Traveling Light (34 page)

“Would it help to tell me what’s going on?” Paula asked.

He sat quietly for a few moments and then looked up at her. “Do you know what a puppy mill is?”

She nodded.

“I’ve been trying to put this guy out of business for the past few years. He’s been reported to the USDA. Numerous violations. Their regulations are a joke. Enforcement is an even bigger one.” He stood up and began to pace. “Now he wants out.”

“Well, isn’t that good?” she asked.

He looked at her. “It would be except for the fact that he’s got maybe fifty-five adult purebred dogs stacked in cages that no one wants. Now he’s threatening to set the barn on fire and walk unless rescue groups cough up seventy-five bucks a dog to buy him out.”

The image was so horrendous it stopped her breath, the wind knocked out of her. To burn down a barn full of caged animals? Dread settled like a sick aftertaste; she wasn’t aware that she’d clenched both her fists.

“Dog brokers are up to their eyeballs in puppies; they don’t take adult dogs except to sell as breeding stock,” Rick explained. “I wish I could say this wasn’t typical. They sucker rescue groups by threatening to burn down their operations,” he said bitterly. “After they cash out, they start up again in some other godforsaken state. Now he’s headed to Iowa, land of the free market.”

“This is the legislation you’ve been working on?”

“Part of it.” He blinked and looked down into the creases of his hands.

“So what’s going to happen?”

He sighed and rubbed his face as he stood. “I’ve been arguing with rescue groups all morning. You give the son of a bitch a penny, you give him carte blanche.”

She winced. “But then what about the dogs?”

Rick headed for the door. Eleni was silent.

“Rick,” Paula called, following him out. “Let me come with you,” Paula raised her voice.

He climbed in and started his truck. “Stay here,” he called, turning the truck around in the driveway.

“Pa meh.” Eleni grabbed Paula’s arm and pulled her toward the Escape. Sigmund appeared from nowhere. The bird flew up at Paula, excited by her agitation.

“Get lost.” Paula waved his wingtips away from the top of her head.

“Ciga, Panagiotis, ciga.” Eleni motioned with her hand for him to back off and he did. Eleni climbed into the passenger side.

Luckily, the keys were in the ignition. Backing around, Paula raced down the gravel driveway, skidding a right turn onto Highway 62. She realized she didn’t have her purse but floored it anyway.

The back of Rick’s truck became visible as he crested a hill. “There.” Eleni pointed.

*   *   *

It was about a fifteen-minute drive. Tall columns of gray smoke were visible long before the turn. Trucks and cars were parked along the sides of the road; Paula followed toward a dilapidated white barn that had more bare spots than paint. Smoke billowed in unnatural cloud formations.

In all the commotion she lost sight of Rick. People ran in and out of the barn, their arms loaded with shivering dogs. Someone had dragged a garden hose and was spraying inside the barn door.

“Ekei.” Eleni pointed. Paula spotted him, too, racing past a group carrying large dogs. She parked, flung open the car door and ran after him.

“Paula, wait!” Eleni yelled after her.

Thick gray smoke billowed out the doorway. The cries and screams of dogs were deafening; her skin prickled all over. The smell of ammonia hit her like a vapor barrier as she entered. The urine smell was so strong it seared her nostrils.

Fear gripped her as flames climbed like creeping vines up a corner pillar. Wire cages were stacked into three- and four-high walls of animals separated by narrow aisles. The front third had been emptied, their doors standing open. But as Paula raced deeper into the barn, she found cages jammed with dogs, several packed in each. Spotting three dark figures huddled against one another in the back of a cage, she unlatched the door. “Come on,” she called sweetly. The dogs didn’t move. “Hey, let’s go.” She felt for a collar. She then pulled his scruff and the dog yelped. The bottom of the cage was covered with feces and urine, which was also matted in the dogs’ fur. “I’m sorry, but you gotta get out of here,” she explained, and grabbed the dog by the torso, pulling him away from the other two. He cried out and then braced his feet against the cage, leveraging against her effort.

“Come on,” she grunted, easing up to gather the dog’s front paws and pull him out. The others followed with no resistance. Someone beside her took the dogs and ran.

The fire began making a humming noise that made her body hair stand on end. Flames snaked up the side wall. Her fear felt like dark fingers flittering in her chest. The urge to tear out of the barn was overwhelming. She fought it and turned to the next cage. Unlatching the door, she climbed in and pulled out three more dogs, pointing them toward the sunlight. “Go, run.” Someone behind bent over to lift them.

From the next crate she dragged out three small wiry-coated dogs and set them down. They stood mute, as if it was the first time their feet had touched ground. “Go.” She turned them, pointing them toward the door, and gave them a shove. They all shrank back. Thankfully, someone behind her scooped up all three and ran. As she went deeper into the barn, the whoosh of flames crackled and popped as she opened cages and lifted dogs down. Toward the back she saw walls of caged dogs. Paula knew there were far more than the fifty-five Rick expected. Water from the fire hoses began sprinkling like rain through a missing corner of the roof. And while the fire on one side hissed and steamed in defeat, the other side flared into a fury, consuming the dry wood.

She crouched just below the smoke line, crawling toward the back. Smoke was obscuring the outlines of objects. Opening door after door, she turned in to a machine, reaching in, grabbing dogs. Just moving, acting and racing against the fire that had become her rival. The metal latches were hot to the touch. “Go, go,” she yelled, shooing out dogs into the arms of others. The dogs were paralyzed with fear. “Shit. Go, damn it!” She crawled into each cage, kneeling across months’ worth of accumulated feces and urine.

“Paula.” She looked up. Rick was kneeling on top of the stack with two large dogs in his arms. He had his T-shirt pulled up over his nose and she did the same. She reached up to take the first dog.

“I’ve got her.” She grasped a large husky, the dog’s underside heavy with milk, and handed her off to another person. Then Rick passed down the second.

“You got him?”

“Yeah.” Someone else took the second one.

“Here.” Next Rick handed down a litter of six puppies, each no bigger than Paula’s palm. “He missed some,” Rick said bitterly. Paula transferred them to someone behind her. She followed Rick, taking and lowering dogs while simultaneously working the lower tiers, unlatching cages and pulling out the frightened animals. She looked up. The whole back section of the barn was still loaded. One litter of puppies was isolated in a cage; she picked each up, tucking them into the hem of her sweatshirt. A tall husky in the cage beside them shrieked. Paula opened it, and the dog jumped out, sniffing furiously at the puppies in Paula’s sweatshirt. She knew it was the mother. “Come on, Mama,” Paula said as she handed them all off. “This is their mother,” she said to the person who took them.

A man’s voice yelled from the back of the barn, “Everyone out; it’s gonna collapse.” Someone grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door. The dog screams were deafening.

She wrestled free and ran toward the animal sounds. She caught a glimpse of Rick again, scrambling up and down the top stacks of cages, lowering dogs.

“Rick,” she yelled. “These are tied.” She pantomimed scissors. He tossed his pocketknife. She slashed the ropes and opened the cage doors.

“Out,” she yelled. “Go, go!” she hollered, automatically crawling in, dragging out resistant dogs, shoving them into the aisles, tails so tightly glued under their bodies in fear it looked like they had none.

“Paula,” Rick yelled from on top of the stacks, his arms filled. She climbed up to the bottom empty cage and took them one by one, lowering them toward the barn floor.

She climbed up two stacks, lying down on the cage tops to bend over and open the doors. Heat from the metal wire burned hot through her jeans. The cages were up too high for the dogs to jump.

“Aren’t there ladders?” she yelled to him.

“He probably took ’em all.”

“Motherfucker,” she cursed him, reaching in to pull legs, scruffs, whatever she could get ahold of to lower the dogs down. Some thumped to the ground, yelped and then took off running. She looked over at the aisles; most of the cages were empty. Rick was down on the floor. “Get this one,” he yelled. She opened the cage and leaned in and pulled out a husky by the front leg.

“I can’t get him.”

“Just pull the other leg,” Rick yelled.

She was able to get ahold of the dog’s front to pull him out. Rick knocked over a stack of empty cages and climbed up to reach her. He bent in and grabbed the two adults. She followed Rick’s form; the smoke had gotten so thick she could no longer see daylight.

“Let’s go,” Rick yelled. The din of people calling one another was drowned out by the roar of the flames, hissing from the water and the thud of collapsing beams.

Just as Paula was about to leave, she spotted a small, dark form through dozens of empty wire cages, obscured by the smoke. Alone, the dog was sitting quietly in a corner cage that everyone else had missed. He was serene, his head slightly lowered as if he had already surrendered to his fate. She knocked over empty cages and climbed up to reach the dog. She opened the latch and reached in. “Come on; come on,” she coaxed. The dog looked at her but didn’t move. She then reached in, grabbed a hunk of skin and pulled him out under his arms, lowering herself with the dog clutched to her chest. The ceiling was rippling in coils of fire.

A beam came crashing down from the barn ceiling, to her left. Paula jumped down onto the ground. The back wall of the barn started to cave.

“Rick,” she screamed. The dog’s nails clutched the skin beneath her sweatshirt. Rick jumped down from the top cages, his arms loaded with small dogs. They crawled down the darkened main aisle. She felt disoriented, clutching the brown dog and following the soles of Rick’s shoes.

“Paula,” she heard her mother shriek as she emerged. She rolled over, gasping, trying to get her lungs to fill with air. Eleni pried Paula’s hands from the small dog. Her head pounded, her eyes burned and she began retching. Someone picked her up and carried her off, laying her down on the ground and placing an oxygen mask over her face.

“Now take some real slow breaths,” a young man instructed.

She shuddered. Her arms throbbed. The smell of burning hair filled her nose.

“Just relax and try to breathe,” the voice instructed.

She opened her eyes expecting to see someone, but all she saw was the blue of the sky. “Are they all out?” she rasped, her voice muffled by the masks. Her throat burned like she’d swallowed embers.

“I hope so.” It was Rick. He began coughing.

“You lie down, too,” the paramedic directed, placing a mask over Rick’s face.

“Paula.” Her mother was crouched over her, crying. “Paula.”

Paula grasped Eleni’s hand. She breathed in the oxygen though it burned and made her cough.

Dozens of others were lying down or kneeling, breathing in oxygen. A loud crash made everyone turn and look. Half the barn collapsed. The fire crew had just arrived. After checking to see that everyone was out they gave up the barn for lost, letting it burn itself out.

The paramedic turned to Eleni. “Are you a relative?”

“I’m her mother,” Eleni said.

“First off, I think she’ll be fine,” Paula heard the paramedic soothing Eleni. “But I’m advising everyone to be seen at Sawtooth Mountain Clinic in Grand Marais. They’re on alert—they know what’s happened; they’re ready for all of you. A few of the more serious cases are leaving by ambulance, but your daughter’s fine to go with you.”

As Paula opened her eyes, she started to cry. Tears rolled out from beneath the oxygen mask down the soot-covered sides of her face. “Mom.” Her eyes burned. Eleni bent over, hugging her. Paula shivered from the trauma. All she wanted was Roger—his smell, his reassurances, the smooth part of his neck, a place to rest her cheek and breathe. The way he’d always say everything would be okay. If only she could jump into a jet plane and fly back to New York that very moment. But Roger wasn’t there.

After she calmed down, her breathing became easier, though her throat and eyes still burned. She slid off the mask and sat up.

“Keep the mask on for a while longer,” the paramedic advised.

Instead she stood and looked for the Escape.

“Take it easy,” the paramedic said. “You should be sitting.”

She ignored him. All she wanted was to crawl inside and feel her quiet car.

Rick followed as she bolted toward her car.

“Paula,” he called. But she sped up.

She opened the driver’s side, climbed behind the wheel, shut and locked the doors. “Oh my God, oh my God.” She leaned her head against the familiar part of the steering wheel, gripping it to stop her hands from trembling. Inside, a humid cloud of urine was overpowering. She sniffed. The windshield was totally fogged, as were the two front windows. Brief shuffling sounds made her turn and look. The back was filled with different sizes and breeds of dogs, every one as still as a photograph. All eyes silently watched her. The small brown dog was in front of the group. She realized he was a puppy. He studied her with the same quizzical, worried look, his brow furrowed as if to ask,
What made you do that?

Crammed against one another, the dogs pressed backward in one collective gasp to get as far away from her as possible.

“Oh.” At the sight of the dogs, tears burned her eyes, which made her nose run profusely. “Well, hello.” She choked out a sob, so happy to see them. Some were terrified and shivering; others seemed more curious. She wondered who put them back here.

A knock on the window startled her.