The Heart of Dog

by Doranna Durgin

  But Neil knew this spot, where the trees crept close to the canyon's edge—beech, maple, and hard, thorned locust. The next station loomed close—and the ponies, the llama, and half the sheep knew it. There'd be fences and shelter and the kind of food a man could throw into dinner within moments.

  Even better, light already winked through the window, glaring in the increasing rain. Solar-powered light, battery-stored—it meant the boss was already there, changing his own plans to help Neil manage the herd in the unusual weather. It was what a good boss did. It also meant the hot water heater would be fired up, the troughs already filled...Neil's wet, late-night arrival suddenly became a lot simpler.

  Within the trees, the lone pied wolf gave a sharp alarm bark. Ridiculous creature, the young pied—all lanky leg, with its bold calico-cat coloring and plumy brush of a tail. Its pointed nose spent most of its time to the ground, and those ears...big, upright, scooped in shape and alert in nature. They flattened anytime Neil glanced its way—for the pieds had an uncanny ability to read human expression and body language.

  It never appeared when Neil's rifle was to hand.

  It barked again, challenging something. Unusually bold. Within the Churras, Ben's neck lifted, stretching tall; he gave a blasting a snort into the wet night and took a few steps against the tide of movement—not toward the pied, but toward the far trees.

  "Hold on, girls," Neil murmured as signs of anxiety rippling through the bunched, rounded shapes of the Churras. A shift of his weight sent Zip toward the bulge that threatened to squirt away from the herd. "Another minute and we'll have you safely away..."

  Ben hesitated, looking from the station cabin to the woods rising from the tall grasses of the plateau, brushy hackberries making way for the taller trees. Thin at first but then...plenty of cover for anything from bobcat to bear. With economical motion, Neil jerked his rifle from the scabbard. Zip stopped, steady beneath him so Neil could aim and shoot.

  If he'd known what to shoot at. Or where. For now Ben had settled his protective gaze on the station itself, taking a few swift and threatening steps in that direction.

  But Ben knew the camp boss—had known him longer than Neil. Would never alert to him.

  But he'd alert to human strangers.

  Humans in the woods, humans at the station—

  Bad news.

  "Hold, Bessa!" he cried to the pony mare, urging Zip forward to help. It wouldn't be easy now, stopping the sheep when they had their mind set on the station. Not only stopping them, but turning them.

  No man belongs here.

  No man but one who's looking for trouble. Or to take a few convenient sheep along with them—or even the sheep fleece. He'd heard of such rustling operations—and the Churras grew fleece so fast that shearing them now, months early, would still result in a marketable fiber.

  Losing fleece, losing sheep... either would be the end of his chances for promotion. For this year, and maybe the next. For the chance to building more than just a job. To build a life.

  He'd take no chances with the occupied station. Exhaustion dropped over him along with his choices—go back to the last station, or forward to the swelling river. All in a drumming rain that chilled him deeply in spite of his canvas and gortex riding duster under a broad-rimmed hat, with animals who were as tired as he.

  Zip lunged beneath him, leaping forward to cut off a breakaway; the sheep spurted away, and the stout little tolter tucked his haunches, anticipated every move the woolly made until the sheep retreated sullenly into the herd. Neil, riding out the abrupt changes of direction with practiced ease, rifle still to hand, gave the tolter a pat of appreciation. Then he waved a broad direction to Bessa. "Turn 'em around!" he yelled. "We're going back."

  ~~~

  The pied understood. The alpha man wanted his sheep turned. His sheep.

  And the pied knew danger when he scented it. Unfamiliar humans, tainted with the acrid smell of gunpowder and gun oil and fear-sweat.

  Those unfamiliar humans moved as the man shifted the herd, chivvying it with tired ponies. The unfamiliar humans circled in the woods, quick and quiet, moving ahead to a spot where they could break into the open ahead of the herd.

  The pied knew that maneuver. Had used it.

  Clinging to the shadows, he gave another warning bark. That was his job, though the man had not yet realized it. The youngest, the most submissive...the out guards. Warning the more valuable members of the pack when danger neared.

  But this time, the man heeded him. Noted his change of position and his persistence—along with the increasing agitation of the long-necked one. Lifted his noise-maker of wood and metal.

  Not soon enough.

  ~~~

  Neil understood—finally understood.

  Ben told him, the damned pied told him. The woods held men, and they moved to cut him off. Damn them. And though he couldn't see them, not yet, he lifted his rifle—

  He felt the impact before he heard the shot, rocking in the saddle as his arm took a bone-breaking bullet. He barely managed to keep hold of his rifle—barely managed to snatch Zip's pale mane and keep himself mounted. In the next instant Zip leaped forward, nearly unseating Neil all over again. The Churras!

  Rain pelted his face; escalating waves of agony clenched his arm. He couldn't support it and still grip the wet mass of mane that had suddenly become his lifeline; he managed to jam his hand inside his coat. The night swept by in streaky images of shadow and shape, in the sound of running horses and the softer, endless ticking of cloven sheep hooves, in the smell of wet wool and steaming horses and his own fear and the sharp tang of his blood spilling freely down his arm and onto his thigh, streaming off the duster in a mix of water and life.

  After a whirl of movement, they scrambled downhill. Down, with only one thing at the end of their run—that which grew loud in his ears, a roaring that battled with and overcame the personal roar in his ears.

  The angry river.

  As suddenly as the run began, it stopped; Zip jammed short on stiff front legs to avoid slewing them both into the river, his smooth tolting turned into a crowhop of desperation. Cold air bit at Neil's bottom as he lost the saddle; he cried out an angry, betrayed curse has he lost his stirrups and still fought to stay mounted, knowing even as he greeted air that beneath him lay only the—

  Rocks.

  ~~~

  The pied panted at the edge of the herd. Exhausted, as all of them. Rubbery legs, hot hot tongue, even as the cold rain pelted against his wet fur. Not yet penetrating the soft, thick undercoat of his body, but soaking his legs, his ears...and soon enough, the whole of him.

  The unfamiliar men were behind them. One, attacked by the llama and quickly smelling of blood. Another, lost in a sea of horned sheep and no longer moving. Others from the cabin, not yet following.

  Not yet.

  But the pied knew predators when he saw them.

  Daring much, he slunk between the man's sheep to find the man himself. The alpha. He fully expected to be struck down—but he found the man motionless, bleeding on the rocks with his hands clutching the reins of the pony beside him. The pony, too, lay on the rocks, too used up to stand any longer. Its breath came panting from flared nostrils; it did not bother to notice the pied.

  The pied licked a bloody rock. It licked the man's head where fresh blood still welled, and then pawed slightly at the arm that stank of raw flesh and blood.

  The man groaned; the pied startled away.

  But it came back. Uncertain of its role, waiting for direction, even waiting to be driven off, it curled up beside the man to lick its sore paws and soak up what little warmth rose between them.

  ~~~

  In the midst of darkness, the man shifted. He groaned, the kind of noise that comes from creatures not truly aware of themselves. By then the pied was a safe distance away, shivering in fear and cold and the startling want to return to that warm spot by the man's side. The loss of it made a huge spot into which his loneliness rushed.


  Not far, a sheep lay cooling, stiffening in the night. Not the pied's doing...but he looked on it with hungry longing.

  His own pack rules kept him from it. It belonged to the man. The pack leader. The pied licked his lips, drooling...and waited. The pack leader would not let him go hungry, not once the pied's submissive restraint became clear.

  The man groaned again, and this time struggled to sit, reaching for the horse beside him in dazed and fumbling movement. One-handed, he found the bulging leather case at the horse's flank and pulled an object free, a rustling, flapping thing that drove the pied even further away.

  When the pied ventured back, full only of weak and tentative courage, he discovered the man covered by a tarp, and rain beading to roll off the sides. Uncertain, he nosed the stiff material...and then heard the others arriving.

  The unfamiliar. Those who had shed blood. His rain-soaked hackles rose, and he stalked the edges of the uneasy herd. The pony mare called a greeting, was answered. Man's-light reflected off the wet backs of the sheep, the glistening blades of grass and the small bushy willows scattered through the area.

  The pied glanced back. The man hadn't moved beneath his tarp. The man had no idea his territory had been invaded.

  But the pied knew.

  The pied crouched, whimpering. Shy and frightened and keenly aware of his life's role. Protect the territory. The sheep were territory; the ponies were territory.

  The unfamiliar humans on their unfamiliar ponies did not belong here.

  The llama knew it; he gave an outraged snort, rose to his feet from the center of the herd, and charged the interlopers. A noose flashed through the darkness, looping over the llama's neck; pony and llama set against one another while men closed in on the long-necked one. The llama gave a sudden bleating cry, one the pied had never heard from its kind before. Moments later, it settled heavily into the grasses. The smell of blood came thick and rank.

  In a sudden spurt of action, the pied sprinted from his hidden crouch, bolting through the rocky grasses in a streak of patchy color. All but invisible in the overcast night, he struck like calico lightning, slashing an equine hindquarter, a human leg, a soft whiskered muzzle. A horse grunted in pain; a man cried out in surprise. Someone lost control of his panicked mount and crashed away into the night, cursing until the crash of a branch silenced him.

  The pied circled tightly for another run, darting and biting and slashing. What he saw clearly in the darkness, the men seemed unable to perceive; their lights strobed wildly through the night, hunting him. The ponies were another thing; a hind hoof flashed and the pied dodged—not fast enough. The impact knocked the wind from him and sent him flying to the side.

  The men stabbed the darkness with jerky light; they spoke sharply to one another, listened momentarily to the surging cry of the pieds closing in from across the river, and wheeled their ponies around, leaving in a hasty clatter of even-stepping hooves.

  Panting with nerves, cold with the rain, the pied could not move just yet. His breath steamed the air. Moments passed; the men did not return. Not yet. Come daylight, they would grow bold again.

  But the pied had done his job. Protect the territory. Eventually he dragged his bruised body upright. The disturbed sheep slowly huddled back together again, but they left a gap around the body of the long-necked one.

  The pied went to it, snuffling and inspecting and finding it truly dead. With a furtive glance toward the man, the pied lapped at the blood of the llama's woolly neck, drinking stolen sustenance.

  Then, mustering all its courage, it crept back and nosed its way under the tarp to share the shelter and the warmth of their battered bodies.

  ~~~

  Sunshine. Steamy warmth. The most excruciating pain.

  At first Neil wasn't sure just what hurt. His whole body reverberated with it, making his world tilt and swoop. Or was it just that he had to—

  Neil managed to roll over on the rocks before he retched up the meager contents of his stomach. For a long while after that he just lay there, head reeling, stomach roiling, his arm making it perfectly clear just what hurt the most. After a time, he recalled a sense of danger, regained a vague impression of the night's stampede. Remembered the stark biting shock of the bullet, but not how he'd ended up on the ground. Not how he'd come to be under the tarp.

  With an awkward jerk, he flipped the tarp away, looking down at himself. Formerly wet, now drying. Except for a patch along his belly and side, where his duster had come open and his shirt held a lingering warmth. And the ground beside him...a small warm hollow of dried grass. A tuft of white and black hair.

  Surely not.

  He frowned, didn't try to make any more sense of it. Spent a few precious moments ripping tarp with his hunting knife, binding his arm to his side in the most awkward of ways. Sweat poured off his face and sprang up on his chest; he took a timely lurch to the side and heaved over the rocks. Finally, carefully, he sat up.

  Zip grazed to the south, saddle slightly askew, reins looped just behind his ears and under one hoof. As Neil watched, the pony deliberately lifted that foot, moved his head aside, and grazed on. Wise creature. No doubt the tolter had saved his life a dozen times during the night.

  Bess, her light packs still in place, grazed at the other side of the spreading herd; Ben was nowhere to be seen. Not far from Neil's uncomfortable resting spot, the river roared, full of rain and fury. They wouldn't cross it today. Maybe not tomorrow. A full-sized horse could make it, but not the sheep. Not the tolters.

  He couldn't go back. The station was compromised. And he needed help before this arm became infected and he lost it—or lost his life to it.

  In his packs, the radio sat useless. Drained.

  Abandon the sheep? Take a tolter upstream along the canyon, where a footbridge over the narrows let a man cross?

  Say good-by to his career with that. The ranchers might nod, might understand and might offer sympathy, but they wouldn't hire him. No mind the college degree, the years of proving himself. He'd spend his life as an itinerant shearer doing catch-work the rest of the year.

  Neil ran a hand over his face, rubbing gritty eyes and bringing his hand away bloody. He stared, puzzled, and began to understand that somewhere along the way—most likely right in this very spot—he'd fallen from the pony and hit his head.

  From his hand, dirty and scratched and stained with blood in all its work-worn creases, he focused outward. For the first time he spotted the dead Churra nearby, its legs stiff, a grimace revealing its tiny neat teeth, its dull eyes only half closed. No blood. Just driven to deathly exhaustion in the pouring cold cold rain.

  Neil knew just how it felt.

  Over the tumbling sound of water against rock, a high, sharp whistle hit Neil's ears. He turned with the creaky bones of a man much older than his twenty-seven years and caught the broad wave of a man on horseback, standing on the other side of the river.

  The camp boss.

  Relief washed over Neil, relief so great it caught his breath and came out in a short, sharp sob. He waved back, glad the river made conversation impossible. He couldn't have trusted his voice.

  The man rode a tall, rawboned bay. He could make it over the river; he'd have food and a radio. And most of all, the sheep were here to meet him. Not all of them; even in his blurry state Neil could see he'd lost more than a few. But it was the boss's job to keep the stations secure, not Neil's. As long as Neil hadn't abandoned the flock...

  He'd come out of this okay.

  He took stock of things. He caught up his rifle, checked it. A round waited, chambered sometime during the night. He tried to remember; couldn't. Dammit.

  Movement caught his eye: his pied. That gangly yearling pied with its sweep of a tail held low, its absurdly large ears canted back. Not laughing, as so many of them seemed to be. Worried. Focused on Neil, as if waiting to see what happened next.

  As if it mattered.

  Neil looked again to the dry hollow beside his own
resting spot, reached out to catch the clump of hair and rub it between his fingers. Soft. Undercoat. Surely not...

  No matter. The pied would run when Neil climbed, so painfully, to his feet.

  It didn't.

  From his new vantage point Neil could see the ravages of the night. Three more sheep down, stiff and dead. The others scattered, some even strayed into the lowland willows, cottonwoods and hackberries that sprang up fifty yards back from the water's edge.

  In the middle of it all he found Ben, a lump of llama fur somehow too small to have fit the animal's bold personality. Dried dark blood smeared Ben's throat, splashing down his chest with the powerful spurt of a cut throat.

  He gave his pied a sharp, narrow-eyed look, seeing for the first time the way blood smeared across its face and, diluted by rain, pinked across the white fur of its chest. But no single pied could bring down a llama. No pied could even get close without taking damage.

  ~~~

  The pied took a hesitant step. Limping. Stiff and sore, and newly bolted from the warmth of his place by the man's side. But he couldn't read the man's body-words, so mixed up with injuries and unsteady posture. Even as he watched, the man sunk slowly down to his knees next to the dead sheep.

  The pied gave a tentative wag of his tail, low between his hocks. Flattened his ears, tipped his head lowered head slightly.

  The man sunk down lower behind the sheep. An invitation.

  The pied took another step. He thought of companionship and warmth and the sheep this man might offer, feeding his pack members as he should. He thought of the strange satisfaction of a night at this man's side.

  Another step.

  ~~~

  No pied could bring down a llama....

  But here it came, covered in blood, limping and hurt. Kicked, as likely as not. But no pied could... Neil closed his eyes, trying to connect the unusually scattered sheep, the dead llama, and the wounded pied into some logical summation of this tortured night.