Chapter 32 #2
And so was the wind. It wasn’t just hot because of the sun, the wind – which normally cooled things down – was also warm, which added to the sleeping at night problems. I kept the babies cool by giving them shallow baths and leaving them to dry in the air and sponging them down as regularly as I could.
Most days that was fine but there were some times when I worried about them getting too hot for their own good, sharp, crispy irritated days when it felt airless even though there was a steady wind, because it was the kind of hot wind that felt as if it was snatching breath out of your mouth as it gusted past. It was the sort of weather that doesn’t change gently but only breaks.
I spent a lot of time looking into the distance hoping to see a thunderstorm coming, but it never did, not in time anyway.
The heat and the wind made everything sour and testy; even sitting in the shade and splashing water with the babies wasn’t enjoyable, though they seemed to gurgle happily enough, and crawled around the pen I had built them, trying out pulling their little bodies upright on the sides.
They weren’t strong enough yet, but the urge was there and I worried about how we would keep them safe if they started walking properly.
I’d lie awake at night and plan harnesses and leads for them, then immediately discard that as even more dangerous, having visions of them getting tangled up and strangling themselves while my back was turned.
It all underlined how much I needed Cat to recover and be back on her own feet before they found theirs.
Digger used to jump into the pen with them.
She did it so neatly, planning her jump and landing very delicately exactly where she wouldn’t squash them.
She’d then lie down and let them crawl all over her while she checked out their smells and, when she felt it necessary, gave them a good clean with her tongue.
I expect it wasn’t very sanitary, but they giggled and smiled as she did it, and no harm came from it, as far as I could see.
They just trusted her instinctively, and they would often fall asleep leaning on her, their little pink fingers curled in the thickness of her fur as if drawing a comfort from it that Cat or I could not give them.
She was a fierce, fearsome and fearless dog when she needed to be, but she was also a natural mother.
Maybe that’s not a contradiction. Maybe that’s the same thing.
Either way, I was grateful to have her at my side in those hot days after the disaster.
So, to start with she was a calming presence.
But then she got fretful, as if the weather had finally got to her too.
Her once daily disappearance multiplied, so she began to come and go several times through the day.
She also began to look at me when she left, and even more when she came back, with a face that seemed to tell me I was not being helpful, as if I should have understood the very serious thing she was trying to tell me.
It wasn’t the direct look a dog gives you when they’re hungry, it was the one that tells you you’re being frustratingly slow on the uptake.
I wondered of course if she had got wind of the wolves again.
I had convinced myself they’d moved on because we hadn’t heard any howling in the night, nor seen any unusual droppings in the woods, and I knew Digger would have got wind of them and made a hell of a fuss if her nose had detected them anywhere in the area.
One thing I’ve learned is a thing that Cat always seemed to know right from the very beginning – you never let your guard down, because the moment you do is when everything comes right at you.
I was out with the goats trying to peg them in the shade one hot afternoon so we could all benefit from some cool while I milked them.
The wind was constant, not too strong, but enough to make the hot air feel like a swamp you had to push through.
I had the babies strapped to me front and back in what I thought was a clever harness I had cobbled together from two old rucksacks.
The boy baby on my back was asleep as far as I could tell.
The girl under my chin was also quiet but she was wide awake and staring up at me with that penetrating look she always had, as if she could both see me and through me to also see the unseen things behind me.
It should have been an unnervingly piercing stare, that habit she had, but I always found it strangely comforting, funny even.
I guess the funniness was in her expression, which was gently serious as if she was much older than she actually was.
It was a very grown-up look, deep, even.
It felt as if she, like Digger, was in charge of something, some duty I needn’t worry about. It never felt sinister.
What did feel ominous was the speed and urgency with which Digger burst out of the undergrowth at the far end of the airstrip and sprinted towards us along the narrow path between the bunkers and the Tanglewood.
I’d never seen her run so fast or so furiously and when she got within a couple of metres of us she skidded to a halt whining and trying to bounce me out of the human stupidity I was too stuck in to understand what her dog language was telling me.
She actually nipped at my arm in frustration and then spun and stood at bay, growling back down the way she had come.
And as she turned to defend us against whatever she thought was behind her, I saw the wet slash of red along her flank. Something had hurt her.
Cold fear hit me like ice water flushing the blood from my veins, jerking me out of the hot and sweaty fog I’d been stumbling through the day in, muffled and numb and not thinking any more than I had to because even thinking was using energy I didn’t have.
The shock woke me brutally fast, and the feeling of all my blunted senses coming back to life, honed and alert in an instant made me feel nauseous and off balance.
Suddenly everything was hard-edged and in focus.
My hearing seemed to reach out and notice noises in the distant undergrowth that I would not normally be aware of.
Even my sense of smell seemed to have jolted into action at a higher level: I could smell Digger’s breath as she huffed the strangely wet and meaty smell of her own fear into the afternoon air.