Shelter

It was a Tuesday night in January and the dogs were uneasy. Blue, the only certified hound dog in the ragtag little pack, stood under the kitchen table with his ears back and his tail curled under him. Carlos, the lab, was trying to hide himself behind Roger’s legs and whining like his paw was caught in a snare. Even Chili, normally a loud and fearless little S.O.B., was somewhere in the guest bedroom: his position revealed only by the jingling as he scratched at his collar. Roger didn’t blame them. The wind that night could have put anyone on edge.

The blizzard did its best mountain lion, screeching as it gripped the siding on Roger’s cabin and shook it. He would need to go and check on that, once the storm was over. But for now he had a fridge full of beer, a pot of store brand shells and cheese on the stove (doctored up with some hot sauce), and a stockpile of movies from the Walmart in down in Boulder. They’d be alright, whether the dogs agreed with him or not.

He considered lighting a joint, but the accompanying hunger might have done more damage to his food stores than he could call wise. Between the pasta on his stove, the chicken strips in his freezer and the sandwich fixings Roger estimated he could go three days without having to leave the cabin. Four, if he didn’t let the weed make any decisions. Out where the snow plows feared to tread, real mountain country, you had to consider those things when the weather got bad enough.

Carlos head-butted the back of Roger’s knee as he stirred dinner, huffing and whining. Roger swore and addressed the room as he set his spatula down, pointlessly assuring his roommates that nobody was dying and he wouldn’t let the wind get them. Carlos sat and huff-whined again, Blue cocked his head to one side for a moment and resumed shivering, Chili’s collar jingled somewhere in the guest bedroom. Roger sighed and kept stirring.

He didn't mind the isolation. He'd never been much for people anyway. It would have been nice to have a bar or two in walking distance, but the missing didn't sting as bad when you were paying less than five hundred a month for a place to hang your hat. Location, location, location. The landlord had been funny about the place, Roger recalled, "You sure you want that one? All the way out there?"

"Hell yeah."

"Well, the customer's always right I guess."

And that had been that.

Roger didn't think of himself as antisocial. The mountains were harsh, but never unfair: their rules were written plainly. Pokeberries will kill you, Saskatoons won't. Creek water needs boiling, most well water doesn't. People's rules were much harder to reckon.

The wind redoubled its efforts, rattling his front door with a teakettle screech as it whipped down the mountainside. Roger wasn't a man given to superstitions, but he could understand what might have helped inspire the Cheyenne's stories of the Two-Face. Even with the benefit of scientific understanding, the sound of that wind was creepy as anything. Blue whined, now jostling with Carlos for a hiding spot between his master's legs and the stove. What the hell was Chili doing?

"Where's Chili, boys? You seen him?"

Blue and Carlos locked eyes, then looked back at Roger in a way that almost felt human. "That supposed to tell me something?" The dogs gave no answer, but both directed their gazes towards the dark doorway of the guest room. Blue whined softly. "You boys worried about him? You worried the wind got your brother?" Roger tousled their ears. "I'll tell you what, I'll go check on him. Then we can all calm down, okay?" They gave a tandem whine as Roger made his way towards the guest bedroom door.

"Chili? You in there, boy?"

It was the guest bedroom only in name. A cramped receptacle for all the miscellaneous crap a person accumulates in fifty-something years of living. A pile of unread novels on the floor. A gaming system from the nineties: still around only because the hassle of finding someone to buy it outweighed any value it could reasonably possess. Roger flipped the light switch twice, three times, four times. The bulb was dead. Damnit. He should have been used to it by now, but there was still a little sting whenever he became aware of some new item that would demand a sliver of his next check. Also, he would have been lying to himself if he had said he wasn't a little uneasy at the prospect of exploring the dark room alone, the memory of the Two-Face legends fresh in his mind. "Where are you, boy? You okay?" The collar rattled, the sound seeming to bounce off the odd corners and edges of the room's occupants; it was hard to tell where it was coming from. Roger leaned down and checked under the bed, finding nothing but old socks and a pile of magazines. Another rattle. "Chili?"

Something wasn't right. In the five years since Roger had found him on the side of the road, Chili had never once hidden himself like this. There had been storms, hell, some even worse than the one raging outside, but nothing had ever inspired this level of fear in the little dog. Another wrinkle found purchase on Roger's forehead: If the dog was sick or injured, that presented a whole new kind of problem. He turned over boxes, scattered piles of dormant summer clothes, even lifted the mattress. Why couldn't he tell where that damned rattle was coming from? Rattle. Rattle. Suddenly, as Roger stepped in front of the closet door, it stopped. It was the last place he had thought to look because it had been closed and Chili wasn't door-opening height, but he was officially at the point in his search where logic was beginning to lose to frustration. "Alright boy, it's time to stop messing around..."

Roger opened the closet. The transition from the half-light of the guest bedroom to the closet's darkness rendered him temporarily blind as he felt around on the floor for his dog. Roger muttered a mixture of encouragements and curses as his hands fumbled over the dusty carpet. Finally, just as his vision began to adjust, there was one more rattle: this time directly to his right. Roger's attention snapped to the shadowy corner of the closet. "Chi...?" The animal's name froze in his throat. There was his dog's collar; dangled in front of Roger's face as it was gripped between impossibly long, impossibly pale fingers.

It looked like the Cheyenne had been right after all.