Bells of Heaven Chapter 2
Chapter 2
When he stopped the car outside his house and looked at her, she was shivering.
Well, that was okay. He’d shivered himself, a time or two.
Carrying her into his house didn’t feel as furtive as it should. A dirty wind began to pick up and flicked hair into his face, but he didn’t turn away from it. It didn’t make any sense to him, but he found himself broadening his shoulders, lifting his head.
Hey, Pa. Look what I brought home.
He sidled his way through doors and openings, juggling the keys, until he reached the laundry with its steel trough. She was a gray creature of scurf and dirt, and he knew he was looking forward to dropping her into the tub.
Nothing he liked better than cleaning up a mess.
He put her on the mat and then ran warm water into the trough. The medicated shampoo the vet sold him was bright yellow - it looked ugly, swirling into the water, but he figured it was like medicine, the nastier the better.
“C’mon honey, let’s get you into there.” A sing song voice not his own, but it didn’t matter; she whipped her tail again and he felt happy, gloriously happy, as he lifted her bony frame and lowered her oh so carefully into the bath.
She talked to him, of course; he knew she was a talker from the moment he advanced towards her, back at the cage. A querulous, confidential sound. “What are you doing to me, young man?”
“Doing you good, honey,” he said, and dribbled water over her back, her flanks, her gaping, gnawing sores.
His fingers crooked and dared to touch. So much hurt; so much soil, and filth, and awful human neglect. Gently, so gently, he worked, letting water ease into months and years of cruelty. A swirl of his fingers, two, and a coat presumed dull brown was revealed as white. Astonishing. Wonderful.
His mobile rang.
“Shit!” Tim froze, his hands in her hair, his mind suddenly snapped back to duty.
“Shit!” He lifted his hands, placating. “Stay here. Gotta get this. Shit.”
Backing away from the laundry as though he could placate what he left behind, he ducked for the kitchen and grabbed his phone.
“Art?”
“You’re alive. Praise Jesus.”
“Art, I’m sorry. Shoulda called in.”
“No, really. Wouldn’t want to inconvenience you. Guess Monterey’s just full of all kinds of diversions.”
“Not so much.” Tim hastened back to the laundry, tucking the phone against his shoulder as he went. “Carter wasn’t there.”
“No, knew that. You gonna ask if I’ve gone psychic?”
“Where’d he turn up?”
“Owenton. Local PD found him in a flophouse, hauled his ass in. That was three hours ago, and you promised Rachel a lift home. When you made it back from the wilds of Monterey.”
“I’m sorry, chief. Took longer than I thought, and when I turned up nothin’ I thought an early day wouldn’t hurt.”
“You? An early day? Should I start looking for other signs of the apocalypse?”
“Tell Rachel I’ll be right there.”
“No need. Raylan’s picked up your slack. And I’m gonna give you a moment to consider the apocalyptic nature of that statement. Line it up with you taking off and I’m gonna start looking for some fornicating lions and lambs.”
“I’m sorry, Art.” I was stealing a dog.
“No, don’t pay it no mind. You’re alive and well, Rachel’s being escorted home by the guy in the hat and I’m keeping myself busy stockpiling TP for the zombie attack I expect any minute now.”
There was no point trying to top Art, so he said his goodbyes and turned back to what was more important to him. More warm water as she shivered, more slow and careful cleaning, and after half an hour she was revealed as a brindle dog of no fixed breed. Maybe a touch of retriever; maybe part whippet? It didn’t matter to him. He scooped her up in a towel and carried her into the back room, where the sun would come in the morning.
Drying her was a slow process, skirting the worst of the sores, patting down miserable ribs and belly. She tried to lick him once, and he burst out laughing. Of all the laughs he’d almost given voice to these past years, this was one he hadn’t heard for a long, long time.
He intended to make her a nest out there, in the corner by the window, but when it came time to head to bed, much earlier than he usually did and far more sober, it felt all kinds of wrong. His bedroom was cold, anyway, and here there would be warmth in the morning. It wasn’t the first time he’d slept on this floor. And this time he wouldn’t be holding his gun in fingers cramped around the grip, tight, white around the knuckles. So man and dog settled together, she with one of her human groans as her head came to rest against his leg. And the echo, when it came, thrilling and distant like the belling of hounds at the hunt, flicked the years away from him as though they were nothing but ghosts on a ten year old’s shoulder.
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She brought it into the house with the kind of flourish Tim usually dreaded. But when he looked up quickly he saw one of her safer smiles, steady eyes and hands, and he smiled briefly himself - until he saw what she had in her bag.
“Goddam it, Ma!”
“Don’t blaspheme. Fucker.” She bared her teeth at him, full of affection, and lifted the black and white fluffy mass out of the bag to receive Shelley’s screams of joy.
“Oh, he’s soooo sweet!”
“Name’s Jazz, and he’s our’n. Got him from Heck Culverson’s place.”
Tim’s breath caught again, another little stitch of fear in a ragbag at the heart of him.
“Ma, you were supposed to be gettin’ groceries.”
She waved his words away. Airy. Defiant.
“We got enough till Monday. Couldn’t resist Jazz here.”
“Look!” Shelley knelt by him, rapt in his tentative exploration. “He loves us.”
“He’s chaos on four legs.” Tim kept a stock of scowls for his mother’s playful times. Sometimes they worked to keep her in the playground.
“What in hell’s that?” Pixie leaned in the doorframe, matching Tim’s expression with one even more disapproving.
“Oh fer crissakes! You two! Raised me a couple of bowed up brats. Thank God for you, Shelley.’Least you know how to enjoy a puppy.”
“It’s gonna eat everything.” Tim spread his hands, covering them all.
“Anal retentive midget!”
He glowered but she’d got him; a corner of his mouth twitched. She knew it too, always did, and bounced over to grab him in a hug that quickly degenerated into a noogee.
“Ow. Fine. But I ain’t cleanin’ up after it.”
Shelley glared. “Stop calling him ‘it’. You’ll hurt his feelings.”
“Hurt his feelings more if I dropkicked the useless mutt into the river.”
“Maaaa!”
“Tim, shut your mouth. Shelley, stop whining.”
He saw her humor slipping, regretted his snap. He always watched her, alert, unstinting; like a wild thing in the forest, tensed for the unusual.
A dog in her bag was unusual.
“Don’t you worry so, Mister Man of the House. Daddy’s back soon, and your mama’s bein’ careful.”
“You bein’ careful, Mama?”
“Careful as mice.” She squeezed him, plain and thin but happy, too, at the sight of the little dog stumbling at their feet.
“Why’s he called Jazz?” Pixie’s scowl had drifted to bemusement. She was a child who liked to know the what and how of things, if not the why.
“Seemed like a good name.” Mama preened. “Always was good at namin’ wild creatures.”
“Huh. ‘Tim’?”
“Oh, honey. He ain’t wild.”
“Nope. He’s domesticated.” Shelley sat back on her heels. “He’s gonna make someone a good little wife one a these days.”
Tim flipped them all the bird and got a clip on the back of his head for the effort.
Pixie joined her sister on the floor, letting the pup sniff at her fingers and then clamber all over them.
“Reckon we could train him?”
“Reckon we can.” His mama beamed confidence, even as Jazz squatted to piss on the floor, a dribble that gave Shelley another chance to shriek. “Train him to fetch. Pick up sticks. Pick up shoes. Pick up that bottom lip of yours.” Tim swiped at her; she gave a slow-motion kung fu chop to his neck.
“Train him to bite Mr. Galby.”
“Ha!” An explosive snort from his mama, and all the time he kept watching, waiting, until his mama said, “And I saw Carrie-Jean. Says these new meds are the bees’ underpants.”
Tim tucked in his worry and finally offered a trace of happiness to shadow her own.
“You think Dad’ll like the dog?”
“Your daddy’ll love the dog. Means he don’t have to worry so when he’s away.”
Pixie pursed her lips. “He ain’t a guard dog, Mama.”
“Not yet. But you wait till he grows some. You see those big paws? That’s gonna be a big dog someday.”
Shelley gave up trying to entice the black and white ball to her. “Who does he belong to, Mama?”
“Why, to his own self, Shelley-girl. What do you think? That dog will make his own choices ‘bout who he likes and who he trusts. So you all better be real nice to my little boy Jazz.”
Shelley and Pixie promptly dropped into the kind of competition they loved, cooing and sweet-talking to get eh pup’s attention. Tim rolled his eyes and went back to organizing the spare cupboard, keeping one eye on the love-in as he re-stacked shelves and stuck up labels for each old container they owned. He muttered, half-heartedly, as his sisters crashed into him while chasing Jazz, and he flicked a look past them to see his mother calm, content, only her fingers working on the spine of the bag she still hadn’t put down. This was when he loved her most, he told himself, trying to believe it.
But when Jazz tiredly staggered onto his mattress in the living room and collapsed into sleep, he wasn’t ready for the extra burst of happiness that came with the dog’s choice. Tim slept in the living room to be on call, just in case, at the ready; those nights when screams and bangs and red and blue lights made up and tore into his world. As Jazz fell into the trust-soaked sleep of a tired pup, Tim felt it quicken in his blood; the sense that, for the only time since his father told him he had to be the one to make the calls, he was not alone on that front line. He never spoke of it. The girls would scoff, and his father would never understand; but Tim knew that dog had found the member of the family who needed him most, and the thrill of partnership made him smile into his sleep for the first time in six years.