Thereby Hangs a Tail (14 page)

I changed direction, headed for the butte. Without any prodding, Princess stayed with me. The sun sank some more and the glare began to turn red. The glare got redder and redder, faded, and finally disappeared. By that time, there were shadows everywhere, the air cooling fast. The sky ran through all sorts of colors, and then went dark. Stars appeared, and the moon, not quite so thin as the night before. Princess was panting now, a small, whispery sound. We kept going, on and on. No idea what Princess was thinking; I was thinking: Bernie. The problem was that the butte didn’t seem to be getting any closer. In fact, I realized after a while, I could no longer see it at all. And after that came some other realizations, having to do with hunger and thirst. My mind turned to a visit I’d made to the actual Rover and Company factory, where the best treats in the world got made, including these delicious—

With no warning, Princess came to a stop. I stopped, too. She just stood there, her head still forward, but not moving. We had to keep moving. I gave her a low bark. Princess didn’t bark back, didn’t whine, didn’t do anything, just stood there. I stuck my head down and gave her an encouraging bump with my nose. Not hard at all, but what was this? She fell over sideways and lay still on the ground.

What was I supposed to do now? Her eyes were open, at least the one that I could see: the moon gleamed in it, a tiny curve of silver light. I waited for some idea, and one came to me pretty quick: why not pick her up again and carry her? No other ideas seemed to be out there, but I hesitated. Not that I was too tired for the job or anything like that; in fact, I felt strong and peppy, especially now that the air had cooled. There must have been some other reason. I was kicking around a few possibilities about what they could be, as Bernie liked to say, although in fact I had no possibilities in mind, so was actually kicking around nothing, and as for kicking, a ball, for example, I’d never done that except by accident . . . I lost the thread and a moment or so later saw that Princess was shivering.

I stood over her. The wind rose, sharp and cool, maybe even cold. Not cold to me, but to Princess, for sure. Her big dark eye, the one I could see, didn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular. She didn’t make a sound, just kept shivering. I lay on the ground and curled up around her.

The moon moved across the sky. Once a big bird—maybe that same bird that had tracked us during the day—flew across it. The moon, I’m talking about. A very strange sight, the way the bird shape appeared out of nowhere on the moon and then vanished. Princess wriggled closer against me. The shivering stopped. I could feel the beat of her tiny heart.

At dawn—and what a dawn, blazing up behind the butte, still so far away—we rose, stretched, gave ourselves a shake, did our business, and started walking. Correction, as Bernie sometimes said: I walked and Princess trotted, her fast trot with the blurry legs. She stayed right at my side, glancing up at me from time to time. I was boss. At least we’d cleared that up.

The sun rose higher, and with that came the heat, and also the bright glare, shining at the base of the butte. A glare like that meant something shiny. Shiny meant human. Bernie was human.

THIRTEEN

H
ey, get yer ass outside—you’re not gonna believe this.”

The next day, or maybe the day after. I was a bit confused, mostly on account of the dizziness. Also, and hard to believe, I was getting dragged down by the weight of Princess, dangling from my mouth. How was that possible? She weighed nothing at all. I myself was a hundred-pounder, Bernie, a two-hundred-pounder, sometimes more. That sometimes more part was always a problem. He would stand on the scale in the bathroom and say, “That can’t be right.” I got the biggest charge out of that for some reason. Once he’d picked me up to see if the two of us together could make the scale go past the end, or something, I wasn’t sure what. Hate getting picked up, but of course I let Bernie.

“Whoa—is this for real?”

“Unless we’re smokin’ the same shit.”

“But, dude, we are smokin’ the same shit. We smoke the same shit every fuckin’ day.”

“So we’re hallucinatin’? Haven’t hallucinated—not a real good one—since 1969.”

Hippies nearby? I knew just from how they talked. I looked up and all of sudden the butte, which hadn’t come any closer in so long, was right there; but unsteady, kind of wobbling. And at its base, also wobbling: an RV painted in rainbow colors, the sun glaring off its windshield; a tent with one open side; and two old guys, both bald except for long gray fringes all the way down to their shoulders. Hippies, no doubt about it.

“Will you look at that,” said the one wearing a vest. “Wish we had a camera.”

“We have a camera, dude,” said the one with no vest.

“That right?”

“Yeah.”

They passed a joint back and forth. I went right up to them and lowered Princess to the ground.

“Will you look at that. I thought it was a weasel or somethin’, but it ain’t.”

“Course it ain’t. No weasels in the desert.”

“Sure are.”

“Not.”

The joint went back and forth. I stood there panting. Princess lay on the ground, eyes open.

“Point is, I thought it was a weasel he’d killed, like, the big dog, I’m talkin’ about. But it’s an itty bitty dog. The big one carried the little one. From outta nowhere, if you see what I mean.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look out there. See anybody?”

“Nope.”

“Then it’s outta nowhere. How weird is that?”

“Huh?”

“Like, how often does it happen, two dogs from outta nowhere?”

“Beats the crap out of me.”

I gazed up at these guys. The desert was full of old hippies— we’d run into them before, me and Bernie. Bernie didn’t like them, not sure why, but I did, especially that hippie smell—sweat, leather, pot, toe jam—so interesting. I was smelling it now, maybe the all-time strongest.

“What do you think he’s barkin’ about?”

“Beats the crap out of me.”

They took turns sucking at the stub end of the joint. “Could be he’s thirsty.”

“Can’t think what else.”

“Me neither.”

Not too long after that, the hippie in the vest went inside the rainbow RV and returned with a bowl of water, which he lay on the ground.

“Get a load of them two goin’ at that water.”

“Like there’s no tomorrow.”

“Seize the day, man.”

They bumped fists.

“Wonder if they’re hungry.”

“Sure as shit are thirsty.”

“Go together sometimes, hungry and thirsty.”

“We still got that pack of Slim Jims?”

“Slim Jims? Reckon dogs dig Slim Jims?”

Oh, brother. I liked hippies, but they had a tendency to be a little slow.

The hippie in the vest was called Disco; the other one was Crash. Crash produced some Slim Jims, tore one into little bits for Princess, tossed me a whole one, and soon another, and another, and maybe another after that. Night fell. Crash and Disco tried to build a fire but it went out. We all sat around where the fire would have been. Crash and Disco downed some beers, got going on another joint, a big fat one. The smoke drifted over to me and Princess in heavy clouds. Always enjoyed that smell. Princess stretched, lay down beside me, closed her eyes. I gazed at the stars and all sorts of thoughts went tumbling through my mind, way too fast to keep up, so I didn’t even try. Except for missing Bernie, I felt pretty good. Soon I was just thinking about Bernie: his smell, how far he could throw the tennis ball when we played fetch, the slight limp from his wound when he got tired.

Later Crash switched on some music. They sang along, something about In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida, Baby. Nothing like Roy Eldridge and his trumpet, but not too bad. I sang along, too, doing my woo-woo kind of thing. Crash and Disco loved that, did some woo-wooing of their own.

“Maybe he’s jonesin’ for another Slim Jim,” said Crash.

“Only one left,” said Disco, “and I got the munchies.”

So I didn’t get a Slim Jim, which I suddenly wanted very badly. Maybe I had the munchies, too, whatever they were. But Crash and Disco were good guys, and they liked me. As my eyes closed and I sank into a lovely fuzziness, I heard them talking about how big and strong I was, and how much I might be worth.

I woke up in the morning, feeling tip-top. We’d slept in the tent with an open side, me and Princess, much warmer than out on bare ground, but she’d curled up against me just the same. I heard the sound of a car, far away, and thought: Bernie. But as it grew louder, I could tell it wasn’t the Porsche. I rose anyway—Princess opened her eyes for a moment, then rolled over—and went outside.

From inside the rainbow RV came snoring sounds, one like honk-whee and the other more like honk-honk-HONK. They went together in a weird way, a bad kind of music. I snapped up a potato chip that happened to be lying by the RV—the ruffled kind, my favorite—and looked around. A dirty white pickup was approaching, trailing a long, low dust cloud. It dodged some spiny bushes, bumped across a gully and parked in front of the RV. A big guy with long hair and a bushy beard got out, banged on the side of the RV, and said, “Wakie wakie.”

Sounds came from inside the RV—coughing, horking, and a few I couldn’t identify. Then the door opened and Crash and Disco came out, both dressed as they’d been the day before, both blinking in the light.

“Hey,” they said.

“Hey,” said the bearded guy. “Where is he?”

Crash and Disco gazed around, saw me standing in the shadow of the butte, and pointed.

“Not a bad-lookin’ animal,” said the bearded guy.

“Not bad?” said Crash. “Check out the size of him.”

“And the muscles,” said Disco. “He’ll do great up there.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” said the bearded guy. “Gonna hafta grow a thicker coat for one thing.” He opened a door of the pickup, reached for something inside, then turned, sitting on the edge of the seat, his feet on the ground. “Here, fella,” he said.

He was talking to me? This was all pretty confusing. I stayed put.

The bearded guy laughed, a nice laugh, not loud. “Smart, huh?” he said. “C’mon, I’m not gonna hurt you.” And then he was holding up a biscuit, the real big kind, shaped like a bone. Hadn’t had one of those in some time, but I remembered the taste: delish, and so crunchy, too. All of a sudden, my mouth was watering. The next thing I knew I was at the side of the pickup, standing by the bearded guy. He offered me the biscuit. At first, I didn’t take it, but that smell: overpowering. “Don’t care for biscuits?” he said. He started to withdraw it. I grabbed it, couldn’t help myself. I did care for biscuits, cared a lot.

The bearded guy laughed again. I was aware of him watching me as I ate the biscuit. When I was done, he extended his hand as though to pat me. I let him. He was a good patter, patted my head, my shoulders, right down my back. “A hundred bucks,” he said.

“Get outta here,” said Crash.

“One fifty.”

“Two,” said Disco.

“One seventy-five,” said the bearded guy. “Take it or leave it.”

Crash and Disco moved off, muttering to each other. The bearded guy kept patting me, his eyes on them. He smelled okay, was a good patter, but one of those eyes did a tiny twitching thing I hadn’t noticed before; it bothered me, hard to say why.

Crash and Disco returned. “Deal,” they said.

The bearded guy took out his wallet, counted out some bills, handed them over. Crash and Disco bumped fists again.

“Beer for breakfast?” said Crash.

“Twisted my arm,” said Disco.

“Some other time,” said the bearded guy. He reached behind his back, held out another biscuit. I took it without hesitation this time: an excellent biscuit, and I hadn’t had a decent meal in ages.

“What’s your hurry?” said Crash, or maybe Disco; I wasn’t really paying attention.

“A long way to go,” the bearded guy said. He gave me another pat. But—what was this? In his other hand he had a—too late! A choke chain! I hated choke chains, and now this one was around my neck. I bolted; and was still in midair when those hard links dug deep on my neck and all my breath got cut off. I landed with a heavy thud. From behind came the sound of an even heavier one. I turned, saw the bearded guy stretched flat on the ground, still gripping his end of the chain, that twitch going strong now in one of his eyes.

I tried to run, surged forward with all my power.

“You believe that? He’s draggin’ you across the goddamn ground.”

But no air, no air at all. I heard the bearded guy scramble to his feet, and the force on the other end got much stronger. Still I pulled and pulled, fighting for air, but I couldn’t get any. A horrible wheezing noise started up, and the whole world went black at the edges. There was nothing to do but try to pull, try to move, try to stand. Then, from out of the black edges, came Princess, running full speed.

“What the hell is that?”

“We’ll throw her in for nothin’.”

“Midget like that in Alaska?” said the bearded guy. “She wouldn’t even—ow!”

“Ha ha—you see that?”

“She bit his fuckin’ ankle!”

Then a roar from the bearded guy, and the chain squeezed tighter, digging way in. The black edges grew thicker and thicker, leaving only a small circle of the normal world, and then all was black.