Chapter 9

Kurt could determine someone’s work ethic within ten minutes. So far, he was impressed with the group from the High Grove Animal Shelter, staff and volunteers alike. Kelsey gave the enclosure-building her all, even though she had to be exhausted from these first two packed days. In addition to her, six others showed up and stuck with the project till it was complete. This included Patrick, who was smart, strong as an ox, and a bit peculiar with his routines and general rigidity. Kurt was only half surprised when he learned Patrick had Asperger’s.

Donna and Mickey, two women in their fifties, worked hard but consistently made jokes that kept the mood light and fun. There was Jim, a retired electrician who Kurt was hoping would have a look around inside. The wiring seemed safe enough, but two different fuses had shorted since he’d arrived. There was also a retired couple, Barbara and Ron. After an hour of working alongside them, Kurt learned it was Barbara’s second marriage and Ron’s fourth. They’d only been married to each other a year and had met while volunteering at the shelter.

Kurt was pleased with the work the group had done, and it was only five thirty. Eventually, he’d cement the corner posts into the ground and bury eighteen inches of the galvanized mesh fencing underground to keep the dogs from digging out. For now, the runs would be a supervised way to give the dogs some much-needed time out of their kennels.

Afterward, the volunteers and Patrick stayed around, watching the first two dogs experience the ten-by-four-foot runs. Two of the runs were purposefully built side by side. These two runs would be a safe way to see if the dogs were truly able to get along with one another when they were ready for a greater level of socialization with other dogs. For now, only one of the side-by-side runs would be used. The third run stood alone at the back of the yard. The mess of a dog, the giant who was causing more commotion and concern than most others combined, was given the largest side of the joint run.

Kurt was hoping a good stretch of his long legs and some fresh air might take the dog’s edge off a little, but every time someone walked within ten feet of his run, the hair on his neck and upper back ruffled, and his tail stuck straight out. The massive dog sniffed and scent marked until it was hard to believe there was a hint of moisture left in him.

In the other run at the back of the yard, the lively Argentine mastiff was more interested in dropping into a play bow and dashing around the enclosure than he was in doing much scent marking. Like most Argentine mastiffs, he looked like a cross between a Great Dane and a boxer. He was eighty-five pounds of pure muscle and had the energy of a smaller, lighter dog. The vet had put him at about a year and a half. His sleek coat had minimal scars and none from cuts or bites that had been severe, indicating he hadn’t spent much time in the fighting rings.

Although Kurt wasn’t ready to share it aloud, he suspected the rambunctious dog would be easy to integrate into a new home, possibly even one with another dog.

The dog’s playfulness made him think of Zara, the last dog he’d had in Afghanistan. It had been difficult to keep her on task those first few months. She was willing to do the work, but underneath the surface was a playful and carefree three-year-old German shepherd. She wasn’t a fan of the heat, but she was smart and loyal and willing to work. The best dog he’d ever had. In training, she’d been the first in her group to successfully sniff out IEDs. When she was finally acclimated to the scorching desert heat, she excelled in the field, staying on task as long as she was asked.

It was hard to think of Zara without thinking of how she’d passed. She was hit by the debris of an IED and lived just long enough afterward to slip away on a medevac transport back to base. To keep from experiencing the suffocating loss that was attempting to rush in alongside his thoughts, he conjured an image of a steel lockbox, visualized shoving his feelings inside and tossing away the key.

Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. He’d told one person—his best buddy and fellow marine, Zach—about the imagery he conjured to lock away the feelings of pain and loss. “Kurt, my friend, forget the box,” Zach had said. “Forget the lock. Nothing does well being locked away. Picture yourself standing alongside something peaceful, like the ocean. Picture yourself not having to hold it in. Picture yourself letting it go.”

The advice seemed to make sense, but Kurt had never been to the ocean, and he had no idea how to simply let go, but he’d seen lots of boxes and lots of keys, and he knew how to hold things in. So Zara and the pain of losing her—along with a whole lot of other shit that really stank—got locked away in the heaviest steel box he could imagine.

She wasn’t the only dog he’d lost during his service, but losing her had hurt the worst. It wasn’t the way she got hit with so much shrapnel or that she struggled. It was how she’d looked at him before she died. Like she still trusted him to make things better.

After her, he didn’t take on another dog of his own. In fact, losing her had been part of the reason he’d transferred to Central America. He was done with the desert, and he was done with the horror of IEDs.

But he found that training Honduran troops in the jungles of Central America wasn’t any better than the desert. Their world was just as full of insurgents, only they were camouflaged guerillas of the forest, fighting against a government they believed was tyrannous. Fighting to protect the cocaine they smuggled into America and to provide for their families. It was a jungle, not a desert, but IEDs were still the enemies’ best friend.

After several months of this, Kurt was ready to come home. Now, a little over two weeks past earning his discharge, he was knee-deep in something else bigger than himself. Like saving the lives of his fellow marines, rehabbing these dogs was an honorable path and one Kurt could be proud of. It didn’t matter that his grandfather had dragged a hand slowly, deliberately over the top of his thinning hair when Kurt had told him; Kurt knew he’d made the right decision.

He’d felt it seeing the old mansion for the first time yesterday morning, and felt it again last night after he’d collapsed onto the musty featherbed and lay in the dark, listening to the quiet hush that fell over the house. He’d brought his own pillow and a light blanket to toss over the top of the bed till he could find time to do a load of sheets, assuming the old washer and dryer worked.

As he’d drifted off, he’d heard the dogs downstairs breathing and shifting in their kennels. There’d been a soft breeze through the open windows, and for the second time, he could have sworn he heard his nana’s singsong voice carried on the wind.

Looking around at the dogs making themselves at home in the runs and the enthralled volunteers, Kurt suspected he was meant to be here. It wasn’t just the remarkable blond, or the house whose many projects called his name, or the thirty-seven dogs who deserved better lives than the ones they’d come from. It was all of them put together.

This sent his thoughts spiraling into a tangled mess of questions while most of the group laughed at the Argentine mastiff’s continued antics and Patrick studied the giant from far enough away to not to disturb him. If Kurt was meant to be here, then something intentional was supposed to come of this. And he wanted to know what it was.

But who was he kidding? He’d stopped believing in fate when one of his buddies was severely injured after passing Kurt and his IED-detecting shepherd because Kurt had paused to give the animal a drink. Things happened, or they didn’t happen. Those who survived moved on.

Locking himself off from his thoughts, he finished wrapping up the extra mesh fencing, then rejoined the group. The volunteers had drained their bottles of water but were hanging around until the mastiff was finished putting on a show, which didn’t seem like it would be anytime soon.

Perhaps tired of them all, the giant German shepherd mix urinated on the gate, then, having stood guard for half an hour, plopped to the ground with a muffled sigh. Kurt wondered how many homes the big dog had passed through. And in how many of them he’d been traumatized. The cautious dog had no reason to believe this new set of circumstances would be any different.

But that was okay, Kurt thought, feeling a surge of hope. It would be their job to show him otherwise.