten the dog biscuits I’d left. Once again, she struggled to her feet.

I slipped the training collar over her head, attached the lead, and whispered, “Good girl.” Then I patted my left thigh and added, “Let’s go!”

And you know what? With a feeble wag of her tail, she followed me out the door. To delay the Simmses’ discovery of my visit, I stopped briefly, closed the door, and forced the hook into the eye. Then, leading the golden, I took a couple of steps and tried to assess her strength. Could she make it to the woods on her own? Or should I carry her? But if I stooped and lifted her, would she panic? Although she was pitifully weak, she seemed in no danger of losing her balance, and she was obviously willing to accompany me.

“Let’s go, girl!” I murmured. “You can do it! Let’s go!” I moved ahead of her, and she gamely followed. Then I slowed down to match her pace; if she stumbled on the rough ground, I wanted to be at her side to support her.

We’d covered about half the short distance back to the shelter of the woods when, for the first time, she began to totter a little. Just as I was leaning over to rest a supporting hand on her shoulder, a door clattered. I looked up. The back of the house was now in view and, beyond it, the top of the ragged wire fence that ran along the road. The only thing in motion was a speeding dog.

How fast can a healthy, young Rottweiler run? Thirty miles an hour? Forty? It looked like a hundred. Within seconds, Walter Simms’s big, sleek Rottie, Champ, was zooming toward us. If Champ was out, he’d been let out; the household was beginning to awaken. Walter and Cheryl Simms, though, were a distant threat. At the moment we had an immediate peril.
About two yards from me, Champ slammed to a halt, his legs stiff, his jaws open to display a set of clean white teeth.

Ever hear a Rottie growl? Very deep, very serious. And ever so slowly, he moved. Terror seemed to wire my pounding heart directly to my gut. Great dog expert, right? I had no idea what to do. I tried to avoid Champ’s glaring eyes, but he had no desire to avoid mine, and his growl grew louder and louder. When he began to circle, I went rigid. Then my hands started to shake. Time was up. In a second, he’d strike.

In desperation, I used the only resource I had. Moving as slowly as Champ did, I eased a hand into a pocket, grabbed a fistful of tiny dog biscuits, and said softly and cheerfully, “Here, boy! Treat!” Then I tossed the biscuits behind the snarling Rottie. A trained guard dog would have ignored the food, of course, but Champ was startled. He took his eyes off me, veered around, sniffed, found a biscuit, and wolfed it down. I threw a few more biscuits, and, while he was distracted, I slipped off the backpack and fished desperately for one of the rawhide bones. The ploy had worked with the malamute, hadn’t it? What other option did I have? As if in answer to the question, the twenty ounces of Ladysmith suddenly felt like twenty pounds.

Shoot a dog?
I almost yelled the words aloud.
Me? Shoot a dog?

And yet my right hand went to the holster, groped, and closed firmly around the revolver. To protect this helpless golden, this emaciated, pregnant bitch, could I do it? Even if I wanted to, could I aim and pull the trigger?
Kill a dog?
I glanced at Champ, dropped the golden’s leash, and anchored it with my foot. Then I reached back into the pack and finally located a rawhide bone. Would Champ go for it? My right hand was so drenched in sweat that the rawhide felt slimy. I slowly raised my arm and was just aiming the rawhide at a spot halfway to the Simmses’ house when I heard the sound of approaching engines. My arm froze. Cars? Maybe
not. Loud and powerful engines. An oil delivery truck? But at daybreak? Oil companies don’t—

Before I could complete the thought, the first cruiser appeared on the road. Behind it were a second cruiser, two vans, a station wagon, and probably several other vehicles as well. I didn’t stop to count them. Oblivious to the signs of a raid on his master’s puppy mill, Champ was circling and snarling again. He’d spotted the rawhide bone in my right hand. If I didn’t throw it fast, he’d go for it—and probably take my fingers with it. My aim was rough this time. The rawhide sailed high in the air and toward the house. My eyes followed its arc. I hoped Champ’s did, too. If he lost sight of the bone? He’d assume I’d been teasing, and he’d look for the rawhide in the last place he’d seen it: my right hand. And he wouldn’t search gently, either.

But Champ started toward the rawhide, or so it seemed. As soon as he found it, I intended to bolt for the woods and the Bronco.

But the back door of the house banged open. Walter Simms had seen or heard the cruisers and vans. Only a few minutes earlier, he must have awakened briefly, let Champ out, and gone back to bed. At the approach of the vehicles, he’d evidently thrown on his jeans and a pair of shoes, snatched up his shotgun, and decided to get out as fast as he could. He hadn’t even pulled on a T-shirt. He was facing away from me, scanning the area on the opposite side of the house and softly calling, “Champ! Here, boy!” Simms hadn’t yet seen me, but the second he turned, I’d be in plain view. Police cruisers at the front door and someone—anyone—at the rear? And with a dead body on the property? I’d seen the body, and I’d seen how Simms treated his dogs, all but Champ, that is. Unless I acted fast, Simms would turn, aim, and shoot me.