Merle's Door

by Ted Kerasote

  By late afternoon, Merle could barely stand up. He lay under the great room's picture window, sides heaving, glassy-eyed, played out. Indefatigable, Shayla pranced around him. When she could rouse Merle to no further efforts, she tried to mount his head. He growled a warning. She continued to hump and thrust. His growls grew deeper. Undeterred, she continued to bang his snout like a little jackhammer. He erupted, roaring in annoyance and smacking her with the side of his snout, sending her flying several feet across the room.

  Then he dropped his head on the floor and looked at her with a pleading expression: "I've got nothing left. Please leave me alone."

  She came over and sniffed his head. He growled again; she turned and perkily trotted out the sliding glass door, back to the yurts from where she had come.

  Unlike domestic dogs, who are highly opportunistic when it comes to sex, wild wolves are quite monogamous. The male and female of an alpha pair breed exclusively with each other until one or the other dies. For a long time, these basics of lupine social life weren't known. It was assumed that when more than one female in a pack had pups, it was the dominant male who was the father of both litters, for such behavior had been observed in captive wolves. However, recent genetic studies done in Minnesota and Alaska show that such infidelities don't take place in the wild. Instead, the fathers of the nondominant female's pups are immigrants who have been taken in by the pack or transient wolves who risk death or mauling to breed with her when she comes into heat. Thus, even though the opportunity to dabble exists for the alpha male, faithfulness is the norm.

  It was a norm that I, too, strove for, though I found myself far more successful at emulating Merle's behavior than that of a wild wolf. To be fair, I wasn't a complete dog, as the saying goes, but was serially monogamous. The reasons that my relationships didn't last were as varied as the women whom I dated: I wanted a family and they didn't; I was taken by the outdoors and they felt lukewarm about it; I liked Wyoming, and they thought that their state was the place to live. But underlying these reasons was the one I found difficult to bring up as the true cause for our relationships not working: My heart simply hadn't opened as it had the night when Merle walked into my life and said, "I am yours."

  I know what you're thinking—this guy's pathetic; it's a dog, for Christ's sake. But, hey, the dog and I were still together after five years, and I hadn't gotten past one year with anyone else.

  There was one woman, however, about whom I felt differently. I kept running into her on top of Signal Mountain, outside the Kelly post office, and at dinner parties thrown by mutual friends. We would start chatting and, an hour and a half later, would discover that our errands had slipped away unnoticed or that our food had grown cold. It was obvious that both of us liked to talk, yet our conversations were different from those we shared with others. They immediately found deep topics: what was right work; how one found such a calling; how landscape affected a person's spiritual well-being; how much we cherished these mountains but also our families far away; how, someday, we wanted to have families of our own; and, most tellingly, why we found it easier to talk with dogs—she would kneel and put her arms around Merle—than with some people. She was a great lover of dogs and had been since girlhood.

  This woman, whose name was Allison, worked only four miles up the road, at the Teton Science School, and we might have become a couple had it not been for the disparity in our ages and heights: She was seventeen years younger than I and five inches taller, a Nordic goddess whose regal bearing was softened by tropical green eyes and a small inward lean of her two front teeth, which gave her an air of mischief. Given how much we had in common, I saw little reason to fret over our public image—the tall young woman, the short older man—but she did. And so nothing ever came of our talks except the feeling that our souls had known each other for a very long time. At this juncture, fate intervened. Allison moved away—back to the Midwest, where her family owned a chain of department stores to which she believed she owed some allegiance.

  I hadn't thought of her in a couple of years, and then, on a cold, snowy February night, I walked into Dornan's, the bar that perches above the Snake River at the entrance to Grand Teton National Park in Moose. And there she was, sitting at the bar, drinking a glass of wine and listening to a bluegrass band. She gave me a smile that could not be faked—a thousand watts of joy at seeing me. We talked until the place closed and then, since I had car-pooled over, she gave me a ride home. It was so cold that the stars vibrated in the heaven, and so did the car. After not seeing each other for a couple of years, the air felt electric with possibility.

  We went to dinner the next day; we went to the movies; we skied on Teton Pass. Then she went back to Nebraska, and we began telephoning each other—three-hour talks during which all we wanted to do was be in each other's arms. On Memorial Day weekend, I flew to Omaha to visit her. Other than going downtown to eat, we never got out of bed. About halfway through that weekend, I looked in the bathroom mirror and thought, "You look just like your dog."

  A month later, Merle and I went for an extended stay. In the interim, Allison had gotten a Golden Retriever puppy, a tiny ball of floppy ears and sparkling, dark eyes named Brower, partly because he had brow markings and partly after David Brower, the famous conservationist, whom she admired.

  But because she had to work in her family's store each day, Allison was forced to leave Brower at home in an oversize wire crate. When we arrived, he reminded me of seltzer bursting from a bottle. He raced out the front door and stopped dead as he saw the big golden dog emerge from the Subaru. Open-mouthed, he stared at Merle, not knowing quite what to do. Merle held his tail erect and gave it an encouraging little wag—he had immediately read both Allison's and my energy about this little dog. That was all Brower needed. He bounded toward him, squirming every square inch of himself as he tried to lick Merle's lips.

  Merle gave the little guy a few sniffs before holding his head high, ignoring his frolicking with the imperious bearing he used on all dogs he considered his underlings.

  "Merle," I told him, "be nice. You two are going to know each other for a long, long time."

  This was no idle prediction.

  When I had come to Nebraska, it wasn't with the idea that I'd be on vacation. I was finishing a book, and Allison had her duties at the store. Unlike her, however, I could stay at home with the dogs and write. This was nothing novel for Merle, but for Brower it was a revelation—no more life in the crate, a new human for company, and a big friendly dog to play with.

  I had worried that Merle would be standoffish to the little pup, but this wasn't the case. In fact, he took to his new role as mentor with enthusiasm, escorting Brower around the yard, excavating interesting smells with a poke of his paw, sniffing, then allowing Brower to sniff. Merle would raise his leg, squirt, and scrape, and Brower, not old enough to raise his leg, would squat. On they'd go: the big dog demonstrating, the little dog watching and copying.

  I had also been concerned that Merle might go into one of his urban funks, the first appearance of which had made itself known when I had taken him on a book tour and we had stayed at a friend's home in Boulder, Colorado. Merle had lain with his head between his paws, staring at me while I talked on the phone and typed on my laptop, his weary look saying, "This is the most boring day of my life."

  "I'm sorry," I told him. "We're in downtown Boulder. There are leash laws. You can't just roam around. Give me an hour, and we'll go for a walk." By way of an answer, he gave a great sigh, indicating, "Have I told you that this is the most boring day of my life?"

  "Yes, you did tell me that," I replied. "Let me finish this and we can take a walk." The drama queen, he fell onto his side, letting his head drop to the floor with a disgruntled thunk. He gave another tremendous sigh, his entire rib cage expanding and collapsing. Holding my eye, his penetrating gaze repeated, "By the way, have I mentioned to you that this is the most boring day of my entire life?"

  But suburban Omaha wasn't d
owntown Boulder. Allison's large fenced yard was overhung with oak trees, and they were filled with squirrels. Few other situations, I think, could have pleased Merle more at this time in his life, for he had become jaded with hunting ground squirrels around Kelly. In fact, he had begun to chase them half-heartedly, as if they no longer presented him with much of a challenge. And this may have been true, since he had become enormously adept at catching them.

  Instead, he had set his sights on more difficult game: the red squirrels who lived in the conifer forests where we often hiked. Preyed upon by swift and stealthy pine martens, red squirrels have evolved into super-vigilant and exquisitely agile creatures who, at the slightest hint of danger, leap through the branches to safety. Merle would dash beneath their aerial getaways and stand on his hind feet, forefeet extended up the trunk of an evergreen as he gazed at the chattering little animals. Turning, he would give me the most wistful look: "If I could catch a tree squirrel, my life would be complete."

  Now, his wish had been granted. Allison's yard was crawling with tree squirrels. They were gray instead of red, but color didn't seem to matter. Merle took one look at the backyard, raised a paw, and went into stalk mode.

  I had set up a makeshift desk on the patio and wrote as he hunted, and Brower, the keen aspirant, watched his every move, bounding in at the last second to foil Merle's stalks. The third time he did this, Merle growled at him horrifically, striking him on the side of the head and seeming to maul him with bared teeth, by all appearances inflicting a mortal wound. But, of course, adult dogs regularly reprimand their puppies in this way, never even scratching them. Brower got the message. He threw himself on his back at Merle's feet, pumping his paws in the air and whining for forgiveness.

  Merle gave him his "Oh, my god, puppies!" look, which sent Brower into a greater effort to placate him.

  By midday it was time to call a break from writing and hunting squirrels. I put Brower on his leash, and, letting Merle walk on his own but keeping his lead in hand, we walked through the leafy streets toward a nearby park. As we strolled, we passed dogs behind fences who ran at us, hackles raised, barking at the top of their lungs. Apoplectic, they dashed back and forth on their side of the fence as Merle stared at them with incredulity. Glancing up at me, he sent me a look that could only be interpreted as "Poor sons of bitches."

  "Now, now, Señor," I told him. "Don't be mean. What dog lives like you?"

  "Ha-ha-ha," he panted, not deigning to give the dogs behind the fences another glance, which drove them wild.

  None of this was lost on Brower. Initially terrified of the dogs who rushed at us, he soon adopted Merle's royal indifference. Years later, when Brower had grown into an uncut male who was the top dog wherever he went, I thought that some of his personality had been molded on those Omaha streets. In fact, the only male he ever deferred to was Merle himself, to whom he always acted like a nephew whose uncle has been a teacher and a friend.

  Sometimes, on those humid Midwestern afternoons, when I couldn't write another word, we'd lie in the grass under the oak trees, Brower stretched out on one side of me, Merle on the other. Brower, who hadn't been confined in his crate since our arrival, would gaze into my eyes with a look of supreme gratitude that said, "Ted, man, you saved my life!" He'd lick my mouth, and I'd rough up his head, and Merle would put a steadying paw on my arm while sending me a look of ownership: "Excuse me. Just remember who the main dog is."

  Main dog or not, he and Brower got brushed together and fed together and walked together, and, on more than one occasion, as Allison and I would look up from our love-soaked panting, we'd see Merle and Brower, both sitting by our bedside, tails wagging enthusiastically, just the way a pack of wolves watches their alpha pair mate.

  She'd giggle and say, "My poor innocent puppy has been corrupted by you two."

  Then one day, as Brower sat by my side on the patio, Merle spied a squirrel hopping a little too far from its oak tree. He rose and began to creep toward it in slow motion. The squirrel, who had now seen quite a bit of Merle, gave him a nonchalant look: "Here we go again." Merle sprinted. The squirrel whirled and bolted around the right side of the oak—its standard escape tactic. But apparently Merle had learned from his unsuccessful attempts. He dashed around the trunk to the left, meeting the squirrel head-on as it came around the back side of the tree.

  The squirrel, who was glancing over its shoulder to where it expected Merle to be, squealed in surprise and leapt upward. Merle jumped and plucked it from the bark in one motion. As he landed, he flipped the squirrel into the air, catching it with a snap of his jaws. He shook it once and pranced toward us like the king of the world. Barking ecstatically, Brower rushed out to greet him. Merle dropped the squirrel in front of his protégé and sent me an enormous look of satisfaction: "Tree squirrel, at last! Did it!"

  Which is exactly how I felt, holding Allison in my arms, our dogs lying at the foot of our bed: After years of searching, I had found the woman with whom I wanted to be.

  Chapter 10

  At Home in the Arms of the Country

  When Merle and I left Omaha that summer, we started in the dawn and drove all through the hot day, seven hundred miles across the Great Plains before turning north at Rock Springs and climbing onto the vast open steppes that lie west of the Wind River Mountains. For another hundred miles we drove alongside their breaking crest of granite before entering the canyon of the Hoback River and winding under its redrock cliffs, the peaks rising higher and higher until we came into Jackson Hole and saw the Tetons welcoming us with open arms.

  It was there, as we turned onto the Gros Ventre River road, that Merle, who had been reclining on his green bed, stood and began to wag his tail in anticipation. He rested his chin on my shoulder, pressing his cheek against my ear for the next seven miles up the river. When we turned off the main road he let out a deep, heartfelt pant, as if he'd been holding it the entire day: "HAAAA!" "Home!"

  It being summer, it was still light. He ate his kibble and slap-slap, was gone through his dog doors and into the heart of the village, eager to make his rounds. No matter what kind of interesting or boring trip we'd return from, this became our standard routine upon arriving home: I would open my mail and check phone messages, and Merle would go off to check his.

  I quickly learned not to expect him back soon, and the longer we had been gone, the longer he stayed out. He might return at eleven or midnight or even two A.M.; there was simply no telling. I'd wake to find him on his blankets in the corner of my room or, if it was summer, he might be downstairs on the wood floor, directly in the middle of the great room where the breeze flowed from the deck doors to the front doors, both wide open. If it was winter, he might be on the dedicated quadruped couch—the one I had moved from the trailer and which now sat opposite the newer, human couch. Almost always, Gray Cat would be there with him, butt to butt. In the spring or the fall, I'd often find Merle on the front porch, near its step, chin resting on his crossed paws, shoulders humped while the sleet covered him. I'd open the front door and call, "Hey, come on in." He'd look up, give me a sleepy glance, and put his head back down with a relaxed and contented air that seemed to say, "This is too splendid. You should come out as well."

  Watching him enjoy what, to me, was perfectly wretched weather, I assumed that here was a dog who couldn't be tempted by creature comforts. But I had forgotten his love of sleeping on my pad in the tent, which should have been a clue as to the multiple facets of his character. Our new home soon let him express them. I'd come home and discover that he had taken a pillow from the alcove and carried it upstairs, leaving it on the floor near my bed. The pillows were never chewed, and I wondered what he did with them until one day I found one of the throw rugs in the great room bunched into an elaborate bed, just like the nests he dug in the dirt. The impression of his body had been left in its folds, and one of the alcove's pillows lay exactly where his head had lain.

  "Monsieur," I told him, extending a hand to his lair, "pour
un chien qui aime bien la vie au grand air, tu aimes aussi le confort." For a dog who likes the outdoors so much, you also like your comforts.

  This was too much French for him. He wagged his tail heartily, implying, "It was a very good snooze."

  "Are you getting so old," I asked him, massaging his neck, "that you need a pillow to rest your head?"

  He leaned against my legs and groaned in pleasure as I massaged all his favorite spots. It wasn't that he was getting old—he was only five; it was that, as he had matured, he had grown ever less inclined to distinguish between the world of people and the world of dogs. In fact, I had watched him become more perplexed and, occasionally, even distressed when he saw dogs being treated like dogs—chained, fenced, or crated. When we went to a house that wasn't dog friendly, and he had to wait outside while I paid my visit, a wounded look would cross his face.

  It was clear that, in his mind, the major taxonomic lines dividing species weren't those that separated humans and canids, but rather those between "us" (dogs and people) and "them" (wildlife). He had further classified wildlife into species that he could chase with impunity (squirrels and coyotes) and those that could never be chased (moose, deer, elk, bighorn sheep, and bison), although on that evening when I'd lost my mind and come to my senses, I'd made an unforgettable exception for bison. Finally, there was Gray Cat, as well as the other cats of Kelly, who were given their own species designation between "us" and "them." Like hot weather and cities, cats simply had to be respected and endured.

  Merle's ordering of the world, it was plain to see, mirrored my own, which was hardly surprising since I had raised him. There were some important distinctions, however. I had no interest in chasing squirrels, and I was quite fond of coyotes. I also really liked cats, a habit that Merle found bewildering. From his corner of the bedroom, he would watch Gray Cat wake me by putting a paw on my face. As soon as I'd open my eyes, Gray Cat would begin to meow loudly: "I'm out of food. I'm starving."