“Anyway,” Boss says, “mostly they’re dead, I’d guess. You never know, though. Maybe a few got rescued.”
She’s so matter-of-fact. So resigned.
“This last litter, well, I thought I was onto something. Found this little car, you know those ones that look like a big ol’ bug? Abandoned. Right down by the creek, near that bridge. Easy access through a hole in the floorboard. Blanket in the back seat.” She pauses. “All the amenities.”
“How many puppies?” I ask.
“Three. But only one survived, a male. The other two were pretty sickly, and, well . . . you know.”
Something crashes into the front office. Sounds like a window has broken.
“We gotta get outa here!” an orange-striped cat howls. He throws himself against the front of his cage, then pokes out his paw, grabbing for the latch. “I’m too young to die!”
“When they caught me,” Boss continues, ignoring the cat, “I barked for the puppy to sit tight, wait. Told him I’d be right back.” She sighs. “Nice. Last thing he’ll ever hear was a lie.”
“What’s his name? The puppy?”
She looks at me like I asked her if she’s ever been to the moon. “I don’t name them, Bob. Just makes it harder.”
Below us, the water’s slowly rising, filling the empty lower cages. We watch the humans rush back and forth, carrying buckets, as if they can stem the tide.
There’s nothing to do. Nothing to say. And nowhere to go.
not right
I stare at my sister and try to imagine all the pain she’s endured.
And here I thought I’d gotten the raw deal.
To lose your pups. To wander alone. To struggle for every drop of water, every crumb of food.
I mean, I experienced a little of that. But Ivan and Stella kept me going. And then Julia and her family.
Why me? What’s so special about me?
Is it really that I’m more resilient? That I’ve made my own luck?
Am I somehow better than Boss? More deserving?
“It’s not right,” I blurt. “Not right you shoulda had it worse than me.”
“Well, if you want to talk about ‘not right,’ you and I both had it a whole lot better than our siblings,” Boss says.
“I will never forgive those people for what they did to us,” I say through clenched jaws.
“Really?” Boss seems surprised. “If I held on to that much anger, I’d never get out of bed. Not that I’ve ever had a real bed.” She sniffs at the towel beneath her feet. “This towel’s kinda nice, actually.”
I look at her in disbelief. “You’re one of those? Those ‘dogs must forgive no matter what’ types?”
She almost looks amused. “Well, it is kind of our thing, right?”
“When someone does something hurtful, they have to admit it,” I say. “Then they have to be punished for it. And maybe then, if they apologize and change, maybe—maybe—then they get forgiven.”
“All I know is, I’ve done lots of bad stuff in my life, Bob. I’ve had to forgive myself plenty, just, you know, to get through the day.” Boss gazes at me with her wise, weary eyes. “And I figure if I’m going to forgive myself, I’d better be ready to cut everyone else some slack, too.”
evacuate now!
“Look,” says the officer, “you need to evacuate now. It’s mandatory.”
“We can’t just leave these animals.” Cowboy sticks his finger in the orange cat’s cage. The cat rubs against it, purring like his life depends on it.
Which it maybe kinda does.
The officer sighs. “You don’t have a choice.”
“We can’t just leave them,” says Boots, and I have to applaud her enthusiasm, even as I wonder why she’d risk her life for us.
There is no explaining humans.
“Just got word the bridge over Big Fork Creek collapsed,” the officer says. “You guys gotta move.”
Boots snaps her fingers. “Wait, you have a cop car, right?”
“Yes, I have a vehicle, ma’am,” says the officer. “But the way the roads are looking, probably not for long.”
“Okay,” says Boots, “so we evacuate. We evacuate every last dog and cat and gerbil we can get in your car.”
The officer purses his lips. “And take them where, exactly?”
“Shelter at the high school. That’s where we’ve been sending people. They’re not really set up for it, but once we started flooding and the elementary school stopped taking pets, they agreed to do what they can.”
The officer grumbles, considers, goes for it.
The three humans load cats and dogs, parakeets and hamsters, one after another, into the police car. Some are in cages, and some, including a couple of unhappy cats, are on tug-of-war strings. Finally, it’s our turn. Looks like there are nine of us left.
“Car’s full and then some,” the officer reports, struggling to shut the shelter’s front door against the rising water. “We are officially out of room.”
Cowboy looks at us, his eyes teary. “Don’t worry, fellas. We’ll be back.” He sniffles. “I promise.”
“You think we should leave the cages open, at least give ’em a fighting chance,” asks Boots, “in case . . . you know?”
“Sure. But they couldn’t handle this current. I can barely stand up.” Cowboy shakes his head. “Look, I’ll borrow my brother’s bass boat. We’ll come right back. Hopefully the water won’t get much higher than this.”
“Okay, then.” Boots gives a grim nod. “Stay calm, friends.”
Like that’s an option.
preparing for the worst
The wind slows for a moment and the room goes silent. We stare at the black pool swallowing the cages below.
A chew toy shaped like a pink turtle floats past.
It’s just us and a whole lot of water.
I check out the group. Two cats. One bunny. Six dogs, including Snickers, Boss, and me. There’s nowhere to jump. No tables, no cabinets. No space above the upper cages.
And as Cowboy pointed out, the current is probably too strong for us to tackle, anyways.
“Folks, don’t give up hope. You heard them,” I say. “They’re coming back for us.”
“No way are they coming back,” says a sad-faced beagle mix. “Gimme a break.”
“You never know,” I say. I am such a lousy liar.
“Oh, yes we do,” my sister mutters, just loud enough for me to hear, and we share a look.
“Look, chances are the water won’t get too much higher,” I say. “But just to be on the safe side, pile up anything you have in your cage. Bowls, toys, towels.”
“Who died and made you pack leader?” asks a big mutt with a graying snout.
“Well, it beats howling like babies,” I say, and instantly I remember landing in Stretch’s domain. Howling like a baby is exactly what I did.
“I had a dog biscuit this morning bigger than you,” says Gray Muzzle.