Sheep

by Valerie Hobbs

  “You’ll find your sheep,” she said.

  I finally remembered my manners and asked where she’d come from.

  “A great mansion,” she said, “but that was long ago.”

  “A mansion?”

  She described a magnificent house where she’d once lived so vividly that I can see it in my mind to this day. What impressed me most was her pillow. It was covered with dark blue velvet, she said, and had diamonds sewn into it. She didn’t care for the diamonds—velvet, diamonds, I had to ask her to stop and explain everything. She said they dug into her delicate skin.

  “What a great life!” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, but she didn’t sound like she meant it. “A pillowed life. But when my sweet master died, the mistress sold me to the circus. Life has been quite different since.”

  “But why are you caged? Why is everybody in a cage?”

  She didn’t answer that. Thinking back, I realize it was kind of her not to. No use learning the worst until you had to.

  “Everybody will tell you the same thing,” she said. “Just do what Billy says. It isn’t a good life, I won’t lie to you. But he feeds us, gives us a home, such as it is.” She looked around her small cage, especially small for her. “It could be worse. We could be out on the streets.”

  “It’s not so bad out on the streets,” I said.

  I could tell she didn’t believe me.

  We weren’t the only ones having a conversation. All around us were languages I’d never heard before, elephant and horse talk, monkey chatter. It was thrilling in its way, so much to learn. But I hated that cage. I decided right then not only to do what Billy wanted but to do it better than he expected. I’d use every bit of my brain and my athletic skill. I’d show him I wasn’t meant to be caged. I’d work as hard for him as I’d have worked for Bob, as long as he let me be free.

  You’re way ahead of me, aren’t you?

  I didn’t work the next day. I didn’t even know what kind of work I was going to do, some sort of herding I figured. The monkeys maybe. They couldn’t even make a decent line.

  Instead, I got to watch the show. At the end of my chain, sad to say, but was it ever exciting!

  The horses came out first, all four of them. They ran around in a ring with pink ladies on their backs doing handstands and flips. The kids cheered like anything, so did their parents. There weren’t a whole lot of people, but they made up for that with a lot of noise.

  Next came the elephants. Boy, were they something, with their big, rolling, dark eyes. Kind of sad, though. You could see they didn’t like their job, which was mostly to walk around with things on their backs, holding each other’s tails. The smallest one, a female, had to sit down on a big, round stool. Then she had to dance on her back feet. If she didn’t, she got yelled at and poked with a stick.

  The biggest one, an old male, kept leaving dung piles behind him, like he’d been saving it up for days. And the look he gave that trainer! It made a sheep eye seem like a puny thing.

  Ooooooooooh! breathed the crowd. Above our heads a man in silvery skins was flying through the air. Just when he was about to fall, that exact second, another man in skins, who was hanging from a bar by his knees, grabbed his hands, and they went sailing off together. It was enough to take your breath away.

  The dogs were great, too. Well, I have to say that. Dogs don’t belong in the circus. They look ridiculous wearing clown collars and hats. Even Tiffany, whose job it was to pull a wagon with You and You Too in the back, looked silly in her pink tutu. Most of the dogs were your smaller breeds, terriers, spaniels, Chihuahuas. Billy had them all going at once, through hoops and tunnels, up ramps, around in circles. You and You Too balanced on rolling balls. Tiffany danced like that elephant, on her back paws. She was very graceful, but I had to look away. She’d lived in a mansion once. She’d slept on diamonds. How could she let him make her look so foolish?

  Why did any of them?

  The next day, I found out.

  “Come on, Sparky,” said Billy. The door to my cage screeched open. I guessed that it was morning. There was no way to tell in that barn, except that you woke up hungry.

  Sparky? Did he mean me?

  “Do it!” You Too yipped. “Just do what he says.”

  “I will,” I said. “Don’t worry.” It was my chance to show Billy how smart I was, and I was ready.

  The chain got attached to my collar, and I didn’t fight it. “Heel!” he said, and I did.

  I trotted beside him past the trailers where the workers lived. I waited while he opened the door to an old shed. He closed the door behind us.

  There was nothing in that room, nothing to chase or herd. Dirt floor. A single window, high above. Through dirty glass, the gray sky lent whatever light there was.

  But there were other things in there I didn’t see at first. One was hanging on the wall. Billy went over and took it down. It was made of leather and looked like a snake. Later, I knew it for what it was: a whip. The other was a long, thin stick.

  “Okay, let’s see what you can do,” Billy said. He coughed and spit a green gob into the corner. Then he turned back to me.

  Billy was the worst smelling human I’ve ever encountered. Worse than Hollerin, worse than elephant dung, worse than fish guts, worse than …

  Well, you get my meaning. But one smell stood out above the others: meanness.

  He started by whipping my back feet with that little stick. I jumped sideways. “Not that way,” he hissed. “Flip!”

  Flip? I tried my best to do what he said, I really did. But flip? What was flip?

  He snapped my heels again. I jumped again, straight up this time.

  That was when he started calling me names, ugly names, unrepeatable in polite company. He spit them out between his yellow, rotting teeth.

  He was fat and couldn’t move fast, but what he couldn’t do that whip did. Down it came across my back. I yelped and ran to the door, leapt against it. It was a lot more solid than it looked.

  He came at me with that whip, and I began to run, around and around that shed, dodging Billy at every turn.

  He was patient, I’ll give him that. He waited, stick in one hand, whip in the other, watching me run, an evil grin spread across his wet, red lips. Soon I was covered with sweat and panting hard. Fear gave me strength, but even fear wears you out over time. I could see he wasn’t going to give up.

  I had to stop. I had to figure out what flip was.

  It took longer than it should have, smart as I am. But I wasn’t made to do flips. What good is a flip to a flock of sheep? A couple more flicks with that stick against my heels and I went over backward. Surprised myself.

  “Again!” said Billy, flicking the stick, and over I went.

  But after all of it, after I’d learned flip, and roll (the easiest one), and stalk—basically what Old Dex did with the sheep, it was back on the chain and then back in the cage.

  You, You Too, Tiffany, and the rest of the dogs were waiting. “How was it?” asked You. The dogs were anxious, concerned. I was among friends.

  I told them about flip, how hard it was at first. But they knew all about it. “Sparky did those,” You Too said. “Until … well.”

  Nobody said anything then.

  “What?” I said. “Until what?”

  The dogs all looked at each other. “Until he bit Billy,” Tiffany said.

  “He did?”

  “Got him a good one on the hand,” said You.

  “What happened then?” I had to ask, even though I knew it would be bad. I could see it in Tiffany’s eyes.

  “Billy beat him,” said You.

  “To death,” said You Too.

  “It was terrible,” said Tiffany, with a shudder. “Terrible.”

  9

  YOU’RE PROBABLY WONDERING by now why I didn’t take off. All that big talk about being free. I wondered about that myself sometimes. I had my chances. Instead of doing flips during our show, I could have run for th
e exit. I wasn’t chained then. The tent didn’t have real doors.

  The Goat Man wouldn’t have stayed for a minute.

  At first, I thought it was Tiffany. It was, I guess. Freedom in exchange for love, not a bad trade. We were never left alone, but we had wonderful talks, long into the night, or lay with our noses as close as we could get them, which was never close enough. During the show, while the terriers ran through their flaming hoops, I’d brush against her long legs. She’d lean down and touch my nose. It was, well, there’s no use explaining the nose thing. You’d never get it.

  I still dreamed about the sheep, still felt something pulling me toward my destiny. But then I’d look into Tiffany’s gleaming brown eyes and I’d forget the sheep. For a little while anyway.

  Time went by. I did what Billy wanted. Tried not to remember that it was beneath me. I cringed to think what Dad would think, watching me flip over and over, over and over. I knew what Old Dex would have said about my clown collar.

  I just kept telling myself that it was easier than life on the outside. And in its way, it was. As long as you didn’t fight Billy.

  Then it happened, as all things happen. Billy went too far.

  He was smarter than he looked. He’d seen the way Tiffany and I looked at each other. He came for us one morning, and we followed him to the shed. I tried to look brave, to hide my shaking.

  He opened the door and closed it behind us. I began to feel sick. What would he want me to do this time? What if I didn’t understand? I didn’t want to look foolish, not with Tiffany watching. I’d told her about Old Dex and Dad, how smart and brave they were, all the time hoping she’d think the same about me.

  Billy lifted his stick. “Dance!” he said, and up Tiffany went on her long legs, front paws draped in front of her.

  It was hard for me to watch. At last he let her stop.

  “Okay, now you,” he said to me. “Dance!”

  It would have been easy enough, balancing on my hind legs, turning in circles. But I couldn’t.

  “You heard me, Sparky!” Billy yelled. “Dance!”

  I held my ground.

  “What are you, some kind of moron? I said dance!”

  Tiffany nudged my ear. “Do it,” she whispered. “You have to!”

  I tried to tell her with my eyes what I couldn’t say in words.

  Billy went for the whip. “Dance!” he yelled. His whip cracked the air.

  And I held my ground.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Tiffany, a worried look in her eyes.

  I couldn’t explain, not without hurting her feelings. How could I tell her how foolish she looked? How could I explain what a dog’s life was meant to be? Dancing is downright humiliating for a dog. It goes against nature. There’s a line you just can’t cross and still be who you are. Billy was asking me to cross that line.

  Down came that whip. I didn’t yelp this time. Not with Tiffany watching, my pain reflected in her eyes.

  “Dance, you mangy cur!”

  Snap went the whip.

  Still I held my ground.

  For a little while, and strangely, my life began to relive itself. I heard Dad’s voice, felt Mom’s lick, saw Bob riding Appie. I remembered the Goat Man’s laugh, and how it felt to run with the sheep.

  Down came the whip again and again. Tiffany never looked away. My eyes never left hers. Not until the blackness took over.

  “Are you awake?”

  Was this what it meant to die? I couldn’t lift a paw, could hardly breathe. It hurt too much even to whimper. My back and sides stung like the memory of fire. Pain had settled deep within me, a dark and angry presence. Something trickled from my side, I didn’t want to think what.

  Tiffany began to lick my face, long, soft licks to soothe me. I closed my eyes. How had she gotten into my cage? Was I dreaming? If so, it was better to dream than to be awake. I drifted off again.

  Several times during the night I awoke, but feeling her beside me, I could let myself go back to that dark and dreamless world where time stood still.

  Morning brought no relief, except that Tiffany was there.

  “I have to go,” she said. “Lie still. Rest.” She licked my eyelids.

  Food arrived, but I had gone to that place beyond hunger, beyond caring. I think for a time I was close to death.

  One of the workers came and dressed my wounds. She was kind and tried to soothe me with words. After she left, I was alone. The others had gone to perform. The cheering sounded distant, as if it were moving farther and farther away from me.

  It was many days before I could stand, before I could eat the food they brought. Each night Tiffany would stay by my side—she’d always been able to open the cages, I couldn’t understand why she hadn’t left that place long before.

  I slept and dreamed, but never about the sheep. I knew it was because I’d lost my purpose. I’d given in to a caged life. Hour after hour, I lay on the cold dirt floor feeling sorry for myself. Every time the door opened, I cringed, knowing it had to be Billy. But it never was. He wasn’t sorry about what he’d done to me, that wasn’t why he stayed away. He simply had no use for me now that I couldn’t perform. But he hadn’t forgotten me. He wasn’t the kind to give up, to let the dancing trick go; he was waiting, that’s all, waiting for me to get well enough to work again. Either that, or die. He didn’t care which.

  At long last, I recovered. I began to eat with a good appetite. I looked forward to seeing my friends return from the day’s performance. They never said what I knew was in their minds: Billy would come for me, and soon.

  It was on a cold morning. We’d been fed and were waiting to be taken to the tent. Sometimes one of the trainers would come for us. This time it was Billy. To smell the man again made me sick inside. When he opened my cage, I couldn’t make my legs move. But the little dogs urged me in their worried voices, “Do what he says! You’ve got to!”

  “Get out here,” Billy said, his voice like a crack of that whip.

  I did what he said.

  We crossed the frozen ground to the tent, Tiffany at my side, the little dogs all around. There wasn’t much anybody could do if Billy decided to hurt me again, but I knew they’d be there for me if they could. Especially Tiffany. She was brave in that way—for others, never for herself.

  The elephants were restless, especially the big one they called Karma. Elephants don’t like the cold, as a rule. As we dogs passed on our way into the ring, Karma threw back his big trunk and trumpeted. The audience gasped, and then they began to applaud. Karma’s trainer poked and poked at him, trying to make him bow on one knee, his trick at the end of the elephant show. But Karma just bellowed, dancing away from the stick.

  This is what I’ve come to know about elephants: they are not slow. They might look slow, but they’re one heck of a lot faster than sheep, and a whole lot more dangerous.

  Billy was restless, too, cursing under his breath, just loud enough for us to hear. With his big checkered clown suit and painted-on smile, he looked as if he was having a great time. But every now and then he’d stop and stare at me as if I’d beat him at some game.

  “Ready for a dancing lesson, Sparky?” he said, his yellow teeth grinning inside that shiny, red mouth. Then he laughed his awful, broken laugh. “After the show, boy. You’ll dance for me then, won’t you?”

  All the time he was talking to me and my heart was shrinking inside, Billy was buckling on the harness. My job for the day was to pull You and You Too in the cart, while Tiffany danced. Around and around we went, past the elephants, past the cheering children. It was a mule’s job. Not that I was better than a mule, mind you. I’d had bigger dreams once, that’s all.

  At Billy’s order we came to a stop. Then he grabbed a hoop and set it on fire. A cloud of stinking black smoke rose up inside the tent. I hated this part. The whole time the little dogs did their fire trick, I’d want to run away, race ahead of the sheep and Bob and back to my mom.

  Then I’d remember where I
was and try to be strong for the others.

  “Jump, dogs!” Billy commanded, and all the little dogs lined up. One by one they ran and jumped through the burning hoop, then back around the ring and through the hoop again. They were so brave. But I guess, after all, they were more afraid of Billy than they were of fire.

  The audience loved that trick. They gasped and cheered as the dogs leapt clear of the flames and around the ring. Everything was going as it always had when, suddenly, the tip of You’s hat caught fire. Away he ran, the fire blazing behind him.

  “You!” cried You Too. Or maybe it was all of us. When You realized his hat was on fire, he went a little crazy. Up he scrambled onto the back of a horse. The pink lady rider screamed as her costume caught fire. She slid off the horse and began rolling on the ground. You kept running, setting everything his hat touched on fire. Flags and banners, ropes and feathers, my wooden cart. Then everything happened at once. People screamed and began to push and run. The horses went one way, the elephants another. Karma went straight for the crowd.

  I moved without thinking. My flaming cart bouncing behind me, I headed straight for Karma. It was no time for manners. I went for his back foot and sank my teeth in. Or tried to. If you’ve ever tried to bite into elephant hide, you know how tough it is. Karma hardly knew I was there. He raced for the door, where the people were crowded trying to get out, his big eye rolling. With a burst of speed, I got ahead of him and leapt for his throat. This slowed him down a little. At least he knew I was there. He did a little hop sideways, graceful as any animal I’ve ever seen. I leapt again, nipping his bottom lip. Up came his front feet. Back went his big trunk, and he bellowed like he was dying.

  I danced away from those huge feet as they came down, right onto my flaming cart, and broke it in pieces. I shook free of the cart, but the harness came with me. The last of the people pushed through the door as Karma’s trainer came running, his costume torn and covered with soot. While I’d been herding his elephant for him, he must have been helping the pink lady.