Emma and I had another visit together, returning again for a rodeo, in September like we said we would. I returned home only to miss Montana and the cowboy, quickly booking a one way ticket back to him - just us. My last month in Montana with just the cowboy and I was slower, more deliberate, certainly more quiet - a window into life not directed by newness or the grab bag of travel adventures. I tagged along with him and the dogs, spending time country and seeing the world through the eyes of his animals.
I remember taking a plant biology course in college. Professor Ritter spread the gospel on the miracle of plants, mistified of these magnificence of these living things, with root systems anchoring themselves to the earth. They stayed alive and reproduced without the ability of movement. With the same sentimet, I look at the animals, a step up the evolutionary chain but more resilient than any human on earth. They lack language but communicate constantly. Many, I have realized - have plenty more personality.
I’ve learned the most about the cowboy, who doesn’t speak much, from observing his animals, who also don’t speak. I look at them - his tribe of wild boys and wild flowers - with no collars or leashes, out in this space. Choc full of moxie. They have the best lives in the world, these sweet things, who would follow him to the ends of the earth if he asked. I see him in turn, speak for them, noting everything from a distance with an eye trained over decades to find the hurt or sick. He brings these ones back to health.
His cows come running when the cowboy calls. These land animals, weighing nearly a ton, approach with enthusiasm - sometimes airborne. They move like giant puppies, trained to know the sound of his voice. He doesn't rope his cattle or work them senseless, season after season until their nerves are fried. He tells them each, how beautiful they are.
At first sight of his truck, his horses lope to the road and crane their heads over the fence, catching the wind and creating little ripcurls of dust that pour out on the road. You think they would line up to see him when he enters the coral with a halter - they do not. As I take a spot on the fence - a little rodeo starring all my friends unfolds. Ozzy, the cowboy’s horse, thrilled by the chase, displays a stunty escapade of cat and mouse with prancing, high stepping, and gorgeous, ballerina movements. Make no mistake, the animal knows the drill - as does the cowboy. Ozzy continues to cash in on his promised minute in the limelight, showboating glamorous circles around the coral, three, four times. Until satisfied with the effort of pursuit, he reluctantly lets the cowboy catch him, with a sparkle in his blue eyes. “Everyone here is an only child….”
There are also the dogs. I’ve learned a lot about them from spending our every waking hour together, and a lot about the cowboy in how he has raised them. The dogs have purpose and boundaries, know what it means to work, and understand every word he speaks to them. They get sad just like any of us when they have to learn lessons, but he loves them all the same.
The dogs have me. They know they do. They may be able to tell through smells and feelings that I, myself, was raised without dogs. This essentially makes them my first loves, and a high I will chase the rest of my life. They love without restriction, and demand the same in return. They smell good always, and their fur stays soft and clean from the "damn near hip high" grass brushing them with every romp outside on the earth they were meant to roam.
They battle one another for attention with a ruthless consistency - which is cute and then annoying, because anything you give to one, you must offer to the other lest violent retaliation unfold before you, and at your very own hands. I’ve been taken out in these jealous bouts of darling fisticuffs, growls and teeth gnawing ears and jawing each other’s heads - at which point, everybody has to get into trouble. But in the name of vying for my affection, nearly all is forgiven.
I used to believe each had it out for the other one, thinking out loud one day to the cowboy. “Make no mistake - the two look out for each other,” I am corrected. After date nights, they launch themselves out the driver side door at the driveway to run off steam before bed. They lead us home, attached at the hip as if towing a miniature Wells Fargo wagon, their tails wagging as they gallop, with Docs tweaked out like an antenna to the right. Bat looks repeatedly over his shoulder to make sure his buddy is accounted for.
He does the same for me, stepping in as protector when the cowboy isn't around. In the sun of the front yard one afternoon, a friend arrives at the house to pick Emma up. Seeing a strange face with his friend - his responsibility - Bat crawls into Emma’s lap and starts to growl low. As the stranger attempts to placate the dog, too little too late, the warning grows lower, louder. Emma is explaining, half laughing “We haven’t seen him do this, he isn’t this kind of dog!” but we both know he is. He is the best kind of dog, doing his best job. The vote of protection makes my throat swell. I keep him boxed behind me as Emma leaves, and I realize for some reason, I find that I don’t really care for this new person either.
The protection is constant, and may be his breed, but maybe his person. After slinking out of the house to discreetly run an errand one morning, I look in the rearview to find Bat gaining on me down the hill. The puppy tumbles along in tow. I laugh, and then get weirdly emotional, before realizing they will continue to follow me well into town if I don’t abort this mission. Pulling the truck over to collect and return them, I see Bat has propped himself on the road side above me, sitting proud like a lion, having just successfully thwarted my escape. He looks ready to ask me just where I think I am going. I pet them and tell them I love them - these dogs that are are such good dogs.
And on a hike up the ski-run while his brother and dad bird hunt, Bat will run ahead in dead silence, and point his nose up the hill at nothing. Half a minute later, a trespassing truck of hunters passes above. We call the cowboy who comes to take care of it.
And then there is Doc, my puppy love - my light and my laughter. Unaware of social cues and too cute for accountability, he sleeps on our heads in bed, crawls into the front seat whenever he pleases, and requires physical hoisting to get in and out of it the truck. I am to blame, spoiling him stupid. I hover over him while he naps belly up, watching him in his rare state, so peaceful and sweet. Before long I break, burying my nose in the warm pocket between his ear and his cheek and try to smother him to death with kisses. He stretches and adjusts his positioning so that I may continue. I hear the cowboy murmur “Can’t imagine why he won’t bother with me anymore…” but this is heaven on earth, and life is taking these moments and collecting as many of them as your pockets will hold.
One particular morning, Doc, my puppy boyfriend, is sunning himself under a chair following his breakfast of "num nums,” while a Lester Young album floats in the kitchen. He seems to be enjoying his morning, but the cowboy is about to hit him with a reality check - it’s time to go to work.
“Load up, kiddo.” The cowboy holds the door for the dog, beckoning him to begin his commute outside. Doc looks at him, taps his tail on the ground, but doesn’t move. He then looks at me.
For the last two days, the cowboy has granted me the company of this funny little dog who looks like me and makes the house feel smaller. The dog is blonde, as am I, and our resemblance to each other has created an affinity with roots more narcissistic than either of us would care to admit. Together, we have enjoyed staying home from school and lounging in the warmth, as I make both major and minor adjustments to the home I plan to live in for the month. I shower him with consistent attempts to increase my favorings at every chance, as I am sure the cowboy is doing currently with Bat. I feed him fresh bacon, we learn to sit and play fetch, take plenty of naps, and dance together in the living room. This morning, however, the party is over.
“Doc - get in the truck.” He’s sterner now. The dog looks up at the cowboy, wagging. There are no attempts on record of any further movement.
The cowboy can see clearly what has happened, and is maybe disturbed by how quickly it has. Corrective actions must be taken, immediately, if he wants his dog back. The triage situation on our hands has caused me to beam. I am emanating wattage.
Strategy adjusts for the cowboy - with the same phrase, calibrated for volume and tone. The cowboy repeats it three times, with graduation in intensity. He’s nearly booming by the end. The tail whaps the floor. Doc stays put.
It’s worse than he imagined, which shouldn't surprise him - he knows how fun I am to hang out with. The cowboy flips his approach, trying honey over vinegar, practically cooing to the animal. He sings, “You wanna go to work? Ride in the truck? You wanna go? Let’s go!” He double pats his hands on his jeans. I watch from halfway across the room with my hand over my mouth at what happens next.
Doc gets up, sniffing the air for nothing, avoiding eye contact with his father, and tip toes in my direction. He settles just at my feet, just slightly still behind me, believing he is hidden. There is silence between us but there is laughter, both of us appalled and impressed at the nerve of this smol animal. He says some things that refer to the dog as “your dog” because whenever the dog is bad, he is mine, which is exactly on brand for me. Regardless, the cowboy really wants my dog to go in the truck. But I really don't want my dog to go in the truck.
The show is not over yet, as my dog gets up again to pump fake before hauling off on a dead sprint to the bedroom, where we both trail him like idiots to complete the capture. As if this was just any old day, he jumps on the bed, keels over, and prepares his belly for a rub. And for some reason, we do it. We sit there and pet this little thing, talking to each other over him, knowing he can hear us, about how bad of a dog he is. And we laugh, because rarely does boldness like this, well timed and darling, ever actually go punished.
Long after the cowboy has gone to work and scoffed at the travesty of me ruining his dog in two days flat, Doc and I stay there in bed together, laughing last, all but feeding each other bon bons. We are now friends forever.
Not all the days are funny or glorious - but the dogs have taught me a lot about love in all its forms and feelings. It can be joy and laughter, but it can also be skunkings and shitting throughout the house after eating an entire legs of deer. It can be daily 4am parades, both of them circling on the bed, letting us know they’d like to go outside now. It can be cutting dreads off of their butts, and eating 17 treats from the gas station and creating a fart storm that causes pressure changes in the car. And in the darkest hours, during an argument about nothing, a messenger puppy can crack through a door as some sort of peace offering from across enemy lines - letting me know that an argument about nothing is really all this is and will ever be.
Whenever alone with either of them, I tell the animals, separately, quietly, that they are my favorite.
And I lie to neither.
