THE CUR: Lucky
Follows The Cur and Vin's Dog.
I liked the dog from the very beginning. I thought I was the only one.
I wanted to call her Lucky, but Chris said she was Vin's dog and he should name her. Vin didn't call her anything, not anything I'd repeat, anyway, and Ezra called her Ginger. She was kind of ginger colored, I guess, but she reminded me of cinnamon. My mom used to make cinnamon rolls, and she was just that color brown.
She hung around Vin all the time. It didn't make any sense, because he never even noticed her. I fed her, because she was real bony and didn't look very healthy. At least not at first. Towards the end of summer, she started to fill out a little. Buck and I both thought we could get her looking better; he thought he could sell her and I thought Casey would want her if we could convince Nettie. After Vin blamed that rooster dying on the dog, though, it was a lost cause.
We went out there to Nettie's to fix the roof on the barn. It was fun, when it's just the two of us, Vin gets to really laughing sometimes-out loud, not the quiet little chuckle he does when we're all together. But I never feel like he's laughing at me. We were all done and just playing around when I asked Vin to teach me to rope. Buck wasn't around, (and neither was Casey) so I figured we were safe. Buck tried to teach me once, he's a real good roper, but not such a great teacher. Vin's a lot more patient. I got the hang of it right away, and when he said rope the rooster, well, I thought he meant it! I guess we were both surprised when I caught him, but not as much as that cock was. He was really making some noise, and it was too much for the dog to resist. When we realized Nettie's rooster's neck was broke, Vin looked like heck. Then Nettie come out to see what was what, and he says the dog done it! I was surprised, because she just looked at him and smiled and told him maybe he better not bring his dog out there with him anymore and kinda winked at him. Vin's telling her she isn't his dog, but Nettie's just smiling at him, not mad at all. Go figure. So me and him got stuck plucking that rooster. The soup was good, though.
I tried to get that dog to like me all summer. I've always been good with horses and dogs, but not this one. She probably liked Vin cause he was quiet, and so was she. I never even heard her bark until the day of the trouble. She never whimpered, when she got shot. Josiah said she didn't die right off, but she never complained about it. I didn't see her, I was with Vin.
I don't know why Chris doesn't want to be around Nathan's when somebody gets hurt. He's supposed to be our leader, but Vin was laying there after Nathan got him patched up and Chris didn't even come around until the next day. Buck says Chris's afraid Vin's going to die one of these days, but I can't imagine Chris Larabee being afraid of anything.
When Vin first woke up., he looked at me kinda funny and asked what happened. I told him he got shot in the back, up near the shoulder, and he nodded and just kept looking at me. I guess I just didn't know what else to say, so I told him, straight out, plain and simple the way he talks--the dog got shot and she was dead. He got a funny look on his face and nodded a little tiny nod like he already knew that, then he just lay back there on the bed and stared at the roof. A little while later he asked if I'd get him his pants and that was it.
He never did name that dog.
Lucky fit, though. Not for the dog, but for Vin.
END
Next story: Fallen Angel