Rose in a Storm

by Jon Katz

  WHEN THE GREEN SUV pulled up, Sam was standing by the road, sipping from a mug of coffee, where he had been ever since the vet phoned to say he was on his way. Flash was still sitting next to him, both of them watching the road. “We could be a postcard,” Sam had joked to Flash, who wagged his tail in response to Sam’s tone, lighter than it had been.

  Flash growled when the big SUV pulled into the driveway, then quieted. The farm was his territory now, and he was inclined to be possessive of it, especially in Rose’s absence.

  The vet, a tall, thin man with sandy brown hair, turned off the ignition, got out, shaking Sam’s hand as he glanced down at Flash. “He’s looking good, Sam,” he said. “You’ve done a great job with him.”

  Sam was pleased to hear that. He had cleaned the old dog’s wounds, changed his bandages every day—the Guardsman and some neighbors had come by to help and brought medicine and vitamins, gotten him moving, massaged his sore old joints. He had done a good job. But that didn’t matter now. He needed to see Rose.

  When he came around to the back of the SUV and looked inside, he saw that Rose was in a crate, lying still. She lifted her head and looked up at him, her tail moving softly back and forth. Even then, he could see what a mess she was, what she had been through. He took a sharp, deep breath. Happy as he was to see her, it was a shocking sight.

  Ever the beautiful, athletic dog, she was a quilt of patches, bare skin, bruises, wounds, and stitches. She looked drawn, and her forelegs and ribs were swathed in bandages, some from surgical wounds, others from IV tubes, still more from injuries. Her shoulder was wrapped in heavy gauze; her right leg was in a soft cast, which stuck out strangely behind her.

  Sam looked up at the vet.

  “I know it seems bad, but it looks worse than it is at this point,” he said. “We were lucky to save her, and she’ll need time to recover. But she’ll be all right, Sam. She won’t have a hundred percent mobility, but she’ll still be faster than most dogs. She wouldn’t eat much at the hospital. Try to get some food into her, will you? And she has a bunch of pills. Make sure she takes them. All labeled. She’s a stoic dog, strong. We put her through a lot, and she never complained or gave us any trouble. Unless we tried to pet her. Make sure she doesn’t move much.”

  Rose kept looking at her leg, which seemed to be separate from her body, and at the cast, which she clearly intended to remove as soon as she could. In fact, the vet told Sam, she had removed it several times already. He said he wouldn’t even try to put a cone on her.

  Sam looked at the vet and nodded, a surge of affection rising in his chest. He always found it amusing when vets told him to keep Rose still. He doubted any of them had ever had a border collie like her.

  Rose struggled to stand up, and slowly, with small steps, moved to the back of the crate. Sam was afraid to move her, afraid to hurt her, she looked so frail. He looked at the vet, who put one arm gingerly under Rose’s stomach, the other on her collar, and gently lifted her down to the ground. Then he took out a leash and clipped it onto Rose’s collar. “That’s how to pick her up if you have to. I don’t want her jumping.” Sam took the leash from him, holding it a bit awkwardly.

  “Listen, Sam, no working. I mean it. I can’t even guess at what she must’ve gone through to have wounds like that—never seen it before. A hard run could open her up, even kill her.”

  Sam said he understood. He closed his hand around the leash and looked down at his dog. “Okay, Rose, welcome home.”

  Rose stepped forward gingerly, her leg dragging awkwardly. Her tail was going back and forth slowly, and her head was lowered, almost as if she were shy. She came to Sam, sniffed, then nuzzled his hand, and licked it once. Flash approached her, and the two of them touched noses, their tails going faster now as the older dog sniffed her bandages and wounds.

  Sam knelt down on the ground. He trembled a bit as he pressed his head gently against hers. Several tears rolled down the sides of his face.

  Rose accepted the hug, returning it with soft licks.

  Sam shook hands with the vet, thanked him, and as the SUV pulled off, he slowly led Rose toward the back of the farmhouse.

  There, Sam took the leash off. “I’ve never put a leash on you, girl, and I’ll trust you to stay put right here and take it easy, okay?”

  ROSE, WALKING SLOWLY, understood. There was no work in Sam’s tone. With the wild dog behind her, she walked on the path cleared through the snow.

  She lifted her nose, looked at the hillside, saw the tracks, her instincts and senses collecting the story of the storm, telling it back to her, remembering it, storing it away. For a long time, she stared at the hill, raising her nose high into the air. Sam watched her.

  The winterscape was still striking, imposing mounds of snow everywhere, wood and slate all over the ground. Still, it was very different from the last time she had seen it.

  Rose saw the Blackface and the sheep gathered in front of the pole barn. She looked over to where she had seen Carol die, gazed into her sad eyes, said her good-bye.

  She narrowed her eyes at the spot where she had faced the coyotes.

  Several of the sheep called out to her, and she returned their gaze. None of them moved. She realized that she looked strange to them, that some of them didn’t recognize her—it had been nearly two weeks, and she was covered in bandages.

  The Blackface did know her, though, and held her gaze, a gesture of respect, it seemed to Rose, an acknowledgment of some kind.

  She looked up the hill, where she had gone to collect the goats, and to the upper pasture, where she had lain when she’d seen the place of blue lights and the spirit of her mother.

  Up on her left, the goats began jeering and complaining and calling out to her, making little sense. They seemed to feel that Rose had authority on the farm, and so they made demands on her. They wanted more food, as usual. She ignored them, as usual.

  She limped a few steps to her right, and through the fence she could see Brownie and the cows grazing at the feeder. They did not look at her. She heard Winston crowing in the barn, and heard his hens clucking. He sounded as if he were back to his old self, officious, even pompous.

  Rose saw damage everywhere. Her map had changed; everywhere she looked, her landscape and bearings were rearranged. There was a lot to take in.

  Slate had fallen off the farmhouse roof, there were gaping holes in the roof of the barn, and several of the gates were off their hinges. Much of the glass in the barn windows was broken, the panes blown out. The wind had knocked trees and poles down.

  She closed her eyes and could hear, far behind her, the sounds of hawks soaring above, seeking food, the animals in the woods out foraging, hunting, digging. She listened for any sound from the coyote, but heard none. She could smell the animals and leaves and brush emerging from the snow, and hear the lowing of cows from farms miles away.

  She was orienting herself, after lost days, fuzzy images, time in crates. She listened for Katie, raised her nose, hoping to pick up her scent. But she didn’t hear her or smell her.

  Sam was silent, watching Rose’s homecoming, giving it space and respect. The wild dog was sitting down, quiet and observant. He could stop searching for her now.

  Rose looked up into Sam’s eyes—for a moment—and then around at the farm again. She turned, walked toward the pasture on paths and trails that had been cleared.

  Sam raised his hand, as if to caution her, but when she turned and glanced at him, he lowered his arm. She made her way slowly to the pasture gate, hauling her cast, shaking her head to brush off the pain. She managed to slowly crawl under it, moving up toward the pole barn, where the sheep collected themselves into a flock and lowered their heads to study her.

  She sat.

  She considered her map, and, almost unconsciously, changed it. She removed a cow, a dead lamb, the donkey, a ewe, and a hen.

  She kept Katie in her map, and scanned the farm once again for her, reflexively. She was not in the pasture, or out in the
woods. And she was still not, Rose could sense, in the farmhouse. She looked back at the wild dog, who was sitting beside Sam, watching her.

  Her vision was blurred at times, and her body ached. She felt a strange stiffness in her side from the wounds, the bandages, the broken ribs and aching bones. Simply breathing was painful, slow. She knew not to run or jump. And for once, she knew not to work, not yet.

  Rose looked around again, at the sheep, at Sam.

  Finally it seemed she had seen what she needed to see, knew what she needed to know. She closed her eyes, raised her nose high into the air.

  Slowly, almost laboriously, she lay down in the pole barn near the sheep, who stirred nervously. She closed her eyes and tried to dream her dream, her favorite one, of the sheep crunching away in the meadow on grass rippling in the wind, shining in the sun.

  EPILOGUE

  BY SUMMER, THE FARM WAS ITS LUSH, SMELLY, VERDANT self—recognizable, Sam thought, if not quite the same as last year. The corn and alfalfa were high and green, the barns had purplish new slate roofs. The outer pasture was full of cows and more than a score of lambs darted playfully in and out of the pole barn. Blackflies and mosquitoes swarmed everywhere.

  The community had banded together, as farm communities do, to help get all of the farms up and running. There were still signs of damage on most houses and barns, but the storm already seemed remote to many, another drama of life in a long series. Farmers knew dramas. Sam had seen many.

  Death and trouble are routine, an integral part of farm life. There are always chores, crops, work to pull you along.

  Some neighbors had come by to help Sam repair his fences and gates, many of which were damaged in the crush of snow and ice. They fixed tarpaulins over the holes in the barn, and rebuilt the big barn doors.

  The reports of the wolf had spread quickly through the county, causing something of a panic. Farmers got out their shotguns and rifles, and county and state wildlife agents prowled the woods looking for tracks. But no wolf had been found, no tracks discovered. It was rarely mentioned much anymore, although Sam still took his rifle when he went out at night. He had seen the dead coyote up by the barn.

  Rose remembered that night, too. Sam noticed that Rose behaved strangely up near the pole barn, where she often paused, sniffed the ground, her ruff rising up.

  JUST AFTER DAWN, Rose was in the habit of going into the pantry, where the wild dog slept near the woodstove, and sniffing him awake. He was slow to rouse and would stretch his stiff legs and forepaws, then stand and lap up some water. Then he and Rose would slip out the dog door before Sam was ready to head out and do chores. Since the storm, Sam now spent some time in the mornings on the computer, always muttering about red tape, forms, and regulations for claiming insurance and grants.

  Rose had no idea what he was doing, or why, but had adapted to the new, slightly later schedule. This was when she and the wild dog went for their walk around the farmhouse and in the fields nearby.

  SAM NOTICED that since the storm, Rose spent more time by herself than she had before, out in the barn, or on the path. She was often with Flash, who was too frail to chase after sheep but who loved to sit with her in the barn or watch her from the pasture gate while she worked. The two often spent the evenings together, either by the woodstove, where the heat made her leg more comfortable, or in Katie’s old sewing room.

  Flash took pills for worms and parasites, for arthritis and heart disease, and for his aching joints. But he had recovered amazingly well from his previous wretched condition and settled happily into life on a farm again, even if he couldn’t work.

  Flash loved sleeping in the dark and musty corners of old barns, and stayed close to the woodstove on cold nights. He had taken over the old black sofa, which he sometimes deigned to share with Sam. He loved the morning and evening servings of kibble, and he sensed that Sam had formed a strong attachment to him.

  SAM SENSED IT too. If Rose was Sam’s working dog, then Flash became something of a pet. Rose hated to leave the farm, and sometimes got sick in trucks—upset by the motion, to which she was especially sensitive. In Flash, Sam had a companion for the endless riding around that came with country life. Sam could see that Flash enjoyed this, and it became his new work. Sam took Flash everywhere he went, and Rose would often look up as the truck rolled off down the hill, Flash’s head sticking out the window, taking in the smells and sights of the dens, caves, and woods where he had lived for so long.

  AS FOR ROSE, she sensed that the wild dog’s company made Sam happier, more cheerful. This was work that she could not do. Rose sometimes felt possessive or territorial, but envy was not known to her. She understood the wild dog’s need to work, and Sam’s need for him.

  One morning, a crisp, early summer day with mist coming up in the pasture and over the hills beyond, Rose came into the pantry and Flash was not there. She knew he wasn’t in the house—she couldn’t smell or hear him.

  She did hear the sheep calling out, though not in alarm. They seemed confused, the way they were when something was out of the ordinary. It could mean the appearance of a groundhog, a fox, an airplane, a skunk.

  She went out through the swinging dog door into the cool sunny morning, so different from the snow and ice of the big storm. Rose looked up toward the pole barn, where the sheep were, and paused. After a moment, she started running, streaking across the rear of the farm to the pasture gate, slipping under it and up alongside the big barn, gathering speed as she went, pumping up the hill. She didn’t see him until she got closer, although she already knew he was there.

  Up by the side of the pole barn, lying on his side, was Flash.

  From some distance away, Rose could hear the wheeze in his breath, his faint heartbeat. He was laboring badly, his tongue hanging from one side of his mouth. He must have gotten up sometime during the night, crept out the door, and come up into the pasture. He would not have chosen to die inside a house.

  Instead he chose to die with the sheep, as any farm dog might.

  When she reached him, Rose sniffed his tail, then his side, then touched his nose. She could hear the weak pumping of blood in his veins, the labored breathing, the rattle in his throat.

  She had known, of course, well before she reached him.

  It was not a bad feeling. She saw an image of the emaciated old dog seeking sanctuary as the blizzard approached. He was different now.

  She had seen the wild dog settle in happily at the farm, attaching himself to Sam in a way she never could, curling up each night on his fluffy dog bed, living his last days in comfort and surrounded by affection. She saw how content he had been.

  She knew he was blind in one eye, nearly deaf, and lame in two legs, and that his knees and joints were sore and swollen. She smelled the blood connection, and felt it, too; the two had been joined in the most powerful way ever since the storm.

  All of the animals on the farm gazed up, some uneasily, at the odd sight of the two dogs together beside the pole barn, one smelling so distinctly of death.

  A few flies already buzzed around Flash, and Rose looked up to see vultures circling high in the air. There were scavengers on the ground, too, out of sight—foxes, coyotes, and birds and raccoons. Once his spirit left, Rose had no interest in his decaying body. The scavengers could have him.

  She sat down next to her father, who opened his eyes, and whose breath was a throaty wheeze. His eyes were glazed, out of focus, and his hind legs were splayed, one of them twitching in spasm.

  The sheep were now watching, anxious. An impulse to go get Sam flashed through her mind, but she looked at Flash and she felt his instincts: He wanted to be alone, with her, with the sheep, in the pasture.

  It was over for him. Rose felt no grief, just a responsibility to be with him on this passage.

  ROSE DID NOT LEAVE Flash’s side that morning.

  Up on this hill, the sun burning off the mist, the two dogs fused in their own particular fantasy. The other animals turned away. It was alien t
o them, unsettling, this scene. The old dog needed to be touched, known, and Rose lay down next to him, and put her nose against his.

  This was a crossing for each of them.

  The old dog was leaving, and Rose would be living a different kind of life without him. If she did not exactly know grief, she did know loss.

  For Flash, this was a journey into the unknown. Rose knew how far she could take him, because she had been there once before. She closed her eyes, and he closed his, and they both entered another space, one quieter than any the wild dog had known, just as Rose had experienced it during the storm.

  It was a place of absolute stillness and peace.

  They crossed a smooth expanse of water, still and shimmering. They crossed to another shore. Again, there were the blue lights as far as both could see, the countless lights on the far side of the stream.

  They both saw they were with the spirits of dogs.

  Rose saw the old dog find this place of ease and quiet. She was not there, she was only guiding him. He walked alongside her, slowly, and at first with some pain. But soon that seemed to ease, and his gait smoothed out and his pace quickened, and before long, when they came to the point she could not go past, he simply glided on ahead of her.

  He turned to her, their eyes met, and then he turned away and did not look back.

  And then she lost him, gone in the seas of blue lights, colors, and the mist into which he seemed to melt.

  And just like that, he was gone.

  Rose opened her eyes and looked out at the pasture, and felt the wind. She raised her nose in the air, catching the stories the wind brought, and knew all she needed to know.

  She saw that the old dog’s eyes were open, but he had stopped breathing; his spirit had whirled up into the sky. She sniffed his snout, and then his forehead, and then sat back up and looked out over the sheep, and the farm.