Jon Katz Read online

  AT WINSTON the rooster’s first crowing, Rose got up, ready and alert by the time Sam awakened soon after and came downstairs. She took a few pieces of kibble that he poured for her, but she was too distracted for food.

  The morning was gray, ominous. The snow was falling lightly, unconvincing, but Rose knew it would be heavier soon.

  She moved quickly through the living room to the back door of the farmhouse, where she looked down at Sam’s feet, and saw that he was wearing his old boots. She whined a bit in excitement—those shoes meant they would soon be working together.

  Rose ran out the back door, along the pasture fence and up to the gate. Sam walked behind her, as briskly as he could. She moved in circles around him—always in motion, looking left and right, listening. When she was working, her body was focused, buzzing; all of her instincts, senses, and energy raced at their most intense.

  Rose waited at the gate for Sam, her head lowered, her right paw raised, poised to proceed. She looked up at the leader of the sheep—the Blackface with the brown eyes who had a dignity and bearing different from the rest of the flock.

  The Blackface froze, and so did the other sheep. Rose held them there to keep them away from Sam while he got their grain. The sheep sometimes charged down the hill, running into Sam, even knocking him down if Rose wasn’t there, head lowered, her eyes fixing them in place. If any sheep moved an inch, she would charge up the hill, get close to their faces and force them to back up. She held them there until the farmer said, “Okay, girl,” and then she would rush up behind them and drive them down to the feeder. Sam would be gone by then, safely in the barn.

  Rose had been born with an understanding that, where sheep were involved, she should never waiver. If the sheep ever sensed that she wasn’t sure, things would quickly fall apart.

  Rose sat by the feeder for the next hour, watching the sheep eat. Sam had gone back into the farmhouse. When a car pulled up, Rose barked, and Sam reappeared at the door. A woman whose perfume caught Rose’s attention from some distance got out of the car and took a long and appraising look around the farm. Rose loped up to challenge her, but the woman greeted her by softly murmuring her name. She did not reach out to pet her. Rose was taken with her boots, which smelled of animal waste. In her mind, Rose saw a horse.

  Sam approached the solidly built woman, who stood waiting in the driveway beside the big barn, and welcomed her with a hug. He began to make a series of noises, as humans often did, gesturing to this woman, who seemed uncomfortable in the gathering wind. He looked her directly in the eye, as was his way when talking to people, but she looked away.

  “SAM, I KNOW this has been an awful year for you, what with losing Katie and all. We’ll get the best price we can.”

  Sam shifted his feet, zipped up his work sweatshirt, and looked up through the light snowflakes at the gray sky. He and Katie had been thinking of converting the business of Granville Farm, located in a valley of the southern Adirondacks, and starting to grow and sell organic produce. The old-school farmers were going under, one by one, but organic farms were surviving. Sam and Katie were excited about the prospect of change. Katie had sent for the Cornell University catalogue and was thinking of taking some online courses on the new agricultural economy.

  Sam bred and sold sheep and beef cows, sending meat to New York City restaurants with other farmers. He also rotated his crops—alfalfa, potatoes, corn, among others.

  Now, though, with Katie’s death two months earlier, everything had changed.

  He didn’t have the kind of energy he used to. He no longer thought he had the heart to start over, even though everyone told him to take his time, to wait before making any decisions.

  Sam turned back to the woman. “I appreciate it, Ginny. I’ll call you. Meantime, Agway Farmer’s Service says we’re set to get a real big one down from Canada. I just hope the power doesn’t go out right away.”

  ROSE STOOD by Sam’s side, watching the sky, then the sheep, paying no attention to the sounds coming out of the two people until she heard the word “Katie.”

  Rose knew that Katie was not in the farmhouse, but she did not know where she had gone. Rose watched for Katie every day, but she was not in reach of her sight or her hearing. She did, however, smell her—her smell was everywhere in the house, on the floors, in the closets and bed, in the kitchen, on doorknobs and cabinet handles. But Rose couldn’t place Katie on the map. Still, she was there.

  Sam talked less now—he moved slowly, worked less, routinely sat alone on his sofa in the big room in front of the woodstove. Rose often came to lie near him, but he did not touch her, nor would she have accepted that. She insisted on a certain space between her and all living things, except when she was battling sheep.

  But she was conscious of Sam’s great sadness. Sitting with Sam next to the woodstove also became part of her work. In this new routine, being with him had become another task.

  SAM AND THE WOMAN outside were still talking to each other. Rose was now paying attention to the tone, to Sam’s tenseness and anticipation. She also felt a shifting in her consciousness—an arousal. She was coming to know something, to feel it: This would be a massive, disturbing storm. Her body was alive with the sense of it approaching.

  She felt danger in her body, saw it in her mind. And she called up her own kind of memory, the images of many lives in many places that she carried in her head, heart, and bones.

  She saw mountains of snow, felt bitter cold, the humbling power of the winter wind moving across open fields.

  She recalled the experience of clawing through snow, crawling over and under it. Of food buried in ice, paths blocked by drifts, pasture after pasture covered in white. Of animals struggling, starving.

  Images whirred and rushed and hissed and blew through her mind. Like a wheel in a carnival, they slowed and stopped.

  THE WOMAN got in her car and drove away. Rose and Sam looked up at the sky.

  “I would hate to leave this place, girl,” he said. “Let’s go to work.”

  She rose to her feet, alert.

  “We’re going to put some hay up in the pole barn, and put out feed for the donkey, cows, and chickens. Best we can do. Then we’ll see what we see.”

  Sam often spoke this way—in his work voice—laying out the chores ahead, and in this way he’d taught Rose many words. Mostly they related to Katie, sheep, work, or the farm.

  Sam saw dogs as many farmers did. He didn’t believe in coddling or praising them. They were animals, and they had a job to do, as did he, and they both were expected to do it. He didn’t believe in treats, and hated the chirpy “up” voices some people used to talk to and reward dogs, voices that usually made Rose flatten her ears and move away. Rose loved work, and in his mind that was reward enough. He respected her, as he believed she respected him, and praise was not necessary. Approval was different.

  Dogs were not children. They came and went, took care of themselves, slept inside at night if they wanted to. They had their own lives.

  Just then Rose looked up at the sheep on the hill. She saw something else that made her stop, freeze, growl. She moved forward, her eyes trained on the hill, at the upper pasture. Sam turned and tried to follow her gaze.

  “What is it—” Then he stopped. He saw it, too. Something was up in the right far corner of the pasture, by the gate. Rose, uttering a low growl, began moving up toward the lower gate. Sam followed and the two of them made their way up the hill.

  About a third of the way up, he saw what Rose had noticed minutes earlier. A small doe was caught in the pasture gate, wedged between the metal end of it and the wooden fencepost, where the gate was latched by a thick chain.

  The doe had tried to squeeze through the opening, probably during the night—sensing the coming storm and foraging for food—and gotten stuck. Her head was facing them, and she was twisting piteously, her eyes darting wildly.

  Rose walked up ahead of Sam, slowly, as she always moved in the presence of wild animals. Sa
m did not call her back, or keep her away. Rose was not a dog to charge a deer or skunk or raccoon. She avoided them if possible, and, if not, circled them warily.

  As Sam got farther up the hill, he saw that blood was seeping from a cut on the doe’s nose. She was little bigger than a fawn, and her sides were rubbed raw from trying to push through the gate. The space would tighten when she surged forward. Sam winced. It must have been painful.

  He approached carefully. The doe began bleating, thrashing her limbs toward Sam and Rose, whose approach deepened her panic. Sam knew how dangerous wounded or trapped deer could be, as they slashed out with their sharp hooves. He thought about going to get his rifle and shooting the doe to put her out of her misery. He had to get the farm ready for the storm, and he couldn’t afford to hurt himself or endanger Rose. But he kept moving up toward her instead. Looking into her wide brown eyes, he saw the fear in them.

  He was not a hunter, couldn’t understand the idea of trapping an animal, or lying in wait for it in the woods and shooting it. It didn’t bother him that others did it, it just wasn’t something he could see himself doing.

  Sam realized that if he could get close enough to reach over the doe, he could lift the chain up and the gate might swing forward and release. Her wounds were serious, and he knew he couldn’t leave her there. He either had to free her or shoot her.

  As he approached, the doe kicked her legs forward, crying out in a piercing, surprisingly loud voice. She slashed her front hooves in a scissor kick, catching and tearing the sleeve of his coat.

  Sam jumped back. He moved closer, and the doe bleated and kicked out again. He reached forward a dozen times, but there was simply no way to get close enough. He pulled a stick off a maple tree, attempting to reach and unlock the gate with it, but she lashed out at the stick with her hooves and broke it.

  All this time, Rose was behind him, edging closer, watching. Sam waited to see if the doe would grow comfortable with him, or else grow too tired to fight. He tried talking to the deer, soothing her, throwing some twigs with dead leaves down to distract her.

  After a while, he decided to switch his approach. He told Rose to stay, then started down the hill to the barn. Rose moved a few feet down the slope, lay down in a crouch, and watched the doe, who fell silent, staring right back. She had finally stopped struggling.

  Sam returned with an armful of hay, and also an old Winchester .30-06 rifle. He threw the hay on the ground and leaned the rifle against the fence.

  The doe wouldn’t sniff or eat the hay.

  “Come on, girl,” he pleaded. “I’m not going to hurt you. Give me a chance to get you out of this. I’m running out of time.” Sometimes, Sam knew, animals responded to tone of voice. If you were calm, they might be, too.

  The ground was stained with blood.

  He looked over at the rifle.

  Suddenly, he was aware of Rose moving up behind him on his left. He and Rose had been in a hundred scrapes together, from aggressive geese to rampaging rams, runaway cows, encroaching foxes, rabid raccoons, and nasty feral cats. She always came up with a plan.

  “What have you got here, Rose?” he asked, as if she could answer. Rose didn’t look at Sam. She was too focused on the doe.

  Sam watched as Rose moved out and away from the doe, growling and, occasionally, barking. He couldn’t fathom what she was doing, but then he saw the doe’s head turn slowly to the right, and away from him. Rose edged forward, bit by bit, and as the deer slashed out at her with her hooves, bleating, Rose kept barking, moving from side to side, in and out, but staying just out of reach.

  The doe had forgotten about Sam, her eyes locked onto Rose, who kept moving and making noise. Sam saw an opportunity and edged forward, holding the butt of the rifle out to ward off any kicks. The doe never took her eyes off Rose as Sam, holding the rifle out, reached forward with his right hand, and pulled the chain up off of the latch. The gate swung forward, releasing the doe.

  Rose backed quickly away, and so did Sam. The deer, startled, froze. Then in an instant she turned and disappeared into the winter brush.

  Rose and Sam stood there, at the top of the hill, looking at the blood and fur left on the pole and gate.

  “Hope she makes it,” Sam said, quietly. He closed the gate and refastened the chain.

  Silently, the two of them walked back down the hill.

  WHEN THEY GOT to the bottom, Sam went into the farmhouse to stash the gun but keep it handy, and Rose felt another rush of blood, up and down her spine, and a sharpening of her senses. She looked over toward the pasture, to where Brownie, the gargantuan Swiss steer, was staring at her with his enormous brown eyes. He was monstrous; he towered over her, and even over Sam, standing well above the other cows and steers. He was waiting.

  Rose was easy around Brownie, and associated the name with him, as Sam often spoke it around him. She knew by now that he, like the other cows and steers, was ultimately doomed: He would either die or leave. For her, it was one of life’s clearest lessons.

  She also knew how to get him to move when he didn’t want to budge but Sam needed him to. If Rose came by quickly, nipped two or three times at a spot on his legs just below his knees, and then darted away even quicker, Brownie would be startled into moving. The little dog was masterly at annoying Brownie without actually putting him into a panic, especially since he could have crushed her if he turned aggressive.

  The cows and steers had felt the storm coming earlier in the morning. All the animals were slowing, withdrawing into themselves, preparing and conserving their energy.

  Sam emerged from the farmhouse and opened the pasture gate. The sheep always tried to get into the barn at feeding time, because they knew the grain was there. Rose did not permit it. She stood in the door and looked at them fiercely. The bravest of them inched down the pasture, but didn’t come closer.

  One wether took a belligerent step toward Rose, his head down, daring her to stop him. She marched up the slope, moving directly into his face, then darted to grab a mouthful of wool, pulling it right off his head. He lowered his face again, and she nipped him on the nose. Startled, he backed away, giving up.

  Once in a while one of them would rebel, take a chance, overwhelmed by the instinct to eat. But they never got past Rose.

  As Sam walked into the barn, the two cats, Eve and Jane, appeared, as they always did, out of the rafters. Rose often saw them catch mice and toy with them before they killed them. Cats were murderous one moment, flirtatious the next, unfathomable to her, deceitful, slippery. All the work they did was in killing, dismembering prey and then playing with the parts before scattering them around. Rose grasped the notion of hunting well enough, but the savage side of these cats was beyond her ken. Their territory—the vast hay-bale mountains in the barn—was the one district on the farm Rose avoided. It was a place of bats, mice, and barn swallows—a lot of fluttering and skittering—not the realm of a dog.

  Sam checked the chicken feed and pulled a sack down from the shelf. He filled the feeder high, as he always did before a storm, and checked the heated water tub that the cats and chickens used.

  He climbed up the ladder to the platform he’d built for the chicken roosts, to keep them up off the floor and safe from predators—the occasional badger or raccoon or fox that might wander into the barn. The hens could hop up onto the platform and climb into their roosts, and it was still wide enough to store some hay and feed.

  There was an upper barn window just above the roosts, which Sam kept closed to keep animals out.

  Eve and Jane paraded along the wooden rails. Rose ignored them, since they were not subject to her supervision or authority. They were not interested in her, either.

  Through the window she saw Brownie, who appeared curious, looking into the barn. Sometimes he got some grain, if Sam had time or it was especially cold. Grain gave the animals energy. Otherwise just hay.

  No grain this morning. Sam was moving too quickly, getting ready.

  Winston, t
he farm’s ancient rooster, hobbled over to see if Sam would drop any seed on the ground. Winston rarely left the barn these days—his legs were too unsteady—but he made plenty of noise just the same. Rose treated him with respect. He was the oldest animal on the farm and had seen a lot.

  * * *

  BY MID-MORNING the light snow that had begun the night before had petered out. Sam knew it would start back up with a vengeance soon. But for now it was a beautiful day. The slate-gray sky was set off by the bright-red barn. It was windy and cold and he moved around the farm with an increasing sense of urgency as he prepared for the storm. He’d not yet eaten anything that day, but he did not stop working.

  A sense of alertness had swept the farm and its creatures, a stillness, a formality perhaps. The word was passed about the storm in the way animals exchange an understanding, something that Sam had seen many times before. The animals bunched together, raised their noses and ears to the sky. Their eyes were open, vigilant. The feeling had spread to the steers and cows, to the chickens and the sheep, to Carol the donkey, to the barn cats. It even spread to the three goats—troublesome, greedy creatures, who found cause to defy Rose at every turn.

  Sam climbed the stairs up to the hayloft.

  He piled up some bales by the back door of the barn and slid it open. He fired up the tractor, attached it to the hay wagon, hefted another twenty bales on, and pulled it up to the pole barn.

  Sam came back down the hill and filled the water tanks. There was no point, he knew, in putting out too much extra grain, as the animals would eat it all immediately, get bloated and sick, but he put out more than usual to give them some extra energy and strength. He tossed a basket of corn kernels out for the chickens. He took a bag of dry cat kibble, slit it open partway, then heaved it up on a shelf in the barn. All of this would give the animals an extra day or two if they were stranded or if the feeders were buried in snow.