The paramedic turned to Eleni. “Are you a relative?”
“I’m her mother,” Eleni said.
“First off, I think she’ll be fine,” Paula heard the paramedic soothing Eleni. “But I’m advising everyone to be seen at Sawtooth Mountain Clinic in Grand Marais. They’re on alert—they know what’s happened; they’re ready for all of you. A few of the more serious cases are leaving by ambulance, but your daughter’s fine to go with you.”
As Paula opened her eyes, she started to cry. Tears rolled out from beneath the oxygen mask down the soot-covered sides of her face. “Mom.” Her eyes burned. Eleni bent over, hugging her. Paula shivered from the trauma. All she wanted was Roger—his smell, his reassurances, the smooth part of his neck, a place to rest her cheek and breathe. The way he’d always say everything would be okay. If only she could jump into a jet plane and fly back to New York that very moment. But Roger wasn’t there.
After she calmed down, her breathing became easier, though her throat and eyes still burned. She slid off the mask and sat up.
“Keep the mask on for a while longer,” the paramedic advised.
Instead she stood and looked for the Escape.
“Take it easy,” the paramedic said. “You should be sitting.”
She ignored him. All she wanted was to crawl inside and feel her quiet car.
Rick followed as she bolted toward her car.
“Paula,” he called. But she sped up.
She opened the driver’s side, climbed behind the wheel, shut and locked the doors. “Oh my God, oh my God.” She leaned her head against the familiar part of the steering wheel, gripping it to stop her hands from trembling. Inside, a humid cloud of urine was overpowering. She sniffed. The windshield was totally fogged, as were the two front windows. Brief shuffling sounds made her turn and look. The back was filled with different sizes and breeds of dogs, every one as still as a photograph. All eyes silently watched her. The small brown dog was in front of the group. She realized he was a puppy. He studied her with the same quizzical, worried look, his brow furrowed as if to ask, What made you do that?
Crammed against one another, the dogs pressed backward in one collective gasp to get as far away from her as possible.
“Oh.” At the sight of the dogs, tears burned her eyes, which made her nose run profusely. “Well, hello.” She choked out a sob, so happy to see them. Some were terrified and shivering; others seemed more curious. She wondered who put them back here.
A knock on the window startled her.
It was Rick.
She looked at him through the glass.
He motioned for her to roll it down. She turned the key and opened the window. Outside the smell of burning wood overpowered the ammonia smell inside. It made her start to cough in a spasm.
“Eleni’s driving us back,” he said, and broke into a coughing jag.
The driver’s door opened and her mother pushed her hip. “Go, Paula, move over.” Eleni tapped her again. “Move. I’m driving you both to the doctor.” Eleni looked sharply at Rick and motioned with her head. “And you get in, too.”
Rick climbed into the back, contorting to fit into a tiny space not loaded with dogs.
“That nice emergency boy told me how to get there,” Eleni said. “It’s up the hill from Maggie’s.”
“What about these guys?” Paula asked.
“I’ll drop you off first,” she said. “Darryl the vet doctor man is going to meet me back home. I just saw him and he said your place is the triage.”
They drove in silence for a while, both Paula and Rick continuing to break into episodic fits of coughing, their throats and nasal passages raw.
“You know that was really stupid,” Eleni scolded. “Brave, but stupid. But then most things that are brave are stupid, too. If people weren’t a little bit stupid then we wouldn’t have brave people in the world.” She reached to smooth Paula’s hair and then back to pat Rick’s leg. “I’m proud of you both, but I could kill you for giving me such a heart attack like that.”
* * *
As Eleni pulled up to the Sawtooth Mountain Clinic, an entire medical staff was waiting with wheelchairs, gurneys. Dozens of other volunteers were being dropped off; two ambulances had raced by them along the highway. People coughing, their faces covered with soot, ash. Paula hadn’t realized how many people had answered the call for help.
* * *
Hours later, after Paula and Rick had been treated for smoke inhalation and minor cuts and bruises, Eleni walked into the room.
“So what’s going on at the house?” Rick asked.
“Your friend Darryl’s there with other vets. They unloaded the dogs. People are bathing them in your house and in the small mammal ICU and then they’re getting checked,” Eleni filled them in.
“What about the little brown one?” Paula asked.
“Oh.” Eleni smiled sheepishly. “I took him home. I washed him in the bathtub with your shampoo.”
“You what?” Paula exclaimed.
“Fotis smelled him and seemed to like him. Darryl says he’s a puppy—checked him all over. Says he’s a Lab, between two and three months old. He got shots and Darryl gave him a pill for worms.”
Paula turned to Rick. The nurse gave them discharge instructions at the same time, reading off dosages on their bottles of medication. They were told to call if symptoms got worse. It felt good to stand up and walk, though Paula was a bit dizzy.
“That’s it; you’re free,” the nurse joked.
“Let’s go,” Paula said.
“The car’s right out in front,” Eleni said. “So what happens to the rat bastard?” she asked as they stood waiting for the elevator.
“Oh,” Rick said. “I’ve made a few phone calls. Buddy of mine’s got squad cars posted on every road to the border. If he’s headed for Iowa, they’ll nail him. Animal cruelty, arson, there’s a pile of charges pending.”
“Would you take the case?” Paula asked as the elevator doors opened.
“I’ll consult more than anything.”
“Good. I hope they put the motherfucker in a cage, let him crap there for a month and then set the building on fire.” It was the first time she realized she could put a bullet through someone’s head and feel good about it. Hate seethed in her. The conditions those dogs had lived in, the fire, their fear as they’d rather have died than come to a stranger who was trying to save their lives.
“You know.” Eleni turned to Rick and looked at him in a shadowy way as the elevator doors opened on the main floor. “My nephews know people.”
Rick paused and snickered as they stepped out toward the main entrance. “Thanks, but I’m going to let the system take care of this guy.”
“Okay, but let me know if it don’t work out,” Eleni said, glaring at her daughter in a knowing way.
Rick turned to Paula with an expression she couldn’t read.
“So where’d you leave the little dog?” Paula asked, more to call off Eleni and change the subject.
“He’s sitting in the driver’s seat.”
“Of my car? You left him in my car?” It triggered a fit of coughing and Paula leaned over. After it subsided she looked up at her mother. “Ma, what if he craps in the seat?”
“So what?” Eleni raised her voice in the puppy’s defense. “And if he does, he’s just a baby, Paula; he can’t help it.”
Rick snickered.
“Ah, shit,” Paula said. Her arms slapped down at her sides in disgust, pitching her into another coughing fit.
The Escape was parked out in front. Paula could see the top of the puppy’s head in the driver’s seat, just as she had in the cage. As Eleni opened the door the puppy stood. She lifted him, cradling him like an infant and plastering his face with kisses. “Come here, my little loukoumi.”
“Uh, Paula?” Rick turned around and looked at her. “I think you just got another dog.”
“Oh God.” She made a face.
“What other dog?” Eleni
protested. “He’s mine. I’m keeping him. My little loukoumi,” Eleni said to the dog, hugging him and squashing his face against her cheek, and the dog let her. Then she handed the puppy to Paula to hold up so she could admire him from afar. “Hold him up.” She adjusted Paula’s arm. “So I can see him.” Eleni had an amused look on her face, another expression Paula had never seen. The puppy looked up at Paula with the same worried, quizzical expression.
“He looks at me so strange,” Paula said.
“It’s because he’s suffered,” Eleni said. “He’s had a hard life.”
“Here, Ma.” Paula handed the puppy back. “I’ll drive back.” She made a face at Rick.
“So what are you going to name him?” Rick asked as they headed out to his place.
“Loukoumi, because he’s so sweet.”
“Cute, Ma, but he’s gonna get big,” Paula said.
“Labs can get up to eighty pounds,” Rick said.
“See?” Paula looked over at Eleni, but she was fussing with the puppy. “How much do you weigh, Ma?”
“It’s none of your business what I weigh,” she raised her voice again. “So what? So he’ll be a big Loukoumi then,” Eleni said defensively. “I’ll train him like people do these days. Take him to the doggie class.”
“What does loukoumi mean?” Rick asked.
“He says it well, huh?” Eleni elbowed Paula. “You’re becoming a real Greek.”
Paula explained that loukoumi was a dessert, like a square gumdrop, only it was made with sugar and rosewater. When you bit into one of the gelatin squares, dusted with powdered sugar, it tasted like you were eating a rose.
“Well, I guess one is placed,” Rick said. “Only a hundred more to go.”
* * *
As they pulled up to Rick’s, Darryl stood outside talking with volunteers.
“We took in about thirty,” Darryl reported. “The Duluth and Ashland shelters took the bulk of ’em. Not many litters. We’ve sorted the few nursing mothers with their puppies. I figure he’d siphon those off before he set the place on fire,” he said, and turned to Paula. “Puppies are easy money. Adult dogs in this condition, worth nothing in their world.”
They all stood looking at the huddled dogs in the wolf run.
“Seventeen goldens just left with that rescue group from Bemidji. They were in good enough shape to let ’em go.”
“Good,” Rick said.
“I checked ’em all over. So far, thank God, no signs of parvo, though I’m vaccinating them all,” Darryl said. “That’s all you need is a parvo outbreak at your place.” He glared at Rick. “The Bemidji group washed and flea-dipped ’em all before they left. Malamutes and huskies need to get bathed next. Their rescue groups are on their way,” Darryl said. “Probably be here by morning.”
“Any mange?” Rick asked.
“So far no, thank God. Probably too noxious in that barn for even bacteria to thrive,” he said, squatting back down to resume looking at teeth, gum tissue and skin.
“Boy, this is all so quick,” Paula said.
“Well, we’ve been debating with the rescue groups what to do about this situation for the past few weeks,” Darryl said. “The Canine Underground Railroad was alerted. They’ve got drivers sent from New Jersey and California to be here in the next few days.”
“What’s that?”
“Networks of individuals across the country who do animal rescue—they pick up and drive mostly rescue dogs, but other species, too, that need transport,” Darryl explained. “Each will drive a leg of a journey. Sometimes it’s for an hour or six or for a day to connect with the next driver. They’ll meet at truck stops or other rendezvous areas to transfer the animals for the next leg of the journey.”
It was a whole world of people and purpose she’d never been aware of.
“There are also guys with small planes who’ll transport animals.”
Darryl turned to Rick. “Just last April a guy flew two eagle chicks from somewhere in Wisconsin to Rick’s.”
“Sure did.” Rick nodded. “Released both juveniles right before you showed up, Paula,” he said.
“This is all amazing.”
“Yeah, well.” Darryl looked at her. “Amazing as it is, that’s the easy part. Working to socialize these adult dogs into being more adoptable is the tough work, especially in a case like this. These dogs have never touched leaves or grass. You should have been here when they first arrived. We moved them all into the wolf runs.”
“Good,” Rick said. “I was hoping you would.”
“This was the first time these dogs have felt the earth under their feet,” Darryl said, his upper lip furled in disgust. “Five, six, seven years old, they’ve never been out of that barn. They don’t even know what the world is like, what people are like. Some of ’em are terrified. Christ, it took Betsy, the golden rescue person, over an hour to get a few of them out of her van so I could check ’em.”
Paula looked around the yard. With the thinner-coated dogs, it was easy to see they were half-starved. Ribs and hip bones poked out from their thin skin like concealed weapons. Their eyes were wide and bewildered as if the sunlight, trees and open space, not to mention people, were just too much stimulation. Huddled together, they wouldn’t spread out or venture to explore the space, few moving past the cramped cage space they’d lived in.
“I heard there were plenty of puppy corpses,” Darryl said to Rick. “Which is not uncommon in these mills,” he directed the comment to Paula. “The cages are so jammed, many puppies can’t get nourishment.”
One of the older dogs bumped into a fence post and cried as if it hurt to put weight on his feet.
“He’s probably barely visual if not blind, too,” Darryl said, and looked around, a stethoscope hooked around his neck as he continued examining teeth and feeling lymph nodes in some of the dogs. “Maggie and Ephraim are adopting these two older blind huskies,” Darryl said. “With the exception of the puppies, all have evidence of corneal scarring from the ammonia-urine in that barn. Some of ’em will heal; others won’t. Most’ll have permanent damage, like those older ones. He’d probably kept them around as breeding pairs.
“Their feet have deep scarring on the pads from getting cut up on those wire cages all these years to the point that there’s permanent muscle atrophy. Most have burnt feet from the hot metal cages, but that’ll heal. They’ll have to be watched for signs of infection. But now that they’re clean, the chances of that are lower.”
“Who would buy a dog from a place like that? I’d call the police on them,” Paula said.
“He’s been operating within the confines of the USDA regulations,” Rick said.
“What?” Paula demanded.
Darryl looked at her long and hard.
“People never see what you did,” he said. “Puppies are turned over to dog brokers who clean up the ‘merchandise,’ as they’re called,” he explained. “They’re then distributed to pet stores across the country. Sometimes they move them to other brokers who sell them outright from newspaper ads—the perennial ad in the Sunday papers, ‘All breeds,’ usually from anywhere from four hundred fifty up to a thousand dollars depending on the breed. No one ever sees the conditions in which their parents suffer. By the time buyers look at the puppies, the dogs have changed hands many times. Those who die along the way or are overtly ill are written off as merchandise spoilage.”
“What about the adult dogs?” she asked, and cringed, looking at some of them shivering in fear, their desperate eyes seeking comfort from someone, anyone. How could Rick have thought she was part of such a scam to spy on him? How could he have ever thought that about her?
“They’re breeding stock. They keep males and females together in the cramped cages you saw so that every time a female comes into season she’s impregnated. After six or seven closely spaced litters their uterus either withers or comes out. Sometimes they’re left to die. Sometimes they shoot them or let them starve.”
“I can’
t hear any more.” Paula covered her ears.
“Paula, it’s all about the money,” Rick interjected. “Millions go on to end up in shelters to be euthanized,” he said. “Their lobbies claim it’s about ‘freedom of the marketplace, freedom from government regulation.’ They actually think of themselves as entrepreneurs—businessmen and –women—and they turn it into a philosophical issue about liberty and the power of free enterprise.”
“This is cruelty, not free enterprise; how can you say that?” she raised her voice.
Rick said. “I’m not saying I believe that, but that’s their legislative talking point.” There was a cool edge to his voice she’d come to recognize as rage. Where she’d just explode, Rick turned to ice. She’d noticed it first when they’d begun examining a second barred owl they’d admitted last week with a broken wing. The bird had been blown out of a tree during a windstorm and saved by a screaming neighbor after a group of kids had tried to kill it with a baseball bat.
“No one suspects where these puppies come from,” Darryl said. “And brokers play it like the dogs come from happy-go-lucky ma-and-pa country homes.”
“If only people could see,” Paula said. “They’d be outraged.”
“Or else they’d buy ’em all just to save them,” Eleni said.
Paula lowered her head. “Why isn’t this illegal?” she asked.
“For the same reason lead sinkers and bullets aren’t,” Rick said, his voice getting chillier by the word.
She thought of the eagle and how the bird had suffered with seizures and organ failure. How Rick had stayed up nights, holding the eagle while he violently seized, so that he wouldn’t hurt himself. Her eagle was one of the lucky few to beat the harsh odds of lead poisoning. Yet he had many hard months of rehab still ahead of him before being released back to the wild, if ever. And for every bird found and treated, Rick claimed there were at least five or six more suffering and dying in the woods alone.
“So why doesn’t the NRA just ban lead bullets?” Paula asked. “I mean it’s our national symbol and all,” she insisted. “Wouldn’t you think they’d give a shit?”
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