Instinct

Dog By D.J. Butler

“WHICH DAUGHTER IS SICK?” Billy Redbird asked.

“The older one. Sunitha.” John Abbott patted the pocket of his raincoat and heard the tablets rattle. “I’m bringing home some medicine Ruth wants to try. I don’t know. The other pills didn’t work.”

They stood in thin rain on a narrow street in the Bowery. In just a few more paces, they’d reach the intersection where they’d split and go their separate ways. They were coming from the evening lecture of their Zaphon professor, Tzaark. The wolf-lizard had blinked and yawned his way through a facilitated discussion about not ignoring the spiritual dimensions of any non-human you encountered.

The lecture series on first contact scenarios was a bit of an outlier in John’s accounting degree, but he was taking it because he was applying for a job with the Sarovar Company, to leave the Sol system and work as an accountant and become one of the fabulously rich Sarovar Traders. Billy was a few years younger than John and was getting his undergraduate degree in biomechanical engineering.

“The tea?” Billy asked.

“She couldn’t get it down.”

Billy cocked his head to one side. “You hear that?”

John heard the soft battery of the rain. He heard the hissing wheels of a passing rickshaw and the hum of a hovercar taxi. Halfway down the block, shouting from a third-story window, and from the corner sang the beckoning whistles of the evening’s first streetwalkers, prowling around the green canvas eaves of a Brazilian bodega.

“Sounds like New York to me,” John said. “Sounds like I want to get inside and see my daughters.”

“You don’t hear a dog?” Billy asked.

John listened again, and then he did hear an animal sound. “How can you tell it’s a dog? I just hear whimpering.”

“Yeah, but it’s a dog’s whimpering.” Billy followed his ear to a pile of junk leaning against a cracked brownstone. A chair missing one leg leaned against a table that only had one; cardboard boxes and plastic sacks lay heaped about. Billy squatted and looked beneath. “Here, girl.”

John crouched, balancing by resting his knuckles on the wet concrete slab of the sidewalk. He could see a dog, sitting on its haunches. In the darkness, he couldn’t make out much. The dog looked like a Labrador puppy but squashed. Some kind of mutt, probably. “Is he bleeding?”

“She,” Billy said. “Yeah, I think she has a cut across her belly and her hind leg.”

“People can be really rotten,” John muttered.

“Might have been another animal,” Billy said. “Or an accident. Plenty of sharp things to impale yourself on in Manhattan without someone doing it to you on purpose.”

“If she cut herself on barbed wire, it still means some idiot left barbed wire where a dog could get to it.”

“Here, girl,” Billy said.

The dog whimpered.

“Doesn’t your name mean ‘Dog’?” John asked. “I mean, not Billy. The other one. She should come right to you.”

“My other name is Waagosh. It means ‘Fox.’ But you make a good point.”

Billy pulled a pouch from under his shirt, where it hung on a leather thong. Holding it close to his chest to shelter it from the rain, he shook a little of the contents into one hand, and then replaced the bag.

“That smells like tobacco,” John said.

“It is tobacco,” Billy told him. “It’s very good tobacco, cured in a traditional fashion, with no added chemicals.” Then Billy sang words John didn’t recognize. Presumably they were in his native tongue, Ojibwe, and they sounded long and hypnotic. Then Billy reached forward and placed the tobacco on the ground in front of the dog.

“I’m trying really hard not to crack a joke here,” John said, “because I feel like something’s going on that I want to respect.”

“Maybe you were going to say the dog doesn’t smoke.” Billy turned his head and grinned. “Jokes are okay. The spirits aren’t offended by jokes.”

“So…tobacco?”

“I’m giving a gift.”

“To the dog?”

“To the dog’s spirit. Animoosh. To honor the dog and show her we have good intentions. Come to us, Animoosh. Good girl.”

Abruptly, the puppy bolted forward. She ran right past Billy’s tobacco, and past Billy himself, and threw herself on John. Caught off-guard, John managed to grab the dog in both arms and then collapsed backward, sitting in a cold pulled on the sidewalk. A rickshaw sloshed a wave at him as it passed, missing, but spattering a ricochet of fine droplets against his cheek.

“Here,” Billy said. “You have to get home. I’ll take the dog and get her to a shelter.”

He reached out, but the dog squirmed away, pushing itself deeper into John’s arms and whimpering.

“I think we can definitely say the dog’s not a smoker,” John cracked.

“You don’t have time for this.” Billy stood and then helped John up.

John tried once more to hand the puppy to Billy, but she shrank and clung to him and whimpered. “We don’t either one of us have time,” John said, “but it looks like she’s chosen me. It’s okay, I’ll get her cleaned up and get her to the shelter in the morning.”

John wrapped his raincoat around the dog. She stank, smelling of the street and fear and wet dog and garbage. She was bleeding, and the blood immediately stained John’s light blue Oxford shirt.

At the corner, Billy insisted on stopping at the bodega. He smiled and bantered with the working girls but made his way to the printer at the front of the shop. John, feeling deeply awkward, stood and smiled at a tall, olive-skinned girl with gold teeth while Billy operated the printer. When he finished, he handed John a printed blanket and a printed raincoat along with a plastic pouch of printed-beef dog food.

“For the dog,” Billy said.

“I know it rains a lot in the Great Lakes area,” John said, “but do you really put your dogs in raincoats?”

“You’re going to put the raincoat on your floor tonight,” Billy said. “The blanket goes on top of the raincoat, and then the dog sleeps on top of the blanket. The blanket keeps the dog comfortable, and if this untrained rescue pup urinates in the night, the coat protects the floor.”

“You are wise in the ways of dogs, Billy Redbird.” John nodded. “Listen, let me pay for these. Or we can at least split the cost.”

“We are splitting it,” Billy said. “My half is that I pay for these things. Your half is that you wash the dog, treat the wound, and take her to a shelter in the morning.”

They parted ways at the corner, and John walked the two blocks to his apartment. On the way, the rain picked up, and he huddled deeper into his jacket. The dog smelled ripe, but she was warm.

As he climbed the synth-stone steps to the front of his building, two young men in long coats emerged from the front door.

“You’re John,” one said. He was big, with a strong Polynesian face and a wide grin. His companion was narrow and blond and looked as if he were sucking on a lemon.

“Did my big ears give me away again?” John asked.

“We were visiting Ruth.” Lemon Sucker held the door open.

John stooped to look at the name tags. “Thanks, Elder Roney. Elder Tuipelotu. You guys are UC, I take it?”

“We church with the Unified Congregations,” Elder Tuipelotu said.

“Ruth does too, obviously,” John said. “I’m just surprised to see you guys. She’s from the Catholic side. Uncle’s a cardinal, even.”

“Father Ritchey asked us to come by,” Tuipelotu said. “He’s tied up with really urgent matters, and someone needed to visit Sunitha.”

“You mean Ruth,” John said.

“Ruth asked us to give Sunitha a blessing,” Roney said.

“Laying on of hands. Of course, she did.” John fidgeted. So did the dog. “Right. You guys have a nice night. Thanks.”

“Hey, all we’re doing is asking God to take care of your daughter,” Roney said. “No harm, right?”

John squeezed past Roney into the doorway. “Sure. Have a nice night, guys.”

“We’d like to see the Abbotts at church.” Tuipelotu grinned. “I mean, no pressure, but it would make us happy.”

John shut the door and turned his back. “Come on, dog. What was it? Ani something? Let’s go upstairs.”

The elevator was out of order again; Hector was still on vacation, seeing his family in one of the Caribbean Republics, John forgot which one. So, John took a deep breath and walked up the five flights of stairs.

He stopped at the landing outside his door to catch his breath and let his heart slow down. He didn’t think, Marfan’s Syndrome notwithstanding, that he could really cause his heart to detach from his chest by mere exercise. But the doctors always told him to be careful, and in any case, there was no reason to get Ruth worked up.

When he opened the door, he smiled. Ruth was waiting for him, and she was not smiling.

“I hoped you would be able to get the pills before class,” she said.

“I did.” John produced the pills and handed them over.

Ruth frowned at the bulge in his jacket. “Then what kept you?”

“A stray dog,” John said. He eased his jacket open. “Look, she’s been hurt.”

“Does she have a collar? A name?”

“No collar.” John shrugged. “Billy Redbird called her something… Ani-something. It means ‘dog’.”

“That shirt’s ruined,” Ruth told him.

“I know, but…I couldn’t leave the dog.” In the light of the apartment, John could see that the dog’s coloring was golden-brown. “You wouldn’t want me to.”

Ruth sighed. “I wouldn’t want you to. But don’t give me any hypocritical talk about God’s creatures.”

“There might be a God,” John said. “If there is, this is one of his creatures.”

“I’m going to give Sunitha medication.” Ruth looked at the instructions on the side of the medicine bottle. “You’re going to wash that dog.”

Ruth wandered into the bedroom where the girls slept. She and John slept on a futon in the main room of the apartment, which contained the kitchenette in the corner. John eased the dog into the kitchen sink, blocked the drain, and began to fill it with warm water. The dog whimpered and licked John’s hand.

“Speaking of God’s creatures,” John called, “I see you had the Mormons by.”

“They were the ones who were available,” she called back.

“Maybe these new pills will do the trick.”

“Something has to. Shh! Let me concentrate.”

John washed the puppy twice, once with dishwashing liquid, just a bit, and then he emptied and filled the sink again, to let her soak in the warm water and thoroughly rinse away the soap. She only objected when he touched her skin near her cuts. She had two injuries, one long cut across her belly and a second along one leg. John carefully washed the injuries too, which looked fresh, but not infected.

Then he laid the dog out on the floor, with the printed blanket and the printed raincoat beneath her. “I’m not going to give you a name,” he said, “because tomorrow I have to take you to a shelter. You’re little and cute, so don’t worry, you’ll be adopted. I’m just going to think of you as Dog in the meantime.”

He heard Sunitha whimpering from the bedroom; the sound felt like a knife in his spine. He set the printed beef in a bowl in front of Dog and then lay on the floor beside her. He had the tube of antiseptic cream from the kitchen first aid kit, and he daubed a long line along Dog’s injuries, almost emptying the tube. She had almost entirely stopped bleeding by the time he finished.

Ruth emerged. “Sunitha is unconscious, but maybe you’d like to go in and say goodnight to Ellie.”

John went into the bedroom. The girls slept in a bunkbed and Sunitha, the older child, was ordinarily on top. Since the fevers had started, they’d switched the girls’ places, so John stood beside the top bunk to kiss Ellie goodnight.

“Mom said something about a dog.” Ellie yawned.

“I found a dog on the way home,” John said. “We don’t have room for a dog, but she was hurt, so I brought her home to take care of her. Tomorrow you’ll see her, before I take her to the shelter.”

“We have room,” Ellie told him.

“Shh.” He kissed her. “Good night.”

Sunitha was sleep. She tossed and turned, sweating. John knelt beside her and leaned in to kiss her forehead. She murmured, long, monotonous drone syllables in a sing-song voice, but he couldn’t make out any words he recognized.

Ruth had already unfolded the futon and was lying down. John turned out the lights and lay beside her. He felt sweaty and dirty, but she smelled nice, as she always did.

“Someday, maybe we can get a dog,” she murmured. “When we live somewhere with more space.”

“Ellie would like that,” John said.

“Mmm.”

“Sarovar has a lot of space,” John whispered.

“Mmm.”

John slept, but fitfully. He dreamed of his sick daughter. Sunitha ran through forests and across hilltops, chasing a friend and laughing. When he awoke, he heard whimpering, and eventually he took a pillow and stretched out on the floor beside Dog.

She hadn’t peed yet, at least.

John lay on his side. Dog pressed up against him and laid her muzzle on his bicep. He felt her breath on his cheek. She still whimpered from time to time, but much less.

John drifted in and out of sleep again.

He dreamed of Sunitha swimming in a deep blue pool. A friend swam with her, a friend who had no face, but who pulled her back from the deepest waters.

He awoke to the sound of Sunitha crying. He crept into her room and was joined by Ruth. Sunitha was hot and sweating. John fetched cold packs to slide beneath her and a damp cloth to wipe her forehead, and her cries died away.

“I’ll sit with her,” he whispered.

Ruth padded back to bed. John sat beside Sunitha’s bunk and found Dog pushing herself into his lap. His heart raced, but as he massaged the dog behind her ears and along her spine, his own stress dissipated. He fell gently into sleep.

He dreamed of darkness. He couldn’t see walls around him, but he felt them, and he sensed that they were closing in. He was running, and the ground beneath his feet was rocky and irregular, so he stumbled.

He skinned his face against an unseen rock wall.

In the darkness, he heard rhyming, drone-like chanting in an unknown tongue.

“Sunitha!” he cried. “Sunitha, where are you?”

“Dad!” Her voice was distant. It echoed and receded even as he heard it.

“Sunitha!”

She didn’t respond. In his heart, he knew that she was gone. Worse than that, he knew that she had died alone.

John woke up in a cold sweat. His body stank of sour fear, and cold gray morning light seared his eyeballs.

“John!” Ruth stood over him, shaking him by the arm. “John, wake up!”

John took a shuddering breath and tightened his shoulders before releasing them, trying to drive out the fear. “I’m awake,” he said.

“Mom,” he heard Sunitha say. “Dad.”

John turned, and he and his wife together looked at their oldest daughter. Ellie squirmed in the top bunk and lowered her head over the edge of the mattress to be part of the conversation, too.

Sunitha sat up, leaning against the wall. Her color was back to normal, she wasn’t sweating, her eyes were open. She even smiled.

And Dog lay sprawled out across her lap, head on her hip. Sunitha scratched the dog behind her ears and around her shoulders. A long mohawk of golden fur stood up along the beast’s spine.

“Dad.” Sunitha wore a slightly dazed smile. “She says she knows you.”

“Yes,” John said. “Yeah, I brought her home last night.”

“Her name is Animoosh,” Sunitha said. “She doesn’t like to smoke.”

John fought to keep his jaw from falling open.

Ruth laughed, a slight hysterical note to her voice. “No dog likes to smoke.”

“We’re keeping her, right?” Sunitha asked.

“We’re keeping A-Ni-Mooth,” Ellie said, repeating the name in big, loud chunks.

“We don’t really have the room,” John said. “My plan—”

“We’re keeping her,” Ruth said. “Of course, we’re keeping her.”

D. J. Butler is an American speculative fiction author. His epic flintlock fantasy novel Witchy Kingdom won the Dragon Award for Best Alternate History Novel in 2020. Witchy Winter won the 2018 AML Award for Best Novel and the 2018 Whitney Award for Best Speculative Fiction, and Witchy Eye was a preliminary nominee for the Gemmell Morningstar Award.

For more information, go to: https://davidjohnbutler.com/