Page 95 of Mommy

I prepare to walk up to his large… I wanna say tent? But it’s closer to a house the way it’s built and furnished with all sorts of things.

He hobbles to block my way and shakes his head.

“They are not in there.” He says, leading me around the tent instead and towards what I assumed was a tapestry to cover trash, but…

Giving me a somewhat disturbing smile, the guy grabs one corner of the tapestry and pulls the tarp up.

Motherfucker…

There’s a crawling of tiny bodies on the dirty asphalt and a deep growl emits from the shadows when the light hits the puppies.

They are tiny. Tiny like Posies pups. And I can do nothing but stare at them in horror.

Bending down, the owner grabs for one of the whelps, which immediately breaks out into cries and whines. A growl comes from the depth of the tarp that I can only assume is coming from the mother.

There she is.

Or at least her head.

Black and white fur. She’s stretching out of the dark, her ears slicked back and chaps pulled as she growls at us again.

Slowly she’s pushing her body up.

I can hear a chain rattling and my throat closes when she inches her way closer and I get a better look at her. She has a wound on her side, where it looks like her fur fell out all at once. The skin beneath is rubbed raw and she’s limping. Her eyes are drooping slightly and one is so red I’m certain she has an infection.

Maybe I can make Sam take a look at her.

He has a soft spot, I know he does. He might not adopt a dog himself, but he’d never let them suffer. If I tell him about this one, I’m certain he’ll treat her for free just to make sure she is taken care of.

The canine is growling again, and this time the owner reacts.

“Shut up!”

He isn’t kicking her, just the tarp, but by the way she bows not only her head but her entire body, I can tell that it has happened before. And that she was on the receiving end of the impact. My fists clench, and I take a deep breath to keep myself from kicking him.

“So this is the mother?” I force myself to ask, even though it’s clear as day.

The man plops the puppy back into the pile and nods.

“Yes, the mom.”

“Where’s the father?”

There needs to be another dog around here somewhere. It’s possible that she was bred with a neighboring dog, but it’s unlikely.

“Yes.” The man just says, walking around the tarp and back into the front.

I’d overlooked it earlier, but there’s a large rubbermaid container. Standing upside down, with a hole on one of the sides. The man lifts it up, bringing the dog that was curled up underneath it out into the daylight.

There’s a chain on him too, short, allowing him just enough space to get up and lie down and maybe move a foot or two away from the pole he’s anchored to.

Unlike the mom he doesn’t have visible wounds, but malnutrition and dirt cover him in a blanket of sadness.

Looking back and forth between the dog and his owner, my mind scrambles for a reason to take these animals from him. I hate how I come up short. All I have to throw around is accusations with no proof, and that won’t get me far.

The gapped smile on the man’s face tells me he knows.

I have one shot to make it, and even though I know it’s a lost one, I give it a try.