Say No More

by Sasson, Gemini

  That was the last thing he said to me that night. I soon learned he didn’t say much most of the time. Not even to me. He didn’t need to, really. He was so easy to understand.

  chapter 11

  From the beginning, our relationship was very clear and uncomplicated. I was his silent companion and soon to be his working partner — but he never rushed the point. The Old Man had limitless patience. That’s the difference between youth and age. When you’re young, you think everything has to be done now and that you have far too many things to do than you can ever get done. When you’re old, you realize most things aren’t as important as you’d like to think and that there’s always tomorrow, until ... until there just isn’t, anymore.

  While his house was small, the bank barn next to it was ten times the size. The barn had been built into a manmade hill, so a tractor or truck could be driven to the upper level and unloaded. In the barn’s second story was a loft, stacked with sweet-smelling hay and golden straw, and below were rows and rows of sheep pens, some big, some small. He kept two kinds of sheep: Barbados Blackbelly and Suffolks. He never mixed the two and I quickly learned how different in behavior they were.

  At first, he just let me follow along. Well, not quite ‘follow’, because I had to go wherever he did. He kept a leash on me, he told me, until he was certain I knew my place was beside him. I never balked when he snapped the leash on. I was well fed, warm and even clean — although I had never quite appreciated how good a bath could make me feel until I had lived in filth for far too long.

  Days became weeks; weeks became months. There was a rhythm to our routine that brought with it a sense of peace and purpose. Every morning he rose before first light and made sure my bowl was full before he sat down to his cup of coffee and buttered toast. Sometimes, there was even a raw egg on my kibble. Then we did chores until lunchtime, which meant a ham sandwich for him and a heel of bread for me. After that, more chores and occasionally an errand into town. In the evenings, he let me lick his plate clean. My ribs filled out and my fur became full and glossy again. Every day, the ritual was the same, no matter what day of the week it was. Animals, he said, did not go on holiday. A farmer’s work was never-ending. Cam had said the same thing more than once.

  I trailed after him as he fed the sheep, cleaned their watering troughs, and scooped out manure. He did his chores without complaint and with a vigor that belied his years. Some of the sheep’s bellies grew big and fat on the hay he fed them and before that first winter had retreated in full, we were greeted one morning to a pair of little black-faced twins standing on wobbly legs beside their mother. Curious, I pressed my nose between the wires of the fence. The ewe stomped an angry hoof at me in warning. I growled softly at her and stood my ground.

  The Old Man nodded his head as he looked down at me. “You tell her who’s boss. But mind you, she’ll defend those babies with her life, so treat them kindly, y’hear?” Then we moved on to the next pen. “Remember, it’s the black-faced ones you have to be careful of,” he told me.

  Three pens further down, we found a stillborn lamb. It was cold to the touch and long past saving, but in the weeks to come I saw him revive more than one lamb and bring it back from the brink of death. He had powers, I surmised, beyond that of ordinary humans. Sometimes I wondered if he had been there when Bit was sick, could he have saved her, too?

  Whenever I thought of my mother, I was often overcome with sadness. Simple memories filled me with an ache that rooted itself deep in my chest and would grow to clench my stomach. Even though I was fed and warmed and cared for, I missed her comforting presence.

  I never stopped missing her, even though I knew she was all right, wherever it was that she had gone to — because she had come back to let me know.

  —o00o—

  He was sly about it. Luring me into the truck for a ‘ride’. And not to the feed store, but to that most awful of places that any dog with sense learns to dread: the veterinarian’s.

  I could smell the disinfectant before he opened the truck door and had to drag me out. The Old Man pulled me over toward a patch of grass that reeked of the urine of hundreds of other dogs.

  I stood defiantly on the asphalt, glaring at him.

  He tugged on my leash. “Hurry up, girl. You won’t have another chance for a while.”

  What was that supposed to mean?

  A small black car pulled into the parking lot. Paws slammed against the window as the driver turned the engine off. A middle-aged man in a gray pinstriped suit got out, went to the back door and opened it. Out bounded an imposingly large German Shepherd. It charged to the end of its flexi-lead, barking furiously.

  My first instinct was to run, save my skin. I was wise enough to know I wouldn’t last long in a fight with that monster. But my second — and stronger — instinct was to protect the Old Man.

  I planted myself firmly between him and the lunging dog, my teeth snapping as I returned the threat.

  “Be a good boy, Rex,” Suit-Man said, glaring at me with disgust. Then to the Old Man, “He just wants to say ‘hi’.”

  “Huh,” the Old Man grunted. “Heck of a way to greet somebody.”

  Then the Old Man hurried to the building, giving the rabid dog and its oblivious owner wide berth. Inside, I was assaulted by more smells: fear, sickness ... and death.

  The Old Man gave his name at the desk and sat down on a wooden bench. A mother and two children sat on the adjacent bench, the little girl clutching a small, scrappy looking dog that shook with terror. Across from us, a thin woman sat reading a magazine. At her feet lay a Golden Retriever, his muzzle streaked with white, his tail thumping happily every time someone looked his way. And tucked in the far corner was another woman with a cardboard box cradled in her lap. A row of small holes lined the longer sides and from those holes I could make out white whiskers and an orange, triangular nose set in a black face. A cat. I watched the box carefully, prepared to defend myself, if needed.

  My anxiety escalated when the German Shepherd and Suit-Man walked in the door. But suddenly, the dog that was all bluster and ferocity outside was reduced to a whimpering mess of fur and slobber once inside. His nails raked at the slick linoleum as his owner dragged him to the desk. The dog flattened himself on the mat there, refusing to budge when his owner started toward one of the benches.

  So, he’d been here before?

  “Halo Penewit?” a cheery brunette chirped from the hall doorway as she smiled at me. “This way, please.”

  I no more trusted her than I trusted that German Shepherd and his owner. But Cecil got up, started after her and, of course, I followed him.

  I probably shouldn’t have. If I had known that morning what was in store, I would have hightailed it. There were two injections. The first was a thick needle that pricked the loose skin above my shoulder blades. This, she told the Old Man, was my microchip. If I was ever lost or ran away, a scan would tell who my owner was and how to contact him. The second shot was in the tender muscle of my flank. I quickly grew sleepy after that, but I remember her saying something about ‘no puppies’. All I know is that I woke up several hours later with a sore belly full of stitches and a plastic cone around my head.

  The humiliation was more unbearable than the pain.

  The Old Man took me home, where I ran into the table legs, the kitchen cabinets, and the doorframe more times than I could count. My head ached for hours.

  —o00o—

  The Old Man’s farm was tucked in a steep-sided valley, cut deep by a fast-flowing creek that swelled over its banks every spring. On the hillsides, junipers gripped the soil tight with their roots and in April the woods were dotted with the deep purple-pink blooms of redbuds. The land had been cleared generations ago by Cecil Penewit’s own ancestors and, while it had first been used to farm tobacco, Cecil had turned his hand to sheep farming — a dying trade, he called it, but one unto which he felt called. I understood completely. Being around the flock filled me with a sense of purpose
that I longed to fill.

  The grass sparkled with dew the first morning he took me in with the sheep. When I was a pup, I had watched Bit move sheep many times. But Lise’s flock had been small, her pastures a mere fraction of the size of Cecil’s, and there was not much variation in their routine. Thus, Lise’s sheep were perhaps just as well trained as Bit herself. They knew the dog, they knew where to go, and they knew that sticking close to Lise ensured their safety.

  The Old Man’s sheep, though, weren’t as compliant. And they hadn’t seen a dog for months, if not years.

  “Been a long time since Luke was around to help me.” The Old Man swung the gate open just far enough for the two of us to wiggle inside. “I’m getting too old to do this by myself, so you’re going to have to earn your keep from here on, y’hear, girl?”

  Halfway across the small pasture, a flock of about twenty Barbados Blackbelly Sheep clustered tightly together. They were not white and wooly like the Suffolks, but had shaggy brown hair with black markings on their legs, bellies and faces. They were also noticeably more nervous than the woollies. In some ways, they looked more like small deer or wild goats than sheep. As much as they seemed to want to go to the Old Man, they kept their eyes on me, every single one of them. The younger ewes and the wethers stood to the back of the flock, while the older ewes stood defiantly in the van, their heads high, their forelegs stiff.

  Curious how they would react to me, I took a small step forward. The Old Man snapped my line back.

  “Lie down,” he commanded. I did so, as he had taught me to do. Although soft spoken, he was also clear and consistent. As we did our chores every day, he would tell me to lie down while he did what he had to do. He gave a command only once. Failure to obey resulted in a quick correction, firm, never heavy handed. Compliance meant reward. Praise, mostly, although carrots, strawberries, and sometimes Slim Jims were added incentives.

  He had attached a rope to my collar that must have been ten times the length of my normal leash. He held the line close to my collar, while the rest lay coiled at his feet. Clutched in his left hand was a tall crook. He leaned on it, just a little, his thumb stroking the polished wood of the curved handle.

  “Patience, girl. Booger those sheep, and you and I will have a serious talk.”

  There was just enough firmness in his voice, as soft as it was, to let me know that I needed to control my instincts. The real problem, though, was not my patience. It was my inability to know what to do with the urges that were scraping away at my nerves, shouting at me to make those sheep move, move, move!

  “Get around,” he said, as he let out a length of line.

  Confused, I gazed up at him.

  “Get around,” he repeated, nodding toward the sheep.

  An older ewe, her nose scarred, twitched her hide and pounded a hoof on the ground. I didn’t like the looks of that one, so I took off straight for her. The second I did so, the Old Man stepped toward me and smacked the end of the crook on the ground.

  “Ach! Get out.”

  The whoosh of the crook and the sternness in his voice startled me. I veered away from him, keeping my eyes on that one sheep, because I was sure that whatever she did, the rest would likewise do. If there was one thing I knew about sheep, it was that they always stuck close together. The rebel that strayed forfeited its own safety.

  “Out.”

  He stepped into me again. I widened my course into an arc. The flock drew tighter, twisted their heads to watch as I cast outward. The older ewe turned toward me, lowered her head in challenge. Someone, I decided, needed to learn who the boss was here. So I beelined straight for her. The leader. The elected one.

  That was when all hell broke loose.

  Half the flock went one way, half another. They didn’t stay in one neat group, as they had been before, but they scattered like wheat chaff cast to the wind. I zeroed in on one pair, only to catch site of three more to my right, then another bearing down on me, while yet more raced in the opposite direction. They were fast. So fast! Bounding like antelopes across the open plain.

  I felt a firm tug on the line, but I lunged forward, yanking the line out of the Old Man’s grasp.

  The chaos of motion sent my brain into overdrive. Adrenaline flooded my veins. Rational thought was impossible. Patience was out of the question. I could only react. The thrill of it made me explode with energy.

  Run! Chase! Bark! Run! Bark —

  The crook came sailing out of the air like a missile. It ticked the ground, flipped sideways, and crashed through the tall grass, nicking my left foot smartly.

  Surprised, I jumped back, shook my head, and stared over the heads of a jittery group of younger ewes that were clustered about the Old Man’s knees.

  “Out, I said,” he insisted through gritted teeth.

  While I backed away from him, he went and collected his crook again. The sheep followed him closely, their eyes locked on mine. I stayed far, far away the next time, swooping around in a broad circle.

  The sheep, although still slightly frantic, began to clump more tightly, until all of them had drawn together. As I tired and slowed, they calmed. My brain calmed down, too. I became more aware of the Old Man and the words he would say to me, like ‘Out’, ‘Steady’, and ‘Ach!’ That last one meant I was not doing what he wanted. It was the first thing I figured out.

  Every day, we repeated this in the small pasture. He would let go of my line and tell me to ‘Get around’. I would cast in a wide arc, turn, and push the sheep toward him. Whenever he turned, I turned, too. If he stopped, I stopped. If I pushed them too hard, he reprimanded me with his voice or a wave of his crook.

  When that became too easy, we worked in a bigger pasture. I moved big groups and small ones, and sometimes a single ram. I learned by their movements how close I could work and how quickly. I came to learn the difference between the stubborn Suffolks and the flighty Barbs, which individuals were prone to give me trouble, and which ones the others followed.

  I learned commands by repetition. When I was right, he let me know. When I was wrong, he let me know that, too. His meaning, usually, was clear. But sometimes he’d say ‘go-bye’, which meant to circle to the left, when he obviously meant ‘way-to-me’, which was the opposite direction. At first I’d always do as he said, but his frustration would quickly surface and, with a muttered curse, he’d step in to push me in the direction he really wanted me to go. I learned to check his body language if there was any doubt on my part.

  As our sessions went more smoothly, our trust in each other grew. But it was never my place to let him know when he was wrong. What was important was that the job was done right.

  “Go-bye,” he said one morning, as we were moving the sheep to another pasture.

  If I could have spoken, that would have been the opportune time. Somehow, I had to let him know his error by just showing him. Go-bye would have sent them right back to where they’d come from. I paused on my feet, gazed at him, then took a step to the right and paused again.

  The sheep shifted toward the gate where he’d meant to send them. “Yeah, that way. Just ...” — he lifted his crook in the direction I was pointed — “get around.”

  I swung to the right and the sheep calmly trotted through the gate and into a fresh pasture.

  The Old Man called me to him and thumped me once on the head.

  “Good girl,” was all he said.

  And it was enough.

  We were a unit, the Old Man and I. He made the plans, orchestrated our sessions, and saw to it that our routine was adhered to with religious zeal. I did as he said — well, most of the time — and in turn I got to do my job every day. I had a purpose. I had value.

  The pampered life of the lap dog, the monotony of being a pet relegated to the backyard waiting all day for my people to come home, the aimlessness of the stray — those were lives I would not have chosen.

  To work with purpose was to live in each moment, imbued with joy and fed by passion. It was
to lose all sense of time. Effort became forgotten in the quest to achieve the goal. And when the work was done, rest was nothing more than a necessity, a chance for my body to refuel and my mind to reflect on all that had been accomplishment between sunrise and sunset.

  I pitied the dog who had no purpose, for they did not truly live, they merely existed.

  chapter 12

  The grass grew tall and thick, its roots fed by abundant spring thunderstorms. The creek that cut through the valley became a raging river, brown with silt. The woods surrounding the farm grew dense with foliage, a tangle of undergrowth winding beneath the dappled shade of locust and ash trees.

  On summer evenings, when our work was done early, the Old Man and I would rest beneath the towering catalpas, with their big heart-shaped leaves and elegant blooms that resembled orchids. The crickets strummed their wistful ballads and the bullfrogs crooned discordantly. When autumn came, the Old Man gathered walnuts from the yard and put them in paper grocery bags. Sometimes I would help him clean up by bringing him sticks, which always earned me a smile. These he gathered in a small pile and lit on fire when he had enough bigger branches. For hours he sat atop an old stump, gazing into the flames, poking at the embers with a branch, while I lay beside him, my ears keened for the movement of small animals in the nearby trees.

  I was ever vigilant. I swore that one day I would catch one of the squirrels that jeered at me from afar, and I would make Bit proud of me. Studying them became my second job. In return, they studied me. I knew which boughs their nests were in, knew when the young ones ventured forth, and from which trees they collected their nuts. Their chatter was an endless taunt that drove me to insanity’s front door.

  In my dreams, as I slumbered beneath the kitchen table, they would surround me, an army of them, the plume of their gray tails twitching behind them. Their greedy cheeks were stuffed with acorns, their beady eyes a murderous black. Still, they chattered, a high-pitched prattle emitted in fits and stops. The moment I moved toward them, they’d vault into the trees that had grown up through the roof, scrabbling up the rough bark with their tiny claws. Then from the branches they lobbed walnuts at me. Walnuts so big that I had to run away to save myself.