Rose in a Storm

by Jon Katz

  “This is as still as it gets, isn’t it, Rose?” Katie said once. Something about Katie settled Rose, and although she understood none of them, she loved the words that poured out of her. Katie’s tone spoke to Rose as distinctly as any words or narratives, and Rose understood her love, her cheerfulness, the peacefulness of their walks. It was satisfying work for her.

  In the farmhouse, toward the end of a day, Rose had begun to sit beside Katie up on the couch, and Katie would speak to her as she stroked her back and neck. Rose never permitted anyone else to do this.

  Katie often turned to the dog and said, “It’s just us girls,” and Rose lay by Katie while she worked on her quilts or knitted her scarves. She sat underneath the computer table when Katie worked there, or on the kitchen floor when she cooked. Over time, Rose came to understand the term “girls” as work, but not the kind that her instincts led her to or that she carried images of. It was new to her, and it was good.

  “I never thought I’d see it,” Sam would murmur softly when he stumbled across the two of them. He loved seeing “his women” together.

  One winter day, Rose had been sitting out in the pasture, watching the sheep. There was an ice storm, and soon the dog was covered in ice. It crusted over her eyes, nose, and fur, and Katie called her inside and made her lie down by a warm stove while she gently brushed the ice out of her coat. Rose had rarely—perhaps never—felt so calm and at ease. And she’d never let another human touch her face. Sam, whom she was profoundly attached to, did not connect with her in this way.

  Sam told Katie he thought Rose had changed since she had come, and it was a sweet thing to see. “She’s too serious,” he said. “She’s a workaholic.” Katie always had the same rejoinder. “Sam, so are you!” And he knew it was so.

  Rose thought of Katie often during the day, even when she was working. But there had been one particular day when she was inexplicably drawn to Katie and followed her through the house, even balking at going outside to work. Katie noticed it right away, and so did Sam. Rose had sensed something wrong, something out of place.

  She could smell it, almost see it.

  Over the next months, Katie became much more still and quiet, the spirit beginning to drain from her. She did not smell or speak or breathe the same way. Rose did not understand right away. Katie was still there, but in a different form.

  One day, Katie lay down in the bedroom upstairs where she and Sam slept, and she did not leave the room again. There were no walks in the morning, or in the evening, no time on the couch. Sam didn’t call Rose out to work for some days after that, but left her in the room with Katie.

  Rose had the feeling she had when she worked, that there was something to do. She jumped up onto the bed and lay still beside Katie, sometimes for hours.

  At first Rose was puzzled. She expected Katie to get up. But soon, she adapted to the new routine, and her map changed once again.

  When she woke up each morning, the first thing Katie saw was Rose, prompting an increasingly rare smile. Rose usually lay down alongside her on the bed, eyes open, watching her. Sometimes, if Katie was calm and at ease, Rose would drift off to sleep. But mostly, she simply watched her, listening to the sound of her breathing, the beating of her heart.

  The two became inseparable. Sam saw this and encouraged it. He would leave Rose inside and go do the farm chores and tend the crops himself, unless he had to move the sheep or cows.

  Rose noticed his approval. Love was a kind of attention that Rose saw clearly, and responded to powerfully.

  Before Katie, work had meant one thing to Rose, but now it meant another thing entirely.

  Rose felt the power in Katie’s looks and words. She was keenly aware of the illness and loved the attention, and soon, she connected the two.

  Katie didn’t often feel like talking anymore, not even to Sam. It was too hard when everyone wanted her to be happy, to be better, and she felt she was failing them. Rose wanted nothing from her, was content just to listen. So she did. It became her work with Katie, as important as moving the sheep. Rose, the most energetic and restless of creatures, was a surprisingly gifted listener, focused and patient. She never tired of listening to Katie, focused on her with her ingrained intensity, and she felt increasingly protective of her. When anyone other than Sam came into the room, she would growl, raise her hackles, have to be shushed by Katie or Sam, or even led away.

  Often she raised her nose to pick up Katie’s scent, read her body. The scent had changed, and Rose understood what the smell meant. It pulled her closer to Katie, made her more attentive. Even when she heard the sheep moving outside—she was always listening to them move—she was drawn to stay close. She sensed that her presence was calming, she saw the look on Sam’s face when she lay next to Katie, and knew that this was where she needed to be.

  Rose was transformed in that room, alert to every sound, no longer just the frenetic working dog she’d been. She connected with the sickness and pain in Katie—and Katie understood that healing her, helping her, soothing her, had become Rose’s purpose.

  Rose heard her heartbeat flicker, then race, then slow. She caught the smells and heat of the growing thing, and of the medicines, the change in skin color, the fear and restlessness, the smell of the sweat, the overall disturbance in the body. She saw Katie’s spirit weaken. She heard the gasps and cries of pain, the changing rhythm of her breathing. She knew everything that was happening inside Katie’s body, reacted to it, lying still, moving closer, licking Katie’s hand.

  She saw other people, other images, from other times, people in beds, in rooms, in fields, turning to her, to others like her, needing attention, needing the feel of her, the focus of her.

  “Please stay,” she heard Katie ask her one morning.

  She understood the command “stay” and sensed the power of the plea behind it.

  When Katie took her in her arms one night, she spoke in words that seemed to contain concern for Rose. Rose watched her closely as she spoke, and wondered at the sadness and affection in her voice. She tilted her ears and widened her blue eyes in puzzlement, wondering if this might be a command for some kind of work.

  She stayed in the room, leaving only when Sam called her out and tried to make her eat. She rarely did. Once in a while he tried to get her outside, but she rarely went anymore.

  One night, Sam locked Rose in the barn with the sheep and told her to go to sleep. Confused, then alarmed, she barked and whined as she heard people, machines, and noises from in and around the farmhouse. In the morning, Sam finally let her out and she raced upstairs into the bedroom.

  Katie was gone. Her scent remained, her spirit, her clothes and shoes, but not Katie herself.

  Rose began looking for her, racing through the house, unable to fathom where she’d gone.

  After all her fruitless searching, Rose slipped back into Katie’s bedroom and crawled under her bed and did not move until Sam finally thought to look for her there.

  But the sadness didn’t go away. A great emptiness settled over her. Every morning, Rose looked for Katie in the house, on the path, in the woods. Every night, she returned to the house and ran to the bedroom upstairs. She did not find Katie, could not pick up a fresh scent.

  Rose had lost some of her purpose.

  Katie had become a part of her. But she was not on the farm, not in the farmhouse, not in the woods, with Sam. Like so many of the images in Rose’s mind, Katie’s slowly began to recede, absorbed into her memory, fused with the other images in her consciousness. And she adapted, as she always had. She never left Katie, yet she almost reflexively moved on.

  Now Rose went for the same walk almost every morning, and every afternoon, by herself. And each day, she lay down by the stump and waited for Katie to bring her some bread, though she never came.

  It didn’t matter that she didn’t ever find her. Rose would look for her every day for the rest of her life, and perhaps beyond. Sometimes she dreamed of Katie, dreamed of walking in the woods,
sitting in the kitchen, lying under the sewing machine.

  * * *

  SAM HAD KNOWN after the first doctor’s visit that Katie would not live long.

  At first, he was surprised by Rose’s attachment to his dying wife, but when he thought about it, it made sense. One way or another, Rose seemed to know everything, and there was no limit to her faithfulness. He had also witnessed her growing connection to Katie. Of course Rose knew, and of course she would be there.

  And so, as often happened, he got out of Rose’s way and let her do her work. He had never been good with words or emotions, and although his love for Katie was deep, he almost never knew what to say. Even though he knew better, he couldn’t help trying to cheer Katie up, to reassure her. But she was too smart for that, he knew, and there was no good news, would not be any.

  So he was increasingly grateful to Rose, whose presence put no pressure on Katie. She gave her nothing but love and relief and companionship as he tended to the farm. As Katie’s illness worsened, Rose’s grasp of her work with Katie only seemed to grow. By the end it was an astonishing and powerful thing to see.

  Katie was worried about Rose, and told Sam so. She took on so much, she said. Would she be broken in spirit? Would she feel as if she had failed? Would she know she had done her best?

  Sam tried to reassure her. She’s a dog, he said. A wonderful dog, but still a dog. They move on. It’s their way.

  Later, he regretted locking Rose in the barn when Katie passed away. He had meant to shield her, protect her from seeing her beloved Katie die, to make sure she didn’t think she had failed. But it had been a mistake. Sam had always made certain Rose saw all of the comings and goings on the farm. That was how she kept her map. But now he feared Rose would never stop looking for Katie, would always think she was coming home.

  And in this he was correct.

  NOW ROSE KEPT VIGIL for Sam on this awful winter night.

  She saw his anguish and hurt while he lay on the couch, saw that he was worse, damaged in some way, and in great pain.

  But the images that kept recurring to her now were of the lamb being hauled away by the coyotes and the ewe calling to her for help. The danger was outside. And it was getting light again.

  ROSE HEARD A BELLOWING. The cows. She had barely paid attention to them, she had been too distracted by the coyotes and Sam. Rose had seen that animals reacted to cold differently. Sheep, with all of their wool, huddled together for warmth. Cows, with their big exposed sides, had to keep moving to escape the cold. She had seen them during other storms, circling, moving, staying out of the wind.

  She went out the back door of the farmhouse, around to the other side of the barn—an easier path, protected from the wind—and squeezed through the gate. Brownie was lowing softly, with three cows standing still next to him, out in the open. Rose saw that the shelter where they usually went in cold weather had collapsed under the weight of the snow.

  She started to go get Sam, then stopped, an image of him gasping in pain flashing in her mind. She could sense that several of the cows were barely breathing.

  Rose could hear from their hearts that one was dead, frozen to death in place, and the others were weakening.

  They had to move.

  Though she was exhausted herself, she lunged through the snow and threw herself on one of the cows’ haunches, biting. The cow bellowed and spun, and crashed into the other two, startling Brownie and the others, the three of them stampeding in a circle, through the snow, around the wreck of their shelter, overturning a frozen feeder with some hay stuck inside.

  She charged again, nipping the smaller cow on the nose, drawing blood. She could hear their hearts racing, feel the blood moving through their bodies. Brownie was the first to see the overturned hay and trot over to it. Rose was too busy watching him to notice the cow behind her lift her heavy front hoof, then swing it rearward, crashing into the side of her head.

  TEN

  ROSE LAY IN A BLACK FOG, HER HEAD SWIRLING, SPRAWLED ON top of a mound of snow.

  She had never been so completely cut off from the sensory tools by which she lived, and soon the pain of breathing heavily became nearly unbearable, her ribs hurt so badly. Her head ached from the blow of the cow’s hoof. She began kicking, then barking reflexively, more and more weakly, until she stopped completely.

  She closed her eyes, breathed more slowly, and tried to understand what was happening to her. She could not comprehend the sea of black she seemed to be floating in, the blurred images in her head, the sound of her weakening heart, the dark cloud that had enveloped her.

  Rose understood time only in terms of dark and light, of eating and the rhythms of the farm animals, of morning bird-song and the hoot of owls and the yipping of coyotes. Now she was totally disoriented, her markers and senses useless. The snow and ice had no smell, and she was much too disoriented to see anything but an inky blackness.

  Rose did not panic. Feeling as if she were sinking deeper and deeper into the earth, her resistance turned to resignation.

  Death was neither a good nor a bad thing, but a thing all of its own. She sensed death closing in on her, just as she had sensed it enveloping Katie.

  She accepted death and dreamed of work, and went into a near trance—a place beyond feeling and fear. Rose did not know how long she lay still, too weak after a time to struggle, unable to move. She was conscious of thirst, of hunger.

  She closed her eyes, images moving more slowly now through her mind—her siblings, her mother, the sheep, the farm, Sam. She began to dream. She saw sheep grazing, sheep moving. She smelled animals in the woods, buds on trees and flowers, the smell of lambs. She dreamt of heading off belligerent rams, of walking with the farmer out into the fields, of the sweet feeling of walking the sheep back into the barns and pastures at night, when the sun set, and the farmer closed the gate, and said, “Good job, girl,” almost to himself. How warm and good that sounded, and how relieved she felt to have gotten the sheep back safely, to be able to lie in the farmhouse with Sam, to close her eyes, to rest. She heard Sam calling to her, Katie talking to her, saw her own mother licking her fur.

  She dreamt of being a pup, of bats squeaking, of bees in the hive, of worms in the ground, and then, a strange dream, a dream of the wild dog, a young dog, moving cows out of a barn, running and nipping and circling. He was a strong dog, confident, with so much energy.

  Then she had an image of herself, far away.

  The sheep had their heads lowered, settling into the pasture. She looked up, saw the sun beginning to set over the hill. She turned and ran around the flock, in a broad, loping outrun, her tail straight back, her fur blown back in the wind, the sounds and smells of the meadow pouring into her in a stream. Then she turned back toward the sheep. Their heads came up, they turned and began to move back through the pasture, and she was right behind them, driving back and forth—dust, grass, mud in her face, pure joy in every limb and muscle.

  After a long run, every last sheep and straggler through the open gate, she would sit down, long tongue hanging. If it was hot and there was a big tub of water, she would climb into it to cool down. She would stay by the gate until Sam came and closed it, which meant she was done. It was as good a feeling as she’d ever felt, and she clung to it now.

  She began to feel a release, a letting-go of the pressures of work, of life, of the responsibility, of the worry, and even of the love. She was entering a different place, one with no time, no markings, nothing but rest.

  Rose entered a space quieter than she had ever known.

  She was on a sandy shore, in the shade of trees. It was cool, at the edge of a vast clear lake whose surface was so smooth she could not see a ripple. It felt like morning, just before the rise of the sun.

  Across the lake, there were blue lights as far as she could see, countless lights. She swam across, and it was effortless, as if the water offered no resistance. She almost sailed to the other side, and there the lights enveloped her.

  A
s she drew closer, she saw that the lights were the spirits of dogs. Some were sitting, others waiting, some crossing the water back to the other side. The lights were fluid, porous, disembodied, taking the forms of dogs, then lights, then dogs again.

  She saw as she swam closer that the other side was filled with woods and meadows, and she heard barking and the songs of birds. Waiting for her on the shore were a female and some puppies, and it wasn’t until she glided to the bank that she recognized them.

  She saw her brothers and sisters, and with them her mother.

  She was a beautiful dog, larger than Rose, with luminous brown eyes, black fur with a white blaze across the forehead, a pure border collie. She was calm, accepting, her tail wagging slightly at the sight of Rose. She was not demonstrative, just calm, loving, welcoming, pleased to see her daughter.

  They touched noses, sniffed each other. Rose licked her quickly several times across the side of the nose. Her brothers and sisters were still puppies, and they knew her, and were excited, squirming and squealing and showering her with licks. They were as she had last seen them. And, perhaps, so was she. She didn’t know.

  Perhaps for the first time in her life, Rose felt a measure of true rest and easiness. She had never imagined anything but work or responsibility, never thought of peace.

  Around her, dogs entered the water and swam back and forth across the lake, in animal form on one side, sparkling lights and images on the other. Some were resting, others waiting to cross. They moved back and forth in a timeless pattern. It was almost painfully lovely and hypnotic to Rose. It was richer, more colorful, more nourishing than anything on the farm or in the woods, as much as she loved to run there.

  After a few minutes, her mother shooed the puppies away and sat by Rose. The two of them lay down together, and rested quietly. Her mother shared images and feelings and experiences with her.