Nop's Hope

by Donald McCaig

  One harried waitress was hurrying beer around on trays: keep your shirt on, partner. Yeah, six Buds, yeah.

  Earlier, Penny showed up at Ethel Harwood’s motor home, with her paper bag of clean clothes. “Ethel, you got enough hot water for me to take a shower? I’m sorry to pester you, but I can’t go to the dinner tonight like this.”

  When the young woman came out, Ethel said, “That was good work out there today. You just had some bad breaks.”

  “Bad breaks don’t buy much gas,” Penny said. “Thanks for the shower.”

  Later, at Jo-Jo’s Ethel pushed into Penny’s corner and made space for herself. “You don’t dance? I’m no dancer myself. Forty years ago, I got smacked in the ankle by a polo mallet, and that’s where all my arthritis settled.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, it’s humid here.”

  “Penny, I can’t tell you how much I like that Hope dog. I haven’t seen a dog I liked so much since Nop was getting started.”

  “Funny thing, they give the prize money to all the other dogs. Oh, Ethel, I’m sorry. I know you’re just trying to be nice. This dog trialing has got me about three-quarters crazy. It’s like we’re standing outside a candy store, it’s Christmas and the store’s all lit up and other kids go in and out, and me and Hope, we just stand outside. I wish I knew what to do. I can’t screw Hope down any tighter. All we do is trial, train and trial, but somehow we never get the breaks. If there’s a bad sheep in the draw, you can be sure they’ll save it for Hope. We aren’t making our entry fees.”

  “I heard a story once about Hamish Wilson, the Scottish dog man. One night he came home in a rage, BANG the door shut, BANG the dogs put up, and muttered curses all the way to the doorstep. Hamish hears the sound of a front window going up and his youngest sticks her head out and says, ‘Bad sheep again, eh, Da?’”

  Penny managed a grin.

  “Ransome,” Ethel said, “you smell just like a blue quarter-horse I owned once. Heck of a horse, but you couldn’t ride him once around a training ring without he soaked clear through.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Penny, you dance?”

  Penny shook her head. “I got nothing to celebrate.”

  “It isn’t going to hurt you.” He extended a hand.

  “Suppose you let me be the judge of that.”

  Ethel stood up. “Come on, Ransome. I’ve always wanted to dance the Texas two-step with a champion.”

  The waitress brought more beer. The Texas handlers proved to be the best dancers, Ralph Pulfer came to the microphone and, in a deep baritone sang “Seven Spanish Angels.” Applause was enthusiastic.

  The band took a break and Penny found Ransome quaffing a glass of ice tea. “I’d like to go back to the trial grounds,” she said. “Hope needs to go out.”

  “Oh hell, the dancing just started.”

  “Drop me off. You can come back and dance as much as you want.”

  Soon as Ransome slid behind the wheel, Penny rolled her window all the way down, though it was a coolish evening with fireflies.

  Ransome shot her a look. “What’s the matter with you. You don’t like to have a good time?”

  “Ransome, I’m broke. I can’t pay my share.”

  “Luck of the draw, honey.” Ransome shrugged. “I’ll carry you through the Blue Ridge. Got me a nice check today, fifteen hundred dollars.”

  Penny thought to say she wasn’t his honey, but couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. At the trial grounds, they let their dogs run around to do their business.

  “What was you before you got into the dogs?” Ransome asked.

  “Nothing,” Penny said. “Hope. Stay out of that! I don’t want you rolling around!” She pulled her sleeping bag out of the back of the truck.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Ransome said. “It’s softer in the camper, no rocks or nothin’.”

  She laid out her air mattress, laid her sleeping bag on it, just so.

  “Well how about it?”

  “How about what?”

  “I said you could sleep inside.”

  “Ransome, I like you as well as I like any man, which isn’t much. I’ve got a bad attitude.” And Penny told Ransome about P.T. and Marvin, the cowboys who’d tried to rape her that January night in Texas. She thought Jack Dickerson knew who they were and she didn’t understand why he wouldn’t say so. “That’s three men,” Penny said, “who ain’t got anything better to do than treat me like dirt.”

  WAGGIN’ TAILS RANCH TRIAL

  May 28, Marcus, South Dakota

  Judge: Bill Berhow, Lavina, Montana

  26 Open dogs went to the post

  1. Bud Boudreau

  Patches

  88

  2. Dorrance Eikamp

  Blue

  87

  3. Pat Shannahan

  Hannah

  87 (Decided on outwork)

  4. Roger Culbreath

  Trim

  86

  5. Bud Boudreau

  Cap

  85

  26. Ransome Barlow

  Bute

  Disqualified (grip)

  RANSOME LEANED FORWARD to peer through the rain-streamed windshield. “I never in my life saw a judge like that,” he said. “That wasn’t a grip at the pen. Bute just nudged that ewe.”

  “He nudged her with his teeth,” Penny said. “That judge was right.”

  A hundred miles later, Penny said, “What’s wrong with you?”

  Five hundred miles later, Penny said, “You must be getting tired. If you want, I can drive.”

  Eight hundred miles later, she said, “Suit yourself.”

  Two thousand six hundred miles later, the sun was just coming over the Blue Ridge. The corn and alfalfa in Shenandoah Valley were wet and glistening with dew. Penny thought to say something about how beautiful it was but there was no point. “Next time we stop for gas,” she said, “I’ll want to pee.”

  BLUE RIDGE (1ST TRIAL IN VIRGINIA TRIPLE CROWN)

  June 3, 1st day, White Post, Virginia

  Judge: Tom Wilson, Gordonsville, Virginia

  62 Open dogs went to the post

  1. Penny Burkeholder

  Hope

  96

  2. Bruce Fogt

  Molly

  92

  3. Nathan Mooney

  Max

  90

  4. Amanda Milliken

  Boy

  89

  5. Beverly Lambert

  Lark

  88

  THE VIRGINIA TRIPLE CROWN is the most important sheepdog trial series on the East Coast, and the best dog handlers in the United States try to get there.

  The first weekend is the prettiest trial, the Blue Ridge, always held on a hilltop with an outrun down into a bowl. The sheep are barbadoes, which tend to be extremely flighty in the morning and docile—some say too docile—in the afternoon. With sheep this workable, top scores are unusually high, well over ninety points, and some judges alter the course, install chutes or races to make the course more difficult and, not incidentally, the judge’s job easier.

  Washington Post Weekend had announced the trial, and hundreds of city people have come out this day to watch the brilliant dogs, have a day in the country, picnic on the grass. With Instamatics, they gather around the water tubs at the end of the course where the dogs who’ve just finished flop and lap and cool their parts and the photographers get splashed when the dogs shake themselves.

  Penny was watching Kathy Knox with Scot. “Kathy,” she muttered, “call him in or you’re going to miss that gate.”

  “Got you talking to yourself, uh? You know what they say about that.”

  “Hullo, Oren. What are you doin’ up north? Haven’t you got work back in Texas?”

  “Oh, I had a pen of purebred lambs entered in the Eastern Stud Ram Show. This trial wasn’t far away. How you doing?”

  She turned back to the course. “I knew she should flank that dog.”

  “I didn’t know you came from a famous sh
eepdog family. Folks speak awful high of your daddy.”

  “Daddy would make eight, ten trials a year. One year he’d qualified for the National Finals, Nop wasn’t but six years old, and Dad didn’t go out because he was fall planting wheat and didn’t have time.”

  “Well,” Oren drawled, “I s’pose there’s more money in wheat than sheep dog trialing. Can I buy you a hamburger or something?”

  Penny owed Ransome five hundred dollars. Ransome said he’d let it go to a thousand, but then he’d take a half share in Hope. Penny hadn’t won any real money since her third at Tangiers, Ohio. She wasn’t thinking about the future, resolutely kept it unthought of, but Penny had to catch up here at the Triple Crown or quit the circuit, go home with her tail between her legs. Ransome didn’t win enough to feed two. Ransome could have done paid demonstrations and handler’s clinics, but usually turned them down. A couple paid clinics would have suited Penny to a T, but nobody invites losers to teach.

  Penny and Hope were slated to run right after lunch, which is nearly the worst slot, after the sheep have already run once and got themselves hot and aggravated.

  Oren found Penny out behind the parked cars, Hope dashing here and there checking other dogs’ calling cards.

  “Hasn’t put on much weight has he?”

  “Hope’s fit. Thanks for the burger.” But at the first bite of the red meaty thing, the smell overwhelmed her. She hadn’t had a thing to eat all day, but this drooly, greasy meat pulsed in her mouth, and she swallowed, swallowed again. “Here take this.”

  “You all right?”

  She shook her head, gulped Coca-Cola, washed the clot into her stomach where she could forget about it. Another gulp. “I can’t eat anything until I come off the course,” she said. “I’m sorry, I forgot.”

  Oren whistled and Hope looked at him. “I’m sure the dog will like it,” he said.

  “Don’t feed my dog,” Penny snapped, and at Oren’s puzzlement she said, “Sorry, oh hell, I’m sorry. Please go away. Oren, you know me and you always got along good, but not now. Not now.” And Penny popped her fingers and the dog came to her, and they walked under the trees into the shade.

  The announcer said, “We’d like to welcome you to the Blue Ridge Trial, first trial of the Triple Crown.”

  Some urban spectators had brought their pet Border Collies to show them what their trained brothers could do. People sprawled in the grass, or lawn chairs or leaned against the snow fence that bordered the course.

  “At the post, Nathan Mooney with Max. Nathan’s won this trial in 1988. On deck, Penny Burkeholder with Hope, Kay Pine and Molly in the hole. Handlers please be ready when your name is called.”

  Eight minutes later, Penny and Hope walked onto the course quietly, Hope peering for the sheep. When they paused, at the handler’s post, they gave each other the eye. “You ready?”

  “You ready?”

  And Penny sent Hope out with a quiet “Whsst” and it was pretty from that moment on: pretty outrun, stop, pretty lift, straight fetch, around nice behind Penny, her speaking so quiet spectators couldn’t hear her fifty feet away, pretty drive, through the panels, nice pace across the cross drive, wobble there, but corrected and straight through the gates, good tight turn to the pen and Penny holding the gate until the last minute as the sheep go straight in, like they were on rails and she quick closes the gate. Hope walks the sheep to the shedding ring and Penny settles them, settles them, one ewe drops her head for a bite of grass and “HOPE!” comes in, turns on a dime and the startled sheep watches her companions running away and there’s this dog, you see, preventing her from everything she ever wanted and she bleats, stamps her foot, bleats and takes a step back, another and now she can’t see her companions at all, all she sees is the dog’s eyes, deep enough to drown in.

  “That’s a shed,” the judge calls, and the crowd applauds and whoops and Penny raises her head, dazed, like where did all the people come from? And Hope, concentrating on his sheep, doesn’t look up at all. “Shed, Miss,” the judge calls again, and Penny lifts her white hat, doesn’t quite know what to do with it, puts it back on, sets it straight and Penny calls Hope off and Hope comes to her side. Penny bends and pats him and panting, Hope makes for the water where strangers are waiting to shake Penny’s hand and congratulate her. From the tub, Hope looks up at her and says, “Thee and me.”

  Someone was clasping her back. Somebody was estimating how many points she’d have. And Oren was leaning against somebody’s pickup. Penny flushed, looked away, and Hope was already out of the tub, shaking herself, and someone else was working sheep at the handler’s stake and Hope had his eye on those.

  “Excuse me, I got to put my dog up.”

  “I’m proud of you,” Oren Wright said. He spoke soft so only she could hear.

  “Oh,” she said, and her eyes misted and she wondered why so many things had to happen all at once, never giving a person a chance to get set for them. “Please, don’t be.” And she called Hope again, though Hope was right at her heel and no call necessary and he was puzzled because she didn’t usually babble and Penny fastened Hope to the pickup and set out a clean dish of water and faced away from the trial course to soft fields yellow with the first blooms of Lespediza and the sky was pale blue all the way to the darker Blue Ridge mountains, and Penny cried.

  DINNER THAT NIGHT was barbecue, folding chairs on the farm’s front lawn overlooking misty pasture at the foot of the hill, but Penny couldn’t have told you what she ate. Although people came up to her to praise her run, to touch some part of what she’d done, she couldn’t have named one of them a moment after they were gone from her sight.

  Since this was a ‘handlers only’ dinner, Oren Wright had returned to his motel and Ransome made himself scarce too. Penny was grateful for that.

  Penny’s heart had swelled until it filled her chest cavity to bursting. Conventional remarks didn’t bother her: “You brought that dog along good since I seen you in Tucson,” “that was a real run you laid down.” But there were people who came diffidently near and said, “When that dog of yours came in for the shed, my oh, my …,” and a rerun would pass before Penny’s mind and she’d say, “Excuse me,” and turn and blow her nose into the napkin she clutched in her hand until it disintegrated.

  Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking and she wished she’d thought to bring her jacket.

  In small groups on the lawn, handlers talked softly, drank beer, talked dogs, famous dogs of their youth, dogs in Scotland or Wales, dogs that had just been imported to this country.

  Hope rested in the shade of the pickup truck, his nose in the grass, water at one paw, bowl of food at the other. Flies buzzed his untouched food bowl and walked the rim and he ignored them.

  He watched the other dogs being exercised and smelled the smoke from the barbecue.

  Like Penny, he knew perfectly well he’d done something splendid. Unlike her, however, he didn’t think there was anything extraordinary about that, and next morning, first thing, he planned to go out and do it again. This deep satisfaction, the tiredness in his muscles, his mind slowly softening from its grand concentration, was Hope’s rational world. Clouds swirled overhead and the fat moon struck through now and again. Motor home doors opened and shut. Though some handlers carried flashlights, the dogs they turned loose for one last romp didn’t need them.

  Hope recognized the shape coming wearily up the hill and his tail thumped once, twice.

  The woman who sat beside him smelled of what she’d eaten, the afternoon’s hard sweat, her exultation. “How you doin’, honey?”

  Hope said he felt fine that today was a good day, would she care to follow him out into the field where all sorts of messages had been collecting.

  “Sure,” Penny said, and walked into the darkness.

  When the moon found a hole in the clouds it arrived like a spotlight, flattening shadows, washing Hope’s black and white coat shades of gray.

  Hope picked up his feet, sniffed, circle
d, crouched, scuffed dirt over his own scat, grinning at her, his teeth shining in the moonlight, scuff, scuff, scuff: life was their private joke.

  THE SECOND DAY of the Blue Ridge Trial, Penny misjudged the crossdrive panel and two sheep slipped around the outside. Despite that, her run was good enough to come third, behind Herbert Holmes, who’d had a blazing run, and Lyle Boyer, who beat her by a scant point. They finished a little after four. Low scoring handlers spoke about the next trial down the road or the new young dog they had coming on. Handlers who’d done well waited politely for the official tally.

  The scorekeeper held the box of ribbons, “In tenth place, with a score today of 80 and a cumulative score of 168, Beverly Lambert with Lark.”

  And the judge shook Beverly’s hand and congratulated her and the scorekeeper gave her her ribbon and the envelope with her prize checks.

  “In ninth place. …”

  “Nice run, Ransome,” someone said.

  “Hard luck at the shed,” the judge said.

  Ransome didn’t manage a smile, slipped the envelope with $37.95 into his pocket.

  Bruce Fogt fastened his ribbon (5th) to his shirt. Herbert Holmes took his second place overall trophy (a shepherd with Border Collie guarding a lamb) to his camper and Penny asked Oren to hold her trophy (Border Collie with two lambs) while she shook the judge’s hand and pocketed four checks:

  Best Drive: $20

  1st Place, Saturday, $750

  3rd Place, Sunday: $300

  1st Place Overall: $500

  “Oren, I got to talk. No, not here, over there. You’re welcome. Oren, you got enough to cash a three-hundred-dollar check?”

  Oren pulled his wallet out of his hip pocket and thumbed through it. “I got a hundred ninety if that’ll help you. I can get back home on my card.”