by Jon Katz
After some time, a sound roused her. It was outside the barn, the opening of the gate. She sat up and growled. The wild dog lifted his great head and bared his teeth as well.
Then she heard a voice calling out to her, faint at first but then clearer, and familiar, but muted by the wind. “Rose, Rose, where are you, girl?”
It was Sam. He had returned.
Rose was beside herself with excitement.
She leaped up, tail wagging, and rushed to the barn door, where she almost ran into Sam, his arm still wrapped up, holding a brown bag in his good arm.
He was on his way to the barn, out of the snow and the mist. She touched his knee with her nose, and then barked furiously, rushing up beside the barn and toward the pole barn to where the stricken ewe had gotten up and given birth, calling Sam’s attention to it.
She watched as Sam opened the gate and clambered up the hill, setting down his bag and reaching into the ewe to pull out the last of her afterbirth before leaning over the glistening lamb and wiping her off with his cloth. Sam picked up the lamb in a sling and with Rose pressuring the ewe from the rear, the mother and baby made it into the shelter of the big barn.
Suddenly, she heard Winston crowing, snow falling from a roof and blowing in icy bursts through the barn walls.
Rose opened her eyes.
She was in the barn, disoriented. She shook the fuzziness from her head, then walked to the door, looked out into the storm.
Sam was not there. He was not by the barn, or up the hill. She looked, sniffed, and listened for him.
Then she turned and made her way through the snow and back up the hill toward the pole barn. She could not see the ewe or her newborn lamb.
TWELVE
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN DAYS ROSE DID NOT HAVE WORK TO DO. Or, rather, she had exhausted the things she could do. She couldn’t open doors, turn on faucets, haul hay bales, beat back the storm. She understood this was temporary, a respite.
Out of habit, she looked and listened for Sam, sometimes almost in disbelief at the idea that he was not there, had not returned, that he had inexplicably gone up into the sky and vanished. Sometimes, an image occurred to her of trying to stop the big green bird, but Sam had not seemed afraid, nor had he asked her to help.
Now that Brownie and the remaining cows had gotten some food, they were still cold and weakening, but alive. Several of the ewes were exhausted, but they, too, had eaten a little, and the remaining flock was making its way back up to the familiarity of the pole barn. It would leave them more exposed, at least to the predators gathering at the top of the hill, but it was home for them. They had never lived in the big barn, and they had their own corners, patterns, and smells. In the pole barn they also had space.
Like most animals, sheep did what was familiar. Neither Rose nor the wild dog had the energy to try to keep them all down in the barn, which was a dark, cold mess of snow, ice, wet hay, and broken beams and pipes.
The wild dog, growing ever weaker from the cold and lack of food, was still lying down in a corner. Rose thought about leading him to the farmhouse to eat, but she wasn’t sure he had the strength for the journey.
She walked over and saw how thin he was, how shallow his breathing, and she made a decision. She knew that he had to get to the farmhouse or he would die right where he lay. She could see a picture of it in her head, feel the warmth draining from his body, hear his breathing slow, his lungs filling with fluid.
Better to die on the move than curled up in a corner of the barn.
She leaned over, touched his nose, and he opened his eyes, looked into hers; then he struggled, slowly and painfully, to his feet.
He did not know where they were going, but she was his farmer now, his reason, his leader. She was the only thing left that made sense or offered promise to him. She led him to the opening in the door and began the push through the drifts. For him, it would be a nearly unbearable walk, testing his painful limbs and joints, his waning energy and strength.
Rose had forged something of a path on her earlier trips to the farmhouse, but it was a difficult and arduous one for the old dog, already exhausted from his work with the cows and in the barn. His ribs were sticking out, and his gums were a pale yellow. He gave off a scent of sickness.
Rose slowed her pace. One step at a time, then another, then pause, look back, then another step, pause. The first drift was the highest and the hardest, and the rest of the way, she lowered her head and pushed a path through the snow with her chest and shoulders. She saw that he was moving on will alone.
It took a long, cold time, but the two of them finally made it, panting, to the back door. Rose nosed it open and led her companion through.
He stopped and looked at the huge pile of kibble Sam had left and then at her, and when she did not challenge him, he limped over and began to eat the dog food. He took four or five mouthfuls, and it was almost too much for his stomach. He walked over to the bowl of water and drank greedily, and then Rose led him into the living room, where he made his way gingerly over to the dog bed on the floor, nearly collapsing onto it.
Rose followed and sniffed him—heartbeat already stronger. Here, she decided, is where he needed to stay. She did not know if he could or would survive inside, but she did know he didn’t stand a chance out in the cold and the storm. She listened to his heart, watched his stomach rise and fall. She said good-bye to him, in case she did not see him alive again.
Rose’s understanding of death had been simple for most of her life. Animals died all the time, in the woods or on the farm. She simply removed them from her map. When Katie became ill, Rose could smell the sickness in her—in her sweat, on her skin. She saw that Katie’s body was dying; she had seen that before. It was her sudden absence that bewildered her, the loss of her physical presence.
She had never seen Katie leave, and that was why Rose looked for her so relentlessly. She did not want that to happen to the wild dog.
She and the wild dog had connected, almost viscerally, and she knew now what it was to miss someone or some thing she was connected to. Still, separation and death were givens in her world. She did not fear death herself, or even imagine she would die. She imagined now that she would go to the place of blue lights and see her mother again. Perhaps even see the wild dog.
If it was the wild dog’s time, it was not her work to fight it or lament it. So she was preparing herself, in her own way, drinking in the smells and memories of what was familiar. She had never heard the farmhouse so still, seen it so dark or felt it so cold.
So lonely.
She walked to the edge of the living room, looked for Sam on the porch, where she had last seen him before he was lifted into the sky, and then looked for Katie in the sewing room. She remembered her life in the house. She remembered the box in the kitchen she slept in as a puppy. She remembered the sofa she lay on while Katie and Sam watched TV. She remembered the bones that they had brought her, the dog bed, Katie and Sam drifting through the rooms like ghosts.
She remembered every sound she had heard in the house—TV, radio talk shows, conversations, food cooking, teapot whistling, mail coming through the slot, the hissing of radiators, the rumblings from the boilers in the basement, the sound of lights being switched on and off, the water rushing through the pipes, the flies laying eggs on the windowpanes, the settling and creaking of wood, the groaning of the roof in the snow, the damp, the ladybugs, wasps, and bees that built hives and nests, the ants, termites, and beetles that lived in the walls and ceilings, the moths fluttering throughout the house.
To her, the farmhouse was a hive of noise and emotion, people and sounds, sometimes deafening to her, always fascinating. She could lie on the porch for hours, or on the hearth in front of the woodstove, at Sam or Katie’s feet, half dozing, listening to the cacophony all around her.
She had always moved about the house at night, run in and out during the day. Sometimes she slept at the foot of Sam’s bed, sometimes under the bed, sometimes in Katie’s
sewing room. Sometimes she snuck out quietly in the middle of the night and went out to the barn to watch over things.
Peaceful memories—soothing. She padded to the front door, lay down, looking once more for Sam, waiting for him to come down from the sky, to tell her what to do, to go out into the barn and bring down hay and turn on the water and save the flock.
She sensed the coyotes gathering on the hill, hungry, even desperate, watching, observing the death and confusion down below. Frightened ewes, weakening cows, a tired old dog, the absence of people, Rose.
She saw the farm as the coyote would have seen it. Prey everywhere, sustenance. The survival of his pack all gathered in one place, and nothing powerful enough to stop him.
They would make a plan; they always did. Unlike Rose, they were many strong, working in concert. They didn’t cajole by nipping. They waited until their prey was vulnerable, defenseless, and they overwhelmed with numbers, speed, and fear, killing quickly and savagely.
The coyote had to succeed or his den would face death—which he could not permit any more than Rose could permit the extinction of the farm animals.
They were on the move, she could feel them. In her mind, she could see them, circling, hiding, watching, waiting. The coyote would have gathered his den by now, and they would have spread out all over the hilltop, behind the drifts, in the clump of trees, behind the fence and the big trees.
* * *
ROSE SLID OUTSIDE through the door. She had not adapted to the reality of the storm. Each time she returned to it she was startled by the bleak and frigid landscape. Every time she returned to it, it was different, and she had to reorient herself.
She turned and went back inside, where she found the wild dog lying where she had left him. She lay beside the spent dog, who was breathing slowly, but who lifted his head and turned his eyes to hers. He was giving her permission to go, as they both knew she had to.
He was nearly done.
Rose stayed with him for a few more minutes, both of them listening to the howl of the wind, the snow thumping off the roof, the distant bleating of the sheep.
There was nothing to do now. The two dogs waited together. They both slept, briefly. They each had simple dreams—moving sheep, cows, running through the woods. These dreams were nourishing, reassuring. They called up the history of dogs, of work completed, of successes.
It was night now. The snow was still falling, the wind a little quieter. The farm was buried, impassable.
The wild dog was lying on his side, whining a bit in his dreams, his stomach heaving slowly. Rose looked at him one more time.
Again she touched his nose. At first, this dog was just another creature running in the woods, another danger to the farm, something to be monitored, barked at, kept in check. One afternoon, Rose had looked down from the pasture and seen this old dog looking up at her. Something stirred inside of her—as it used to when she was a puppy with her mother.
He wasn’t, then, trying to come into the farm, wasn’t aggressive or challenging. He simply stared at her, and perhaps it was then that she knew. Or perhaps it was when she first led him into the barn. Or when he tried to stand by her when she faced the coyotes, and she protected him.
Or only right now, as he lay so peacefully and so accepting, near the end of his life. It was a series of moments rather than one.
She did not know if he recognized her as his daughter, but she had known, on some level, from the first, that he was her father.
THIRTEEN
ROSE LEFT THE WILD DOG ASLEEP IN THE KITCHEN AND MOVED slowly back toward the door, toward the storm. She closed her eyes, put her head down, and plunged back out, moving slowly and deliberately in the direction of the barn.
She heard the goats calling out in complaint from inside their shed. There was nothing she could do for them. They would be eating down the hay Sam had stuffed into their sheds before he’d gotten hurt. She saw Brownie through the mist and snow, breath still steaming from his nostrils, two cows stamping their feet behind him.
Up in the pole barn, exhausted, limp, waiting, were the sheep and lambs. She could hear and smell them, but could hardly see them. More snow had fallen off the roof, surrounding them in impassable drifts and mounds of ice. The flock was too weak and tired to move, and too frightened. Rose heard Winston crowing in the barn, perhaps calling to one of his hens, who had wandered out into the storm and disappeared.
Looking up through the snow and the mist, Rose stopped. She saw the line of dark shapes barely visible against snow-banks behind them. They were coyotes, no longer bothering to hide. They were gathering.
And they were watching her. There were no machines to fear, no humans, not even a second dog. The coyotes drifted in and out of sight, as the snow thickened and waned, and that made them seem even more ghostly. It appeared to Rose that they were on the move even though they were sitting still, waiting and watching.
Her mind was quiet, the images gray, almost moribund. She had never been so tired, so weak, or so confused. She had been jolted just a day earlier by her choices, but now there were none left.
She made her way past the barn. Inside, Winston and the hens were prowling the barn floor, pecking for bits of grain. Of all the animals on the farm, they were perhaps best suited to survive such a storm. They could eat almost anything, and they were so thin-blooded they could handle extreme cold as long as they had some semblance of shelter.
She looked through the hole in the back of the barn. Brownie was still standing, although he looked weak and was barely moving. He might not survive too many more days of such cold and wind, so little food.
There was nothing for Rose to do in there. She had a sense of her own limits—of having reached them.
Then, one idea emerged from the others. Two more ewes were lying in the snow, weakened during the march back up the hill. A shivering lamb lay between them. Rose knew it was the lamb she and Sam had pulled out of the ewe that night that seemed like such a long time ago now. Rose would not let these sheep freeze to death in the snow.
She made her way slowly up the hill. It was snowing still, and the cold shot up through her paws and into her bones. It was hard to see through the ice and snow crust on her eyes.
She pushed on to the edge of the pole barn. Normally, the sheep would have sprung to their feet, ready to move, up the hill to the pasture, or down to the feeders near the barn. Today, they lay still. Now for the first time in her life, she knew she could not get them up. And she had no reason to try; there was nowhere to take them.
She met the flock’s hungry gaze again, and they looked back at her with the same feelings of fatigue and appeal. Had she come to take them to grass? Old instincts die hard.
One or two stirred, but Rose broke off eye contact and calmly surveyed the survivors. The map in her head was being rewritten again, and it was grim, smaller.
Rose went around the pole barn and sat on the other side, facing up the hill, where the coyotes could see her.
There, out in the snow, she would wait.
This was her place, in front of her sheep, guarding the flock, keeping them safe to the end. This was her work, her destiny, the point of her. Katie flashed into her head, her calm, sure voice. Rose, too, felt calm and sure.
To get them to pasture, to give them time to eat, to protect them. To keep them from ravines and gullies into which they could fall, streams in which they could drown, woods in which they could wander and become lost. To get them home before dark. She did this for them, and to serve the humans her kind served, who had worked with her line all the way back through time.
She kept them safe. She would do that now, whether Sam was here or not, whether it was possible or not.
Until this storm, Rose had never lost a ewe or ram, never lost a sheep to a ravine, a stream, a coyote, had never shown any less than complete vigilance and care.
Had Sam been in the farmhouse and looked out, he would have been amazed to see this solitary dog, covered in a coating of wh
ite, staring up the hill, giving eye to the wind, the snow, the coyotes, to life and the world, to her choices and her duty. He would have marveled at her responsibility, her loyalty, and her bravery. Rose had never run, never backed down, never failed to get it done. He had said that about her so many times—he bragged about her like she was his child, although never in her presence. It would have been patronizing, even insulting, to praise Rose too much to her face. Work was her reward.
But there was no one to see this dog on the hill, and no human would ever know what was about to happen there.
Rose closed her eyes as the snow gathered on her fur, and the cold sank deeper into her bones. She dreamt of the sun, of fresh water, of running through the woods, heading off the sheep, loping in the wind. She dreamed of Katie and her stories, and Sam and his work, and the wild dog, sleeping safely in the house, where he could survive the cold. She dreamed of so many dogs, of sheep and goats and cows, over so many years.
For a moment, she closed her eyes.
The wind told her a million stories, and this was her favorite thing, her favorite dream. Running down the path, hearing the woods, and there, at the end of the path, was Katie, waiting for her, waiting to give her some food, to talk to her.
Then she opened her eyes.
She turned up to the gray sky and she howled, a haunting, piercing wail that cut through the storm and bounced off the barns and out into the woods and off the snow-covered trees.
All the animals who heard it paused and listened, and many trembled.
SHE BLINKED AWAKE, shook the snow off.
She tipped her head toward the coyotes at the edge of the woods. It seemed natural that she and they would be at different ends of this hill, in this storm. She had this strange sensation that she had dreamt of this day, experienced it before.
By now the little dog was almost invisible in the snow. She saw a thousand hills and meadows, too many sheep to count, fires and windstorms, lightning and floods, barns and houses, and it seemed that her images went further and further back, that the storm had opened doors inside her head and she was rushing past them in time, almost too fast to see clearly, through so many blue lights, so many spirits.