Black Ribbon

anyone can prefer charges against anyone. But it has to have to do with shows or whatever—with AKC—which it does if it takes place on show grounds. Otherwise, it depends. The typical case where charges are sustained is, like, two exhibitors get in a fight at a show, or someone gets caught abusing a dog on show grounds. Or the judge hands out the ribbons, and some guy who doesn’t like how he did starts swearing at the judge and saying he only looks at faces.”
    Michael’s went blank.
    Kathy, a slight blond woman who’d hardly spoken before, translated: “Human faces. Looks to see who’s handling.”
    “Plays politics,” I said. “Cam, is Indian pudding the only dessert?”
    “No, there’s chocolate cake.”
    I carried my plate to a hatch that opened into the kitchen and joined a long line of people waiting for dessert and coffee.
    My place in line put me right near a table at which Eva Spitteler was addressing Joy, Craig, and some other people on the subject of lure coursing, which, as Eva was explaining, and as I’ve already mentioned, is a sport in which dogs course after a lure. As an AKC performance event, it’s limited to sight hounds—borzois, whippets, Afghan hounds, and other sight-hunting breeds. Camp offered the opportunity, relatively rare in this part of the country, for dogs of any breed or no particular breed to give it a try.
    “Any dog’ll do it,” Eva proclaimed. “Any dog that’ll go after a lure.”
    The lure, by the way, is artificial, usually a plastic bag. Field coursing is another matter. That’s the one with live rabbits.
    The line inched ahead. A couple of steps placed me in back of Joy, who was writing in what proved to be an address book.
    She raised her head, shook her blond curls, and handed the book to Eva.
    “My catalog’s coming out in October,” Eva told her. She looked around the table. “Did I get all your addresses?”
    One woman seemed to avoid Eva’s gaze. Everyone else nodded. I didn’t really blame Eva for trying to drum up business. It’s hard to make a living in dogs. The small mail-order companies that survived in this highly competitive market did so by providing a narrowly defined clientele—Border collie owners, dogsledding enthusiasts, obedience competitors— with the very best equipment, supplies, books, videos, and odds and ends within a concentrated range of interest. I wondered what specialty Eva could possibly have devised that would interest pet owners like Joy and Craig. A nasty thought came to me: Maybe Eva specialized in clients who didn’t know enough to order from someone else.
    At the dessert buffet, I ran into Ginny, Michael, and the three women from my table, who invited me to take my dessert and coffee to the TV room of the lodge to watch Bernie Brown’s training tape. I declined. I own the tape, or rather, my cousin Leah does. Leah is a Bernie Brown no-force-method fanatic. I’d watched the tape a couple of times, and I’d heard it in the background at least a hundred times that summer. When I got back to the table with a double serving of  chocolate cake topped with a triple dollop of whipped cream, Cam was alone there scraping her bowl clean. With a hard-to-read expression on her face, she turned her head a little, gave a meaningful look at a far corner of the dining room, and asked, “You catch that?”
    My eyes followed Cam’s. At what was apparently the VIP table, far from the kitchen, near a window that overlooked the lake, sat Max McGuire, Eric Grimaldi, Phyllis Abbott, and three others, all of whom, with one exception, were giving Phyllis Abbott the rapt attention I elicit only from dogs and, even then, only by baiting with liver treats. The exception was Don Abbott. He’d pulled his chair back from the table and was speaking into his portable telephone.
    I exclaimed, “But there’s a pay phone right out in the lobby! And besides—”
    “He always does it. He does it at people’s dinner tables. At a show a while ago, I saw him standing right next to a pay phone—a pay phone no one was using!—-and talking into his portable one.”
    “Doesn’t that cost a lot extra?” The only thing I knew about cellular phones was that I couldn’t afford one. As I’ve said, it’s hard to make a living in dogs.
    Cam had the satisfied look of a person getting exactly the response she wants. I almost expected her to tell me what a good dog I was. “Sure does.”
    “Is he a broker or something?” I clarified the