Yoharie (part twelve)

Yoharie

Jeremiah

(part twelve)

Savannah, aged ten, so set on having an Australian Shepherd. Hibbler remembered searching with Kate online for a place they could drive to, open on a Saturday.

Take the girls/Don’t take them. “But it has to be both their dog.”

“You think you can negotiate that.”

“Savannah won’t care…” [Kate’s eye.] “She’ll care, but she won’t raise a stink.”

He was against surprises. He remembered never a good one from his growing-up years. And on the grounds Raelyn had been born with a stubborn radar for unfair treatment, Kate had let him win.

If their youngest felt left out, she would bring it home to them.

[“Honey, can you walk Beatts?” Shrug. “He’s not mine. You better ask her.”]

Still, Rae was the more responsible… Or more savvy to the give and take. Rae, for a few bucks a week, would look after a puppy. Savannah, grown bored with it, might not.

The kennel owner had steered them from a handsome, keen-eyed yearling with a clean black and white coat, saying, “Sorry, guys, I’ve got paperwork on that cutie.” She laughed, seeing the girls. “No, I don’t think you want that mongrelly one. Look at him.”

The mongrel, brindled, splay-footed, charged round and round in circles, rocketing through the barn to the exercise paddock. The dogs lived in big crates, quite a few with a yellow tag stuck down the slot where parentage was detailed on printed sheets. The mongrel…not ill-bred, though, just a freak…was unsold. Discounted, but $625.00. He reappeared, face decked in trails of slobber.

The Hibblers, being played, hedged…um, yeah…they could put their name on a waiting list, sure…

But no.

“Dad!”

“Please?”

“I like this one!”

“Have to be Christmas, girls.”

“Oh, sure,” Rae said. “Grandma’ll get us stuff.”

Beatty, in his seven years as a Hibbler, had grown fat…on beef jerky, mac and cheese, saltines, pizza…

Oreos, grapes…

Which was a thing, Hibbler interrupted his thoughts, thinking of it.

People like Roberta Witticombe, or way more Cathlyn Burris, were always waiting til you’d done something and couldn’t help it, to get in and tell you you were killing your dog.

Beatty ate what he found, tore open Cathlyn’s trash bags and ate what her Maine Coon dropped in her fancy vegan-pinetree-nugget litter. Thrived on it. He wasn’t fierce, for looking kind of mutant-crazed, with his different colored eyes…

No, the dog was friendly, too friendly, wanting to jump on every stranger, hurl himself with every head pat into his signature slobber-run. Cathlyn believed in spending money on things like taking your dog to fucking boot camp, always telling Hibbler, “I think Beatty would be very trainable.”

He supposed she thought he didn’t care if Beatty thudded the back of her legs, almost knocked her down while she was jogging. No, he liked it. He could say that to himself. He laughed inside when he saw it.

12

Yoharie

Yoharie (part thirteen)

(2019, Stephanie Foster)