Death Row novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Dog on the Table

Ten years before, I was twenty-four and I worked the front table at a vet clinic in Ellis Creek.

A tall man in a flannel shirt came through the door at ten past six on a Thursday, carrying a brown dog in both arms.

There was blood down his sleeves.

"I hit her on County Road 9," he said. "She came out of the corn. I didn't even see her."

I took the dog out of his arms and carried her straight through to the back.

The doctor was already pulling on gloves.

It took two hours.

I scrubbed in for the last forty minutes, holding the leg steady while the doctor set it.

When I came out, the man was still in the waiting room.

He had washed his hands in the bathroom sink, but he hadn't changed his shirt.

"She's got a broken back leg and some bruising," I said. "She'll walk again."

His whole body let go, and he sat down hard on the plastic chair.

"Thank God," he said. "I thought I'd killed her."

"Does she have a collar?"

"No. She's nobody's."

"Then what do you want us to do with her?"

He looked up at me.

He had a wide, kind face and a small scar through his left eyebrow.

"Keep her at my place until she's better," he said. "I'm Blaine."

"Leah."

He paid the bill in cash, six hundred and ten dollars, counted out from a roll.

When he left he tapped the counter twice with two fingers, and smiled at nobody.

I noticed it because I thought it was sweet.

He came back every Thursday for six weeks, with the dog on a rope leash and a different excuse each time.

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