**** Chapter Fourteen - Flagstaff ****

The next morning dawned bright, clear and crisp as spring mornings in the desert are wont to do. I needed to relieve myself and I was quite sure Mila would be in the same boat, I pulled my shoes off and tried to sneak into the trailer. Mila was there and I asked her to wait. After a very quick trip to the toilet, I leashed Mila and off we went to find her a suitable spot. I politely turned away while she did her business for even dogs like to have their private moments.

I tethered Mila to the side of the trailer and opened one of the stall doors for her in case she wanted to go inside. I put a bed in the stall for her (a spare horse blanket) and another under the awning, her tether was long enough. I really don’t like tethering my dogs, or any animal for that matter, but the reality is that no animal, including people, rehomes easily – well maybe with the exception of Matilda.

The door to the camper was open and I could smell the intoxicating aroma of brewing coffee coming out. I hoped that breakfast was coming with it and hurried to pack up my little tent-bedroom. Setting up and tearing down a new tent always takes twice as long the first time you do it and so it did. By the time I had stowed my tent, the ladies were sitting at the table and I saw a steaming plate of food and a hot mug of coffee at my spot. That was all the encouragement I needed. I strode over to the table, sat down, thanked the ladies and dug into what was laid out for me; looking a gift horse in the mouth is best left for fools. It was a damn good breakfast and the coffee was exactly how I liked it. It didn’t hurt that there was sugar, cream and even a chocolate shaker sitting in the middle of the table, really more than was necessary but who complains when being spoiled.

Breakfast eaten and a second cup of coffee consumed we proceeded to break down the camp. Breaking camp with a rig this size was a complex process and we weren’t practiced at it yet. Matilda tidied up from breakfast while Sonya stowed the table and chairs and made sure the storage room & cold storage were ready for the road. I began disconnecting the rig from ground power and water, shut down the propane tanks and the hooked it up to the truck. Matilda had finished in the camper so I asked her to check around the area for any trash that may have escaped. I took over inside the camper, retracting the slider and double checking everything was secure. Exiting the camper, I doubled checked all doors and windows on the entire rig, lowered the hard-shell awnings and raised the leveling jacks.

While Sonya took Mila for one last walk, I double checked all the lights on the full rig and climbed in. A moment later the rear door opened and Mila hopped in. No sooner than had Sonya closed the door than, quite literally, the cat came out of the bag.

A cacophony of sound erupted from the back seat and I twisted in my seat so fast that I nearly wrenched by back. A large black and brown creature was standing on Matilda’s lap hissing and growling like it was ready to kick-off world war three. Matilda was looking at me with fear and confusion in her eyes and Mila, who had only barked once thankfully, was merely sitting there with a look of confusion on her doggy face.

Poor Mila, you have to look at things from her point of view. First of all, she was in a strange place with a strange new family; on the other hand, she had just got to go for a walk, got told she was a good girl, and now she was getting to go for a ride. Mila liked those things and everything was great until she smelt that new smell and sniffed the lady’s bag. That was when the cat had acted so impolitely. Mila didn’t care about cats: you couldn’t eat them, they didn’t like to play, and they smelled funny. Mila decided to ignore the cat just as soon as the cat ignored her.

Sonya climbed into the front with me; she had taken the long way back around the rig doing one last visual check and had missed the entire event. I looked into the back seat and saw the cat was back in the bag again and calmness had returned. If anything both Matilda and Mila looked relieved. I merely put the truck in gear, doubled checked on my gauges and slowly pulled away. It was going to be about an eight-hour drive to the placed we had secured just outside Flagstaff.

As soon as we settled in on the interstate I gave Sonya the rundown on what she’d missed; she bubbled forth with questions and I merely replied, “Ask Matilda”. Which of course got her nowhere.

After a short internal debate, I had decided to follow Mila’s lead and ignore the cat – it was Matilda’s problem. I was on my way to Flagstaff to pick up my first horse, and that was a happy enough thought to make me forget about the cat in the bag.

Sonya set up her travel desk and we got down to work. The first order of business was to confirm our booking in Flagstaff. Finding a spot for a rig this size with horses and dogs had proved impossible at first, but we thought our way around it and started contacting Agricultural Real Estate agents. We were able to locate several empty homesteads at each destination that we could rent for a few days, especially if we were just camping in the pasture. In Flagstaff we got extremely lucky and the breeder I was buying from knew of a place we could rent just a mile or two down the road. I planned two days’ rest when we got there; we all needed it.

Flagstaff in the spring can be a very pretty place after the winter rains have passed. We were staying just west of the city itself, parked in the pull-through driveway of a vacant house with a two-acre fenced lot. It wasn’t luxurious but it was private and there was ample space. We set up camp, had a tasty dinner and retired to our respective bedrooms for the night. Which is to say: Matilda and the cat thing into the truck, me into my tent and Sonya and Mila into the camper.

I dreamt of that stupid cat that night, what a waste of a good dream