Free Bloodlines by Susan Conant

animal liberationists. If Rowdy had been killed, my brethren in dog worship would have joined me in praying for the salvation of his soul, and, while we had God’s ear, we would’ve whispered a few words of advice about the appropriate final destination of blackguards who commit crimes against dogs. But with my domesticated wolf returned to the fold, we were as thrilled as a congregation of ardent revivalists who’ve just witnessed sin itself in flagrante delicto right there in the middle of their own camp meeting—witnessed it, yes, but been left unsullied.
    Twenty or thirty people asked me how it had happened, and, although no one said it, I was willing to bet that every single one of those people was thinking the same thing: Don’t you know better than to leave your dog unattended at a show ? Despite everyone’s tactful silence on the matter of my apparent irresponsibility, I kept defending myself. “I left him with a friend, and she got conned, I guess,” I’d say. “He was with someone I know. I don’t know what happened.”
    When Rowdy and I finally reached Lois Metzler, who’d quit smoking a couple of years earlier, she was flopped in her folding chair taking big, wheezy drags on a cork-filtered cigarette, but she looked more in need of oxygen than of nicotine.
    “Holy Christ,” she greeted me.
    “It’s okay,” I said. “Really, Rowdy’s fine. He was at that damned concession stand with all the nuts and candy and stuff. The worst thing that’ll happen is that he’ll vomit up a mess of trail mix.”
    “Jesus,” she said.
    “It’s okay,” I repeated. “It’s over, okay? But could you, uh... Lois, I still don’t know what happened. Some woman came up and said...?”
    “Faith stopped by,” Lois began.
    Faith Barlow handles Rowdy in breed. He associates her with liver and glory. At the sight of Faith, he sparkles all over.
    “And?” I prompted.
    “And so we said hello, and Faith gave Rowdy a treat, and she asked where you were. And so I told her, and she said, ‘Yeah, well, there’s a big line, so don’t expect her back soon.’ So I said something like, ‘Well, that’s okay.’ ”
    “And?”
    “And Faith left, and this girl came up.”
    The story we pieced together was that the darkhaired stranger had probably overheard Faith and Lois, and thus picked up my name and Rowdy’s. She’d learned that I’d be gone for a while, and just as Faith was leaving, she’d stepped up to Lois, claimed to be my cousin, and strolled off with Rowdy, who, like most malamutes, is always so delighted to make the acquaintance of yet one more fascinating and possibly food-bearing member of our species that he’ll go with anyone. If the stranger had been a dog, Lois would, of course, have supplied a minutely-detailed description that would’ve enabled me or anyone else unhesitatingly to spot her in a crowd of thousands. As it was, I was able to establish that the stranger was a dark-haired female between the ages of fifteen and fifty who wore black or navy clothing and looked “damp.” Damp, for God’s sake. I’d driven to the show through a gray winter drizzle. Most of the dogs had been blown dry for the ring, but “damp” fit at least half the people there.
    At that point, Mary Kalinowski, Shawsheen’s show chairman, appeared. Trailing after her were a couple of morose security guards and four or five dressed-up people wearing show officials’ badges. Ever worked on a show? Well, worked, hardly says it. It’s like giving a wedding with two or three thousand guests. The planning begins at least a year in advance, and, as the date draws near, the momentum builds, the tasks multiply, and the people in charge, especially the chairman and the chief steward, start waking up in the night and scrawling notes to remind themselves not to forget the final five or ten thousand details that will make the show run smoothly, which is to say, without incident. The officials’ faces were tight, bleak, and