But Carrie was not to be swayed. “Uncle Lem spotted him yesterday, but I was afraid to touch him. So he picked him up to show me that it didn’t bite. Then he put him on the root of a tree to see if he would climb the tree, but he hopped away. And Uncle Lem didn’t get warts. And he didn’t get them the other day either when we found that big old brown toad down by the rocks. Uncle Lem says that warts story is all a bunch of hogwash.” Carrie knew her mother did not want her talking what Carrie thought of as mantalk, but she liked the word hogwash as she thought it had some inherently persuasive power on its own. But just to clinch it she added, “And anyhow Uncle Lem told me yesterday that this little guy is a frog.”
No matter. May remained indignant. “You mean he thinks the wart story is not true! And just look at that. Bright orange under its legs. Sure evidence of its being poisonous!” May really did not like the looks of the thing! And she doubted it was a frog. May decided it was much more likely to be a toad. And she knew the old caution about brightly colored reptiles often being the most poisonous.
“Yeah. Well, like I said, Uncle Lem says it’s not a toad anyway! It’s a tree frog.”
Well, now was no time to make an issue of the words she chose. She was hankering for this toad… tree frog…for a pet. “Okay. Maybe it is a toad. But Uncle Lem says he thinks the warts story is not true.”
“Yes. Well put it back and come wash your hands.”
“I need a jar, Mums. Do you have a jar?”
“Carrie, if the toad lives under the rock, you can just visit him there. Besides, I don’t think I have a jar.”
But Carrie was not to be deterred. “Lem says he lives in the trees. I can’t climb the trees.”
So May went into the pantry and brought out a jar into which Carrie eased the tree frog.
“Great, Mom. I’ll be back in a minute.” From over her shoulder she called through the closing door, “Just got to get some sticks and leaves.”
A few days later, after Flame, the tree frog, came to comfortably inhabit an old Mayonnaise jar on the nightstand beside Carrie’s bed, Carrie sat at the kitchen table gluing small pebbles onto the top of a shoe box. May was drinking her mid-morning coffee and preparing the fixings for a soup. Dahlia, Carrie’s more physically delicate older sister, stood at the kitchen window. She was small for eight years of age. Her tiny face was dominated by her very large blue eyes. She parted her hair in the middle from where it hung in fine, long mousey brown wisps about her face. Although it had never been really cut short, it also had never grown much below her shoulders. She liked drawing and reading, and as long as there was conversation about her, she was generally quite happy to just sit and listen. “Mums! Carrie! Come see!”
“What is it Dahl?” her mother asked, a bit of concern in her voice.
As Dahlia was usually so calm and soft spoken, the excitement in her voice caught both her mother and her sister up short and they hurried to her side, Caroline still carrying a stone and the box top, May her paring knife.
“Dogs. Lots of dogs, Mums. Carrie, look! Look at that pretty one. Looks like Lassie.”
May came up close behind Dahlia and Carrie so she too could see out the window. Unlike the effect they had on the children, what she saw caused a shiver to run through her body. A party of some dozen or so dogs of various sizes, colors and breeds had overturned the garbage and were scavenging through it. Luckily there was little of interest to them and after nosing around some melon rinds and a few now empty plastic zip-lock bags, they wandered on, turning uphill and toward the woods behind the house.
“Look at ’em, Mums! Where’d they all come from? How come they are all together like that?”
“I don’t know, Dahlia. But your Mums does not like it.”
“Why not?” asked Carrie. “They weren’t bothering anybody. I can clean up the garbage. Maybe they’ll come back!”
“I watched them while you and Carrie were talking about Carrie’s toad. It was fun. There were so many different kinds. Did you see that little white one? I want a little white one like that.”
“That was a Westy…a West Highland Terrier…It would be nice to have a dog, wouldn’t it, Dahlia? But I think it would be too crowded for us right now. Besides, we have Tufty. I know he’s really Thaw’s dog but I think of him more as our share-dog, he’s over here so much.”
“I suppose. Tufty is nice. But I want one I can hold on my lap.”
“I think Tufty is going to have to be enough.”
Carrie had other ideas. “I’ll let you play with my frog, Dahl.” Carrie brought the mayonnaise jar terrarium out from the bedroom and held it near her chest. They stood silently together to watch the dogs disappear from view. Again, Carrie was ready for action. She put the jar on the table. “Come on!” she said. “Let’s go out and see where they went, Mums.”
“I think we better not, Carrie. At least not before I talk with your Uncle Lem.”
Carrie regrouped within. She unscrewed the mayonnaise jar top and carefully lifted out Flame. “But why?” She spoke affectionately, as if to the toad or frog…whatever it was…as she held it nose to her nose near her face. “You never let me go anywhere!” May had all but forgotten the toad threat. But now it was the dogs.
May returned to her coffee. It was cold now. She picked up a carrot and began scraping it. Intent on not upsetting the children, she kept her speech calm and matter of fact. “Those dogs are traveling in a pack now. They are no longer pets. They are on their way to becoming wild animals. Would you go out to pet a wild bear?”
“No,” responded Dahl.
“What about you, Carrie?”
Carrie was busy holding the little amphibian in one hand and gently stroking it along its orange colorations.
“Carrie?”
Without taking her eyes from the frog, Carrie responded. “I know about bears, Mums. Of course I wouldn’t pet a bear. Chomp my hand right off. Uncle Lem told me!” May had let chomp pass so Carrie decided to just go for it. “You know what, Mums, I think we could keep the toad in a pot. Like the one you use for cooking potatoes. One too high for him to jump over. Then I could get some grass and make a bed for him. It would be easier to get him out when I wanted to play with him.” Carrie called the frog a toad to her mother so as to avoid discussing what it was. But Uncle Lem had been adamant. Toads did not live in trees.
May held the cold coffee up to her lips but did not drink. “Well, same rule here as for bears: If you see a wild dog you either come in the house or climb a tree and wait for the dog to leave or for help to come.”
“You think so?” asked Dahl.
“I think so,” May answered. Carrie guessed that Flame was now here to stay. Especially as in her mother’s mind, outside there existed the threat of bears and other wild animals.
Dahlia remained silently watching out the window. After a bit she heaved a sigh, turned from the window and went to look at Carrie’s toad, which Carrie had now put on the kitchen table for closer observation. Oddly enough, her mother just let her do it.
Mums definitely had improved her attitude toward the amphibian. Carrie thought it was because she could now call it a frog. “You know, Carrie, I think I do have something you might want to put your frog in. You know that long plastic container I keep salad in sometimes? We could use that. We could punch holes in the top so the toad or frog, whatever it is, can breathe. And put some rocks and a little dish of water in it. And when we eat, we could give it some little pieces of the meat we eat.”
Carrie was ecstatic! “And I could catch flies for him! Uncle Lem said they like flies.”
May just nodded her head in agreement. “I think I saw a flyswatter in the back of the pantry, Carrie.”
It occurred to Carrie that her mom may have just now gone out of her tree. That’s what Lem said about people who acted crazy. They were out of their trees. Well, Mums was out of her tree, but Carrie couldn’t care less. She was even going to let her swat flies. And she was letting her keep the toad. Althoug
h Carrie was convinced it was a frog, Carrie preferred to think of it as being a toad…the toad was here to stay! Right in the house with her!
May rose and went to the pantry and returned with the large rectangular plastic container. She took a pair of scissors from the junk drawer, and using the narrower, more pointed blade, began to punch holes in it. Carrie and Dahl drew close to watch.
“Be careful, Mums. Remember how you said not to use scissors like that because it was dangerous?”
“You’re right, Dahl. I just have to do this right now so Carrie has a house for her toad. Right, Carrie?”
“Right, Mums.”
“Now, listen, I want the two of you to stay in the house until Uncle Lem comes home for lunch. Any problem with that? He should be home soon.”
“Sure, Mums.” Carrie decided to play along with her mother calling the little beast a toad. “I just have to get a couple of rocks for Tony Toad,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
“I thought you called him Flame the Frog,” commented Dahl. But her mother interrupted.
“No, Carrie. Stay here. I’ll get you some of those just outside the door. I don’t want you going out.” Suddenly Mums seemed very serious. Definitely out of her tree decided Carrie. “I don’t want either of you going out. Understand?” Then Mums softened her insistence a bit. “At least not before we talk to Uncle Lem.”
“Why do we have to talk to Uncle Lem? He won’t care if we leave a toad in the house. Especially if it’s in its own house. Like Tony’ll be.”
“It’s not about the toad, Carrie,” clarified Dahlia. “It’s the dogs Mums’s talking about.”
Now even Dahlia was turning into a royal pain, but at least she was now willing to accept Tony as a toad. “Yeah. What about ’em?”
“Mums says they’re wild. Right, Mums?”
“Right, Dahl.”
Carrie thought that sometimes having Dahl around was like having a second mother. And sure enough, Dahl went on. “So we have to stay in the house. So they won’t bite us.”
“You think they’ll bite us, Mums?” Carrie barely managed a glance toward her mother away from the little creature whom she rather liked even better as Tony.
“I think they might, Carrie.”
“We better wait in the house, Carrie. When Uncle Lem comes he’ll tell us about the dogs. And then maybe after lunch we can go outside. Right Mums?”
But May didn’t say anything to that. So Carrie settled in to play with Tony until lunch and Dahl went back to her post at the window to watch. May turned on the radio and searched until she found some fast music with a guitar singer and some people that kept yelping and hooting as a cowboy sang and played. The smell of vegetable soup began to fill the air.
Lem and his sister May were preparing lunch together. The girls were in the bedroom feeding Tony. Lem had explained to them that it was not a toad but a tree frog, however they liked the ring of his current name and were not ready to give it up for a more accurate one. The radio still played, but May had turned it down some when Lem came home.
As they pulled together lunch, May spoke with an obvious seriousness. “We have a problem, Lem.”
Lem measured out some coffee into the pot. “Old one or new one?”
“New,” she told him.
“Fixable?” Lem asked.
“I don’t know.” She sounded positively lugubrious.
He smiled at her, approached her, put his arm around her shoulders, turned her toward a cabinet, opened the cabinet door, and brought down two mugs. “Can you tell it in ten words or less?”
“Lem, it could be serious.” She hated when he tried to use charm and his bodily warmth to minimize her sense of concern. Still, she did feel better.
“Ten words or less.” He kissed her on the cheek, let her free of his grasp and sat down at the table.
She went on. “Here it is in brief: wild dogs.”
“That’s ten words or less.” He paused, then responded seriously himself. “That’s a problem.”
“About a dozen or so. Running in a pack. They were out there this morning going through the garbage. Carrie wanted to follow them to see where they were going. So I asked if she would follow a wild bear. She said no, so I told her same rule applies here: If she sees them again she is to come in the house or climb a tree and wait for help or for the dogs to leave.”
“Good advice, May.”
But May was not reassured. “The problem is that while Dahlia seems to understand the danger, I’m not sure Carrie does.”
Lem caught the picture immediately. “We’ll talk about it at lunch with them. But for now they’ll have to stay inside unless they’re with an adult and the adult has a gun.”
“What are we going to do, Arthur?” It seemed to May she had been weaving those exact words into her conversation her whole life, but she loved her older brother. And she trusted his judgment in almost all things.
“I don’t know. I suppose I could build a fence of some kind. And then Thaw and I are supposed to hunt deer today. It’s out of season, but the food shortage is so severe among the Newcomers, the town board has declared open season. There’s a good chance we’ll come across the pack. That’ll give us a sense as to whether or not they’re friendly. At least at this point, I think a lot will depend on how hungry they are. At any rate, I’ll bring it up at Council. And it wouldn’t hurt if you were to call Larry and leave a message about what you saw. Also you might put in a call to the communications center and get them to begin collecting information on sightings: when, where, how many, what kind, behavior, and so on.”
She called Larry, who already had been alerted to a dog problem in the Newcomer camps. She told him of Lem’s idea that she should call the communications center and get them to collect information on patterns of movement, group make up and behaviors. Larry’s response was that it sounded like the best thing to do and then they could discuss what they found at Council and come up with some kind of a plan. As for May, she always felt better once she was involved in responding actively.
At Council it was revealed that there was more than one group of wild dogs and that some were more vicious and aggressive than others. So, given the risks associated with large numbers of vagrant dogs and cats, the Council moved quickly to stem the problem. An animal rescue center was to be set up in an abandoned barn on the outskirts of Lochlee. Twenty kennels or cages were to be built within it after which the following ordinance would be put into effect:
Single Animals: Pets that are not caged, kenneled, or crated and appear to be wandering unleashed without an identifiable owner are to be taken to the Lochlee Animal Rescue Center (LARC). Once at LARC, should their numbers rise to in excess of twenty and should they be at the Center more than forty-eight hours, they are to be euthanized and cremated. Healthy, well-behaved dogs will be kept alive as a priority over sick or vicious ones. Persons running LARC are empowered to make such decisions as long as three people involved in running LARC agree as to the need to put down any given animal. For each animal put down, a record will be kept describing the animal and, if possible, its breed as well as the reason for euthanizing it.
Animals in Packs: Animals in packs may be hunted by hunters in groups of three and shot dead where they are found except that as much as possible an effort shall be made to move the animals away from proximity to people and preferably out of view of children before bringing them down. A record is to be kept of animals so brought down including place brought down, size, color, and breed and reason brought down. Reasons might include: 1. Found running in a pack of four or more animals; 2. Evidenced vicious behavior; 3. Evidence of having become undomesticated, e.g. running away at the sight of people.
Initially there were few hunters willing to volunteer for the task of dog pack hunting. After a child was bitten, some chickens were killed and evidence of the dogs’ increasing daring mounted, enforcement of the ordinance became easier. On the up side of it all however, for those who ran the animal rescue cent
er, the anticipated strong protests from people whose animals were euthanized never really materialized. In general, the difficulties associated with caring for animals and even just getting to LARC to reclaim an animal was beyond the means of most of the Newcomers. On a few occasions, however, LARC was able to reunite some animals with their worried owners. Regretfully, at other times, eager searchers arrived only to leave disappointed or distraught. Usually two or more family members would come to claim an animal. When the news was not what they had hoped, they often cried together. In other instances the news was accepted flatly; the people would then express their thanks for at least knowing their animal had not been in pain or suffered; and they would leave. But the rules were the rules and the Newcomers quickly learned that. And so on no occasion was there a violent outburst on learning the news of a pet’s having been euthanized.
9. Making Do
Lem had dropped off Carrie and Natalie’s niece for the morning at Martha’s to visit with the Newcomer teenagers there. That left just Dahlia and May in Lem’s house. Dahlia stood, elbows on windowsill, at her preferred post on the side of Lem’s kitchen nearest the lake. She liked to watch for a boat’s passing, a bird lighting in a tree, the clouds changing shape, someone coming up the road… “Mums! Mums! Come! Quick!”
“What is it, Dahl?”
“Look! Look! I think it’s coming down!”
May hurried to her daughter’s side and sure enough there was a low-flying plane just above the treetops. It was not, however, your everyday commercial or private plane, but a large darkish helicopter with an army insignia near its tail and it flew close enough to permit the woman and the child to clearly observe two men and a woman in army uniforms positioned to push out a rather large box from an open door.
May thought immediately of pictures she had seen of supply drops over Iraq. “They’re dropping in supplies, Dahl. It’s the military. They’re here to help.”
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