Animal Appetite

grip on the leash, tripped, and got dragged across that grimy, gritty concrete floor, I could practically hear my mother’s injunction: Never, under any circumstances whatsoever, Holly, do you ever let go of the dog’s lead! Never, never! Is that crystal clear? Never!
    The warning had been a standard feature of her lecture on my behavior at dog shows. What’s more, she’d been talking about golden retrievers, not Alaskan mala-mutes. She was, however, an obedience trainer of the old school—dentists drill with less fervor than hers—and it never even crossed my mind to obey common sense. Ahead of me, Rowdy had his head lowered in the classic, correct pose of a sledge dog hauling weight, but the force that drove him was far deeper than the urge to pull. Not a yard beyond Rowdy’s jaws, a rat scuttled across the floor. Like a separate animal, its tail slithered behind it. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that rats are creatures of God. This one was fat with evil, and greasy-coated and nasty-looking, as if it had just come from filthy places where it had committed vile acts of repugnant ratness.
    Hitting the concrete floor, I’d landed on my left elbow. Pain ran up through my shoulder and down my back. As I struggled to raise myself, I could feel the blood drain from my head. Through the pain and the rising nausea, I fought off the fear that, within seconds, that loathsome rodent would be locked in Rowdy’s predatory jaws and that I—the dog-obedience pooh-bah, the alpha figure in Rowdy’s life—would be powerless to make him drop his mauled and bloody and probably poison-infested prey.
    After what felt like several hours—five seconds?—I managed to crawl from my knees to a firm sitting position. Finding myself near the ancient Xerox copier, I braced my feet against it, gave Rowdy’s leash the kind of neck-wrenching jerk I hadn’t administered for years, and finally succeeded in finding my voice and croaking Rowdy’s name. As Rowdy briefly turned his head, the rat must have seized its chance to escape. “Rowdy, watch me! Rowdy, here! Good, good boy! Good dog. Good dog.” With sweet words and tugs on his leash, I drew him to me. Digging scraped, bleeding hands into my pockets, I found scraps of desiccated cheese. Rowdy licked them off my palms. His eyes were bright. His beautiful white tail was tailing back and forth across his back. The escape of the rat bothered Rowdy not at all. “You disgust me,” I told him.
    Leaning on Rowdy, I finally got to my feet and retrieved the box I’d dropped, the one marked with Jack Andrews’s name. My retreat from Damned Yankee Press was uneventful. The cheerful young woman paid no attention to the box I carried, to the holes in the knees of my jeans, or to what must have been the pallor of my face.
    “There really are rats there,” I told her.
    “Yes,” she said with a smile.
    An hour later, in my own kitchen, when I’d disinfected and bandaged the wounds on my hands and knees, I drew a kitchen knife across the tape that sealed the box. Rowdy sniffed eagerly. The scent, no doubt, awakened happy memories. Kimi explored my shoes with her nose. I opened the box. Inside were the pens, pencils, and paper clips I’d expected. To my amazement, there actually was a small framed photograph of Claudia, Brat, and Gareth. Among the other odds and ends, I found only one item of interest, a slip of paper on which someone had scrawled four words: And One Fought Back.
    The privately printed book about Hannah Duston.
     

Twenty-Two

     
    In case you, too, are ever traumatized by a rat, let me give you some advice: Don’t expect any sympathy from your vet. Steve’s attitude that same Monday evening made me half wish I’d started an affair with an exterminator instead. Steve did, however, insist on examining the physical damage. For strictly medical reasons, he made me take off my jeans. Wearing nothing but panties, socks, and a Big Dog T-shirt he’d given me—YOU CAN MOVE A MOUNTAIN, BUT YOU CAN'T BUDGE A BIG DOG -
    I sat shivering on a kitchen chair as he gently removed the gauze and tape from my knees.
    “What’s this grease you’ve smeared on?” he asked.
    “Panolog,” I mumbled.
    “What?”
    “Panolog cream. Prescribed by you. It worked just great on Kimi’s—”
    “Into the bathtub,” he ordered. “Soap and hot water. These abrasions are filled with grit. Don’t they teach first aid in Maine?”
    “They teach you to go to the dump and shoot rats,