For Lucy

For Lucy, life on the vast North Dakota farm is a beautiful one. A golden Labrador and Kelpie mix, a life of running around, herding the animals where they need to be, is everything a sweet and energetic dog like Lucy could ever ask for. Her favorite time of the day though comes when the day’s work is finished and she can lie at the top of the hill with her little girl human named Leigh, overlooking the old red barn and the vast land beyond it.

Lucy pants with an open mouth doggy smile, happy enough to make a human cry from the weight of this happiness.

For Lucy, life in her first five years has been beautiful and without fear. This would change on her sixth birthday at the end of the summer.

Lucy’s days always start with her being let out of the house to run around the land, do her business, and ready herself for the day of herding animals and playing with Leigh. After running around, Leigh always comes out with Lucy’s breakfast and water. Today, Lucy does all of this, everything on schedule, until she gets to the wrap around porch.

There’s no Leigh with Lucy’s breakfast and water.

Lucy squirms as she sits on her hind legs, waiting just beyond the steps of the porch. She looks around, wondering if Leigh came out to play before breakfast, even though she doesn’t usually do that, at least this early in the morning when the sun has only just begun to peak over the horizon.

Lucy waits longer. She doesn’t know how much longer, but long enough to make her realize how scared she is and forget about her breakfast.

Her nose pressed to the ground, Lucy sniffs around, desperate to find Leigh’s scent. A whine escapes her throat after she’s walked around the entire house without finding Leigh’s scent. There’s a horrible moment where she thinks she’ll never find it.

Lucy feels scared and almost ready to give up when the wind picks up. Leigh’s scent hits Lucy with immense force. When Lucy gets her bearings down and the wind settles, Lucy presses her nose back to the ground. With each step, Leigh’s scent gets stronger. When Lucy arrives at the big barn, Lucy thinks she’s standing on Leigh, the scent is so strong.

Lucy starts barking, looking from the closed barn double doors and the house behind her. The tall humans don’t appear and for Lucy, this is too much. She starts to pace, starts to whine, starts to get really scared. The tall humans don’t allow Lucy in the barn alone. Lucy has the habit of barking at the cows, hoping for them to play with her. With the tall humans, Lucy always knows better than to bark at the cows.

But now, for Lucy, this is torture, knowing she needs to get inside but no one is here to let her in. The scent is overwhelming, on top of something else…something with a thicker scent, something that catches her attention the way her breakfast might, though not exactly the same. Whatever it is, Lucy doesn’t like it.

Lucy barks again, looks at the house, at the barn, nothing. She sees the lock and chain are missing from the double doors of the barn. The door is open. She could walk in now, but Lucy doesn’t want to be a BAD DOG…but Lucy also knows she doesn’t like that other thick scent. The one filled with the smell of iron.

Pushing the door open with her nose, Lucy opens the door with three hard pushes. When the door opens, the thick iron scent is enough to make her almost run away. It brings a harsh whine out of her, not because she’s scared, but because she realizes quickly what that scent is.

It’s the scent of blood.

The cows in the barn make their noises, but for Lucy they don’t matter. She doesn’t bark at them. She keeps her nose to the ground, with the scent, and keeps moving forward to find Leigh. The little girl human who loves her and kisses her and who, for Lucy, is the entire world.

Hay tickles her nose. Lucy sneezes but she doesn’t stop. She keeps moving across the ground, all sorts of scents hitting her, but never losing Leigh’s scent.

Then Lucy feels what she thinks is a sack. It’s not a sack. It’s Leigh, her leg broken from a fall from the hayloft, the bone protruding through the skin.

When Lucy starts barking again, the cows get set off. It’s a chorus of deep noise inside the barn, all of the animals in a wave of panic, each feeling the panic of the animal next to them, all of them in tune with Lucy’s desperation to save this little girl.

It isn’t long before the running steps of the tall humans approach the barn. Lucy’s pacing accelerates around Leigh.

They hear me, Lucy thinks. They hear me and they’re coming to help her.

Both tall humans, the man and the woman , stand in the doorway of the barn. Both look angry. Both look ready to call Lucy a BAD DOG. For Lucy, this isn’t the time to care about being a BAD DOG.

“Lucy, what do you think you’re…” The tall woman begins to say, but then her eyes move to Leigh. Her widen. “Oh my God, Leigh!” The woman runs to Leigh and the man takes something out of his pocket and starts talking. All the while, Lucy keeps barking.

Everything after things moves very fast: big cars with flashing lights, tall men with big bags loading Leigh into one of these big flashing cars, and Lucy barking and trying to protect Leigh.

“It’s okay,” Leigh’s father says. “They’re going to help her now.”

Lucy is still nervous, but she stops barking. She goes on whimpering instead.

Leigh’s mother gets into the big car with Leigh and the tall men and it drives away, leaving Lucy with Leigh’s father.

“You’re a good dog, Lucy.” He tells Lucy as he scratches her under her chin. “You saved Leigh when she needed you. Your love for her just saved her. You are the BEST girl, Lucy girl.”

Lucy hadn’t known what to expect from the tall humans. She hadn’t cared. She had only known Leigh was hurt and she had to help her, so she did. Even if it meant she would be called a BAD DOG.

But this hadn’t made her a BAD DOG. This made her not just a GOOD DOG, but the BEST DOG, the BEST GIRL. The birthday gift she never knew she's wanted, to be the BEST GIRl.

Lucy looks at Leigh’s father, then licks the hand he offers her.

Weeks later, Leigh’s home with a thigh high cast after seeing doctors and having surgery, lying on her bed reading “Charlotte’s Web”, with Lucy lying at her side, the barn just in their eyesight through the bedroom window, the reminder of the strength of Lucy’s love for Leigh. For Lucy, lying beside her favorite human, this is heaven.

The End