Paws before dying

latest.”
     

Chapter 23

     
    WE arrived at the park a few minutes late. I hoped Marcia Brawley wasn’t in a talkative mood, but as it turned out, I didn’t see her at all. I’d told her I’d stop by for the pictures up at seven. When I got to her front doer, she’d left, but a note taped to the mailbox said she’d had to run to the store. It directed me to a big manila envelope that rested behind the screen door. I picked it up and started toward the Bronco, but then saw Leah waving at me. In fact, she was lifting her right arm and bringing her hand to her chest. It’s a dog-training signal usually reserved for the dog, but I knew what it meant: “Come!” I crossed the street, and, when I got close enough, heard her call, “Holly? They’ve started already, and I don’t have any money.”
    With both dogs on leash, she was standing by a card table where a bald, skinny guy from Nonantum was seated on a folding chair and checking people in.
    “I do,” I said. “Thanks for getting the dogs out. I’ll take Rowdy.” Then I added to the guy at the desk, “I’ll pay for her. Leah Whitcomb, for Bess’s class, and I’m Holly Winter, for Tony’s.”
    With no warning, Rowdy suddenly hit the ground and crawled a foot or two, and from under the card table, a ferocious snarl broke out.
    “Patton, that’ll do,” the bald guy told a Rottweiler crouched at his feet where I hadn’t noticed him.
    “Rowdy, be good,” I said, hauling him backward. I handed Leah the envelope. “Here, take these. I need both hands. And watch it. Don’t bend them. They’re photographs. Rowdy, heel.” He did. Patton retreated with all the compliant goodwill of
    the original George S. I dug into my purse, fished for cash, and paid.
    I don’t understand anything about dogs. Malamutes are an Arctic breed, and Rowdy was the first creature of any species I’d ever met who loathed hot weather as much as I did. Yet that evening, Rowdy didn’t seem to notice the ninety-degree temperature and the thick, moist air that was crushing my chest. He heeled as pertly as if he’d been enjoying the midwinter chill that invigorates us both. I wouldn’t have asked him to jump, but his eyes were pleading.
    The sight of a beautiful, athletic dog soaring through the air, independently searching out and taking his dumbbell, then flying back over the jump is breathtaking. That night, Rowdy performed perfectly. When I tossed the dumbbell, I could feel his eagerness, but he waited for the command, and when it came, he took two fluid strides, sprang, cleared the top board, and landed gracefully. He made instantly for the dumbbell, grasped it cleanly by the center bar, flew back over the jump, and ended up directly in front of me, where he sat perfectly straight and waited with infinite patience for me to take his dumbbell, which he hadn’t tossed or mouthed once. And his performance on the other exercises was almost as good, if less flashy. I forgot the heat. I wasn’t in that park in Newton. I wasn’t in Massachusetts. I was off in Rowdyland, which is another name for paradise.
    At the end of class, plunked back down on some weedy grass with my four-footed memento of the divine, I found a small crowd of Novice handlers and dogs surrounding Bess Stein, who was sitting in the chair by the card table to dispense advice and answer questions. Jeff and Lance, Leah and Kimi, and Willie Johnson and Righteous were part of her throng. Some of Tony’s other people were leaving, but I remembered that, having arrived late, I hadn’t helped set up. I also wanted to know what Leah had done with Marcia’s photographs. With Rowdy on a down—and, as insurance, hitched to a giant tree, one of the few objects a determined malamute can’t budge—I helped someone haul the heavy old wooden high jump to a van someone had driven into the park.
    Every dog training club, like every other club in the world, has some members who always pitch in and others who apparently believe themselves entitled to be waited on by the diligent. Heather Ross perhaps felt that her presence was a sufficient contribution, but Abbey usually did more than her fair share, especially since she didn’t even train a dog. In any case, when I got to the crowd around Bess, Abbey was trying to worm her way to the table so she could fold it and carry it off. I offered to help her. When we’d finally squeezed through the people and dogs, as we were folding the legs of the table, I took the