Luck of the Draw

Around the side of the one-story building, a space remained open alongside a new truck, which displayed “Animal Hospital” in black cursive on the door. The pickup must have cost $80k and made his 1996 Blazer look as if it had come from a different planet. The midday sun glinted off his rust-scabbed hood, and the Chevy rumbled to a stop.

He hoisted Buster out of the passenger seat and carried him into the building. A musky odor with a hint of shit filled the air. A young woman he hadn’t seen before sat the reception desk. Her black hair with blond tips draped her shoulders, and her slender brown arms had a dewy hue.

He watched her mouth closely.

Her full lips formed the words, “Can I help you?”

“I’m Derek Scrupp. I’m deaf. My dog needs to see the vet.”

While he pulled out his phone and flicked at the small speech bubble on the side of the screen, her mouth moved rapidly, and he didn’t get most of it. A rectangular gray box appeared, with lines of white-lettered words rolling onto the screen. The captions read: … mallard credit card to be doctored. You piss fire.

Her eyes widened, and she raised her eyebrows.

Derek shrugged. He opened his hand palm up and gave it a questioning shake, and he scrunched down his eyebrows.

She spoke slowly, making large movements with her mouth, “I need your credit card.”

Derek gave her a card, didn’t tell her he was at his credit limit, and she copied down his information. She gestured toward three chairs, two of which were already occupied.

When Derek took a seat, Stephany Green stepped in the door. Clad in a black polo shirt with a Mavericks Diner logo, her peroxide-blonde bobbed hair framed her face, and her brown eyebrows matched her eyes. A fawn Boxer followed Stephany, hopping on one foreleg, the other curled up.

The times Derek had eaten at the diner, Stephany attempted to sign with him. But her eyes would widen whenever he signed back. She’d slide her fingers over the back of her other hand. “Slow,” she’d mouth. Still, she did better than most people in this town, in which only two other people knew sign, and both of them were “hearies,” a couple of Jehovah’s witnesses whom he had to threaten with a restraining order to stop hassling him to come to their church.

After Stephany checked in with the receptionist, she turned toward the waiting area. Derek scooped up Buster, stood, and motioned for her to take the seat.

With a shake of her head, Stephany pinched her index finger, middle-finger and thumb together, and mouthed, “That’s okay.”

The shorthair in one arm, Derek gestured to the chair. “Sit, please.”

“Thank you.” She brought her hand out from her chin in the proper sign.

In the chair, Stephany extended her palm toward him, snapped twice, and made the sign for disgusting. “Your dog is disgusting?”

He scrunched up his face, set Buster on the floor, and scrolled through the still-running captions on his phone. “Ah,” he said. “Yes, my dog’s sick,” Derek signed and made a yuck face.

She signed, “Many dogs are sick.”

He nodded his fist. “There’s something going around.”

The boxer squirmed in her lap. Buster licked Stephany’s ankle, rolled onto his side, heaved a breath, and shut his eyes.

From her purse, Stephany retrieved her phone. She jabbed her finger at it, then spoke into it. With a flick of her wrist, she held it so Derek could see the screen. It’s like Ebola for dogs, ‘cept they smell like rotten eggs and their hair falls out. Before they dies.

Derek nodded. “I read about in the paper.”

On cue, Buster gagged as if he were a cat coughing out a fur-ball. With soft, wet eyes, Stephany mouthed the words, “Poor boy.”

She set her dog on the floor, and ran her fingers through Buster’s roan coat.

When Derek had received orders to Iraq, Stephany was still in middle school. After he returned, he didn’t recognize her at first in the American Sign Language classes at the community college. By the time he put together the name and face, she had stopped coming to class.

Now, she had a tired look in her eyes. Yet, she petted the dog with affection. Her pale skin and mauve lips. He glimpsed her cherry bra through the neckline of her shirt.

Without thinking, Derek signed, “Want a grab a cup of coffee after this.”

Her boxer snarled its teeth.

“Leslie. No,” Stephany said.

The dog bounced on around on its foreleg, its mouth opening and closing and tail wagging. Then she lunged at Buster.

Buster opened an eye, but he remained still.

“Bad girl.” Stephany corralled the dog, and it squirmed in her lap.

Stephany looked up at him, and he held her gaze as she sat up. She rubbed her fist on her chest. “I don’t think so,” she mouthed.

Though Stephany looked like she wanted to say something more, she didn’t, and Derek wasn’t going to push the matter.

The clinic door swung open. Dr. Albright appeared in a white smock with a stethoscope hanging on one shoulder. She escorted a middle-aged woman and her poodle to the receptionist.

The veterinarian’s eyes moved to Derek. He read her lips. “You’re next.”

As soon as Derek set Buster on the metal examination table, Dr. Albright sniffed the dog behind the ears. She raised her head and nodded, then she pressed the stethoscope against his belly, and glanced at her wristwatch. Her lips moved. He looked at his captions, which simply read, Uh-huh. When she ran her fingers down his spine, a handful of his fur remained in her hand. She pressed the lever of the garbage can with her foot and rubbed her hands together over it.

Her lips moved rapidly and he wanted to hold her gaze, but his phone had her words. He looked down.

Bulgaria. I can test, takes three ways, and the nest costs two hundred dollars.

“Uh-huh.”

Words rolled onto his screen. But he’s got. He has ball the symptoms.

“Right.”

Derek glanced up, and she had stopped talking. But when he looked down, words kept streaming on his screen, catching up with her speech: The god might not make three pore days.

Buster’s eyes were closed, and his belly heaved in and out slowly. Derek rubbed the dog’s back.

When Derek looked up, her lips were moving.

Untreated, fifty percent of the dogs infected with the virus die.

“Half?”

The corners of her mouth tightened. Yes, and the medicine, it’s a miracle they cum in it so fast. Ninety percent survive hate.

Derek nodded.

She looked at him sternly and said something. His phone read: Your dog needs the medicine.

“How much?”

Five hundred. The words flashed. He looked up at her. She held up five fingers and slowly mouthed the words: Five-hundred-dollars. Do you understand?

He nodded. Yes, he fucking understood. He wasn’t stupid. Just poor and deaf. He swallowed and glanced at the new Formica medicine cabinets.

“How long has he got?”

“Until he dies?”

Derek gave a sharp nod.

“Possibly tonight. In the…” Her lips moved fast, and she turned away from him as she spoke. He looked at his phone: … studies the survival gate was three gays high, Asshole.

Did she just call him that? Probably not; the app produced strange errors.

Buster licked his hand.

Her lips kept moving. We offer payment plans.

“I’ll get back to you.”

Buster followed him through the swinging doors into the waiting room, where Derek touched his cap and nodded toward Stephany, and he continued into the sun-crusted lot. At the Blazer, he set Buster in the passenger seat, pulled the belt over him, and slammed the door.

A fifty-percent chance. Shit, those weren’t bad odds. He’d won hands of Texas hold em’ with less of a chance. One time, he tagged a black bear from 400 yards, a once in a lifetime shot, on the last day of the season. In fact, Derek was no stranger to risky odds. In the hospital, the doctors told his parents that he had a 50/50 probability of dying from his wounds after the blast. That was twenty years ago.

#

From the outside lane, he curved out of the roundabout, and the buildings gave way to grassy slopes and forested mountains. Yellowing larches blurred by the truck, next to a choppy dark blue river. The summer air whirred around his face and body like the first time he stepped off the plane in Al-Asad, but it was different from the desert. There, the dry air singed his skin, and the brown palms and thorny bushes seemed like an eternal wasteland. He didn’t miss that hellhole.

In the passenger seat, Buster scrunched his legs underneath his body and rested his head on his paws. The dog’s eyes shut.

“You okay, buddy?”

He didn’t talk back. Never did. And he didn’t ask any stupid fucking questions or say anything about Derek shouting or slurring his words. The dog was helpful. Anytime a stranger pulled up outside his trailer, Buster came to him, nudged his hand, circled around, and sat with his body facing the door.

As Derek lifted the dog out of the SUV, Buster writhed and almost fell out of his arms. Derek tightened his hold. Inside the single-wide, in the middle of the living room on the shag carpet, he set him down and stroked his back.

“Buster boy’s hurting.”

The dog didn’t respond to his touch. His ribs expanded and fell in short bursts. Derek brought a bowl of water from the kitchen, set it next to Buster. He opened a can of beef chow, plopped it in a bowl, and set it beside the water.

There wasn’t no sense in letting him suffer like that. If Buster were alive and still hurting in the morning, he’d put him down. He didn’t want to kill him. An excellent hunting dog, the hound swam and grabbed fowl out of cold, fast-moving rivers and never missed one.

Hell, he’d seen the dog recover from worse. While riding in the back of Derek’s truck, Buster nearly broke his neck when he spotted a covey of pheasants. They were going twenty miles per hour on a fire road, a tunnel of dust kicking up behind them. The leash that ran through the back window of the cab pulled tight. The truck bed was empty. Derek skidded to a stop. Off the back of the truck, Buster dangled in the air. The dog had gagged for a month.

At the foot of Derek’s bed, the blankets bore a Buster-sized indentation. Maybe he should bring his boy into the bedroom, let him take his spot on the bed. In the living room, the dog lay motionless on the soft carpet with his eyes shut. His chow was untouched.

No sense in disturbing him. He might wake in the middle of the night, want some food or a drink. He’d let him lie. And if the dog didn’t make it through the night…

From the kitchen cabinet, he retrieved a bottle of Jim Beam and poured a glass, neat and double, and no bartender asking him to pay the price of the bottle. Five years back, he’d bought the dog off a breeder on the outskirts of town. Buster was the runt of the litter, and Derek got the seller to knock three hundred off the price. He tipped the glass, and the bourbon was smooth and sweet. They spent weeks in the backcountry. Derek carried his rifle over the crunchy needles and janky basalt, around the groves of juvenile pines and patches of red currant, while the dog charged ahead, his nose to the ground and tail up, flushing out grouse, retrieving the birds.

His glass empty, Derek grabbed the bottle from the cabinet and took a swig.

One morning, they had been hunting on a bluff that was scattered with lodgepole pines and mock orange, a bow in the river below bending away. A herd of elk appeared at the edge of the water. Buster sat next to him. An enormous bull emerged from the crowd. A head taller than the rest, he had a rack that must’ve been difficult for his neck to bear.

What were the goddamn odds? Elk season didn’t start til’ next weekend. Derek peered through the scope. The elk bent down for a drink. He’d fill his meat freezer for the year.

Under his breath, Derek said, “They’re gonna lock me up.”

He pulled his eye away from the scope, looked around, and squinted back at the fourteen-point elk. The trigger felt heavy. At his side, the dog stood. His tail went rigid, and he lowered his body. Derek looked to where the dog was pointing. A flock of turkeys approached. But Buster had locked onto something else. Off to their right, a doe munched at dandelions. Derek had an antlerless tag, won it in the lottery. He trained the rifle on her. Pulled the trigger.

They had eaten well for two months, Buster gnawing on a femur, getting the marrow.

Now, his boy might not make it. The veterinarian said fifty percent. Flip a quarter on his best friend’s life. He tipped the whiskey bottle to his lips. What’s the point, anyway? A few good hunts. To see the sunlit mountain grass wet with dew. To breathe in the earthy, crisp alders and pines. He took another swig. To hunt without worrying about getting blown up by a buried bomb triggered by a pressure plate. The sound of train engines and whistles ringing in his ears, and lips moving and indifferent faces. If only he hadn’t… If only… No, he’d forgiven himself.

“Wrong place, wrong time. That’s all, Buster boy,” he said. “Gotta play the hand you’re dealt, buddy.” The dog took shallow breaths.

In the morning, he’d drive Buster out to the bluff overlooking the river bend. He emailed himself to remember to get his shovel from the shed. He slugged the last of the Jim from the bottle.

“In the morning,” he said.

#

After a fitful sleep, Derek woke, and his mouth tasted like stale bread and moldy cheese. His head rumbled and beeped with sound. He rolled over and grabbed his phone off the nightstand. An email read: Get shovel. He groaned.

The din in his ears roared as he made his way down to the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face, and brushed his teeth.

Buster usually jumped down from the bed when Derek got up, followed him to the bathroom. No sign of him this morning.

In the living room, the water bowl was empty. The dog chow was half gone. Derek scanned the room. In front of the door, Buster’s head rested between his paws on the worn vinyl.

“Buster. You moved.”

The dog opened his eyes, lifted his head, and stood. His legs wobbled, and Derek held out his hand. Buster staggered to him and licked his fingertips.

“I thought you were done for.”

Buster nuzzled his snout against Derek’s leg, then walked to the front door and sat.

“You gotta go out, boy?”

The dog stood, circled around, and faced the doorway.

When Derek opened the door, a warm breeze crossed his face. A robin flew out from the sugar maple in the patchy yard. The dog swiveled his head with his nose in the air, and Derek lifted him down the wooden stairs.

#

A week later, Derek was watching television when Buster nudged his hand, circled, and sat facing the front door. Derek opened the door to find Stephany. She had dark half-moons under her eyes.

“Hi,” she signed.

“Hey. What a surprise. How are you?” he asked.

She grimaced. “Bad. Leslie died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I loved that dog.” She frowned. “Buster’s okay?”

“He’s fine.” The dog stood at Derek’s knee.

Derek glanced inside at the tired green paint on the walls, the sofa with a torn cushion, and the splotchy vinyl kitchen floor. He stepped onto the covered front porch, the dog trailing, and closed the screen behind him.

“The place is a mess.” At one of the lawn chairs on the porch, he gestured. “Have a seat.”

She sat.

“You want water or tea?”

She shook her head.

“Whiskey?”

“No, thank you.” She said, and Buster sat beside her. She stroked his head.

“I miss Leslie,” she said.

He rubbed his fist over his chest.

She signed “God,” “church,” “pray,” and then pointed at herself.

“I didn’t know you were a church person,” he signed.

Her eyes widened. She started signing, waved her hand, and shook her head. She started again. “I went when I was a kid. I thought it might help Leslie.”

From her purse, she whipped out her phone. I got the medicine, but Leslie got worse. I prayed and prayed. She died in my arms.

“I’m sorry. That’s bad luck,” Derek said.

The minister said everything happens for a reason.

Derek shrugged. “Maybe.”

She spoke, but he didn’t catch it. Was she here to invite him to her church? So they could pray with him? “I don’t do church,” he signed.

I hadn’t been in a while, but there was something comforting in it.

Is that why she was learning sign? He wasn’t going to be anyone’s fucking charity case.

“Why’d you stop coming to ASL class?” he asked.

Her eyes went down and to the right, then returned to him. “I had to work, and my grandma was dying.”

The apricot tree in his yard bore soft orange balls of fruit. Pieces littered the ground. From the treetop, a crow swooped down and landed in the grass. The bird gathered its wings and hopped around.

According to Stephany, the bird was a good omen. A raven had appeared the day her grandmother died, after a painful battle with lung cancer.

With a charcoal beak the same shade as its tail feathers, the bird pecked at the ground. From its work, the raven looked up, cocked its head, and regarded them. The bird returned to digging and pulled a seed from the dirt.

“My grandmother was deaf,” Stephany signed. “She never learned to sign. My mom’s hard of hearing and I want to teach her.”

Derek signed, “You’re a good daughter.”

Another raven appeared and swooped over the first bird, knocking it over. The newcomer appeared from the scrum with the seed in its maw, took a couple of steps, and flapped away. The raven pecked at the ground, looked toward the humans and canine, and took flight.

And though Buster must have known better, he bolted after the dark birds.

The emerald leaves shimmied in the breeze, and the tree’s shadow cloaked the fallen fruit.

“Do you want to get a coffee?” She signed, then made a face. “How do you sign S-T-I-L-L?” She asked.

Even if she were here to get him to go to her church, to save him through a God he didn’t believe in, she was here. And that meant something. Maybe it was pity or grief, but those were the cards he was dealt.

His hands moved through the air—dipping, crossing, slicing and pointing—like a couple dancing the tango. He signed that she was pretty enough he’d even go to church with her. That he’d stare at the stained glass and the women caked in blush, and sit with the men soaked in cologne. He’d read the captions from the minister’s speech about the miracle of the Lord healing the deaf, restoring their hearing. Instead of accepting them, the way they are.

She looked at him quizzically.

He nodded his fist, and signed, “I still want to get a coffee with you. I can teach you sign, if you want.”

“I’d like that,” she signed.

BIO: MJ Zuchetto is a writer and attorney from the Pacific Northwest. His nonfiction writing has been published in The Spokesman-Review daily newspaper (“Race in the Alps Offers Scenic Payoff for Spokane Runner”), legal publications including the Pace Environmental Law Review and various trade magazines. His short story, “A Singular Man,” appears in The Encyclopedia Prismatica, Vol. I, Issue 2 (2026).

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