Rose in a Storm (23 page)

He was almost afraid to think about it. He looked down at the sleeping old dog, and felt a surge of affection for him. He was glad to have him nearby. He’d been a part of whatever had happened.

Sam prayed Rose would survive, but he didn’t dare get his hopes up. He would have trouble forgiving himself for leaving her there to face coyotes, and maybe even a wolf.

Sam was exhausted and in pain. The whole year had been
draining, and he was still reeling—from the loss of Katie, the farm’s troubles, the grinding responsibilities of running it alone, and now this disaster. What else could happen? But he shook off his self-pity, like his father had always told him to do. Shake off feeling sorry for yourself, like a dog that just came in from the rain.

The sun streamed into the farmhouse through the big living room windows, stronger than ever thanks to the vast reflective whiteness of all that snow. The house itself, he saw, was intact, okay. There was no major damage inside. He was, for a moment, hopeful. He might get his life back, or at least some of it. He might even get his dog back. He prayed it was so, thinking of Rose undergoing surgery, wishing her strength and safe passage, steeling himself for the worst. He wished he had someone to talk to about it, but he didn’t. And most likely wouldn’t.

He looked down again at this equally exhausted old dog and again was surprised at the affinity he felt for him. He hadn’t wanted another dog, had always resisted the idea.

“Hey,” he said. “You have a home here if you want one.”

Flash stirred, clambered to his feet, his tail wagging, and ambled over to look at Sam. He put his forelegs on the sofa beside him, too weak to pull himself up all the way.

“I bet it’s been a long time since you slept on something soft,” Sam said, as much to himself as the dog.

With his good left arm, Sam leaned over and pulled him up. The dog sighed deeply, and sank into sleep. He spent the night with his head in Sam’s lap.

Sam, however, kept tossing and turning, expecting Rose to come in and check on him. But she wasn’t there.

FIFTEEN

A
WEEK AND A HALF AFTER
R
OSE WAS LIFTED OUT
, S
AM GOT A
call from the vet saying Rose could come home. But the vet was adamant: Even if she had to be tied up or crated, Rose had to rest. And not just for days, but months. She needed quiet. She had undergone extensive surgery, blood transfusions, stitching, and bone repair. She had pins in one leg.

She had to be walked on a leash and given her pills—painkillers and antibiotics. No running, no working. Sam smiled when he heard that. Rose had never been on a leash in her life. And had never rested either that he could remember.

Like most farmers, Sam was wary of vets, and paid little attention to their recommendations. What did they know, except how to mail out bills?

But he reassured the vet—yes, he would be careful. He was too excited about getting his dog home to worry about the rest of it. After Rose was airlifted to the hospital, things had been up and down with her for several days. The doctor had been so guarded on the phone that Sam had been preparing himself for the worst.

When the day finally came, the vet said he was heading out to tend to some cows on a nearby farm and he would drop Rose off on his way.

It was a crisp, clear day. The signs of the storm were still everywhere—mounds of snow and ice, crushed barns and outbuildings, potholes in roads, fallen trees and downed wires, holes in roofs, drainpipes and gutters hanging askew, twisted gates and bowed fences.

But the skies could not have been calmer or prettier, and it even felt a bit mild. Standing on the porch, Sam listened to the drip of melting snow everywhere, contrasting this day with the awful days of the blizzard. “Nature can really swing both ways, can’t it, dog?” he observed to Flash. The old dog looked up at him, tail wagging.

W
HEN THE GREEN
SUV pulled up, Sam was standing by the road, sipping from a mug of coffee, where he had been ever since the vet phoned to say he was on his way. Flash was still sitting next to him, both of them watching the road. “We could be a postcard,” Sam had joked to Flash, who wagged his tail in response to Sam’s tone, lighter than it had been.

Flash growled when the big SUV pulled into the driveway, then quieted. The farm was his territory now, and he was inclined to be possessive of it, especially in Rose’s absence.

The vet, a tall, thin man with sandy brown hair, turned off the ignition, got out, shaking Sam’s hand as he glanced down at Flash. “He’s looking good, Sam,” he said. “You’ve done a great job with him.”

Sam was pleased to hear that. He had cleaned the old dog’s wounds, changed his bandages every day—the Guardsman and some neighbors had come by to help and brought medicine
and vitamins, gotten him moving, massaged his sore old joints. He
had
done a good job. But that didn’t matter now. He needed to see Rose.

When he came around to the back of the SUV and looked inside, he saw that Rose was in a crate, lying still. She lifted her head and looked up at him, her tail moving softly back and forth. Even then, he could see what a mess she was, what she had been through. He took a sharp, deep breath. Happy as he was to see her, it was a shocking sight.

Ever the beautiful, athletic dog, she was a quilt of patches, bare skin, bruises, wounds, and stitches. She looked drawn, and her forelegs and ribs were swathed in bandages, some from surgical wounds, others from IV tubes, still more from injuries. Her shoulder was wrapped in heavy gauze; her right leg was in a soft cast, which stuck out strangely behind her.

Sam looked up at the vet.

“I know it seems bad, but it looks worse than it is at this point,” he said. “We were lucky to save her, and she’ll need time to recover. But she’ll be all right, Sam. She won’t have a hundred percent mobility, but she’ll still be faster than most dogs. She wouldn’t eat much at the hospital. Try to get some food into her, will you? And she has a bunch of pills. Make sure she takes them. All labeled. She’s a stoic dog, strong. We put her through a lot, and she never complained or gave us any trouble. Unless we tried to pet her. Make sure she doesn’t move much.”

Rose kept looking at her leg, which seemed to be separate from her body, and at the cast, which she clearly intended to remove as soon as she could. In fact, the vet told Sam, she had removed it several times already. He said he wouldn’t even try to put a cone on her.

Sam looked at the vet and nodded, a surge of affection rising
in his chest. He always found it amusing when vets told him to keep Rose still. He doubted any of them had ever had a border collie like her.

Rose struggled to stand up, and slowly, with small steps, moved to the back of the crate. Sam was afraid to move her, afraid to hurt her, she looked so frail. He looked at the vet, who put one arm gingerly under Rose’s stomach, the other on her collar, and gently lifted her down to the ground. Then he took out a leash and clipped it onto Rose’s collar. “That’s how to pick her up if you have to. I don’t want her jumping.” Sam took the leash from him, holding it a bit awkwardly.

“Listen, Sam, no working. I mean it. I can’t even guess at what she must’ve gone through to have wounds like that—never seen it before. A hard run could open her up, even kill her.”

Sam said he understood. He closed his hand around the leash and looked down at his dog. “Okay, Rose, welcome home.”

Rose stepped forward gingerly, her leg dragging awkwardly. Her tail was going back and forth slowly, and her head was lowered, almost as if she were shy. She came to Sam, sniffed, then nuzzled his hand, and licked it once. Flash approached her, and the two of them touched noses, their tails going faster now as the older dog sniffed her bandages and wounds.

Sam knelt down on the ground. He trembled a bit as he pressed his head gently against hers. Several tears rolled down the sides of his face.

Rose accepted the hug, returning it with soft licks.

Sam shook hands with the vet, thanked him, and as the SUV pulled off, he slowly led Rose toward the back of the farmhouse.

There, Sam took the leash off. “I’ve never put a leash on you, girl, and I’ll trust you to stay put right here and take it easy, okay?”

R
OSE
,
WALKING SLOWLY
, understood. There was no work in Sam’s tone. With the wild dog behind her, she walked on the path cleared through the snow.

She lifted her nose, looked at the hillside, saw the tracks, her instincts and senses collecting the story of the storm, telling it back to her, remembering it, storing it away. For a long time, she stared at the hill, raising her nose high into the air. Sam watched her.

The winterscape was still striking, imposing mounds of snow everywhere, wood and slate all over the ground. Still, it was very different from the last time she had seen it.

Rose saw the Blackface and the sheep gathered in front of the pole barn. She looked over to where she had seen Carol die, gazed into her sad eyes, said her good-bye.

She narrowed her eyes at the spot where she had faced the coyotes.

Several of the sheep called out to her, and she returned their gaze. None of them moved. She realized that she looked strange to them, that some of them didn’t recognize her—it had been nearly two weeks, and she was covered in bandages.

The Blackface did know her, though, and held her gaze, a gesture of respect, it seemed to Rose, an acknowledgment of some kind.

She looked up the hill, where she had gone to collect the goats, and to the upper pasture, where she had lain when she’d seen the place of blue lights and the spirit of her mother.

Up on her left, the goats began jeering and complaining
and calling out to her, making little sense. They seemed to feel that Rose had authority on the farm, and so they made demands on her. They wanted more food, as usual. She ignored them, as usual.

She limped a few steps to her right, and through the fence she could see Brownie and the cows grazing at the feeder. They did not look at her. She heard Winston crowing in the barn, and heard his hens clucking. He sounded as if he were back to his old self, officious, even pompous.

Rose saw damage everywhere. Her map had changed; everywhere she looked, her landscape and bearings were rearranged. There was a lot to take in.

Slate had fallen off the farmhouse roof, there were gaping holes in the roof of the barn, and several of the gates were off their hinges. Much of the glass in the barn windows was broken, the panes blown out. The wind had knocked trees and poles down.

She closed her eyes and could hear, far behind her, the sounds of hawks soaring above, seeking food, the animals in the woods out foraging, hunting, digging. She listened for any sound from the coyote, but heard none. She could smell the animals and leaves and brush emerging from the snow, and hear the lowing of cows from farms miles away.

She was orienting herself, after lost days, fuzzy images, time in crates. She listened for Katie, raised her nose, hoping to pick up her scent. But she didn’t hear her or smell her.

Sam was silent, watching Rose’s homecoming, giving it space and respect. The wild dog was sitting down, quiet and observant. He could stop searching for her now.

Rose looked up into Sam’s eyes—for a moment—and then around at the farm again. She turned, walked toward the pasture on paths and trails that had been cleared.

Sam raised his hand, as if to caution her, but when she turned and glanced at him, he lowered his arm. She made her way slowly to the pasture gate, hauling her cast, shaking her head to brush off the pain. She managed to slowly crawl under it, moving up toward the pole barn, where the sheep collected themselves into a flock and lowered their heads to study her.

She sat.

She considered her map, and, almost unconsciously, changed it. She removed a cow, a dead lamb, the donkey, a ewe, and a hen.

She kept Katie in her map, and scanned the farm once again for her, reflexively. She was not in the pasture, or out in the woods. And she was still not, Rose could sense, in the farmhouse. She looked back at the wild dog, who was sitting beside Sam, watching her.

Her vision was blurred at times, and her body ached. She felt a strange stiffness in her side from the wounds, the bandages, the broken ribs and aching bones. Simply breathing was painful, slow. She knew not to run or jump. And for once, she knew not to work, not yet.

Rose looked around again, at the sheep, at Sam.

Finally it seemed she had seen what she needed to see, knew what she needed to know. She closed her eyes, raised her nose high into the air.

Slowly, almost laboriously, she lay down in the pole barn near the sheep, who stirred nervously. She closed her eyes and tried to dream her dream, her favorite one, of the sheep crunching away in the meadow on grass rippling in the wind, shining in the sun.

EPILOGUE

B
Y SUMMER
,
THE FARM WAS ITS LUSH, SMELLY
,
VERDANT
self—recognizable, Sam thought, if not quite the same as last year. The corn and alfalfa were high and green, the barns had purplish new slate roofs. The outer pasture was full of cows and more than a score of lambs darted playfully in and out of the pole barn. Blackflies and mosquitoes swarmed everywhere.

The community had banded together, as farm communities do, to help get all of the farms up and running. There were still signs of damage on most houses and barns, but the storm already seemed remote to many, another drama of life in a long series. Farmers knew dramas. Sam had seen many.

Death and trouble are routine, an integral part of farm life. There are always chores, crops, work to pull you along.

Some neighbors had come by to help Sam repair his fences and gates, many of which were damaged in the crush of snow and ice. They fixed tarpaulins over the holes in the barn, and rebuilt the big barn doors.

The reports of the wolf had spread quickly through the
county, causing something of a panic. Farmers got out their shotguns and rifles, and county and state wildlife agents prowled the woods looking for tracks. But no wolf had been found, no tracks discovered. It was rarely mentioned much anymore, although Sam still took his rifle when he went out at night. He had seen the dead coyote up by the barn.