Jon Katz Read online

  Rose now spent almost all day and night watching the people, waiting for the girl to bring her food. The girl came closer each time, sometimes playing right in front of Rose, tossing sticks in the air. The people pointed and laughed and threw scraps of food.

  On this one night, the girl held some food in her hand, and did not throw it onto the grass or into the woods. Rose edged forward. She crept gamely toward the food—slowly, carefully—until she was eating the piece of meat out of the girl’s hand. She licked the girl’s hand, and the girl, speaking softly, stroked Rose’s back and neck. Rose put her head in the girl’s hand, and whined softly.

  The next day, the girl brought another piece of meat and Rose ate from one end, while the girl held the other. Rose looked forward to her coming, wagged her tail, enjoyed the attention. The girl threw sticks for her, made soothing sounds.

  The girl led Rose back to the other people, who also fed her and spoke in soothing ways to her. That night, she slept just outside the mouth of the cave. And again the next night, and the one after that.

  One night, she heard animals approaching outside and she growled and barked, and the people praised her, gave her food, patted her. She then barked whenever she heard a strange noise, or when an animal came near. It became her job to protect them.

  She began to focus on what pleased the new creatures in her life, what made them talk to her approvingly, leave extra meat for her. Sometimes she would smell or sense other dogs but did not go out to join them. Instead, she would growl if they approached, and stand between them and the little girl.

  She went with the people as they looked for food, when they swam, she lay by them as they ate and slept. There was no reason to wander, because she had food. She was part of a pack again. She had shelter from the rain and heat and cold. She had attention and affection.

  One day the people gathered their things and began to leave the place, and the girl called to her. Rose had a choice, to stay or to go with her, and she paused and looked at her home, and then at the girl, and she went with her. It was the biggest choice she had made.

  And this is where her story stopped.

  ROSE AWOKE FROM her reverie with a start. Sam was gone, but she heard him breathing upstairs. He was in bed. It was unusual for her to sleep while he moved. Her legs ached from trudging through the heavy snow, and the chill seemed to have rooted deeply in her bones. Her paws were swollen and painful, shredded by the ice, and her fur was matted and full of knots.

  While Rose slept, night had come again. The wind still howled, and Sam had gone up to bed while she was dreaming. Although she watched from inside the farmhouse, it seemed the storm was hers. She wandered over to the front door, which was covered in drifts and ice, then to the rear door. She could still get outside, but only just. The pasture gates were covered, too. The hay in the feeders was buried, and the water troughs were black and hard.

  A little while earlier, the animals had been free to move about their pastures, to the feeders and troughs. Now snow and ice made almost everything impassable. The geography of the farm, the map, had changed. The cows were trapped in the back pasture, the chickens barricaded in the barn, the goats unable to crawl or climb out of their pen, already hungry, although Sam had stuffed every inch of their feeders with hay.

  Rose felt compelled to leave the house. She pushed open the small swinging flap, nearly overwhelmed by the ice and heavy snow.

  Just outside the door, she scrambled up to the hard windswept surface, now crusted with ice. She slipped and slid to the pasture gate, and began to tunnel to the other side.

  EIGHT

  ONCE OUTSIDE, ROSE WAS DISORIENTED BY THE STORM’S ferocity. The air was colder than she had ever experienced, and she could not comprehend it. The brutal wind and intense snowfall confronted her with an alien landscape—huge drifts in some places, only a foot or two in others.

  Although the snow had drifted over much of the opening in the barn door, there was still room for Rose to wiggle through. Inside, the chickens were in their roosts, and the wild dog—who lifted his head briefly when she came in—was lying on a bale of straw.

  The lamb and mother—the pair she and Sam had saved the night before the storm broke—were talking to each other. They were the only two sheep in the big barn. Sam had left the others up in the three-sided pole barn, which was newer and stronger. They couldn’t all fit in this building, which, although bigger, was crammed with equipment, and suffered wobbly foundations and a tottering roof.

  The scene in the barn seemed natural, but then she caught another scent and heard another cry. This was different, a call of alarm from a mother, calls from the other sheep. The fur on her back stood up, and she heard herself growling, heard the wild dog struggling to his feet. The chickens and rooster were startled awake, and Rose was up over the drift and out the door in a flash. She opened a hole wide enough for the wild dog to follow, and he clambered up behind her.

  Nothing about the farm looked the same as it had when she had last been outside.

  She could barely see through the snow blowing in her face, and she struggled to get footing on the layer of ice that had crusted over the snow. She felt the sting of the cold in her eyes, in her paws, as the awful night engulfed her, covering her in clumps of ice that clung to her fur, weighing her down.

  She heard the wild dog scrambling behind her, trying to keep up, slipping and falling. At first she waited for him, then understood she had to move quickly. She pawed her way through the snow and up the hill toward the run-in pole barn.

  Normally, the pregnant ewes would have been in the lambing pens, but Sam had released them so they could find the protection of the pole barn and not be trapped in the exposed pens by the snow or crammed into the big barn, where there was no room for them.

  Rose could feel the presence of the frightened ewe up ahead of her, and she could clearly hear the calls of the other sheep, panicked now. They were frantically moving back and forth within their shelter, but Rose’s view was blocked by the mounting snow. Running a hundred feet long and twenty feet deep, the pole barn was built so that its back faced the oncoming winds, its strong oak beams sharply slanted to handle the heavy winter snows.

  She heard the wild dog barking far behind her now. She made her way up the hill, laboring toward the pole barn, and then, struggling for breath, she pushed her way through the snow and saw the sheep, all jammed into one corner where it was dry and sheltered from the fierce wind.

  Rose saw that they were paralyzed with fear, as sheep are when trapped. Off to the right, in the opposite corner of the pole barn, was the ewe, afterbirth trailing from her rear, its smell still fresh, even through the wind and snow.

  The mother was in a panic. She ran here and there, calling out for her lamb—a particular kind of call mothers use to locate their offspring. She charged into the snow but was blocked and fell back.

  Rose recognized this ewe instantly, one of the oldest and most pliant on the farm. She often retreated into the center of the flock when Rose appeared, wanting no trouble with the dog. But she was also a fiercely protective mother who would lower her head and rush in front of her babies whenever Rose came too close.

  When she saw Rose emerge from the blizzard, she did not back off, as she normally would have, or lower her head, but looked at Rose in a way Rose had never seen before—as if pleading. She looked the dog in the eyes, but it was not a challenge, and not just an expression of desperation.

  Rose understood sheep better than she understood people, even Sam. Sam often confused her, but the sheep never did.

  The ewe was worried about her baby.

  Rose stopped in the front of the pole barn, close to the ewe. She caught her breath, shook the snow and ice out of her eyes, leaned down and pulled chunks of ice off of her paws and forelegs with her teeth. Then she raised her nose high in the air. Smells poured through her mind.

  The scent of coyotes came to her clearly. She now understood, and plowed forward through the snow, over the
ice, into the wind, and off to the right, to where the ewe was looking frantically. It took her what seemed like a long time to get that very short distance, as she kept falling into the drifts through the ice crust, her breath labored from the strain and weight of the snow in her fur. She heard a scratching and wheezing sound and was surprised to see the wild dog coming through the forbidding night close behind her.

  After a few minutes, panting harder, her tongue long, Rose made it around the corner of the pole barn to a mound of snow where she could see up the hill. She smelled lamb and she smelled coyote but, at first, could see neither. She heard the shrieking of the wind, the piercing calls of the ewe, the anxious responses of the other sheep.

  Rose did know fear, but it was fear of failing, not of other animals, or of injury or death. She’d felt something strange and new when the ewe had turned to her. It was not an image she could recall, but she felt it strongly, not in her nose or in her mind, but deep within her chest. Rose sensed the ewe’s emotion and it drove her up the hill. Most of all, she knew it was her job to protect the sheep and lambs.

  As she moved a few feet up the hill, she smelled the blood. Some of the drops were still visible in the snow, the scent different from any other.

  Blood was familiar to her—she almost always smelled it running through the woods. But Rose had only smelled the blood of a lamb once, when one was born twisted, near death, and Sam had gone to get the rifle and had shot it.

  The experience had affected her, left her confused and lethargic for hours, so much so that Sam gave her a day off to get over it. But she remembered it, and knew it now.

  She froze. There, not more than a few steps in front of her, was the coyote, the leader, the one she had known as a pup. His eyes were ablaze, and a dead lamb was hanging by the throat from his mouth. Three other coyotes stood in a half circle right behind him. The lamb’s head hung off to one side, its eyes closed, its still-warm body hanging down to the ground.

  Rose paused to take in this scene, moving in and out of shadow, framed by snow, ice, wind, dark. It was almost like one of her dreams, but her nose told her it was very real.

  She was still, but teeming inside. It was not in her work—her map—although there were scenes like it in her memory. It had happened. But it had never happened to her, not in this way.

  The coyote’s look was plain—he would stand here with the lamb, fight to the death for it, bring it back to his den for his pack, to feed them, save them, get them through the night. In the killing cold, in the mounting storm, his own instincts were as clear as hers: get to food, get to shelter. Quickly. Fresh food was life-and-death to him and his pack.

  The lamb had been born quietly, and Rose had not heard or smelled it through the wind and snow. But the coyotes, upwind of the barn, had been waiting and watching. The leader would have slipped in around the edge of the pole barn, sending the sheep—all but the mother—back into the corner as he grabbed the lamb by the neck. He must have killed it swiftly and taken it up the hill. The carcass, too heavy for him to carry all the way back, he would have meant to dismember there, and he and the other coyotes would bring its parts back through the storm, through the woods, to their den.

  The wild dog rounded the pole barn corner and growled. Covered in ice and snow, his fur up, he began to charge up the hill toward the coyote.

  * * *

  ALL KINDS of pictures flashed through Rose’s mind.

  One was of her fighting the coyote, trying to drive it off, returning the lamb to the flock. But the lamb was dead. The coyote would fight. The other coyotes would join in. They would not run and leave a fresh lamb in the snow, not now.

  Another image was of charging up the hill with the wild dog. This image became clear, the two dogs challenging the coyotes, then it stopped. The wild dog was determined, but not strong enough. She saw him dead.

  Rose pictured Sam giving commands. But he faded from her mind. He was not there. Rose’s mind flashed backward to some of the other animals she had seen die—sheep of old age, or in childbirth, cows of illness or injury. Those deaths, she recalled, had occurred beyond her ability to react. They were not her responsibility.

  A different feeling, a sense of choice, came to her now. She reacted to it.

  She showed her teeth, not to the coyote but to the wild dog. Surprised, he stopped. She started down the hill, backing him down, growling, challenging him with her eyes, pushing into him with her head and shoulders, watching his eyes watch the coyote.

  She could see without seeing that the coyote was not fighting, was making his way up the hill with the body of the lamb, watching them as he backed away.

  Rose could see that the wild dog did not understand what Rose was doing, or why she was reacting to him in this way, but he grasped what she wanted him to do. He was a working dog; he was prepared to fight. But he deferred to her. She knew that he could not challenge her notions of work. He had made decisions, too—many times—but this was hers.

  Rose turned and looked back. She saw the trail of blood, a deep red staining the snow. A moment later, the coyotes and lamb were swallowed up by the storm and the darkness.

  She headed back down the hill, the wild dog ahead of her, both tired, struggling to find their footing, to lick their stinging, bloodied paws. They were greeted by the ewe, who wasn’t retreating into the corner of the pole barn but coming out with a pleading, expectant look in her eyes.

  ROSE TILTED her head, pricked her ears forward, raised her nose in the air, looking for new signs, new signals. But she was getting the same message from everywhere: cold and fear. And the overwhelming backdrop of the monstrous storm.

  She was close to the pole barn. The wild dog had gone back inside the big barn. The goats were quiet now. She wondered where Carol, the donkey, was, could not sense or hear her. There was almost too much to keep track of.

  The temperature had plunged to far below zero, and the wind howled and seemed to suck the warmth, even the life, out of the farm. It would be dangerous to stop too long in this cold. She felt it in her paws, in her eyes and ears. In such weather animals that did not move or get out of the wind could die easily—frozen to the ground.

  Rose looked to the woods, sensed the panic through the trees and the snow and the brush. There were surely animals dying, a few carcasses already lying out in the woods, creatures stricken by exposure to the cold and wind, by exhaustion, weakened by hunger. Perhaps the coyotes would feed on them and stay away.

  This kind of cold almost made it painful to breathe. It was draining her as well as the other animals. The cold was coming up from the ground and into her body, through her mouth, eyes and ears. She couldn’t bring herself to go back into the shelter of the farmhouse. And Sam did not seem to be coming out for now. She had seen his weariness.

  She sensed her limits. Rose could not help Sam deal with the cold—that was in the other realm, the human realm of things, pipes frozen and cracked, machines, stoves, and heaters failing—but the sheep were her job, not Sam’s.

  The sheep, as attuned to working dogs as the dogs are to them, seemed to sense that Rose was lost, that her world had been turned upside down. They were talking to one another, trying to soothe and be soothed, fighting off panic. In their own suffering and distraction, they had disconnected from her. Weakened and sensing danger, losing energy, terrified of the coyotes, the sheep were clinging to the warmth of one another and huddling together.

  Rose made her way into the pole barn, closing her eyes against the ice, the wind flattening her ears, and stood in front of the sheep. The sheep were startled when she reappeared out of the snow and cold not five feet from where they lay. Her eyes told the sheep not to move. They didn’t.

  Rose shivered in the cold, and her paws ached from the sting of it. Her eyelids were nearly frosted over, but she shook her head and her eyes swept the barn. Two or three of the sheep got up, almost as if out of respect. The others seemed beyond caring.

  Rose invoked their ancient relationship. Her
presence said, Trust me. Nothing else. We will do what we can. She stared at the sheep so that there could be no mistaking her message.

  The Blackface got up, and, one by one, the rest of the ewes and rams followed, meeting her gaze. The sheep stood face-to-face with Rose, and the scene on that snow-swept hill seemed to transform itself into other hills, other storms, other places, this deepest of relationships asserting itself.

  The sheep calmed, settled, and began to lie down again.

  Rose could not guarantee anything, not food, water, safety, or survival. But she was determined that they would respect her, honor their long history together, and, if it were their time, they would face it together. The story would not end in panic and disconnection, confusion and death. It would end with her trying to lead them, keep them safe.

  As the sheep settled, Rose moved deeper into a corner of the barn to get out of the fierce wind. She came face-to-face with a ewe and her newborn lamb, which was shivering in the cold. The milk of the hungry, cold, tired mother was surely weak.

  Rose, exhausted but alert, approached the mother, and sniffed the lamb. The baby, not yet knowing the ways of sheep and dogs, stumbled over to Rose and touched her nose against the dog’s.

  Behind them, the snow obscured the world below.

  The lamb crawled next to its mother for warmth, and the ewe nuzzled her baby. Rose turned and began the cold, wet walk back to the barn.

  ROSE WAS EXHAUSTED, not only physically but in a new and different way. She was used to being tired but not to being so drained, challenged by so many unfamiliar and disturbing situations. And she was not yet done.

  A dull-gray morning was beginning to break. It was the third day of thick and swirling snow. Rose stopped and surveyed the strange scene, adjusted her map, but failed to keep it clear. Down below, and to the right, the farmhouse sat in the dark, the back nearly buried in snow. It was as if Sam were trapped inside now.

  Nearby, the big barn, with the chickens and the strutting, pompous rooster. Next to it, the goat pen—the jeering, raucous creatures’ usual complaints softer now, muffled by the storm. One of the lambs, briefly added to the map, was now gone, the other bleating softly. Farther to the left, Brownie the steer and some of the cows stared up at her anxiously.