Chapter 21
I'm on the medical group's website scrolling through doctors in the area when at 8:35 AM, twenty-five minutes before our scheduled appointment, Sherry Mendenhall and her unbridled intensity enter the office.
I slam my laptop shut like I just got caught looking at porn.
Mendenhall has maybe twenty braids sticking up and out at odd angles all over her bottled-black hair, and each one is tied with a different colored strip of fabric. It's a statement in a language I don't understand. However, she does look pretty much exactly how I would have expected a PETA representative to look had I spent any time expecting.
I'm already up and heading her way when she sort of yells in her raspy voice, "I'm looking for Deputy Moretti," like she's calling me out to the street for a face-off at high noon.
"That's me," I say because leading with, What the fuck is your problem? rarely goes well.
Ferg and Ruby are obviously getting the same loose-cannon vibe. All three of us gather in the entryway at the same time and commence ass-kissing.
"Good morning, Ms. Mendenhall," Ruby says, ushering her into the office with undeserved warmth and good nature. "Can I get you a cup of coffee?"
Under a black trench-coat, she is wearing an army green shirt that says, ANIMALS ARE PEOPLE, TOO. But I'm pretty sure they aren't. Her Transitions lenses are still transitioning. "Is it fair trade?" she asks.
Ruby gives her this perplexed look, and I notice they're about the same height. Sixty seconds ago I would have estimated she was an inch or two taller than me. That's attitude for you.
Ruby looks at me for help. "Probably not," I say to Sherry.
"No thank you then," she says with a hint of disdain. We're pretty backwoods around here.
"Here," says Ferg, offering up the extra chair next to his desk like a slightly irked gentleman. "Have a seat."
She puts her huge black tote bag right on top of a pile of Ferg's papers then sits down.
"Will the Sheriff be joining us?" she asks as though she wants us to understand in no uncertain terms that we aren't worth her time.
"Should be," I say, though I really have no idea. It was my meeting.
"When we met yesterday, he indicated he would be here."
He indicated? Yesterday? Was this before or after said sheriff felt me up in the stairwell?
"The meeting's actually not for another twenty minutes, so . . . ," Ferg says.
I sneak a look at him and wink, and he gives me a quick smile before morphing right back into serious, take-no-shit Ferg. I'm proud of him.
"I guess I could show you some footage taken by one of our investigators," Sherry says, throwing us a bone we don't really want.
Ruby takes this opportunity to go back to her domain, and I don't blame her. Even if she were interested in the video, and I can't imagine she would be, the scent of patchouli now hanging thick in the atmosphere around Ferg's desk is a pretty effective repellent. In fact, my throat may be closing up. A wave of anaphylaxis paranoia seizes me until I realize if I do have a serious allergic reaction, I'll be able to get my blood test today.
Sherry moves over to Ferg's chair and props her iPad up on two volumes of the penal code. I pull my chair over, and Ferg uses the guest chair. We huddle in the toxic air around Sherry for the screening.
The video has a low-budget horror flick quality: grainy, wobbly, washed out black and white. The Blair Witch Project in a barn in northern Wyoming.
In the background there's a constant, rhythmic, distorted thumping, maybe country music, and in the most violent parts, there are distorted cheers and growls mixed in. Speech is difficult to decipher, and the camera is hidden in some article of clothing, so we have tunnel-vision. When the investigator turns too far one way or the other, it's hard to tell what's going on.
The fighters enter from opposite sides of the screen, both on thick rope leashes, both straining against their handlers. Though it's difficult to make out details, there is visible scarring on both dogs.
"What's wrong with that one dog's ears?" Ferg asks, leaning in towards the screen.
Sherry touches the screen to pause the video and zooms in on the ears. Up close it's obvious that they've been crudely altered.
"The handlers do that," she says, all gravelly and matter-of-fact. "They cut the tops off, probably with kitchen shears, so the opponent can't take hold."
Ferg and I exchange a look, but I'm not sure if it's a will-you-get-a-load-of-this-chick look, or a people-are-such-warped-bastards look. Either way, I'm uncomfortable.
Not much happens at the beginning. They just circle each other and lunge a few times. My uneasiness at this point is in anticipation of the inevitable horror to come.
Sherry skips through maybe seventy-five minutes, far beyond the point where it looks like they're only playing. It already seems like awfully long time to feel enraged and terrified. This is a short one, she tells us. These fights have been known to last for eight hours or even longer.
When we resume, the scene is much worse. Some of the images are beyond hard to take. A cloud of dust surrounds them as they tumble and snarl and fight desperately. This is life and death, and these animals know it, probably better than they know anything else.
What appears to be blood seeps into what appears to be white fur; flesh and maybe entrails droop out of an open wound in a belly; and towards the end, a jaw is unhinged and hanging loose. And that's not even the worst of it.
The hardest images to stomach are of them staggering around, disoriented, exhausted. It's at these moments that it's most obvious they didn't choose this. Their lives are entirely about need, and it's probably been like that since they were born. There is no want—want is a luxury. In their lives, there are no dog biscuits, no naps under picnic tables, no rides in the front seat out to the Bighorns.
They need a break, but what they need even more is to survive. For them, that's all there is, and now, that's all there ever will be.
Sherry skips forward one last time to the point where the fight is called, about half an hour after the white one, the female, looks half dead.
Just then, Walt comes in from the landing, startling all three of us.
"Morning, Walt," Ruby calls from what seems like a different dimension.
I hadn't even heard his boots. That never happens.
"Morning, Ruby," he says.
I barely even register his face before my attention is back on the screen. Ferg is still right here next to me, but it's like we're in these invisible, isolated pods, separate.
Now she is lying in the middle of the ring, blood spreading from her body, darkening the dirt. Her breaths are shallow, intermittent. She will die, hopefully soon, right there on display. Conspicuously unloved.
Sherry pauses the video in the catwalk between life and death, internment and freedom. She gets up to greet Walt, which is very generous of her since Ferg and I are frozen and hollowed out, stuck to our chairs, gaping at the screen.
Then she's back in Ferg's chair, and Walt is behind me. He leans into the back of my chair, and his right hand discreetly, briefly squeezes my shoulder, and is gone. The electricity is noticeably absent. Yesterday afternoon seems like a whole different life.
I'm suddenly very sleepy.
In the video, a detached milling around begins, while the life winds down.
The investigator walks to the other side of the ring. This is the first time we've seen faces. So far, there has been no sign of money, weapons, or drugs, all of which tend to accompany these events. It's what I'm trying to convince myself I'm looking for, but all I'm really thinking is I want to break away, walk back in time. I want to go back to the center of the ring, lie down next to her, wrap my arms around her. I don't care if I get blood on my shirt.
The investigator approaches a shaggy-haired man kneeling in the dirt next to the winner, who is lying on his side, shallow breaths and vacant eyes. The kneeling man pulls a wire from off screen somewhere. It is frayed at the end, and he holds it down onto the winner's neck. The winner convulses then lies still.
The investigator walks around the winner's body, and says something to the kneeling man. At first there is no response, but after a while, the man looks up at the investigator.
And I'm suddenly on my feet, reaching out in freeze-frame, touching the screen to pause the video, turning to Walt, then Ferg, then Walt again.
I'm dazed, disconnected. "That's dumbass," I say.
They're looking across this chasm at me, from what feels like miles away. Then, in unison, they say, "Van der Horn."