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  My joy was short-lived; I had to clean up the mess, and boy was I nauseous at this point. Plus I had remembered that where there’s one rat, there’s a rat family. In the chimney, no less. Project Burn ‘Em Out would commence that weekend if the cats didn’t start making an impact5.

  2 Yo, non-Cruzans, that means steal it.

  3 Born here.

  4 Our new Cruzan kitty.

  5 After the addition of one more cat (Tiger), the felines stepped up to the plate and the rodents went back to the fields—no need for fires.

  ~~~

  Chapter Ten: Bad Man Dem

  Excerpt from the novel Leaving Annalise, sequel to Discovering Kate:

  It started with the chows.6

  “Kate,” Ms. Ruthie called through the open kitchen window to me from the driveway. She always called me Kate, never Katie. “Come. There’s some big dogs outside.”

  On St. Marcos, one did not say, “Come here, please,” one simply commanded, “Come.” It sounded rude to those from off-island at first, but you quickly got used to it. I appreciated the economy of expression.

  Looking out the kitchen window, I saw a couple of large chows sniffing around the empty bowls we had fed our dogs from earlier. Ours as in mine, Annalise’s, and Ruthie’s.

  Now that she had my attention, Ruthie continued. “I don’t like them dogs. Chows mean. They could hurt Thomas bad. They could hurt any of us.” Ruthie was the temporary nanny to Thomas, the toddler visiting for the summer with his Uncle Nick. The Nick I was coming to think of as my Nick, here on the island where I had escaped his memory, only to have the real Nick show up and reclaim me a year later. I hadn’t resisted nearly as hard as I had planned.

  “Where’d they come from? I’ve never noticed them before,” I replied.

  She chuptzed. “Those boys growing ganja across the road near the old Rasta shanty. They bring the dogs dem this week. Guard dogs.”

  This took me by surprise, but I didn’t question her, as it made perfect sense.

  That night I said, “Nick, you realize this is your fault?”

  “How is it my fault?” he asked as he snuggled in tight behind me in bed.

  “My life had no crossover with the criminal element until I met you. Now I have the son of a drug dealer living in the house, and our neighbors have set up a marijuana production facility across the road.” Thomas’s father was serving time in a Texas prison for selling drugs. Nice.

  “Believe me, I’d like to send all the criminals back to wherever they came from,” he said. Then he bit the back of my neck in exactly the right way to end the conversation.

  Over the next two days, the chows visited more frequently, agitating our six dogs: no mayhem, just growls and posturing.

  On the third day, Ms. Ruthie called out to me from the driveway again. “Come. Dogs dem harassing Thomas.” And in this case, the tone of her “come” said “urgent, come quickly.”

  Outside, Ruthie pointed to the end of the driveway. The pack of big chows stood with their tails erect and the dogs were clustered in front of them, all of them growling. Thomas sat on the ground behind our dogs, playing with one of his trucks and talking earnestly to my German shepherd, Oso. I couldn’t understand anything he said, but Oso usually seemed to speak his language. Today the chows had Oso’s full attention.

  As the danger to Thomas dawned on me, I felt an unexpected rage build in me. I was a beast. I wanted to rush those chows and kill them with my bare hands.

  “Shoo!” I yelled, to little effect. I was an ineffective beast.

  Something clanged to the ground behind me, a gift from another angry beast. “Thanks, Annalise,” I said. I grabbed the heavy shovel that had appeared where none had been before.

  I advanced on the dogs with my weapon raised, yelling in my deepest voice, “Get out of here! Go! Go now!” The chows backed away, but in no hurry. They seemed more annoyed than scared.

  Then the largest chow snarled and lunged at me. Oso met its lunge in a blur of tan and black fur and gnashing teeth. I scooped up Thomas, who was clutching his truck in a death grip. I ran for the house with Ruthie on my heels. All the dogs joined Oso in a deafening melee. Nick pounded into the kitchen.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Our dogs, the chows, a fight,” I panted.

  Nick sprinted outside, screaming at the dogs, but by the time he got there, the chows had run back toward the shanty. Our dogs stalked around on stiff legs, itching for more of a fight. After a few minutes, they calmed down and licked their wounds. None of them had sustained grave injuries. Oso was hurt the worst.

  “Good dog, Oso,” I said, and stroked his head as he followed Nick into the bathroom for some minor TLC.

  In the quiet that followed, Thomas resumed his game on the kitchen floor, singing to himself. The blood rushed out of my head and I had to sit on a stool and press my face against the cool granite countertop.

  Ms. Ruthie placed an icy cold rag on the side of my face. Angel.

  Nick and Oso rejoined us. I sat up and moved the cold cloth to my forehead. Nick smoothed the back of my disheveled hair. We discussed options.

  “Should we call the police?” Nick asked.

  I’d been on-island long enough to know this was a dangerous idea. “I’m afraid it wouldn’t be too hard for them to figure out who tattled on them, and we would be sitting ducks up here if they decided to retaliate. Maybe the animal shelter would pick them up?”

  Nick mulled this over. “If they could catch them. And, following your line of reasoning, that might be too obviously linked to us as well.” He snapped his fingers. “But what if we could borrow a few of the shelter’s cages and trap the dogs here?” He motioned out the window. “They look like they’re starving. If we baited the traps, maybe with hot dogs or bacon or something, they’d be in there in a flash. And then we could take them down to the shelter ourselves, one at a time. As far as the bad guys would know, the dogs would simply be disappearing, one by one, with no explanation, and they’d probably think they ran off or died.”

  Ms. Ruthie and I liked that idea, so we went with it. It only took five days and five trips to the animal shelter to get rid of the dogs. The chows showed surprising docility once caged, but I still let Nick handle all the close work.

  Our plan had an unexpected benefit: the drug farmers disappeared, too. Losing their dogs seemed to make them skittish. We high-fived and resumed normal operations. I found a yellow sticky on the mirror that night: “Smile, beautiful. We busted up a drug farm together. How amazing is that?” I smiled.

  But that night, we heard mournful howling and distressed barking from the direction of the farm.

  “I need to check that out,” Nick decided. He put on black jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt, grabbed a flashlight and the machete. “If I’m not back in an hour, call Rashidi,” he instructed me.

  “This seems like a crummy idea, Nick.”

  He grinned at me and walked backwards toward the door, saying in his best St. Marcos accent, “Me ain’t ’fraid of dem atall,” and disappeared into the night.

  Sitting on the front steps, I watched his flashlight bob along in the distant bush. The barking rose to a fever pitch, and then abruptly stopped. This was nerve-wracking. I bit my lip. Only thirty-five minutes had passed. Should I call Rashidi? I leaned against the porch column with my face against its cool stones. No, I would stick to the plan. I hated being the damsel left behind.

  Nick reappeared at forty-seven minutes. I didn’t see him until he was almost to the house. He waved to me, but headed straight to the garage. I jumped up and loped after him. When I reached the garage, he was scooping dog food into bags and filling gallon jugs with water.

  He turned to me, his face red and fierce. “Those assholes left two dogs up there chained to trees to guard the bathtubs they were using as marijuana pots. The dogs are nothing but spinal columns, twig legs, and giant heads, and they have scuba weights strapped to their collars. The bastards took out all their plant
s, but they left the dogs to die.”

  My stomach clenched. “Oh my God, that’s awful.”

  “I didn’t get too near them in case they still had the energy to attack. I’m going to take them some food and water.”

  “Why don’t you set them free? Those poor dogs.”

  “I don’t want to give the assholes any reason to feel threatened. I’d like to leave the dogs in place for a few more days, in case they come back. I can take supplies out there every night. If the farmers don’t come back, I’ll cut the dogs loose.”

  He was already striding off with his arms full. “I’m coming with you!” I said.

  “No, stay here with Thomas. Everything’s OK. I’ll be back soon.”

  I stayed, growing angrier about the dogs by the second. Nick returned faster this time. The dogs had been so eager for the water and food that they overcame their distrust of him and slunk forward on their bellies to accept it.

  Each night for three more nights, he repeated his mission. We saw no sign of the thugs. On the fourth night, he took bolt cutters and set the dogs free. One of them rocketed away into the night. The other followed Nick back to our house.

  “He’s so skinny!” I said.

  “He’s put on several pounds in the last few days. You should have seen him before,” Nick replied.

  “His head looks huge on his skeleton body. What kind of dog is he supposed to be?”

  “He’s a pit bull cross. I call him Big Head.” He patted said head. His voice had taken on a paternal tone.

  Uh oh. “Nick, you know we can’t keep this dog. He’s been abused, he’s sick—we can’t trust him around Thomas.”

  Nick cast his eyes down. “I know. I just feel so bad for him.”

  I did, too, but it was clear what needed to be done. Big Head joined the chows at the shelter the next day. Now there were no predators—human or canine—to contend with across the street.

  6 This excerpt is a perfect example of a fictional story ripped from our real life.

  ~~~

  Chapter Eleven: Ménage à Tortoise

  Above: Count ‘em: One, two, t'ree turtles.

  One of the most awesome parts of living in the islands is getting out on the water. Owning a boat? A pain in the rear. Having friends with boats? Perfect. Eric and I joined our friends for a boat ride one Sunday after we were engaged, and off in the distance as we passed Judith’s Fancy on the north shore, we saw a floater. None of us could decide what it was. A log? A lost canoe?

  We pulled closer. Nope, not a log or canoe. Three turtles, as in ménage à tortoise. This gives love a bad name, but it made for a hell of a picture.

  ~~~

  Chapter Twelve: Chester

  One week, for one whole glorious week, we had an actual pig up at Annaly. An unplanned pig. An unplanned pig is kind of like an unplanned pregnancy. It’s big and undeniable, and it’s totally undignified. Kind of like our lives. The pig showed up as an evictee from the refinery’s housing camp, in need of a home. We moved him in, named him Chester, and we loved him.

  Chester weighed about forty-five pounds, or approximately the same as our smallest guard mutt, Jake the Snake. Jake was actually a cockermation, not a snake7. He got his name from Jake Plummer, the erstwhile quarterback of the Arizona Cardinals. I thought maybe Chester and Jake could hang, be pals, be running buddies.

  Jake thought not. Jake may have shunned Chester, but Callia, our rottweiler, took an instant liking to him. Kind of in the way she liked porterhouse steak.

  “Leave him alone, Callia,” I commanded, over and over, as Callia chased Chester and nipped at the back of his neck.

  I participated in my first-ever triathlon that weekend. Clark and Susanne showed up with posters that read, “Go Mom,” in tiny letters. It wasn’t their fault it was hardly legible—the words just wouldn’t fit around their giant drawing of Chester, bright white with gorgeous black spots.

  Chester spent a happy week eating our table scraps. Since we had no garbage disposal, Chester’s popularity rating soared, as far as I was concerned. I hated composting. Pig feeding, though? I could do that. He let me scratch his rough back and smooth down his wiry hair while he snorted and ate.

  On day seven of our Chester era, I went out to feed the dogs, who now numbered six—along with Jake, Eric had brought his boxer Layla and his German shepherd Karma. Yes, oh my. For six days, Chester had trotted behind the dogs, eager to be in on any eating opportunity. For six days, I had giggled at his cloppety steps and his farty snorts that were forced out each time a hoof hit the ground.

  Today, no Chester.

  “Chester? Here, piggy piggy piggy. Come on, Chester,” I called, unperturbed at first. Maybe he was scavenging for mangoes or soursop. He’d probably show up with a buzz from the fermented fruit.

  No Chester.

  “Eric, I can’t find Chester,” I called into the house.

  A few moments later, Eric emerged from the house dressed for work. We exchanged a smooch.

  “Chester hasn’t shown up,” I explained. “I was about to look for him.”

  “I’m sorry, babe,” he said. “Do you need my help?”

  “No, go on to work. I’ll look for him after I take the kids to school.”

  “I’ll take the kids. No need for you to make a trip out.”

  “Thanks, love.”

  I went back into the house to gather the children. Five minutes later I had them in Eric’s little Toyota truck, Clark holding a loaded toothbrush in one hand and a glass of water in the other. “Use that thing,” I said, pointing at the toothbrush.

  Clark nodded. I blew a kiss. And they were off.

  Dread began to constrict my chest and my throat. To put off the hunt for Chester, I did my normal morning routine, loading the dishwasher, gathering laundry, and booting up my computer for work. The view from my office over Mango Valley and into the ruins of an old sugar mill beat Eric’s view over the back parking lot of a 500,000-barrel-per-day oil refinery.

  Finally, I could avoid the issue no longer. I put on my hiking boots and some jeans. I loaded a small bucket with breakfast scraps. I called to Cowboy and set off to find our pig. Only fifteen minutes later, my fears were confirmed. I saw the small white mound, crumpled underneath one of the big mango trees behind the house.

  “Oh, Chester,” I said as I knelt beside him.

  Eric loved pigs, had always wanted a pig. I was pretty fond of pigs myself and spent many happy times feeding them at my grandparents’ farm in Stephenville, Texas, years ago. I was especially fond of this pig, though. How quickly love sneaks up on you.

  I placed my hand on his side. He was cold and firm. I combed over his body, looking for a clue to the cause of death. The only thing out of the ordinary was a pair of puncture marks in his back. I didn’t have Callia with me to measure the span between her canines, but I didn’t really want that level of certainty. An image formed in my mind of her dragging Chester to the ground and breaking his back with the weight of her body. I forced the image out. If she had killed him, why had she left him alone? Why hadn’t she, well, eaten him?

  I used the top of my right forearm to wipe away my tears and stood up. I placed the bucket near Chester’s head and walked back into the house. Knowing how he died wouldn’t bring the cheery little pig back.

  Later, we buried him under his favorite mango tree. Chester would always have a place at Annaly, in paradise.

  7 Female Dalmatian mother, male cocker spaniel father. A fantabulous mix!

  ~~~

  Chapter Thirteen: Every dog has its day.

  This is a story about Layla, sweet Layla the boxer who has the misfortune to look like Gollum from Lord of the Rings. It’s the story of how she returned to us from the dead.

  When Layla moved into Annaly, she was only about six months old. St. Croix, unfortunately, has an underground dogfighting community. As a female boxer, she was a sought-after sort of dog on the island—a young bitch who could mother fighting pups. We came home one d
ay to discover she was gone, had simply vanished. We put fliers up all over the island offering a reward for her return, but we had no luck. After a few weeks, we sadly accepted the reality that she would not ever be coming back.

  Four months later, we got a call from the animal shelter. “I think someone brought in your female boxer, that one from your flier last summer, but we can’t be sure. She’s pretty far gone, and we’re planning to put her down. Do you want to come in and see her before we do?”

  Did we?!? Eric and I jumped in my big Chevy Silverado truck and practically flew over the giant tire-eating potholes on our way down out of the rainforest and into town. When we came to an abrupt, breathless halt twenty minutes later, Eric turned to me.

  “Why don’t you wait in the car, just in case?” He cupped my cheek in his hand.

  “Yes,” I said. The woman from the shelter had warned us that Layla—if this was Layla—was not only barely recognizable, but that her skin was practically hairless and weeping with open sores. Still, I felt weak for staying behind.

  Eric went off to view the dog. I could see him from the back. He crouched in front of a mobile kennel, reached out his hand, and I saw a long pink tongue, but could make out nothing else in the dark opening where the dog lay. Then Eric turned back toward me and I saw the tears on his face.

  It was Layla. I got out of the car, crying and feeling nauseous. I walked over and stood beside him. I would not have recognized her. Eric barely had. But she recognized him, and with what little strength she had remaining, she had lifted her head, whimpered, and reached for him with her funny, oversized tongue that looked like the vintage Rolling Stones posters.