By Carrie Jacobson

Chapter 23

Zoe and Kaja round a corner on the road, and Zoe can smell her old neighborhood. It’s a light scent, but it is there, on the thin November breeze. She can smell the lake that the road crosses, and she can smell the road itself, and the trees and fields alongside it, and the tumble-down blue house that people are working on, and she’s so excited, she begins jumping and leaping around Kaja, and wagging her tail, and barking, and hopping up to lick her friend’s nose.

But it’s a long way from where they are to where they’re going, Zoe knows. And so she settles down, a little, and trots along behind her big red friend.

They pass the mansion, and turn down the road that goes along the lake. Zoe can smell the water and the pines and the particular grass that grows there. She has smelled this all her life, it seems. Most times, when the man took her out in the car, they’d come near here. Sometimes they’d stop, and the man would just sit in the car and listen, and pat Zoe, and talk to her in his calm voice.

And then, Kaja stops. She stands still, and presses her nose onto Zoe’s head, to still the small dog, too. Day is falling into night, and the shadows are deep and cold along the road. Zoe can hear animals moving. She can hear small branches breaking, and she can hear leaves moving.

Then, a deer stalks out of the woods. It’s a young buck, tall and heavy, the color of the fallen leaves.  Antlers rise from his head. He holds his tail high. His eyes are huge, and his big ears twitch and turn. He sees Kaja, and the two stare at each other. Then, he turns and, with a flash of his tail, leaps back into the deep woods.

They’re starting to move again, when Kaja hears something else. She sniffs the air, and pushes Zoe toward the road. They cross, and hear something else and turn to look. A squirrel darts down a tree, and starts digging, and just like that, a coyote leaps on him and grabs him, closes his giant teeth over the squirrel and shakes him.

Kaja gets behind Zoe and pushes her into a run. They run down the road, and turn onto the main road. They run across the lake and up the hill and down. They run until they can’t run any longer.  And that night, they sleep beneath the porch of a house filled with people and noise and the smell of cooking meat.
In the morning, Zoe is stiff and sore from being hit by the car. There’s frost on the grass, and the ground beneath their feet is cold and hard.

They push on, and as the sun rises, they trot along the edge of the road, and in a while, they come down the last hill, and there’s Zoe’s house, her sweet little house, standing on the corner, smelling just as it did when she left.

But then they get closer, and Zoe realizes she’s wrong. It doesn’t smell the same. It doesn’t smell right. And the car, that’s not his car. But she can smell his car, and his smell, and the woman’s smell, and her own smell. And she knows it’s the house. She knows it.

The two dogs walk up to the house. People are awake inside. The dogs can hear them, making noises and talking, making food. Kaja and Zoe sit in a patch of sun near the car. Zoe trembles from time to time, and whines.

And then the door opens. Kaja barks. Zoe leaps up. She cocks her head to hear his voice. She sniffs the air to smell his scent.

It’s all wrong. All wrong!

“Hey! You dogs! Get out of here!” the man yells. It’s not his voice! It’s not him! And then the man is running at them, yelling and clapping his hands, and Kaja sees that he’s about to kick at them, and she gets behind Zoe and pushes her, and they run away, as fast as they can.

Carrie can be reached at carrie@zestoforange.com

By the River. Oil on canvas, 6x18. Contact carrieBjacobson@gmail.com for price and delivery information

By Carrie Jacobson

We rise, we sleep, we love, we hope, and on the face of this Earth, we tremble with fear and courage, trepidation and conviction. There is nothing as full as a well-lived life. That’s not to say we leave without regrets – only that regret takes as much heart as anything.

Loosey

By Carrie Jacobson

Chapter 22

The story so far: James Dunning lost his job, and then, to save his house, had to move in with his wife’s mother. She is allergic to dogs, though, and so James took Zoe, his mostly blind lhasa apso, to the Pike County shelter. He left her there in the middle of the night. But before the shelter opened, Kaja, a big red dog who’s been on her own for a while, found Zoe and freed her. The two set out to find James. On the way, they picked up a cat, Loosey, who’s helped them on part of their journey. Loosey has decided to stay at a farm where they just spent the night, and so Zoe and Kaja have pushed on. But, crossing the road away from the farm, Zoe has darted out and been hit by a car.

It starts to rain. Kaja looks at the woman who was driving the car that hit Zoe. The woman is weeping. It wasn’t her fault, Kaja knows. It was the fault of the big dog, the big white dog behind the fence in that yard, the big white dog that lunged at Zoe and scared her into the road. Kaja leaves her friend’s side and walks to the fence. She growls at the big dog, growls and snarls and barks at the dog, and he stares at her for a moment, and she stares back, stares him down, and he slinks back to the porch, climbs the steps and stands there.

And then she hears gasping from the little crowd of people. And she hears crying, wailing and sobbing, and she trots back over, knowing that her friend is gone. Her sweet, happy little friend. They were close to where she used to live, Kaja knows. They were almost there.

The rain falls harder, and the wind picks up. Kaja pushes in past the legs of the people, knowing what she’s going to see.

But instead of seeing her little friend dead there on the pavement, she sees Zoe sitting up, breathing. Her unseeing eyes are open, and she’s panting and holding her head a little to the side, and then Kaja sees Loosey, sitting beside Zoe, licking the side of the little dog’s face.

“It’s a miracle,” one of the women says. “That cat! Where did that cat come from? How did that cat do that?”

“It’s like she breathed the life back into her,” another woman says, and reaches down to pick up Loosey, but the cat skitters away. She sees Kaja, and comes up to her and rubs against the big dog’s legs. Loosey smells good, like hay and dirt and sun-warmed wood. She smells like the Piersons’ barn, and the horses in it, and she rubs against Kaja and the big dog knows that the cat has found her home.

And then she touches noses with Kaja, and turns and lopes off across a field, and in a moment, she’s gone from sight.

Zoe is up on all fours now, and Kaja pushes through the little crowd to get to her. The big dog licks the little dog’s ear, and licks the side of her face, and Zoe knows how glad Kaja is to see her again, and the two begin to walk off together.

“No! Don’t go, don’t go, dogs, come here! Come here!” a woman’s voice calls.

Kaja wants to go on, wants to push on their way, but the woman’s voice stops Zoe. She remembers being called, and getting cookies for going wherever they wanted her to go. She remembers being called, and being patted and picked up and hugged when she came to them. Being called had everything in it, everything from her old life, and when the woman calls her again, everything in her pulls toward the woman. But then, she looks at Kaja, and though she can’t really see the big red dog, she can feel the big dog’s heart.

Zoe aches where the car hit her. She’s bruised and sore. She’s tired and thirsty. But the big red dog is her friend and her guide, and Zoe realizes right there how much she loves her, how much she trusts her.

“Come here, dogs!” the woman’s voice yells again.

But Kaja and Zoe turn away, and head out through the cold November rain, toward the house where Zoe used to live.

Carrie can be reached at carrie@zestoforange.com

By Carrie Jacobson

As autumn moves toward winter, farmers reap the harvest and the land lies rich and fallow in the thin November sun. The fields warm and cool, and whisper a promise of spring beyond the snow. For information about price and shipping of this painting, contact carriebjacobson@gmail.som

Loosey

Chapter 21

The story so far: James Dunning lost his job at the Record, and he and his wife had to rent their home out and move in with her mother, who was allergic to dogs. So James had to give up Zoe, his 12-year-old mostly blind lhasa apso. James left her, in the middle of the night, at the Pike County shelter. Kaja, a big red dog, came along, and together, the new friends set out to find James. Along the way, they met Loosey, a cat whose elderly owner had to go into a nursing home. They’ve made their way to Otisville, and have spent the night in a barn at the Piersons’ farm.

Frost rims the fallen leaves and field grass this November morning, as the three friends wake in their warm corner of the barn. Zoe loves the smell of the barn, the scents of hay and oats, horses and cows and old dry wood and night-cold air warming in the dawn.

Inside the barn, Kaja hears scrabbling in a corner, and a moment later, sees Loosey carrying a mouse in her jaws. Just as Loosey emerges from the dark back of the barn, the girl who let them in last night pulls the big barn door open and walks in carrying a bag of food.

“Oooh, kitty, good work!” she says, and takes the dead mouse by the tail and puts it in a trash barrel. “I feel bad for the mouse,” the girl says, “but they’ve been eating the horses’ food and just getting into everything. You’re a good barn cat, kitty girl. A couple days of you out here and we’d have no mouse problem at all.”

She reaches down to pat Loosey, and the big cat stretches and rubs against the girl’s legs, and begins purring, a loud tiny motor. It’s been a long time since any human had time for her, or words. Her woman had loved her, but she was sick for so long, and she was so sick and so weak that she could barely breathe, let alone pet Loosey. The daughter who finally came to help her didn’t like Loosey at all. The first thing she did was to banish her from her woman’s bedroom, even though the woman and Loosey both loved it when she curled up on the old woman’s bed.

So Loosey rubs now against the girl’s legs, and purrs and purrs and then, when the girl picks her up, Loosey rubs her face all over the girl’s neck and cheek. The girl holds her close, and whispers to her, and Loosey can smell her scent and hear her heart beating, and she knows this girl is young and healthy and maybe a little sad, and she decides that she will stay, if the girl will let her.

The three friends eat, and drink clear, clean water from a bowl the girl fills fresh for them, and then the dogs look down the driveway. The sun is just breaking over the tops of the trees, and it warms the dirt and the air in front of the barn. The girl stands in the doorway, and Loosey sits beside her. The cat’s white fur gleams in the sun.

Kaja noses the cat’s fur, and Loosey rubs against the dogs, Kaja first and then little Zoe. This is a good place for Loosey to stay, and the girl picks her up and strokes her fur as Zoe and Kaja trot away down the drive.

Little Zoe feels sad. It’s been a time of losses and leavings, and she’s just a little blind dog, tired and small and wanting to be home. The days are colder and colder, and the ground beneath her feet is harder and harder. The wind blows the smell of snow, and ice and winter, and though her coat has thickened, she can feel the cold against her skin.

Alone together, Kaja and Zoe trot along the edge of the road. On the other side of the road, horses gather along a fence, waiting for a person to come and feed them. Cars go by, and overhead, Canada geese fly together, honking at the wind. The sun begins to warm the air, and the frost vanishes, and then, all of a sudden, a huge, snarling dog lunges off the front porch of a small house and races toward them, barking and gnashing his teeth, and Zoe runs, runs into the road –

and into the path of a car, coming around the bend.

The dog lunges and jumps and growls and barks. The brakes on the car squeal. Kaja begins barking, and the car hits Zoe and the little dog drops to the pavement.

The door of the car opens, and a woman jumps out, shrieking and crying. She runs to Zoe and picks her up and holds her close. The little dog isn’t moving. The woman puts her head against Zoe’s chest, and cries and cries.

A car coming from the other direction stops, and a man gets out. A woman comes running from the house with the big mean dog, and she takes Zoe while the drivers pull their cars over, off the road. Kaja watches, nudging her way in, and sniffing at Zoe, and the woman from the house listens at Zoe’s chest, and pets her side and turns away.

Carrie can be reached at carrie@zestoforange.com

Arabesque

By Carrie Jacobson

The winter wind twists through these autumn days and whispers a song of sweet melancholy. Fall’s colors drain off, leaving memory and hope and the brilliant promise of an early dawn.

For price and delivery information on this 10×30 oil painting, contact Carrie  at carrie@zestoforange.com

Kaja

By Carrie Jacobson

Chapter 20

The story so far: James Dunning lost his job and moved in with his wife’s mother, who is allergic to dogs. He brought Zoe, his old, nearly blind lhasa apso, to the Pike County shelter and left her there, tied to the fence, in the middle of the night. Before daybreak, Zoe met Kaja, a big red chow-German shepherd, and the two left the shelter to make their way back to James. They’ve been joined by Loosey, a cat, who’s most recently helped them make their way across the bridge over the Neversink on Route 209.

In the morning, at the intersection of Route 209 and Route 211 in Deerpark, the trio stops. Kaja can smell water, and the rich scent of tilled soil. But which road to take?

She nudges Loosey toward a tall tree, and Loosey understands in an instant. She’d lived with dogs her whole life and she likes them. Then, Thelma, the last dog, got old and died, and Marie went into a nursing home, and suddenly, Loosey was on her own. But she knows dogs, and so she leaps up into the tree and climbs high, high above the little building on the corner, high above the house across the street, higher than the fire station roof.

From the branches, she can see the fields below, and a river snaking along one side of the road. She can see the mountains and a tower sitting high in them. She can see houses, and a road that curves in one direction and climbs a small hill in the other.

She comes down the tree – always harder! – and the three decide to walk along the flat road that skirts the fields. They’re hungry, and there should be mice or voles to catch and eat there.

Loosey does just that, catches two mice, and the three eat, and then drink from the river, and make their way along the road. It narrows and climbs, runs past houses set back in the woods, and past dirt roads and big patches of forest. Cars zoom by, and the three shrink back into the underbrush.

In the afternoon, the three come to a place where the road widens and there are more houses. Kaja can smell people, and a bright mix of cooking smells, from houses and from restaurants. She can hear people talking and laughing, and she knows this is a town, and that towns are dangerous.

They scramble down a bank, away from the main road, and cross under a bridge. It’s quieter down here, and darker, and they run along this road, down a hill, away from the town, Kaja in the lead, Loosey following Zoe. Night is coming, and the air is getting sharp and cold, and it doesn’t feel safe here.

Just then, there’s a loud noise, louder than any of the three has ever heard, a noise of metal and machine and iron, and a smell of something harsh and dark, and then a long, screeching, horrible screaming whistle – the three stop and flatten themselves, make themselves as small as possible – and the train roars past, cabin lights coming on, whistle blaring – and then it’s gone, and Kaja and Zoe and Loosey run as fast as they can.

They end up on the big road again, and this time, Kaja can smell horses and cows, and it’s a good smell, a smell that means barns and water and hay and maybe even food. A smell that means safety. They trot along the road, and as the day darkens into night, they make their way up the drive into Pierson’s farm.

There’s a light on in the barn, and a girl is singing as she does her chores. She’s raking a stall when the three friends arrive at the door, and she looks up and laughs.
“Well, hello!” she says, and they know they’re safe for the night.

Carrie can be reached at carrie@zestoforange.com

Rocky

By Carrie Jacobson

The dog park is a great invention! You take the dogs, unclip their leashes, and let ’em run. They make friend (or enemies), they get more exercise in 30 minutes than we humans could give them in a week, and you get to watch the mesmerizing dynamics of a pack in the making.

This painting is of Rocky, a pit bull pup, and one of the sweetest dogs in the DP (as we’ve taken to calling it within canine earshot). I brought liver treats the first day, and while my dogs wouldn’t take them, Rocky thought I’d brought ambrosia from Mount Olympus.

I’ll be leading a dog-painting workshop at the Wallkill River School Nov. 7. Click on the link to the right to find out more; there’s plenty of room, if you’d like to join!

Rainy Road

By Carrie Jacobson
The highway glistened in a cold rain last week, and promised adventure, and people to see and places to go. For price, size and delivery information about this original oil painting, contact carrieBjacobson@gmail.com.

By Carrie Jacobson

Chapter 19

The story so far: Zoe, a mostly blind lhasa apso, is trying to find her way from the Pike County shelter back to her owner, James Dunning, in Middletown. She’s helped by Kaja, a big red dog who’s been living on her own for a while; they’ve just been joined by Loosey, a cat. The three have met up with a Sheila Macrae, who’s delivering wood in Pond Eddy. She gives them a lift to her home in Deerpark.

That afternoon, the woman invites them into her garage and builds a sort of nest for them. The garage is not heated, and the day has turned chilly, but the woman fills a corner of the space with old rugs and old sheets and blankets, and the dogs and Loosey snuggle together and are warm and comfortable for the first time in a long time.

After dark, she comes into the garage with bowls and two bags of food and a jug of water.

“How are you three getting along?” she asks. “Are you warm enough? I think you’ll be warm enough, if you can all sleep together, and it’s my guess that you’ve been doing that. You’ll have some good food in your bellies, and you’ll get some good sleep, and then tomorrow, you’ll have to be on your way, because I can’t keep you, no, indeed. Bethann would have my head if she found out you’d even been in the garage here, but she’s away and there’s no reason she’d find out, not unless you all come back and tell her.”

She talks like this the whole time, low and steady and soothing, and Zoe remembers James talking to her the same way, and how she loved it, just the sound of his voice, directed at her. He didn’t even have to touch her when he was talking to her like this for her to know he loved her.

She drifts off to sleep thinking of him, and dreams of thick rugs and fireplaces and a quiet voice that never stops talking.

In the morning, the woman comes out to the garage, fills their bowls again and opens the garage doors. She watches them eat, and then she pets Zoe and Kaja, and picks up Loosey and holds her tight.

“I wish you all could stay with me,” she says. “I’d give you a good home. But I can’t have you, and you’re on your way somewhere, so you go now. If I see you, I’ll help you out again, you can count on that. And I’ll be thinking of you. So get along now,” she says, and shoos them out of the garage, and closes the door behind them.

The travelers find themselves on Route 209. They can smell water and food to the east, and so they head that way, walking as far from the road as they can. Kaja leads, and she takes them into the woods, and through backyards, and across side streets. Cars rush past, so fast it feels that the wake they stir will push Zoe into the road.

Late in the morning, they come to the Neversink River. A green bridge takes the roadway across the river, and Kaja sees no other way across.

There is no walkway on the bridge. It’s just roadway and railings, and the cars zoom over it. She waits until she sees nothing and hears nothing, and she sends Loosey.

“Go!” she tells the cat. “Go! Run!” and Loosey steps one white paw on the bridge. She stops, picks up her foot, and then puts it down and races across.

“Now,” she tells Zoe, “we go together.” She nudges the little blind dog onto the bridge, and keeping Zoe between her own body and the railing, Kaja pushes them toward the opposite bank.
Suddenly, a car appears, in the other lane, but coming toward them. It starts onto the bridge and the structure shakes beneath the dogs’ feet. Zoe stops. terrified and trembling.

But the driver sees them and slows, then stops, and Kaja thinks they’re safe, but then she hears a car coming from behind. She pushes Zoe on, but the little dog is scared, terrified, and she freezes up again. Stops dead in the middle of the bridge. Kaja nudges her with her nose. She can hear the car coming up behind them. Zoe won’t move.

Then the driver of the stopped car gets out. It’s a young man with tattoos and a braid, and he’s smoking a cigarette. He looks at the two dogs, and for a minute, Kaja thinks he’s going to yell at them, hit them, the way her man did, all those times, loud and awful, yelling and cursing and burning her with his cigarette and kicking her with his huge feet. He looked like this man, and smelled like this man, and Kaja begins to tremble, and she feels a snarl rising in her throat.

The man takes a step toward them.

The other car inches onto the bridge.

The man swears.

Kaja tenses, ready to attack. If he kicks Zoe, he will kill the little dog.

But the man stops, in the middle of the bridge, and he waves his arms at the other car and it stops.

He puts himself between Kaja and the other car. Kaja can hear his own car running, and she can hear the radio playing through the open door, and she nudges Zoe again, and this time, the little dog starts moving, walking, and then running, and in a minute, they are over the bridge and into the woods, where Loosey is waiting.

Carrie can be reached at carrie@zestoforange.com