She
heard the water before she saw it, bubbling up from a crack in gray
rock, and burbling on downward, through a trough in that rock that it
had cut over hundred, maybe thousands of years.
She
filled her canteen, which had been almost emptied during the day's
ride. He had packed freeze-dried rations, and she had to make
another trip to the spring to get enough water for
everything. He built the fire, but stood back to let her
heat things up. That's really all it was - heating things up -
but she still felt proud when she laid it all out on a horse blanket.
"Dinner is served," she said formally.
They
ate in silence, but it was a comfortable silence. Hot food was
different than cold sandwiches, and she was ravenous. He brought
out a mashed loaf of white bread, and she used three pieces to soak up
all the juice left from the plate she'd eaten on.
When
the dishes were cleaned and stacked to one side, he stood up. He
went to his saddle bags and pulled out a gun belt, strapping it on.
"What's that for?" she asked, nervously.
"Want
to show you something," he said. He pulled the pistol out of the
holster and examined it. It looked huge to Brenda ... deadly in a
flat, dead way. "This is just a precaution." he said. "She should
be gone, by now, but you never know."
"She?" Brenda was confused. "Who?"
"There's
a cave not far from here. A bear uses it in the winter, but it's
late enough that she and her cubs should be gone by now ... out getting
fat again. I want to show you what's in the cave."
"Bear?!" moaned Brenda. "There are BEARS out here!?"
"Of
course there are bears out here," said Bob, calmly. "And mountain
lions, and elk ... all sorts of things live up here."
"I did NOT come on this trip to be eaten by a bear!" said Brenda, looking around fearfully.
"She's
not that hungry," said Bob, smiling. "I doubt you'll even get to
see her. We make too much noise. Besides, she'd smell
Ranger long before we got close enough to see her."
"Bears eat horses!" yelped Brenda.
"Not
horses like Ranger," said Bob. "Almost nothing will take on a
stallion, unless it's starving, or wounded and enraged."
"What about Buttercup?" asked Brenda, still looking fearful.
"Oh,
I suppose she'd make a try for Buttercup, under the right
circumstances," said Bob even though he knew that was highly
unlikely. He couldn't resist needling a green horn. "But
don't worry. Buttercup would just run away. No bear could
catch her after a hundred yards or so."
"What if I fell off again while Buttercup was running away?" moaned the girl.
"Well, that's what this is for," said Bob, patting his holster.
Then
he gave her a full course on what to do if she was afoot, and
encountered a bear. He did it just because he'd teased her ... to
make her feel better ... not because he thought they'd see a
bear. He could show her half a dozen bears, if he wanted to, but
that was a little more than he'd planned for this girl's trip.
Bob
showed Brenda how to make a torch by collecting drips of sap from pine
trees, and smearing them onto the end of a short, dry branch. It
took a while, but finally he was satisfied with the thickness of the
coating. They left the horses in the glen, and she followed
him as he strode off into the trees, heading upward. They
had to climb some rocks, but then a black hole appeared in the face of
rock before them. Bob had her stand back, and edged closer to the
hole, sniffing the air. He seemed satisfied, but told her
to stay there while he lit the torch with a lighter. Once it was
burning, he disappeared into the hole. He was back almost
immediately, telling her to come on.
She
smelled something odd ... musty, yet sharp ... mixed with the smoke of
the torch, making her nose scrunch up. She followed Bob closely
and found herself in a smallish domed cavity that she could stand up
in, but Bob had to stoop for. The torch flickered weakly, and it
seemed very dark. He pointed, and stepped behind her so that the
light came from over her shoulder.
She
saw colors first - red and yellow - then the drawings. They were
of stick-like figures, and she saw instantly that they told a
story. One figure lay, bent and broken, as red flowed from it,
while others, with spears, stood against what was obviously a
bear. It had been drawn in exquisite detail, in some black
substance that made tiny lines. Those lines had been used to
create the bear, even to protruding fangs from the open mouth, and to
long, sharp claws on the tips of the paws. To the right was
another drawing. In this one the bear was lying down, red flowing
from it, and the stick figures danced around it. The "dead"
stick figure had been placed on a pile of sticks, and something red and
yellow - obviously flames - shot from around it.
"Who were they?" she whispered.
"Nobody
knows," answered Bob. "I have a native American friend, who
showed me this place when I was young. He says they're older than
his people."
"How did you find this?" she asked.
"I slept here one night, when I was much younger."
"You slept in a bear den?" she gasped.
"They only use it in the winter time, to hibernate," said Bob easily. "During the summer they're out doing what bears do."
The
torch began flickering more wildly. Bob led her out and the slight
wind outside the cave blew it out. She noticed he took it with
him when they left, and asked him why he was doing that.
"If
I leave it there, some poor bear will find it some day. It would
make her nervous. Our scent will be long gone before winter, but
this will smell like fire for years." He took it all the way back
to the campsite, and dropped it in the fire pit.
Bob
had brought mountain tents. Each rolled into a bundle that was
only ten inches long, and maybe five inches in diameter.
He'd left the poles behind, and went into the woods to make poles from
the branches of trees. As he set the first one up, Brenda
saw that, basically, it was about enough nylon to cover a person and
keep the rain off. There wasn't enough room in it to put
anything but herself. Brenda was still thinking about bears ...
and mountain lions.
"We're going to sleep ... alone?" she asked.
Bob looked at her. "Don't tempt me," he said.
Brenda blushed. "I didn't mean THAT!" She looked around. "It's just that there are bears ... and things."
"Nothing's
going to bother us up here. I just spent two months camping alone
up in these mountains. The only time I saw any wildlife was when
I tried to. Even way up here ... things ... stay shy of
humans. We don't have a very good reputation with the
original inhabitants."
"OK," she said, her voice tiny. "If you're sure."
"Besides,"
he said offhandedly. "How would I explain to your parents that I
bedded down with their only sexy daughter, while I was supposed to be
showing her nature and taking good care of her?"
"I told you I didn't mean THAT," she said, frowning.
"And
I told you, you look sexy," said Bob. "If you think I'm going to
sleep in one of those," he pointed at the tiny tent, "with you crushed
up next to me ... and try to forget that you're sexy ... well ... let's
just say that's unlikely in the extreme."
Brenda,
though she was young, and despite the travails she had been through
with her illness, knew a compliment when she heard one. She
hadn't been paid any compliments like that before, and it brought a
strange rush of warmth to her belly as this grown up man acknowledged
her attractiveness. She did, in fact, feel attractive, at
that moment.
She hadn't felt attractive for a long, long time.
"Besides," said Bob, off-handedly, "Ranger will be here. He'll warn us of any trouble long before it gets here."
By
the time the tents were set up, and the fire had been built up for what
Bob called "the evening confab", Brenda looked at her watch and found
it was only a little past six in the evening.
"So what do we do now?" she asked.
"We
sit around and jaw," said Bob. "That's what the evening confab is
all about. We talk to each other about all sorts of things and
tell each other things ... mostly lies, of course."
"Lies?" she asked.
"They're
much more interesting than the truth," he said. "Most folks
live pretty boring lives, and stories about that would just put us to
sleep."
"I don't know any lies," said Brenda.
"Make some up," said Bob. "You'll get the hang of it."
To
her amazement, that's exactly what they did for the first two
hours. They settled in, their feet almost touching, upwind of the
fire - though the wind seemed to change regularly - and Bob told her
stories that just HAD to be lies. They were stories about
the ranch, mostly, and about the time he'd spent as a Marine.
They were wildly entertaining, and she struggled to think up some crazy
thing that she wished she'd done when she was younger. The best
thing she could come up with was a story about how, when she was only
ten, she'd saved an old woman from a burning building. It
was true, in the sense that she'd seen the smoke coming from the roof,
and banged on the door. The old lady had come to the door, angry
at being disturbed, but when Brenda had taken her to the yard and she'd
seen the smoke for herself, it had gotten pretty exciting. The
fire department had come and firemen went up on the roof and cut a hole
in it and squirted water everywhere. That was pretty much
it. The poor woman had been so distraught at the damage to her
home that she'd forgotten all about Brenda. In the end, Brenda
went home and told her parents what had happened. Only the
smell of smoke on her clothes had convinced them she was telling the
truth.
Now,
though, she spun the tale with leaping flames, and Brenda dragging the
woman out, unconscious, and then saving her cat too! The Mayor
had given her a medal, and her picture was in the paper. Bob was
appropriately appreciative of her bravery, and said no bear would stand
a chance against her if she set her mind to taming it.
He
told ten stories to every one of hers, though. He said that was
OK, seeing as how she was so young that she hadn't had time to kick up
her heels much. Eventually the wild talk wound down.
"Tell me about your boyfriend," said Bob.
"There's
nothing to tell. Boys don't ask bald girls out for dates."
She looked uncomfortable. "Well, they do, but they don't know the
girl is bald, so she doesn't accept them."
"You haven't always been bald," he commented.
"Yeah,
but I was too young to date then. When I got old enough to date,
I was too sick from chemo, or radiation treatments."
"That's too bad," he commiserated with her.
"Yeah," she sighed.
"Do you feel it?" he asked. "What's in your head, I mean."
She
turned to stare at him. Nobody had ever asked her that
before. Most people tried not to talk about her disease at all,
much less ask her what it felt like.
"Not
really," she said. "At least I don't think so.
Sometimes I get headaches, or dizzy or something, but I can't ... you
know ... FEEL the tumor or anything."
It was quiet for a while.
Brenda looked over at him, curious, now that she had thought of him as a ... man.
"What about you? Don't you have a girlfriend?"
She saw the shadow stain his face, and knew she'd made a horrible mistake. Then she saw him shake it off.
"I was married. She and our little boy were killed in an avalanche nine months ago."
"Ohhh!" moaned Brenda. "I'm sorry ... I didn't know."
"Not your fault," said Bob. "I'm going to have to talk about it again, I suspect."
"You don't have to talk about it to me," said Brenda, feeling like she'd broken something precious.
"Dannie
and Kyle are part of my past now," said Bob heavily. "I'll never
forget them, of course, but that's the past. I spent the
last two months riding these mountains, trying to deal with it.
But I can't ride the mountains forever. I'll just have to learn
how to move on."
"I'm so sorry," she said.
"I'm
kind of glad you came along, in one way," he said. "I didn't
think much of the idea when I first heard it. I guess I thought
you'd be a sickly little girl, who I'd have to coddle and all
that. I was sure wrong about that, though. You've
kept my mind off things right nicely until ..."
"Until now," said Brenda miserably.
"Like I said," Bob sighed. "Others will ask about it too, sooner or later."
He poked the fire with a stick, and then looked up at her.
"Like
I said, I'm glad you came along. I hope you're having a good
time. I think this is a good thing you're doing." He
grinned. "How's your butt?"
Brenda
jerked as she realized she hadn't paid any attention to her aches and
pains for quite a while now. She rolled and prodded her
behind. It was sore.
"It hurts," she said.
"Tomorrow morning, use some more of that stuff on it," he said. "In another day or two you'll be fine."
"All this will be over in two more days," she said. "I AM having fun. I wish it didn't have to end."
"You
just keep having fun as long as you can," said Bob. He felt
foolish for reminding her that she was dying. "We probably ought
to turn in now," he said.
"It's still light out," she objected.
"We got a long ride tomorrow, and more climbing. You need your rest."
He
got up and went to the saddle bags. He lifted them and took a
rope from them, which he tied around both sets. Throwing a rope
over a branch, he hauled them up next to the limb.
"What are you doing that for?" she asked.
"Never
mind," he said. "It's just an old habit." He didn't tell
her that the smell of food in the bags might draw the attention of
bears, who could smell it literally miles away. He didn't
particularly want any visitors this night, and if there were any, he
wanted their attention up in the tree limbs, and not on the ground.
Brenda
Jean Ronson crawled into her sleeping bag fully clothed. She had
been camping before, with her Girl Scout Troop. She'd only been
twelve, and they'd only gone camping three times, but those camping
trips had fueled her imagination and she'd loved them. Then they
found the tumor, and things like that stopped. Almost everything
had stopped. Everyone started treating her like an invalid, even
though she felt fine. She wiggled into the bag that had been way
too big for her when she was twelve, but wasn't any more.
She
thought back to those times when she had shared a big tent with seven
or eight other girls, and the adults who went with them. Now she
was alone. The bag seemed much smaller, and not nearly as warm
and comfortable as she remembered. Of course she knew that she'd
grown a lot since the last time she crawled into this bag, but she felt
very alone somehow. She heard Bob moving around, dousing
the fire they'd sat beside for so long, and getting into his own
tent. His footsteps, and the little noises he made were
comforting. Still, she felt very alone.
She
couldn't help but see the mental image of herself, inside the tiny
tent, on top of the tall mountain, with wild animals all around her,
and she had a hard time falling asleep. The wig scratched her
scalp, and she took it off, shoving it up and out of the bag, which she
had pulled over her head. That was a little better, but she
wished she'd brought a pillow. Her clothes felt heavy and
tight around her body, and her shirt was bunched up. She wiggled
uncomfortably, pulling to get her clothing smooth.
She
was almost asleep, when she heard a horse whicker and then snuffling
sounds. Something was outside her tent, and whatever it was, was
sniffing and breathing loudly enough for her to hear. At first
she thought it was one of the horses, but then they both whickered
again, and she could tell they were some distance away. Her eyes
opened wide inside the sleeping bag, but, of course, it was pitch
black. Lifting her head, she tried to hear better. She
could hear whatever it was moving around outside. It brushed up
against the nylon of the tent, and she heard sniffing noises
again. She took in a breath and held it as panic seized her body.
She
pulled down the bag, pushing her head out, so she could hear better,
and it was, at that instant, that she heard the nylon of the door of
her tent swish, and something licked the top of her bald head.
Brenda
Jean Ronson let out all her breath in a terrified screech of panic as
she came to the conclusion that she was about to be eaten by a
bear. She'd taken a big breath, and her scream was long and
primal. She followed it with another hastily snatched
breath, which she pushed out past tortured vocal chords, extending the
scream until she realized there was another sound, competing with her.
It was barking.
A dog was barking excitedly right outside her tent.
She
felt, more than saw the tent flaps moving, and Bob's voice was suddenly
there, asking her what was wrong. She craned her neck and
realized she could actually see something. It was mostly his
silhouette, black, against a starlit sky that was brighter than she
would have believed.
"S-s-something's out there!" she wailed. "It tried to eat my head!"
"It's
just my dog," he said, reaching to touch the bald head she had been
talking about. He stroked it. "She probably followed us up
here."
"I n-n-never saw any dog!" she moaned.
"She
was out chasing rabbits or something when we left," he said. "She
must have realized I'd gone back out and tracked us." There was
another shadow at his side, moving rapidly, and Brenda calmed enough to
hear the dog panting as it danced excitedly beside its master.
"It was just a dog?" she whined.
"Just a little mutt who was curious about who was with me, I guess," he said, still stroking her smooth head.
"He licked me," she sniffed.
"Bad dog, Dammit," said Bob. The dog barked happily. "You OK, now?" he asked Brenda.
"I'm scared," she admitted. "I thought it was a bear."
"Nope, just Dammit."
"Dammit?"
"That's her name," said Bob, finally taking his hand away from her head.
"You named your dog Dammit?" Brenda sounded confused.
"I
did, in fact, name my dog Dammit," he said. "I'm sorry she scared
you. Like I said, she was probably just curious about who else
was here with me."
She
knew she'd never get to sleep. She wanted to get back up ... sit
by the fire again ... be near another human being. She
pushed the button on her watch that lit up the dial and saw it was only
nine. She usually stayed up until ten or eleven, back home.
"Can we stay up a little while?" she asked.
"You really need your rest," he said.
"I
know, but I can't sleep, and I'm all wound up because of your
dog. Can't we just stay up a little while longer. I can
think up another lie." she said hopefully.
Bob
sighed. He thought about their itinerary, as he had planned
it. He was going to show her the falls, and some other geological
high points, but, in reality, this trip was for her. It
didn't matter whether they covered ten miles the next day, or only
six. They could stop as often, or for whatever reason she wanted
to, for that matter. The itinerary could be flexed.
"Sure," he said. "Let me get dressed and I'll get the fire going again."
When
she crawled out of her tent, her head felt cold, so she searched for
the wig she'd shoved up and out of the bag. She couldn't find it
in the dark.
"Did you bring a flashlight?" she called to Bob, who was putting together another fire.
"Too heavy," he grunted. "Batteries weigh too much to pack on a trip."
"I can't find my wig," she called.
"You don't need it," he said.
"My head is cold," she complained.
Bob
lit the kindling, and small flames began to lick up into the
tinder. It was amazing to Brenda how bright it looked, even
though the flames were tiny. She could almost feel her pupils
contracting as she looked at the bright flickering light.
There
was growling nearby, and the sound of something flapping in the
wind. She looked to see a very ordinary dog, shaking her wig
violently in its jaws, as if it were an animal it was trying to kill.
"Dammit!" yelled Bob, who had also looked at the dog.
The dog scampered to him instantly, carrying the trophy it had found, and dropped it at his feet proudly.
"That's not a rabbit, Dammit!" growled Bob.
Dammit wagged her tail happily. She sat down, tail still wagging.
"What
am I going to do with you," he asked, reaching down to pick up the
bedraggled wig with one hand, and scratch the dog's ears with the
other. He stood up and looked at the wig. There was dirt
and twigs all over it. He shook it, and the dog jumped from a sit
to try to grab it from him, as if she thought he was playing a game.
"Sit, Dammit!" he ordered. The dog sat.
Brenda
walked over to the fire, which was burning higher now. Bob held
out the wig, which now looked like some dead animal.
"Sorry," he said.
Brenda
took the thing and examined it. There was no way she was going to
put it back on her head now. She'd have to brush it and clean it
first.
"Like
I said," said Bob, "You really don't need it out here. I've got a cap
you can wear. It'll keep your head warm." He stared at
her. "You slept in your clothes, didn't you?"
"Uh
huh," she said, dropping the hand with the wig in it to her side.
Dammit immediately jumped, snatched it from her hand, and began shaking
it violently again.
By
the time Bob recovered the wig again, it was in even worse shape.
He put it inside his jacket, at which point the dog lost interest
completely, and began sniffing all around the campsite. Bob went
back to his tent, and returned with a thin, dark cap, made of some soft
material. He put it on Brenda's head. It had side flaps on
it, and strings that hung down.
"That
came with my sleeping bag," he said, leaving the strings
dangling. "If you keep your head warm while you're sleeping, the
rest of you will stay warm too. You shouldn't sleep in your
clothes. It cuts off circulation and makes you colder."
Brenda, who felt warmer already, even though the cap was only cloth, stared at the bulge under his jacket.
"So what am I supposed to sleep in?" she asked.
"You sleep naked," he said.
"What? That's silly!" she blurted.
"You
lose about seventy percent of your body heat through your head,"
explained Bob. "Most people sleep with their head outside their
sleeping bag, and that's why they get cold. Wearing a cap like
that, or a stocking cap, or whatever, will keep you warm.
Meanwhile, your body can breathe and your blood flows better when
you're not dressed. It's science."
"Oh," said Brenda. "It just seems counter-intuitive."
"If you're trying to impress me with fifty-cent words, you succeeded." Bob grinned.
"I'm sorry I'm acting like such a child," said Brenda.
"You're
not acting like a child," said Bob, sitting down beside the fire, and
gesturing for her to take her previous place. "You're acting like
a greenhorn. That's completely different." He grinned
again.
"I feel like a child," she said.
"You're
obviously not a child," said Bob, and his gaze went down and then back
up her body. His meaning was clear, even if unspoken.
Brenda
felt a little thrill as her femininity was acknowledged. She
hadn't had much time to be a young woman. She'd been too busy
being a cancer patient. She was a little surprised that she
didn't feel offended that his eyes raked over her body.
Something suddenly occurred to her.'
"So do you sleep naked?"
"Sure," he said.
"And when your dog licked my head and you came to save me ... you were naked?"
There was a pause. "I guess I was," he admitted.
Brenda
thought about that for a minute. She had been lying there, with a
naked man only inches away, and she hadn't even known it. And he
had even touched her head! Brenda hadn't been around a lot of
males, and almost none in anything near an intimate setting. This
was a whole new concept for her. She had the same chemistry as
other girls her age ... but it had never been ... turned on, so to
speak. She didn't quite understand the thrill that she felt
when she thought about Bob, naked, at the door of her tent.
He had said she looked sexy, too.
"Do you really think I look sexy?" she asked. "Or were you just trying to make me feel better?"
"Probably a little of both," he said, telling her the truth.
"I don't want pity," she said firmly.
"I
don't pity you," said Bob. "I probably have some feelings of pity
for your parents, because they're going to lose you, and I know how
that feels." He looked grim. "But I don't pity you.
You're going to a better place, where there is no pain or
anguish. There for a while, I thought about wanting to do
that myself."
"You thought about suicide?" she gasped.
"Sure. Most people do at one time or another in their lives."
"But you decided not to do it." Brenda sounded relieved, somehow.
"It'll
be my time, one of these days," said Bob. "Until then, I just
have to try to go on and do what I can to make this old world livable."
"I'm
glad you didn't do that," said the girl. "I couldn't be here if
you'd have done that." She looked startled, and then
added: "I know that sounds selfish, but I'm having a good time."
Bob
laughed. "You rode your butt raw, you thought you were being
eaten by a bear, my worthless mutt killed your wig ... and you're
having a good time? You, my little filly, are a cheap date."
"Well,"
she said, her voice defensive. "This is the first date I've
ever been on! You have to give me a little time to learn how to
do all this."
She
started giggling, and snorted through her nose. Dammit ran over
to her and began wagging his tail, sticking his nose out.
"What's so funny?" asked Bob.
"I'm
on my first date, and the man I'm with just told me I should be
sleeping naked." She started laughing harder, until she
rolled on the ground. Dammit climbed over her, trying to lick her
face as she covered it with her hands and laughed through them. The dog
settled for licking her naked scalp again. She kicked her feet
and, between laughs, gave out little screams. It was obvious she
wasn't scared, though.
"Come
here, Dammit!" ordered Bob. The dog gave up and ran to sit by
Bob, who scratched her ears again. She rolled over an raised one
leg, begging for a belly rub. Bob gave her what she wanted,
mostly because she'd lie there forever if he kept scratching.
Brenda's laughter tapered off, only to expose the fact that now, she had the hiccups.
Bob
stared at her. She really was a nice looking girl. For a
sixteen year old, her breasts were pretty big, in his opinion, and her
slim waist swelled out to fill her jeans in the hips. He couldn't
tell what her legs looked like, but Bob had always been a tit man
anyway. Her baldness gave her an exotic look, and he hadn't been
kidding when he said she looked sexy. Her eyes looked huge,
almost like those Japanese cartoon drawings he'd seen. He was
also impressed that she was taking her whole situation as well as she
was. He'd expected a sickly, sad, morose little girl. But
she was vibrant, and healthy, and fun to be around. For now
anyway. He hadn't spent any time with a teenager since he was one
himself, and she wasn't at all what he expected.
She
reminded him of Dannie, in some ways. That bothered him, somehow,
but he couldn't deny it. She had the same upbeat attitude, and
ready smile. Her stature was about the same, though Dannie's
breasts had been smaller. He looked up, wondering if she was
watching him now. He'd never felt any connection between them,
since she died. All he felt was loss. Now, he hoped
she was watching. Even if his thoughts towards this girl
were less than pristine. To be compared favorably to Dannie, in
his opinion, was a compliment of the highest magnitude.
"Tell me another lie," said the girl, hiccupping.
Bob
launched into a story about how, when he was herding cattle one time,
from one of the high pastures to a lower elevation, he'd gotten hot and
decided to cool off in a stream. He'd taken his clothes off, and
he went into great detail about how rocky the bank was, and how tender
his feet were. He described how he tiptoed, leaning this way and
that, into the water, only to see Dammit taking off with his pants,
dragging them through the dirt and brush. He'd tried to chase the
dog, but couldn't run because his feet were so tender.
Taking time to put on his boots, he then started chasing the dog
through the cattle. The dog refused to obey his commands,
thinking they were playing a game. Bob put a moan in his voice as
he described how he ran around a bunch of brush, only to find that a
group of guests, including three women, had been brought out to meet
him, and help him drive the cattle to their new pasture.
"There
I was, dressed only in boots, covered with dirt and mud from being wet
and falling down on the ground, with these three women staring at me
like I was from another planet."
Brenda, who had been laughing the whole time, managed to ask him what happened next.
"Rowdy
was with them - he's my foreman, you know - and I swear, all he said
was "Folks, I'd like to introduce you to Bob Nivens, the owner of the
ranch. As soon as he gets his clothes back on, he's going to
teach you how to herd cattle."
Brenda rolled on the ground again, laughing, and Dammit returned to try to lick her face, her tail wagging furiously.
"You
know," said Bob, "You're being paid a compliment there. Dammit
doesn't take a shine like that to most folks. She was abandoned
as a puppy, and she's pretty reserved around people she doesn't know."
Brenda grabbed the dog's head, and her hands rolled both ears in circles. The dog's tail kept wagging, though it slowed.
"And she doesn't let anybody but me touch her ears," said Bob, staring at the two of them.
"She's
letting me touch her ears," said Brenda. She put her face up by
the dog's nose and addressed the dog. "I'm sorry I called you
'he' a little while ago. I've never been around a dog
before. You're a good doggie."
Dammit's tongue lapped Brenda's nose twice, and then the dog just stood there, tail wagging.
