Pogonip (Angel Paws) Read online

  Pogonip

  an Angel Paws short story

  Jordan Taylor

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  Copyright © 2013 by Jordan Taylor. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Cover photo of Australian Cattle Dog “Silverbarn’s Paavo” by Eva Holderegger Walser through Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons or dogs, living or dead, is coincidental.

  No trees were harmed in the creation or publication of this work.

  Short Stuff Press

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  POGONIP: (PAH-guh-nip) Paiute word for cloud, referring to a dense winter fog containing frozen particles, formed in valleys in Western United States. Beautiful but dangerous.

  — www.cowboyshowcase.com

  Pogonip

  Jake throws his hat to the ground in a puff of red dust. He gazes from smashed fence to shredded stack lot, then across the home pasture, shaking his head, muttering under his breath.

  Pogonip watches him, head low, tail down, ears pricked as she listens.

  “That bull gets out of his own fence and makes a beeline for our feed. Old Wyatt can’t keep him in.”

  Jake looks at Pogonip. When their eyes meet, she wags her tail.

  “Better tell the boss.” He snatches up his hat.

  Pogonip jogs at his heels: past the pickup he had just started to load with bales of alfalfa when he found the damage to the stack lot, up the dirt road to the machine shed.

  As they approach the shed, the boss steps outside with a bucket of nails and a hammer.

  “That bull of Wyatt’s tore up our stack lot again,” Jake says.

  The boss rolls his eyes skyward. “Just what we need: more work.” He looks at Jake, who has slouched against the corner of the machine shed. “Get the middle pasture fed. I’ll mend the corral fence. Then we’ll saddle a couple of horses and find the brute.”

  Back at the stack lot, Pogonip watches for mice while Jake loads bales on the flatbed pickup. Crouching low, body tense, ears alert, she launches herself forward, snaps, misses.

  Jake throws a rope over the hay in the truck, ties it off, then opens the door and snaps his fingers.

  Pogonip flies past, across the driver’s seat to her own. Jake follows, leaning around her to roll down her window with a rusty screech. Pogonip pins back her ears.

  After feeding the middle pasture, the pair return to the ranch house for the men’s lunch. Pogonip flops in the shade of the three big cottonwood trees on the west side of the house, dozing until awakened by a bang from the back door.

  “I’m taking Donner. You’d better catch Redrock to be safe,” the boss is saying as Pogonip stands to greet the two men.

  Jake looks toward the horse pasture, absently bending down to rub Pogonip’s neck. “Flick needs the experience.”

  “You don’t want Flick out there,” the boss says as the three of them start toward the saddle shed, down the hill from the house. “That colt’s never been married to a full-grown bull and we might have to rope him.”

  They pull halters and ropes from the saddle shed, feed buckets from the feed barn, and walk out to the horse pasture, whistling and shaking their buckets.

  The horse herd, eleven strong, lopes in, tossing their heads, snorting, biting at one another. Pogonip stands back, glaring, tense and watchful—ready to cut one off from darting back into the pasture if needed.

  The boss throws a rope across Donner’s neck, waves his hat at the others as they crowd in for oats, then leads the gelding back to the gate. Jake halters Redrock and follows. Halfway there he slows, looking back at the chunky, bay horse.

  Pogonip trots ahead, waiting for Jake at the gate.

  “Boss?” Jake calls, glancing up from watching Redrock’s hooves. “There’s something wrong with Red.”

  The boss stops with Donner—finishing off the oats—to stare at Redrock. “He’s lame.” He reaches up to rub his own neck under his wide-brimmed hat. “What happened?”

  Jake only shakes his head, watching the horse as he walks.

  “Well … put him up. We’ll look at him when we get back.” The boss leads Donner on through the gate and back to the saddle lot with Jake, Pogonip, and Redrock trailing. He sighs as he clips a crosstie to Donner’s halter. “I guess you’d better take Flick—if you’re man enough to try him.”

  Jake shrugs. “He’s got to meet a bull sometime.”

  Pogonip follows Jake to the barn, sitting in the doorway while he turns Redrock into a straw-bedded loose box. Then it’s back to the horse pasture for the eager, bouncing chestnut colt, Flick.

  Half an hour later, both Donner and Flick are saddled and bridled, coiled nylon ropes and canteens hanging from their saddle horns.

  Pogonip shows her teeth when Flick acts up at the home pasture gate and Jake has to back him, letting the boss and Donner open the gate. Flick rolls his eyes at her, stomping his foot, then starting when Jake nudges him on.

  Into the pasture, Jake calls her. “Nip, can you find that bull?”

  She watches him, swishing her tail slowly back and forth. She knows what a bull is. Knows her people have had trouble with a rogue bull. But she cannot think why they might want to find it. Each time they see it, Jake and the boss work frantically to run it off. Now they want the bull back?

  “Go on, Nip,” the boss says. “Where’s our bull?”

  “Find the bull, Pogonip,” Jake says, glancing across the pasture to the southwest, in the direction of Old Wyatt’s place.

  Pogonip starts that way, moving ahead of the two riders. Though she can neither hear nor smell the bull, Jake seems to think that’s the best way to go.

  The sun has reached beyond its peak, just starting back down the sky. Pogonip’s tongue hangs out the side of her mouth as she trots. Dry, beige pasture grass prods her. Ticks catch her short, red speckled fur from the longest blades as she passes. Not far ahead, the field melts into a giant soup bowl—a rolling, waving, churning current of heat.

  No breeze stirs parched grass. The jackrabbit, coyote, cattle, and field mouse smells hang distant and dim across dry earth. Nothing fresh or clear.

  It’s a quarter of an hour before she crosses the bull’s trail from the night before and veers west. This is the path he took wandering away from her ranch after his stack lot feast.

  The cowboys follow in silence as she leads them to the home pasture fence, then south, running along that for another half mile before the ground slopes downward to a dense patch of scrub and woods. Fifty yards from its edge, Pogonip stops. She lifts her head, smelling little in the still, dead heat. Yet she smells bull. And, more importantly, she hears him: a heavy, low, rushing sound.

  Pogonip looks around as Jake rides up beside her. Flick snorts and stops, his wide eyes on the brush ahead.

  “Good dog,” Jake says, tipping his hat to her.

  She wags her tail once, then looks back at the thick scrub.

  The boss reins in Donner and lifts his canteen. “Reckon he’s in there.”

  All five stare at the brush.

  Jake wipes his brow under his hat with a bandana. “What now?”

  “Now we say a prayer. Then we run that bull out and drag him back to his own pasture.”

  Jake nods.

  There’s another long, long moment of silence.

  Pogonip lies down in Donner’s shade, eyes half closed, tongue dripping.

  Donner steps forward and Pogonip looks up.

  “I’ll push him out,” the boss says with a glance to Flick.
“Better not take that colt in. Y’all wait here with a rope handy.”

  “Want me to send the dog in?” Jake asks. “She’ll bring him out.”

  “Bring him out fighting. We don’t need that yet. We’ll push him out gentle. Bet he’s taking a nap in the shade.”

  The boss rides down the slope to the brush, pulling his rope from his saddle horn.

  Pogonip, still lying down, looks up at Jake, towering above her on the chestnut colt. Jake tugs on stained, buckskin gloves and unsnaps the leather fastener holding rope to saddle horn. He casts out a loop, shortens Flick’s reins, then looks down at Pogonip.

  “You stay here. We’re taking this one slow. Stay.”

  He nudges Flick with his knee. The colt moves off, head much too high, ears pricked, as Jake edges him around to come in at a different angle from the boss and Donner.

  Pogonip glances around as brush crackles, moving her gaze from Jake to the invisible threat now shifting within.

  The boss is clicking his tongue, casting his rope to knock against dry branches. Donner is nearly inside the thicket, moving deeper as the boss calls, “Git along, git, git,” in a soft, sing-song tone.

  Crack, pop.

  Pogonip sits up. Jake’s parting word echoes in her head and she remains where she is.

  “Whoa.” The boss reins in Donner. “He’s there in the shade—under this row of poplars. We’ll just push him out the other side. Jake, if you can—” the boss stops. He says one word, so soft and low, it’s a breath.

  The next second, the brush explodes. The boss wheels Donner. The horse’s eyes roll white as he plunges sideways.

  Pogonip springs to her feet as the charging bull bursts from scrub and trees like a speeding truck: a flash of gleaming red hide, thick, wide-set horns, a massive head and black eyes. The huge animal, more than twice the weight of Donner, crashes into the horse’s flank as he leaps away, pivoting on his hind legs. With the boss shouting and Donner screaming, horse and rider are flung to the ground like twigs.

  In the same instant that Pogonip bounds forward, hackles up, a white, nylon loop drops over the bull’s horns. Jake knees Flick and the panicky colt darts west, eyes rolling, nostrils flared.

  Donner is on his feet in seconds, leaving the boss behind as Pogonip streaks toward them. Before she has a chance to cut the bull off from his victims, the massive animal is jerked around by the horns in a 180 degree turn by Flick hitting the end of the rope fixed to his saddle horn. The colt is thrown to his haunches. Like Donner, he’s up at once, Jake still in the saddle. Finding a new antagonist in his sights, the bull charges.

  Flick balks and backs into the barbed wire fence they had been skirting as Jake yells, fighting with him, trying to turn him.

  The charging bull is halfway between Donner and Flick when Pogonip reaches his nose. With a leap, she’s past his flying hooves, teeth sinking into velvety hide. Her thirty-four pounds strike his face with such force that she nearly throws the 2,300 pound animal off his feet. Once again, his head is snapped around to his shoulder. He staggers, slinging his nose. Pogonip sets her teeth, feeling her body rip through the air like bullwhip.

  Blood and dust fill her mouth. The great, hot mass of the bull presses over her like a mountain. When he throws his head up, she flies with him, eyes closed against the blazing air and force of him. The power from each wild shake—faster, it seems, than anything so large should be able to move—makes her feel as if her teeth will be torn loose.

  Jake and the boss are yelling: at her, or each other, or their horses, she cannot tell. Snorts and puffing breath of the bull, his hooves pounding the dirt, reaching out to strike her, and her own growls fill her ears.

  The bull spins a complete circle, thrashing his head up and down as he turns, beating her body first against the dry earth, then over his head to crash against the enormous hump on his shoulders. Her teeth sink so far into his hide, she feels the pressure of flesh against her gums all the way to her molars. She can hardly breathe through her pointed nose. Each crash, separated by less than a second, drives air from her lungs until she feels flattened, smashed into the shape of an empty gunny sack. Each jarring, tearing toss of his head sends shockwaves through her body. It seems bone and skin and muscle will explode.

  The bull pivots again: not with intent, but yanked by the rope on his horns. He stumbles, thrashing his head with dulled speed as the rope pulls him through dry grass.

  Jake is still shouting—shouting at her. She rolls her eyes, blood filling her nose, black spots dancing before her as she struggles for air. She cannot see either Jake or Flick behind her—ahead of the staggering bull—but she sees the boss, back astride Donner, cutting in behind the bull, lasso in hand.

  The boss throws his rope. Pogonip slacks her grip. With a great heave of his head, the bull throws her off. She feels nothing for a moment but a rush of air. Then prickly grass, dry dirt, taste of both mingling with blood in her mouth. Knocked almost senseless, she tries twice to get on her feet without success, lungs flat, black blobs popping in her eyes.

  She feels the earth shudder beneath her paws, smelling blood and sweat and rage as the bull charges.

  She spots the boss through a black haze—recoiling his rope, Donner cantering after the bull. The cast missed.

  Pogonip staggers to all fours, gasping with wide open mouth, body trembling, pain signals bursting in her brain: legs, back, neck, mostly her ribs—blazing fire in her ribs. Fighting for air, blood and saliva dripping from her jaws, she runs after the bull.

  Jake and Flick are skirting him, rope still on his horns as he charges them, head low, flecks of blood flying from his nose. The boss has built another loop, riding after them, but the bull is ten yards from Flick’s flying heels. Even if the boss makes his cast, he’ll never turn that charge in time.

  Pogonip forces speed through her racing limbs, mouth wide, never enough air in her bruised lungs.

  The bull’s head and broad horns are feet away from Flick’s hindquarters when the colt turns across Pogonip’s path. The bull swerves with him. Pogonip jumps. For the second time, she catches his nose and swings her weight across his path. He staggers, slings his head, and comes almost to a stop, twisting and turning in place.

  Pogonip’s canine teeth sink into the bull’s right nostril, almost meeting in the middle. He bashes her across the ground: up, down, sideways. Another great jerk of his head and she feels herself soaring through the air, a chunk of flesh still clenched in her teeth, blood thicker than ever in her nose and mouth.

  She slams to earth on shoulder and ribs, rolling over before coming to rest in thick grass. She struggles to her stomach, a haze of blood over her eyes, fighting for any tiny gasp of air, shaking so violently she can hardly push her chest a few inches off the ground. A thousand pains stab through her body.

  The bull has not pursued. He has not moved from the stop where he threw her. Two ropes—one running north from his horns, the other south—now secure his head. He stands still, panting, blood dripping, face down.

  They have him. Pogonip sinks, trembling, to her chest. Black spots overwhelm her. Her searing lungs struggle for air. She closes her eyes.

  The next moment, it seems, Jake has her in his arms, his face pressed to the top of her head. “You’re a good dog, Nip. Good, good dog,” he’s whispering, holding her body against his chest.

  She can hardly hear him: her world a mass of pain, sharp and black and blazing hot.

  Someone drips water onto her swollen tongue. She cannot lap or swallow.

  “Get her home. Ask Meg to call in and let them know you’re on your way and take my truck to town. I’ve got to lead him back.”

  The boss speaking. She opens her eyes to discover she’s looking down on him and his dusty hat. He’s holding Donner’s reins. The horse moves stiffly, very lame in the near hind.

  Then both have vanished. Flick jogs forward, breaking into a canter which rocks her against Jake and the saddle, each motion a fresh agony.

 
Hours later, or moments, all a blur of pain, she’s lying across a blanket on the seat of the boss’s pickup, her head by Jake’s thigh. The taste of blood is thick in her mouth. She still cannot swallow. At least the rocking of the horse has ceased. And she is no longer hot. Rather, she feels as if she’s lying in an icy stream in winter.

  His hand brushes lightly across the thick, short fur on her neck.

  “You’ll be okay, Nip,” he whispers. But it sounds like a question.

  She closes her eyes.

  Again, she wakes. Now to steel and electric lights and white coats. Masked human beings lean over her and she knows a terror she never felt facing the bull. No pain anymore. Nothing anymore. Only fear. Only see and smell this white, sterile, bright horror crushing down on her. She needs sunlight, the smell of horses and pasture grass, the sound of Jake’s voice. She must get away from these people, away from this terrible place.

  She tries to struggle, to lift her head. Bright lights and masked faces spin, dim, and she knows nothing.

  ~ ~ ~

  Pogonip crouches outside the loading chute, the point of her muzzle just beyond the bottom gap.

  “Go on!” the boss shouts, waving his hat.

  The heifers start, stop, one backs.

  Pogonip darts her face below the bottom board and bites a heifer’s ankle. The animal leaps forward with her fellows through the chute. Pogonip waits for another lull, watching intently as churning hooves slow down and speed up, coating her in dust. She bites again.

  “Pogonip,” Jake calls from the pen. He has just stepped out, latching the gate behind him. “Don’t you suppose you need a rest?”

  She turns, flattening her ears at the stern tone in his voice as she hobbles to him. One hind leg is still in a cast, though the ribs are giving her little trouble now and her lungs seem to be working as ordered.

  He raises an eyebrow. “Were you helping?”

  She pants a dusty smile back at him.

  “I suppose you were doing a good job.” He reaches down, rubs her neck. “You always do. Better than us.” He glances toward the boss at the far end of the chute, still waving his hat. He looks at Pogonip. “Okay. Go on.”