Church of the Dog (3 page)

“You’re welcome.”

“Leaving?” He sounds disappointed.

“This has been such an incredible experience, I don’t want it to be wrecked when thousands of international visitors in cowboy hats take over.”

“Good point. Can I walk with you?” He has a sweetness about him and a clear, vibrant radiance. So although I usually don’t let unfamiliar men anywhere near me, I say, “All right.”

“I’m Adam,” he says.

“Mara,” I reply, and we shake hands.

“First time here?”

“Yeah. Yours?”

“No. I’ve come here every year on this day for the last two years to watch the sun rise.”

“Hm. Birthday?” I ask.

“Actually, my brother died on this day three years ago.”

“Sorry,” I say, and he nods and looks at the ground. “Why here?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain. To me the canyon is like a giant wound formed from the natural cycles of life, and what I find comforting about being here is people’s acceptance of it. No one sits here and tells the Earth that time will heal this wound, and no one calls the processes that created it ‘tragic.’ No one expects the Earth here to be like it was before the river cut the canyon. People just leave it alone and find the beauty in it as it is.”

I look him in the eye to let him know I understand. We sit, staring out at the canyon and reflecting in silence for a few minutes.

“Do you live nearby?” I ask.

“Triumph, Idaho. You?”

“I don’t live anywhere right now. I just spent two years teaching on a reservation on the west side of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. In a couple weeks I’ll be in a tiny town in northeastern Oregon. Right now I’m just trying to bleach out all the fungus that undoubtedly grew on me during the last two years.”

He gives me one of those single laughs that is more like a smiling exhale. I love his vibrant glow.

“How long are you staying?” I ask.

“About another half hour,” Adam replies. “What about you? Where are you headed next?”

“I don’t know. I’d like to see Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon, but I’d also like to avoid crowds.”

“Try Hovenweep. It’s small, but I think you’ll like it. On both sides of the gulch are several small ruins that have peep-holes so the residents could see their neighbors. Very few people go there because you have to drive on washboard dirt roads for a long time.”

We reach my truck. “Thanks for the tip,” I say. I’m distracted by the violet I see swirling around his head.

“Thanks for making my morning more beautiful,” he says with sincerity, leaving me feeling flustered and awkward.

Somehow, leaving him doesn’t feel natural, but I don’t know what else to do. I mean, he is a stranger.

I step into my truck, but before I can say good-bye, he says, “I hope our paths will cross again.”

“You just never know,” I reply with a smile that surely reflects my conflicted feelings about leaving him, and shut the door.

As I back out of my parking space, he gives a little wave, and I give one back.

A sign welcomes me to Three Hills, population 2,147. Actually, everyone who passed me on the road for the last twenty miles welcomed me. Every single person waved at me as they passed. Every single one. The waves aren’t big. They’re usually just a finger or two lifted off the top of the steering wheel, but, still, it’s congenial.

I feel like I’ve discovered a hidden valley and a world that hasn’t existed since the fifties. Children play in the outdoor city swimming pool. Old men sit outside the feed store. The electric company is a co-op. I pass a park that sits in front of the elementary school, a library/historical museum, and a grocery store. On the other side of the street is the senior citizens’ center, a drugstore, a bank, a fabric store, and another bank. People look friendly. On the left side there’s an auto shop, Kate’s Pizza and Video, the Elks Club, and a Les Schwab tire store. There’s a dentist’s office and a chiropractor’s office, a bowling alley, and, up on the hill, a small hospital. On my way out of town I pass a graveyard, a concrete dam, and a small lake.

I love it. I love my new town. Good-bye, moldy, mossy, spongy, rainy forest. Good-bye, months and months and months of such thick clouds and darkness that a person can’t see any colors outside. I’m living in the glorious sunshine now.

I drive at least ten miles beyond town, where the golden grass gives way to forested mountains. There, I turn down a dirt road and find a spot that looks acceptable for camping.

“Hi, Gram,” I say as she and I sit on a big rock just off the coast in my dream. The waves crash against us, tickling us with mist.

“Isn’t this lovely?” she asks me, obviously enjoying the spot she chose. “I thought you’d like it.” I smile and nod while she exhales and says with a sigh, “Oh, how I love the sea.” She scans the horizon beyond the edge of the water. “So how are things going?” she asks.

“Oh, they’re okay,” I tell her.

“Found a place to live yet?” she asks.

“No, Gram, not yet,” I reply.

“You will soon. Don’t worry. I talked to your dad earlier, and he says it’ll be obvious.” She pats me on the shoulder to emphasize her reassurance. “Hey, some handsome fellow came looking for you in my dream the other night. . . . Said he met you at the Grand Canyon. . . . Ring any bells?” She gives me a wink.

“Did you like him?” I ask, a little shy.

“I liked him,” she assures me.

This is how it goes. Gram and I meet in our dreams. We call them our vacations. I always let her pick the place. We end up at the ocean a lot. Then we go back to our bodies and finish sleeping.

Even before I open my eyes, I smell the sun warming the pine needles, releasing their fragrance. I love that smell. I crawl out of the bed of my truck and look through my big Tupperware box full of clothes for something to wear to the fair. It’s been years since I’ve been to a fair, and it’s a great opportunity to learn a little about my new community. I braid my hair and pour some water out of my water bottle onto my washcloth so I can wash my face and armpits. Then I brush my teeth, put on some sunblock, and drive into town.

I walk by the draft horses, my favorite, the sheep and goats, and then find myself at a hog auction watching a girl grieve for her hog as it’s being auctioned off. It’s like a car wreck, where despite the horror you can’t stop watching. The other hogs went for about $2.50 a pound, but hers, being a runt, sells for only $2.35 a pound. Her EAT BEEF sign on the hog doesn’t deter its sale as it appears she had hoped it would.

What a horrible tradition: Get the kids to invest their heart and soul raising an animal regarded as livestock, and then make them take their baby, their pet, their friend to the fair and sell it to people who will kill and eat it. Am I the only one who sees this as barbaric?

The girl is bordering on hysterical. She is being asked to pose in a picture with her hog and the people who bought it. She is supposed to feel pride from this experience, but she doesn’t. She feels grief. And no one validates her grief, because to do so would require questioning the ethics of their lifestyle. It’s much easier to rely on tradition than to question it.

I want that hog. Then I’ll start a livestock sanctuary for all the mourning 4-H kids. They can sneak out to my farm to visit them, and when they are free from the oppression sometimes referred to as “childhood,” they can take back their pet and live happily ever after. In my perfect world this is how it will work.

As they pose for the picture, the hog nuzzles her leg. I find myself crying at the hog auction, which is not such a good thing, and I use my long hair to try to hide my face from the farmers sitting around me.

“Hey, girl, you okay?” the guy sitting next to me asks. I nod without looking at him and walk away.

I want to steal that hog. I want to ride around on horses with a group of vegetarian cowgirls, stealing little kids’ farm pets (with the kids’ help and consent) and taking them to the farm pet sanctuary before their parents can make them sell them for slaughter.

The girl is getting tired now. Her face is white, and her lack of energy makes her seem very small all of a sudden. She begins to seem a little invisible to me as the future pet eaters walk away with her baby. The hog looks back at her, and I know she will never forget this moment.

I know this experience is supposed to teach her something good about money, and I’m sure for many less sensitive kids it does. But what they just taught her is that money is something you get when you betray your friends and betray your heart, and, therefore, good people don’t have money. I’m willing to bet she’ll resist prosperity for a long, long time. I mean, if money hurts this much, why would she want it?

I run up to the hog eaters. “I’ll give you $2.45 a pound for that hog,” I announce.

The obese man with the seed company hat looks at me like I’m nuts.

“Please,” I say.

He looks at my undoubtedly bloodshot eyes and says, “Sold.”

I walk the hog over to where the girl’s mother is holding her. “Excuse me,” I start. She looks up. “I just wanted to let you know I’m a vegetarian, and I just bought your hog.” She and her mom start to laugh. I’m not sure whether they’re laughing because they’re relieved or whether they’re laughing at me because I’m a vegetarian who just bought a hog.

“His name is Harvey,” the girl says. “I’m Emily.”

“Barbara McDougal,” her mother introduces herself.

"Mara. Mara O’Shaunnessey,” I say and shake their hands. “I’m the new art teacher here in town.”

“You’ll be my teacher!” Emily says.

“When I get settled, you’ll be welcome to visit Harvey. Hey, I’ve never had a hog before. Anything I should know?”

“He likes Oreos. And he likes it when you scratch his belly. Be careful when you open a gate, because he’ll knock you over trying to get out. He gets lonely. And he likes dogs. And if you have to give him medicine, put it inside a Twinkie and he’ll eat it right up.”

“Got it,” I say. “See you in a couple days, I guess!” I walk the hog toward the door, but before I make it out, I hear a slightly familiar voice.

“You just bought yourself a pet, didn’t you?” It’s the man who had been sitting next to me.

I just smiled.

“Dang, girl. What are you gonna do with a hog if you ain’t gonna eat it?”

“Ride it around when my pickup breaks, I suppose,” I answer.

“You probably live in a city, too, right? Oh, your neighbors are gonna love you.”

“Oh, even better. I don’t live anywhere.” I laughed. My heart sure gets me into some real pickles.

“So where are you going to keep your new pet?” He was clearly enjoying giving me a bad time, or he was beyond fascinated by what he probably regarded as the most stupid and impulsive act he had ever witnessed.

“Your place for the time being, I guess,” I replied jokingly.

To my surprise he paused and thought about it. “That might work. I’d need to run it by my dad first. Family ranch. Name’s Tim Grennan.” He held out his hand.

“Mara. I’m the new art teacher in town.”

“Tell you what. Let’s just go. It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, and I think if my dad sees how pretty you are, he’ll forgive me for bringing a pet hog home.”

I follow Tim to my hog’s new home. Just as we turn off the road onto his driveway, I notice a glow coming from just up the road. I can just barely see the top of a house.

I back up to the chute Tim points to. Then I get out, drop my tailgate, and untie Harvey. He runs down the chute and searches the nearest trough for anything that may have been left behind. I realize I’m going to have to feed him somehow.

“The guys at the feed store will set you up. You just tell them the whole story of how you got this hog, and when they stop laughing, they’ll get you exactly what you need,” Tim says.

“I’m on it,” I say with a big smile. “Hey, who lives over there?” I point to the glow.

“Edith and Earl McRae. Nice folks.” He spits. “Hey, they have an old employee bunkhouse but no employees. I don’t know what kind of shape it’s in. They might be willing to rent it to you.”

That is all I need to hear.

I stop at the window at the end of the upstairs hall and look out over part of my ranch. Twenty-six thousand acres. Twelve hundred cow-calf pairs. My ranch. It’s so strange to think that one day it won’t be my ranch. I won’t be making the calls. I won’t be looking after it. Would Edith sell it? She couldn’t run it alone. I always wanted Daniel to have it, but seein’ as he moved a quarter of the world away, I doubt he would want to spend the rest of his life looking after it. Too bad. It’s a good life, an honest life. Gets you out of bed every morning. No boss man barkin’ at you.

I think about all the old houses I pass on my drives, old houses falling to the ground because a neighbor bought the ranch for the land and had no use for the house. One day there’s a leak in the roof, and the next it’s a pile of rubble. What if that happens? What if this house where I’ve lived my whole life just falls to the ground? What if the next person undoes everything I spent my life doing?

Twenty-six thousand acres. Do you know how much land that is? Do you got any idea how much land that is? Better yet, do you got any idea how much fencing that is? Won’t be long before the ground is frozen. I’d better get on it just as soon as we’re done with the silage.

What if I’m really sick? What if one day I’m out there fixing fences and then, boom, gone. I don’t wanna die alone somewhere on my land with my wife, Edith, worryin’ and turkey vultures pickin’ at me so that when she finds me, I’m an awful disturbing mess. I don’t wanna spend money she’ll need when I’m gone to hire out to fix fences, but I also don’t wanna leave her with bad fences.

I need some help around here. I need Daniel. I gotta get Daniel back home.

Then I notice a goddamned foreign pickup in my driveway. What the hell? Now who in their right mind would buy a goddamned foreign pickup? What the hell do the Japanese know about what a ranch demands of a truck? Are there even any cattle in Japan? I honestly do not know.