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Excerpt from
Chapter 1
The Miracle

Eleanor would forever consider what occurred in the newsroom that mid-December

afternoon a miracle.

It had been the usual grueling week, but for unknown reasons, instead of rushing back out

into the cold for home, she remained anchored to her desk chair in her typical Thursday stupor,

her legs stretched out in front of her like two dead weights. One suburban editor labored in the

dusty shadows of the warm sprawling room, as Eleanor gazed straight ahead focusing on

absolutely nothing. She faced the two messy, pea-green walls that banked her corner desk and

were covered with clippings of her favorite stories and a poster.

It occurred to her that during her five-year journalism career she’d written virtually every type

of story, ranging from the opposition to the Gulf War to a bio on a Tibetan Buddhist monk. She’d

hustled herself out of the sleepy burbs of Derbe, where she still resided, to cover the teeming city

of Norfolk. She’d exposed corrupt town officials, cornered politicians, conned drug pushers, and

charmed the toughest, all to get the story. And just two weeks ago, she learned that she’d won a

prestigious journalism award for her series on Vietnam veterans.

It might be the award, she thought, that kept her seated and gazing back over her career and

personal history. Although she flourished as a reporter working in the dingy but hospitable

Norfolk Daily newsroom, hers was not a tidy little life: the painful discovery of her husband with

his belly-dancing lover, followed by divorce; returning to school for her undergraduate degree; her

late-starting career in journalism pitted against alpha twenty-somethings; and then the

depression that demanded she address the childhood scars caused by her alcoholic father. It

was far from grim. Once she resurfaced from life’s tumult, she had rediscovered herself.

With each contemplative moment, it was becoming clear that she had accomplished

everything at the Norfolk Daily News that was humanly possible. An inchoate idea began to

bubble: maybe it was time to move on? Time to specialize? That’s what reporters did, come to

think of it, she told herself. But the thought was brand new. Her tired body squirmed in her seat

with the sad realization that she had neglected to develop a specialty. She had been too busy.

She began to examine the two walls in front of her. Perhaps they held clues to what could loosely

be considered “a specialty.”

That’s when the miracle occurred. As she stared at the walls, eyes stared back at her! She

bolted up astonished: a calf, a deer, and a black Labrador retriever stared at her with imploring

dark eyes that stirred every inch of her. The life-sized, colored poster of the calf tied to a crate

marked “veal” was directly in front of her. His backside was facing her, and he strained his neck

to turn his head and stare directly at her, begging the question, “What are you doing to get me out

of here?”

To the calf’s left was the black-and-white newspaper clipping about the three-legged doe in

Derbe maimed by a hunter; she appeared to be calling attention to her missing right hind leg.

Underneath the doe was the clipping of a doomed black Lab as he sat alone in a South Norfolk

shelter, reminding her of the 5.7 million dogs and cats in public shelters across the country that

were euthanized each year. Other clippings were tacked on the wall, but they turned into a blurred

background for the three faces. She opened her top drawer to view the countless clippings of

stories of missing and shelter dogs stored there and her most recent exposé on deer hunting in

the suburbs. The epiphany resonated as if the three on the wall knew her better than she knew

herself, as if they were kind envoys sent from her patiently waiting soul.

They looked so benevolent, as if they had faith in her and knew it was only a matter of time

until she discovered them. After closing her drawer, with both hands placed on the peeling lip of

her green metal desk, she pushed back her chair, needing a little distance. The creaking wheels

of her chair, however, sounded like a ringing alarm clock in the newsroom silence. She rose to

her feet and, with a look of amusement, took a few sobering steps away from her desk, her back

to the three animals. When she pivoted around, the magnetic qualities of the three

had only been

enhanced.

She then had to admit that of all the hapless victims in her countless stories over the last five

years, the animals were the only victims of a legalized system of perfidy in her country, their lives

sacrificed within the law, and as a matter of course. She learned of their suffering through

indisputable facts and photographs: pigs squeezed in pens, their ears and tails chewed off;

chickens hanging like widgets on assembly lines; cows skinned while alive and kicking; the

authentic stories were endless. With each revelation, it became clear that the meat and dairy

industries were a tragic and horrible mistake of modern times, a gross crime against the

innocent, against nature, with the masses as unwitting accomplices, herself included. Until her

conversion, that is.

Her heart pounded as she returned her gaze to the three. They, no doubt, were the face of

her mission. She remembered Joseph Campbell, who said that when one finds one’s mission

there is a sense of “knowing.” “Knowing”—that was the overriding sensation, she concluded. In

her next breath, the practical side of her ventured to ask, “Where will I find a job?”

That’s when Honor Vine sprang to mind. She was the president and chief executive officer of

People Against Animal Cruelty, PAAC, virtually the only national animal protection organization

headquartered in the Northeast. During the last two years, Eleanor had depended on Honor for

spicy quotes. The outspoken president never hedged her criticism of state officials, fellow

movement leaders, or anyone else, as a matter of fact.

She hesitated.

Wouldn’t Honor think she was crazy? Calling her out of the blue for such a

rare and precious job just because she happened to have an epiphany one very tired, cold

Thursday afternoon? Her doubts echoed with a hollow, gutless clunk as she gazed into the

patiently waiting eyes of the animals, who seemed to be reminding her that they too were created

by a superior being. They, indeed, were a part of her.

Eleanor took a deep breath, crammed her

chair under her battered desk, stretched to her

full five foot seven inch height, and vowed to the

three that she’d call the president of PAAC after

deadline the next day no matter how ridiculous

she might appear. To her amazement, the next

morning, Honor welcomed her as if she’d been

expecting her call. She had read Eleanor’s

hunting story and might be hiring a staff writer/public

relations director. Did she want to come in

Monday for an interview? Eleanor sat back in her chair

stunned by providence for the second time

in just hours. It seemed as though she had just been

officially inducted into the small army of

disciples who understood. No longer was she someone

eking out a living at a discipline she

loved; she was part of a bigger plan. After hanging up, she

sat frozen in place, her hand still

gripping the receiver of the phone. A jarring thought crossed her

mind: an angel of mercy had

moved Honor Vine to dangle a job before her that touched her heart

and stirred her soul like no

other, but was Honor calling other candidates?

“No,” she muttered

aloud, her hand tightening around the receiver.

“Nobody’s going to steal

this golden opportunity from me! This job is mine!”

On Monday morning, December 15, 1997, Eleanor Aquitaine Green pulled up to the ice-

dappled parking lot of the headquarters of People Against Animal Cruelty in Westport on Compo

Beach Road.

Animal Instinct

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All major characters in this novel are fictional and are not to be confused with those

who play similar roles in the animal rights movement. The campaigns depicted

herein deal with some of the current issues and programs of the animal rights

movement.