The Dogs of Bedlam Farm Read online

  The consensus—it had been an hour and a half since I mentioned hay at Bean Heads—was second-cut square bales, and Danny Thomas on Center Cambridge Road was the clear favorite for the best hay.

  Like many Washington County farmers, Danny Thomas was much too busy to be reachable by telephone. He was up before dawn, out till dark, and early to bed. I called countless times and finally left a handwritten note in his mailbox saying I wanted four hundred square bales of second-cut hay, and if he couldn’t provide them, would he please call. Knowing how business is done in the county, when I heard nothing back I could safely assume I’d get good-quality hay delivered on time.

  Which still left the matter of a farm truck. Paula and I were spending our last bittersweet weekend together in the cabin, something we’d done too rarely in the years that I’d owned it, when I found a likely candidate.

  We were driving down Route 22 when I swerved over to an auto-body shop, mesmerized by the sight of a giant red truck with yellow running lights and a FOR SALE sign.

  Ernie, the owner, had been spray-painting an old Corvette but materialized speedily.

  The Silverado, he said, was a classic, vintage 1982. He was asking $3,500 for it. It was a beautiful thing, massive and strong, with two gas tanks, a lost farm truck in need of a farm. Paula, sitting out in my Explorer while I talked to Ernie, was undoubtedly groaning about another $3,500 when we could hardly afford the farm itself, the hay, Shane’s fence, and the other Bedlam Farm expenses gouging deep holes in our financial stability. I loved the truck, though. It was the mother of all pickups. It would haul rocks, hay, firewood, and trash, and it would sit proudly like a beacon announcing there was serious stuff going on at Bedlam Farm. Only a serious man would have such a serious truck.

  Ernie invited me into his inner sanctum.

  “That your wife out there? She don’t look too happy.”

  She wasn’t, I explained. Money was . . . an issue.

  “Well, she’s special.” He was talking about the truck, of course. “She won’t let you down. You can have her for three thousand.”

  We shook on it and I said I’d be back once I registered her in Ft. Edward, the county seat. Paula was now walking around and peering suspiciously at the truck, scowling. Ernie wiped his hands on his T-shirt and offered to help. “I know how to talk to women,” he said.

  A brave, if foolhardy, man, he strolled outside. “Listen, honey,” he told her. “It’s a good truck. You can trust her.”

  She shot him a look that could have bored a hole through his skull, but all she said was, “Looks like some rust on the fenders.”

  “Well, it is an ’82,” he said, retreating quickly.

  “She’s a tough one, isn’t she?” he muttered to me, preparing the paperwork. Yes, I said. She was.

  WHEN MOVING DAY CAME, IN SEPTEMBER, I COULDN’T SHAKE A sense of dread, of flailing in waters over my head.

  On that foggy day, the farm and its pastures were shrouded in mist and rain. The house, vacant, was eerily quiet. I heard creaks and groans, strange sounds from the basement and skittering in the ceilings.

  The house carried an air of history and gravity. It was a working place, with lots of mementos left behind—a pit for slaughtering pigs, rusting metal collars that once held dairy cows in place, a tiny milk house, where cans were left for pickup. You had the feeling of much hard labor there, many lives lived.

  I’d spent a restless night with the dogs, staying with kind friends in Vermont, and now, waiting for the moving van, I started to panic. What was I doing there? If we could barely afford the cabin I’d just vacated, how could I possibly afford this vast empire of decaying old buildings, new fences, and all the other alterations I still urgently needed to make for the flock of sheep soon to arrive?

  Orson, Homer, and Rose had no such anxieties. They were in dog heaven, tearing happily through the barns and pastures, down the wooded trails, pursuing an apparently robust population of rodents.

  But anxiety was hitting me in waves. Paula was back in New Jersey, Emma working in New York, and I was alone on this vast property, watching swarms of bees pour out the open windows of the pig barn. I had really done it this time.

  I could hear some sort of beeping alarm coming from the house—to do with that elaborate water filtration system in the basement, maybe. I also noticed the basement door, swollen from summer humidity, banging in the breeze—but I couldn’t shut it.

  I felt paralyzed. I couldn’t shut the door, couldn’t figure out what was beeping. I just paced, mumbling nervously, realizing I’d made a mistake, another of my reckless moves, another lunge at change for change’s sake, rather than accepting my middle-class destiny.

  I could just put the place up for sale, I thought, and get most of my money back. Paula would be relieved, even delighted. I just wanted to go home and see my wife and kid.

  I was interrupted by a green pickup pulling up the driveway. A barrel-chested man climbed out and walked up the porch steps: Don Coldwell, a retired millworker who now made Adirondack chairs and did carpentry. I’d stopped at his workshop to buy the two chairs on the hilltop behind the house.

  I didn’t recognize him immediately, but I remembered his convincing handshake, his calloused fingers and steady gaze. This, I thought, was one of those men who go off and hold the line for people like me in places like Vietnam. Don was, in fact, a proud former Marine (the Corps flag flew in front of his house in the hamlet). He had the air of a man you’d want beside you when trouble came.

  We had spent a few minutes talking when I bought my new chairs. “You’ll like it here,” he’d told me. “We keep our doors open and our guns loaded.”

  What were the guns for, I asked, if the doors didn’t need to be locked?

  “City people and coyotes.”

  Now he was on my porch, giving me a piercing stare and asking what was wrong.

  Startled by the question, I mumbled something about waiting for the movers. “Why, do I look bad?”

  “You look a little funny,” he said. “Disoriented, maybe.”

  He asked what the beeping was, went inside, and located a smoke detector in need of a new battery. Only then did I realize just how discombobulated I was: I’ve replaced smoke-detector batteries a million times in New Jersey. Why didn’t I recognize the same sound here?

  Over the next few minutes, Don took charge. He took the basement door off its hinges and put it in his truck bed, saying he was taking it home to plane it and would bring it right back. When he returned in twenty minutes, he brought me a melon and some soup, in case I was hungry. (I was.)

  Then he patted me on the back. “Take it easy,” he said. “This seems strange now, but it will be okay. Just give it a few weeks.” I decided to believe him, and thanked him about twenty times for stopping to buck me up.

  He shrugged and moved toward his pickup. “Hey, we’re a small place in the middle of nowhere,” he said. “It means something to be a neighbor here. If you need anything—anything—you call me and I’ll be here.” And he drove off as the moving van came lumbering up my dirt road.

  IN A FEW DAYS, I WAS ONE OF THE LOCALS STOPPING AT THE Bedlam’s Corner Variety Store with my dogs. Two sisters, Mary Zeller and Barb Worthington, own the place. There’s a FOR SALE sign in the window, has been for years. Everyone in town would love Mary and Barb to stay put, but they’re resigned to the store’s changing hands one day.

  They are strong-willed women. Shortly after I moved in, the town was stunned by an armed robbery. A guy in a mask walked into the variety store brandishing a handgun.

  Mary, alone in the store, was less scared than furious. She gave the guy some money, then pulled the mask off his face, recognized him, and chased him out, noting his license plate as he sped away in his too-colorful-for-anonymity pickup. In the following days, almost every male in Hebron stopped at the store to scold Mary for taking on an armed criminal. But the robber, arrested the next day, was awaiting trial. “I just got mad,” Mary explained.
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  Now when I drove down for a paper, coffee, or a can of dog food, everyone in the store knew who I was the minute I walked in.

  “Hey, you’re the guy who bought Jesse and Ralph’s place. You’re the dog guy,” said one of the Worthingtons one morning, shaking my hand.

  “How did you know that?” I asked, surprised as always.

  He chuckled. “Who else could you be?”

  Another morning, an elderly woman having coffee smiled and said, “You were up early this morning, walking those sheep around. Your little dog is coming along real good.” I must have looked nonplussed. “Oh, I can look up and see the sheep from my kitchen window,” she said. “It’s great to see animals up at the old Keyes place again.”

  When she had time, I sat down at the counter and had a cup of coffee with Nancy Fortier, the sole employee, who seemed eager to hear tales of the dogs, donkey, and sheep. But, then, she heard a lot of stories each morning. While we talked, the Big Men in Trucks pulled in, wisecracking with her and one another.

  Though I was an obvious Flatlander, they were unfailingly friendly and generous. “You a religious man?” one big man asked me one morning.

  “Not really all that religious,” I said carefully. “Why?”

  “You will be soon,” he said. “Every time you drive down that hill in the winter, you’ll be saying a prayer.” Everybody in the store cracked up.

  Though I was not a Big Man in a Truck, I played one in my red Silverado. I registered it at a shockingly friendly Motor Vehicle office in Ft. Edward, put on my new plates, then put the three dogs in the giant backseat and pumped the gas pedal. It rumbled to deafening life. The radio was set to a country music station, and the first lyric I heard was, “You can watch your movies, I’ll take my NFL.”

  I went roaring into town, the other men in trucks tipping their caps as we passed, the dogs sticking their heads out the windows.

  The truck was a behemoth. It took a long time for the brakes to check in, and the roar from the engine was guttural. But it was great blasting along Route 30, windows cranked open, the dogs of Bedlam Farm taking to the road.

  I stopped at the Stewart’s in Salem to fill up the left gas tank, which cost $36. I decided to wait a week before filling the other one.

  Chapter Three

  DOG DAYS I

  “Why, not to put too fine a point on it, this is Bedlam, sir.”

  Charles Dickens

  THROUGH THE OPEN BLINDS I SAW THE FIRST HINT OF AUTUMN light creep up the valley below the house. There’s no way to see dawn flare in my New Jersey town. I wondered sometimes how I lived without it, though I did for most of my life. Even in the pale gray, I could make out a stand of trees on the opposite hill so yellow it appeared on fire. I couldn’t recall seeing anything more beautiful than my new front yard on a crisp fall day.

  Closer by, I saw a tiny pair of wolf eyes inches from my nose, watching me intently. Rose had gotten out of her crate again. Either I’d fastened it poorly or she’d nosed aside the latch. She never really slept, at least not that I could see. I didn’t think she’d figured out how.

  I rarely saw Rose truly at rest. She preferred to move toys and bones from one room to another, to industriously dig holes in the yard, to wait at the base of trees for careless squirrels. Even sitting quietly in her crate, she was simply pausing, waiting to go to work, fetch a stick, chase a sheep, greet visitors, hop into my lap. Like sandpipers on the beach, she did everything rapid-fire.

  As soon as I stirred, I’d be showered with licks from both sides. Orson, who stays by my left side, was nestled in the crook of my legs; Rose was on the right, awaiting instructions. Homer was off somewhere—he generally slept alone—but would report for duty shortly, alerted by the others’ activity.

  I loved the affection, but I didn’t think it was aimed totally at me. Mostly, it signaled the start of a new day, things to chase and run circles around. In Border Collie Land, a human merely putting on shoes generated joy and excitement.

  I’d come to terms with dog love. I didn’t need to kid myself; the reality of it was enough. We loved them to pieces, imagining an unshakable bond; they loved whoever fed them and paid attention to them. Their love was no less pure or meaningful for that, and I struggled against the temptation to make it more than it was.

  Homer appeared, melting into the room quietly, and headed for the foot of the bed. Homer’s life, it sometimes seemed, was accommodating Orson, like a worshipful kid who could never get his older brother to give him a break.

  Orson glowered him away from the bed. I could command Orson to lie down, but I couldn’t prevent his giving Homer the evil eye every time he approached me. Ever since Homer arrived, Orson tried to enforce a no-fly zone around me, so Homer had learned to come close only when Orson wasn’t around.

  This seemed a point we couldn’t get past, one of those inalterable attitudes dogs form. Trainers believe that any dog can be trained to do just about anything—a sound general principle, but I wasn’t always so sure. I believed Orson would rather starve than allow other dogs easy access to me. I had no idea of his motives, but his implacability was very real. No amount of training, crating, scolding, imploring, or treat-scattering had induced Orson to share me willingly. So Homer skulked off.

  Unwillingly, however, Orson had learned to tolerate Rose. When he tried to stare her away, she either nipped him on the nose or hopped blithely over him to land on my chest and slurp my face. Nothing intimidated her.

  I staggered out of bed, threw on some jeans, a flannel shirt, and boots. I’d come back to shower after our walk and barn chores.

  Although there was a daunting list of things to attend to before winter—fixing gaping holes and broken windows in the barn, moving my hay into the loft, stacking the huge pile of firewood—the animal care seemed easier than I’d expected. Several years of herding at Raspberry Ridge, including lambing seasons, had given me some familiarity with sheep. Apart from my watching for health issues like bloat, worms, and diseased hooves, I let them take care of themselves pretty much. There was enough grass in the pasture for them to feed themselves. An artesian well, which never froze, provided water all year. Assuming the testy Nesbitt had done his work and the ewes were pregnant, I brought them corn and supplements each morning to strengthen them and build energy for the winter.

  Still, it was astounding how many details arose on even a tiny, one-man farm like this, with so few animals. Repairs, maintenance, supplies—I felt I could never keep up, or even get close. All I could do was what I could do, day by day.

  From the paddock around the barn, I heard Carol braying happily in anticipation of her morning cookie—an alfalfa-barley-carrot concoction. Whenever I came out of the house, Carol was waiting by the gate, greeting me. I’d come to love her raspy call. It trumpeted a new day, much as my tying my shoes did for the dogs.

  Carol rushed up, tail swishing, as I swung the gate open. I offered the cookie, felt her warm mouth move expertly around my hand.

  I’d grown increasingly fond of Carol. Her peaceful, steady sweetness seemed almost spiritual. She was calmer than the sheep, more connected to people, and smarter, too. She knew her name and came when I called.

  Sometimes she ambled over to put her head on my shoulder while I fed her cookies or carrots. She loved to have her forehead and ears scratched. Like dogs, she was driven by food and attention, not by human-like attachment, but she’d surprised me with her mellowness and affection. Sometimes we’d do lunch: I brought out a sandwich and gave her a bucket of oats and we sat in the barn together. “Munch and crunch,” I called it.

  On the way around the pasture—we walked the fences each morning, stretching our legs and looking for holes or loosened posts—I called the dogs off the sheep. Reluctantly, they moved away. Letting all three dogs near sheep at the same time would cause pointless panic. So the dogs quickly fixated on other things, and began chasing small meadow creatures, running and digging in one spot, then another. The hill and woods teem with
wildlife, and little of it went unnoticed. I loved the dogs’ enthusiasm; it had drawn my attention to things I might not have noticed, from butterflies to hawks.

  “Walking the fences” is a country expression, sometimes called “walking the line,” as in property line. Farmers do it all the time to make sure everything is in order, the animals where they should be, the fences all solid. It was maybe a quarter-mile up this stretch of hill, and a steep climb. It took several weeks before I could make the top without having to stop and catch my breath.

  The sight from the hilltop was striking, no matter the weather or time of day, a Currier and Ives diorama with steeples popping out of the trees, barns and cornfields spread below, the Green Mountains of Vermont looming in the distance, blazing yellow and red.

  Pausing before I followed the fence line to the left, I watched the sun rise and gave thanks for my good fortune, for this place and my dogs and the spectacle before us that lifted my heart every time. Sometimes I focused on the hawks riding the wind currents overhead, sometimes on the shifting light or the clouds skimming the mountains.

  At the top of the hill, Rose challenged Homer to play. At first, as usual, he looked uninterested; then he glanced warily at Orson for permission. Eventually Rose wore him down and the two of them went tearing off. With Rose, it was play or die. Homer, as always, chose the path of least resistance. Orson disapproved of this rowdy behavior, but I held his collar and scratched his ears; he seemed to be getting the idea that it was none of his business.

  It’s too easy to slip into attributing human emotions to dogs, but Orson did seem to be slowing down, quieting. When he arrived those few tumultuous years ago, I’d thought he didn’t know what peace or stillness were. Like me, he now appeared to appreciate them. Like mine, his legs were probably sore.

  I missed Paula, more than on previous separations and adventures. She was a reporter, so our work often took us separate ways, as it had for thirty years. But it was never easy, and she was never out of mind. Perhaps as I grew older, I felt more vulnerable when I was alone. I suspected she did, too.