TWENTY-FIVE
This one here flunked out,” the handler said.
“Yeah,” said Bernie, although I didn’t know he was Bernie then, just knew I liked his smell—apples, bourbon, salt, and pepper, plus a little extra something that actually reminded me of me. “I saw.”
“Too bad,” said the handler. “He’s the fastest and the strongest of the bunch.”
“And the smartest,” Bernie said.
“Think so?” said the handler. “Then how come he’s out of the parade?”
“I don’t know,” Bernie said. “There’s something about him. What’s his name?”
“We’ve been calling him Chet. Must’ve had some other name before. Some tenth precinct guys found him in a crack house when he was just a pup.”
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“Shelter, I guess,” said the handler.
“Tell you what,” Bernie said.
Which was how we got together. Funny that I’d be thinking about that now, up on this crest in Mexico where things were different, because there were probably lots of other things I should have been thinking about.
Such as?
Such as—that was another saying of Bernie’s. He used it on people, to make them . . . I’m not sure what, but to make them do something. I used it on myself: such as, big guy? Such as?
Nothing happened.
I gazed down into the box canyon, and especially at the graveyard. Too far away to really tell, but I thought the body of Darren Quigley was gone. You see dead bodies in this job, and for a while at least they look like they could be sleeping, but they don’t smell like they could be sleeping, far from it, and that’s from the get-go. The life smell goes, and that’s that.
A shadow passed over the box canyon, moving fast. I glanced up, saw a big dark bird. I’m not a fan of birds. This one reached a place in the sky high above me and started circling. That gave me a bad feeling, hard to say exactly why. I moved off the crest, down the back side a few steps. When I looked up again, the big dark bird seemed to have moved with me, circling slowly in the blue, not bothering to flap its wings, just gliding.
Meanwhile, my mouth was real dry. On the patio at our place on Mesquite Road, we have this fountain Leda had installed a long time ago—oh, those poor workers!—a fountain in the shape of a swan. When Bernie turns it on, a sparkling stream of water flows from the swan’s mouth. I love to stick my tongue in that stream. Is that the best water I’ve ever tasted or what? Actually, it’s not. Once Bernie and I went for a hike, somewhere very high up, and on this rock face hung an icicle. Wow. First and only time I’ve seen one. We couldn’t quite get to the icicle, but it was dripping water off the pointy end, and that water ran down the face of the rocks and I licked some off. That was the best water I’ve ever tasted. I could taste it now, pure, cold, rocky. I got thirstier.
I gazed down from the back side of the crest. The ground fell sharply away, down and down, just as steep as the other side, or steeper. At the bottom lay a plain, and beyond that endless hilly country, on and on, with rock formations here and there, plus desert plants that looked like green dots. But on the plain itself—funny how first it wasn’t there and then it was—I saw a shimmering blue pond. My mouth started watering right away, and then quickly dried up. But at least now I had a plan. Such as? To head for water.
Yes, the back side was very steep, almost a cliff at first, and a few times I found myself leaning way over an edge, my front claws trying to dig into the rock face and keep me from falling off. At those moments the bird shadow would suddenly grow bigger and pass right over me; but no looking up, big guy. My balance is pretty good, better than yours, no offense, but with only two legs—and no tail!—it’s a miracle you can even stand up; still, my balance isn’t so good I can do a lot of looking up while I’m on a cliff face.
I worked my way down a bit, came to an outcrop that ended in a sheer drop. Down below was a kind of narrow dirt shelf topping another cliff, but off to one side of the shelf the angle evened out a bit, and then things seemed to get easier over that way. The problem was the distance to that shelf. From where I stood, it looked like a long distance. Too long? How did you figure out the answer to that? I crouched on the edge of the outcrop for a while, gazing at the shelf, hoping the answer would come.
The bird shadow passed over me, back and forth. I raised my eyes, gazed at that shimmering blue pond on the plain. What would Bernie say now? I listened real hard but didn’t hear him. All I knew was that I didn’t want to think about this anymore.
Then I was in midair. I’d been in midair before—it’s that kind of job—but never this long. There was lots of time to look around—which I didn’t do—or to think about things. I thought about Bernie.
And was still thinking about him, when—OOOMPH! I landed on the shelf. Right now I’m maybe going to surprise you and point out something good about cats. Have you ever seen them land? A thing of beauty.
My landing on the shelf wasn’t a thing of beauty. I came down on all fours like cats do, but that was just about the only similarity. You don’t hear a loud thud when cats land, and if you’re the cat doing the landing, you probably don’t feel a jolt of pain that goes up your legs, into your shoulders and chest and through your whole body, and you probably don’t find yourself rolling, rolling and rolling right to the edge of the shelf and then shooting off into thin air and starting that long, long—
But not quite off the edge. At the very last second—which I’m sure isn’t much time—or even less, with the front part of me already hanging over empty air, the back part got a grip, those two paws digging in, hitting the brakes harder than I’ve ever hit them; and I pulled myself away from the long, long fall.
I sat safely on the shelf, panting and panting. No good to have your tongue hanging out like that when it’s all dry and stiff, but I just couldn’t help myself. Get a grip, big guy. I got a grip, stood up, moved toward the side of the shelf. Just as I’d thought: things weren’t so sheer over this way, more like a regular mountain. I stepped off the shelf and started down.
A breeze rose up the slope from the plain, carrying lots of smells—including a creature smell that might have been goat, although I saw no goats down there, nothing moving at all except for the shimmering on the pond, although for some reason the water smell wasn’t in the air. The ground was hard and dry, with lots of prickly pear cactus from which I kept my distance, and—almost at the bottom now—one of those gnarly manzanita trees. I stopped and lifted my leg against it. Surprise: nothing came out! Kind of strange, since when was the last time I’d lifted my leg? Plus I always had a little something in reserve for marking purposes.
I reached the plain and headed toward the pond, still shimmering in the distance. Was there any reason not to ramp up into my trot? I’ve got a few trots, but there’s one I can do forever, my go-to trot, Bernie calls it. I went into my go-to trot and started closing the distance between me and that cool blue water fast. Only here was another strange thing, mixed up in my mind with the strangeness of having nothing to mark with: the distance wasn’t closing at all! The shimmering pond kept shimmering, but it seemed to be moving with me. I sped up a little and the pond sped up, too, no doubt about it. I slowed down and it slowed down. Meanwhile, this plain wasn’t very big, and the hills on the other side were coming closer—no doubt about that, either—with every step I took. So therefore?
I didn’t know, so I just kept going. I realized my head was hanging down a bit and raised it up. The pond kept moving away from me; the hills came closer. What was that about? All of a sudden I recalled Bernie talking about this very thing. But what had he said? I was still trying to remember, trying my very hardest, when the pond stopped shimmering, stopped looking blue, and vanished completely. There was nothing but the desert plain, with its stones and dust, prickly pears and other spiky things. I crossed the little of it that remained and entered the hills. The bird shadow made interesting patterns in front of me.
For a while I was thirsty, and then not; you’ve got to be tough in this business. I went up hills, down hills, around hills. Also on the move were the sun, sliding lower in the sky, and the shadows of the hills, growing longer and longer. As for the bird shadow: gone. I felt pretty good, maybe not tip-top, but pretty close. The breeze blew in my face, carrying a smell of smoke, and that made me feel even bet—
Smack. Something hit me from behind, knocked me for a loop. I did a somersault, twisting in the middle of it, landed facing the way I’d come. And there stood a goat, making chewing motions the way they do. All at once I was in a bad mood. I snarled at the goat. It did that bleating thing—the sound actually reminding me of the ACK-ACK-ACK of automatic fire, except toned way down—and lowered his head. I’ve never had anything against goats, but now that was all changed. I didn’t like that ACK-ACK-ACK bleat, didn’t like that wispy beard—don’t like wispy beards on anybody—and there were probably other unlikable goat things, but before I could get to them he was charging at me again. This time I was ready.
Makes a difference, doesn’t it, Señor Goat? That was my thought as I stood over him a moment later. He lay on the ground, looking kind of stupid, in my opinion. I barked in his face, a bark that felt real dry in my throat. He bleated again. Not an ACK-ACK-ACK: this bleat told me he was done. I backed off. The goat struggled to his feet and ran away, kind of stiffly.
I watched him go, and I wasn’t the only one: up on a ridge a kid in a sombrero stepped forward and yelled something at the goat. The goat headed toward her. The kid climbed down from the ridge, shook a stick at the goat. I liked the look of this kid and trotted toward her. She saw me, backed away, pointed the stick in my direction. I kept coming, but not so fast, and when I got close I sat down.
She gazed at me, said something in the Mexican way. She was a real skinny kid with a runny nose and a high little voice. My tail swept back and forth in the dust. The kid lowered the stick and asked me some kind of question, no idea what, but for some reason I started panting. She asked me another question, a short one. I wagged my tail and panted. Then from a leather satchel over her shoulder she took out a plastic bottle of water and a tin cup. Oh, water! Now it hit me big-time just how thirsty I was. I needed water and right away, couldn’t wait one more single moment. On the other hand, as humans like to say, and then I had a thought: maybe if they had more hands, they would . . . but the rest of the thought wouldn’t come, so maybe it wasn’t a thought in the first place, and forget about all that anyhow. The point was that sometimes when you want something real bad, the best way to get it is to keep your mouth shut. That was a saying of Bernie’s, but it also means just sit still. So I sat still.
The kid approached, slow and cautious, and without taking her big brown eyes off me, she knelt, set the cup on the ground and poured it full of water. Ah, the sight of that little stream, reddish in the light of the lowering sun: so beautiful.
“Hola,” she said, backing away and pointing to the cup. “Agua.”
Agua—I knew that one from way back, could probably do well in Mexico, given time. I rose, went to the bowl, and drank agua. Bliss. At first I drank slowly, but as I drank—kind of crazy, I know—I got thirstier and thirstier so I drank faster and faster and soon the cup was empty and I was licking the moisture off the bottom.
“Más?” said the kid.
I backed off a step or two. She refilled the cup. This time she didn’t move away. I drank another cupful, felt lovely agua spreading through me.
“Más?”
I liked this word, más. I drank some more, all I needed, than sat down by the cup. The kid reached out, still slow and cautious, and patted my head. I shifted closer to give her a better angle. She spoke to me in the Mexican way, said lots of nice things—did it matter exactly what? After a while, she noticed my tags, leaned forward to read them.
“Jet?” she said, or something that sounded a lot like that. “Tu nombre es Jet?” I’m Chet the Jet for sure, but was that what it said on my tags? I’d always thought it would have been just Chet, why, I don’t know. Was this another thing that didn’t matter? All of a sudden we had things that didn’t matter out the yingyang. I tried to hold that thought, but it got away from me.
The kid rose. “Ven, Jet.”
Ven? There was Vin McTeague, but he was now up at Northern State—breaking rocks in the hot sun if there was any justice at all—so that couldn’t be it.
“Jet,” the kid said. “Come. Is late.”
She put the cup and the plastic bottle back into her satchel, slung it over her shoulder, and started walking. I walked beside her. The goat went on ahead, glancing back at me from time to time and doing his bleating thing. Our shadows got huge in front of us.