Stud Rites (21 page)

I, of course, was racked by an acute case of vicarious stage fright.

The enviably calm Duke Sylvia was waiting to handle a big, dark Kotzebue bitch entered in American Bred. The assignment wasn’t exactly what had brought Duke to the national, but I was willing to bet that later in the day, when he waited to show Ironman in Best of Breed, he’d seem as casual and congenial as he did now. ”There was one thing Elsa didn’t count on,” he remarked, filling me in on Elsa Van Dine. ”And that was, when the old guy passed away, she’d get stuck being a dowager.” Smiling rather fondly, he added, ”I’ll bet Elsa didn’t like that one damned bit.”

”You handled Comet for her?” Feminist linguists have supposedly cured women of this shrinking-tongued habit of letting driveling questions drip from our lips when we ought to be spitting out bold assertions. I apparently suffer from a polemic-resistant case of the ailment. I knew damn well that Duke had handled Comet for every owner the dog had had. Only an hour or so earlier, as I’d finished my coffee, I’d studied the
Malamute Quarterly
centerfold about Comet in one of the old issues that I’d taken with me to breakfast.

Duke nodded.

For no good reason, so did I. ”And you handled him, uh... when Hadley...”

I’d heard about the incident dozens of times, but until I’d read the centerfold piece, I hadn’t connected it with Duke or Comet or, for that matter, with Alaskan malamutes. Anyway, J. J. Hadley was Comet’s breeder, and when Comet wasn’t even two years old, Hadley entered him at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, with Duke handling. This was in the old days, of course, back before Westminster was champions only. Anyway, spectacular dog that he was, Comet not only finished his championship at Westminster, but took Best of Breed. And J. J. Hadley died of surprise. Literally. He had a heart attack right outside the ring. Of course, it was a thrill for anyone to finish a dog there, especially a young dog that took the breed, but it is possible to carry this dog thing too far, and it seemed to me that that was just what J. J. Hadley had done. Hadley’s widow, Velma, however, instead of sensibly realizing that breed competition is no sport for the faint of heart, laid the blame on the innocent Comet and on the equally innocent Westminster Kennel Club. Maddened by grief, Velma Hadley promptly sold Comet to Elsa Van Dine and launched her prolonged but ultimately successful campaign to prevent future ringside fatalities like her husband’s. Thus it is that the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is now limited to champions of record, all because of that silly Velma Hadley. Just kidding. But Velma Hadley really did make a fuss.

So Duke admitted that he’d handled Comet on the infamous occasion of J. J. Hadley’s demise and on numerous other occasions, first for Hadley, of course; then for Elsa Van Dine; then for James Hunnewell and, of all people, Timmy Oliver, who’d co-owned the dog with Hunnewell; and finally, after buying Timmy out, for himself and James Hunnewell.

”So how did Timmy Oliver ever get to own Comet?” I was amazed. Comet was my idea of serious quality. Timmy Oliver certainly was not.

Duke’s big, leonine face showed the first negative emotion I’d ever seen it reveal. Exactly what the feeling was, I couldn’t identify, but, for once, Duke looked other than pleasant. ”Elsa offered. Timmy said yes.”

I remembered that Betty had said something about Elsa’s taking Timmy under her wing. ”And Hunnewell? How did Hunnewell...?”

”Money,” Duke said. ”Timmy had dibs—Elsa liked him—but he was broke, so he got James to put up the money, promised him co-ownership, and as soon as Elsa signed Comet over to Timmy, Timmy kept his part of the deal. They had a whole elaborate agreement worked out. James paid the purchase price, the vet bills, uh, handler fees, everything. James had possession. Harriet Lunt drew it all up for them. And that was it. Timmy didn’t get a thing out of it. Co-owned him in name only. Couldn’t say
boo
to Comet without James’s written agreement.” Duke added with surprising scorn, ”God, there was one time there where Timmy had this bitch he wanted to breed to Comet, and James turned him down flat! Poor sucker! Didn’t even have stud rights on his own dog.”

”That’s a pretty unusual arrangement.”

”Yeah, well, Comet was an, uh, unusual dog. And, hey, if
you
were going to co-own a dog with Timmy...?”

”Perish the thought!” I exclaimed.

”Yeah, well, James was no dummy. He felt the same way.”

”So why didn’t James Hunnewell go to Elsa Van Dine in the first place and just buy Comet outright?”

”Elsa didn’t care much for James. James could be, uh, abrasive. This judging poll was probably the first popularity contest James ever won in his life.” Duke frowned.

”I thought he judged quite a lot.”

”He got assignments. People had a lot of respect for his
opinions.
It was
him
they didn’t like. With Elsa, it was... Elsa was a pretty woman. James used to hit on her. She hated it. She knew he wanted Comet, and the worse he wanted the dog, the more she’d have sold him to someone else. When she found out he got Comet after all, she was ripping mad at Timmy. But by then, it was too late. And she got over it. She always had a soft spot for Timmy.”

”That old tape we saw,” I said. ”That was when Comet belonged to Elsa Van Dine?” The judge had been James Hunnewell, who, for obvious reasons, wouldn’t have been permitted to judge a dog he coowned. ”She owned him for what? Four years?”

Duke shrugged. ”Give or take.”

”So how did Timmy happen to sell to you?” The transaction was none of my business. I felt awkward. The sensation jarred. Ordinarily, Duke Sylvia had the flattering gift of making people feel as though they’d always said the right thing.

But Duke didn’t seem to sense my discomfort. ”Things got ugly for a while there. One of Timmy’s get-rich-quick schemes fell apart, he was dead broke, and of course, no one was stupid enough to loan him a dime. Comet was the only thing he had that was supposedly worth anything, but, like I said, that was in name only—James had total control. According to this contract they had, he could veto any buyer Timmy came up with. And James wasn’t about to buy Timmy out. He’d bought Comet once. He’d paid the full purchase price, and he’d paid everything since then. He wasn’t going to pay for the same dog twice.”

”There might’ve been someone else who just wanted his name on the dog,” I said stupidly. ”Someone Hunnewell would’ve agreed to. People do that. They want the glory.
And
they contribute to the cost.”

Duke smiled. ”Yeah, well, there was someone.”

”Oh, of course! And that’s how you ended up coowning Comet.”

”It worked out for everyone. James saved himself a bundle in handler fees. Timmy got some cash. I paid a decent price. Of course, after Timmy got back on his feet, he had second thoughts. You had to feel sorry for him. He never wanted to sell Comet, but he had no real choice.” Duke spoke with the easy self-confidence of someone who’s never been the object of anyone else’s pity.

Loud applause tugged me to the present. The Bred-by-Exhibitor bitches were sailing around Judge Muldoon’s ring. I smiled at Duke. ”Whatever you paid, I think you got a great deal. I’d have given anything to own Comet.”

Duke pulled out a metal comb and started to do a little last-minute work on the bitch. ”Christ,” he said, ”who wouldn’t?”

IN SPECIES after species, from turtles to alligators to human beings, sperm counts are dropping and, with them, the size of male genitalia. According to radical environmentalists, chemical pollution is to blame for a multitude of diverse and alarming signs of feminization: hermaphroditism, retained testicles, shrunken members, unpaired gonads. It’s males who are losing their virility, you see; females are staying the same. In Florida’s Lake Apopka, for instance, the sexual organs of the female alligators have remained as capacious as ever, while those of their mates have shriveled to a fourth their former size, and, yes, I know that Masters and Johnson shored up a lot of shaky male egos by declaring that size doesn’t matter, but let’s be honest: What Masters and Johnson had in mind or in hand or in wherever was trivial variation; it wasn’t
one-fourth.

When the news first reached me, I didn’t believe it either. I didn’t want to. Eventually, though, my defenses broke down, with startling consequences for Rowdy, who found himself flipped onto his back on the kitchen floor so I could take a close-up look and make sure everything was exactly as it had always been, as I’m happy to report that it appeared to be, so far, yes, but for how long? The matter suddenly took a grave and terrifying turn. The reproductive future of turtles, alligators, and human beings I could joke about. But the breed of breeds, pinnacle of dogdom, acme of woofy evolution, howling apex of canine creation, shining quintessence of the utmost in
real
dog, yes, the incomparable Alaskan malamute—extinct?!!

Not if I could help it. So that’s why I thought about freezing Rowdy’s sperm—not for now, but for the future, for the good of the breed.

”For the good of the breed,” said Lisa Tainter, our show secretary, who was crowding up against me to watch the judging and, in addressing Freida Reilly, spoke almost in my ear. Easing away from Lisa, I glanced down and caught sight of a sheaf of R.T.I. leaflets in her hand. ”When it comes to the gene pool,” Lisa declared, ”it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

Before I say anything else about Lisa, I want to make it clear that, like everyone else at the national, I was grateful to Lisa for serving as show secretary, in which capacity she had done a massive amount of unenviable paperwork without, so far as I knew, creating a single snafu. I also need to say that Lisa is a sweet, kind person and a responsible, ethical breeder. Finally, let me point out that a highly developed interest in Alaska and all things Alaskan is, of course, perfectly common and understandable among fanciers of the Alaskan malamute, many of whom travel to Alaska, collect Eskimo art, and accumulate libraries of old books by early missionaries who made their way from village to village by dog sled. Most of us do not, however, carry our passion to the point of habitually costuming ourselves in the traditional garb of the native people of the forty-ninth state.

But Lisa Tainter was an exception: From the fur-trimmed hood of her skin-side-out parka to the heavily insulated toes of her authentic-looking mukluks, the woman habitually dressed for a hunting trip on frozen tundra and often, in fact, carried a variety of pelts and hides. How Lisa endured life in her portable sauna, I don’t know. Her face was usually red, and her forehead and nose were often beaded in sweat. Today must’ve been moderately comfortable for her. Although the exhibition hall was heated, cold air poured in through the door to the parking lot. Lisa’s breed loyalty, however, remained fast throughout changes in the seasons. July and August forced her to abandon the parka—she’d have died of hyperthermia—but she compensated for the loss by adorning herself with numerous bracelets and necklaces fashioned from claws, fangs, bones, and strips of rawhide. Lisa often talked about moving to Fairbanks. She probably wouldn’t have been happy there. I think she’d have had social problems. The locals, I’m afraid, would have found her eccentric. We, however, were used to her and saw her as odd only through the startled eyes of strangers who wandered into dog shows, didn’t really belong, and after catching sight of Lisa, didn’t want to.

Freida Reilly agreed that when it came to the gene pool, it certainly was best to take no chances. ”I’m still not sold,” she told Lisa. ”You know what makes me nervous?”

Sherri Ann Printz,
I longed to say.
Wedding cake. Murder.
Freida did not, however, look nervous. On the contrary, venting her pent-up rage on Sherri Ann seemed to have had a beneficially cathartic effect.

Echoing my reflections about extinction, Freida went on: ”Frozen semen is forever! It’s not like owning a dog. It’s a totally separate asset! Among other things, how do you take responsibility for puppies whelped ten thousand years after you’re dead?”

My eyes were on Mikki Muldoon’s right hand, which swept across a black-and-white bitch’s faulty rear. I was so focused on the judging that even when the hullabaloo broke out nearby, I ignored it until Lisa Tainter’s skin-draped arm brushed my shoulder. ”Holly? Holly, there’s a problem here that maybe you rescue people...”