I didn’t know that this was here. These tall trees and steep slopes and the huge rocks. All I ever knew was the image of tall spiky ridges against the sky and how they changed shades. They looked like a wall against the horizon where the sun went to sleep at night. A wall so high that no one, not even Minx with her long slender legs and powerful heart would have been able to leap it though she had escaped the Big Man’s corral more times than we could count. But Rain brought me here. She says these are the Rocky Mountains but I’ve only ever lived on the Front Range.
We drove toward the wall and it was like magic happened! The purple wall turned into trees and dirt and gigantic rocks bigger than my old dog house, bigger even than the building with the blue door. I mean big.
We drive along the narrow dirt road that twists and turns back and forth until I feel like I am going the way I had come already yet we have not turned around. We go up and then downhill, too, like a maze. I might never find my way out. I trust Rain but this is strange. When I whine just the tiniest bit, she talks to me in her soothing voice and massages my shoulders and gently rubs my ears. I feel better and relax. I curl into the seat next to her in the car.
“You’re going to love it here, baby,” Rain says. “Our life will be wonderful. The house is small but sits into a hillside, tucked against the mountain like most of the other houses. Well, most of them are cabins or even shacks, but new people are starting to make them nicer and the road is a dead end down at a creek so only people who live here will be driving down the road. And as soon as word gets around that a deputy sheriff is living here, I will feel perfectly safe. We’ll be safe in our little house in the mountains. It’s like a dream come true! Like in one of my romance novels. And maybe Michael will be happier here. Maybe I won’t irritate him so much and his job won’t be so hard for him to deal with once he can come home to such a sweet little place of peace and quiet. We’ll make it as nice for him as possible, won’t we?”
I hear the sad, wistful tone in Rain’s voice that wasn’t there a few minutes ago. I want to make it go away so I forget my sloshy tummy and the winding road that is inside the magic wall. I bark. Twice! I leap to my feet, wag my plume of a tail, and watch Rain as she laughs out loud from my surprise bark.
“You’re the best,” she says. “You’ve saved my life, I swear, girl.”
Rain pets me as much as she can with one hand until we round a sharp turn downhill and she has to use her hand that was petting me to move the stick that is between the seats. This road makes her use the stick a lot and I see both her knees bobbing up and down as her feet press on the peddles on her side of the car floor.
“We’ll need a truck for winter,” Rain says.
I know what a truck is and that will be fun. I like the back of a truck. My tummy doesn’t act so strange when I ride in a truck.
I keep my eyes on Rain. She’s smiling again but I know how fast that can change. Dark Man -- Rain calls him Michael or you-know-who -- will be at the house when we arrive. Rain told me he was working last night while I was sleeping in my room with the wire walls at the building with the blue door, and while Rain was asleep at the little apartment where she and Michael live. I don’t like that they live there and I live at Blue Door.
Rain says that Dark Man works a lot of nights. She says he likes that now I will be with Rain at night when he’s gone. But he doesn’t like me. I know he doesn’t. I often growl at him but low, quiet-like so that he can’t hear me. His face and posture change when Rain isn’t looking. And he doesn’t smell right at all. Like something rotten is under his skin. But when he sees people look at him, he puts on a big smile and he acts all friendly. But I know what is real. So I watch him close. But I don’t go close unless I have to. I stay with Rain.
Rain tells me that we are going to start hiking trails with the nice round-faced woman who took care of me at Blue Door. I call her Moon. Moon has a big black dog and a tall goofy red one. I like the black one who reminds me of my mum before I was taken away from her. But the red one is a spaz and not very smart and can’t remember even how to sit when Rain or Moon ask us to. It’s embarrassing. But I’m a big girl now. I’m six months old and all grown up. I have to take care of Rain so I can’t be bothered with a dog who can’t even remember words that are simple.
Rain turns the wheel and pulls the car into a long slope of dirt next to a tiny house with tall trees all around it. It reminds me a little of Big Man and Wild Hair’s house because of the peeling paint and tilting roof.
“We’re here! Isn’t is marvelous? Just like a fairy tale cottage!”
When the sadness is hiding, Rain is always happy and smiling and laughing and talking about fairies. I don’t know what those are but I’m sure Rain will take me to meet one someday. Especially now that she says we will be living here together forever. I’m not sure what means “forever” but Rain says I can stay with her and sleep with her and not go back to Blue Door so that’s good enough for me.
Rain rushes around the car to open my door and I jump out and start sniffing because I can’t help myself. All these smells! Wow!
Rain watches me, but I see out of the corner of my eye a shadow in the doorway of the house. The shadow that is Dark Man. And the hair on the back of my neck stands straight up.
-- to be continued --
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