Red - Jack Ketchum [12]
She called to him on the stairs.
“Check the oven, will you? Maybe do a basting for me?”
“Will do, cap’n,” he said.
~ * ~
Agnes, George and Lily greeted Peg warmly. To say the least. They were all over her when she stepped into the cage — the entire north side of the barn — to retrieve their food and water dishes, presenting heads and necks and floppy ears for scratching and three warm wet tongues. They were big dogs. Forty to fifty pounds at least she guessed. You had to watch your balance when they got up on their hind legs on you. She indulged them awhile. In truth that while she griped at having to do the chore she didn’t really mind. How could you hate handling a dog?
Even Agnes, the mother, who could be nippy — who could be damn nippy with everybody but Peg, even with her own pups — elicited a kind of warmth in her exceeded only by her affection for Darlin’. Peg didn’t question it. It was just there.
Dogs were like big sloppy children.
Unless of course you fucked with them.
When she stepped outside the cage to hose off the dishes and closed the chain-link door they all set to barking. She thought that nothing else on earth has a voice like a coonhound. It was a voice bred to command the night. To be heard from literally miles away, trailable in full darkness. In the enclosed space of the barn they were like a series of small sonic booms.
They quieted again when she returned with the dishes, snuffing at her legs and heels as she set them in their given places along the concrete floor. Then shrunk away when she brought in the hose. The dogs were wary of the hose. The hose meant fresh water or a clean floor but it could also mean a bath, which they didn’t particularly want. Or under higher pressure, in the hands of Brian or her father, occasionally worse.
She didn’t like to think about that.
She filled the three water dishes and the one inside the doghouse, rolled the hose up and draped it on its hook, pried open the lid of the metal food bin and set to scooping out kibble. The dogs dug in. She filled the dish inside the silent doghouse too — filled that one carefully and gingerly.
She shut the cage door and found three sets of work-gloves neatly stacked on a shelf amid her father’s tools.
She left the dogs amidst chomping sounds and flying drool.
They were always hungry.
As always she felt a twinge of guilt at closing the barn doors on them. Cutting them off. There was a time they were allowed free run of the yard. Now they only got out on nights when her father and his friends wanted to do some coon hunting. Which wasn’t all that often anymore. And these guys were meant to run.
They were hunters. Her dad said they could pull down a deer if he let them.
As always she put those thoughts behind her.
She had other chores to do. She had not the slightest idea why.
~ * ~
First things first, Chris thought. He dialed Betty’s number from the kitchen. Betty was his paralegal, his office manager, his secretary. And she never minded him calling on a Sunday.
She had caller ID and picked up on the second ring.
“Hi, Betty,” he said. “Just want to run a few things by you, okay?”
It was okay. It was always okay.
Betty was a treasure.
“I won’t be in until after lunchtime tomorrow. If at all,” he said.
Anything wrong? she said. Real concern in her voice, bless her. No, there was nothing wrong, nothing at all.
“Just some business I need to take care of here. We’ve got the Oldenberg will and power of attorney ready for her signature, right? And she’s due in at ten. Good. We’re also expecting the police report on that Blakely business. That kid’s gonna be the death of his poor parents. One more thing. Give Dean Bluejacket a call. He’s supposed to come in tomorrow morning to talk to me about his property. Tell him I’m tied up here and I’ll meet him for lunch on Tuesday, say noon. Then if the phones are quiet you can put the machine on and take off early. How’s that sound?”
It sounded good.
“’Night,