Saints Among Us Page 9

  An hour later, all the dogs had been cared for.

  “Good work, Alice,” Gina said. “You’re a natural with these dogs.”

  “They’re just patients in need,” Alice said, embarrassed by the praise.

  “Mark tells me you two have known each other a long time.” Gina’s knowing smile made Alice chuckle.

  “We’ve been friends since college.” She emphasized the friends part. “How do you know him?”

  “I work for a veterinary dental specialist who cares for the zoo’s animals occasionally. I knew Mark slightly, and when I heard he was going to bring a clinic down, I jumped at the chance to come along.” Gina checked her watch. “We’d better get outside. There’s a staff meeting in front of the cleaning canopy at nine.”

  More than two dozen people were milling around near the canopy where the bowls and kennels were cleaned. Alice spotted June chatting with the twins’ mother Ellen, and moved through the group to their side just as Joe climbed atop a sturdy wooden box and began to speak.

  “Good morning, people. It’s another beautiful autumn day and we’ve got a lot to do: dogs to walk, cats to cuddle, friends to make.” He had such a surfeit of energy that a ripple of laughter ran through the crowd. “We have two new faces in the crowd this morning. Alice and June from Pennsylvania, raise your hands.”

  The two women smiled and raised their hands in a wave at those around them.

  “Don’t forget your name tags, everyone. Hanna’s handing them around.” Joe said, gesturing at a short brunette going from person to person with a marker. Each person wrote his or her name on a sticky tag, which was plastered to the front of his or her T-shirt.

  Joe glanced down at his clipboard, which Alice was beginning to suspect he clutched in one hand even while sleeping. “Today we say farewell to the Brinkleys. What time are you guys taking off?”

  “As soon as the meeting’s over,” said a burly man in overalls and a wide straw hat. The woman beside him had tears running down her cheeks.

  “You know we don’t want to go,” she said, “but our grandkids are taking care of our own animals while we’re down here, and we can’t ask them to stay any longer. As it is, they won’t let us pay them.”

  “Please extend our thanks to them for freeing you to join us,” Joe said. “You two have been fantastic.” He consulted his clipboard. “Let’s start with housekeeping business. A rottweiler rescue group from New Jersey is coming today. They’re taking the two males with yellow tags in the main kennels. There also are two male rotties with red tags. Those are owned and may not be moved from this site. Their owners are being contacted. Let’s not have any mix-ups, folks. There’s also a shelter in Tennessee sending down an air-conditioned RV with ten kennels in it. They’ll take some of the dogs and a few cats back with them.”

  Joe cleared his throat. “We had no intake last night because we were too full. But now that we have a few vacancies, the teams will go out today, and we’ll be working tonight. We also have a new vet arriving so there will be two stations. And there’s a groomer coming by today to shave down that big red chow. Maybe it will improve her disposition. The dog’s, not the groomer’s,” he added as people chuckled. “Any questions or comments?”

  A redheaded woman near the back raised a hand. “Joe, please remind people to be sure the lids are on the garbage cans tightly. I know summer’s over, but it’s awfully warm. There are still flies, which mean maggots.”

  “Good reminder. Anything else?”

  Gina spoke up. “Joe, the air-conditioning in the critical care unit does not seem to be cooling very well.”

  Joe pointed at a lean, balding man. “See Shel.”

  “Shel is our fix-it king,” Gina murmured to Alice. “He can repair anything.”

  Joe pointed to Hanna again after a short silence. “That’s it, people. See Hanna for daily assignments and be sure you know what station you’ll be manning this evening. Keep up the good work.”

  As the crowd dispersed, Alice joined the group around Hanna. “Kennel cleaning: Foster and Aidan. Clean team: Edith, Jacqui and Mike. Cat room: Jules and June. June, are you still helping with laundry?”

  “I sure am,” said June.

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you have an assignment for me?” Alice asked.

  Hanna consulted her list. “Alice, right?”

  “Yes, from Pennsylvania.”

  The girl laughed. She was probably in her early twenties, but she looked much younger. Damp ringlets of shining brown hair curling around her face framed her wide blue eyes and sweet smile. “Alice from Pennsylvania…let’s see. Oh, here you are. Mark and Gina want you in CCU again today, and Joe would like you to be on call for any human medical problems.”

  “Thank you. Where are you from?”

  “Nowhere. I mean, I’m from right here. I’m the executive director of this humane society, the Gulf Coast Animal Protection Team. When Riley lost his building, I invited him to bring his animals here. He kept going back to rescue others, and word got around that we were taking animals. Things got crazy around here. I realized we couldn’t handle an operation this big, so I called HOUS for national assistance. That’s when Joe came in.”

  “I see. That was wise of you.”

  Hanna smiled wryly. “It was self-protection. I was totally overwhelmed. The place was a madhouse. Joe, with his gift for organization, was a gift from heaven.”

  Alice smiled. “I’ve seen a lot of those around here since I arrived.”

  Hanna nodded her head. “So have I.

  That evening, Ellen invited Alice and June to have dinner with the twins and her.

  Alice had three bananas and June brought cookies, and fruit juice in single-serving boxes. To their surprise, Ellen had two box mixes of noodles with Alfredo sauce, which she managed to cook for thirty minutes on a Coleman stove a great deal more sophisticated than June’s.

  “This was an excellent meal,” Alice said. “Thank you so much for inviting us.”

  “Teenagers,” Ellen said. “I know they require a lot of fuel, so I stocked up on anything I thought I could manage to cook on this stove.”

  “You’re certainly more adventurous than I am.” June tore open the package of cookies. “I’m happy if I can boil water for rice or instant oatmeal on mine.”

  Ellen chuckled. “I’ll have to teach you some of my tricks while we’re here.”

  “Mom can do amazing things with a camp stove,” Miranda chimed in.

  “So tell us about yourselves,” Alice said to the twins. “You said you have applied to colleges, but you didn’t mention where.”

  “I just received my acceptance to the University of Michigan,” Miranda said promptly. “And Royce already has been accepted at schools in Florida and Massachusetts. He wants to be a marine biologist.”

  “And you?” Alice had already learned that Miranda did most of the talking for the pair. Royce was pleasant, courteous and seemed quite happy to sit back and let his sister occupy the limelight.

  “Music,” Miranda said. “I sing and play French horn. I don’t know if I want to teach or perform, but I know I want to continue music studies.”

  “INCOMING!” The voice was Joe’s, amplified by a bullhorn. “I need everybody at the staging area in five minutes.”

  “Let’s go, Royce.” Miranda scrambled to her feet as Ellen hastily cleaned up the remains of the meal. “I heard they were going to search a new area today, so we probably are going to get a lot of animals tonight. The number of rescues has been tapering off recently,” Miranda told June and Alice, “but if the new area hasn’t been scouted yet, it’s possible they have found pets alive.” She and Royce stomped their feet into rubber barn boots and took off along the path. All around the camping area, flashlights and lanterns bobbed wildly as people rushed to get to their stations.

  Alice had been assigned a job, as had June, and each rushed to find her team leader. Alice’s team leader was Corinne, the kennel manager. As the dogs wer
e unloaded, Corinne and a dog trainer assessed each one.

  “Most of them are docile,” said Corinne to the assembled volunteers. “They’re starved and weak and scared to death, very dispirited. Occasionally we get a dog that is not very happy, and we do not expect you to handle any of the dangerous ones. That’s our job.”

  Alice was a bit relieved. She had not fully realized the extent of the work to be done when she first envisioned volunteering, and seeing all the required skills made her feel somewhat inadequate.

  She stood back as the first set of kennels was unloaded from a truck. The men handling the crates were Darrell and Oren, and Alice learned that both men were locals. They were donating the use of their vehicles and their time to locate animals.

  “They started doing this the second day Riley went out, and they’ve been at it ever since,” Miranda told her. “They’re like superheroes or something.”

  Royce took the first dog, a black Lab so weak he could not even walk on his own. Alice’s eyes teared as Royce scooped up the animal and headed for the bathing area.

  Miranda went next, getting a beagle whose tail feebly wagged as it was handed out of its kennel wrapped in a blanket. “Leg injury,” said Corinne. “Skip the bath. Take this one directly to the intake station and then give it vet priority.”

  Two more dogs were unloaded: a pit bull, who was able to walk on his own, although Alice could count each of his ribs; and a huge rottweiler that required two men to carry it on a blanket. Kyle, the front-gate guard, and tattooed Riley stepped forward.

  “Careful,” Corinne warned. “She’s pregnant. Due pretty soon and not looking too good.” As the men lifted the blanket, the rottie lifted her massive head for a moment, then let it flop back down as if she was too ill to care what was happening.

  Oren drove the first pickup truck away and Darrell backed a second one into the unloading zone.

  “Stand back,” Corinne said as she opened the back of the truck and shone a flashlight on the first dog. Alice could hear a steady rumbling growl interspersed with the occasional snarl or bark. “This one’s going to take some finesse.” Corinne took a stick with an expandable piece on the end and stuck it through the cage bars. Once it was inside, she released a trigger, and the end of the stick became a wide restraint that she pressed against the dog.

  The dog went wild at first, biting at the stick and turning flips in the confined space. Finally, when it appeared to have exhausted its energy, it stood panting in the back of the cage with the restraint pressed against its chest.

  “Go around to the side and say something to it,” Corinne instructed another volunteer.

  “What do I say?”

  “Anything. We just need to distract him for a moment.”

  The dog handler, Lucinda, held a long pole with a loop on it. As another volunteer cautiously opened the kennel door a scant inch, Lucinda maneuvered her pole through. The dog snarled at her until the volunteer stepped into its side view and spoke to it. Startled, the dog turned to snap futilely at the speaker. Lucinda seized the opportunity to neatly slip the loop over the dog’s head and tighten it.

  “This is hard to watch,” said a man behind Alice. “But it’s the safest way to handle him. He’s probably just frightened. He doesn’t know we want to make his life better. A lot of these scary ones become different animals after a few meals and a couple days of kindness.”

  Lucinda tugged and the dog rushed forward, banging open the cage door. He whirled and tried to bite the catchpole, but Lucinda took off at a smart clip, expertly holding the dog at a distance. Finally, the dog stopped resisting. He began to trot along beside Lucinda, ignoring the pole.

  “All right.” Corinne mimed wiping sweat from her brow. “Let’s hope he’s the only one with enough energy to be feisty tonight.” She peered into the next kennel, then opened the door and reached in. Over her shoulder, she said, “Alice, this is a good one for you to start with.”

  As Corinne lifted a small, dark-colored cocker spaniel from its kennel and stood it on its feet, Alice stepped forward. Corinne handed her the purple slip lead she had placed on the dog and looped a piece of elastic with an index card encased in plastic around Alice’s wrist. “Whatever you do, do not lose this information. Give it to the people at the intake table.” She looked down at the dog. “I believe this one can walk on its own. If not, just ask for help if you’re nervous at all about picking it up.”

  “Hi, baby.” Alice knelt and extended a fisted hand as she had seen the others do. The cocker did not even try to sniff her, just stood there with its head hanging down. “Come on, sweetheart, we’re going to get you feeling better. Let’s go this way.”

  The little dog walked docilely behind her as she coaxed it over to the bathing station, where a group of people waited.

  “What a pretty little one,” said Ellen. She wore elbow-length rubber gloves, and she scooped up the dog, setting it in a baby pool filled with a soapy mix. “A lot of them have been soaked in oil or other gunk,” she told Alice as she poured shampoo over the cocker and quickly went over its body. To Alice’s surprise, the newly cleaned dog was black and white. “We clean them up and then they get a flea dip. After that, you take her over to that table, where Hanna will do her paperwork.”

  Alice spoke softly to the little dog as it was rinsed and then sent into the flea dip. Wet, it was apparent that the dog had not eaten in a long time. Like many of the others she had seen, it was emaciated to the point of looking skeletal. After a quick towel dry, a volunteer laid a small towel over the dog’s back like a blanket. “Okay, off you go.”

  At the intake table, Alice’s dog received a collar with a number on it. She surrendered the index card, and its information was transferred to the dog’s record with the same number. The dog was weighed and listed as a female black-and-white parti-color cocker spaniel.

  Next, a vet examined the dog. To Alice’s disappointment, her dog had not been placed in Mark’s line, but in that of the vet who had just arrived that afternoon. She was watching Mark, at the next table, go over the pregnant rottweiler when a grouchy voice said, “Hey, lady. Quit wasting my time and get that dog on the table.”

  Gina, her friend from the CCU, was the vet tech assisting, and she rolled her eyes as Alice lifted the cocker onto the exam table. The vet’s name tag said Dr. Spade. Alice was slightly surprised. All the other folks around camp, from vets to volunteers, wrote their first names on their own name tags.

  Dr. Spade completely ignored her while he examined the cocker, addressing his comments to Gina. As the vet tech laid the little dog on its side, Alice heard Gina suck in her breath.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Dr. Spade did not appear to have heard her. Gina said, “Tumor.” She had her hands full as the cocker spaniel began to struggle and growl.

  Alice hurried around the head of the table and knelt, looking into the dog’s eyes. “It’s all right, girl. You’re going to be all right.”

  The dog quieted. Gina said, “Wow, she likes you.”

  “Excuse me.” The vet’s voice was sarcastic and cutting. He practically pushed Alice out of the way. As he examined the tumor, the dog became more and more agitated. Finally, the vet was done, and Gina set the dog on the ground.

  The cocker rushed to Alice’s side and cowered against her legs. Gina’s eyebrows went up and her eyes twinkled. “Looks like you’ve got a new friend.”

  “Don’t get too attached,” Dr. Spade said brusquely. “That tumor looks malignant. If it’s metastasized, she won’t make it. Better put her in the CCU where we can see how she does.”

  Alice was indignant, but she bit her tongue and led her small charge away. Don’t get too attached, indeed. She did not care if the dog had one day or ten years left to live, the animal deserved as much love as anyone could give until an owner was found or it was taken into foster care. After placing the cocker in a kennel in critical care with water and a small amount of food, Alice returned to the unloading zone.

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nbsp; Twice more, she shepherded dogs through the intake process. Her second charge was a puppy with a deep wound on its throat. The puppy was so docile and quiet she feared it had other injuries, but when Mark examined the pup, he did not think the wound was as serious as Alice thought. He bet her a cookie that the puppy would be on its feet with its tail wagging by the following evening.

  “I hope so.” She felt her lip tremble.

  Mark put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her briefly. “You’re doing a great job. It’s been a long day.”

  Alice allowed herself to rest her head against Mark’s shoulder for a moment, leaning on his strength. “There are only a few dogs left to be examined,” she told him. “I’m almost done.”

  Her next dog was a tiny Yorkie who smelled so bad that she had to breathe through her mouth as she carried him to the bathing area. The index card said that it had been found in a sewer pipe, and Alice had no trouble believing this. Even so, the terrier was livelier than most of the other dogs brought in. It yapped and tried to lick Alice’s face after its bath, when she finally could stand to get close to it. When the dog was weighed, the scale did not even reach four pounds, and everyone laughed.

  “He’s a little loud mouth,” said Hanna as she went through his paperwork.

  Unlike Alice’s first two dogs, the male Yorkie was healthy and did not need to go into the CCU, although he was placed in a special area designated for what one volunteer affectionately called “the pocket pups.”

  It was past eleven by the time Alice went looking for June for their walk back to the tent. As she’d suspected, she found her friend in the cat room. After waiting a few minutes for June to bottle-feed an orphaned kitten, the two women headed for their tent.

  Alice shared her evening’s work with June. As they washed up, her companion told Alice about the seven cats that had been brought in. “One of the people on the search team told me she expects they’ll be finding more cats in the next few weeks. She said that the cats are just now starting to get hungry enough to come out from their hiding places when the rescue teams arrive.”