by Karis Walsh
The dog’s bark sounded closer, each woof ending with a drawn-out howled note. This area was isolated, but not deserted, and she had passed several houses and farms on her way here from her last stop. The animal must be guarding one of those homes.
Casey shifted the seismometer in her arms. It was getting heavy, and she was getting tired from lack of sleep and the unaccustomed traipsing through the forest. She fished a strip of pink plastic out of her pocket and tied it on a tree. She walked a few yards away because she wanted the marker to lead her to the general area where she had placed the instrument, and not to give the exact location away to anyone who happened by.
After securing the seismometer under a thick berry bush and earning several scrapes in the process, she stood silently and listened to the dog. She should turn around and get back to the truck. Go into town and see if Jazz was making something good for lunch. Do another round of hotel visits, hoping to find one that was open for business.
Instead, she continued the way she had been going, following the baying sound. She would just make sure there was a house up ahead, where the vocal animal was probably waiting to bite any intruders who ventured onto its property.
After ten more minutes of walking through brush that was determined to either scratch her or snag her clothing, Casey began to doubt herself. She wasn’t seeing any sign of a residence near here. No paths or clearings or sounds other than the dog and the occasional chirp or flutter of a bird. She felt her chest tighten every time the dog howled, and the sound seemed more plaintive and urgent to her as she got closer. She batted a thin hazelnut tree out of her way and nearly stepped on the dog.
She stopped where she was and watched the animal. He—or she?—was a medium-sized reddish brown dog. Its coat was matted, with streaks of mud across its shoulder and twigs trailing from its tail. It strained toward her, but something seemed to be holding it in place. Casey inched closer and saw the frayed remnant of a fishing net wrapped around the exposed roots of a tree and the dog’s back legs.
Casey’s experience with dogs might be limited, but she was pretty sure that any trapped animal would be likely to snap at someone who got too close. What if she hurt it when she tried to untangle the net? It’d probably take a piece of her arm in exchange.
She sighed. Of course she couldn’t leave it here. She’d have to take her chances.
The dog whined and wagged its tail as she stepped toward it. She tentatively took hold of the net where it was snagged on the roots and tugged. Nothing. She pulled harder, but the fibers wouldn’t give. She’d have to remove it from the dog instead.
“Hey, fella. Or girl. Whatever you are. Don’t mind me, but I’m going to lift your paw.”
The dog whined again and nudged her hand. For the second time in two days, she had the cold nose of a dog touch her skin. She lived in the heart of the city, in an apartment that didn’t allow pets, and she couldn’t remember the last time she had been around animals. The dog’s winter coat felt thick and wooly against her fingers as she carefully unwound the tightly twisted net, and more of those ambiguous childhood memories came to her. She was somewhere with her mother. A petting zoo? Where would they have found a petting zoo? She couldn’t place the scene, but she remembered snatches of tactile sensations. The tickling lips of a miniature horse as it took a treat from her open palm. The variations in fur, from coarse to liquid soft, of the different animals. Smells of hay and wood chips and animals.
Casey refocused on the present and the dog in front of her. She knelt next to it and felt it lean against her while she worked. Far from biting or growling at her, it huddled closer, as if aware that she was trying to help. The stubbornly knotted nylon took enough of her concentration to keep more memories from rising to the surface of her mind. She habitually kept herself far removed from her early childhood memories, but she didn’t realize just how much distance she maintained until she was faced with one of these unexpected triggers.
The last section of the net finally came loose, and Casey and the now-free dog stared at each other.
“So, um, I’ve got to get going,” Casey said. She couldn’t bring herself to do the baby talk thing with an animal, so she talked to it as if addressing an adult human. Still, she felt weirdly shy talking to a dog at all, unlike the ease she usually felt around people.
What was she supposed to do now? Force the dog to go with her? Leave it alone in the woods? She tried to give it an option, even though she knew it didn’t understand her. “I guess you live around here somewhere and you probably want to get back home, but if you don’t, you can come with me.”
Casey got to her feet and started walking away. She was relieved that the dog followed her—in fact, she had been hoping it would instead of bolting away—but she wasn’t sure what to do with it now. She wasn’t going to be on the islands long, and even if she temporarily lost her mind and wanted to keep the dog, her apartment wouldn’t allow her to have a hamster, let alone this big, slobbery creature.
The animal probably had a home near here, anyway. It was a little skinnier than she thought it should be, but not terribly unhealthy looking, and its nails and paws didn’t give her the impression that it had been running loose for long. It needed a bath, but then she did, too, so she couldn’t pass judgment. The dog stuck close to her heels until they got within sight of the truck, and then it ran ahead of her and stood by the passenger door.
She opened the door and the dog vaulted into the truck. A boy dog. Okay. Casey shut the door, careful not to slam it on the feathery, wagging tail, and then she got in as well. She’d stop by some of the houses she had passed on her way here and ask about him. Surely the dog belonged to one of the places nearby, or someone would at least recognize him and point her in the direction of his home. Then she’d go back to Friday Harbor and look for her own place to stay, even though she doubted any of the hotels had magically reopened overnight. Worst case, if both plans failed, she’d sleep in the truck once more. At least this time, she’d have a furry, warm pillow.
Chapter Six
Iris wrinkled her nose as she opened another can of dog food and dumped the contents into a stainless-steel bowl. She looked at the picture on the label, showing a pot roast meal that looked fit to serve at a dinner party, and then at the brown glob in the bowl. She usually fed dry food, but the dogs who needed to gain weight or who were finicky eaters got this glorious slop. Luckily the dogs weren’t pretentious gourmands, and they loved this stuff.
She carried two bowls of food into the infirmary and gave them to Gus and Jack. They started eating immediately, with vigorously waving tails, while she went outside to fill water buckets. She came around the corner of the shed row with the hose crimped in her hand and nearly ran into Casey.
Casey. At her shelter. With a dog.
Water dripped from the nozzle as Iris stood in silence. She had thought of Casey altogether too often since they met two days ago, and she wondered for a brief moment if this was really her, or if she was just imagining her again.
“Hi,” said Casey.
Yes, she was real. The golden retriever sat close against her leg, with his tongue lolling to one side. The reddish tones in his hair matched Casey’s, and they both looked like they had been charging through the woods for a few days.
“Hi,” Iris answered. She felt a silly grin stretch across her face—she hadn’t used her smiling muscles much lately, and her control over them felt rusty. She cleared her throat and tried to relax her expression so it looked less giddy.
“I found a dog,” Casey continued, gesturing unnecessarily at the one sitting at her feet. Iris stared at Casey’s hand as it waved in the direction of the retriever. She remembered Casey’s expressive use of her hands as she had chattered on about what she considered to be the fascinating aspects of fault lines and earthquakes during their ferry ride. She also remembered how she had reacted to Casey’s words.
“I see that. He’s a handsome boy, so I’m sure you’ll be very happy with him.” I
ris knew she was intentionally misunderstanding Casey’s meaning, but she wasn’t sure why. She normally prided herself on being a nice person, apologizing if she was inadvertently rude and not going out of her way to make people uncomfortable, but Casey brought out something else in her. Something mean? No. Something intense and scary, and it made Iris want to push her away.
“No, he’s not mine. He’s a stray, and a friend of mine from Friday Harbor told me to bring him here.”
Had Casey already made a friend in town, or was this someone she already knew? Iris wouldn’t have been surprised at the former, since Casey seemed to have an easy way of talking with strangers. Iris had noticed her relaxed way of striking up a conversation when they had first met. She had been envious of it, and that might have contributed to her cranky mood because it seemed to point out a flaw in Iris herself by comparison.
“We’re pretty full right now,” Iris said. She stepped closer and crouched down to the dog’s level, reaching out with her left hand and letting him sniff her. She inhaled, too, getting a good whiff of a dog that had been rolling in God-knew-what as well as a hint of Casey in the background. She smelled delicious—literally. Like she had just been cooking with exotic spices. A hint of cumin and a heavier layer of cardamom. Yum.
She accidentally loosened her hold on the folded hose and a spray of water shot across the aisle, making Casey and the dog back up and out of the way. Iris tightened her grip again and stood, stepping away from the pair. She needed to do whatever it took to move Casey along.
“Of course, we’ll take him. Let me put the hose away, and I’ll get an intake form for you to sign.”
Casey just nodded, watching her with an inscrutable expression. Was she about to laugh? Iris wasn’t sure, but she was tired of feeling out of control when Casey was near her. Irrationally angry one minute, and a bumbling fool the next.
She dragged the hose back to the spigot and turned off the water. She took her time rolling the hose into a tidy coil even though she’d be back to watering the animals as soon as she shooed Casey on her way. She needed the extra seconds, though, to get herself back to her usual even-tempered self. Get a grip.
As she approached Casey again, she decided to bring up their ferry argument. She’d laugh off her overreaction and prove to Casey—and to herself—that she was composed and steady. Her steps faltered as she realized she had spent most of her life wishing she wasn’t that way. She’d finally found someone who pushed her out of her comfort zone, and all she wanted was to go back to normal. Iris wasn’t prepared for quite as much stimulation as Casey seemed to provoke in her, although she had been coping with it just fine when she was alone last night and imagining Casey with her, touching her, pulling her out of normal and into something so much more…
Why did her mind have to go there? Iris took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and then exhaled. “I have the paperwork in the office,” she said, leading the way. Casey followed with the dog at her side, but she paused before she entered the room.
“Is it okay if he’s in here, or should he wait outside?”
Iris thought she was joking at first. There were dog beds near the desk, and the fat cat was asleep on top of it. Crates of pet food were stacked against the far wall, and Iris had tripped over a chew toy on her way across the room. If this place didn’t look pet friendly, Iris didn’t know what would. But Casey stood in the doorway, barring the retriever’s entrance, and her expression didn’t have a hint of humor in it.
“It’s a shelter, Casey,” she said. “The animals belong everywhere. Come in, both of you.”
Casey stepped inside, and the dog trotted past her and made a beeline for the calico. He rested his chin on the edge of the desk and stared at the cat. She barely bothered to open her eyes, but her purring increased in volume and the dog whined in response.
Iris had been ready to scoop Lazy Susan into her arms at the slightest hint of aggression, although the cat had been known to show surprising swiftness when she needed to put a too-assertive dog in its place, but the retriever’s posture and movements were nonthreatening. Iris reached across the desk and rubbed his soft ears.
“He’s a sweet boy,” she said, going to the file cabinet and pulling out an intake form. “I’m sure his owners will turn up eventually.” She cleared her throat and continued, in a voice so studiously casual it didn’t sound like it belonged to her. “Hey, before we get to this, I wanted to apologize for the ferry ride. I shouldn’t have snapped at you just because you came here to do your job. It’s really none of my business whether you care about the people on the islands or not. Now, if you can just fill out this top section and sign here.”
Casey ignored Iris’s instructions. “But I do care.”
“All right. I’m just saying it doesn’t matter if you do or—”
“I do.”
“All right,” Iris repeated in an emphatic voice. “I meant I shouldn’t have gotten angry, even if you don’t—”
“But I do.”
Iris glared at Casey, who glared back. The retriever still had his chin on the desk, but his eyes moved back and forth between the two of them. Even Lazy Susan had woken up and was watching their middle-school drama—not that Iris had ever been this testy, even during her preteen and teen years. So much for composure. Iris decided her original plan to get Casey out of here as soon as possible was the best choice. She turned Iris inside out.
“You care. I got it,” Iris said. She was tempted to add the phrase but even if you didn’t because once she stopped focusing on her own disconcerting inability to remain calm, she could see that she was making Casey just as crazy as she felt in Casey’s presence. She managed to keep from voicing the childish retort, though. “Will you sign this form? Then I can take the dog from you.”
“Somebody needs a bath.”
Iris dropped the pen and cracked her shin against the desk at the sudden sound of Leo’s voice. Casey stepped backward with a startled expression, tripping over a dog toy in the shape of a rolled-up newspaper. It squeaked loudly, and the retriever pounced on it.
“Oh, sorry. I slept in my truck last night…”
“He certainly does, Leo,” Iris said at the same time. Then, turning to Casey, “What?”
“Nothing.” Casey tried to get the toy from her dog, but he thought she was playing a game and he wouldn’t let go.
Leo went over and slipped a collar around the dog’s neck, leading him through the office door. Leo tilted his head as if asking a question when he walked past Iris, and she shook her head slightly in response. She knew he must be thinking about the empty bungalow not more than two hundred feet from where they stood. Of course, it wasn’t completely empty. Still, there were two bedrooms, and the pregnant gray cat really didn’t need them both.
“You slept in your truck?” Iris asked once Leo and the dog had left. Casey seemed a little forlorn without the retriever by her side, but Iris was probably imagining it. Even though Casey had caught the shepherd for her on the ferry and had rescued this dog, she didn’t seem natural around the animals. Indifferent, maybe?
“The hotels are closed.” Casey shrugged. “No big deal. The cab is pretty comfortable.”
Yeah, right. “I warned you about that on the ferry.”
“Like I said, it doesn’t matter. I’m here for a couple of days. A week or two tops. I’m sure businesses will be opening again soon.”
Casey walked over to the desk and picked up the pen. She signed the form and slid it across the desk toward Iris. “Thanks for giving him a place to stay.”
Casey seemed awkward somehow, but Iris wasn’t sure why. She had figured she was the one who was discombobulated by Casey, but she was seeing signs that the effect might work both ways.
“It’s my job,” Iris said. She heard the echo of Casey’s statement on the ferry in her words and she couldn’t resist adding to it. “I care about the animals.”
“All right,” Casey said, mimicking Iris’s previous staccato tone exa
ctly, “but even if you didn’t…”
Iris laughed out loud, and her unexpected response to Casey’s playfulness was as disconcerting to her as her earlier annoyance. The only two times she had honestly laughed and felt the corresponding release of tension since the earthquake had been when she was talking to Casey. Unfortunately, Casey caused her share of tension as well. Still, the shared joke was more effective than Iris’s apology had been. Even if it hadn’t been, she had no real choice except to offer her the use of the bungalow. She didn’t know how she’d manage to have Casey nearby even for a week or less, but she’d have to do her best. It would be too unkind to make her sleep in a truck when Iris had a perfectly good room available. Only a short walk from Iris’s own bedroom…
She hesitated a moment while her daydreaming mind whipped up a quick fantasy about a midnight visit to Casey’s bed, and Casey spoke before Iris.
“I know you’re packed with animals right now, so I can pay you for his food or board, or whatever you need,” she said. “Or I can make it up to you by helping around here when I’m not working. I noticed some damage to the kennels and all the fallen branches. I’d be glad to help out. I have plenty of free time and nothing at all to fill it.”
Casey could obviously see that Iris was desperate for help, but she looked as though she needed Iris, too, to say yes and give her something to do. Was she a workaholic? Unable to relax without constant activity? Or was she trying to escape from something besides boredom?
Whatever the reason, Iris needed her. She and Agatha would never find enough hours to get everything done.
“That’d be great, if you’re serious about the offer. And I can repay you for the work by letting you stay here at the shelter.”