Shelter Skelter

I sat alone and porkchopless on the bare sleeping mat, watching Mom through the laundrymat window as she tended to everyone’s needs but mine. My excitement curdled to anxiety, then to angst, and finally to anger as she scratched the laptop’s belly. Why should I have to quar-unseen in the Wagon when she was the one who was too dirty to be around anyone else? Mom should know better! The reason we go everywhere together is because the world is a scary place without a sidekick. She was probably in there tinkering with our plans right now, trying to plot away the white dirt before I left my mark on it. 

With nobody to pat me and tell me what a good boy I was, I had to figure out what to do with the icky buzzing feeling behind my teeth. Maybe a snack? I sniffed the bowl of kibble for signs of comfort or love, but it just smelled cold and dry.

“Phooey!” I grumbled, knocking the bowl so the kibble spilled all over the bed. That felt pretty good, but one of Mom’s two-handed face rubs would have felt even better. How dare she leave me alone like this, after all the cool places I’d taken her! 

“This is bullplop!” I raged, and looked for someone to back me up. One quick look around the Wagon reminded me that I was alone, so I looked for something to destroy instead. What I found under my upturned bowl was the bunched-up corner of the sleeping mat. I tore a hole in it and found it was filled with the same fluff and guts as my favorite toys.

“I’ll show you!” I thought as I tore out more stuffing and threw it into the same pile as the kibble. “I bet you won’t even thank me for making the bed better!” I dug like the bed was a beach, spraying kibble and bed guts through my back legs and all over the Wagon. I repositioned for a better ripping angle and got back to work. 

“That’ll show her,” I thought, admiring my handiwork as the knot in my chest melted into a slime of worry. A corner of the mattress under where the pillows go was completely deflated, its ragged ends hanging limply over the new packet of water bottles. I sure hoped Mom liked what I’d done to the place. 

My tantrum was long over and I was dozing in a cozy nest of mattress guts by the time Mom came back. The sound of the door opening wagged my tail before it opened my eyes. With my eyes full of Mom and my nose full of fresh laundry stink, I totally forgot about the surprise remodel. 

I met her at the door. “I’m so glad you’re back,” I wiggled. 

“What the smell, Oscar?” Mom roared in her road-rage voice. She turned on her dragon voice. “That was BAD! VERY BAD!” 

Mom never gets that mad at me except when I run with wild animals rather than her. “What did I do?” I shivered. I tucked in my ears, and slid my tail under my butt, cowering in the corner until she slammed the door again. 

I waited for what might have been minutes or years. What if Mom never came back? Maybe she had already found a new life partner and it would just be me and the Wagon alone against the world. How would I reach the driving buttons? Mom was the heart of the Covered Wagon, and I wasn’t even sure if it would turn on without her. Could I find my own Witch to order me around and judge me when I was wrong? 

When Mom returned, I was back at the door wagging for her. “I’m very sorry I ripped up our bed.” I craned my neck to kiss her face. “I promise I won’t punish you anymore.” 

“It’s okay, Spud. I get it.” She kissed the special spot between my eyes that made everything feel better. “I can’t stay mad at you. You’re the only one who isn’t treating me like the scum of the earth just for breathing.” 

Mom smooshed her mouth even harder into the kissing place and my nubbin waggled a little as the icky feeling in my chest began to shrink. She gathered up all the kibble and fluff and took it to the trash can in several trips, recharging me with kisses in between. When the fluff was gone, she hid the ragged edges under the sheet and filled the deflated spot with a pillow. 

“See?” she said. “Good as new. Come on. Let’s go find somewhere to spend the night so we can test out your home improvements.”

Nature owed me one this time. The last time we were in Sedona, the trail was buried so deep under white dirt that it scared Mom away half way up the mountain. It was barely up to my chin when she insisted that we turn around, promising that we would come back again someday. Now someday was here, and I was traveling with a braver version of Mom, who didn’t hesitate to walk boldly into puddles, socks and all. Seeing that the Weather Jinx meant business this time, the storm stole away in the night, leaving a clean sky and overcast ground behind. 

High on the wedding-cake-shaped mountain, the white dirt glowed like frosting, but here at the bottom there was nothing but brick-grey mud and cacti. The mud squelched through my toes, slipped under Mom’s shoes, and gathered in rusty puddles on the trail. 

“Do you hear that?” I cocked my head toward a rocky swell. Whatever was hiding behind it roared like a feral washing machine.

Mom had the Witch’s stories in her ears and didn’t notice the racket until it was too late. The trail turned a corner and dove into a river. The river trickled ferociously through a groove in the mud as deep as a sock and as wide as a sidewalk.

“Oh darn! This keeps happening!” I made my tail sag in fake disappointment. “I guess it’s time to go back to town and search for hot dogs.” 

Mom looked up and down the river for sock-saving rocks. Finding none, she plopped on the bank with the sound older humans make when they sit on something that’s not a chair. “Welp, here we go again,” she huffed. She took off her shoes and socks, rolled her pants into Knuckleberry Finns, and set herself free from the leash so we could each deal with the river in our own way. 

“I didn’t agree to this!” I protested from the shore. “You can’t just lure a dog with the promise of snow angels and then throw him in a river.” I turned and started walking back the way we’d come, hoping Mom would follow.

“Come on, dummy. It’s not even deep,” she called over her shoulder. “You’ll never get anywhere if you let a little thing like this stop you.”

“Come back here,” I barked.

She found a sitting rock on the far bank and dangled her paws in the water to rinse off the grit. She flossed between her toes with her fingers and used her socks to fan her paws dry.

I wasn’t going to cross this time. I really wasn’t. I dawdled on the bank, casually sniffing the cacti like Mom would be back at any moment. On the far side, Mom carefully lined her toes up with the holes in her socks. 

“Mom! C’mere!” I barked, just like she does when she thinks I’m taking too long to come back from the potty. But Mom never came back. I waited until her shoes were tied and the packpack was on her back. When she turned the packpack on me and started up the trail, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I splashed in after her.

“Oh my Dog, I survived!” I panted as I sprinted the last few steps to Mom’s side. The water was only below my knees, but I didn’t want Mom to get the wrong idea. I shook as vigorously as if the whole river were on my back. 

The ground crackled under Mom’s shoes as the trail climbed and mud turned to ice. Fluffy wisps started to appear on the cacti like toy stuffing caught in its thorns. Before long, more of it ploofed right out of the mud.

“White dirt!” I squealed. I took a running start and tumbled into snow angel position. 

The last time we were here, we only made it to the shoulder of the mountain before Mom gave up. The white dirt had been up to my chest, hiding everything under a blinding blanket so that neither the eye nor the imagination could guess what route the trail must take to the top. Today, we were determined to find out.

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