Chez Stinky (10 page)

After feeding the cats, Kat faced the prospect of taking Tessa out for her walk. Once again it was daunting, but she’d been thinking about the problem and had an idea for how she might be able to walk Tessa without causing herself undue bodily harm.

The primary issue was simple physics: Kat didn’t have enough weight to offset the force of Tessa. More weight could slow down Tessa. In horse races, they put weights on the horses to even the field. If Kat could weigh down Tessa somehow, the dog might actually tire herself out. And a dog that’s asleep is usually behaving itself.

On her way back to the motel the day before, Kat had stopped at the local feed store for supplies. At the store, she purchased medium-size and giant dog harnesses, a sturdy leash, two plastic water bottles, and a small nylon saddle-horn bag that was probably supposed to be used for trail rides. That night, using a needle and thread from her travel sewing kit, she had attached the saddle bag to the medium-size harness.

When Kat went out to the Tessa Hut, she was prepared. She had collected Chelsey from the basement without incident and tied her leash to a tree while she dealt with Tessa. Linus and Lori were milling around waiting for the walk to start.

She called Linus over to her and put the giant dog harness on him and attached the loop end of the leash through the ring on the top of the harness. As usual, he was obliging and wagged his tail. “Your job is to be the boat anchor, Big Guy. I hope you’re up for this.” Linus wagged again, which Kat took as a ‘yes.’ He followed her to the doorway with the leash dragging behind him.

Tessa started barking furiously as Kat approached her enclosure; she had begun the levitation routine and was bouncing behind the chain link fence. Kat gathered up her supplies and entered the enclosure. Tessa started to lunge at her, but paused briefly as if she remembered that this human didn’t like being jumped on. Instead, she jumped up around Kat, getting extremely close to her, but never actually touching her.

Holding the harness out in front of her, Kat waited for the right moment and slipped the harness over Tessa’s head. Then she grabbed the dog firmly by the shoulders so she could affix the strap under her stomach. Tessa noticed the extra weight from the water bottles in the pockets of the bag, which slowed her jumping a bit. Kat took advantage of this momentary slowdown to clip a leash on the harness.

She and Tessa went out the door and once again the dog started dragging Kat toward the forest. As she passed Linus, Kat grabbed the top of his harness. The weight of the giant dog combined with her own gave her enough ballast to stop Tessa’s forward momentum. Kat picked up the end of the leash that had been dragging from Linus’s harness and clipped it to Tessa’s. The two dogs were now attached to each other.

Kat then unclipped her leash from Tessa so the two dogs would be free to walk together without her. She knew Linus wasn’t going anywhere and he weighed about three or four times as much as Tessa, so she wasn’t going anywhere without him. The big dog looked at Kat with a confused expression as Tessa whirled around him in gleeful exuberance.

“It’s okay Linus. Your job is just to keep Tessa from running away. Feel free to run around. Tire her out. Please. I’ll be right here behind you.”

Linus turned back and headed off toward the forest trail with Tessa by his side. The golden retriever was obviously thrilled to be able to go as fast as she wanted, since there was no longer some slowpoke human dragging her down. Kat followed behind with Lori and Chelsey. She laughed as the two harnessed dogs figured out how to work together as a team to deal with obstacles like trees. She was amazed how quickly they caught on, although she did have to untangle them a couple of times after they went on opposite sides of a tree. “Don’t do the George-of-the-Jungle thing, you guys,” she admonished. “It’s embarrassing.”

Kat started playing a little game to help give Tessa the idea that coming when called could be fun. She whistled and Linus would stop, perk up his ears and come running back to her. Tessa had no choice but to follow. Then the pair would run ahead again along the trail. Now that she was able to run and was weighted down by the water bottles, Tessa finally was showing signs of fatigue.

With the dogs occupied, Kat was able to relax and simply enjoy the experience of walking through the forest for the first time. She paused to notice the mingling of fragrances wafting through the trees. She recognized pine, wild roses, and the loamy smell of leaves decomposing in the rich, dark soil of the forest floor. Lori and Chelsey trotted along by her side, obviously just content to have a human around to take them on walks.

After the walk, Kat was feeling proud of herself. When she had put Tessa back into her enclosure, the dog had curled up on the floor for a nap. It was unprecedented: the spaz dog was tired. The thrill of victory coursed through her body, but stopped at her stomach where it dissolved into a pang of hunger. She was out of most of the “road food” she had been eating at the Enchanted Moose and she was getting tired of subsisting on stale chips and Triscuits, anyway. All this walking through the forest made a girl hungry.

Kat went back into the house and started investigating the kitchen. Although thankfully someone had cleaned out the refrigerator at some point, the cabinets were a different story. Behind the rustic tongue-and-groove cabinet doors lurked some seriously antiquated foodstuffs. Sorting through the contents quickly quelled her appetite. Some of the jars in the back of the cabinets looked like they might contain produce Abigail had canned the last time Kat had been here in the 70s. It also appeared that Abigail wasn’t bothered by details like dating her canned goods and the mysterious reddish-brown contents harbored underneath those rusty lids didn’t look appetizing.

Death by botulism didn’t seem like a good way to go. A trip to the grocery store for food, cleaning supplies, and a giant box of Hefty bags was definitely in order. The thick layer of grayish-brown dust that coated everything would give a health inspector the shakes, and Kat wasn’t tempted to cook anything here until she had hosed down the kitchen. Maybe with a massive industrial power sprayer. In the short term, stopping by the deli for a sandwich was probably a good idea.

After getting something to eat and acquiring most of the items on her ever-expanding grocery list in town, Kat returned to Chez Stinky to at least attack the surface filth. She donned a bandanna and put on one of Abigail’s old frilly aprons and a pair of rubber gloves. The outfit made her look like a cross between a bag lady and the star of some 50s advertisement for iron supplements. So much for her cute calico sundress and the sparkling clean white tile in her apartment kitchen. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed a scrubby sponge and set to work.

Kat filled two large, black garbage bags with antique food products from the cabinets. It was like an archive of food-packaging history. She knew McCormick spices hadn’t had labels like these for decades. The Green Giant looked like he had a terminal disease; the logotype was sporting a decidedly chartreuse look on most of the cans. Figuring that the home canned goods were largely decomposed anyway, Kat took the jars outside. She dug a small hole and tried to close off her nose while she unscrewed the lids, dumped the contents, and covered them with dirt. The vegetables or whatever they were could return to the land. She put the empty jars in a box next to the spider shed, to be hosed out later. Maybe.

Hours later, Kat was lying spread-eagle on the floor, admitting defeat. She’d been cleaning for hours and had barely made an impact on the powerful quantity of dirt and detritus. Looking up at the ceiling, she noticed the cobwebs artfully draped over the lamp fixtures, creating a tapestry of thin fibers that billowed in the breeze.

She turned her head and looked down. Under the refrigerator was not just a warren of dust bunnies, but also a voluminous scary-looking dust dinosaur. That might explain why the motor made an odd woodpecker-like noise and the refrigerator wasn’t really particularly cold inside. The windows sported a film of dirt, which gave the sunlight streaming in a somewhat prismatic effect. At least the filtered light made it more difficult to see the blanket of dust all over everything.

Kat sighed. Getting this place clean could take a whole lot longer than one day. Professional intervention might be required. It was worth the money to avoid this extreme level of cleaning activity.

Kat jumped as her reverie was disturbed by a wet tongue slurping her ear. She sat up quickly and found herself face-to-face with Lori, who wagged her tail expectantly. “Hi, Lori. How did you get upstairs? You have a thing about ears, don’t you?” Lori looked pleased with herself; her happy panting expression made her seem as if she were smiling almost all the time.

Lori trotted over to one of the big black garbage bags, stuck her head in briefly, and snuffled around. She grabbed something out of the bag and ran down the stairs. Kat leaped up to run after her. Nothing in that bag could be considered fit for anyone’s consumption, human or canine.

Lori made a beeline for the doggie door at the back of the hallway. She scampered outside, thoroughly thrilled with her new prize. Kat opened the door to follow her, but nothing was outside. The dog was fast, that was for sure. But from the right, there were incriminating shredding and scraping noises. Kat ran toward the sound and discovered Lori enthusiastically destroying a box of something that might have been crackers. Or pasta. Now it was mostly well-masticated cardboard pieces. The dog was certainly enjoying herself. Hopefully, Lori had a strong stomach.

She picked up the pieces that surrounded the dog and said, “Lori, no. Stealing creepy old food really isn’t a good idea.” Lori didn’t move from her spot. She just wagged and smiled, watching Kat clean up the mess she’d made. She looked down at Lori. If a dog could look smug, this would be the look. Trying to muster up a more stern tone in the hope of sounding more convincing, she said, “Lori NO! This was bad. You were a
bad
girl.” Lori wagged again, stood up, and began trotting back toward the house.

Kat ran after her and got to the door first. “No way, little dog. You are
not
going back for seconds. You can just stay outside.” Kat went inside and slammed the door behind her.

As she closed the door, a cacophony of unpleasant noises arose from the other side. “RRR, ughghg, hack, BLAP.” She opened the door again and found Lori standing in front of a pile of something noxious and stinky. The dog was still smiling and looked even more pleased with herself.

“Well, I guess you feel better now.”

As Lori sniffed at her fantastic Technicolor creation, Kat took a moment to catch her breath and noticed Lori was looking increasingly interested in the pile. Too interested. Yuck! The dog might actually be disgusting enough to eat it
again
. Waving her hands to shoo Lori farther back out into the yard, she yelled, “NO! Lori NO!” Grabbing a shovel that was leaning on the house next to the back door, she carefully scooped up the pile and carried it over to a shrub, dug a small hole and buried it underneath the plant. Maybe it would work as fertilizer. Recycled, antique food, plant food, what’s the difference to shrubbery?

After hours of cleaning, more dog walks and unpacking, later that afternoon Kat was ready for a nice, long, hot shower. She took off her sweat-stained clothes and stood in the bathroom with Murphee circling around her ankles, hoping for an early dinner.

She twisted the knob to turn on the water; a sputtering noise came from the shower head, but no water emerged. After all the cleaning she’d done, Kat knew that the house did have a functioning well and access to water, at least in the kitchen. Having no shower was going to be beyond disappointing. She stood next to the bathtub and gazed up at the spigot, willing it to produce water. Nothing happened. Murphee stopped circling and looked up at her, wondering why she was just standing there.

Kat whacked the shower knob with her fist in annoyance. The knob fell off and clattered into the bottom of the bathtub. Then with a giant whoosh, the shower head blew off the pipe, crashing into the bathtub in front of a massive rush of water. Murphee, who was opposed to water touching her delicate feline self, squalled a guttural “MEEEEYOOOWWWLLL” and leaped up onto the sink, away from the geyser’s flow. At the same time, Kat jumped backward, slipped on the tile, and landed with a thud on the hard floor. Soaked and now sporting a large painful bruise on her butt, she scrambled to her feet and fumbled through the rushing water, only to discover that she had no way to turn off the water without a pair of pliers.