Where are the sheep?
I paced up and down the fence line, worrying myself to a frazzle. It wasn’t long before my limp got so bad that I had to stop. Shivering as I stood on three legs, I scanned the pastures, the barnyard, the open barn door ... Open door? Some idiot had left the door wide open! I snorted in fury. Ice encased my breath in a vaporous white cloud before me.
“Halo? Halo?” One hand pressed against her hipbone, Bernadette hobbled around the corner of the house. She motioned to me, as if she couldn’t make it the last fifty feet, and pulled her housecoat tight around her. “Come back in, girl. It’s chilly out here.”
Frost sparkled on the tree limbs and crunched beneath my feet. It was cold, but I wasn’t going back inside until I found the sheep. No matter how biting the ache in my hip. I turned away from her, started trotting toward the gate. It was open, too. The outrage! How could Bernadette be so incompetent? I hadn’t expected her to know everything, but how could she have been dumb enough to leave both the barn door and the pasture gate open?
“Halo, come here.”
I ignored her and circled the pasture, pausing at each corner to look into the distance, study the hills, searching for them. She was to blame for this. Cecil would have expected his sheep to be cared for, to be protected, not to be wandering loose. How could she have let this happen?
“Halo!” She stomped her foot, her chubby arms flapping at her sides like an old hen. “Halo, come here!”
Just as she entered through the gate, I ducked past her and headed for the barnyard. She screeched at me, but the words didn’t register. Someone had removed the feeders and emptied the troughs. If the sheep were loose, how did she expect to lure them back? With nothing to come back to, they would stay in the hills as long as there was grass to eat. If they felt threatened, they would bolt for the woods and then we’d never find them. If it snowed, if the winter was long, they could starve. If the spring was damp and chilly, they could get sick and die. I couldn’t let that happen.
Maybe they were penned up in the barn? Bernadette couldn’t get around easily and she had no dog to help her in the fields. Keeping them in the barn might have been the easiest thing for her. As I turned toward the door, a bolt of pain ripped down my spine. Stumbling, I let out a yelp. But I kept going. I had to find the sheep. Had to know they were safe.
The door to the barn stood open. I hopped inside, holding my bad leg up off the ground. A curtain of darkness fell across my vision. I stood on three legs, squinting into the dim light, inhaling the goodness of hay.
I heard the truth before I saw it. Silence. Emptiness. Nothing but bare framework, remnants of hay bales, and vacant pens.
They were gone.
The door boomed shut. I looked behind me just as Bernadette flicked on the overhead light. I barked at her. Twice. Three times.
What did you do with them? Where are they? BRING THEM BACK!!!
She stood in a wedge of lamplight, its harsh light casting eerie shadows on her drawn, round face. For a moment, Bernadette looked like a blanched ghost, but there was a fullness and a solidness to her form that denied the notion. She appeared as worn and depleted as I felt, as if these last few weeks had taken just as much of a toll on her as on me.
“I’m sorry, Halo.” With a huff, she leaned her shoulder against a roughly hewn post for support. “The sheep were sold off a few days after Cecil’s funeral. The neighbors down the road came and took care of them until then. Honey, I know you think it’s your job to look after them. Cecil was always so proud of you. You have no idea how much having you around meant to him. Working with you was what he looked forward to most every day. Heck, he always made sure you were fed before he’d sit down to breakfast with me.” She turned to rest her back against the post. The light played off a tear as it slid down her cheek, bare of its usual layers of makeup. Her bouffant hairdo was a flattened mess, its tight red curls all loose and out of place. “Because of you, Halo, he opened his heart to love again. Because of a dog, for a few months, I got to know and fall in love with the best darn fellow in Adair County. It wasn’t nearly long enough, but by God I wouldn’t trade a moment of it for anything.”
Too tired to stand any longer, I crumpled to the dusty floor. I’d understood enough of what she said to know that the sheep had been taken somewhere else. I also understood that she missed Cecil as much as I did. But she hadn’t lost her job or her home. She couldn’t possibly know what it was like for me. I had nothing left. Nothing but her — and it wasn’t clear to me how long that was going to last.
“Come on in to the house with me, honey, while I get ready.” Wiping the dust from her housecoat, she stepped away from the post. “Time you and I went for a ride.”
Ride? I wasn’t really in the mood. Besides, there had been a few car rides in my life that didn’t end so well.
The door groaned on its casters as she heaved it open. Daylight spilled in. In the corner closest to the door, Cecil’s old shotgun was propped. I could only recall him using it briefly when I first came to the farm. It was early morning and buzzards were circling ominously above the barn. There had been a coyote raid the night before. The sheep had worked a gap loose in some fencing. Two lambs and a ewe had been killed in the pen attached to the barn, the only outside place the sheep had access to at night. For a week, Cecil stalked the property just after nightfall and again before dawn, the shotgun loaded and clutched under his arm. But the coyotes didn’t reappear. He never fired a shot.
Outside, a light fog hovered above the earth. Bernadette tilted her head toward her car. “You and I need to go talk to Cecil. He’d probably appreciate knowing you’re okay.”
Well, I was certainly confused now, but I suppose it was worth finding out exactly how we were going to do that.
—o00o—
I knew the place long before we got there. The odor was unmistakable. With every breath I inhaled, sadness seeped deeper and deeper into my soul, until I was so burdened with the weight of it that I could barely will myself to move off the seat when Bernadette opened the car door.
“He’s over this way,” she said.
I waited for her to reach in and clip a leash to my collar. Her back was already to me and she was several feet away before I realized she hadn’t even brought one. I eased myself from the seat to the floor of the car. The short ride had stiffened my joints so much that I dreaded stepping out.
Bernadette tossed me a sad look before continuing on down the single lane asphalt road. Okay, so she wasn’t going to wait. I never thought I’d see the day when the sixty-plus year old redhead with a distinct limp and a waistband the size of a bathtub would outpace me, but sure enough she was. My mouth clenched to hold back any unintentional cries of pain that might eek out, I stepped down gingerly and landed on three feet. I paused a moment before hopping after her. Every ten paces or so, I had to stop and rest.
Even though the noonday sun had burned off the frost-fog, there was still a sharp chill in the air that slipped beneath my fur to chill my skin. By the time I reached Bernadette’s side, though, the short walk had warmed my joints and muscles, making them feel slightly more fluid, if not more tired.
We were standing before the stone where Cecil had asked his first wife, Sarah, for permission to ask for Bernadette’s hand. Except this time there were two stones side by side. The same size, same color, same shape. And beside them, the even smaller one. The only thing different was the markings on the front of each one.
“This is a cemetery, Halo,” she said in a husky voice. “It’s where they lay dead folk to rest. So God can know it’s time to take them up to heaven.”
Why was she talking to me like I didn’t know this already? Oh yeah, because people think dogs don’t know any better, that we can’t figure this stuff out on our own.
Bernadette blotted at the mascara running from the corner of her eye. Then she blew her nose into the handkerchief. Loudly. Like a goose on its way to Canada.
I walked a few feet from her to distance myself from her blubbery noises. For a full minute, I stood there waiting for her to say something else or go back to the car. Finally, a wave of fatigue washed over me and pulled me down to the ground. The winter-dead grass was soft but cool on my belly.
“Oh, Halo!” She waved her hands at me, the floral handkerchief flapping in one like a banner in the breeze. “You’re lying on his grave.”
Yes, I know.
I laid my head down, closed my eyes, breathed in the air that was him, submicroscopic molecules of the carbon and oxygen that had once been Cecil Penewit. Let it flow into my lungs, mingle with my blood, fuse with my bones and muscles. I fully expected a blanket of sorrow to wrap around me so tightly that I would suffocate within seconds. But nothing like that happened. Instead, the memories came rushing back, one after the other, so quickly that I flinched at the brightness of the visions flashing through my mind. Grungy overalls, black coffee, toast, rug, table, crook, barn, trough, sheep, Sarah’s picture, the hall closet, the Y-chute at the trial, Clancy and Brooks, riding in the truck to the feed store, walking through the hills at Cecil’s side, counting the lambs on a cold spring morning ...
Bernadette’s snuffles escalated to mournful sobs. I opened my eyes to see her rocking from side to side, her arms crossed tight against her breast. Black streaks ran down her cheeks. Her mouth gaped open with each heart-wrenching wail, its duration broken only by her need to gather another lungful of air.
It shocked me to see the effervescent Bernadette so full of grief that she couldn’t even find words. Dogs know sadness, too, but we cannot speak of our feelings or shed copious tears. We are reduced to moping, to low ebbs of energy, to loss of appetite, and on rare occasions, a bout of forlorn howling — at least until some human interrupts our mourning and tells us to hush.
Truth be told, I wasn’t sure whether to go to her so she could take comfort in petting me, or to just remain where I was until all the blubberiness had drained out of her like a sponge wrung free of dishwater. Surely, she couldn’t go on crying like that forever?
And then I saw Cecil — no, Cecil’s ghost — enfold her in his arms and hold her tight. She stopped rocking. Her keening fell away to a sickly sniffle. She leaned her head forward ever so slightly, as if to lay it on his shoulder.
“The world doesn’t seem right without you in it, Cecil,” she mumbled. “The children at the library miss you and Halo. I miss you. I wish, more than anything, that I could bring you back.”
He’s right here, I barked. I got to my feet and limped toward her, my eyes still on Cecil as he gazed lovingly at her.
She covered her mouth with her handkerchief as her sniveling gave way to a bubble of laughter.
Startled by the unexpected sound, my eyes shifted to her face for a fraction of a second. She tried to wipe away the smile dancing over her glossy lips, but it wouldn’t be banished. When I looked again to where Cecil had been standing, he was gone.
“I know, I know, sweetie. You’re probably worried about me.” She folded up her handkerchief and tucked it back in the hip pocket of her stretchy slacks, and then pulled her knitted sweater down over her bulging middle. “Let’s go back to the farm, okay?”
A pair of aging cripples, we dragged our broken bodies back to the car. Bernadette’s breathing regained a regular rhythm. The sadness had vanished from her face.
With considerable effort, I pulled myself up into the car, grateful to lie down after even just that short walk. It was the experience, the well of emotions, that was more draining than the effort. After shutting the back door, Bernadette slid her bulk into the front seat and put the key in the ignition. She didn’t turn it right away, though.
I sensed her gaze and looked up to see her watching me in the rearview mirror.
“For weeks now, I’ve been walking around in a blue funk. There were days I woke up and it was hard to justify breathing, even. It was like someone stole all the joy out of my life that night. Zapped it, like that.” She snapped her fingers in the air. “Felt like the walking dead. Like the thing I looked forward to most, spending the rest of my life with Cecil, suddenly it wasn’t there anymore. The only thing that kept me going was my grandkids — and still I had a hard time smiling for them.
“The night before the vet’s office called, I sat at the tiny little dinette, staring at a glass of Jack Daniels and a bottle of sleeping pills, wondering how many it would take to do the trick for an old cow like me. And I told myself, ‘Bernadette, give it one more day. One more day.’ Then ... then they called about you. Gave me something to fill the hours, driving up there to get you. Still, I couldn’t shed that feeling that life would never be as good again.” Her keychain clinked as she twisted the key in the ignition. “But for some reason, I feel a whole lot better now.”
Cecil is the reason, I tried to tell her, my thoughts coming out as a pathetic whimper. He wants you to know everything’s okay. That he’s fine — and he’ll wait for you. You’ll be together again. You will.
As usual, she couldn’t hear me. No one ever did.
Story of my life.