“For a few seconds. It sounded worse than it actually was.”
“It usually does.” Nicky pressed her fingers against one side of Randy’s neck and worked them around toward the other. Wrapping her arm around his head, she tilted it back gently, pulled his lower jaw down, and quickly inspected his teeth.
“He’s fine,” she said to Vin, “but I see a little blood on his gums.” She turned toward Kelsey. “Do you mind if I take a quick look at your dog? I’m a vet.”
Kelsey gave her assent, retreating a step while Nicky kneeled in front of Allie. The dog looked back toward its owner for reassurance. The source of the blood was a small cut on Allie’s ear. Nicky bent the ear toward Kelsey and pointed it out.
“Maybe that will teach you not to pick on chocolate Labs,” Kelsey chided.
“It wasn’t entirely her fault,” Vin said, remembering the last dog-fight he’d broken up. “Randy’s not as innocent as he looks.”
“It’s a superficial cut, so I don’t think she’ll need stitches,” Nicky said, standing up and pulling down her sleeves. “You can just clean it with soap and warm water when you get home. We live off River Road by Pennyfield Lock. If you want to swing by tomorrow, I can give you some gentamicin spray. It’s a topical antibiotic. You should be OK just treating her with that for a week or so and monitoring her ear as it heals.”
Kelsey asked for the address as she fished into her vest pocket for a pen. Vin gave her the number on Ridge Line Court and told her it was the driveway at the end of the cul de sac. “My name is on the mailbox. Illick.”
“Illick,” Kelsey echoed, writing the address on her wrist. She said she’d stop by early tomorrow afternoon and Nicky said to look for the medicine in the mailbox if they weren’t home. Vin watched Kelsey flick the leash lightly against Allie’s ribs, then glide away downstream on the towpath with her dog.
Nicky poked him in the ribs and smiled. “I brought your stuff. Still up for a paddle?”
“Absolutely.” He took the keys and jogged to her station wagon to retrieve a daypack with picnic supplies and their custom-made wooden canoe paddles. They didn’t own a canoe, but he’d bought the paddles this spring to celebrate Nicky’s passing grade on the veterinary licensing exam. There was no one in line at the rental counter and within minutes they were paddling up the canal in an aluminum canoe, Nicky from the bow seat and Vin from the stern. Randy sat between the thwarts, eyes and nose trained on the wooded bank to their right.
Vin watched Nicky’s shoulder blade swell when her paddle caught the water with each stroke. She had grown up canoeing during summers in New Hampshire, so her strokes were long and even. She and Vin had canoed on a lake in Maine while visiting his parents in June. After a few seconds, he matched her rhythm and their paddles hit the water together. At the end of each stroke, their blades released and sliced toward the bow, shedding teardrops as the canoe glided forward. With their strokes synchronized, he hardly had to steer to keep the canoe heading straight.
Nicky held her paddle against the gunwale and pointed to the bank ahead, where Vin saw the olive-black shells of a string of turtles sunning themselves on a fallen tree arm that leaned into the canal. Nose to tail, they extended up the branch from the water, the biggest turtle the size of his daypack and the smallest the size of his hand. Vin had read that this stretch of the canal was maintained by the Park Service, and any trees attempting to take root between the towpath and the canal were quickly culled. But generations of trees had grown up on the bank opposite the towpath – the berm – since the canal’s commercial demise. Many of these trees shed branches into the water or died and eventually collapsed into the canal. Large fallen trunks were cut away, but branches that didn’t block the entire canal were left in place. The rotting limbs allowed the turtles to crawl out of the water into sunlight, remaining safe from predators while warming their antediluvian blood.
The canal curved gently and Swains Lock disappeared behind them. The woods along the berm grew steeper, in places turning to rock faces that had been blasted or cut away during the canal’s construction over a century and a half before. Vin surveyed the stretch of towpath he’d just finished running. Most of the leaves had yet to fall, so the wide brown river beyond the towpath and the woods was more sensed than seen.
From the berm he heard a rush of air, like the sound a sail makes when it suddenly fills with wind, and from the corner of his eye he saw a tilting of blue-gray shapes. Randy put his front paws on the gunwale, growling and barking as the great blue heron extended its wings, leaned forward, and with two powerful flaps was airborne over the water, long legs splaying behind. It flew upstream over the canal, ascending slowly as its legs came together to form a rudder.
“That’s amazing,” Nicky said, turning toward the heron’s abandoned perch. “I was looking right at it and didn’t even see it! They’re like statues. They blend right in with the terrain.”
“I didn’t notice him either,” Vin said. “They’re so skinny that when they look straight at you, their beak, eyes, and head almost converge to a single point. Imagine if you were a fish. The beak could be just above the surface and you’d never see it.”
“I’m glad I’m not a fish.”
“Plus they can stand dead still for a half-hour, then strike in a heartbeat.” He looked straight at Nicky, expressionless and silent for a second, then jabbed his extended fingers toward her as she yelped in surprise.
“I’m really glad I’m not a fish.”
“I’m glad you’re not a fish, too. Though I do like fish.”
She smiled and they paddled quietly until Vin steered toward the bank beneath the towpath and proclaimed their arrival. The grade from the towpath down to the river here had been cleared of trees. They carried the canoe up to the edge of the towpath, then waded through meadow grass down to the river as Randy raced ahead. At the downstream edge of the meadow, they sat on a fallen tree trunk and stretched their legs toward the water. Randy zig-zagged along the opposite edge sniffing clumps of grass, periodically sighting Vin and Nicky to confirm their presence. Vin spread the contents of the day-pack out on the log.
Watkins Island and its smaller kin severed this stretch of the Potomac like ragged stitches, but here its trees had been felled for a buried gas pipeline, so Vin and Nicky had a clear view across to Virginia. The river sparkled in the late afternoon sun, with whirls and ripples lacing its surface where the current poured over rocks hiding just below the waterline.
Vin tore a baguette into small hunks and sliced off pieces of cheese as Nicky bit into an apple. “So it’s been a while since Randy’s last dog-fight,” she said between bites.
“Yep,” Vin said. “But this wasn’t really a fight.”
“Tell that to the dog who got bit.”
“Yeah, I know. It couldn’t have lasted more than five seconds and he still managed to draw blood.” He exhaled and swept his hand back through his hair. “I didn’t see it coming, because two other dogs had just walked past us and nothing happened.”
“Maybe Randy wanted you to meet the dog’s owner,” Nicky said, narrowing her eyes in a suspicious squint. “Kelsey, wasn’t it? She looked like your type. Slim, outdoorsy, blondish.”
“And older!” Vin protested. “And she said her dog provoked it!”
He put his hand on her thigh and confided, “You’re right that I trained Randy to meet women, but I was training him to meet you!” It always surprised him when Nicky speculated about his attraction to other women, since, physically and mentally, she really was his type. Part of the attraction was that Nicky seemed to know what she wanted in life and where she wanted to go. A clear direction, tempered by occasional flashes of self-doubt. Opposites attract – on both fronts! – he thought with a resigned sigh. He grabbed her shoulders in a wrestling clench and squeezed her, then nibbled on her ear without relaxing his grip. Her short brown hair smelled like lilacs, and he felt her twinge and giggle as his nose rubbed her ear.