Listen! (9780062213358) (12 page)

And then there is the beaver again. “To understand any living thing you must creep within and feel the beating of its heart.” Is that what her mother could do? Did she connect with the animals spirit to spirit? Is that why she never needed to make a blind to get her photographs?

Charley's throat is hurting again. She closes the book and puts it back. Then she gets dressed and goes outside. Sadie and Coyote are chasing each other around the azaleas. Sadie is wet from swimming the lake. Of course she is. It doesn't mean a thing.

A few hours later, when Charley has finished a cheese sandwich that she shared with the dogs—Coyote coming close enough to take his share from her hand—the dogs are playing again. They roll on their backs next to each other, biting at each other's ears and paws whenever they get close enough. Charley goes over and sits down next to Sadie, expecting Coyote to leap up and move away. He doesn't. The two dogs keep snapping at each other, gently, not really trying to connect, and Charley rubs Sadie's stomach.

After a minute she reaches over Sadie and gingerly lays her hand on Coyote's chest. He looks up at her, and their eyes lock. He has registered this touch, knows it is her hand on his chest.
Good dog
, she thinks. Holding her breath, she begins to rub. Coyote wriggles in the grass just the way Sadie was doing a moment ago. After a while he rolls onto his side, away from her. She rubs behind his ears and then runs her hand through the honey-gold fur down his back to the base of his tail. His fur is wavy and a little wiry, not as soft as Sadie's. If she had ointment to put on the cut on his nose, she could do it now, he is so relaxed. His tail thumps on the ground once, twice—and then Sadie jumps up and knocks Charley sideways. The moment is gone. The two dogs take off again, Coyote ducking in among the azaleas to leap out at Sadie as she runs past.

Charley sits there, her hand tingling. She has touched Coyote. Petted him. Forty days it has taken her—longer than she could ever have guessed when she got the idea to invite Coyote to live with them. People take this for granted, she thinks, this petting of dogs. As if this is what dogs are
for
.

She has touched Coyote, rubbed his ears. Like Jane Goodall grooming a wild chimpanzee for the first time. Charley knows, now, how that must have felt, what it must have meant.

T
he next day Charley wakes with the memory of Coyote's fur under her hand and hurries to dress, wondering, now that Coyote has allowed her to pet him, what will be different today.

But there has been no breakthrough, no miraculous change. All through the walk and the feeding, Coyote stays well out of her reach, seeming, if anything, even more wary than usual. It is Sunday. Sadie, probably chained while the Davises are at church, doesn't swim across the lake. Without her, Coyote refuses to come close enough even to take a piece of liver from Charley's hand. It is as if yesterday never happened.

When Sarita gets back from church, Charley is sitting, near tears, at the breakfast table in the lake room. Her father is alternating between watching a Sunday morning news program and reading the newspaper. “What's wrong?” Sarita asks the moment she sees the look on Charley's face.

“Nothing,” Charley says.

“Some nothing.” Sarita sets to work in the kitchen, putting out the ingredients for the waffles she always fixes for Sunday brunch. She pours a glass of lemonade and sets it on the counter that separates the kitchen from the lake room. “Maybe this'll help.”

Surprisingly, it does. As she drinks, Charley watches one squirrel chase another, leaping from branch to branch outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. Nothing can take away what happened yesterday, she thinks. Maybe the connection scared Coyote, and he needs to back off a little. Like the first time she got up the nerve to dive off the swim platform. It was days and days before she dared to do it again. But a few weeks later, diving was the most natural thing in the world.

Over brunch, Charley tells her father about petting Coyote.

“Terrific! It's time to get a collar on him,” he says. “And take him to a vet. I'd have insisted on that from the start, but I didn't really expect him to stick around.”

“He'll stay,” Charley says. “This is his territory now.” But her heart sinks at the thought of putting a collar on him, leashing him, forcing him into a car to take him to a vet. It will feel to him, she thinks, like the men catching him and putting him in the shed. “I don't see how we can get him to a vet, though.”

“Sorry, kiddo, but there's no choice.” Her father takes another waffle from the platter Sarita has brought to the table. “If you're going to keep this dog, he has to have his shots. Distemper, rabies—especially rabies. There's a law. And who knows what else he might need? I doubt he's been neutered, for instance. We'll have to have that done, too.”

“There's a sign for a mobile vet on the road by the police academy,” Sarita says. “You could call.”

“Good idea,” Paul Morgan says. “You call and make the arrangements, Charley, and I'll pay for it.” He sighs. “Another of the truths of life. There is no such thing as a free dog!”

Much as Charley likes waffles, she has lost her appetite. How is she going to get a collar on Coyote? And if she does, what will happen when she turns him over to a vet—a person he doesn't know who will stick needles in him? At least shots can be given at home. Neutering will mean taking him to the vet's office. Car, strange place, operation, pain, car. Worse than being locked in a shed. Much worse. It's too horrible to think about. Coyote will never trust her again. He'll probably take off and never come back.

When Charley is helping in the kitchen later, Sarita pats her arm. “That dog's life is so much better than he ever had before, he's not going to leave just because you put a collar on him.”

“I don't even know if I
can
put a collar on him.”

“Huh!” Sarita says nothing more. She just goes on rinsing dishes and putting them in the dishwasher, humming to herself.

Maybe, Charley thinks, the mobile vet has tranquilizer darts like the ones they use on wild animals. Coyote wouldn't even remember what had happened to him when he woke up. Of course, to use a tranquilizer dart, the vet would have to be able to shoot him with it. If a stranger drives up to the house, Coyote will be gone in less time than it takes the vet to get out of the car.

By Wednesday Coyote is taking liver from her hand, whether Sadie is around or not. Charley takes him a piece several times in the morning and several more in the afternoon. She just calls, “Liver!” and wherever he is, he comes to get it. If Sadie is there, of course, she has to give some to her, too, but Sarita has filled the freezer with enough to feed an army of dogs. Charley's hoping that when Coyote's used to coming for liver, she'll be able to get the collar on him.

Unfortunately, he doesn't come close enough. He stands back and takes the liver the way he takes food from his bowl, leaning forward, snatching it, and jumping back so fast she can't possibly even touch him, let alone catch him.

She tries using Sadie. If Sadie doesn't come over on her own, Charley goes down to the dock and calls across the lake for her. Then, when the dogs are playing, Charley joins them. Coyote lets her get close enough to pet him. It's clear that he's doing it on purpose. He lets her take burrs off his coat, and she is finally able to pull the snarls and tangles out of his tail. Eventually he even lets her take hold of the ruff around his neck—exactly what she has to do to put the collar on him.

Except when she has the collar. The minute she comes out of the house with the collar in her hand, he scoots away and stays away, no matter what. She tries putting the collar in her pocket before she comes out. It makes no difference. If she has the collar, even if Coyote can't see it, he stays away. She can play with Sadie all she wants. He just stands and watches.

Then, if she leaves the collar inside, he comes with Sadie and lets Charley pet him. She can't figure out how he knows when she has it. Sarita says maybe he smells it. So Charley rubs it all over with liver. It doesn't help.

Finally she enlists Sarita. “You be ready with the collar in the house, and when I'm close enough to get hold of him, bring it out to me.”

Even that doesn't work. Charley might as well have been waving it around in the air and telling him she's going to put it on him. He refuses to come near her. She decides that the dog is reading her mind. It's the only explanation that makes sense. Even when she doesn't have the collar, if she's
planning
to catch him, he knows it.

“Uncanny,” her father says, though he doesn't believe in psychic dogs. He is getting impatient. “One way or another, you need to get control of that dog.”

It is then that Charley decides to
tell
Coyote what is going on. Maybe the trouble is that she's trying to trick him. Somehow he knows that's what she's doing. And Coyote doesn't like to be tricked.

That is how she ends up sitting on a boulder at the shallow end of the lake during their walk that misty Thursday morning, the forty-fifth day of The Taming, talking to Coyote.

Ever since the day at the Pine Grove, she has managed to find a place to sit during their morning walk—on a stump or a fallen tree or a boulder. Coyote goes off and does whatever it is he does, and she waits for him to come back. She doesn't get bored by this wait, the way she used to in the evenings over by the Heywards'. What she does now is listen. There are more things to hear in the woods than she ever would have believed. Sometimes she thinks she can hear the sap moving in the trees, beetles chewing their way through the bark. Once a movement catches her eye, and she looks up in time to see an owl, its huge wings moving slowly, silently, fly off between the trees. It makes no sound, but she can almost feel the currents of air from its wings.

Occasionally, when she is relaxed enough, she plays with visualizing what Coyote is doing. She sees him chase a squirrel or pounce into the leaves, trying to catch whatever small thing—a mouse or a vole, maybe—he has heard rustling beneath.

The more she does this, the clearer her images become. Sometimes, instead of watching him, it almost seems that she is right there with him, doing what he is doing. She can feel the pounding of his feet against the ground as he runs, the brush of leaves and grass against his face. From time to time she catches a whiff of something she doesn't recognize, smells that seem to start her heart racing. But if she tries too hard at this imagining, the images and feelings slip away and she is back to herself, sitting in the woods, alone and waiting.

This morning, when Coyote comes back to get the treats she usually gives him from her waist pack, she doesn't give them to him right away. He stands for a while, looking at her with an expression that seems to ask what the heck she is waiting for. After a while he sits. Finally, with a big, obvious sigh, he lies down with his chin on his paws, looking out at the water.

“Here's the thing,” Charley says to him. His ears flick back toward her. “Dogs who live with people wear collars. It shows that they have a home and a family that cares about them. Sadie has one. And Beau and Pandy and Jasmine and Bernie—all the dogs at Eagle Lake. All except you. I promised you food and shelter, and I'm doing my best to keep my promise. But you need to wear a collar. I won't use it to make you do stuff you don't want to do.”

Coyote still looks out at the lake, but his ears twitch. Charley realizes that isn't exactly the truth. “Well,
sometimes
I will, but only if it's absolutely necessary and only if it's for your own good. Like when a doctor comes to see you. There's a law, and there's nothing I can do about it. You need a shot—a couple of shots—to keep you from getting sick. And there are some other things we need to do if you're going to be safe and healthy and live with us the way dogs live with people. You want to be a regular dog, don't you?”

Coyote doesn't move. Charley wonders if she's crazy, telling him all this. “So when Sadie comes over today, I'm going to bring the collar outside, and I need you to let me put it on you. Okay? Coyote?”

Coyote gets up and stretches, front legs and then back. He shakes himself and looks up at her, his black-brown eyes gleaming in his golden face, the blue tip of his tongue visible between his teeth.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she says. “You want your liver.” She takes a piece of liver from her waist pack. “Are you going to let me put the collar on you?” His eyes are focused on the liver, his tail wagging. “I'm counting that wag as a promise!”

When Sadie swims over later that day, Charley tells her that she needs help. She explains about the collar, the shots. If Coyote can read human minds, maybe Sadie can, too.

Then she goes inside and gets the green nylon collar she chose for him so long ago. Holding it where both dogs can see it, she calls Sadie to her, rubs her ears, and pats her. Then she takes hold of Sadie's collar. “See?” she says to Coyote, who is standing just out of reach. “This is hers.” She holds up the green one. “This is yours. We'll get a tag for it that has your name and phone number on it, just like Sadie has.”

She lets go of Sadie's collar and rubs her ears some more. Coyote comes closer, close enough to touch. Slowly Charley moves her hand from Sadie to Coyote and rubs his ears. Then she takes a handful of his neck ruff and holds him while she puts the collar around his neck. His ears go back against his head and his tail droops, but he stands still while she buckles it on, making sure she can put two fingers between the collar and his neck. Then she lets him go and he backs quickly away, shaking his head.