The Knife...And The Newf Read online

The Knife...And The Newf

  Francis W. Porretto

  Copyright (C) 2013 by Francis W. Porretto

  Cover art by Francis W. Porretto

  ====

  [Something to chuckle over with your sweetie by your side and your dog at your feet. (You do have a dog, don’t you?) Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!]

  Bruno was much smarter than his masters were aware. Though he had no doubt that they loved him, they treated him as just another dog, though larger and shaggier than most. They had little inkling of the intricate workings of deduction, inference, and consequence that filled his canine brain.

  Indeed, there were times—more frequent recently than ever before—that Bruno suspected that he was much smarter than his masters were. Their most recent patterns of behavior had made it a conviction approaching certainty.

  They kept doing the most appallingly stupid things. Replacing their luxurious full-size sedan with a cramped hybrid-electric shoebox. Lowering the thermostats to sixty degrees in response to insane fear-mongering about global warming. Neglecting to use their beautiful, expensively acquired and installed hot tub out of the mistress’s fear that it would dry out her skin. Neglecting to use their beautiful, expensively toned and groomed bodies to give pleasure to one another, because the mistress had fallen under the influence of a gaggle of feminist harridans who’d convinced her that heterosex is an aspect of masculinist oppression of women!

  Neglecting to use their beautiful, expensively educated brains to think, to ponder the evidence, to apply logic to it, and and to reject the absurdities their respective social circles had pressed upon them.

  Bruno mused over it often and at length. No creature capable of opening doors and cans for it self had any right to be that stupid. Why God had bestowed opposable thumbs on such dunderheads simply escaped him.

  Oh, he loved them. He couldn’t help it. He was a Newfoundland, the progeny of champions and the product of centuries of careful selective breeding. Newfs are bred to bond to their human owners, to love them unreservedly, and to look after them through thick and thin. And he did...as best he could. But it was hard—especially hard when they resolved to flaunt their rejection of reason and the evidence of their senses.

  Worst of it was the house. He could have told them, had he a voice box and palate capable of intelligible speech. He could have counseled them against buying the most expensive house in the neighborhood...especially a neighborhood that was already displaying clear signs of social and economic decline. But he shouldn’t have had to warn them; the matter was obvious from the day they’d first wandered into that part of town. The shabby collars and unkempt, mange-blighted coats of the dogs they’d seen on the streets and in local yards should have done the job for him.

  But the thing was over and done. Despite the master’s misgivings, he’d bought the place, more to keep the mistress happy than for any good reason. Indeed, they’d paid the seller’s asking price, more than the man would have settled for and far more than the locale was worth.

  Just as Bruno had expected, the decision had become one of the thickest of the wedges that divided them. And he could only watch, swish his tail warningly back and forth, and strive mightily not to drool.

  * * *

  Phyllis Coren was growing ever more distracted from the world around her. It wasn’t entirely her fault; after all, there was a high-definition television in every room. What could she do but watch them? Especially with so many new and involving talk shows on the air all day. The glamour, the quick pacing, and the constant round of controversial exchanges, often so heated that she could hardly understand how the participants managed not to come to blows, more than made up for the dubious thrills of her former life as a secretary in her husband’s law firm.

  Five hundred channels of continuous digital-quality sleaze kept Phyllis from attending too closely to the practical details of life, whether she was arguably safe inside her Oakleigh home or out and about. Perhaps it was just as well. The most recent reports had alarmed her enough to forswear the local news channel. She might have done so anyway, for she allowed nothing to come between her and The Weatherly Report.

  Jessica Weatherly was Phyllis’s idol. The beautiful blonde talk-show hostess was the epitome of female strength. Always on top of the latest issues, always successful at luring the nation’s movers and shakers onto her dais, always triumphant in any clash of views, and always so fetchingly garbed and groomed. Had Phyllis not retreated from all romantic engagement with her husband Harold—yes, yes, he was a decent man, but he was nevertheless a man, and Phyllis acknowledged her obligation to her badly oppressed sisters to refrain from giving aid or comfort to the enemy—she would have striven to match Weatherly’s appearance and couture right down to her manicure.

  The day Weatherly was upstaged by that awful Stephen Sumner was one of the worst days in Phyllis’s life. Then the bastard had gone on to defeat that nice President Walter Coleman and evict him from the White House. Coleman had been so openly mournful, so reluctant to leave, when Inauguration Day arrived! She understood that there are Constitutional limitations on a president's term of office, but still, why couldn’t Sumner have allowed Coleman to stay in one of the unused bedrooms? Surely there were plenty of them!

  Well, Phyllis mused, that was one of the hazards of being a talk-show hostess...or a president. Neither position came with a lifetime guarantee. And to be fair, Jessica had gone back to her usual unshakable aplomb the very next show. That’s what the nation expected of such an obvious winner.

  Phyllis knew it wasn’t her lot ever to match Weatherly's unbending stature, or to command her degree of attention and adulation. Still, from two P.M. to five each day, as she prepared the evening meal, Phyllis could watch The Weatherly Report and dream.

  * * *

  Given his mistress’s obvious detachment from reality, Bruno was certain there would be an unpleasant consequence sooner or later. He was determined to be present, vigilant, and prepared to act when it finally arrived.

  In the event, it was a relatively small thing, though it could have been much worse. His mistress was at her cook’s island, cleaning and slicing vegetables for a stew. She’d taken to making stew quite often, probably because once it was in the slow cooker it required so little of her attention. The attention she gave her preparations was insufficient even so.

  As usual, her eyes were riveted to the noisy picture box that hung above the island. The tall blonde with the big udders that seemed forever to be on its screen was gesticulating and making the sort of mouth noises Bruno associated with barely restrained anger. The mistress unwisely continued on with her slicing without paying it the least attention.

  The little knife missed the onion and cut deeply into the index finger of the mistress's left hand. She dropped the knife, screamed as her blood welled swiftly forth, and collapsed to the kitchen floor.

  How stupid can you be? Bruno mused. First she practically invites a wound by playing with a sharp object while her attention is elsewhere. Then when she cuts herself, she just sits on the floor staring at the blood and crying.

  Well, that’s what I’m here for.

  He kicked the knife out of the way. It slid across the quarrystone tiles to rest in a dark recess under the cabinets. Then he approached the mistress, licked her face twice to reassure her that someone competent was on the case, and pinned her wounded arm against her leg. With her arm immobilized, he took the bleeding finger delicately between his jaws, tongued the loose flap of flesh back over the wound, and compressed the wound between his tongue and his upper palate, stanching the bleeding as best he could.

  The mistress stared at him as if he’d morphed into another species before her eyes. She tried
to pull away from him, but he secured her in place with his weight and the leverage afforded by his superior position. Presently she calmed down and passively allowed him to minister to her.

  Bruno knew the limits to his paramedical capacities. He merely kept her there, her wound held firmly closed by the pressure of his mouth and tongue, until the coppery taste of her blood had faded away.

  He released her carefully, his eyes locked to hers as he gradually let the pressure fade. She pulled her hand back to peer at the wound. It had closed as neatly as she’d opened it. The blood around the join was well coagulated. A huge smile bloomed on her tear-streaked face. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely as she made hoarsely grateful sounds.

  He tolerated it stoically. It was just another part of what he was bred for, after all.

  * * *

  Harold Coren had been home for nearly an hour when he finally noticed the thick white bandage on his wife’s left hand.

  “Sweetie?” he said, setting his gimlet down on the kitchen counter, “Did something happen to your hand today?”

  “Nothing important,” she muttered, her eyes never straying from the kitchen television set.

  His first impulse was to drop the subject. Phyllis had become nearly unreachable conversationally. On the several occasions he’d pressed her for a significant response, she’d shaded over into outright hostility. He shrugged and made to pick up his glass, intending to retreat into the living room, when Bruno’s head rubbed against his right knee. The Newf was standing at his right, staring up at him critically.

  Critically? He’s a dog.

  Still, those eyes...

  He reached down to ruffle the dog’s neck hair.

  Something did happen today, didn’t it, boy?

  Harold could never have specified how, but the Newf’s expression went from monitory to sarcastic half-approval.

  All right.

  He went to where his wife sat and picked up her left hand. She nearly jerked it away from him out of surprise.

  “How did it happen, Phyl?” he said.

  She tried to shrug it off. “Chopping onions. Nothing serious.”

  He leveled an interrogatory look at her. “This is pretty heavily wrapped for ‘nothing serious.’”

  She did jerk her hand away, then.

  “You don’t know, you weren’t here, and you didn’t help,” she grated. “I did it and I took care of it. End of story.” She pointedly returned her gaze to the television.

  Anger swelled in him. He reached for the back of the television and yanked the power cord out of the set. It went black with a brief digital trill of farewell. She turned back to him, plainly outraged.

  “You’re right on all three counts,” he said. “But that’s implicit in your having been here and my having been at the office. I still want to know what happened. If you cut yourself on something soiled, you should see the doctor for a tetanus shot. I care, damn it, regardless of what you think!”

  Surprise bloomed on her face. She opened her mouth to reply, closed it again.

  Probably because it’s been so long since I took a firm line with her.

  Presently she said “It was nothing serious. Really. And yes, I know you care.” Her tone practically screamed that she wished he’d care a lot less. “Now let me be. Dinner at the usual time.”

  She rose, reinserted the power cord into the back of the television, and started flipping through the channels. He felt his gumption leak away all at once.

  “What’s for dinner?”

  “Stew.”

  “Again? Gahh.” He retrieved his glass and retreated.

  * * *

  Bruno was restless. Though it was full dark and at least an hour before dawn, the Newf couldn’t sleep any longer. He rose from his orthopedic dog bed, shook himself fully awake, and ambled from the unused, unfurnished bedroom to which his slumbers had been relegated to the kitchen where his food and water dishes lay.

  He tongued up the mouthful of kibble left over from his evening meal. It had become a habit of his to leave a little something in the dish, just in case he awoke wanting a middle-of-the-night snack. Though it had dried out since the evening before, it was still better than nothing. It halted the rumbling in his gut.

  He stuck his muzzle into his water dish and lapped at the pleasantly cool contents. The mistress had refilled it and had thoughtfully added a tray of ice cubes before going to bed. Hunger and thirst adequately slaked, he was about to return to his bed to wait for the dawn when noises from the bedroom level reached his ears.

  Apparently he wasn’t the only wakeful creature in the house.

  * * *

  Phyllis’s rising woke Harold from a light, troubled sleep. He’d been dreaming about an earlier time and an earlier Phyllis, from before their marriage and well before her involvement with that damnable feminist collective. Though the memory was gratifying, the part of him that wasn’t deeply asleep insisted on comparing it to his far less satisfactory present.

  As she donned a robe and headed for the door, he threw the covers back, switched on his bedside lamp, and called out “Wait.”

  She turned a pained expression to him. “For what?”

  He rose and followed her in his pajamas. “For me.”

  She shrugged and continued out and down the stairs.

  They were seated in the kitchen with mugs of coffee when he said “Why are you like this, Phyl?”

  “Like what?” The unconcern in her tone was open and unmistakable.

  “Treating me like an enemy,” he said. “It’s like you’ve absorbed that crap—”

  “About men’s oppression of women?” she said. “Well, so what? I happen to believe it.”

  “It doesn't matter whether you believe it or not,” he said. “It's still pure crap. And you’ve applied it to me. Your husband who loves you and provides for you. Christ on a crutch, Phyl, if you really think I’m oppressing you, why do you stay with me?”

  She shrugged and said nothing.

  He was groping for some constructive way to press forward when Bruno brushed against his leg. Once again, the Newf stared up at him warningly.

  Hey, boy, if you know better how to fix this than I do...

  Bruno did something unprecedented, then. He took a loose flap of Harold’s pajamas in his teeth and tugged, hard enough that Harold nearly fell from his chair. As he righted himself, the Newf pointed his muzzle toward the front of the house and emitted a barely audible growl.

  Something’s up.

  He rose and started for the foyer.

  “Harold, what—”

  “Shhh.” He held up a hand, indicating that she should remain where she was. She, having formed the habit of always doing the exact opposite of what he wanted, rose and followed him.

  Bruno hung back.

  * * *

  A peek around the edge of the hallway informed Bruno that the intruder was very large, as black as Bruno himself, and armed with a gun. The gun wavered back and forth between his owners’ chests. The three humans stood where they were, as if no one wanted to be the first to move or speak.

  Nicest house in a lousy neighborhood. They should have known better.

  What now?

  A memory of the day before tickled him.

  He retreated to the kitchen.

  Somewhere around here...aha.

  He fished the little knife out of the crevice where it had hidden, nudged it until its grip was toward him, and took the grip carefully but very firmly between his jaws.

  Got to be really quiet now.

  He slunk down the hallway as fast as he dared, keeping as low as possible, until the intruder stood in profile before him. He shifted the knife’s grip slightly in his jaws and clamped down hard.

  Just one chance, so I have to get it right.

  Here we go.

  He charged.

  The knife blade sank into the intruder’s thigh. The man screamed as his head jerked away from Bruno’s master to focus on
the injury. Bruno drove the knife deep and held it there, the grip pressed painfully into his palate, as the gun swerved to point at him.

  Oops. Here it comes.

  Damned careful selective breeding.

  There came a flurry of motion, two sharp cracks of flesh against flesh, and the burglar collapsed. Bruno looked up and found the master standing over him, rubbing his knuckles and breathing hard. Presently he squatted and scooped up the gun.

  “Phyl,” he said at last, “call the police.”

  * * *

  The police had gone, the dawn had come, and the coffee was cold.

  “I’ve never seen you like that before,” Phyllis said.

  Harold nodded. “If God is good to us, you never will again.”

  “That’s okay.” She snorted a laugh. “Once is enough.”

  “Phyl—”

  She reached for his hand. “I know.”

  He peered at her. “Hm?”

  “That I’ve been a real bitch lately.”

  “And...?”

  “That it’s unfair to you.”

  “Ah. Because of this?”

  “No. Well, yeah,” she said. “Partly, anyway.”

  He nodded.

  “Well, if that’s what it takes,” he said after a long pause, “maybe I should arrange for us to be burgled regularly.”

  She laughed again. “Please, no. Not on my account. But, Hal?”

  He watched her steadily.

  “If you can be that brave with an intruder, why weren’t you ever willing to challenge me?”

  He swallowed and looked away.

  Presently he said “I was afraid of making things worse. Living up to your worst notions about men.”

  “Oh. But maybe...”

  “Hm?”

  “Maybe they weren’t my worst notions about men,” she said. “Maybe they were my best ones.”

  His face creased in confusion.

  “You wanted me to be more forceful?” he said.

  She nodded. “I think so.”

  “I never would have guessed,” he said.

  “I made it pretty tough.”

  “Well, yeah!”

  “But you’re smart,” she said with sudden energy. “I expected you to figure it out.”

  “Hm. Well, maybe I’m not as smart as Bruno here.” He reached down to pat the Newfoundland on the head. The dog awarded him a drooly canine grin.

  “Maybe neither of us is,” she said. “But we might be able to fix it.”