Lost & Found - Jacqueline Sheehan [19]
“He could be sick. Eighty percent of all raccoons have rabies and he could have been bitten by a raccoon,” said Phil, who washed dishes at the diner.
How did people come up with these statistics? If eighty percent of all raccoons were rabid, then why weren’t they dead? This was the kind of question that she would have asked Bob, as if he were the encyclopedia of wildlife. She made a mental note to go back to the bookstore.
Rocky watched one large raccoon visit her garbage can nightly, wrestling with it, standing on its back legs, tipping the green plastic garbage can on its side. That raccoon had looked healthy enough. After cleaning up too much sticky, aromatic garbage from her walkway, she bought a bungee cord that finally raccoon-proofed the can. Her raccoon visitor didn’t have rabies; she was just hungry. Most of what humans do is not so different from what animals do; much of what we do is based on hunger, or the fear of being hungry, selecting a mate, and protecting our young. The guidebook of mammals said that raccoons, Procyon lotor, did not mate until late winter or early spring, so this gal was just beefing up for courtship.
Rocky stopped at the grocery store and bought a small package of low-grade ground beef. She drove the old truck up to the diner, hoping that the dog had not left already. As a dogcatcher, she learned how to make animal-catching easier. Bring food, squat on the ground, talk sweet, say “Good dog, what a good dog,” letting her voice rise slightly, moving slowly. And try not to appear vicious. In dog language, she wanted to show first the offering of food, then firmness and calm.
She pierced the plastic wrap around the meat with her truck keys and walked around the back of the building. She felt a sharp tingle in the early November air. Tonight would be hard on a sick dog outdoors.
She saw him scrunched next to a pile of wood covered by a bright blue tarp. She announced her arrival.
“There you are, good dog.” He lifted his head with a cloudy-eyed weariness. She crouched down about eight feet away.
“Come get some breakfast, buddy.” She held out the meat. His deep brown eyes focused on her and she thought for a moment that this was the look of great despair that she saw on people who were deep in mourning or in the throes of a major depression. She shook her head to unscramble her brain.
The dog tried to stand, and yelped when he put his weight on his front legs.
“OK, big boy. I’ll come to you. I’ll deliver breakfast.”
He lowered himself back down and accepted the meat that she placed right in front of his nose. For a moment his eyes softened. He sniffed the meat and gave it one lick. He looked too sick to eat. She rubbed his head after letting him smell her hand.
She reached over to the front leg that he was protecting and gingerly felt around.
“Oh, no.” Her hand stopped on something jutting out of his shoulder. She leaned over cautiously. He had a shaft sticking out of the front of his chest and she could feel the heat of the infection.
“Bend with your knees and not your back.” She couldn’t possibly pick up this dog without hurting him. She untied the blue tarp from a woodpile and went inside to get Phil. The two of them slid the dog onto the folded tarp and then they lifted him to the back of the truck. Rocky closed the camper shell and headed straight for the ferry landing. The first ferry of the day was getting ready to go to Portland and she knew Sam Reynolds would be on it. He was a vet with a practice in South Portland.
She reached the ferry as the crew was starting to latch the closing chain across the landing.
“Wait!” yelled Rocky as she jumped out of her truck. “You’ve got to let me on. I’ve got a dog that’s been hurt.” Then she scanned the deck for Sam and saw him, hugging a plastic coffee mug. She waved her arms at him. He lowered his mug and headed down the metal staircase. The ferry opened up and waited for Rocky. There was room for her truck and she pulled in beside the other pickup trucks, mostly carpenters going off island for the day. Sam opened up the back