Free Caretakers (Tyler Cunningham) by Jamie Sheffield Page A

here, the ones with old money and old camps, they’re like royalty. Less now than the way it was when my dad was a kid, but their money, taxes and what they spend, make this place work. Without it we’d all be living off of poached deer and government cheese, and anyone who tells you different never went to bed hungry.”
    “So what you’re saying is …? I should skip this one, because I don’t understand money and power, and there might be some/plenty of both mixed up in this thing,” I prompted.
    “Don’t be an asshole. You said yes before dog-girl finished asking. I get that … friends. And I think you like the idea of maybe figuring out something that nobody else could, prove you’re the biggest swinging brain on the block. Hah!” he laughed at his own joke, which saved my trying to fake a laugh ( with which I’m horrible ).
    “Nah, what I’m saying, Tyler, is that you need that high-speed, low-drag melon of yours for something other than a place to pour those tasty Cokes of yours. What I guess I’m saying, is that you need to do your ‘rain man’ thing, but also try to think like the bad guy a bit more; also, pay attention to what’s going on around you more, no good being the smartest guy in the woods if you die in a dumb car-wreck. Right?”
    It was hard to argue with him, even if I wouldn’t have felt silly arguing with a figment of my imagination. I climbed back in Mike Crocker’s car, walking around it first to give it a quick visual inspection ( everything seemed fine ), and then pulled back out onto Route 3, back towards Saranac Lake, leaving Barry shambling into the woods in my rearview. I turned the radio on, Radio Bob of NCPR was hyping Bob Marley as Adirondack summer music, and I flashed on a line from Dickens’, ‘A Christmas Carol’: ‘You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!’ ( segueing from Barry to the radio in an odd shift of my thinking bits ). I drove off, thinking about things perhaps a bit more than Barry would have liked me to, but still paying adequate attention to the road, even taking the time to enjoy the car as I put it through its paces leaping up and down and around the stretch of road that slalomed between the ponds and lakes and mountains between Tupper Lake and Saranac Lake.
    I zoomed into the parking lot for the Tri-Lakes Animal Shelter (TLAS), cutting off a van full of kids in a green Paul Smith’s College van. My Element was parked in the first slot, and the only other cars belonged to people who worked there, as the TLAS is closed on Sundays and Mondays. The front door would be locked, to discourage well-meaning animal lovers who couldn’t be bothered to check the hours of operation, so I went around to the side door, and let myself in. The people who work at the shelter know me, at least partly as ‘the kook who walks the difficult dogs.’ I also make, and bring, treats for the people and dogs ( and even the cats, although cats and I don’t interface well ), a deliberate ( and effective ) ploy to ingratiate myself with everyone living and working within their walls.
    “Hi, Tyler, we got a new pit-mix that’s seen the vet, and is ready for a walk, if you’re lookin’,” Sandy said, as we passed in the hallway, her loaded down with a cubic yard of clean bedding in her arms. I nodded noncommittally, and walked the rest of the way to the front office, dodging cats, while they did the same to me ( dogs like me because on the surface, I’m a belly-rubber, treat-giver, and long walk-taker … cats don’t like me because they look past the surface, and either don’t like what they see, or worse, don’t see anything; Dorothy and I spend a fair amount of time talking about this ). I pushed through the throng of people and smells and cats on my way to the desk, and Dorothy.
    “So, I guess it went okay, but how come Cheeko