Ruffly Speaking

tried to defend it?”
    The Alaskan malamute has jaws that can crush the muzzles and backbones of canine adversaries, but if Ruffly had decided to defend his food and Kimi had accepted his challenge, she probably wouldn’t have left a mark on him. With one quick shake, she’d have broken his neck. “They liked each other,” Leah said defiantly.
    “Even so, Leah. A hearing dog isn’t a pet. Or isn’t just a pet. Those dogs have work to do.”
    “Kimi didn’t stop him. I told you. When the phone rang, Ruffly went crazy.”
    “And what did Kimi do?”
    “She helped,” Leah bragged. “She ran right after him.”
    “Leah, at a minimum, you should’ve asked first, or better yet, why didn’t you leave Kimi here?”
    “I didn’t even know Ruffly would be there. How was I supposed to know the rector was home?” Leah leaves few pauses in a conversation, but a heavy silence fell. “I didn’t know if anyone would be there,” she added. Her expression was serious and practical. “You want me going all alone to empty rectories with guys I just met?”
    “Leah, really. It isn’t a rectory. It was Morris Lamb’s house, and take it from me, Morris was no rector.” j Undeterred, Leah picked up an imaginary book and held it dramatically at arm’s length. “Her delicate, sensitive heart pitter-pattering in her moist and ivory-skinned yet richly ample and curvaceous bosom, our heroine raps timidly yet boldly upon the massive oaken portal of the somber rectory.” She cleared her throat and continued. “The hollow ring of manly footsteps thuds from within the manse and reaches the tender and quivering drums of her shell-like pale pink ears. The ancient door creaks inward upon hinges unoiled for countless generations.”
    “Morris’s house was probably built about 1955,” I said, “and—”
    “And in the dim light of the single votive candle that casts mysterious yet oddly thrilling rays of flickering illumination in the vast cavern of the great hall, our heroine descries—”
    “What?”
    “You’re interrupting!” Leah resumed her narrative. “Descries that it is HE—Matthew! the noble rector’s noble son—who languidly intones, ‘Enter, my pretty! So you have not forgotten our assignation.’ ”
    “Enough! I get—”
    “Stop interrupting! You’re breaking the flow. We’re just getting to the good part.” Leah continued: “Languidly stretching forth all twelve highly inbred yet unmistakably aristocratic digits, he seizes...”
    “ Twelve ?”
    “Twelve,” she repeated. “Inbred.”
    “Twelve.”
    “With all twelve inbred digits, the better to bodice-rip, my dear, he seizes the lacy and demure yet—”
    “Yet again?”
    “Yet again tantalizing bodice of her pale green watered silk, puff-sleeved, shimmering gown and petrify' ingly but thrillingly rips it to passionate shreds.” With a gasp, Leah put a protective hand across the intact black jersey that stretched across her own ample and curvaceous bosom. “But wait! Hark!”
    “Hark isn’t romance, is it? It’s—”
    “Hark! Out of the deep and looming blackness that hovers o’er the rectory, and up its steep and winding steps, thunder the massive paws of a gigantic hound of hell. Slavering at the mouth, the great beast springs and leaps. Within mere nanoseconds, the would-be rapacious Matthew lies pinned to the time-worn timbers he so recently trod, all thoughts of present and future bodice-ripping forever banished by the righteous fangs of canine justice. So the moral of the story is—”
    “Romances don’t have morals,” I said. “The romance is the moral.”
    “This one does.” Leah closed the imaginary book and set it firmly on the table. “When keeping assignations with sons of rectors, always remember your own bitch.”
     

12
     
     Late on Monday afternoon, I rang what still felt like Morris Lamb’s bell. To make sure that Dog’s Life hadn’t scheduled a competing story about some other dog-assisted member of the clergy, I’d phoned Bonnie, my editor, who called the idea “fresh and novel.” For obvious reasons, fastidious dog journalists avoid the word scoop.
    Where Morris Lamb had found the door chimes, I can’t imagine. There can’t be much call for the theme from Canadian Love Song anymore. You always knew when Morris was approaching the door. He sang along. So did his older Bedlington, Nelson. That last time I was there, his young bitch, Jennie, hadn’t yet learned to join in, but Morris