Rust

The Honest Season

Chapter 17: Rust

He was born in a whelping box in a garage in Circle, Montana, on March 15, 2015, one of seven pups from a litter sired by a dog named Cap who worked cattle on the Erickson ranch south of town. His mother was Nell, a black-and-white bitch who belonged to Darren Knutson, the farrier, the man who shod the horses in Garfield and McCone counties and who bred border collies on the side, not for show, not for trials, not for the agility courses that city people ran their dogs through, but for work, for the cattle work and the sheep work and the general farm work that border collies had been doing for three hundred years, the work that the breed was designed for, the work that was encoded in the breed's DNA the way the wheat's response to photoperiod was encoded in the wheat's DNA, the genetic instruction that said: this is what you do, this is your purpose, this is the thing your body and your mind were built to perform.

Tom drove to Circle to pick up the puppy. He drove the 130 miles on Route 200, east through Jordan, through the breaks, through the badlands country that was not wheat country but was cattle country, the country of sagebrush and juniper and the long dry coulees that cut the land into gullies and ridges and that produced a landscape that was not flat, was not the tableland of Roosevelt County, but was vertical, was dramatic, was the landscape that the Missouri River had carved over millions of years and that the cattle ranchers used and that the wheat farmers drove through on their way to somewhere else.

Tom picked the red one. The litter had four black-and-whites and two reds and a blue merle. Tom picked the red because the red reminded him of something, though he did not say what, and because the red pup was the one that came to him when he knelt in the garage and held out his hand, the pup that crossed the concrete floor with the unsteady gait of a seven-week-old and that put its nose against Tom's palm and breathed and the breathing was the contract, the first exchange between dog and man, the smell of the man received by the dog and the acceptance of the smell by the dog and the acceptance was complete, was total, was the border collie's absolute commitment to the person whose scent had been received and filed and cataloged in the dog's olfactory brain, the brain that was 40 times more sensitive than the human brain and that processed scent the way Ruth's brain processed soil — as information, as identity, as the signature of the thing.

Tom named him Rust. He named him for the color, the red-brown of the coat, the color that was not red like a fire engine but red like iron oxide, like the color of the earth in the badlands, like the color of old blood on old steel, the color that was the color of a working thing, a used thing, a thing that had been exposed to the elements and that bore the evidence of the exposure.

Tom trained him. Tom trained Rust the way Tom did everything — with system, with patience, with the understanding that training was not domination but communication, the teaching of a language that the dog already knew, the language of work, the language that border collies carried in their genes and that the trainer's job was not to install but to activate, to switch on, to connect the genetic potential to the specific tasks that the farm required.

The training began with recall. Come. The word spoken firmly, once, not repeated, the single command that the dog learned to obey immediately and completely, the command that was the foundation of all other commands because a dog that came when called was a dog that could be directed and a dog that could be directed was a dog that could work.

Then sit. Then stay. Then the directional commands — away to me, come by — the commands that sent the dog clockwise or counterclockwise around the livestock, the commands that Tom taught using the cattle they still had in 2015, the twenty head of yearlings that they kept in the home pasture, the cattle that were training aids as much as they were livestock.

Rust learned fast. He learned the way border collies learn, which was by watching, by the absorption of the human's intention through the human's body language, the reading of the handler's posture and gaze and the subtle shifts of weight that told the dog what the handler wanted before the handler spoke the command. The dog read the man. The dog read Tom the way Ruth read the soil, with the total attention of a creature whose survival depended on the reading, whose purpose was the reading, whose existence was justified by the accuracy of the reading.

By six months Rust could work cattle. By a year he could work cattle alone — go to the pasture, gather the herd, bring them to the corrals, hold them while Tom worked them, the sorting and the doctoring and the loading that cattle work required. By two years he was the best dog Tom had ever had, and Tom had had dogs his whole life, had grown up with dogs on the farm, had trained four border collies before Rust and had worked with each of them and had known each of them the way he knew his tools, by capability, by reliability, by the particular quality that each one brought to the work.

Rust's particular quality was steadiness. Rust did not get excited. Rust did not rush. Rust did not chase the cattle — he moved them, which was different, which was the difference between a dog that used pressure and a dog that used speed, the difference between a dog that controlled and a dog that panicked. Rust controlled. He lay at the edge of the herd and he watched the cattle and the cattle watched him and the watching was the control, the eye that border collies used, the fixed stare that said to the cattle: I am here, I am watching, I will move you if you do not move yourself, and the cattle moved because the cattle understood the stare, understood the pressure, understood that the dog was not a predator but was a manager, a boss, a foreman whose authority was backed not by teeth but by patience.

They sold the cattle in 2011. Tom and Ruth discussed it in the kitchen, at the table, in January, the discussion that was not an argument but was a calculation, the calculation that said wheat prices were high and cattle prices were low and the labor that the cattle required was labor that could be spent on wheat and the spending would be more profitable. The calculation was correct. The calculation was always correct when it was about money. The question was whether the calculation accounted for everything, and the calculation did not account for Rust, did not account for the dog who was trained to work cattle and who now had no cattle to work.

Tom solved this. Tom solved it the way he solved everything — by adaptation, by finding a new use for the tool that had lost its original purpose. He redirected Rust from cattle work to farm work, from herding livestock to accompanying humans, from the intense focused labor of moving cattle to the steady companionable labor of riding in the truck and walking the fields and being present, being near, being the dog that was there when Tom was there.

Rust adapted. He adapted because border collies adapt, because the breed's intelligence is not rigid but is fluid, is the intelligence of a creature that can learn new work when the old work disappears, the way a farmer can learn new crops when the old crops fail, the way a woman can learn to farm alone when the man who farmed beside her dies.

When Tom died, Rust was in the house. Rust was on the porch. Rust was not in the barn. If Rust had been in the barn, Rust would have been beside Tom when Tom fell, and Rust would have barked or howled or done the thing that dogs do when their person falls and does not get up, the alarm behavior that might have brought Ruth to the barn sooner, that might have made the hour and thirty-two minutes shorter, that might have changed the outcome or might not have changed the outcome because the doctor said the heart attack was massive and the outcome was determined in the first minute and the first minute was over before Rust could have sounded the alarm.

But Rust was not in the barn. Rust was on the porch. And Ruth has thought about this, has thought about it in the way that grief compels thought, the obsessive revisiting of the timeline, the what-if catalog that the mind generates in the weeks and months after a death, the catalog that is not productive and is not healing but that the mind insists on generating because the mind needs to understand and the understanding requires the examination of every variable, including the variable of a dog on a porch instead of a dog in a barn.

She has stopped thinking about it. She stopped thinking about it in the second year, the year when the what-if catalog closed, the year when the grief shifted from the acute to the chronic, from the sharp cutting pain to the dull constant ache, from the wound to the scar.

Rust transferred his loyalty to Ruth. He transferred it the way border collies transfer loyalty — completely, without negotiation, with the total commitment of a breed that was designed to bond with one person and that, when the one person was gone, bonded with the next person, the person who was there, the person who fed and who worked and who provided the purpose that the dog required, the purpose that was the dog's reason for being.

The transfer was not instant. The transfer took weeks. In the first week after Tom's death, Rust went to the barn every morning and stood at the door and waited. He waited for the door to open. He waited for Tom's whistle, the two-note whistle that Tom used to call the dog, the whistle that was Tom's and that Ruth did not use because the whistle was not hers, the whistle was a sound that belonged to the dead.

Rust waited at the barn door for seven days. On the eighth day he did not go to the barn. On the eighth day he went to Ruth. He went to Ruth on the porch and he sat beside her and he pressed his body against her leg and the pressing was the transfer, the physical act of realignment, the dog choosing the living over the dead, the dog making the practical decision that the breed makes, the decision that says: the work continues, the person has changed, the work continues.

Now Rust was eleven. His hips were bad — dysplasia, the genetic condition that affected the breed, the gradual degradation of the joint that produced the limp, the stiffness, the particular gait of a dog that was compensating for pain, the compensation that was visible in the shortened stride and the reluctance to jump and the slow careful way he lay down, the lowering of the body that used to be a single fluid motion and that was now a sequence — front legs first, then the controlled collapse of the hindquarters, the landing on the hip that was less painful, the settling.

His hearing was diminished. Ruth called his name and he did not always respond. She raised her voice and he responded, the loud call penetrating the fog that the aging ear produced, the fog that was not deafness but was distance, the sound arriving from farther away than it was, the auditory recession that age produced.

But his eyes were clear. Brown, deep, the eyes that tracked Ruth the way they had tracked Tom, completely, the total focus of a breed that watched its person the way a person watched the weather — constantly, for signs, for the indicators that told the watcher what was coming, what to do, how to respond.

And his nose was good. His nose was the last faculty that would fail because the nose was the dog's primary instrument, the organ that processed more information than the eyes and the ears and the skin combined, the organ that told the dog where Ruth was and where Hector was and where the coyotes had been and where the deer had crossed and where the rabbit had hidden and where Tom had been, the residual scent of Tom that persisted in the barn and in the truck and in the coat on the hook and that Rust still detected, three years later, the fading scent that was the olfactory ghost of the man who trained him.

Ruth did not know how much longer Rust would live. She did not think about it directly. She thought about it the way she thought about the offer — peripherally, with the awareness that the thing was there but without the focused attention that the thing would eventually require. Rust would die. The dying would come the way Tom's dying came — either suddenly or slowly, either the massive failure or the gradual decline, and Ruth would face it when it came and she would not face it before it came because facing things before they came was not her nature, her nature was to face things when they arrived, to respond to the present, to deal with what was here and not with what was coming.

Rust rode in the truck. He rode in the passenger seat, the seat where Tom used to sit when Ruth drove and where Ruth used to sit when Tom drove, the seat that was the non-driver's seat, the seat of the passenger, the person who watched the road and talked and did not steer. Rust sat in the seat and he looked out the windshield and his nose worked and his ears swiveled and his body was present, was in the truck, was riding with Ruth the way he had ridden with Tom, the continuity of the ride, the same truck, the same seat, the different driver.

He rode to the fields. He rode to the elevator. He rode to Sidney when Ruth visited Maryann. He rode to the barn, the forty-yard drive from the house to the barn that Ruth sometimes drove instead of walked, the drive that was not laziness but was Rust, was the inclusion of the dog in the trip, the bringing of the dog because the dog wanted to be brought and the wanting was expressed not in barking or whining but in the standing, the standing at the truck door, the standing that said: I am here, I am ready, I go where you go.

Ruth understood the standing. She understood it because she recognized it, because the standing was the border collie's version of the farmer's commitment, the readiness to work, the willingness to go where the work was and to do what the work required and to do it without complaint and without negotiation and without the expectation of reward beyond the work itself. Rust stood at the truck door the way Ruth stood at the field gate, with the understanding that the standing was the beginning and the beginning was the commitment and the commitment was the purpose.

He walked the fields. He walked slowly now, the hips limiting the speed, but he walked. He walked beside Ruth through the wheat, his head below the canopy, his body pushing through the stems, the stems parting for him and closing behind him, the passage of a dog through wheat leaving no trace except the slight disturbance of the canopy, the ripple that was Rust's signature in the field.

He still worked. This was the thing Ruth noticed and that she valued and that she did not sentimentalize because sentimentalizing it would have been an insult to the dog, an insult to the breed, an insult to the three hundred years of selective breeding that produced a dog whose purpose was work and whose happiness was work and whose identity was work. Rust worked by being present. Rust worked by accompanying. Rust worked by the watching that he did from the truck seat and from the porch and from the field, the watching that was supervision, that was the oversight of a dog who had spent his life beside working people and who understood that the work continued even when the dog's body could no longer contribute to the work in the way it once contributed.

His presence in the truck cab was Tom's presence. Ruth knew this. She did not say it. She did not say it because saying it would have made it sentiment, and sentiment was not what the land required. The land required work. Rust worked. That was enough.

But she knew it. She knew that when Rust sat in the passenger seat and looked out the windshield and his nose worked and his body leaned into the turns and his weight shifted on the seat, she was sitting beside the last living thing that Tom had trained. She was sitting beside the last product of Tom's patience and Tom's system and Tom's understanding of how to communicate with a creature that did not speak English but that spoke work, the shared language of doing.

The wrench on the pegboard was Tom's tool. The motor on the workbench was Tom's project. The coat on the hook was Tom's garment. But Rust was Tom's student, Tom's partner, Tom's creation, the living thing that Tom had shaped with his voice and his hands and his patience, the thing that Tom had made that was still alive, still moving, still working, still carrying Tom's teaching in its body the way the soil carried Arvid's plowing in its structure.

When Rust died, the last living connection to Tom's daily practice would be gone. The tools would remain. The system would remain. The pegboard would hold the wrenches in Tom's order. But the living thing, the breathing thing, the thing that had heard Tom's voice and responded to Tom's commands and slept beside Tom's bed and ridden in Tom's truck — that thing would be gone, and the gone-ness would be a second death, a smaller death, the death of the echo that followed the death of the sound.

Ruth did not think about this. She put the thought where she put all the thoughts she was not ready for — in the place where the offer lived, in the place where the future lived, in the holding space that the season provided, the space that said: not now, not yet, the season will tell you when it is time to think about this, the season will bring the thought to you when the thought is ready.

Rust was on the porch. It was evening. The wheat was still. The season was in its late middle, the middle of July, the middle of the growing, the time when the wheat was at its tallest and its greenest and its most present, the time when the wheat dominated the landscape and the landscape was wheat and the wheat was the world.

Ruth sat beside Rust. She put her hand on his head. She felt his skull through his fur, the hard bone that protected the brain that contained the training that Tom had installed, the training that was Tom's gift to the dog and the dog's gift to Ruth, the gift that persisted, that continued, that would continue until the body that held it could no longer continue.

She scratched behind his ears. He closed his eyes. He leaned into her hand. The leaning was trust. The leaning was the absolute trust of a creature that had given its loyalty and that did not take it back, the loyalty that was not conditional on being fed or sheltered or petted but that was the loyalty of a working partnership, the loyalty that came from shared purpose, from the daily alignment of two creatures doing the same work in the same place.

The sun set. The light went. The porch was dark. Ruth and Rust sat in the dark and the sitting was enough, was the evening's work, was the companionship that did not require words or activity or anything except the presence of two beings who belonged to each other in the way that beings belong when they have shared the work and the weather and the seasons.

Ruth went inside. Rust followed. He followed slowly, the hips, the careful navigation of the door threshold, the step up that used to be no step at all and that was now an obstacle, a small challenge that the old body met with the old determination, the refusal to be stopped by a six-inch rise.

She fed him. The kibble in the steel bowl. He ate. She watched him eat. She watched the way he chewed, carefully, deliberately, each bite considered, each bite the fuel for the next day's work, the next day's riding and walking and watching and being present.

She turned off the lights. She went upstairs. Rust lay on the floor beside the bed, in his spot, the spot near Tom's side. She heard him settle, the sigh that dogs make when they find their position, the exhalation that was not tiredness but was completion, the sound of a body that had done its work and that was resting before the next day's work.

She lay in the dark and she listened to him breathe. The breathing was steady, was regular, was the rhythm of a living creature at rest, the rhythm that filled the room the way the wind filled the wheat, the presence that was not loud but was continuous, was constant, was the sound that said: I am here, I am alive, I am the last thing Tom trained, and the training is in me, and the training will be in me until I am gone, and when I am gone the training will be gone and the living will be gone and the breathing will be gone and the room will be quiet in a way it is not quiet now.

But now the room was not quiet. Now the room held the breathing of a dog and the breathing of a woman and the two breathings were the room's inhabitants, the room's purpose, the room's work.

Ruth closed her eyes. Rust breathed. The wheat grew in the dark. The season continued.

The last living thing Tom trained slept on the floor beside the bed, and his sleeping was Tom's presence, and the presence was not sentiment.

The presence was work.