Hat-man dropped his arm.
“If an arrest is called for then we’ll make it. Our first concern is to defuse the situation. Your rhetoric isn’t helping.”
“What?” Hat-man sputtered.
I nosed Lucas for reassurance that nothing bad was happening.
The other woman had turned away and spoken quietly to her shoulder. Now she came back. “Sergeant says to wrap this up,” she said to her tall friend.
The women approached us. I could feel kindness; it was evident in the way the shorter woman touched Lucas’s arm. “Maybe you can get a lawyer or something, but for now, you have to let him take the dog,” she told him gently. “Otherwise, we’ll have to cuff you and take you in. You don’t want that.”
“We can’t afford a lawyer. Please.”
“I’m sorry, Lucas.”
Lucas knelt and put his face into my fur. I licked the salty tears on his face. Waves of profound sadness came off of him. “But she won’t understand. She’ll think I’m abandoning her,” he choked, anguished.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Hat-man declared.
“You need to back off, sir,” the taller woman said tersely.
“Say good-bye. You’ll wish later you’d said good-bye,” the shorter woman whispered softly.
Lucas bent over me. “I am so, so sorry, Bella. I can’t protect you. This is my fault. I love you, Bella.”
The hat-man came over, waving the oddly stiff leash. “You don’t need that!” Lucas snapped, his anger flaring.
“So are you two just going to let him spout off to me like that?” the hat-man said to the two women.
“Yeah, we are. That a problem?” the shorter woman replied testily.
“Let him take his dog over and put him in the cage himself,” the taller woman commanded.
Lucas led me over to one of the outside crates. The hat-man opened the door and Lucas lifted me gently inside. “I love you, Bella,” he whispered. “I am so, so sorry.”
I knew that whatever was happening, it was good, because Lucas was right there making sure I was safe. I wagged when he unclipped my leash. He kissed my face. My person was still so sad. I wanted to Go Home and cuddle with Lucas on the bed, like I did at Go to Work with Mack. Provide comfort. Do Tiny Piece of Cheese. He would not be as sad then.
The hat-man shut the door to the crate.
“Good-bye, Bella,” Lucas said to me in a breaking voice. “I will always remember you.”
When the truck pulled away, Lucas stood in the street, wiping his eyes.
I knew I should do No Barks, but I was suddenly so frightened I couldn’t help myself. I thought I understood now what might be happening.
*
I was soon back in the room of crates and barking dogs. I was thoroughly miserable. Lucas needed me, and I needed my Lucas. Why had he sent me to this place? I did not belong here.
I curled up on the soft mat, tucking my nose into my tail, and tried to shut out the dogs who did not know No Barks. Their terror and loneliness and frustration was in their voices and their smells, and I tried not to let it affect me, but soon I was whimpering.
I was conscious of time passing. The room got brighter in the day but at night was not completely black. The dogs barked, ceaselessly. I vomited in the corner of my crate and Wayne hosed it away. I was taken for walks around the fence by him and the nice woman Glynnis, the leash strapped to my face. The dirt in the yard was packed hard with the pads of many, many dog feet.
“This sucks, Bella,” Glynnis told me as she indulged me in long, careful sniffs along the fence. The scent of all those dogs was hugely distracting to me. “You are such a gentle dog. You didn’t bite anybody. Most of the ACOs wouldn’t give you a second look. You just got picked up by one of the bad ones. Everyone thinks Chuck is an asswipe.”
She did not say the name Lucas and I did not smell his scent on her.
I was back in the same place but everything seemed worse. Glynnis was so gloomy. The dogs around me seemed especially sad.
I panted and paced and tried to lie down on my bed and then got right back up again, over and over. And I could no longer do No Barks. I barked like a bad dog, pleading, crying, mourning, questioning. All I got back in response were the similar howls from the other dogs.
The next night something curious happened. I smelled the man Wayne come into the room, though I did not see him. There was a small closet at the end of the aisle, and because it had been accessed by many people, I was familiar with the sound it made when its door was opened and closed. I heard that sound now. Then the scent of Wayne changed—it remained, but was muted, stifled. Wayne was in that closet. The other dogs smelled him, too—I could tell by the way they barked that they knew he was there.
No one had ever spent any time in the closet before, but now he was in there so long I grew tired of waiting. I fell into a twitchy, troubled sleep, but woke instantly when I heard the closet door cautiously open. Wayne came to my crate and eased up the catch. “Bella!” he hissed. “Come!”
The other dogs were now in a frenzy, which might have been why Wayne came to my crate and not any of theirs. He put an unfamiliar collar on my neck and snapped a leash into it—a normal leash, not the kind that clamped my mouth shut. “Come on!”
I was led past the other dogs, down the hallway, and out into the yard. I had never been taken for a walk by Wayne this late at night. I squatted quickly, but didn’t even have time to finish before the leash tightened. Wayne was running and I had to gallop to keep up. It was not like with Glynnis, who knew there were scents I wanted to investigate and allowed me an opportunity to stop and sniff. He was pulling me too quickly. We ran all the way to the far end of the yard, where it was dark.
“Wayne!” I heard someone whisper. And then I smelled him: Lucas was here!
Wayne and I went right up to the fence. I clawed at it, trying to get at him, trying to lick him. Lucas and Olivia were on the other side and she put out her hand so I could kiss it. “Lift her up!” Lucas said urgently. “We put a blanket over the barbed wire.”
Grunting, Wayne lifted me up off the ground. When he raised me over his head, he swayed on wobbly legs. I was intimidated and went limp. “She’s really heavy!” he hissed.
“Hold the ladder!” Lucas said to Olivia. My dog blanket was on the fence and Lucas was reaching over it toward me. His hands gripped me and pulled me up and over.
“Steady, Bella. I’ve got you.”
I licked his face as he climbed down some metal stairs, clutching me to him like he did when I was a puppy. Olivia’s hands touched me, too. “Good girl, Bella!” she praised quietly.
Finally I was on the ground. I was wagging furiously, unable to keep the whimpers from escaping my throat. I wanted Lucas to lie down so I could climb on top of him. He felt my neck. “This is the wrong collar.”
Wayne peered at me. “Oh, yeah. I just grabbed one off the rack.”