Saints Among Us (9 page)

“INCOMING!”
The voice was Joe’s, amplified by a bullhorn. “I need everybody at the staging area in five minutes.”

“Let’s go, Royce.” Miranda scrambled to her feet as Ellen hastily cleaned up the remains of the meal. “I heard they were going to search a new area today, so we probably are going to get a lot of animals tonight. The number of rescues has been tapering off recently,” Miranda told June and Alice, “but if the new area hasn’t been scouted yet, it’s possible they have found pets alive.” She and Royce stomped their feet into rubber barn boots and took off along the path. All around the camping area, flashlights and lanterns bobbed wildly as people rushed to get to their stations.

Alice had been assigned a job, as had June, and each rushed to find her team leader. Alice’s team leader was Corinne, the kennel manager. As the dogs were unloaded, Corinne and a dog trainer assessed each one.

“Most of them are docile,” said Corinne to the assembled volunteers. “They’re starved and weak and scared to death, very dispirited. Occasionally we get a dog that is not very happy, and we do not expect you to handle any of the dangerous ones. That’s our job.”

Alice was a bit relieved. She had not fully realized the extent of the work to be done when she first envisioned volunteering, and seeing all the required skills made her feel somewhat inadequate.

She stood back as the first set of kennels was unloaded from a truck. The men handling the crates were Darrell and Oren, and Alice learned that both men were locals. They were donating the use of their vehicles and their time to locate animals.

“They started doing this the second day Riley went out, and they’ve been at it ever since,” Miranda told her. “They’re like superheroes or something.”

Royce took the first dog, a black Lab so weak he could not even walk on his own. Alice’s eyes teared as Royce scooped up the animal and headed for the bathing area.

Miranda went next, getting a beagle whose tail feebly wagged as it was handed out of its kennel wrapped in a blanket. “Leg injury,” said Corinne. “Skip the bath. Take this one directly to the intake station and then give it vet priority.”

Two more dogs were unloaded: a pit bull, who was able to walk on his own, although Alice could count each of his ribs; and a huge rottweiler that required two men to carry it on a blanket. Kyle, the front-gate guard, and tattooed Riley stepped forward.

“Careful,” Corinne warned. “She’s pregnant. Due pretty soon and not looking too good.” As the men lifted the blanket, the rottie lifted her massive head for a moment, then let it flop back down as if she was too ill to care what was happening.

Oren drove the first pickup truck away and Darrell backed a second one into the unloading zone.

“Stand back,” Corinne said as she opened the back of the truck and shone a flashlight on the first dog. Alice could hear a steady rumbling growl interspersed with the occasional snarl or bark. “This one’s going to take some finesse.” Corinne took a stick with an expandable piece on the end and stuck it through the cage bars. Once it was inside, she released a trigger, and the end of the stick became a wide restraint that she pressed against the dog.

The dog went wild at first, biting at the stick and turning flips in the confined space. Finally, when it appeared to have exhausted its energy, it stood panting in the back of the cage with the restraint pressed against its chest.

“Go around to the side and say something to it,” Corinne instructed another volunteer.

“What do I say?”

“Anything. We just need to distract him for a moment.”

The dog handler, Lucinda, held a long pole with a loop on it. As another volunteer cautiously opened the kennel door a scant inch, Lucinda maneuvered her pole through. The dog snarled at her until the volunteer stepped into its side view and spoke to it. Startled, the dog turned to snap futilely at the speaker. Lucinda seized the opportunity to neatly slip the loop over the dog’s head and tighten it.

“This is hard to watch,” said a man behind Alice. “But it’s the safest way to handle him. He’s probably just frightened. He doesn’t know we want to make his life better. A lot of these scary ones become different animals after a few meals and a couple days of kindness.”

Lucinda tugged and the dog rushed forward, banging open the cage door. He whirled and tried to bite the catchpole, but Lucinda took off at a smart clip, expertly holding the dog at a distance. Finally, the dog stopped resisting. He began to trot along beside Lucinda, ignoring the pole.

“All right.” Corinne mimed wiping sweat from her brow. “Let’s hope he’s the only one with enough energy to be feisty tonight.” She peered into the next kennel, then opened the door and reached in. Over her shoulder, she said, “Alice, this is a good one for you to start with.”

As Corinne lifted a small, dark-colored cocker spaniel from its kennel and stood it on its feet, Alice stepped forward. Corinne handed her the purple slip lead she had placed on the dog and looped a piece of elastic with an index card encased in plastic around Alice’s wrist. “Whatever you do, do not lose this information. Give it to the people at the intake table.” She looked down at the dog. “I believe this one can walk on its own. If not, just ask for help if you’re nervous at all about picking it up.”

“Hi, baby.” Alice knelt and extended a fisted hand as she had seen the others do. The cocker did not even try to sniff her, just stood there with its head hanging down. “Come on, sweetheart, we’re going to get you feeling better. Let’s go this way.”

The little dog walked docilely behind her as she coaxed it over to the bathing station, where a group of people waited.

“What a pretty little one,” said Ellen. She wore elbow-length rubber gloves, and she scooped up the dog, setting it in a baby pool filled with a soapy mix. “A lot of them have been soaked in oil or other gunk,” she told Alice as she poured shampoo over the cocker and quickly went over its body. To Alice’s surprise, the newly cleaned dog was black and white. “We clean them up and then they get a flea dip. After that, you take her over to that table, where Hanna will do her paperwork.”

Alice spoke softly to the little dog as it was rinsed and then sent into the flea dip. Wet, it was apparent that the dog had not eaten in a long time. Like many of the others she had seen, it was emaciated to the point of looking skeletal. After a quick towel dry, a volunteer laid a small towel over the dog’s back like a blanket. “Okay, off you go.”

At the intake table, Alice’s dog received a collar with a number on it. She surrendered the index card, and its information was transferred to the dog’s record with the same number. The dog was weighed and listed as a female black-and-white parti-color cocker spaniel.

Next, a vet examined the dog. To Alice’s disappointment, her dog had not been placed in Mark’s line, but in that of the vet who had just arrived that afternoon. She was watching Mark, at the next table, go over the pregnant rottweiler when a grouchy voice said, “Hey, lady. Quit wasting my time and get that dog on the table.”

Gina, her friend from the CCU, was the vet tech assisting, and she rolled her eyes as Alice lifted the cocker onto the exam table. The vet’s name tag said Dr. Spade. Alice was slightly surprised. All the other folks around camp, from vets to volunteers, wrote their first names on their own name tags.

Dr. Spade completely ignored her while he examined the cocker, addressing his comments to Gina. As the vet tech laid the little dog on its side, Alice heard Gina suck in her breath.

“What’s wrong?”

Dr. Spade did not appear to have heard her. Gina said, “Tumor.” She had her hands full as the cocker spaniel began to struggle and growl.

Alice hurried around the head of the table and knelt, looking into the dog’s eyes. “It’s all right, girl. You’re going to be all right.”

The dog quieted. Gina said, “Wow, she likes you.”

“Excuse me.” The vet’s voice was sarcastic and cutting. He practically pushed Alice out of the way. As he examined the tumor, the dog became more and more agitated. Finally, the vet was done, and Gina set the dog on the ground.

The cocker rushed to Alice’s side and cowered against her legs. Gina’s eyebrows went up and her eyes twinkled. “Looks like you’ve got a new friend.”

“Don’t get too attached,” Dr. Spade said brusquely. “That tumor looks malignant. If it’s metastasized, she won’t make it. Better put her in the CCU where we can see how she does.”

Alice was indignant, but she bit her tongue and led her small charge away. Don’t get too attached, indeed. She did not care if the dog had one day or ten years left to live, the animal deserved as much love as anyone could give until an owner was found or it was taken into foster care. After placing the cocker in a kennel in critical care with water and a small amount of food, Alice returned to the unloading zone.

Twice more, she shepherded dogs through the intake process. Her second charge was a puppy with a deep wound on its throat. The puppy was so docile and quiet she feared it had other injuries, but when Mark examined the pup, he did not think the wound was as serious as Alice thought. He bet her a cookie that the puppy would be on its feet with its tail wagging by the following evening.

“I hope so.” She felt her lip tremble.

Mark put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her briefly. “You’re doing a great job. It’s been a long day.”

Alice allowed herself to rest her head against Mark’s shoulder for a moment, leaning on his strength. “There are only a few dogs left to be examined,” she told him. “I’m almost done.”

Her next dog was a tiny Yorkie who smelled so bad that she had to breathe through her mouth as she carried him to the bathing area. The index card said that it had been found in a sewer pipe, and Alice had no trouble believing this. Even so, the terrier was livelier than most of the other dogs brought in. It yapped and tried to lick Alice’s face after its bath, when she finally could stand to get close to it. When the dog was weighed, the scale did not even reach four pounds, and everyone laughed.

“He’s a little loud mouth,” said Hanna as she went through his paperwork.

Unlike Alice’s first two dogs, the male Yorkie was healthy and did not need to go into the CCU, although he was placed in a special area designated for what one volunteer affectionately called “the pocket pups.”

It was past eleven by the time Alice went looking for June for their walk back to the tent. As she’d suspected, she found her friend in the cat room. After waiting a few minutes for June to bottle-feed an orphaned kitten, the two women headed for their tent.

Alice shared her evening’s work with June. As they washed up, her companion told Alice about the seven cats that had been brought in. “One of the people on the search team told me she expects they’ll be finding more cats in the next few weeks. She said that the cats are just now starting to get hungry enough to come out from their hiding places when the rescue teams arrive.”

“It breaks my heart to think about how all the animals must feel, wondering where their families have gone. Imagine how afraid they must be.”

June reached up to turn out the lantern as Alice crawled onto her air mattress. “I know. But think of the ones we helped tonight. In a few days they’ll be feeling better, and perhaps some of them can be reunited with their families.”

Chapter Nine

J
ane was raking leaves onto a sheet of plastic in the yard Wednesday morning. She already had had a busy day, rising early to get a six thirty breakfast on the table for a pair of sisters who were traveling home to Maine for Thanksgiving. The women had stayed only the one night, but they were delightfully enthusiastic about the inn and expressed a desire to return one day. Jane silently congratulated herself on her menu, whole-wheat French toast stuffed with cream cheese and pecans, coated with cinnamon-butter sauce and topped with a light dusting of powdered sugar.

She was just about to drag off her leaves to the back when Lloyd Tynan came driving by. In the passenger seat, Jane could see her aunt. Lloyd turned into the driveway as Jane waved and leaned on her rake. The car continued on to the parking area at the back of the house, and by the time Jane walked to meet them, Lloyd had turned around and dropped off Ethel. She and Jane met outside the back door, and both waved good-bye to Lloyd.

“Hello, Aunt Ethel. Please come in. Would you like some coffee or tea? And I just made banana cream pie this morning. You’ll have to let me know if it tastes all right.”

Ethel followed Jane into the kitchen, stopping to remove her coat and hang it on a hook near the door. “Thank you, dear. I would love a cup of tea. I’m sure your banana cream pie does not need my seal of approval, but I’ll be happy to give it anyway.”

Jane chuckled. “Thank you.” She busied herself preparing the snack.

“I stopped to tell you about last night’s board meeting,” Ethel announced.

“Oh, I forgot there was a meeting. I’ll have to remember this so I can tell Alice about it when she calls.”

“Tell her I am remembering her in my prayers and that I expect her to be very careful down there.”

“I will.” Jane brought tea and pie to the table and sank into a seat at an angle to her aunt’s. “So what happened at the board meeting?” She propped her chin on her hand and prepared for one of Ethel’s lengthy stories.

She wasn’t disappointed.

“Well.” Ethel took a dainty sip of her drink. “Alice wasn’t there, of course, or June. So our attendance was down. Lloyd and me, Fred, Pastor Henry and Patsy, Cyril and…who am I forgetting? Rev. Thompson had another meeting. Oh, Sylvia. And Florence.” She sniffed. “I believe she thinks that there won’t be any decent crafts to sell except for those she personally oversees.”

Jane choked back a laugh. Diplomatically, she said, “We’ll have plenty of lovely things from your Seniors Social Circle. They have planned a surprising number of donations. Although I am grateful for the way Florence has embraced the project.”

“Yes. Well, maybe next year she’ll be a little more supportive from the get-go. It’s always easier to jump on the bandwagon once it’s underway.”

“So what else have you decided to do?” Jane knew from experience that the only thing to do when her aunt got on the topic of her differences with Florence Simpson was to distract Ethel.

“I had another idea.” Ethel sat forward. “We had intended to use the Assembly Room, but I want to put up a canopy or tent outside.”

“A canopy?” Jane remembered Louise saying something about Ethel’s plan to move the entire crafts fair outside. “For what?”

“Some of the crafters with weatherproof items can have booth space out there. It’ll give us more revenue. And I thought it might be nice to have hot chocolate and cider for sale, maybe some demonstrations of traditional crafts and equipment.”

Jane couldn’t think of anything that fit into that category offhand. “Such as?”

“A cider press,” Ethel said. “A spinning wheel. Or even sheep shearing. Things like that.”

Jane raised her eyebrows. “Sounds like fun, if you can get all that organized in’” She glanced at the calendar. “Three and a half weeks.”

“Oh, I’ve already made some calls. Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been doing?”

Jane stretched across the table for the list she had been working with earlier that morning. She reeled off the names of people who had agreed to make crafts to benefit the church. Next, she listed the vendors who had committed to purchase space at the fair.

“Goodness!” Ethel was beaming. “You’ve been a busy woman, Jane. Have you’”

“Jane, I can’t find the’” Louise came walking briskly into the kitchen. When she saw Ethel, she stopped.

Ethel seemed just as taken aback. Then, right before Jane’s eyes, her aunt set down her teacup and rose. “Well, Jane, I must be getting on my way. I really only stopped to tell you about the board meeting and get an update.” She rose and majestically sailed out the door, gathering up her coat on the way.

Jane was too shocked to speak. Their aunt was just…just
impossible
sometimes.

“Did you see that? How unreasonable can a person be? She didn’t even acknowledge my presence.” Louise’s tone underscored her disappointment.

“Oh, Louise, I’m sure Aunt Ethel didn’t mean’”

“Yes, she did. That was a direct cut. Just the way those women in Atlanta treated Scarlett O’Hara in
Gone with the Wind
.”

Scarlett O’Hara? Jane could not picture Louise relating to the heroine of a romantic fiction epic like Margaret Mitchell’s beloved story. “She doesn’t know what to say to you,” she told her. “I suspect she feels guilty.”

“Well, she need not bother.” Louise raised her chin in a manner that Jane thought absolutely defined her eldest sister’s personality. “I do not intend to let it matter. And I hope you will convey to her that it didn’t.”

“Ho now! Don’t put me in the middle of this.” Jane got up and walked to the counter. “How about a piece of banana cream pie? It’s guaranteed to make you feel better.” She decided not to mention that Ethel also had enjoyed it.

Wednesday afternoon, Alice was in the CCU checking on the four-legged patients. Many of the dogs who had come in were gone already, either taken by a rescue group or moved to the outside runs as their health improved. She stroked the head of the sweet rottweiler. They would not move her anywhere in her advanced state of pregnancy. Some of the volunteers had started a pool on when and how many pups would be born.

Then she checked on the dog about whom she was most concerned, a German shepherd that had been brought in last night. According to Darrell and Oren, the dog had been found lying on a broken board beneath a collapsed house. They only found it because a window of the house bore a sticker that said, “In case of fire, there are x number of pets inside.” Oren demanded Darrell stop so he could take a quick look. The dog, a large male, did not protest at all when they moved him. Mark put in an intravenous line to rehydrate the dog and balance its electrolytes, but the animal had yet to take a drink or eat a single thing. Alice stayed with him awhile, stroking his fur and talking softly to him.

Finally, she took her cocker spaniel outside. The little girl quickly had made a place in Alice’s heart for herself. Despite the large tumor attached to her belly, she trotted happily to the grassy area, then walked nicely at Alice’s side until it was time to return her.

Walking through the carport with its rows of kennels stacked on each side, Alice opened the door and entered the cool, calm environment of the CCU. She opened the kennel door and bent to slip off the lead she had placed around the dog’s neck.

“Don’t put yourself in a position for that dog to bite you in the face,” Dr. Spade ordered from the far side of the room.

Alice had not seen him because he was hidden by a bank of kennels. She pressed her lips together and urged the little dog back into her kennel gently. It was not in Alice’s nature to respond sharply, but she was tempted during this unpleasant encounter.

The man had no social skills whatsoever. Already this morning, he had made one volunteer cry and ordered another one out of the CCU after the young man accidentally fed a dog the wrong kind of food. Alice was pretty sure the dog would not expire from eating one meal of a different type. Dr. Spade certainly hadn’t needed to be so harsh.

Knowing that her further assistance would be rejected by the curt veterinarian, she left the CCU. Outside, there was a huge backlog of dog bowls to be washed, so she took a seat on a folding chair beneath one canopy. “Would you like some help?” she asked Edith. Edith was the oldest volunteer who had arrived to date. She claimed to be seventy-eight, although she was nearly as agile as Alice herself.

“I’d love it. Seems like every dog dish in the place is in that pile over there.” Edith pointed to a nearby table. “Better put on some gloves. That bleach will take the skin off your hands.”

Alice chatted with Edith as they placed bowls in the baby pool filled with bleach, then scrubbed them and dropped them into a second pool of rinse water, where another helper fished them out and laid them in the sun to dry. Miranda, Alice’s seventeen-year-old neighbor from the tents, ran back and forth delivering clean bowls and returning with more to be washed.

Alice and Edith were contentedly scrubbing away when a piercing scream tore through the air. Alice flinched, her eyes going to the source of the scream. It came from a young woman standing near the house. She was looking up and pointing. Alice took it in during one frozen split second. Her gaze lifted to the roof—just in time to see someone slide over the edge and fall to the ground.

Alice leaped to her feet. It seemed as if the entire camp was converging on the scene, but as she neared, several people cleared the way for her as they remembered she had medical training.

The person had fallen into a sizable, overgrown shrub and could not be seen. Alice dropped to her stomach and began to wiggle beneath the low-hanging branches when she felt a hand grab her ankle, preventing her from moving any farther.

“Just wait a minute there. Do not touch that person!” Alice recognized the voice of Dr. Spade.

Then she heard another voice. “Please take your hands off that woman. She is our acting medical professional.” That was Joe. Still, the vise around her ankle didn’t yield.

“Dr. Spade.” The voice belonged to Mark. “Alice is a nurse. Please release her. Now!”

Alice had never in her entire life heard Mark sound so stern. He was one of the most even-tempered, gentle, kind people she had ever met. Those were some of the things that had attracted her to him so many years ago.

The pressure on her ankle disappeared. Alice began to squirm forward again. She could see a glimpse of blue T-shirt. Her heart sank as she saw how still the person lay.

“Hello,” she said. “It’s Alice, the nurse. Can you tell me what hurts?”

There was no response. As she neared, she realized the person was Riley, the tough-looking, tattooed young man in charge of supplies she had met when she first arrived. Since then, she had noticed how lively and cheerful Riley was. He seemed to be the self-appointed morale officer for the whole camp.

“Riley,” she said as she reached him. “Can you hear me?” She took his wrist in her fingers, relieved to feel a strong, steady pulse. She leaned over him to check his pupils and started in surprise as he opened his eyes.

“Aw, man,” he said slowly. “I hurt.”

“I imagine you do. Can you tell me your full name?”

“Richard Rochester Riley III.”

Alice took a moment to absorb the folly of parents who would give a child a name like that.

“Good, Riley. Where does it hurt?”

“Everywhere.” He attempted a grin. “Tell me I was graceful. At least tell me I fell off that stupid roof like I knew what I was doing.”

“I certainly hope you didn’t.” Alice couldn’t help laughing at his comical words. “Now, what hurts the worst?”

“My head. My arm—ow!”

It was easy to see why he had yelled. Riley’s forearm lay splayed at an awkward angle. “Don’t move,” she said. “Let me look you over. Where else does it hurt?”

She checked around his head but did not see any blood, and she was encouraged by how alert he seemed. There was no blood visible anywhere else either, although she would not know until he was moved.

“I think my arm is the only bad thing,” Riley informed her. “I can feel my toes wiggling and my legs move. My back hurts a little, but I guess that’s what happens when you take a header off a roof.”