Storm Dog

by L. M. Elliott

  George’s feelings about what made music so powerful came back to me: “It’s ripping yourself open, A, and letting the world watch your heart ache with each beat.”

  Of course. The girls just needed to jam. For me to give them the freedom to be themselves and to express what they felt without worrying what they looked like when they were doing it. That would bring out the natural beauty in them.

  Suddenly I knew exactly what song to play for them!

  Fourteen

  ON THE MORNING OF THE GRAND parade, in 5 a.m. darkness, I heard an engine rev-revving outside our lane. Sergeant Josie’s signal. She’d loaded our beauties into her truck and come to pick me up with reconnaissance stealth. No headlight beams, just that surge of engine. Vroom, vroom. A windblast of horsepower at a starting gate. Vroom, vroom. Time to go. Vroom, vroom. No turning back now.

  Dashing across the yard, I clutched a pillowcase bulging with costumes for my pooches. My grandmother’s emerald dress slapped my legs as I ran.

  The whole morning would need clandestine cunning, starting with getting us on the road and away from the house without anyone noticing. Then we’d need to sneak into the parade lineup of bands, clowns, antique cars, and floats—participants who had registered and been approved months before. That was the only plan I’d been able to come up with: getting situated among the parade vehicles before anyone was really awake and then acting totally chill like we belonged. You see it in adventure movies all the time, right? Just blend in with the crowd.

  Sergeant Josie thought that strategy was pretty flimsy. But she went along with it, not seeing any other option this late in the parade game. “Another important thing I learned in Afghanistan,” she’d warned, “is that no matter how much planning goes into a mission, there are sure to be land mines and ambushes. You just gotta be on your toes, keep a sharp eye out for them, and then have the smarts and guts to react. Fast. You can’t freeze.” She’d paused and added in a whisper, “Then you’re dead.”

  She worried me sometimes. In moments like that, it was obvious that the brooding, sad something that had followed Sergeant Josie home from Afghanistan was still chasing her.

  When I reached the truck’s back side, my dog queen and her princesses popped their heads up over the cab’s gate. But they only happy-whimpered their greeting, no so-glad-to-see-you-I-can’t-help-myself barking—thank goodness. I scrambled into the truck’s cab, yanking my flapper dress up to my waist to climb in. It’s just a truth that I am capable of only so much ladylike grace.

  “Look at you! As glamorous as Ginger Rogers.”

  I beamed. Precisely what I was hoping for—to remind my audience a little sorta kinda of the movie-star dancer who was Fred Astaire’s favorite partner. After all, we’d dressed Duke in a top hat, bow tie, and white dinner vest like Astaire wore so often in their ten movies together.

  “You know what they say about Ginger, don’t you?” asked Sergeant Josie.

  I sure did. Together we recited: “She did everything Fred did, backwards and in high heels!”

  We laughed.

  “Okay, soldier, let’s do this thing.” Sergeant Josie started driving, slowly, not clicking on her headlights until we were safely away from view of my house.

  “Look out!” I shrieked.

  Sergeant Josie swerved, barely missing a bunch of deer, which at that very moment decided they just had to jump from an embankment into the road. She managed to avoid them only to come head to head with the next flash mob of leaping does.

  She slammed on the brakes. The truck swerved and lurched. Thankfully she’d only been plodding along. Still, all our princesses and Midnight slid into a scrambling, howling jumble against the back window. They let fly in a cacophony of yelps.

  “Shhhh! Oh, shhhh!” I begged, pushing open the window to the truck bed so they’d hear me. Those dogs were going to wake up the entire Blue Ridge with their carrying-on.

  Tumbling about trying to right themselves, the girls nipped and sniped and yipped at each other. I don’t think they could even hear me fussing at them to stop over the noise they were making. Only Duke settled them down, after sticking his head through the window to touch noses with each of those crying canines.

  The deer ambled away, flipping their white tails at us.

  I was so furious at them for almost seriously hurting my girls, I spluttered, “Can you show me how to shoot that gun of yours so I can eliminate these stupid big rodents!”

  Sergeant Josie shook her head. “You don’t mean that, Ariel. Besides, I got rid of it.”

  “Why?” I was shocked. No one around here gets rid of guns. There are people who go out hunting each season in family ritual, using rifles their granddaddies did.

  “Because I scared a kid with it,” she said, pulling back out into the road.

  After that, we drove for a long while in silence. Both of us thinking.

  We were counting on the town being groggy from the Festival’s string of parties so we could slip in unnoticed. The sheer number of bodies that would crowd the streets that day should shield us as well. During the Festival, the little city of Winchester swells from twenty-seven thousand residents to a quarter of a million visitors.

  When it started back in the 1920s to celebrate the Valley’s apple industry, the Festival was just a one-day pageant and a parade. It was such a success, the crowning of the queen morphed over the next decade into an extravaganza held on the hillside marble stairs of the city’s grand old high school. Dozens of girls in gauzy gowns performed “the step dance,” moving in rows of geometric patterns on the wide white stairway. Some years, the fronts of their dresses were pink and the backs green to create waves of colors as they turned. Boy pages dressed in satin and carried the queen’s train. Flower girls threw petals for her to walk on. Children clutching blossom branches formed a giant apple tree. I wish I’d seen all that.

  Nowadays, the crowning ceremony is held inside, in the high school’s Patsy Cline auditorium. It’s still full of tradition and processionals, but it’s not as elegant or enchanting as those synchronized kaleidoscope routines. Even so, the Festival—or “the Bloom,” as locals call it—has grown into a kind of Virginia Mardi Gras. Lasting a whole week, it has something for everyone—which is part of what I like so much about it.

  At a “pumps and pearls” party, women wear pink and green feather boas and create the craziest shoes you’ve ever seen for a competition. People can do-si-do at a square dance, waltz at “the Young at Heart” party, or get down at a rock ‘n’ roll blast. The princesses and beauty queens celebrate at fancy-dress balls. Adults run a 10K and kids a “bloomin’ mile” course. There’s a bluegrass festival, jazz band competition, a prayer brunch, a fire truck rodeo, and an apple pie bake-off.

  Come to think of it, individuality is the rule of the Festival. As long as you wear pink or green and like apples, pretty much anything goes. Maybe we’d fit in just fine.

  We entered the edges of Old Town.

  Even at that early hour, the sidewalks in front of those stately old houses were crammed with green folding chairs and Porta Potties. Floats, fire trucks, and convertibles sat parked bumper to bumper. We avoided the princess floats, knowing there would be too many bystanders taking pictures and stage mothers applying lipstick and blush—including Mama. She and Gloria were due to arrive around eight to check in.

  Instead, we slipped ourselves into the lineup of the old farm tractors. They were decorated with flags, plastic flowers, and cutesy country signs with Ns written backward and “git” for “get.” The kind of displays that make city people say, “Oh, look, how quaint,” as they sip their double-whatever lattes and snap selfies like they would in front of a Smithsonian exhibit.

  “There.” Sergeant Josie turned off the truck ignition. She pulled in a deep long breath and exhaled, slow. Her hands were shaking. Suddenly she looked terrible.

  “Are you okay?” My first thought, of course, was selfish. She wasn’t going to get sick on me, was she? I couldn’
t do this without her!

  “This is the first time in a while that I’ve been out of the cabin other than to get groceries,” she answered. “I’ve been holed up getting my head straight. Time for reentry, as my VA shrink calls it. Desensitization training.”

  “What?”

  “Exposing myself to negative stimuli to make me stop reacting to it.”

  “What?”

  “Marching back into the windstorm.”

  “What?”

  She snort-laughed, and finally said something I could understand easily, “Getting back up on the horse that threw you.” She gripped the steering wheel tighter. “For me, back here in the States, that ‘horse’ seems to be big milling crowds of people carrying packages that I can’t see the insides of—things my dog and I might have found IEDs in during market days in Afghanistan. That and sudden, loud noises resembling gunfire or small explosives just throw me back. Like that thunderstorm the night we met.” She looked over at me. “You’re supposed to do exposure therapy in little doses, building up to bigger ones, to develop tolerance to the situation. Unfortunately, there weren’t exactly a string of little parades I could practice on.”

  I gasped. After she told me she had PTSD I’d looked up symptoms on the internet, so I’d know what I was dealing with. So I understood—sort of—why a young, fit-looking army vet would have sequestered herself in an isolated cabin to pull herself back together. But I hadn’t realized that someone who had survived terrible battles would be skittish in a plain old American crowd. No wonder she’d felt such empathy for Duke. Suddenly I realized what courage it was taking for Sergeant Josie to have my back at the parade.

  I launched myself at her before I could get shy about it and hugged her. “Thank you sooooooo much for coming, Sergeant Josie. Thank you for . . . for . . . everything.”

  I didn’t let go.

  Duke squirmed his way into the embrace to lick her face. Long enough for her stand-at-attention-straight posture to soften and relax and then her hand to reach up to pat my arm. Long enough for her to say, “To be honest, Ariel, I should thank you. You are like that wind-creature in The Tempest. You showed up in a storm offering something that helped me deal with the cyclone in my heart. And you brought in old Duke here.” She scratched his ear.

  “You see, my partner, my dog . . .” She pulled in a deep breath before continuing, “Died in an IED trap.” I could feel her swallowing hard. “We’d been out for hours. He’d found dozens of buried bombs along the road. He was already exhausted. Civilians were starting to gather on rooftops to shout curses at us. Any one of them could have been a sniper. The guys wanted to get back to the safety of camp and were getting really antsy because night was coming. I think he sensed their growing anxiety and starting rushing his detection sweep. Then the winds kicked up, blowing sand everywhere, which can mute scents and confuse sniffer dogs. He just didn’t smell the last one that . . .” I could barely hear what she whispered next. “It should have been me . . . not him. I should have pulled him out before . . .” She trailed off.

  After a long moment she went on, “Anyway, helping you help Duke helped me.” She shrugged again, with that crooked, self-conscious smile of hers. “Sounds like the beginning of a country-western song.” She kissed me quickly and awkwardly on my head and pulled away. “Go get your princesses ready. I need to find some coffee and take a little walk to clear my head and settle my nerves.”

  Fifteen

  ALREADY DRESSED IN MY GREEN VELVET, I had some trouble swinging myself up into the truck bed. Amazingly, those rambunctious dogs didn’t jump all over me as I did. They seemed to know it was showtime. For once, they sat quietly, waiting for me to primp them.

  I started with Midnight, who needed help bad. Her pink tutu was up around her neck and splayed out stiff like those huge plastic cones veterinarians put on dogs after surgery to keep them from biting at their stitches. I smoothed it down, tied it around her stomach, and brushed her coat. Then I put on her head the gauzy ballet crown that matched the tutu. She climbed up onto her throne—a bench Sergeant Josie and I had wrapped in pink and green crepe paper—and sat down in a pouf of pink.

  One by one I buttoned up the girls’ flowery sweaters, tied ribbons around their necks, and mashed headband bows down between their ears. Straightening up, I felt pretty satisfied as the sun rose and bathed their goofy faces in dawn’s soft, rose-pink glow. Last, but certainly not least, I fastened Duke’s top hat to his handsome head.

  With all my dancers costumed, I could take a moment to breathe and look around. Tractor owners in overalls and bandannas proudly polished their farm equipment to make them gleam. High schoolers in band uniforms wandered by to form up on the next street. Little girls in floaty polyester chiffon and curling iron–tight curls darted ahead of mothers trying to hair spray them. Beautiful women wearing sashes announcing their titles—Miss 4-H, Miss Volunteer Fire Department—glided by, yanking up their strapless gowns.

  I was completely absorbed by this pre-parade parade. Big mistake. I didn’t notice the police officer walking up the line of tractors and trailers behind us until I heard, “Good morning, miss.” The man’s deep voice was kind, but I about jumped out of my skin.

  I pivoted to face him. “G-g-good m-morning, officer.” I wanted to kick myself for stammering. Way to act nonchalant, Ariel.

  “What a bevy of beauties,” he said, reaching over the truck’s side to rub under Midnight’s chin.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your inspection sticker has lapsed.” He waited for me to answer, and when all I did was tremble like a leaf in a tempest, he must have figured he was scaring me. He lowered his voice a bit and spoke reassuringly. “I’m just checking everyone in the line here. It’s a good time for us to catch out-of-date licenses and registrations. That’s all. Where’s your driver, sweetie?”

  Where was she? I scanned up the street, down the street. No Sergeant Josie.

  Slowly I turned back to the officer. “I—I—I . . .” I must have looked like those deer in our headlights that morning.

  The man smiled encouragingly. “Maybe your driver went for coffee?”

  I stood tongue tied.

  Thank goodness, he wasn’t one of those state patrol tough guys. I suppose they act so intimidating because they work the highways alone, the lone rangers of law enforcement. This man was donut-police, find-lost-children-in-shopping-malls helpful, that earnest grown-up Boy Scout type. Even so, I was so flipped out, I froze. Just like Sergeant Josie had said not to.

  “To the Porta Potties, I bet?”

  “M-m-maybe,” I squeaked.

  A hint of suspicion crept into the officer’s expression. “Your truck’s inspection sticker is almost a year overdue. Think you could reach into the glove compartment and pull out your registration? Do you know what I mean by ‘registration’? It’s a little card.”

  You know how dogs that care about you sense your emotions? My heart rate must have spiked because Duke decided I was in danger. He stuck his head out the rear cab window to growl—loud.

  “Whoa now!” The officer stepped back. “Please control your dog, miss.”

  I reached in to scratch behind Duke’s ears, which always quieted him. As I did, I realized I was basically pointing out more potential trouble: Duke had no collar, no dog tag.

  The officer must have spotted that about the same time. He still tried to help: “Do you have a collar to put around Mr. Top Hat’s neck, under that bow tie?”

  “Back at the cabin, I think.”

  “What about the others? Wait a minute.” Frowning, the policeman walked the length of the truck. “You have a lot of dogs back here, miss. They all yours?”

  He turned to look at me. When I didn’t answer, he shook his head, kind of sad, and reached to his waist for his walkie-talkie.

  Oh God. Help, I thought.

  I can’t claim to know if my plea was actually answered or if it was just one of those fact-is-stranger-than-fiction moments, but I was saved by
a Revolutionary War soldier! Honest to God. The biggest, brawniest man I’d ever seen—dressed in a frontiersman hunting shirt and breeches—stepped off the sidewalk curb and crushed the officer in a hug. “Fred! It is you. How are you, you old sinner?” He let go and held my interrogator at arm’s length. “How long’s it been, brother?”

  The officer laughed and punched the frontier huntsman in the shoulder of his historically exact, fringed linsey-woolsey shirt. (What is it about guys hitting each other when they’re glad to see one another?) “Too long, too long,” he answered.

  “I think it was when we had a little too much of the devil’s drink in us. That time we went hooting ‘n’ hollering through town and got into a bit of a heated conversation with some bikers. Remember? Lordy, that was some night. Of course, I don’t partake any more, now that I belong to Jesus. What about you, brother?”

  The officer cleared his throat and looked around uncomfortably. “Not since I’ve put on the uniform.” He put his arm over the reenactor’s shoulders and walked him a couple of feet away. But I could still hear what he said next. “Wouldn’t do me any good at the station to talk about the crazy moments of my youth. Know what I mean? Although it is good to see you, man.”

  The frontiersman nodded. “Understood, friend.” He hugged the officer again, who let out a big sigh of relief. “Now, what’s going on here with Ariel and her ladies?”

  This hulk of a man knew me? Somehow, I had the sense to keep quiet.

  Since the Revolutionary War soldier knew who I was, the officer relaxed a bit. “I noticed the truck’s inspection sticker is way past due, and the driver’s not here,” he explained. “The girl seems awful jittery. And then I started counting all these dogs. None of them on leashes, no tags. I remember something about the animal shelter being broken into. I was just going to run a check on the truck’s tag to make sure nothing’s up.” He pulled the walkie-talkie off his belt.