Animal Dreams

The strangest thing is that where pain seemed to have anesthetized me, it gave Hallie extra nerve endings. This haunts me. What we suffered in our lives we went through together, but somehow we came out different doors, on different ground levels.

Friday night after the first week of school, the dog with the green bandana showed up again at the gate. I saw it when I came outside after my solitary supper to water the morning glories and potted geraniums on my front step. The heat seemed to wilt them right down to death's door, but water always brought them back. I could only wish for such resilience.

"Hi, buddy," I said to the dog. "No barbecues today. You're out of luck."

Thirty seconds later Loyd was standing at the door with a bottle of beer. "I told you I'd get back to you with this," he said, grinning. "I'm a man of my word."

"Well, okay," I said. "I guess you are." I wasn't sure how I felt about seeing him in my doorway, other than surprised. I pulled a couple of folding chairs onto the patio, where we could see the sunset. The sky was a bright, artificial-looking orange, a color you might expect to see in the Hollywood Shop. "Are you going to have one too, or do I drink this alone?" I asked him.

Loyd said he'd just take a soda because he was marked up and five times out. I was mystified by this information.

"I'm marked up on the call board at the depot," he explained. "To take a train out. Five times out means I'm fifth in line. I'll probably get called late tonight or early tomorrow morning."

"Oh," I said. "It sounded like baseball scores. The count is three and two and it's the bottom of the seventh."

Loyd laughed. "I guess it would sound like that. You get used to talking railroad talk like it was plain English. Around here that's about all everybody does, is railroad."

"That, and watch the fruit fall off their trees."

Loyd looked at me, surprised. "You know about that, do you?"

"Not very much," I said. I went into my house to get him a soda, picking my way over the rough bricks of the patio because I was barefoot. I will say this much for Doc Homer's career as a father: my arches are faultless.

When I came back out I sat down and handed over a Coke, letting Loyd fight with the easy-off twist cap himself. I had to use pliers on those things. It didn't give Loyd two seconds of trouble. He palmed it, then tipped his head back and drank about half the bottle. The things that aggravate me most in the world are the things men do without even knowing it.

"So is that your dog?" I asked.

"That's jack. You met? Jack, this lady here is Codi Noline."

"We've met," I said. "I sneaked him some goat spare ribs the other day at the fiesta. I hope he's not on a special diet or anything."

"He's in love, is what he is, if you gave him a piece of that goat. That was one of Angel Pilar's yearling billy goats. Jack's had his eye on those spare ribs ever since last summer."

Jack looked at me, panting seriously. His tongue was purplish, and his eyes were very dark brown and lively. Sometimes when you look into an animal's eyes you see nothing, no sign of connection, just the flat stare of a wild creature. But Jack's eyes spoke worlds. I liked him.

"He looks like a coyote," I said.

"He is. Half. I'll tell you the story of his life sometime."

"I can't wait," I said, really meaning it, though it came out sounding a little sarcastic. Our chairs were close enough together so that I could have reached over and squeezed Loyd's hand, but I didn't do that.

"It was nice of you to come by," I said.

"So this was your first week of school, right? How's life with the juvenile delinquents of Grace?"

I was a little bit flattered that he knew about my job. But then everybody would. "I don't know," I said. "Pretty scary, I think. I'll keep you posted."

The sky had faded from orange to pale pink, and the courtyard was dusky under the fig trees. Every night as it got dark the vegetation around the house seemed to draw itself in closer, hugging the whitewashed walls, growing dense as a jungle.

Loyd touched my forearm lightly and pointed. On the cliff above the courtyard wall, a pair of coyotes trotted along a narrow animal path. Jack's ears stood up and rotated like tracking dishes as we watched them pass.

"You know what the Navajos call coyotes? God's dogs," Loyd said. His fingers were still resting on my forearm.

"Why's that?" I asked.

He took his hand back and cracked his knuckles behind his head. He leaned back in his chair, stretching out his legs. "I don't know. I guess because they run around burying bones in God's backyard."