“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you. . . .Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.” —Job 12:7, 9–10 (niv)
We’d stopped in at the corner grocery to pick up a few things. Suddenly, Millie flopped down on her belly, casting me a pleading look. After a long afternoon driving, I didn’t feel like dragging a ninety-pound golden retriever all the way back to the dairy case.
Hassan, the owner, chuckled. “She fears Angelina,” he said of his twelve-pound cat, sitting serenely in the back of the store.
I laughed and told Hassan the events of earlier that day. Millie and I were hiking East Mountain on the Appalachian Trail when she stopped at a bend in the trail and started barking furiously. I peered ahead, wondering why a hiker was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt on an eighty-degree morning. But it was no hiker; it was a bear!
Millie held her ground, barking and snarling, glancing back at me. Don’t run, I remembered. Don’t ever turn your back on a bear. “Millie,” I said, keeping my voice calm, “come.” She hesitated. “Millie, come! Now.”
Millie retreated slowly until she got to me, not turning her back on the bear either. Then we backed up cautiously. The bear just stared.
I tried to move Millie ahead of me, but she insisted on staying between the bear and me. When we were far enough, we turned around and walked purposefully all the way to the spot where I had parked.
Now, back in New York City, a cat had Millie cowering like a puppy. Hassan gathered our items. “Sometimes it’s the little things that get us,” he said. “The big stuff we handle.” I smiled and took my things. Millie looked up at me gratefully, relieved to be out of danger.
