At the time, I was on my third rental. This one was a blue modular about four miles west of town. The small rectangle sat on a parched mesa overlooking a field of sage. In the evenings, I’d listen to the yipping of coyotes, the baying of mule deer, the rattling of snakes. And the next day when I’d walk the property, I’d find the baby rattlers in patches of sand basking in the August sun.
On a warm evening that past May, I’d taken Molly hiking along the ridge that backed up to the south edge of town. The sky had turned to dusk, and the deer were coming out to feed. So were the coyotes. One of the coyotes jumped into our path and lured Molly on a chase. But as is often the case with coyotes, Molly was being baited and was led to a pack on the other side of the ridge. I’d heard her cries before I could get to her. I’d heard the coyotes. And as I scrambled over the crest of the butte, as I screamed and threw rocks and charged the pack, Molly was already dead.
Right, get a dog, I had thought, knowing my heart was too vulnerable to risk losing anything else.
Then Angie called. It was late, ten or eleven. I was in bed, a double mattress on the floor, and was reading through the cooking tips that came with my new Kenmore gas grill. Joseph was sleeping beside me.
“I got a dog for you,” Angie said.
“I don’t want a dog,” I told her.
“He’s black. I’d say he’s about four months old. Looks like a German shepherd. Somebody got rid of him.”
“What do you mean somebody got rid of him?”
“You know the Dumpster behind the movie store? He was in a box behind the Dumpster. There were two others with him.”
“Where are the others?”
“I got one of them here with me. I don’t think she’s going to make it. The other one, another boy, was already dead. I buried him in my backyard. But this one, he’s strong.”
“Why would somebody do that?”
“The box was taped shut. I heard this one crying when I closed up and took the garbage out.”
And so Joseph and I drove to Angie’s that night.
“Where are we going?” he’d asked, his voice full of sleep.
“To get a dog.”
“I thought you didn’t want a dog.”
“I never said that. I just said I didn’t want a dog now.”
“So why are we getting a dog?”
“Because he needs us.”
“Okay,” Joseph said. “I like dogs.”
“Me, too,” I said.
“Where will he sleep?”
“With us.”
“Okay.”
But Kona didn’t sleep with Joseph and me that night. Kona kept jumping off the mattress and running to the door.
“I think he needs to go out,” Joseph said.
“I just let him out.”
“I think he needs to go again.”
So I would let Kona out on a short leash, all the while listening for the snakes that had overbred on the mesa, listening for the coyotes that lived in the rocky clefts as close as sixty yards away.
Finally I put Kona back in a box, because I didn’t have a crate. And Joseph and I listened to him cry and bark and yelp until we pitied him and went to retrieve him, where we found that he had shat all over himself. We bathed him and played with him until the sun rose.
—
I squeezed a hunk of fur around Kona’s neck, patted his head. Wally was pulled over in the dirt just to the east of where the highways intersected. He rolled down his window when he saw me approach.
“What was it this time?” he asked.
“No sex, no head.”
“Tag was for a buck?”
“Yep. Last day of the season. Guy got desperate.”
Wally opened his truck door and stepped out. “Go ahead and back up to my tailgate. We’ll slide the animal over.”
I did as Wally said, leaving only enough space to open my back vertical doors.
Kona had leapt over the seat and was on all fours, his tail wagging and his head lifted toward Wally, encouraging a pat.
“Hey, Kona.” Wally grabbed him on both sides of the head, tousling him around. Then Wally and I each took hold of an edge of the tarp and pulled it toward the bed of his truck.
“Keep the tarp,” I said when we were finished.
“I got a clean one in the cab. I’ll swap you out,” he said.
Wally set the folded tarp in the back of my Tahoe. Just as I closed the doors, Dean pulled up. He climbed out of his deputy Cherokee and rubbed a hand down each of his legs, as if trying to adjust the tight fit of his jeans.
“Any luck yet?” I asked.
“Nope. Maybe Kona will have a better go of it.”
Wally said, “I’m going to head out. Nice work, Pru.”
I waved to him as he drove off. Then I tucked my hands in the pockets of my black parka, my back against the truck. I looked at Dean. He was short and stocky like a middle school linebacker, and wore a cap over his mostly bald head.
“Any leads?” I asked.