Black Ribbon

who’d organized the search for Bingo and who’d also been the one to locate him, the bitch’s owners had been really quite nasty about the whole thing—and stupid, too. Desperate to rid themselves of Bingo before he could destroy the screen door at the front of the house, these ridiculous people had demonstrated their fathomless ignorance of the Labrador retriever by turning a hose on him! Could I believe it? Indeed I could, I told Ginny. People went out and bought malamutes, I said, and then had the audacity to turn around and complain —complain!—when their arctic bulldozers pulled, of all things! So if people thought that water would repel a Lab, it didn’t surprise me at all.
    “And instead of thanking me,” Ginny reported, “they actually tried to get me to pay for replacing the screen on their door! Ignoramuses! The bitch should be spayed, anyway; she’s definitely not of breeding quality. Among other things, I didn’t like the looks of her hips one bit, and I told them so, too.”
    We were just outside my cabin, where I’d been peacefully grooming Rowdy when Ginny and Wiz had appeared and Ginny had begun to tell me all about finding Bingo, who now occupied Wiz’s crate in the room that Ginny and Cam shared. Wiz herself had exchanged sniffs with Rowdy and dropped to the ground in a quivering mass of ingratiation. With what must have been Rowdy’s implicit permission, she’d then risen to her feet and was now adding to my grooming efforts by vigorously scouring his muzzle with her pink tongue.
    Idly raking out undercoat, I said, “Well, at least you found Bingo.”
    “And none too soon! These people were so stupid! I don’t know why they didn’t just grab him and tie him up! If I hadn’t been there, they’d have bungled everything, and sooner or later, he’d have gotten to that bitch! And these were just the kinds of people who’d’ve put up a sign at the side of the road and given the puppies away to anyone who stopped.”
    Although I hadn’t met the people, the assumption seemed unwarranted. Also, I felt pretty sure that Ginny had made just as poor an impression on the golden’s owners as they had on her. Among other things, she was wearing what I think is called a crusher hat, a funny-looking green felt thing that rested absurdly on top of her basketlike coils of thin braid. Everyone in dogs was used to her appearance, and none of us would have been startled by a spay-neuter lecture. In the outside world, though, people must have considered her something of an eccentric.
    Pulling the undercoat rake through Rowdy’s tail, I said, “Well, I am glad that Bingo’s safe. That tear on his ear and the scratches on his muzzle happened last night, you know. He got into a scrap with that Cairn—or whatever he is. Lucky. Otherwise, Bingo’s okay?”
    “By some miracle,” Ginny said. “You know, that woman really was an idiot.”
    “The woman in Rangeley who—?”
    “That Eva Spitteler! Going out in the middle of the night and fooling around with that damn equipment! I mean, what kind of judgment does that show? The poor dog! God only knows how long it’ll take me to rehabilitate him.”
    Sensing a tremor in my hand, perhaps, or a change in my breathing, Rowdy fastened dark, questioning eyes on my face. I spoke hesitantly. “Ginny, I know it’s always hard to remember, but, uh, legally, dogs are property, and—”
    “Oh, that’s strictly a nonissue,” Ginny said blithely. “No one else is going to want him. And I have right of first refusal. It’s in my contract.” Breeders, as I’ve mentioned, place great faith in those documents. In a satisfied tone, Ginny repeated what she’d just said: “Right of first refusal. It’s in my contract.”
     

 
    “I COULD NOT HELP overhearing.”
    Phyllis Abbott spoke what I took to be the literal truth. She’d been sitting on her side of our shared deck doing what I’d been doing, grooming a dog and wondering what to do with herself, or so she confided to me. “I must say,” Phyllis continued, “that if you didn’t know Ginny, you’d be bound to think, ‘Well, what a heartless response!’ Really, it’s just shock. Ginny’s not a young woman, you know, and she was worried sick about the whole situation with Eva Spitteler and that dog, and then worried sick when the dog disappeared. Ginny really hasn’t had time to absorb what’s happened. Once she does, she’ll feel just as dreadful about it as all the rest of us.