For an entire week he blocked traffic going both ways. Everyone already late for work, we exited our cars to lure him over to one of us, but every time we tried, he’d run closer to Highway 299, the two lane windy road which is the only way to Eureka from here. I was finally able to get him off the road and into my car with the help of a handsome farmer, treats and the leash I always carry for just these occasions. No one knew whose dog he was and of course, he had no tags to go with his collar so I took him home.
I called my dad who happened to be visiting , “Dad, I’m coming back with a big Huskey I kept from crossing 299, I am already so late for work, can you please close the farm gate after I leave and get him water and food while you make signs and post them around?” I felt bad for roping dad into my animal drama. Here, cuando no es a bear going through the trash or dead on the road, it’s my foxes eating the neighbor’s chickens, or Brown-headed Crow birds stalking my birds’ nests so they can leave their eggs for them to foster, or the Red-shoulder hawks circling my cat in the backyard. Then, of course, there is the daily hummingbird fights because my resident Anna’s hummingbird, Fearless, is a territorial son of a bitch. When two Rufous Hummers came last month, I hoped they’d fuck up Fearless for being an asshole. The Rufous are known to be the more aggressive of the hummingbirds, but they eventually left and Fearless reclaimed his throne at the feeder. And now there was this rando suicidal dog making me late for work. Dad closed the gate behind me and went in to get the dog water. When dad came out, the dog was gone. Not knowing we were preparing for this incident, dad and I had just patched up any holes to the property so how had he gotten out?
“Maybe he wasn’t real,” Dear Chicago said nailing what I had already thought.
” I thought of that too, but I have the pictures and dad to corroborate my story.”
The next morning on my way to work, there stood the dog in the middle of the road again. Same exact scenario. This time he recognized me so he came to me right away and got in my car. And again, no one knew who the dog belonged to. We did it all over again, in the same order but with no longer a sense of urgency. And like yesterday’s story, the dog got out of the fenced property somehow.
On the third day, It happened all again.
On the fourth day, I left for work early to throw off the narrative of this shapeshifter. You see, when you get caught in a magical circle of sorts, you have to do something different to break the spell. Leaving for work early did it and I thought that had been the last of the dog.
Three days later, dad and I took on the arduous project of staining 300 feet of fence. As we worked in the 95 degree weather, I looked up and there he was at the gate waiting to be let in. I screamed, “dad, look who’s here! He knows how to get back!” We named him Jax.
We opened the gate to let him in, and closed it again so the dogs wouldn’t get out. Jax played with my dogs for a few hours, ate and drank. I kept my eye on him at all times because dammit, I wanted to know how he was getting out. He eventually got bored and he very casually walked over to the heavy closed metal farm gate, he pushed it open with his muzzle just enough to slip out and it closed back up behind him. He walked away down the long dirt road not ever looking back. I haven’t seen Jax since.
My Love is for the Birds - Sketches 