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raced toward the pens. Scarlet was howling, my favorite dog, the one I’d met originally. I saw Jon’s brows in the dim cone of light, his cheekbone, nose, his white beard above shadowed eyes, pits of darkness peering down at the glittering knife in his hands. The howls and the shrieking rake of hard claws yammered from behind the closed door of the feed room. Scarlet was slamming against the unyielding surface with her full weight, over and over.
    Without losing a stride, I jumped the side of the pen and threw myself over the puppies. What drama! God, yes! Not that I’d been thinking so at the time, but there I was, flattened over those little dogs like a screaming pancake: “No, Jon!”
    Jon’s face was as tear-stained as mine. He stepped away from me, half hiding the knife behind his back. “Jewel, sweetheart, oh, girl, girl, where did you come from? I don’t want to, but they passed the law…”
    â€œWe have two weeks!” I gargled at him, scarcely able to speak. “They said two weeks!”
    He wiped at his rough cheeks with a grimy sleeve. “Why make it harder? In two weeks, their eyes will be open, they’ll be moving around. Now…they won’t even know.”
    â€œI’ll know,” I yelled at him, gathering the five furry lumps into my arms. One of them yawned, pink tongue curling like a leaf in the toothless, milky mouth. “Scarlet knows, even though you have her shut up in there. I want two weeks, Jon. You owe me two weeks.”
    He turned away from my accusations, running his hands through his white mane, clearing his throat with some effort as he stared through the kennel door at the darkness outside. He wiped his eyes again and struggled with trembling hands to fold the knife, dropping it twice before he managed it.
    He sounded so mournful when he said, “If I’d known this was going to happen, I wouldn’t have bred the bitches. The pups don’t have a chance. Neither do the older dogs!”
    â€œI’m going to talk to Witt Hessing,” I said. I was quite firm, quite confident. Oh, yes, I knew Witt would fix things. Witt was my knight-errant, my hero. “Witt will help me figure something out.”
    Jon drew a deep breath at the mention of the Hessing name, as though I’d said a magic word. Jon knew what I knew, that if anyone had the power to change things, it would be a Hessing or a Hargess.
    He said, “Jewel, I’ll let it go for the two weeks. I’ll even help you, if I can, but there’s no way we can find enough exempt estate homes even for dogs old enough to leave their mothers…”
    He was so willing to concede defeat! It made me angry. I said, “Let Scarlet out, Jon. She’s going crazy in there.”
    Jon unlatched the door. It hit him in the chest with Scarlet’s full weight behind it, and he went down. She came across the side of the pen in a scrabbling rush, lips drawn back, fangs glittering, knocking me aside as she thrust her nose among the pups, sniffing to learn whether they were all there, all unhurt before turning her head to regard me with eyes as opaque as metal. Her teeth were still bared, her throat rumbled with agrowl that told me to keep back when I put out a tentative hand. Her yellow eyes said, “I know what he was going to do.”
    She knew Jon had locked her up. She knew I hadn’t been here. She had heard my voice arguing with him, and then Jon had let her go. She knew the puppies were all right, and her eyes swiveled across me, almost apologetically. We were friends. Scarlet had saved my life once. I would never have hurt her.
    â€œIt’s all right, Scarlet,” I said, my tears welling up again. “They’re all right, Scarlet. Honest. They’re all there.”
    Scarlet nosed the puppies once more. If even one of them had been injured or taken away, the odor picture of the litter would have changed. I didn’t know