The Bar at the End of the Universe

A young blue-grey husky puppy is nipping at the heels of the little uniformed man approaching the Bar; he doesn't seem to mind it. Oh, he notices, but he doesn't mind it. The pup's not doing him harm, and they'll be going out into the winter beyond the front door soon enough. The way the Mountie sees it, the pup's old enough to at least start getting an idea of life on the trails, and it's a dang long haul to Paulatuk from where he left the sled. There'll be time along the way to come back in if the pup's not ready for it yet.

For now, he's getting a few extra supplies from Bar and paying for it with a handful of long-carried gold nuggets. He doesn't like leaving debts behind.

The little Mountie with the silver hair and eyes would have stayed outside last night, burrowed into a lean-to under a convenient bit of snow as was his wont, but the sounds from the woods put him off that idea. He's got a pup to look after and he wants that pup to grow up enough to come with him back to Canada, not learn fear of the unknown at an early age. So he stayed indoors last night, pup and all. He's already taken the wee beast outside this morning for its exercise and to learn the cold, but he could do with a little breakfast- and so could the pup. The two of them are at a table not so far from the back door at the moment, where he's steadfastly ignoring the puppy's periodic attempts to get him to slip it more food now that it's emptied its bowl.

It's beginning to spook him, how well the puppy's coming along. He's had to nurse a few orphaned calves and foals in his time, and a pup or two, but usually when they're as small and weak as this one had been at birth they don't last long. The ones that do tend to be on the slow side afterwards, or have other problems.

But for all that, the former runt and only survivor of the litter he found in the forest where Shipman had passed is coming along well. He's a month old, and he's starting to explore his world in earnest. The little Mountie's never heard of such a spectacular recovery.

It's with a well-hidden twinge that he realizes he's going to have to leave the pup behind for a while. It's safe enough, and he's not ready to bond with a human yet- won't be for two weeks, if he's like other dogs in that. He's weaned, even if it's only onto mushy stuff and meat shredded as tiny as the Corporal can get it. Two weeks can be spared.

The first he sees of the woman who's been named Susan, the Silver Corporal's going to ask her to look after the puppy so he can go and get his man. In the meantime, there's a man not a whole lot larger than an overgrown child wearing a Mountie uniform, over by the fire with a blue-grey husky puppy tumbling about at his feet.

The little Mountie who's been hanging about Milliways for the past few weeks hasn't always been a lawman. There's a whang of the Wyoming cow country to his voice that makes that pretty clear. Thing is, when you grow up in cattle country and spend your life on the trail, you learn a few things. One of them is how small things grow and survive.

The pup he rescued was the runt of the litter, a squirming little thing other people probably wouldn't expect to make it through the first night. He brought that pup to Milliways within hours of its birth, and man and pup alike have been here since. That's fine with him. He's got the means to pay for it, and outside the door is frozen as still as when he first came here. He's stuck around this long to give the puppy a chance. And that's the thing...

See, when you live among beasts wild or tame, you learn how long they take to grow (if they grow at all). They've all got their own rates, just like plants do. Not just in getting bigger, either, but in how much they know. And the pup... well, he's never seen a puppy grow this fast, or be this alert this young. Especially not one that would've died a runt's death in the environment of the north country. (There's a simple enough explanation for it, but a man of his time in his situation has no way of knowing what a modern vet could tell him. This is what supplemental vitamins and nutrients can do, slipped into the milk by Bar every time he orders more for the little beast.)

He's taken the pup outside again today to get the husky accustomed to the cold in small doses, and while the dog's coming along nicely, he still wonders.

There are, according to modern science, five critical phases during which a puppy may be emotionally or mentally affected to a degree more profound than any others. The most notable to most people comes at around six weeks of age, when a puppy is most capable of socializing and learning how to deal with other dogs, but that age is a long way off for the husky puppy the Silver Corporal rescued from the exceptionally vicious winter of 1905. The pup's a little past three weeks old now, in another phase entirely. He's at an age where no sane human would take him away from his mother.

Not that the little Mountie had any choice. He's over by the fire at the moment, seated cross-legged on the floor. The little blue-grey husky toddling around his knees is just starting to figure out what yipping is for and what biting can actually do. In the absence of other dogs, this is directed at the human, who does his best to return the noises in kind and treat the little fellow as much like a mama dog would as possible.

It's hard being a puppy's substitute mother, although you could never get him to admit it.

The little Mountie is capable of going very long stretches without sleeping or eating. He's had to do it on the trail often enough. Getting sleep with a nearly new-born puppy isn't as hard as one might think, so long as he sleeps near enough to the pup to catch the sound of the tiny thing whimpering. It's the eating that's a little harder, since he hasn't really cared to leave the pup alone long enough to order anything for himself and bring it back up.

But the pup's eyes and ears are open now. Today he wriggled to his feet and took a few tottering steps. He's been fed, and he's been otherwise taken care of, and now he's sleeping- so the Mountie feels pretty safe in getting a bowl of stew from the Bar and finding himself a place to eat it. Just his luck that the only place with a decent view of the room tonight is up in the rafters. Oh, well. He'll just have to move the bowl carefully.

Red doesn't blend in too well up there, so those who look up might well spot him.

If there have been other people in the Bar with small animals, the little Mountie is not aware of it. He's been in the room he took upstairs since yesterday, seeing to the needs of the hours-old husky puppy he brought in with him. It's not unfamiliar work; he's done much the same for foals and calves before, though not under such circumstances. It's just work that calls for patience and dedication.

He's got both, in spades, but sooner or later he was bound to run out of supplies. Thus he's down in the main Bar with a truly tiny puppy- barely a day old- in a blanket-cushioned basket, filling that drip bag the doctor-woman Khemrys gave him.

He'll eat eventually, when he's hungry. Right now, the pup needs him more.

Snow. Sweet stars above, it snowed here. Oh, it's not nearly as much as what's waiting out the front door for him, but still- if ever he had a native element, this is it.

He does feel a pang of guilt that his dogs can't be here as he pulls on his white rabbit-fur parka, but they'll have to come next time. Assuming the place lets them in, anyway.Wouldn't be right to upset the management, and him not even in Canada, here.

The tracks he leaves are not much bigger than a child's, and they don't last long or go far. Some distance from the door, they vanish under the trees. It would take a sharp eye to spot him up there as he scrambles, agilely as a squirrel, through those parts of the forest that don't quite make the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. As far as he's concerned you can't really know a place until you know it even when it's hidden under snow.

He's been outside a long time now- night, and day, and the coming of night again. And he's been cold, and wet, and cramped in uncomfortable places among the trees. But if he's to last any length of time at all here, he needs to know the lay of the land. So he's put up with being cold and wet and cramped for as long as he could.

Tonight, the little fellow's snare had yielded one of the oddly-colored rabbits from the woods, but it had been nearly inedible. That was his sign, he reckoned. So now there's a silver-haired, silver-eyed fellow in the Bar, his civilian clothes in need of a good wash, eyeing the Bar with some trepidation.

It still doesn't seem natural, even if he knows it's going to work.