Whelp

“Mother!” Errol Wessel called up the kitchen stairs, “You seen Katie-dog?”

“If I had, I wouldn’t tell the likes of you!” came her rotten reply.

Errol rested his brow on the doorjamb and kneaded the knot in his ass, from the damned loose tractor seat, until he was absolutely sure he wouldn’t holler back up at her. The cuckoo clock above the sink ticked on and on while he dug his knuckles in. Outside, wind rattled the cowbells in the crabapple tree, producing a tuneless symphony that sent shivers down his old, swollen legs.

“What if I drive to Ogdensburg tomorrow, buy you a roll of candy buttons?” he sang, “Might you have seen her then?”

“I’ve seen that dog lick her own rear, that’s what I’ve seen!”

“Not like you to refuse candy, Mother,” he cried up the steps, “Should I send for the priest at long last?”

“Send for whomever you like, I haven’t had a proper visitor since Easter,” Mrs. Wessel lamented, her voice wavering with faux-tears.

“Leland was here just Sunday.”

“He doesn’t count,” she snapped back, “He’s only my nephew.”

“Whole roll of candy buttons!” Errol cried, forcing buoyancy, “A bottle of brown. And I’ll ring Mr. Holcomb, tell him to drive his mother out for lunch.”

“Shame on you, Errol Wessel!” she screeched, “Offering drink to your bedridden mother!”

Errol waited. The cuckoo clock ticked on. The knot in his posterior came undone from one final, hearty jab.

“Well,” she finally conceded, “Could be I saw her out the window after supper, down by the old barn. Buy Canadian brown, if you please.”

***

With a kerosene lantern for a guide, Errol Wessel crossed the pasture where, by day, his 55 dairy Holsteins grazed in lazy cliques and cloisters. The acreage stretched down to the Oswegatchie River and a half-built goat barn crouched, nearly hidden in a copse of white aspens, over by the property line to neighboring Kearney Farm. The woven wire dividing Wessel from Kearney lay threadbare in places, for both farms’ cows socialized over the fence, licking each other’s ears. Errol daily hoped some of that St. Lawrence County Fair Blue Ribbon quality might be passed on to his own cattle, in Kearney cow spit...perhaps by 1937, for ‘36 had been a bust.

“Here, Kate,” he called ahead, to the neglected barn, “Here, girl!”

Night breezes blew all around, whipping at his back.

“Nippy,” Errol muttered, and he pulled his cardigan tight at the neck, “Catch my death.” Having long suffered corns on the balls of both feet, he had to slow his stride again and again, an anxious spirit goading him on. Down where the land met the river, the Oswegatchie rolled wide and calm, but its waters got downright frigid at night; he hoped Katie hadn’t run after a cottontail and fallen in.

The goat barn amidst the aspens had only half a roof, the project long abandoned, ever since Errol and Leland fell out over the latter’s pay for helping raise it. The cousins’ rift had mended in the years since, but the barn stood as a testament to both men’s abject stubbornness, for many a night they drank together on the porch, gazing out at the dilapidated structure and the goats that would never be.

Errol reached the open barn door and hung his lantern on a rusted hook. He stumbled in and leaned heavily on a beam.

“Kate,” he panted, huffing from the walk, “You out here, lady?”

The lantern light pooled in concentric rings, spilling down the breezeway, where the stalls opened to one side, the last few in the row clean roofless, thanks to two rigid old fools.

Errol whistled loud as he could, yet louder the wind tore through the structure, freezing him right down to his long johns. He nearly made for home then, ornery from aching feet, and wondering what treat might lure Katie-dog homeward, but just as he hefted the lantern off the hook and braced himself for the jaunt back to the house, his ears pricked to another whine, nearly inaudible under the rising wind.

“That you, girl?” he shouted, wheeling around, lantern out, “I hear you!”

He shuffled down the aisle, peering into every stall, stooping as the roof dipped low overhead.

“Damn my cousin,” he muttered, sawdust raining down following a rather significant blast of wind, “And damn me for letting a barn rot over $30.”

Katie-dog whined just yonder, Errol was sure of it. He raised a hand to block the sting of grit blowing in and pulled himself round the corner of the last stall. There, on a pile of ancient, moldy hay lay the sweetest tricolored beagle in all of Upstate New York--or at least in that region just south of the St. Lawrence River (hell, probably for some fair distance north into Canada)--with a mess of blood under her tail and a tiny newborn pup nearby, strung to a beet-red placenta.

“Lord,” groaned Errol Wessel, “Why didn’t you say something?”

He set the lantern-handle over a post, its glass body rocking with the ceaseless wind, flame nigh extinguished. With no small effort, the farmer lowered himself to one knee and reached two stubby fingers under the closest flap of velvet ear.

“Looks like you snuck out to meet the stork,” he said, and his heart almost melted to nothing, seeing Katie all bloody and worn-out.

Errol could have kicked himself, corns and all. Who could miss something so plain as a pregnant beagle? Katie-dog, who’d barely left his side for 11 years, was a thin, old girl. Had her belly even sagged? Had her nipples dropped?

Great gusts shook the barn right down to its moldy fodder. Katie licked his hand, her gaze thick with exhaustion. She covered her nose with a paw.

“Let’s see who we’ve got,” said Errol, and he reached for the black-and-tan pupling and its placenta.

Katie-dog whined.

“A little heart-breaker,” he began, gazing at its little face, then his own heart suffered that same fate, “Mercy, no.”

If life played fair, there’d have been a break in the wind, some sense of decency to mark the sudden grief, but the gale drove on, screaming all around, as if a cyclone had touched down on Oswegatchie, New York, smack bang on Errol Wessel’s half-ruined goat barn. With great care, the farmer bit through the bloody umbilical cord, then he tucked the dead pup under his cardigan, in the top pocket of his overalls. He leaned over to scoop under Katie-dog.

“Get you out of the wind,” he fretted.

But the beagle shrieked soon as he lifted, writhing her head back on the hay. A lump rose and settled, low on her belly. Her legs twitched and trembled.

“Have you another?” Errol yelped, and he lifted her tail to peek. Sure enough, a bubble of amniotic sac had crowned, a tiny body writhing within.

Katie-dog wailed.

“Hold on,” he cried, and he shucked off his cardigan and slid it under the poor pooch, “And let’s drag you under a roof till the next one comes.”

***

Strange whirlwinds raged around the rickety barn, but Errol managed to situate Katie in a much finer goat stall, one with cover overhead from the elements. He sat on the cold ground while the old gal licked at herself. Her belly contracted in steady pulses. The sleeve of Errol’s cardigan soaked up the ongoing mess.

“Give it all you’ve got,” he rallied, “We’ve lost one but by golly, we won’t lose another.”

Katie bit at the sac, pulling at it with her teeth. Slowly, the mound slid forth.

“One more push,” Errol breathed, and so it was, for she strained one last time and promptly whelped her issue in a rush of fluids, another placenta pouring out after. Despite her fatigue, Katie craned her head down at once, licking at her babe, then tearing the birthing pouch so its face could be seen. Itty-bitty paws flapped to and fro and a teeny-tiny mouth took its first gasps of fresh air.

And at that, the wild gale outside expired in one final, wretched shriek, followed by the queerest, fullest silence Errol ever did occupy. Clouds of grit settled in the breezeway.

“I’m quite proud,” announced Errol Wessel, choking back a gush of tears, for farmers hadn’t better cry at such stuff.

“Awooo,” howled Katie-dog.

“Mew! Mew!” cried the pup, only that somehow seemed the wrong line, so the old farmer bent close, just to check--for what an odd jaunt to the goat barn it had been--and where there should have wiggled a pudgy pup instead squirmed a wet little kitten in ginger and white, the M-curve on its nose unmistakable in the lantern-light, its tail quite thin, a set of gleaming tipped claws on every footpad.

He and Katie exchanged looks of identical shock, universal in the novelty of the moment. Yet even as Errol’s thoughts turned to scripture and the beagle sniffed dubiously at the critter, a voice suddenly rang from without.

“You in there! I’d have a word!”

Errol snapped to.

“Who’s out there?” he called, his face hot, “This is private property!”

“I’m not on your property,” she answered, and she wasn’t Errol’s mother, “Come out and see for yourself.”

Rising unsteadily to his knees, Errol snapped his fingers at Katie: “Don’t eat it.”

He left his lantern in the stall, then limped for the barn door, corns smarting. A moonless sky swelled into view and Errol regarded straightaway the woman standing on the wire fence to the adjoining Kearney farm, balanced expertly atop a stave, one bare foot stretched en pointe, with a cat poised on the stave beside her, up on hind legs, its shaggy fur a rich russet red.

“You see, I’m not on your property,” she said, “Nor your neighbor’s.”

“I see that,” said Errol, fists on his ribs.

“My name is E. Alma Everard,” said the lady, “This is my tom, Pertinax. We’ve come for the kit.” She wore a black turtleneck tucked in high-waisted khakis, with several brilliant strands of pearls hanging overtop the sweater, suggesting the neckline hidden beneath. A beret angled over her auburn curls. If she was pretty, Errol didn’t bother to notice, for he didn’t like how she perched so unnaturally on the sagging fence. The tomcat licked between its toes.

“It’s awfully late for business,” Errol demured, flapping a hand at her as if she’d fly away then and there, “Come back tomorrow.”

“We’ll be on the moon tomorrow,” the lady objected, “No, we’ll need the kit tonight.”

“I don’t agree,” said the farmer.

“Your dog’s the one made the agreement,” she retorted, “And I’m just my tom’s proxy in this matter, for the animals have decided already.”

The kit in the barn shrieked for milk and the tomcat on the wire fence perked up, whiskers trembling.

“I don’t rip calves from cows the first night,” said Errol, “I shan’t take Kate’s pup either.”

“Kit,” she corrected.

“Them in there are dogs, the both of them,” said farmer Wessel, “I think you’d better get on now.”

“My tom will have his due,” warned the lady on the stave, and she rose and fell with every wave of the bent wiring, balanced all the while.

“Go on, shoo,” said Errol, and he turned his back on her, retreating to the barn.

“That cat leaves your property, its ours!” bellowed E. Alma Everard, and the tom yowled its agreement. There came an awful rush of wind, another bizarre localized tornado that nearly knocked Errol on his ass, but he’d years of farming in his legs and bullishly planted till it blew away.

Back inside, a little peace curled up on the ruined cardigan: Katie and her whelp, the little one at suck, its feline ears folded back, mother finally asleep.

“I’ll sit a little longer,” said Errol Wessel, but he stood there all night, watching the skies through the ruined roof.