Best Friends (13 page)

A sensation of yielding softness, the lightest tickle of whisker against his hand, and the music of “meows” attached themselves to the river of Michael's mind. Yes, they were always scrambling to take care of the never-ending flow of animals that needed them—that was Best Friends' commitment. And yes, maybe they were overextended at the moment, but that would change in time. These crippled, one-eyed, no-tail, injured felines were more than special-needs cats. They were special in their own right, deserving of the best tender, loving care Best Friends could manage. Michael hugged his knees. “I've just thought of a name for the new housing.”

Diana's blue eyes met his. “That is a yes, isn't it?”

“It won't be fancy, but I'll get it started today. Is that soon enough?”

The smile that suffused Diana's strong face made her look clear and young again. She slipped a soft hand from under Timmie and laid it over Michael's clasped fingers. “Thank you.”

“Don't you want to know what I think we should call it?”

“Pray tell, oh wise one,” she teased happily.

“The TLC Club. You know, Tender, Loving Care.”

Diana's shoulders started to shake. She rocked back and forth, pressing her lips together in a vain effort to control her giggles.

“What's so funny?” Michael said, a tad offended.

“Nothing. Aren't laughing and crying the same release? Besides, I don't think you realize.”

“Realize?”

“Michael, don't you get it?” Diana was positively radiant. “TLC is the name
they
told me we should name their new home.”

Her delight was contagious. Michael smiled, then chuckled. The man and the woman who loved cats sat on the linoleum floor, hemmed in by the ones who needed them most, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed some more.

F
aith couldn't understand where the winter had gone. People always said time flew as one got older, but she was barely in her forties. The theory didn't compute.

The past few months had been quiet, but then that came with the season. When it dropped below freezing, people liked to hunker down, eat hot soup, and generally, as they say, let sleeping dogs lie.

Now that Faith came to think about it, she hadn't had a call from dispatch all week. She expected that would change now that the first buds of spring were tentatively dressing the landscape.

The phone sounded particularly loud in the untroubled afternoon. She took another bite of her banana-and-mayonnaise sandwich and stared at the emotionless instrument. Even before she picked up the receiver she knew who was on the other end. “Hello?”

“Hi, Faith. Sure nice to feel a bit of warmth, isn't it? Got one for you. Neighbors lodged a complaint about the smell.” The cheery female voice paused, then continued in a more serious vein. “It's allegedly a breeding kennel for Chesapeake Bay retrievers.”

Faith was already unhappy. Chesapeakes were bred as hunting dogs. It was not only that Faith was averse to the sport; she resented that the retrievers were rarely being treated as part of the family.

Dispatch was still talking. “But from the description sounds more like one of those puppy mills, if you know what I mean.”

Faith grimaced. Puppy mills were breeding factories where bitches were forced to produce litter after litter only to have their pups taken away for quick sale, often before they were properly weaned. “Can you give me the details?”

“Can't tell you much. We don't have a file on the guy. He's married with four children, and as I said, we have no rap sheet on him. Do you want to take it?”

“Is Officer Crosby around?” Ever since she had experienced a frightening altercation with a drunk one night, Faith requested an officer if she had any concerns. She had come to rely on the clean-shaven, boyish Doug Crosby, and on the official authority of his snappy tan pants and crisp blue uniform shirt.

“He's out on a call.”

Faith pondered. A married man with four children was no guarantee that she wouldn't have a problem. But after three years on animal control duty she figured she had a handle on most of the troublemakers in the area, and this man's name was not on her mental “beware” list.

“I'll take it,” Faith said.

 

The address was a few miles inside Kanab's city limits. Faith drove slowly, considering her options. She had no illusions about what she would find. She had seen these places in Pennsylvania, Illinois, New York. They were invariably the same. If she could report truly horrendous conditions in violation of the health and safety code, the operation could be shut down and the dogs rescued. On the other hand, she hated to think of the suffering the animals were enduring if that were the case.

Faith could have predicted the trashed garden overgrown with waist-high weeds that fronted the man's box-like house. She rang the doorbell and waited.

The bearded man who answered looked like he ate a lot of meat and washed it down with a case of beer. He was amiable enough until Faith explained her errand.

“Who the hell you think you are?” He hitched up his pants over his spongy paunch with his butcher's hands, squinting at her past the broken veins in his bulbous nose. “You get the hell off my property or you'll know what for.”

Faith wished she had waited for Doug Crosby. She enunciated carefully. “The police department has requested I make a report on your operation.”

“Who is it?” a female voice interrupted, and Faith was relieved to see a questioning face peer over the man's shoulder.

“I've been sent to check on conditions in your kennels,” Faith explained. “If you or your husband have a problem with this, I suggest calling the police. They will verify my authority.”

The big man stepped toward Faith. “If you don't get off my step, so help me . . .”

He stopped in mid-sentence as red-chipped nails tugged on his T-shirt. “We don't want any trouble, dear. If the police sent her . . .”

Her husband shook his thick arm like a dog trying to dislodge a flea. Rage flared in the wife's face before she let go.

“It won't take long,” Faith said soothingly, holding her ground. She mustn't show fear. “And I'm sure you don't want me to say I couldn't do my job.”

There was an unfathomable expression in the woman's veiled eyes. Faith could almost imagine she was pleased that animal control was on her porch step. “Just let her look, dear,” she urged tightly. “Then she'll leave.”

The man glared at Faith and his wife in turn. “You got five minutes,” he said and stomped back into the house, slamming the door on both of them.

The woman cocked an ear to make sure her husband was out of earshot, then smiled carefully. “Follow me. It's around back.”

It didn't matter how many puppy mills she'd seen, it was always a shock. This time the yard was even smaller than the front garden, with not a tree or shrub protecting the bare earth.

Faith had some experience with Chesapeakes and knew their normal weight was between sixty and seventy pounds. The pathetic specimens chained with barely room to move averaged forty pounds at most. Still, there was a plywood shelter, which Faith knew had to leak, and in which the dogs had probably spent a numbing winter. There were water and food bowls, though empty at the moment. The stench of excrement was disgusting but no law was being broken here.

She counted twenty-five before seeing the last bitch. Faith couldn't believe what her eyes were showing her. A massive mammary tumor hung to the cold earth on which the female stood. Worse, she was obviously pregnant. Faith unlocked the pen and slipped inside.

“What are you doing? Don't let her out,” the woman screeched.

Faith ignored the worried whine and crouched beside the dog. She ran her hand over coarse, curly fur and winced as her fingers found the bare spots. The bitch growled and raised her upper lip as Faith felt the hardness protruding from her belly. “It's all right; I'm going to get you some help,” she whispered.

Faith straightened. “What's her name?” she demanded.

The woman looked blank. “Don't know.”

“How long has she been like this? And when is she due?”

The wife crossed her arms. “I don't bother myself with stuff like that. Let him worry about it.” She jerked her head in the direction of the house. “Thinks he's gonna make a fortune off these dogs. I say he should get a proper job and get me and the kids some money.”

Faith had heard the tale before. Behind every abuse or abandonment of an animal there were people who weren't doing well in one way or another. She would like to gather up all of these Chesapeakes and take them to Best Friends. But as horrific as the conditions were, the man was providing the bare necessities. The dogs were within the legal limits of being fed and sheltered, and there was no law against continuous forced breeding. But there was something she could do.

“A Dr. Christy will be by to remove that tumor.”

“The old man won't pay for it.”

“I will,” Faith snapped.

Sly greed shone in the woman's eyes. “She'll still have her pups, won't she? He won't let the vet operate otherwise.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Faith sneaked into IGA Foods on the way home. She left with a quart of strawberry ice cream and a giant bag of frozen fries.

 

The Chesapeakes seemed to obsess her. Faith told anyone who would listen of the mean conditions in which the dogs were bred. “And there was nothing I could tell the police to cite him for. Nothing I could do,” she repeated.

Francis called a week later. “You busy?”

“Always.”

“If you've got a minute, come down to The Village. There's something I'd like you to see.”

“I've not finished feeding yet.”

“I think you should come down. See you in the meeting area.”

The meeting room had been the first section of The Village to be finished. Linked in everyone's mind with the fond recollection of its first support beams tumbling down the cliff, the meeting area had emerged as the airy, picture-window core of the low, sun-dappled building shaded by trees nobody wanted cut down, and surrounded by beds of flowers lovingly planted over the years.

With corridors of rooms for people to live, and offices where records of the animals would be kept and prospective adopters could be interviewed, it was the most ambitious structure on the property, and the men were rightly proud of it.

There was nobody around when Faith walked through the door. She walked outside and waited. After ten minutes she figured Francis had gotten sidetracked, and listlessly she went back inside.

Something was different. Faith stopped in the middle of the room and stared at the long back wall. There had been an empty bulletin board up there last week. Now the space was covered with newspaper and magazine clippings.

Faith stood before the collage of pictures and stories and repeated the banner headline out loud:
Wall of Triumph. Wall of Triumph.
For half an hour Faith devoured every word, absorbed each accompanying photograph.

The
Wall of Triumph
was a collection of all the good things that were happening with animals: the paramedic who crawled down a storm drain to rescue a puppy; the mama cat that braved a fire to rescue her kittens; the German shepherd that saved his elderly owner from being mugged; the pregnant squirrel that adopted orphan kittens; the firemen who rigged up a sling to rescue a foal swept away in a flood.

The stories came from all over the world, as far away as Calcutta. Faith felt herself wanting to bawl. Someone had taken a lot of time and trouble to put this wonderful reminder together. She felt ashamed at having gotten so caught up in the trials and tribulations of her small neighborhood. With this display somebody was shouting to all who took the time to look that the glass was indeed half full, not half empty.

“Do you like it?”

Faith hadn't heard Francis walking up behind her. “Oh yes,” she said. “Oh yes. Thank you, Francis. I needed this.”

“It wasn't me. Michael did it.”

“Michael?”

“He said Tomato gave him the idea.”

Faith nodded. The notion that Michael communed with Tomato the cat was not a surprise to either her or Francis. They had been caring for animals long enough to have experienced their own psychic connections. Francis believed that animals communicated with their persons on every level. “Don't you know when your pet is trying to tell you something?” he would sometimes say.

Nor was she surprised at what Michael had created. The Englishman had his own unique way of caring. Faith thought of Sun, and talky Tomato, and McMuffin, the white German shepherd he had mourned for months in stoic silence.

She understood in that moment how all in the community of Best Friends had their own special gifts. How different they all were, and yet how they all meshed together for the same goal. The people of the canyon did not live in each other's pockets, yet they interacted for the common good of the earth and the animals.

Faith felt renewed. Whatever happened in the years to come, as long as they held to their truths, they could go on.

J
ana de Peyer was on the phone from Las Vegas. “Faith, you'll never guess what I'm getting.” Jana's distinctive laugh sang down the phone line.

Faith wouldn't even try to imagine. Just a couple of months earlier Jana had trucked in an A-Frame kit: an honest-to-goodness house packed in boxes. It really was the cutest thing when they put it all together next to the bunkhouse. By popular vote it was decided that Francis should move in, seeing as he had twelve dogs and six cats living with him in one room. “Let me see now. The Governor's mansion?”

“Maybe even better.” Jana paused for effect. “Sunrise Humana hospital is renovating their pediatric wards and giving away all sorts of stuff. I'll be driving up this weekend with a U-Haul full of surgical lights, windows—oh, wait til you see what I've got!”

Faith knew this hospital had only top-of-the-line equipment. She could hardly believe their good luck. They had desperately needed Dr. Christy's Silver Bullet, but already the quarters were cramped and overcrowded. She dreamed of one day having a real clinic. No, dreamed wasn't the word. Faith had visualized every operating and recovery room, every detail of what they would need.

“And listen to this,” Jana trilled. “I got an end piece of linoleum from a company that's giving half to us and half to Mother Theresa's group. Not bad company, eh?” Again her laughter made Faith smile. “See you then.” Jana rang off.

Faith placed the receiver back in its cradle. Knowing Jana, she would arrive with a U-Haul van crammed with everything they could possibly need, bless her heart. All that would be required of Best Friends was some extra money for the building materials, and John should be able to juggle that somehow. Faith wandered out of Octagon Three, deep in thought.

A whimpering that sounded like a lost child distracted her. Faith looked down at the white beagle mix whining around her ankles. “Aren't you the neediest little thing, Maddie,” she exclaimed. Faith had quickly decided that Madeleine was too formal a name for the anxiety-ridden mutt she had found tied to a fender last fall. Maddie was a better tag, and there were days when “pest” suited her best of all.

“Oh, all right then.” Faith stooped to pick up the dog. In one second she was flat on her face in the red dirt. She didn't have to look around. “Amra!” she shouted. Faith had forgotten the new rule around Dogtown: keep your eyes peeled for the Sheriff.

“Amra,” Faith sighed as she sat up. The malamute trotted around to look at her, tail wagging like a metronome. Rhonda, as always, was at his heels. Faith met the mischievous amber eyes and swore the animal was grinning.

Amra had discovered that he could sneak up behind an unsuspecting person, thrust his haunches between their legs and, with a toss of his head, upend them. The saucy trick was the best fun, and Amra's new goal was to tumble as many persons as possible.

“Need a help up?” Tyson strolled over and extended a hand.

“Thanks,” Faith groaned.

“The Sheriff's having a good time today. I found twenty-two bowls under his favorite bush.”

That was another habit Amra had adopted, confiscating feeding bowls and hiding them while Tyson and Faith did their rounds.

The two of them walked Amra across Victor's line and watched him bound on down the lane. Little Rhonda straggled too far behind her mate to be among the privileged, and so was obliged to stop on a dime at the invisible barrier.

It took the malamute a few seconds to realize that “Deputy Number One” wasn't with him. He stopped, stared down an enclosure of German shepherds, then yelped at Faith to escort him back out of the Dogfather's domain. Amra lay down beside his mate and covered her small head with wet, sloppy kisses. Rhonda finally agreed to being placated, and the two canines ambled happily away to play.

“I wish I never had to leave the property,” Faith said wistfully. She looked at Tyson. “I don't suppose you could go to town and pick up a prescription for me? I need to see John.”

Tyson nodded. “Do you need anything at IGA?”

She picked up the forlorn Maddie. “I've got a list in the trailer. Thanks, Tyson.”

 

Jana arrived with everything, including the kitchen sinks. As Francis said, “How can we not build the clinic?”

Every morning now Faith greeted Paul, Steven, Virgil, Gregory, and Francis, watching with mounting excitement as the clinic's foundation went down and the framing rose up like magic. Even her mood swings seemed somewhat muted, and she was making a real effort to stay away from Denny's Wigwam cafe and curio shop and that addictive strawberry ice cream.

Faith found herself enjoying the camaraderie of the old “upper body brigade.” She realized she had been spending too much time alone in her trailer, and she promised herself to hang out with her friends more.

August brought the relief of extra hands to help groom, medicate, scoop the poop, socialize with the animals, repair fences, paint—all the little jobs that needed to be taken care of on a regular basis.

There was a sense of happy anticipation in the air. The men and women who had committed to Best Friends seven years before—Faith couldn't believe how quickly the time passed—were visiting more frequently, making plans to wrap up their businesses and bring all their collective energy to Angel Canyon. Some had even begun poking around Kanab, looking for possible places to stay while they figured where they would build on the property.

The animals never stopped coming, and rabbits and a one-winged owl were added to the mix. When a ragged troop of white geese were unexpectedly dumped at The Village, Michael hunted down a secondhand wading pool and the orange-beaked gaggle made themselves right at home.

Nathania Gartman loved it all.

The Alabama woman's first love was children. Nathania liked nothing better than to dress up as “Daffydil” the clown and visit the terminally ill in the hospital.

By nature shy and serious, as “Daffydil” Nathania metamorphosed into a colorful, playful character in a costume of multi-colored iridescent pants, red-and-yellow shoes, and a beribboned, oversized forest green jacket that swamped a scarlet polka-dot shirt.

The eyes of the frail boys and girls who would never leave their beds would grow big when Nathania produced her enchanted lightbulb and wizard's coloring book. A youngster had only to blow lightly on the pages for pictures to appear and rainbow into color.

The visit always ended with the magical appearance of stuffed animals, toys, games, and books from Daffydil's voluminous pockets. It was no wonder that when Nathania moved to Las Vegas to work with Jana and Raphael she quickly became the most beloved visitor to that city's children's wards.

Nathania had hiked the canyon with Michael the summer before anyone had moved onto the land. “I'm so happy. I'm so happy,” she cried, tears tracking her high cheekbones.

The spirited woman had seen the possibilities of Best Friends from the beginning. To her, their animal Eden meant not only a place where all manner of furred and feathered creatures could find refuge in beautiful, safe surroundings, but a place to bring children. “We can hold seminars—educate. And I can teach, and truly be able to say that not one animal will be put to sleep,” she declared to Faith on her first visit to Dogtown. “Unless, of course, they're in desperate pain and dying,” she added quickly.

Faith used her sleeve to wipe the sweat from her forehead. She thrust a dozen feeding bowls into Nathania's arms and led the way out of Octagon Three to the waiting Nissan truck whose bed was already packed with the dogs' dinners. “All in good time, Nathania. All in good time. Right now we've got five hundred dogs to feed.”

Nathania cruised the vehicle expertly along the narrow lanes, but Faith noticed that she did not rush to join her when they stopped at the enclosures. “It will go quicker if you come inside and help me,” she called, not unkindly.

Nathania hesitated. Slowly she extricated herself from the driver's seat and watched Faith enter a compound of lively black Labrador mutts. Still she hung back, seemingly hypnotized by the fifteen dogs that jumped, barked and whipped around like crazy beasts as Big Mama put down dinner in their preferred eating spots. Faith felt Nathania's reluctance. “What's the matter?”

Nathania's face flushed beet red, and Faith knew it wasn't from the sun. “I'm frightened of dogs,” the Southerner finally managed. “I was attacked by a cocker spaniel when I was five.”

Faith placed the last bowls and shut the gate behind her. She took Nathania by the shoulders. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I wanted to be part of whatever y'all were doing. I'm not scared of cats or geese. I figured I'd get over being terrified of dogs, but . . .” Nathania's whole body was a picture of distress.

“Oh, dear. Oh, dear,” Faith repeated. “How about little dogs?”

“I'm not sure.”

“Well, stay with me while I finish this lot, and then we'll let David and Tyson take over.” Faith smiled at the miserable Nathania. “Hang in, girl. You don't have to like dogs, you know. There's lots of other animals around here.”

 

Nathania presented herself at Dogtown the very next weekend. “I've decided I want to do this,” she announced, her small face solemn with determination. “If you can do it, Faith, I can do it.”

“Good girl. Let's start with the basics. Food.”

Faith walked her new student into Octagon Three. She knew from long experience that the concentration required to mix the kibble and moist, to count the pills, to measure the morning's medicine, could be as calming as any meditation—especially in the beginning. In preparing their separate dishes Nathania would also start to see the dogs as individuals, instead of as an amorphous mass of four-legged creatures to fear.

The teacher didn't push. She let Nathania doggedly lag her rounds all day Saturday and Sunday. She noticed when the woman forgot herself one time and leaned into an enclosure to hand Faith a bowl. Nathania almost smiled when a Rottweiler's head bumped against her hand . . . almost.

On Labor Day weekend Faith was called to pick up a pup that was hanging around the town's transportation yard, and had to leave Nathania with Tyson.

The dog was a juvenile Chesapeake. Faith was immediately reminded of the derelict conditions of the puppy mill she had tried so hard to forget all summer. She told herself she must be getting overwrought. This young dog with his poor conformation so resembled the clutch of pups she'd seen a few months earlier. But that couldn't be. The bitter-faced man she had confronted last spring chained his breeding stock too tight; he would never let one free to wander into Kanab.

The dog was all bones, and it didn't hesitate to jump into her truck when coaxed. “You look like a Bailey,” she told the bedraggled animal. “We'll put you with the little dogs to wet your feet. You'll feel much better in a few days.” Faith's soothing tones continued on the eight-mile trip back to the sanctuary.

To Faith's surprise, Nathania was actually inside the far enclosure John had just fenced for a new pack of small canines. The Southern woman's smile could have lit up an auditorium. “They like me,” she marveled. “There's a westhighland-something in here, and he rubbed up against my leg. Watch, Faith.” Nathania cautiously approached a sleeping, white-furred mutt. “Hello. Hello,” she said. The westie opened one eye and promptly went back to sleep. Nathania looked so disappointed, Faith felt like hugging the courageous woman.

“Maybe you can help me with the one I've got in my truck,” she said. Nathania related her hour's adventure while they made their way back to Faith's vehicle. “Tyson was busy,” she started. “And these little dogs just kept barking and barking.”

“They do that,” Faith said.

“Well, I figured it was now or never. I got bowls and walked into this pen. Faith, I was scared to death. And then this westie came over and rubbed against me. It felt like I was being loved all over.”

Faith smiled at Nathania's awakening. She made no attempt to restrain the Chesapeake that jumped from her truck as soon as she opened the door, and glanced around in trepidation of these new surroundings. Nathania froze as he snuck around her legs, sniffing. Faith knew what would come next. Nathania had been around dogs all afternoon. She smelled of dog. The Chesapeake would react accordingly.

The animal didn't disappoint. He sniffed and sniffed and circled the paralyzed female. Finally he rubbed his filthy head against her thigh and leaned his whole skinny body on hers.

“His name is Bailey,” Faith said briskly. “Would you mind escorting him to the enclosure we just left? And stay with him. He may need reassurance. Oh, and make sure the others don't get on his case. I'll get some treats for him. You okay with that?”

Nathania nodded as if in a dream. She picked up the Chesapeake's leash and, in imitation of Chief Dog, talked the new arrival back to the far enclosure.

“You got it, girl,” Faith murmured, watching. “You got it.”

 

By Halloween, Nathania Gartman had not only conquered her-fear of dogs (although she still kept a wary distance from Tyson when he walked the “biters”), but had fallen in love with Coyote, the shepherd-husky mix that the Grand Canyon rangers had brought to Best Friends in the early days. “Coyote's so sweet he should be our greeter,” she declared. “The children will love him.”

“All in good time,” Faith reminded her. “All in good time.”