A Year Of Good Eating Read online

A Year Of Good Eating

  Francis W. Porretto

  Copyright (C) 2014 by Francis W. Porretto

  Cover art by Francis W. Porretto

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  [Love takes many forms. It follows many avenues into our hearts. He who has learned something of those forms and avenues should not be surprised to find that the supposedly lesser creatures we choose for our companions know and experience love, as well. Bruno would tell you, but then, being a Newfoundland, he’s wiser than the rest of us.]

  When spring rolled around, once the April rains were past, Phyllis took to feeding Bruno outdoors, on the deck behind the Corens’ home. She would simply shoo the big Newfoundland out the back door, drop his bowl on the deck, and return to her pastimes, not even bothering to watch as he set to his meals. It reduced her kitchen mess slightly, eliminated one pair of door openings and closings, and allowed her more time to herself. Bruno seemed to like it well enough, so after she’d embarked upon the practice she didn't give it a lot of thought.

  It took a while for her to notice that the Newf was hungrier than before. He seemed forever to be importuning her and Harold for just a little more. More of the kibble he got twice each day...more dog cookies and other treats...any table scraps he could persuade them to part with. All of it disappeared into his giant maw with neither delay nor ceremony, never to be seen again...followed by the sort of plaintive expression by which a dog says, without words but with perfect eloquence, Is that all there is?

  She told herself that Bruno had finished growing and was now eating to support a full-grown adult body: a hundred fifty pounds of muscle and bone he had to take with him on all his adventures. After all, the way he loped around their yard for hours on end would have been impressive in a greyhound. For a Newfoundland, a breed without a reputation for great energy, it was singular. That the Newf had been just as energetic as he grew, and that growth always requires more calories than maintenance, didn't occur to her.

  Bruno didn't trouble to explain it to her.

  * * *

  Bruno loved the Corens’ back yard. Though unfenced, it was bordered by a barrier of closely set shrubs and heavy underbrush that all but the most intrepid Onteora County wildlife found too daunting to test, especially when Bruno was on station. His master and mistress believed that it would confine him as well as an artificial fence, and so disdained to mar their property with a quarter mile of chain link or vinyl panels at considerable expense.

  Bruno did nothing to disabuse them of that conviction...when they troubled to watch him, that is.

  The Newf was aware that his mistress was less than alert to his activities. It was her preference to spend as much of her time as possible staring into one or another of the televisions that festooned the Corens' Oakleigh residence. Bruno didn't understand it. The noises from the weirdly lit boxes were frequently unintelligible and sometimes extremely shrill. The caperings of the figures on the screens were beyond all comprehension. Worst of all, they had no aroma he could detect—and what a Newf can’t smell, no one can.

  It’s her way of passing the time.

  Instead of fretting over Phyllis’s strange habits, he took what opportunities he could to explore the neighborhood.

  There were several points at which the dense shrubs and underbrush would yield to steady, determined pressure of the sort Bruno could muster. When he got the urge to wander, he would seek out one of those exit points, assure himself that his mistress wasn’t watching, and slip smoothly through the leaves to emerge, slightly leafier, in the unbuilt and un-demarcated patch of woods that lay beyond. From there, the whole of Onteora County was his to explore.

  Bruno enjoyed roaming the environs. He was careful to stay out of traffic and, as far as possible, off the properties of others. Despite that, he’d come to know the hamlet of Oakleigh as well as he knew the back of his paw. There were a number of very congenial families nearby, whose children could be counted upon to greet him with shouts of joy and a surfeit of hugs, belly rubs, and assorted treats. Admittedly, there were a few regions where he’d been informed, with angry shouts and thrown rocks, that he was unwelcome. Over time he learned which neighborhoods to avoid, and they ceased to trouble him.

  On the day of interest, he was merely circumnavigating the hamlet, enjoying a leisurely constitutional and alert for anything of interest, when he came upon the homeless dog.

  * * *

  Harold set his briefcase down in the foyer as usual and sauntered into the kitchen to find Phyllis at her usual pursuit: engrossed in a television talk show. He bent to kiss her on the cheek, snagged a highball glass from the cupboard, and started toward the dining room sideboard for the rye.

  “Hal?”

  It startled him mildly. “Hm?”

  “Have you noticed anything...off about Bruno?”

  He frowned. “Not that I recall. Have you?”

  Phyllis did something near to unprecedented: she laid a dainty finger on the remote control and switched off the kitchen television, interrupting the breathlessly declaiming emcee in mid-rant.

  Harold stood stock-still as she turned toward him. “He’s been eating a ton lately. I can hardly keep the canister filled. If he were a female, I’d suspect that he was eating for two. But he’s not even gaining weight.”

  Harold frowned and set his glass down on the island counter. “Are you sure about that?”

  Phyllis nodded. “I can still feel all his ribs.”

  “Hm.”

  Not that the cost of dog food is a major budget item. Vet bills, on the other hand...

  “Has he been romping around more than usual?”

  Phyllis grimaced. “I can’t say. I don’t pay him that much attention.”

  “Is he outside just now?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll have a look.”

  He went to the picture window, scanned the back yard for the Newf, and found nothing. The dwarf fruit trees, poplars, and aspens that dotted the yard were insufficiently large or densely planted to conceal the giant dog.

  “Phyl, are you sure he’s outside?”

  Creases of surprise and fear spread over her forehead. “Yeah!”

  He trotted for the back door, on intuitive impulse snatched up his shotgun, and headed out to the yard.

  * * *

  Bruno knew his own name, of course. It was the first word he’d learned as a puppy. He knew names to be a convenient thing, a shortcut by which to refer to the creatures and things they labeled. When he heard a name he’d learned, he knew at once who or what the speaker was talking about.

  He had no name for the sick, homeless dog he’d found in the underbrush on the edge of the woods. He could only think of her as “the sick dog.” He knew it was not for him to name her; that was a power and a privilege reserved to men.

  The creature was badly afflicted by mange and parasites, starved to the point of emaciation, and so weak that she could barely lift her head to accept the kibble Bruno brought her. Nine days of his twice-daily ministrations seemed to have done her little good. He wondered if the problem was dehydration; he could bring her food, but toting water to her had proved impossible for him.

  He did what he could. He fed her. He licked as much of the corruption from her wounds and as many of the parasites from her coat as his tongue could rasp away. He sat snuggled against her for long periods, humming softly, hoping that she might draw sustenance from his companionship as much as from his gifts of food.

  He knew she was fortunate that her illness had come upon her during the good weather. Onteora’s brutal winter would have finished her off long before anyone noticed.

  There were few passers-by. Only after ten days did a human take notice. The woman spied the two of them nestled to
gether in the underbrush, peered at them from a distance, and hurried off. That day saw the arrival of Onteora Animal Control.

  * * *

  Harold found Bruno’s exit point after a brief search. He thrust himself through the bushes without hesitation, batting branches aside with his shotgun as he strove to move as swiftly as possible. The Newf’s course was easy to follow; his repeated passages through the brush had cut an impressive trail. At its end he came upon a sight he’d have given a year of his life not to see.

  A clown in a county uniform had caught Bruno’s neck in a noose of thick rope at the end of a long stick. The idiot was struggling to drag the Newf toward an Animal Control van, with little success. Two paces away lay an obviously sick animal, barely recognizable as a dog for its mange and its cringe. A young Onteora cop stood over the sick dog, his service pistol in his hand.

  Harold immediately racked the shotgun’s pump and leveled it.

  “Freeze, both of you.”

  Two heads came up in astonishment. The cop started to raise his pistol toward Harold, then thought better of it.

  “Those are my dogs,” Harold growled. “I don’t know how they got loose from my yard, but they did, and I’m here for them. Holster your gun and get that thing off my dog’s neck right now.”

  The fearstricken Animal Control idiot complied without a question. Bruno went at once to the sick dog’s side and stood at the ready between her and the cop, muscles visibly tensed for action. The cop bared his teeth, the muzzle of his gun slowly and stealthily rising to point at Harold.

  “Don’t try it, Officer.”

  “You wouldn’t dare fire on a police officer.” The cop’s lip curled in contempt. “You’re a civilian.”

  Harold bared his own teeth. “Don’t test me. I’ve had enough crap from your sort that killing one of you would only make me smile. Put that piece in its holster.”

  The cop complied.

  “Now get out of here, both of you,” Harold spat. “I’ll take it from here.”

  “Mister,” the cop snarled, “you’d better hope I never see you again.”

  Harold smiled and shook his head. “On the contrary, Officer. My dogs have name tags and licenses. You were about to steal one and execute the other without bothering to notify their owner. Be grateful I got here in time to stop you, or I’d have made it my personal mission to see that you never work in law enforcement again.” He waggled the shotgun’s muzzle. “Now get moving.”

  They fled.

  Harold pulled out his cell phone and called the house.

  ar

  * * *

  Bruno was determined to remain by the sick dog’s side against all opposition. He went with her to the animal hospital. He stood next to the examining table as Dr. Grotius looked her over. He refused, quite firmly, to allow the vet to take her into some back room where things he could not observe or prevent might occur.

  She was his charge. He would not abandon her to the unknown or the mercies of another.

  Presently the vet turned to his master and said something in a low voice. Bruno recognized the tone. It spoke of pain, and expense, and the foreseeable approach of inevitable eventualities. He could guess what the vet was recommending to his master. He imagined it being recommended over his gasping, pain-racked form, as it someday might. He prayed, in a canine fashion no human can grasp, that the master would do the right thing...whatever human wisdom and judgment might decide that to be.

  The exchange went on for several minutes. The master started to gesture and wave. His voice rose and acquired intensity. Presently the vet shrugged and summoned a pair of assistants.

  The treatments went on for more than an hour. The sick dog accepted it all without complaint. The master and mistress stood watching impassively. Bruno never allowed his eyes to veer from the table.

  * * *

  “Why, Hal?” Phyllis’s voice was soft.

  “Why not,” he replied as he guided the minivan into the traffic stream. “Now at least we’ll know where the food is going.”

  “Hm?”

  “Haven’t you guessed? Bruno was feeding her. He’d eat his fill, then stuff as much as he could into his mouth and bring it to her.” He glanced swiftly into the back of the van. The sick dog lay there, apparently asleep, with Bruno snug against her back. The Newf looked up and met Harold’s eyes. He seemed to nod. “Like a mother bird feeding her chicks. It’s probably the only reason she’s still alive.”

  “Grotius said—”

  “I heard it too. It doesn’t matter. She’s ours now. No matter whether she lives fifty years more or dies tomorrow.”

  They were back to their house and pulling into the garage before Phyllis spoke again.

  “She needs a name.”

  “It’s on on her collar. Galatea.”

  “Oh. Where’s that from? It sounds foreign.”

  “I’ll look it up.”

  * * *

  Galatea’s return to a semblance of health took several weeks. She regained an acceptable weight and body conformation. Her sores healed over time; no trace of the corruption that had festered in them remained. But her coat grew in unevenly, and without the luster proper to a dog of normal vitality. Her manner gained some animation, but not a great deal. She ate and drank as was normal for the elderly mixed-breed female sufferer of abandonment and abuse Dr. Grotius had proclaimed her to be.

  Bruno remained devoted to her. He displayed a complete disinclination to leave her side for any reason. It proved easier to allow him to accompany her on her follow-up visits to the hospital than to part them and endure his howls of protest.

  Galatea became as visibly attached to Bruno as the Newf was to her. Harold puzzled over it. They had no sexual relation. Their acquaintance was entirely accidental. The difference in their ages was considerable, as was the divergence between their capacities and activities. Bruno tried quite obviously to get Galatea to play as younger dogs do, but Galatea could not keep up with him. Her cavortings were a pale imitation of the Newf’s seemingly boundless energy. Often she would merely sit on the deck and watch him careen around the Corens’ back yard, as if he were doing so for her entertainment. Yet their attachment to one another never wavered. Wherever one of them was, whether indoors or outdoors, the other would be within eyeshot if not in close contact.

  Galatea’s swift attachment to the Corens was no less puzzling. She bonded with them as if they’d imprinted upon her at birth. Her affection elicited their own.

  At Phyllis’s urging and despite misgivings he would not express, Harold began to walk them together around the hamlet. She suggested that Galatea’s proper owner would recognize the dog and joyfully reclaim her. He half hoped and half feared that it would be so. To his considerable relief it did not occur, strengthening his conviction that she had been abandoned rather than had somehow been lost.

  Whenever they were out and about, Bruno always insisted on “taking point.” The Newf’s intense, unflagging attention to their surroundings would have been impressive in a Secret Serviceman. Galatea followed placidly in his train. He never allowed anything, animal, vegetable, or mineral, to come between them.

  * * *

  “Chinese obligation,” Harold said between mouthfuls of baked potato. “Thanks, by the way.”

  Phyllis looked up from her shell steak with a frown. “You’re welcome, but for what?”

  “Not making stew every day.”

  She grinned across the table. “Let’s call it a phase.”

  He chuckled. “May it never recur.”

  “What? No stew again ever?”

  “Well, maybe not ever. But let’s make it a less frequent entree. It had me dreaming that I’d become a hobo.”

  She giggled, then sobered. “But what were you talking about just before?”

  “Hm?”

  “When you said ‘Chinese obligation.’”

  “Oh.” He set down his knife and fork and steepled his hands before him. “It’s an old motif from Chinese h
istory. Time was, if one Chinaman rescued another from death, it became the former’s obligation to see to the latter’s care and feeding for the rest of his life. Moral and legal.”

  Her look grew puzzled. “You think Bruno took Gal as an obligation because he...saved her life?”

  “Just a stray thought.” He grimaced. “I wonder, now and then, if some of our modern layabouts could be infected with the idea. We could hang back and let them do away with themselves. Reduce the burden on society that way.”

  “Hal!” She clucked at his naughtiness. “Anyway, it wasn’t Bruno who saved her life. It was you.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “And why do you think I’ve spent more than four thousand dollars on veterinary care for her, hm?”

  “Oh.”

  * * *

  Summer was behind them and autumn well along when the encounter Harold had dreaded finally occurred.

  He, Bruno, and Galatea had reached the edge of Oakleigh hamlet, where the single-family residences petered out and the State’s wilderness preserve began. They had turned onto the homeward leg of their daily walk when the police cruiser roared to a stop alongside them. Harold halted the dogs at once and waited.

  Along the cruiser’s flank, the legend K-9 Unit was stenciled in large block letters.

  From the driver’s side emerged the young cop he’d faced down over Galatea. The cop grinned nastily at them as he opened the passenger door of the cruiser and brought forth a German Shepherd police dog on a heavy chain leash.

  The police dog’s attention locked onto Bruno at once. It came to full alert, growling audibly. Bruno stood very still, with Galatea cowering behind him.

  “Well, hello there, buddy. No shotgun today?”

  “I didn’t expect to need one in this neighborhood,” Harold said. “Are you about to tell me differently?”

  The nasty grin grew wider. “I’d think you might want to err on the safe side. There are a lot of animals in this county, and not all of them like humans all that much. Take this fellow, for example.” He jingled the chain. “Bred for size and strength, trained to attack on command, and utterly loyal to his partner.”

  The German Shepherd’s growl was slowly rising in volume and pitch. Bruno’s gaze remained steady.

  “Would that partner,” Harold said, “be you?”

  The cop nodded. “Ajax and I have been through some heavy shit together. Scraps your two would never have survived.” He looked Harold up and down. “I doubt you would have survived them either.”