Angus and Sadie (4 page)

The chickens had their cage, with its own little low house. Patches stayed in the farmhouse, going anywhere he wanted inside, and sometimes out onto the porch, if there was sun. The puppies belonged wherever Mister and Missus went.

The puppies liked every day on the farm, and Mister and Missus liked them, too, every day. The only bad things about the farm were the barn cats.

The barn cats did not welcome Angus and Sadie, and they did not plan to get used to them. The barn cats didn't get along with anyone, and they were proud of it. They had their own lives to live. They couldn't be bothered with puppies. They weren't one bit afraid of dogs, either. In fact, Sadie was afraid of them. They knew that—and they enjoyed it. If it was a cold and rainy day and the barn cats were hungry, or if it was a fine day and they were full but they were bored—one of them would smack Sadie across the nose or grab her tail to make her yelp. The cat would attack, Sadie would yelp and run away, and the cat would feel better.

Call me Fox
, the white barn cat said to Sadie.

But you're not a fox
, Sadie said.

Oh yeah? And my friend's Snake, and those are our own names
.

All right
, Sadie said. She guessed everybody could have her own name.

Fox was the bigger of the barn cats, and the meaner. Sometimes, in the dark of night, she jumped up onto the door of their stall so she could leap down on Sadie, letting out a long, lovely, high shriek as she descended. When Fox fell shrieking onto Sadie, Sadie woke up yelping, and that woke up Angus. He barked his loudest, but by then Fox would have run off, entirely satisfied, while Sadie was trying to tunnel under the blanket to safety.

In the daytime, if Angus was there with Sadie, the cats lifted their noses and yawned.
We can't be bothered with puppies
, they said.
Don't think we're afraid of anything like a puppy
.

Oh yeah?
Angus asked, staring right at them with his fixed unwavering border collie stare.
Oh yeah?

The cats would walk away, tails high, noses in the air.
We have something important to do over there, or we'd show you what's what
.

For the first couple of weeks, Angus and Sadie were always together, in the house with Missus while she cooked or in the garden with her when she checked on the seedlings in her planting trays. They went together to the barn with Mister as he took apart the tractor engine and polished the pieces. They explored the gardens and pastures together, getting wet in the stream and muddy in the sheep pen. They took naps together and they slept together at night, in their stall in the barn. They chased each other's tails and wrestled.

“Poor Sadie is always getting the worst of it,” said Missus. “Angus is always starting fights and he always wins.”

“I don't know about that,” said Mister.

“Don't know about the starting or the winning? Because it's always Angus standing over Sadie at the end.”

Just then Angus and Sadie came racing around the barn, Angus far in the lead. He stopped when he saw Fox standing in the barn doorway. When he stopped, Sadie caught up with him, and she bit at his ears to pull him over. He bit at her muzzle until their mouths were locked, and then she pushed at him with her head. But her cast kept her clumsy and off-balance, so she was the one who fell over. Angus jumped to stand over her and keep her on her back.

I win
.

Play!

“I guess you're right,” said Missus. “I guess maybe she likes wrestling.”

Angus jumped off and Sadie jumped up, and he grabbed her by the tail.

“They're getting bigger fast,” said Mister.

Sadie grabbed Angus by his tail, and they chased themselves in a circle until they both fell over.

“Angus and Sadie!” called Missus. “What are you two doing?”

I'm Angus
, said Angus.
Just Angus
.

All right
.

And you're just Sadie
.

I know
.

And
doesn't count
, said Angus.

After that first couple of weeks, Mister and Missus decided it was time for the puppies to be apart sometimes. Mister took Angus with him to work at clearing out the winter treefalls in the woods. As long as Sadie had her cast, they thought she would be better off at home with Missus. “She can't walk far,” Mister said.

Sadie couldn't go as far as Angus, but she did walk almost every day with Missus, down the long driveway to the mailbox, after the lunch dishes were washed and Mister and Angus had returned to their work. Missus took a leash from the hook by the kitchen door and called, “Let's go, Sadie!” Sadie came thumping onto the porch and down the steps, keeping right in front of Missus, and they set off.

The long driveway smelled of warm sunny dirt and of the pickup tires; after a rain its puddles tasted of mud. Ditches lay on both sides. Even with the cast on her leg, Sadie could get down into the ditch to smell everything there and bring Missus back a nice stone or chunk of grass. At the last curve before they came to the road, Sadie had to stop so Missus could clip the leash onto her collar. “We can't have you going out into the road, can we? And we certainly don't want you to even
think
about chasing cars.” Missus and Sadie walked the last section of driveway together. Then, after Missus emptied out the mailbox, they turned around to walk back up the driveway, back home.

Once they had rounded the curve again, Missus unclipped the leash. “Go ahead, girl, explore. See what you can see, like the bear who went over the mountain. Do you know about that bear, Sadie?”

Don't know bear. Don't know mountain. But I know ditch. This is the ditch!

“Now where are you going? You're the silliest, sorriest dog I've ever seen,” Missus said. “Sorriest, silliest, sweetest … sportiest? No. Not sportiest. You're not a bit sporty, are you?”

Sporty, yes!

Missus liked to talk, no matter what she was doing. “All right, Sadie. We've finished the kitchen and the bed is made,” Missus would say in the morning. “Now's our chance to get out in the garden. It's finally spring, Sadie. It's almost time to plant. Isn't it a beautiful day?”

Let's go!

At first, Missus worked in the garden with a rototiller. “We're getting the soil ready,” she explained. “Turning it over, aerating it, mixing in manure.”

Sadie kept away from the rototiller. It was a machine like the tractor, loud and smelly and scary. Angus had explained it to her:
Stay away from machines. Unless it's the pickup, of course
. When Missus turned on the rototiller, Sadie ran over to the porch and hid behind the steps. She would have done that even without the warning from Angus. A machine sounded like something that would like to crunch you up.

Missus agreed with her. “Good move, Sadie. You're getting smarter every day, as well as bigger.”

Yes, smarter!

But the rototiller came out only for the first two days Missus worked in the garden. After that, she used a shovel, and after that, the hoe and pitchfork, so Sadie could dig right alongside of her, helping. While Sadie and Missus gardened, Patches sat in the kitchen window or curled up in a puddle of sunlight on the porch, to watch and sleep.

When Angus was off working with Mister, Patches and Sadie took naps together on the rug in front of the kitchen sink, or stretched out nose-to-nose behind one of the rocking chairs on the porch. Sometimes Sadie chased Patches around the house, barking at him, and sometimes Patches pretended to be trying to catch Sadie by the tail.

You can't be friends with a cat
, Angus told Sadie.

All right
, Sadie said, but she napped and played with Patches all the same. If Angus said they couldn't be friends, he was probably right; but Sadie went on liking Patches even if they weren't friends. The friend question puzzled her.
Am I your friend?
she asked Angus.
Are we friends?

Of course
, he told her.
We're dogs. Dogs are always friends with other dogs. Unless it's a dog you don't know, from another farm, and he wants to come onto your farm. Or unless you don't like them
.

I'll probably like them
, Sadie said.

You better be careful about who you like
, Angus warned her.

All right
, Sadie said.

As long as Sadie had the cast on her leg, Angus had Mister all to himself all day long. They walked across the grassy pastures together, with Angus on a leash, to check the winter damage to the fences that kept the cows and sheep safe. They checked the wooden railings and the electric fence wires. They rode the tractor, with Mister lifting Angus up into the cab before they started off to plow the fields.

They rode the tractor on a dirt road into the woods, and then climbed together over low stone fences, walking right into the woods. Mister let Angus run free while he cut up fallen trees with his chainsaw. Angus quickly got used to the roar of the tractor as it turned over the soil in the fields or pulled a flatbed into the woods to be loaded with logs. He even got used to the whine of the chainsaw as it cut through trees, lopping off branches, slicing up trunks.

“Stand back!” Mister called, when a machine started up. When Mister said that, Angus backed away to a safe distance from the noise. “Clever boy,” Mister said. Then Angus lay down, waiting until the job was done, keeping an eye on Mister the whole time. “Good dog,” Mister said.

At the end of the day, when Mister and Angus came home for supper, they all stayed in the kitchen together. Mister and Missus sat at the table, eating. Angus and Sadie had already eaten, so they stretched out on the floor near the warmth of the stove to rest. Patches sat on the windowsill, among pots of aloe and parsley, rosemary, mint, and a cyclamen with bright white flowers. “I like flowers in my kitchen,” Missus said, “even if they are useless. I like flowers in my life.”

Angus told Sadie about all the things he had seen and done that day, after which he dozed off for a little nap. Sadie wasn't tired, but she took a nap, too. Patches kept his distance, up on the deep windowsill behind the sink. Whenever Angus was around, Patches preferred to keep his distance.

After they finished in the kitchen, the dogs took a bathroom walk outside. After they went back inside, Missus combed and brushed them, telling them how handsome they were. Then Mister walked down to the barn with Angus at his side and Sadie lolloping behind. Sometimes Missus came with them and sometimes not. Angus led the way into their stall, and Sadie followed. Mister no longer closed the stall door. Now he just said, “Keep an ear out. It's up to you, Angus.” They heard him say, “Good night, ladies,” to Bethie and Annie before he left the barn, closing the big doors behind him. Then, they heard his faint steps as he walked back up along the path to the house.

You can't go to sleep yet
, Angus told Sadie.

All right
.

We have to listen. When we know everything is okay, then we can go to sleep
.

Everything is okay
, Sadie said. She could hear that. The restless barn cats were padding around the loft. The cows shuffled in the hay, and the tractor smelled nasty, just the way it was supposed to.
You can sleep. I can sleep
.

Something bad could happen
.

If something bad happens, we'll wake up and you'll fix it
, Sadie answered. She lay down to go to sleep, curled up against Angus's warm body. Angus stayed awake and listened, and listened, for a long time. Then he went to sleep, too.

Soon the puppies had lived on the farm long enough to have forgotten they had ever lived anywhere else, and long enough for spring to have pulled bright green leaves out from the trees and pushed soft green seedlings up in the garden. One spring day, Angus and Mister took the tractor into the woods and then climbed down to walk along a dirt road, looking for fallen trees to clear away. Mister carried his chainsaw and Angus was off the leash. The soft mossy ground under their feet smelled of unknown animal tracks, but Angus didn't feel like exploring that day. He felt like sticking close to Mister, following right behind Mister's boots, stopping when Mister stopped to examine a fallen tree, waiting while Mister sawed it into pieces and put them into neat piles. They had gotten deep into the woods when Angus heard—far away—a high noise. He had never heard anything like that before, but as soon as he heard it he knew something was wrong. Angus ran to see what was happening. He barked to tell Mister,
Trouble! Follow me!