two vintage holly winter stories Read Free Page A

Midwest—handsome, bearlike dogs with a lot of Storm Kloud in them. "Malamutes are just not that hard to train," Tiny was saying with the authority of someone who'd never so much as entered the Pre-Novice ring at a club-members-only show-and-go.
    Pam's obedience qualifications were identical to Tiny's, but she shook her mane of chestnut curls up and down. "People just aren't willing to put in the time," she agreed. Pam's hefty build suggested an origin in the same Storm Kloud lines as Tiny's dogs, but she bred our agile New England Kotzebues. She eyed the bitch who'd just left the ring and commented, "Big, isn't she?"
    "Seventy-five pounds is not big," Tiny snapped. "Read the standard."
    When one breeder starts ordering another to read the standard, any sensible dog person vanishes. In lieu of actually disappearing, I feigned ardent interest in the performance of a Rottie in the Open B ring. That's when I noticed an ordinary-looking brown-haired man standing about 20 feet to our left. Because I've stewarded in Open and Utility, I'm pretty good at estimating height, but only up to about 32 inches at the withers, of course. Was he 5 foot 10? Well, he was taller than 5 foot 6, shorter than 6 foot 2, looked about 50, and had no visible scars. The details didn't matter, though. He looked exactly like the mug shots. I must have caught my breath aloud. Pam turned to me.
    "Did you see that flier?" I whispered.
    Breed people like to imagine that they understand obedience, but here's evidence that Pam didn't: So far as I know, flier is not dog-training slang for some elevating crime like hightailing it out of the ring or lifting a leg on the judge's shoe. To straighten out the confusion, I said, "You see that man in the blue shirt? Brown hair? Standing sort of in front of those two young guys with the shepherd?"
    They were in their midtwenties, blond, short-haired, clean-cut young men dressed more for conformation than for obedience in stiffly pressed and sharply creased khaki pants and heavily starched, wrinkle-free white summer shirts. Their dog, though, was definitely not dressed for breed. He was a decently proportioned tan GSD, but he was no show dog, wasn't on a show lead, and hadn't been groomed for the ring. An obedience dog? Maybe. But neither of the men wore an armband.
    Anyway, Pam followed my gaze across the intense, heat-blurred green of the field and said casually, "Yeah." Then she really focused on him, perked up, and said, "Hey, I know him. I sold him a puppy, maybe four years ago." After that, of course, she started to tell me everything about the sire, the dam, the breeding, the puppy's Iittermates, their wins, the repeat breeding, and so on.
    Before she had a chance to zip over to Farrell, recite the same litany, and ask about the pup, I interrupted. The melodrama was unavoidable. "Pam, he's wanted by the FBI!"
    As Pam was asking whether I'd been out in the sun too long, Tiny came to the defense of my sanity. Someone had shown her the FBI notice, she said. "He does kind of look like him," she added.
    "Of course he does," I said. "He looks exactly like the pictures. And, besides, we know this guy has malamutes, because Pam sold him a puppy."
    Tiny's little eyes blazed at Pam. "You sold him a puppy?"
    Pam nodded. "Yeah." Her big features remained immobile. "He seemed all right."
    "I hate to say this," Tiny told her, "but do you really think that 'all right' is good enough? I mean, obviously, it isn't. You know, you trust people too much. You really have to screen better than that." She raised a bony hand as if she intended to shake a scolding finger at Pam but caught herself and ended up holding out a clenched fist.
    "Well, what did you want me to do?" Pam said. "I met him and talked to him, and he seemed all right. And he already had a malamute, so he knew about the breed. As a matter of fact, his dog was out of that bitch you sold to the Levinsons, and the dog was dysplastic, which, in case you want to know, happens