Webster (14 page)

Benjamin and some of the other cats spent about half an hour debating the ambiguity of the movie's ending—a conversation the Bad Hat tuned out, in favor of eating more kibble. But, the sun was going to come up soon, so it was time for the dogs to return to their kennels, and for him to venture forth into the world again.

“I really think you should stay,” Florence said. “You can have plenty of excitement here.”

Nope. Not up for discussion. He was a wild thing now, who could not survive in the confines of a shelter. The Bad Hat shook his head.

She sighed. “Very well. But, don't go far, and please allow Joan or Thomas to catch at least one glimpse of you, so that they will be less worried. And come back here again tonight, so that you can have a proper meal.”

Those all seemed like reasonable requests. “Will do,” the Bad Hat promised.

It was nice to have a full stomach, and to have spent a few hours with pleasant comrades. So, the Bad Hat felt rather lighthearted as he dashed across the meadow.

“Shane!” Jack shouted from his outdoor run. “Come back!”

The dog laughed, and almost
did
go back—before he thought better of the idea. Maybe he was watching too much British television, but he didn't want to start, you know, letting
sentiment
cloud his thinking.

“Good-bye, Shane!” Jack shouted.

“See you at midnight!” the Bad Hat yelled back. “Same time, same place!”

His leap over the fence was a little ungainly, but he made it without hurting himself. When he picked himself up from the ground, MacNulty was standing there, looking bored.

“Took you long enough,” MacNulty said.

Wait—what? The Bad Hat did a double-take. “Where did you come from?”

“Originally? I'm not sure,” MacNulty said. “Somewhere near North Conway.”

Correct answer—to the wrong question. The Bad Hat shook his head. “What I meant was, how did you beat me out here? I was running really fast.”

“Oh.” MacNulty grinned. “Well, I guess I'm pretty fast myself.”

Greyhound
fast, apparently. “Okay,” the Bad Hat said. “But, what are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you,” MacNulty said.

Clearly, but—“Why?” the Bad Hat asked.

“Because Florence and Cole put together an assignment wheel, and I'm supposed to be your buddy today,” MacNulty said.

The Bad Hat was going to protest, but knew that he would be wasting his breath. “Fine,” he said. “But, you have to keep up, and—don't cramp my style.”

MacNulty yawned. “Whatever, Hat Guy. Lead on.”

The Bad Hat didn't really have an agenda for the day, other than to wreak havoc and frighten the locals—or maybe help them with their many problems, and also to try to forage for some food. Which were grand and ambitious goals, but meant that they would have to ramble aimlessly for a while, and look for trouble. But, first, he and MacNulty went down to the lake and took a relaxing
swim, followed by a nap, on a sun-warmed rock by the shoreline.

“This is pretty nice,” MacNulty said sleepily. “Wish we had some snacks, though.”

The Bad Hat definitely agreed with that—snacks would be excellent, right about now.

After a while, they decided to stretch their legs and explore some more. They were drifting through a neighborhood of small ranch houses, when they came upon a perplexed sheep standing in the middle of the road.

The Bad Hat stopped, not sure what to make of that.

MacNulty gasped. “Is that what I think it is?”

“If you think it's a sheep, yeah,” the Bad Hat said.

MacNulty looked happier than any animal he had ever seen before. “Wow! I mean, just—
wow
.”

For a Border Collie, this must have been a dream come true. MacNulty seemed to be too excited to form complete sentences, so the Bad Hat looked at the sheep, while the sheep looked back at them.

“Wow,” MacNulty kept muttering every so often. “Just—wow. Wow!”

They stood there, in the road.

Time passed.

“So,” the sheep said finally. “Aren't you going to herd me?”

What? “Wasn't planning on it, no,” the Bad Hat said.

The sheep looked impatient. “I'm lost, and I have no idea how to get home. You are dogs, and I need for you to herd me, so I can get back there.”

Well, she was yapping at the wrong fella. “Ask this guy,” the Bad Hat said, nodding towards the starstruck MacNulty. “I'm not the right kind of dog. Dogs like me fetch things, and most of us can swim pretty well, and we like to lie on couches. We don't, you know, work with
livestock
.”

The sheep pulled herself up to her full height. “Is that an insult?”

“No, not at all,” the Bad Hat said quickly. “I only—all I meant is that I lack the proper skills.”

MacNulty snapped out of his daze. “I can do it! I've
always
wanted to herd.” He hesitated. “Only, how do I start?”

The sheep rolled her eyes. “It's really not difficult. You just bark, and range back and forth behind me, and steer me in the right direction. You're allowed to nip
near
my hooves, but never actually to touch them, because that would hurt.”

The Bad Hat had a feeling that they had picked the wrong road to run down.

“I can do it,” MacNulty said confidently. “I'm sure I can. I must have genetic instincts—I just have to figure out how to access them.” Then, he frowned. “But, we don't know where you live, so how do we figure out the right direction?”

The sheep shrugged. “Dogs always know. But, hurry up, please, I don't want to miss my lunch.”

She was a mite bossy, in the Bad Hat's opinion, but he decided to keep that to himself.

MacNulty moved forward tentatively, and sniffed at the sheep's feet.

“Hey, watch the hooves!” the sheep said.

“I need to get the scent, and then we'll trace your footsteps back,” MacNulty said.

“All right, but be careful,” the sheep said, eyeing him with deep suspicion.

The Bad Hat was too polite to say so, but for the record, sheep smelled kind of
rank
. He leaned forward to take a few sniffs of his own, in case MacNulty needed backup.

MacNulty closed his eyes, clearly deep in thought,
and then snuffled around the road for a moment.

“Okay, I've got it,” he said. “I'm almost
sure
I've got it. Follow me, and you'll be home soon.”

The sheep hesitated. “This isn't normally how herding works. I'm supposed to go first, and you guide me.”

Everyone was a critic. “Do you want your lunch or not?” the Bad Hat asked.

“Good point,” the sheep said. “I'll be right behind you.”

The Bad Hat and MacNulty followed the trail, but it was a really
stupid
trail. First, one direction, and then, another. Across some lawns, along a pine-needle path, into a kid's sandbox, down the road, into the woods, back to the street, through someone's garden—the trail was completely illogical.

“Are you sure this is right?” he asked MacNulty quietly. “It doesn't make much sense.”

“Shhh,” MacNulty said, sounding very anxious. “I'm trying to concentrate.”

So, they followed the twisted route a little longer—ending up right back where they started, in the middle of the road. MacNulty growled something unintelligible under his breath, and put his nose to the ground, looking for a different path.

“Where were you
going
?” the Bad Hat asked the sheep, panting. “This is all over the place.”

The sheep thought. At length. “Well, first, I was just meandering around, because it was a pretty day. I ate some clover, that had lovely fresh dew on it. And then, I was looking for flowers, but I couldn't find any.” She paused. “I really like flowers.”

The Bad Hat nodded cooperatively, hoping that she would move things along.

“All types of flowers,” the sheep went on. “I'm not very picky. Although daisies are especially nice.”

“Unh-hunh,” the Bad Hat said.

“Where was I?” the sheep asked.

How was he supposed to know? It was a long and exhausting anecdote. The Bad Hat shrugged, and looked around for MacNulty, who had put his head inside a bush while he tried to find the scent.

“Well, I ran around,” the sheep said. “And then, I realized that I was lost, and I panicked, and I ran around some more, in circles. There were a lot of houses. And then, I had to rest, and then I ran some more, and finally, I just stood in the street for a long time.”

Not the most interesting story he had ever heard,
that was for sure. “We can follow the trail,” the Bad Hat said, leaving the
because dogs are completely awesome
part unspoken, “but it's going to take a while.”

Which it did. Following the erratic circles seemed endless, and the sheep slowed things down even more by running off to one side to admire some pink asters. Then, when an increasingly frantic MacNulty ushered her back to the scent trail, she trundled off again, to look at a bed of day lilies.

“Aren't they gorgeous!” she said.

Yep. Terrific. Wonderful. He couldn't be happier. “Unh-hunh,” the Bad Hat said.

MacNulty just groaned.

“We passed my farm a little while ago,” the sheep said conversationally. “But, this is so nice, finding flowers together. Maybe we'll come across some salvia. Wouldn't that be exciting?”

Was she kidding? The Bad Hat stared at her. “What about your lunch?”

She considered that. “You're right. There's some hay calling my name right about now.” She spun around to go in the opposite direction. “Come on, I think it's this way.”

The Bad Hat looked at MacNulty, who seemed to be shell-shocked.

“Buck up, man,” he said. “We're in the homestretch now. You can do it!”

“Trail,” MacNulty said feverishly. “Must follow trail. Must herd.”

“That's right,” the Bad Hat said. “Keep that laser-like focus. I'm rooting for you, big guy.”

MacNulty staggered along the trail, while the sheep prattled happily about goldenrod and black-eyed Susans and forsythia and lupine and all. Finally, they came to a large pasture, which was full of grazing sheep.

“Look,” the Bad Hat said. “It's the Border Collie Holy Grail!”

MacNulty just mumbled some more, shaking his head back and forth.

A large ram came thundering over to the fence. “Where have you been, Amaryllis?”

The sheep motioned towards the dogs. “Looking for flowers, with my new friends. We had such a good time!”

The ram frowned at them. “She is not
ever
supposed to leave the pasture. I hold you two accountable for this!”

“It won't happen again, sir,” the Bad Hat said. If there was any justice in the world, that is.

“It had better not,” the ram said, and then pushed some of the fence wires aside so that Amaryllis could squeeze through the hole and into the pasture.

“Come back soon!” Amaryllis called. “We'll go jaunting again!”

Oh, yeah. Without a doubt. “Good luck with your floriculture,” the Bad Hat said, and led the shaky MacNulty away.

If he had to it do over, he probably would have suggested that instead of exploring, they should just spend the entire day napping!

T
he Bad Hat waited until they were safely away from the sheep farm, and then sat down in a nice, shady spot under some trees.

“Come on,” he said. “Get out of the sun for a minute.”

MacNulty nodded, lurched over to some thick grass, and lay down on his side, gasping.

“You all right?” the Bad Hat asked.

MacNulty stared at him with those glassy eyes. “That was
awful
.”

By the Bad Hat's standards, it had mostly just been annoying, but okay, whatever.

“My life is meaningless,” MacNulty said. “It's all ashes.”

Whoa, they were
way
out of his skill set now. The
Bad Hat really wasn't going to be comfortable having a conversation about things like philosophy, and
emotions
. “Well, gosh,” he said, for lack of a better idea.

It was quiet, except for the sounds of a tractor somewhere in the distance and the buzzing of unknown insects.

“My whole life,” MacNulty said shakily, “my only dream was to be able to herd. Herding was my reason for being. My destiny! Only, I finally got a chance to do it—and it turns out that sheep are
horrible
.” He shuddered. “I don't even
like
them.”

The Bad Hat was not currently a big fan of sheep, either.

“Now I have to question
everything
,” MacNulty said. “Am I real? Do I exist? What if it's all nothingness, and the entire world is a figment of my imagination?”

The Bad Hat couldn't think of a single sensible way to respond to that—so, he didn't say anything at all.

MacNulty dragged himself up off the grass. “I'm going home.”

Was he really leaving, or just being dramatic? “We don't
have
a home,” the Bad Hat said. “And what about Florence's rule? You're supposed to stay with me.”

“Sorry,” MacNulty said. “I have to go get some kibble. I need to ground myself.”

That sounded like a joke, but apparently, it wasn't, because MacNulty started trudging down the road without ever looking back.

The Bad Hat stood underneath the trees, feeling quite bereft. What was the point of having a buddy system, if they all kept leaving him?

Although it was further proof that most dogs simply weren't cut out to be a Bad Hat. They cracked under the pressure, and wilted like little flowers.
He
was made of sterner stuff than that.