Thereby Hangs a Tail (13 page)
Don’t know what I expected—often the case, to tell the truth— but Princess surprised me by bouncing right up and barking at me. A high-pitched, irritating sound even though it wasn’t very loud, and angry, for sure. What did she have to be angry about? I barked back, one of my low rumbles. It had no effect on Princess. She kept up that high-pitched yammer, even darted forward like—could it be true?—she was thinking of biting my leg. I actually backed up a bit, as though that tiny fluffball, so far down there, could possibly do anything to a bruiser like me. Pretty embarrassing. I barked, real loud, mostly annoyed at myself. Maybe real real loud: Princess went quiet. She stood still, gazing up at me. I wagged my tail. Why not? Princess didn’t wag back, not that she had much to wag with, just a little pom-pom thing. Instead her mouth opened and she started panting. I panted, too, no real reason at first, and then I remembered I was thirsty. Last water for two hundred miles, but where was it? I smelled no water.
So there we were, me and Princess, standing outside the saloon, all by ourselves on the main drag of this ghost town, panting. I got the feeling I should be doing something but couldn’t think what. Then, with no warning, Princess suddenly turned and trotted away, her legs a blur. I walked along beside her, sometimes pausing to let her catch up. She didn’t look at me, just kept going, maybe even increasing her speed. We went down the street, past the barn to the foot of the low hills. Princess turned sharply, trotting along the rocky face, came to a path, steep and narrow. She started up. I followed.
The path zigzagged up the slope, the ground stony, nothing green growing in it, not even the usual desert plants, like cactuses or thistles. But a different story when we came to the top: on the other side lay a small strip of grassy flatland, with a tree, and beside the tree a cabin. And in front of the cabin? A little pond, blue and sparkling.
The next thing I knew, I was up to my shoulders in the pond, drinking my fill. Ah, wonderful, cool water, with a clean rocky taste I loved. I glanced up, saw Princess approaching, still in her trot, legs going faster and faster. Desperate for water, I thought; but Princess surprised me again, hurrying right past the pond to the cabin door. She scratched at it, at the same time making a whining sound.
I got out of the pond, shook off the water, went over to Princess. She didn’t seem to notice me, just kept scratching and whining. I pushed at the door with my shoulder. It stayed closed. But I noticed something: this wasn’t one of those doors with a knob, impossible for me, even though I’d tried plenty of times. Instead it had a little round metal piece, for pressing down with the human thumb. We’d worked on this one, me and Bernie. I rose, came down on that thumb piece with one of my paws. Click: and the door opened.
I checked the insides: a small cabin with a single room; no furniture except a table and chair, and a cot against the far wall. I went closer. Someone lay in the cot, covered by a blanket, only some wisps of blond hair showing at the top. I barked. No response from under the blanket. I went to the cot, got a corner of the blanket between my teeth, and pulled.
Adelina Borghese. She lay on her back, eyes open. Before I knew it, Princess had somehow jumped right up onto the cot. She climbed onto Adelina’s chest, started licking her face, whimpering at the same time. Maybe Princess didn’t understand, but from my job I knew the meaning of the red round hole in the side of Adelina’s head. And the smell: not yet strong, maybe just beginning, but there. I got Princess by the scruff of the neck again and carried her away. She didn’t resist.
I
didn’t drop Princess this time, lowered her to the ground instead. She stood outside the cabin, shaking again. The cabin gave me a bad feeling. I moved away, glancing back at Princess, hoping to give her the idea, and after a moment or two, she followed. The lovely smell of water overwhelmed that other smell in my nose, from the cabin. I went to the pond and lapped up a little drink. Princess appeared beside me. She didn’t have to dip her head to drink, already being right down on pond level. Out came her tongue, so tiny, and she started lapping. Lapping and lapping: it went on and on. How could all that water fit in her? At the same time I noticed how careful she was to keep her paws out of the pond. Why? I had no idea, but began to think that of all the members of the nation within the nation I’d come across in my career, there hadn’t been any like Princess.
Other than that, I had no thoughts. We stood by the pond. The sun was higher in the sky now, and getting hotter, the air still and silent. It had a strange effect on me, making me still and silent, too. Then, at last, I had a thought and snapped out of it. The thought was: Bernie.
Where was he? I had no idea, didn’t know where to begin thinking about it. My mind was blank. And in that state of blankness, I found myself moving—away from the pond, across the grassy flatland, toward the stony path leading down from the hill to the ghost town. I didn’t realize why until I was practically on the path: Bernie would come for me, so I had to be easy to find. Then I realized something else: Princess wasn’t with me. I looked back and there she was, still standing by the pond.
I paused, one front paw in the air. Princess seemed to be gazing in my direction. I barked. She must have heard me but showed no sign of it, remaining exactly where she was. I turned and went back for her. That was my job.
I walked around the pond, stood next to Princess. She looked up at me with those huge dark eyes. I gave her one of my low, rumbly barks, ready for anything, especially a sudden nip from those teeth, surprisingly big now that I thought about it. But Princess didn’t bite. Instead she surprised me again, suddenly wagging that little pom-pom tail of hers. I retraced my steps to the stony path, Princess trotting beside me in her funny way, legs a blur, body advancing very slowly. Also—I noticed for the first time—she was holding her head tilted forward in a determined sort of way.
We climbed up the rocky slope, started zigzagging down the other side. Clauson’s Wells spread out before us—the barn, main street, saloon. It didn’t seem to be getting any closer: this was taking forever. Around a bend, a big boulder sat in the way, blocking our view of the ghost town. By the time we got past it, things had changed: a black-and-white sedan with blue lights on top was rolling down the main street. A black-and-white meant cops, and cops and us were on the same side, so right away I thought, Bernie, and picked up the pace, meaning I walked a bit faster. Princess gave me a quick upward glance, and picked up her pace, too, actually raising tiny dust clouds. The black-and-white stopped in front of the saloon and two men in cowboy hats got out, both carrying rifles. I stopped, too. I was pretty sure I knew those men.
A problem, right away: Princess didn’t stop, kept scurrying, around the next bend and beyond. I bounded forward—one full bound and part of the next one—and caught her, snatching her up once more by the scruff of the neck, as gently as I could, but the point was it had to be done, gentle or not. For some reason, Princess didn’t see it that way, and did the worst thing she could, which was to start in on her high-pitched barking.
The men spun around and looked our way. Could they spot us from way down there? I didn’t know. All I knew was that Princess wouldn’t shut up. I wheeled around and took off the other way, back up the slope, with the little bitch—the right word, Bernie said so—in my mouth. I heard the black-and-white’s engine firing, down below, and ramped up to full speed, at the same time getting a funny feeling down my spine; I’ve been shot at before.
The engine noise got louder, but no way could they drive that thing up this hill. Or was there? Wouldn’t they have to get out and follow on foot? Hard to tell. Humans and their machines: did it get any trickier than that? This was where Bernie came in. I gave up trying to figure it out, just ran my fastest. Cresting the top of the rise, I heard the engine cut out. The doors slammed. Then silence. The next sound would be a gunshot. I kept running, didn’t look back.
We flew by the pond, the cabin, more grassy flatland, and then down a long winding trail through strange rock formations and onto flat desert floor. Princess had given up on the barking now, just whined from time to time. I got pretty tired of that, also tired of having to breathe through my nose. I like breathing through my mouth when I’m running, always have. But what choice was there? I ran and ran, finally realizing the strange feeling down my spine, the feeling of being aimed at, was gone.
Soon a tall saguaro appeared, rising up in the middle of nowhere. I slowed down, halted in its shade and turned back for the first time: nothing to see but the flat plain, and in the distance the high country we’d left, a bit wobbly in the heat waves. We’d come a long way. The important thing: no men with rifles. I let go of Princess. She tumbled to the ground, sprang up, and faced me—if you could say that, what with her way down there—and barked angrily. I barked back, angry, too. We barked at each other for a while. At last she shut up. I did, too, damn tired of barking, but I wasn’t going to be first. Princess circled around the saguaro, squatted, and did her business, those dark eyes on me the whole time, why I couldn’t say.
I glanced around. That was what Bernie would have done. He even had a word for it: rec, recoy, something like that. In a situation like this, the first thing you did was recoy the area, so I took a little walk, over to a spiny plant, which I marked, then on to a pile of stones that had golden glints in them, and a small round tumbleweed lying still. I marked the stones and the tumbleweed and a few other things, and was trying to remember what else was involved in a recoy—Bernie! Where was Bernie?—when I picked up a scent I didn’t like: close to frog or toad except fishier, the fishy part sharper and more thinned out than the scent of an actual fish. I’m talking fresh fish, of course; rotten fish is another story. This particular smell—froggy, toady, fishy—meant one thing and one thing only: snake. Snakes scare the hell out of me. I’m not ashamed to admit it. But, and this might surprise you, I actually caught one once, fat and black, on a hike we took in high piney country somewhere. What got into me that day? The look on Bernie’s face! I got a little lost in that memory, and when I came out of it, the snake smell was stronger.
I followed the scent. Hey! It was leading me back toward the saguaro, where Princess lay in the shade, watching me with those eyes of hers. And—oh, no!—behind her, a big snake was rising from its coil, mouth opening wide, fangs, so sharp, sticking out. Didn’t Princess pick up the scent? What was wrong with her? But no time for any of those thoughts: I charged, barking my head off, aiming for the tail end, as far from those fangs as possible. The snake saw me coming—just those tiny slit eyes were plenty scary on their own—and whipped its head in my direction, so quick, and jabbed those fangs at me. That’s their way—it’s not an actual bite, as I knew from watching slo-mo on the Discovery Channel with Bernie. At the very last instant, but maybe too late, I launched myself in a tremendous leap, the highest in my life, and flew right over him. Something, possibly something sharp, just brushed the tips of the last hairs on my tail. I landed, skidded around, glimpsed Princess running—not trotting but actually running—away from the saguaro. The snake came toward me, slithering sideways, head up, eyes nasty. I booked, no second thoughts. You don’t bring a spoon to a knife fight.
I ran in a wide circle, keeping plenty of distance between me and the snake, and caught up to Princess. She was still bounding crazily along, all her fluff streaming behind her. Underneath that coat, she was even smaller than I’d thought. I throttled down to my slowest trot and we kept going, side by side. Where were we headed? Away from men with rifles, away from snakes with fangs: all that mattered. As for what was going on in Princess’s mind, I had no idea. She kept running, head forward in that determined way.
No one can run like that forever, and after quite a long time— the sun was at our backs now—Princess slowed to her fast trot, the one with the blurry legs. I walked beside her, keeping my eye out for snakes, seeing none. The only living creature other than us was a big black bird circling overhead. Not fond of birds, have I mentioned that already? Why are they so sour? Would I be sour if I could spend the day soaring through the blue sky? You tell me. And I was especially not fond of this bird in particular. I couldn’t help wondering if it was following us from up there. Why would it be doing a thing like that?
Behind us, the sun sank lower. Our shadows got long in front of us, mine much longer than Princess’s, of course. She was still in her fast trot, kind of amazing she could keep that up for so long. Maybe she didn’t know how to go slower. I was puzzling over that when one of those strange buttes rose in the distance, towering over the desert floor. And what was that? A tiny glare at its base? The glare trembled, vanished, returned. A glare like that meant something shiny, and something shiny meant something human. Bernie was human. That was as far as my mind took me.