Yes.
Should she do something about the wire?
Yes.
Was she too tired and lazy to do something about the wire?
Yes.
Should she allow that to be the case?
Fuck, no, she supposed not. Not on the first day of her new life.
She shrugged off her pack. In her emergency pack, she found her multi-tool, which she’d never really used, so she spent time flipping things out and then back, muttering “Huh!” with each new revelation. A screwdriver with a switchable bit! A bottle opener! A knife! And of course, the main tool, which was the pliers and wire cutter, too small for the job at hand perhaps, but certainly the best option. She wedged the blades between one strand of the wire and squeezed.
Nothing. She squeezed so tight that her hand ached; her face scrunched with the effort. Still nothing. She tried again, pressing every bit of strength into that hand, and pressed it into the tree so as to get a good angle, and then a fury took hold and she squeezed all of her anger about everything with a loud and long stupid fucking fucccck youuuuuu to everything. But the wire did not cut.
She stopped, rested her forehead on the tree, which now smelled like a whole vanilla factory. Tried again, and then again, and the third time one strand split. The second strand was easier, and the moment that it flew backward—she had to leap out of the way—she could have sworn she heard the tree breathe. She felt a surge of glee—she’d done something right!
She stood underneath the tree and gazed up at its branches meeting blue sky, put her palms against the bark, then hugged the tree and smelled the vanilla gift it was offering back. “I’m sorry you had that strangling you,” she whispered into the trunk, and she didn’t want to get too woo-woo about it, but she felt the tree thrumming with relief.
Finally, she stepped back and put her mouth on her rasped knuckles, tasted the blood, and winced. They really hurt, a burning-type hurt, and her eyes burned with tears. With freedom comes pain. Or at least that’s the wisdom she arrived at as the Sea Creature sadly swam around her chest when she pulled out her first aid kit to bandage her aching hand.
CHAPTER 4
Some dog’s yapping was unmistakable and insistent and was accompanied by the occasional yowl. Or maybe yowl wasn’t the right word; she’d never quite heard such a sound. It was back down the road, and always in the same spot, and her brain couldn’t figure out a plausible reason for the ruckus. As she sat and drank a glass of red wine, she scanned her memory: There were no houses on the road for such a long distance, and, as far as she remembered, there were no campgrounds here, it being private and not public land.
How far did sound travel? How worried should she be?
She didn’t want to drive to go check, of course; someone might see her and take note of her license plate or general presence. Plus—two glasses of wine and snowy, isolated roads and it would be dark soon. Nor did she want to walk that far, though how far was hard to gauge. So she ignored the dog and the human who was presumably with it and hoped they’d just go away. Besides, she’d already done her good deed for the day.
But the yapping did not go away. And dusk was coming.
“No, no, no, no, and fuck and fuck and fuck,” she muttered, because checking on this dog and its likely human owner would require so much work. The human would notice her presence; everything could potentially get fucked up; it would ruin everything. But what if the dog—or the person—needed help? She could not, in good conscience, leave a dog yowling so wretchedly in the night.
She groaned and stood. It would be good practice, she supposed—packing up her stuff, leaving the house as she’d found it. Besides, it would occupy her—what other great thing did she have to do? So she packed up, loaded her car, and drove for ten minutes down the dirt road, taking it slow since icy patches on shady spots made her feel precariously close to the steep edge, and she pictured her and the Grey Goose toppling down a mountain, rolling, rolling, rolling. She saw no dog. The barking continued, though, when she pulled over to listen. Finally she saw movement in the trees, not too far from the road, a midsize dog lunging in her direction but held by a rope or something that kept jerking it back. She looked all around through the forest for a person, but there was nothing else moving. As she had with the wire-bound tree, she felt only confusion. What was she seeing, exactly?
She sat in the car for a moment to assess—always best to sit and watch, she figured. But she didn’t see anyone, so she got out and turned on her headlamp and walked closer, close enough to see the dog up close—white chest and gray mottling and very fluffy; perhaps a mutt with a lot of border collie?—and then saw that a stream of blood was meandering down the white fur on the forehead and was also smeared across the floppy gray ear. Christ almighty, it was hurt! It was tied to a tree. It was still quite young, not quite puppy-young, but not yet grown, its paws being too large to fit the rest of the body. A teenager of sorts. A bloody, skinny, half-grown pup.
When she approached, it lowered itself, cowering, and then rolled to its side, submissive; and, squinting, Ammalie could see it was a she, and that there was no blood on the underside, just on the head.
“What’s up with you?” She glanced around—white aspen and green pines and deepening blue sky—and then carefully approached wearing thick leather work gloves from her Survival Bucket, but the dog was clearly not going to bite her. It was tied or tangled with an old rope collar to an aspen tree. She freed the dog, and then, because the dog didn’t move, she brought over her water bottle and her camp kit bowl. The dog sat partially up and lapped the water furiously as Ammalie scanned the area, and then tried to scan the dog’s head.
Had the dog been tied up by a hiker?
Had the dog escaped from a nearby home and gotten tangled? But no, the rope had been tied in a knot around the tree.
The longer she stared at the cut head, the more her brain started to make sense of what she was seeing. She reached out to wipe away the blood with a bandanna, and while the dog ducked, it didn’t snarl or wince, and so she poured water on the blood and gently swiped again on the forehead, above the right ear. The dog had been cut with something sharp. Cut purposefully. Cut with three straight lines! They seemed to form a K, or something similar, and it confused her even more. Cut to tattoo? Or to punish?
“What the fucking fuck? Who would do this to you? And why?” she whispered to the dog, and the dog looked up from the water bowl at the same time her heart really started thumping. Fear, but also a surge of anger blasting with hot fury in her chest and cheeks—truthfully, she’d have liked for about half of humanity to be wiped from the face of this special planet; whether it was nuclear warheads or abused dogs, there just wasn’t time for this shit anymore.
She ran her fingers over the dog, feeling bony ribs, and paused on the dog’s haunches at a raspy area. She parted the fur to peer by headlamp. Surely, by god, those were not cigarette burns? She bit her lip. She should go. Something here was fucked up. Tears flurried into her eyes. Where was the nearest humane society? Or veterinarian? What should she do? And god, why couldn’t she think? She felt so foggy-headed and confused. The only clear thought she had was a certain knowledge that she wasn’t thinking through stuff the way she used to; some sense of perspective or clarity was lacking. So she tried listing truths:
One: The dog was hurt, though not in a life-threatening way, but it shouldn’t sit bleeding out here all night long.
Two: There seemed to be no human around, which was good.
Three: The dog might be associated with a bad dude who might show up, and that was not good.
Four: Night was now closing in. The vet clinic would be closed, and what was the nearest town, anyway? That little cluster of buildings near the gas station? Surely there was no vet clinic there.
Five: She’d had the wine, and shouldn’t drive.
Six: Yes, she was going to drive the dog back to the cabin. Obviously. And then she’d take it from there.
She dug her fingernails into her head to think, which is when she heard another sound. A low male voice, something about Where the fuck are you, you bitch?
“You fuck,” she hissed in the direction of his voice. The words came out of her before she could stop them, and she slapped her palm over her mouth. Then she whispered to the dog, “Not you. Him.” Then she and the dog both cocked their heads in the direction of the man’s voice, which now sounded like a vague string of cursing, though she couldn’t make out any specific words. But it was clear that a man was walking through the trees and coming toward her as dusk was turning into cold night, and now her heart was really going berserk. She wrapped her fingers around her pepper spray with one hand and put her other on the soft nose of the dog. Shhhhh, shhhh. The last thing she wanted was for the dog to start barking again. Then a clear phrase came out of the forest, much closer now: “Where’d you go, you fucking fucking fucking bitch? You bark all goddamn day and now you’re quiet?”
Without further thought, Ammalie untied the rope and gathered the dog in her arms at the same time she heard the man. “Where are you, you fucking bitch!”
You fucking bastard, she thought, but she kept her mouth closed this time as she lifted the dog slowly, bending at her knees, trying to ascertain if she had the strength to do this. The dog was heavy and bulky and she stumbled forward, but quietly. She couldn’t look over her shoulder at the same time as walk in the dark, so instead she just winced and prayed and coaxed herself, Just go go go go go.
By the time she got to the Grey Goose, she was gasping, but the dog had thankfully stayed quiet except for some low grunts. She’d left behind her water bottle, but it didn’t matter—this littering was justified! She heaved the pup into the Grey Goose and winced again as she started the car—anyone would be able to hear that!—and at the same moment heard gunshots. Boom, boom, boom. She ducked, instinctually, but drove off, fast, no headlights, wheels spinning the dirt, glancing in the rearview mirror, though no one appeared on the dirt road in the darkening sky.
Then the road turned, and she was out of view. She turned on her lights. “Glory hell!” she yelped, and she could not think and so drove past the cabin and to the top of the ridge. She was hoping to throw anyone off the scent that she was staying there, and also just needing a quiet minute to fucking think. And to get her heart to stop thundering. When she found a pullout a good distance past the cabin, she put one hand on the dog and powered up her phone for the first time, and stared. She’d been hoping to go a full month without it—part of her being a true female explorer and all—even if there was cell or Wi-Fi at the cabin, but something about a lit-up phone just brought security, and that was what she needed now. The feel of it in her hand helped her breathe. Beside her, the dog panted. She panted. They panted in unison.
She tried to slow her heartbeat as she read her texts. A few from the usual suspects—Mari, Apricot, the car place reminding her she was due for an oil change—and one call. But wait, what? She stared at her phone in confusion as she listened to the message.
