It was like coming out of a darkened movie theater on a bright Arizona afternoon: reality rushed in, hot and painful. Sweat was running into her eyes, her shirt was prickly against her skin, Hope’s tongue hung out, there was grass under Penny’s feet, spectators, gray-blue sky overhead. Next slide, please.
Faces, handlers she knew, said words to her as she came off the field, and Penny said, “uh-huh, thanks,” and at the cooling tub, Hope jumped in, lapped his fill, shook, said, “Thee and I need to talk,” and took off. Penny felt a cramp and wondered if she was getting her period, but it had been months since she had a period and she followed Hope to the pickup. She filled his food bowl but he ignored it.
“Alright. So, what’d I do wrong?” she asked.
Hope shrugged, “If thee cannot do thy work, seek help from one who can.”
SOUTHERN ARIZONA INTERNATIONAL LIVESTOCK ASSOCIATION (SAILA) TRIAL
March 5, Final go-round, Tuscon, Arizona
Judge: Bill Berhow, Lavina, Montana
60 Open dogs went to the post
1. Ransome Barlow
Bute
95½
2. Ted Johnson
Craig
89
3. Penny Burkeholder
Hope
86
4. Betty Maddux
Mirk
86
5. Bruce Fogt
Molly
84
“I’D FEEL FOOLISH wearing one of those string ties,” Lewis Burkeholder said.
“I never thought I’d ever see you wearing any tie,” Beverly said. “You look nice.”
The Burkeholders had showered in the RV, though they couldn’t run the water as long as they did at home. Beverly put on the light blue dress she wore to her cousin’s wedding, and Lewis wore his corduroy sport jacket, red and blue tie, western shirt, and chinos. Out here everybody wore a Texas hat—hat’d be okay. Beverly fastened the safety clip of the antique silver and amethyst bracelet Lewis bought her for her birthday two years ago. Happier times.
“You know, Beverly,” Lewis said, “if I was to retire, sell out, we could take this thing on the road. Why, we could go all the way down to Mexico.”
“Lewis, don’t be silly. Neither you nor me knows a word of Mexican.”
They went to dinner in Penny’s pickup: Penny, Ethel Harwood, Lewis, and Beverly. Hope rode on the floorboards under Lewis’s feet and wasn’t happy with the forest of legs surrounding him.
“Good thing this is an old truck,” Lewis said. “I’d hate to fit four people in the cab of a new one.”
Penny said, “Hope, you hush up. Don’t you get to growling.”
Beverly said, “Lewis, would you please put your arm behind us. I’m sure Ethel won’t mind.”
“Over there,” Ethel said. “Penny get in the left lane.”
The Conquistador was done in mission style. The ceiling beams were dyed and distressed, the lobby furniture had thick legs and slab tops, and an original oil painting of conquistadors hung over the registration desk. Beverly got goose bumps on her arms and wished she’d thought to bring a sweater. The hostess made a point of checking the reservation book before saying, “Yes, Mr. Burkeholder, I think we can fit you in.”
Ethel Harwood said, “Course you can. There’s not ten people in this barn.”
The menus were the size of road atlases. The waitress who filled their water glasses had Indian features, but when she introduced herself her accent wasn’t any different from the Arizona drawl they’d been hearing all day.
Ethel said, “Good evening, we’ve been out all day in the sun and I am blasted thirsty. Gin and tonic for me.” Penny said no she didn’t want anything and Beverly said maybe a glass of white wine and Lewis, who rarely drank anything, had a recollection of a Jimmy Stewart movie he’d seen as a youngster, where Stewart’s family gathered together for an occasion and Lewis said, “This is a family reunion for us, Miss. I think we’d like a bottle of champagne.”
When the waitress offered Lewis the wine list, he grinned, “I wouldn’t know a good one from a bad one. Bring us the one people usually order, if it’s not too dear.” And, to Penny, leaning toward her, “That was a good run you had going today. Too bad about the shed.”
Beverly said, “My cousin Irma got married again last month. Third time. A dentist, has a practice in Stephen’s City. They’re off to Bermuda for their honeymoon. Ethel, you ever get to Bermuda?”
Ethel hadn’t, though she’d been to Britain for the International Sheepdog Trials. Lewis had questions about the sheepdog trials.
Ethel Harwood ordered the Mexicali platter, Beverly wanted fish sticks and the salad bar, Penny said she wasn’t very hungry, just the salad bar, please, and Lewis went for the surf and turf.
With so few diners, the salad bar hadn’t been picked over and Beverly took some of those tiny hot peppers that you never find on salad bars in Virginia.
Lewis said, “The sunsets out here are really something.”
Ethel said, “Is your fish alright?”
Beverly told Penny about weddings and divorces, deaths and births among the farm people she’d grown up with. Penny picked at her salad.
Ethel talked about the Texas Olympics, how it had rained so hard. Everybody expected Herbert Holmes would win with Dave, but Ransome Barlow never made a mistake.
Penny said, “Ransome’s the best dog man in the country.”
Lewis said, “That Bute dog is too hard. I wouldn’t want to send him after young lambs.”
Penny said, “He’s a whale of a trial dog.”
Lewis said, “Trials aren’t everything.”
The waitress said, “Sir, is everything alright? You haven’t touched your dinner.”
Lewis said, “I guess my eyes were bigger than my stomach, ha, ha.”
Beverly said, “I’ll have a little more of that champagne, please. My isn’t this good?”
Lewis put down his fork. “You comin’ home any time soon?” he asked his daughter.
Penny set her fork down too.
Beverly said, “Penny, I know you been through a lot …”
Ethel Harwood said, “They didn’t put enough lime in my gin and tonic. I think I’ll go ask about it.”
Lewis waited until Ethel was gone before he said, “You could move back to our house. There’s no sense paying two electric bills.”
Penny pushed her plate away. “Hope came sixth today, Daddy, and he’s good enough to win if I get my act together. It isn’t the same as it was with you and Nop. Hope and me, we’ve been through a lot together …”
Lewis stiffened. “I do believe I have an idea what a dog can mean to a person …”
“Don’t you see, Daddy? Don’t you see? I’m concentrating now and I only have the one thing on my mind. When I’m out on that trial field, I could be anybody, I don’t have to be me. Hope and dog trialing—they take up all my space, and at night, when I lay down, I’m too tired to dream.”
Beverly said, “Honey, it’s just that we miss you so.”
“Mama, last week a whole afternoon went by when I didn’t think about Lisa, not one time. I’m getting better, Mama. I’ll come home when I’m well again.”
Lewis swallowed. For a time he studied the back of his rough hands, lying on the white tablecloth. “If you put too much pressure on your sheep they’ll bunch up. Back off them and they’ll open a space for your dog. That Hope is a natural shedding dog if you give him half a chance.”
Lewis caught the waitress’s eye and ordered coffee. When she came back, Ethel Harwood had a glass of ice tea. She said she didn’t want another bite she was so full, no, nobody wanted any dessert.
Ethel and Beverly talked, remembering great dogs and their handlers. Ada Karrasch, the first woman handler, who always competed in a red pants suit and a red cowboy hat and when she and her dogs beat the men, they wouldn’t talk to her. Ethel remembered Lewis Pence and Pope Robertson and Dewey Joontz.
“Doug Whittenaur, remember him? What
ever happened to him?”
Lewis shrugged. “I heard he went into bankruptcy.”
Ethel remembered when Penny won the Kentucky Blue-grass, with the Stink dog.
“Stink was a great dog,” Lewis said, then called for the check. “I’d like to get an early start tomorrow.”
Ethel said, “You’re not going to run again?”
Lewis shook his head. “Old Nop can’t make up the points he lost today. No sense putting him through it. I believe we’ll just go on home.”
Penny said, “I wish … I …”
Lewis inspected the check and whistled. “Didn’t I ask for a low-priced champagne? I hope the kitchen crew gets more pleasure out of it than we did.”
It was chillier driving home and the windows were rolled up and it was cramped and Ethel Harwood’s perfume wasn’t the same as Beverly’s and Lewis wished he hadn’t bothered to put on aftershave. Saturday drunks raced by in the fast lane and Lewis thought if they got hit, it’d be the end of them, four humans and the dog on the floorboards.
He thought it probably wouldn’t matter much, that the sudden extinction of a truckload of travelers and their dog wouldn’t slow traffic for longer than it took to get the junk off the road. Car after car, fast-food joint after chain motel—Lewis badly wanted to be outside the city limits, to be where he belonged.
The next day, Hope lost three points at the shed, but that was good enough for a third—a fancy plaque and $480. Ransome Barlow won the gold engraved belt buckle, and $800. Ransome said, “That isn’t a bad dog there. If you could teach him how to shed.”
“It’s me who don’t know how,” Penny said. “I was thinking we could save some money if we traveled together.”
THE SALESMAN SAID, “Your Dodge’s got a hundred five on it. Five hundred’s as high as I can go. I can’t wholesale it for that.”
Penny said, “You gave Ransome fifteen hundred for his truck and my motor was completely rebuilt not three months ago. Somebody’s gonna get a lot of good miles out of that Dodge.”
The salesman wore a short-sleeved polyester shirt, which was pulling away from its buttons. “Why don’t you keep it then?”
Ransome leaned against the fender of the Ford 250 they were trading for. He watched cars and trucks go by.
Penny said, “The idea was that Ransome and me would trade in both our trucks for one newer one. You got any idea what kind of money we make at sheep dog trials?”
“I’m allergic to dogs,” the salesman said.
Didn’t slow her a jot. “You make money if you’re first or second. Third is break-even and fourth don’t pay for the gas. Why do you think me and him are traveling together?”
The salesman sighed. “Miss, I don’t know why you’re traveling together. That Ford’s a good truck. Thirty thousand miles plus a three-month warranty.”
“We got no use for your warranty, won’t be back in Tucson until next year. How much without it?”
“I’ll give you fifty more for no warranty, fifty for your rebuilt motor—”
“That motor was three hundred dollars!”
“Yeah, but you can’t see it. Customer look at your truck ask me how come an old truck’s only showing five K on the odometer and I tell ’em about your rebuilt motor and they say, ‘Sure, sure. What do you want for the Toyota over there?’” Across the highway a new Porsche waited for a break in traffic before it swept away with a mutter as sweet as anything in the world. “How old are you?” the salesman asked.
“Twenty-six.”
“I would have guessed you for older. Six fifty, no warranty, take it or leave it.”
Ransome didn’t help as she moved her sleeping bag and clothes and Hope’s dog bowls and her feminine articles into the new truck’s camper. “Hope rides up front,” she said.
BITTERSWEET RANCH SHEEPDOG TRIAL
March 12, Bascomb, Texas
Judge: Ralph Pulfer, Quincy, Ohio
38 Open dogs went to the post
1. Orin Barnes
Sioux
91
2. Ransome Barlow
Bute
90
3. E.B. Raley
Kim
88
4. Red Oliver
Roy
88 (Decided on outwork)
5. Herbert Holmes
Dave
87
IN THE WEEK they’d been traveling together the nicest thing Ransome said to her was, “If you keep jabbering I won’t fall asleep at the wheel.”
Nicest thing she’d said to him was after he came off the course at Bittersweet: “That’ll be the run to beat.” Meanest thing she did to him was taking her sleeping bag and air mattress outside every night and lying beside the truck, and once when it rained, she scooted underneath and spent the night beneath the drive train. Meanest thing he said to her was outside of Oklahoma City when she asked to stop at a rest area an hour and a half after they’d gassed up. “You don’t hold your water too good do you?”
ARDMORE OKLAHOMA RANCH DOG TRIAL
March 26, Ardmore, Oklahoma
Judge: Ted Johnson, Shorter, Alabama
27 Open dogs went to the post
1. Ralph Pulfer
Sweep
93
2. Dodie Green
Soot
90
3. Earnest Coggins
Moss
89
4. Ransome Barlow
Bute
88
5. Penny Burkeholder
Hope
84
“IT WAS YOU who hit that curb and ruined the tire,” Penny said. “I don’t see why I got to pay half the new one.”
“Because you still owe me and unless you pay half we’re on the thumb.”
“What about Penn Y Careau? Is it a good trial?”
He shrugged. “Do you like Florida?”
“I’ve never been to Florida.”
“Course is alright. Sheep are a little ragged.”
“When was the last time you changed your socks?”
“What’s the matter with my socks?”
1-66, east of Tulsa. The radio played Willie Nelson singing “Stardust.” Penny set her hat low over her eyes. The glare off the hood was awful.
“Ask Hope. He’s the one got to lie beside them.”
“Well hell … Well hell … You ain’t exactly Miss dainty and feminine yourself, you know.”
“I wash out my things every night. Might be you could do the same.”
Hope shifted himself as Ransome kicked out of his boots and dragged his socks off, one at a time, and tied them to the outside mirror.
“Damn things can air dry.”
JEFFERSON COUNTY FAIR
April 9, Tangiers, Ohio
Judge: Bruce Fogt, Sidney, Ohio
24 Open dogs went to the post
1. Ransome Barlow
Bute
89
2. Kathy Knox
Scot
88
3. Penny Burkeholder
Hope
88 (Decided on outwork)
4. George Conboy
Raina
85
5. Dick Bruner
Mac
83
Roy’s Dog Food Classic
April 23, Shorter, Alabama
Judge: Ralph Pulfer, Quincy, Ohio
1. Ransome Barlow
Bute
93
2. Ted Johnson
Craig
92
3. Earnest Coggins
Moss
90
4. Marilyn Fischer
Connie
89
5. Leroy Boyd
Bess
87
RANSOME GESTURED with his free hand as they rolled across the Mississippi Delta. “You got to give the sheep more room at the pen.”
“How’m I going to give them room when I can’t let go of the pen rope?”
The air rolling through the window was like a blast furnace b
ut it was perfumed too. The first two weeks of May, all the Delta blooms, the cotton, the soybeans, the spiky plantains along the roadside.
“I already told you that,” he said.
Ransome would give her answers, but was unwilling to repeat or elaborate them. Sometimes, rarely, she could get him to explain by coming at him from another angle: “What are the sheep thinking during the pen? What about the lead sheep, where do I want my lead sheep to be?” But many of Ransome’s answers were as informative as Zen koans. They did better discussing judging—so long as it wasn’t what the judge thought of her run or his.
“Why’d Ted Johnson lose a point at the pen? His sheep didn’t circle the pen or anything.”
“Those were easy penning sheep and they balked for a long time in the opening. Sheep like that, the judge is going to hit you every point he can.”
“But that means he’ll be tougher on the good runs than the bad.”
“Course he will. Judge has got to protect himself. He always got to leave room for the perfect dog.”
WILSON FARM TRIAL
May 6, Johnston, Mississippi
Judge: Bruce Fogt, Sidney, Ohio
24 Open dogs went to the post
1. Kathy Conner
Meg
89
2. Ted Johnson
Jan
88
3. Ransome Barlow
Bute
87
4. Leroy Boyd
Bess
84
5. Penny Burkeholder
Hope
82
“I DON’T LIKE IT, all your frillies flapping around in the camper back there.”
“Ransome, it’s night. Nobody can see them. I got to dry them out or I’ll have nothing clean. Maybe it don’t bother you to go without clean underwear, but I can’t stand it. It makes me feel like I got sand fleas all over my body.”
The truck windshield rushed through a bug blizzard. Insects fluttered to either side or kamikazied straight in. Every few miles Ransome ran the windshield washer and smeared two semicircles of visibility. Hope whimpered in his sleep.