by Wesley Banks
Katie was partly disappointed that she'd missed breakfast. She was relieved, however, that she at least had a couple hours to watch the dogs.
She hurried back inside to get ready. She plugged her cell phone in, grabbed her makeup bag and headed straight for the bathroom. She pulled back the curtain and lifted her leg over the high sidewall of the claw-foot tub and stepped in. Two minutes later, she understood why people recommended a cold shower in the morning to wake up. It was terrible and refreshing all at the same time.
With a towel wrapped around her, she lay her suitcase on the floor in front of the closet and unzipped it, then lay her clothes out all over the bed. For a moment she considered hanging them up, until she realized there were no hangers. Instead, she re-zipped her suitcase and stood a few feet away from the bed to analyze her choices. Looking at the clothes in front of her, Katie wished she hadn’t packed in such a hurry. Without many options to choose from, she settled on the same pair of jeans from yesterday and a maroon knit sweater. She dried her hair quickly, grabbed her only pair of boots, tucked her notebook under her arm, and headed in the direction Doc had pointed her towards.
The copse of trees surrounding the cottage must have insulated the cool air a bit, because just a few steps out of the trail, a chilly wind collided with Katie. It felt like a cold shower all over again, but the more she walked the more she welcomed the breeze. She turned to her left just as Doc had instructed and looked out to an endless horizon of green land.
The terrain appeared flat from a distance, but as she walked she could easily feel the unevenness of the earth. At least this morning she wasn't lugging around her suitcase.
After several minutes of walking, she found her eyes wandering more and more over the endless landscape in front of her. It was almost hypnotic. For a moment she didn't even realize that she was no longer on flat ground, but walking slightly downhill, and when she looked behind her she noticed she hadn't been on flat ground for some time.
And then she saw them.
When she had first seen the dogs there had only been fifteen, many of whom seemed to be very young. But now in front of her were over twenty dogs, excluding the five puppies from Biscuit's litter.
Unlike yesterday, though, there was no organization, no neat rows of dogs marching or following orders—just twenty or so dogs, and one man. Playing.
Katie sat down in the distance, thinking she might be able to watch unnoticed.
She opened her notepad and scribbled the date in the upper right-hand corner of the first page.
She watched each dog intently and started to write down descriptions. Not only how they looked, but how they moved, how they interacted, how they responded to one another and to Kyle. There were so many dogs that it was a challenge getting the details down, especially when trying to differentiate between several who looked almost identical.
Determined to get it right, she watched more closely as the dogs circled Kyle. At first their movement seemed random, as if the dogs were just playing with one another and Kyle as they saw fit. But by the time she had made it halfway through describing each dog, she’d begun to notice a pattern. She was close enough to hear the dogs bark and yip occasionally, but not nearly close enough to make out any words Kyle said—if he was saying anything at all.
As she watched the exchange between Kyle and the dogs, she realized he must be calling them over one by one. She couldn't figure out how, as it didn't appear that he was speaking to them, but after several minutes a different dog would approach.
Kyle stood up, interlocked his hands, and stretched them towards the sky. He leaned to the left, then to the right. Some of the dogs were lying down panting, some of them rolling around, some even pressing their faces into the grass and dirt.
Directly behind Kyle, two dogs played. Katie let out a quiet laugh as one kept spinning its backside into the other.
When Kyle knelt back down he faced the two that Katie had been watching and they both stopped. Ears perked, tails wagging, bodies wriggling, they approached Kyle. But as the dogs neared, she noticed a drastic change in behavior. Their ears tucked tightly against their necks, their heads dropped, and they stepped as if they were walking over broken glass. They didn’t seem upset, but attentive. Serious.
When they were within arms’ reach, both dogs sat. Kyle leaned down and instead of placing his hand on either dog’s head or back, he placed one hand between each of the dog’s front legs, against the chest. Again, the dogs’ demeanor changed. Their tight shoulders relaxed, their ears stood tall, and their faces rose to meet his. They almost looked regal. This was the only time Katie thought Kyle might be speaking to the dogs, but his back was always to her and she was just too far away to know for sure. It was a beautiful moment to watch, even though she truly had no clue what was happening.
It wasn't until she heard panting that the moment ended. For a minute, she thought that she had subconsciously moved closer to Kyle and the dogs, but she hadn't. And then, for the second time that day, she nearly screamed. Seated next to her, panting, was the same large black dog from yesterday.
He paid almost no attention to her. His eyes were deep and black and distant as he watched the other dogs.
Katie just stared at the dog for a moment, until finally he turned his attention from the group and looked directly at her. His mouth closed and the panting stopped. His right ear straightened in her direction, but his left ear turned independently towards the other dogs still playing.
At least this is an improvement over growling at me…I hope.
The wind shifted slightly and his nostrils flared, likely picking up more of her scent.
As she sat staring at the dog, she couldn't help but want to speak. She felt as though he looked at her not only with curiosity, but with some greater knowing, almost as if to say, "I have the answers you seek, but you have not yet earned them." She felt as though the dog knew everything about her, while she knew nothing about him.
She held his gaze until the wind picked up again. This time, he turned his head back towards Kyle and the other dogs, and without warning trotted off—though not in the direction of the dogs, but following the same subtle ridgeline on which Katie was sitting.
"Where are you going?" she whispered.
She turned back to see Kyle walk several feet away from the dogs. He snapped his fingers one time. The sound was soft from where she was sitting, but it was distinct. Most of the dogs stopped playing, or sniffing the ground. Those lying down stood. Then he held his hand in front of his body and the dogs sat. All but three, that is. Those dogs stopped what they were doing but stood confused, or perhaps defiant.
Katie expected Kyle to snap his fingers again, but instead he walked over to the three dogs standing and corrected them individually until they were sitting like the others. He walked back to the front of the dogs, made another motion with his hands, and walked back the same way he had come. The dogs followed, some of them walking behind him, some to the side, and even a couple in front. The white of the underside of their tails danced in the sunlight as they left.
She jotted down a few more notes and then folded the notebook closed, sliding the pencil down the wired binding before she followed behind them.
The walk back was peaceful as Katie followed Kyle and the dogs. They travelled a small path formed by tall pines on the right side – pinus palustris, if Katie remembered correctly – and scattered oaks on the left. The path opened up into a field three times as large as the one they’d been in. Some of the dogs looked back at her occasionally, but for the most part they didn’t veer from the pack. By the time she reached the barn, Kyle had already put each dog back in its respective pen. Katie started to walk towards him. She had so many questions still, but Doc interrupted her.
"And how is your day going so far, Miss Price?" Doc asked. He was sitting in the same rocking chair she had found him in yesterday.
"It's going well," she said, tapping her hand against her notebook. "Though I'm sorry for missin
g breakfast this morning." She had forgotten just how hungry she was until she mentioned food. It had to be well past lunch and she hadn't eaten a single thing, which she noticed was starting to turn into an unpleasant theme lately. It may have not been that unusual for her to miss a meal or two in San Diego, but she wasn’t walking around thousands of acres of land then.
Katie walked up the steps and sat in the empty rocking chair next to Doc.
She just sat there for a moment breathing in the country air. The fresh scent of pine resin on a morning breeze, the mildly sweet smell of meadow hay spread around the barn, and the leafy scent of a thousand sunflowers. Then she asked, "May I ask you a question?"
"I believe you just did," Doc said, taking a sip of his lemonade.
Katie smiled. "Well, may I ask you two more?"
"That would mean you've got one left."
"This morning when I was watching Kyle with the dogs, I noticed something he was doing. It was hard to make out from a distance, and I didn't want to get too close because I wasn't sure if he was training them seriously today or just playing with them. But, anyways, I saw him do this one thing. He would call the dog over to him, or so it seemed, and then he would place his hand on the dog’s chest and just kneel there in front of the dog."
"Hand over heart."
Katie looked at Doc, scrunching her nose up slightly.
"Your question, I assume, is what exactly was Kyle doing with the dogs? And the answer is something called hand over heart."
"What exactly is hand over heart?"
"Well, that would be your fourth question, and one better suited for Kyle."
Chapter 8
Katie looked up from her conversation with Doc as Kyle walked out of the barn and towards the house. He was busy rolling his right sleeve back up to match his left as his boots crunched over the dirt path.
When he reached the top of the steps he lifted his ball cap up by the brim and set it back farther on his head, as though his hat had been working hard and needed a break.
He locked eyes on Katie and slowly looked her over. It was eerily similar to the way the black dog had looked at her yesterday. Almost as if he wanted to know if she would be a threat. Not to him so much, but to the dogs.
He's protective, she thought.
He looked back to Doc. "I have a little work to do around the barn.”
Doc set his lemonade down next to him. The glass was empty and the large square ice cubes rattled against it when it hit the table. He reached for the large walking stick that was leaning against the faded yellow siding, and ran his hand along the indentations in the wood.
"Wait one second,” Doc said as he walked in side. A few seconds later he walked back out with a gray rectangular object in his hand. Doc ran his hands over the coarse features. ”You got another whetstone anywhere? This thing couldn't sharpen a star in the night."
Katie smiled at the expression, making a mental note to jot that down later.
Kyle pulled the brim of his hat back down with his right hand, straightened the back with his left, and turned to walk back to the barn.
Doc stood, walking stick in hand. "Miss Price would like to spend a little more time with the dogs today. Perhaps she could help you out."
"If it's all right with you," Katie added quickly. "I don't even need to do anything, just watch really."
Kyle looked back at her, his eyes digging into hers. "How do you expect to write about something you don't understand? And how do you expect to understand something by simply watching?"
She was so taken aback at his words that she didn’t know what to say or do.
She absolutely hated the way he looked at her. It was like his eyes judged her as a person even as his words judged her as a writer. But the truth was, he was partly right: how could she possibly write anything worth reading just by watching? She needed to be with the dogs, to be around them and interact with them. To understand their personalities, their strengths, their shortcomings. To find out the answer to the one question that kept repeating over and over in her mind. What is so special about these dogs, anyway?
From somewhere behind them a phone rang, breaking the silence, and Doc walked quickly into the house—almost urgently, Katie thought. She could clearly make out his voice as it carried through the house and onto the front porch.
"Hello. Calm. Mr. Perry, calm. I will be there in fifteen minutes. Do nothing until I get there. Nothing."
Doc walked back out with a coat in one hand and a dark green battle bag in the other. There was a white circle with a red cross in the center on one side of the bag. It looked like a type of army medical bag. Doc looked at Kyle as he descended the steps. "Mrs. Perry is in labor. I’ll be back when I'm back. You’ll be cooking dinner for Miss Price tonight."
Katie went to tell him that wasn't necessary, but a quick glance from him stopped her.
"Keep Miss Price with you while you finish your work. I'm sure she has lots of questions about the dogs." His tone was commanding and stopped the protest Katie was almost certain Kyle was on the verge of uttering.
Doc turned back to Katie. “There’s a sandwich and some lemonade in the fridge. Feel free to help yourself.”
With that, Doc hopped in his old blue and white short-wide GMC and drove off.
Chapter 9
The barn entrance consisted of heavy double doors on a rusted, sliding track. The wheels had dug a rut into the ground, which had the effect of causing the door to tilt and bow slightly. Each door was pulled wide open and secured to the wall with a latch.
Kyle was a few paces ahead of Katie when she reached the threshold. He peered into the barn and looked around momentarily, then spun quickly to face her.
He stared straight at her, so close and still that she could even make out the small hazel prisms in his brown eyes. He leaned in closer.
Katie jumped back. "Umm, what are you doing?"
"You smell," he said plainly.
"I what?" Katie asked, her face flushed with embarrassment and anger.
"Your perfume."
"Oh. Sorry, it’s a habit."
Kyle began to unfold a red bandana that wrapped around his wrist. He wiped the sweat from his face and neck with it and then folded it in half, so that it resembled a triangle.
"Turn around."
Katie was a little reluctant, but obliged. "You're not going to do anything weird are you?"
"Not any weirder than randomly driving across the country to write about dogs you hadn't even heard about till you met the local grocery clerk," he said.
She thought she could hear a smile in his words.
Before Katie could respond, Kyle wrapped his arms around her, draping the bandana in front of her like a necklace and tying it gently behind her neck. The small hairs on his arm brushed against her skin, giving her goose bumps.
"The dogs will know you first by scent. Even with this on you’ll smell...different. But it’s better that they recognize something familiar about you."
“That one black dog didn’t seem to mind the smell today.”
Kyle gently pressed his hands into her shoulders, spinning her back around. Katie fought to stay focused on something other than his firm touch as his fingers remained wrapped around her shoulders.
“He’s…different,” Kyle said.
Katie’s eyes followed his hands as they returned to his waist. She forced herself to look back at his face. "Well then, what about the buyers who come to look at the dogs? Doc mentioned something about them.”
"They never enter the barn. The dogs are only shown training in the field."
Kyle looked into the barn and then back to Katie. "Do not speak to the dogs. Do not touch the dogs, even if they approach."
"Are they dangerous?"
She thought she saw a playful spark in his eyes. “That will depend on you,” he said, reminding her of a comment Doc had made the day before.
Katie expected the barn to smell like wet dog, but it surprisingly had almost no aroma, s
ave from a bit of freshly scattered hay on the ground. It was also a lot larger than it appeared from the outside. The horse stalls had been turned into makeshift dog pens, and it was probably over a hundred feet from one end of the structure to the other.
The door on the other side of the barn was wide open like the one she and Kyle had just walked through, and there was a narrow skylight that stretched the full span of the roof. This was enough to light the barn for the most part, but towards the back of each pen it was still dark.
Kyle motioned at Katie to follow him. They walked down one side of the barn and then down the other, ending up where they had originally entered.
Most of the dogs sat completely still in their pens, ears perked and their eyes focused on her—except for several of the younger ones, who couldn't have been more than six months old. They paced in their pens. Some even stood up on their hind legs, wrapping their front paws over the top board as Kyle and Katie passed. Kyle corrected each one with a single word: “Off.”
Katie tried to take in as much information as possible, but her mind was racing. It had been a long time since she had been this excited about a story.
First, she tried to get a rough count. She’d come up with twenty-three earlier in the field, but this time she only saw twenty-two, plus the five puppies.
She looked from dog to dog as quickly as she could. Each of their coats were made up of three different colors—predominately white with large black spots and ginger markings; black with white markings on the feet, forehead, or chest; and solid black.
She started to look at their fur, as some of them had short cropped coats, while others had longer fur. All the coats looked thick like that of a husky, but the texture looked different. It was like being in an art museum and not being able to touch the paintings. Katie wanted to reach out and touch one of the dogs, to feel their coarse coats. She was interrupted when Kyle came to her with a shovel and a bucket.