The Dog That Saved Stewart Coolidge

by Jim Kraus

  The cynic in David, honed after nearly two decades of dealing with public officials who tended to treat the truth as if it were a dangerous narcotic and it would be prudent never to let the public have a taste, saw through Bargain Bill’s subterfuge in a second.

  It’s not his dog. He just wants free publicity, he thought.

  But David could not prove his intuition, so Bargain Bill’s story, pathetic as it was, became part of the bigger story.

  And his new reporting star, Ms. Goodly, covered it all, with a keen eye and the wisdom, or cynicism, of a much more seasoned reporter.

  She’ll make a good reporter one day…unless she marries one of the hillbillies in town and has a passel of kids and spends the rest of her life in a trailer drinking diet Mountain Dew and eating store-brand Cheetos.

  While David loved the low stress of being an editor on the Gazette, he had no love lost for some of the more countrified aspects of small-town, bucolic life.

  And today, well, today was proving to be one of those perplexing days that could nonplus the most seasoned, jaded newspaperperson.

  Only moments after he arrived at the office, his phone warbled and the phone number displayed was odd, with more digits than necessary. To his stupefaction, the voice on the other end, in a garbled, time-distorted manner, announced itself as an “editor of the Daily Mail in England, the country and not the New England in your eastern states.”

  Already David did not like this person, but he heard him out.

  The man wanted information and pictures of the bandit dog. Somehow he had picked up the story. David knew from the paper’s Web site that such features were its stock-in-trade, but he himself never expected to be on their radar.

  And even though he was pretty sure he did not like English people, especially English people in the press, he agreed to send copy and pictures that morning.

  “We might spice it up just a bit, chap. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “No. Just spell Grback and Wellsboro correctly. No -ough on -boro, okay?”

  “Right-o.”

  And won’t our Ms. Goodly be pleased to see her story go international?

  Only moments after he hung up with his snooty counterpart across the pond, his phone rang again. The caller ID lit up and announced the call was from KDKA Television in Pittsburgh—one of the three “big” TV stations in the tri-state area.

  David closed his eyes.

  It’s going to be about the dog. I know.

  And it was.

  Jerry Mallick pushed the pile of mail from the table and it scattered on the kitchen floor like leaves in autumn—that is, if leaves were made up of bills, direct-mail advertising, political circulars, and faux magazines filled with coupons and half-price specials for duct cleaning.

  He spread out the Wellsboro Gazette of the week prior, “borrowed” from that fancy coffee shop in town.

  “No one was reading it,” he told himself. “And it was already old by the time I took it.”

  Jerry Mallick was the landlord of the house where Lisa and Stewart lived, as he did himself, in the first-floor apartment. His third tenant, an older woman—Mrs. Glumper or Gumper or Gomper—had passed away last fall, and so far he had no takers on the ad that continued to run in the “Apartments to Rent” section of the Gazette.

  You think they would give me a free newspaper each week, since I been paying for this stupid ad and I ain’t got a single response yet.

  He slowly made his way through the story about the dog, reading twice, just to make sure, the paragraphs about the rewards being offered by Tops Market and that used-car guy on the east side of town.

  Jerry had inherited the large Victorian from his mother fifteen years earlier. She had had enough of winter weather and had moved to a retirement community in Florida, where she’d died two years later from being hit by a bus filled with seniors on their way to Disney World.

  Jerry did not relish the idea of being a landlord, but getting money for doing nothing was pleasant enough. He still did odd jobs, on occasion—hauling things in his truck, snowplowing in the winter—all things that could be accomplished sporadically and did not require new attire, or clean attire, for that matter.

  “If that guy gives me five hundred dollars off…I could just about afford that Ram pickup that he has in his lot. If my valves get any louder, I ’spect the whole engine in the Chevy could go any minute.”

  Jerry bent close to the paper and the picture of the dog, trying to memorize the color and the features.

  “I got nothing else to do. I can go hunting for a dog, I guess.”

  He stood up and shuffled through the letters and circulars on the floor, like walking through a forest in the fall. Then he stopped and checked his wallet.

  “Five bucks.”

  He smiled. It was just enough for a gallon of gas and maybe a Slim Jim at that MinitMart over on Tioga.

  “Now to hunt up that dog and make me some money.”

  Two floors above Mr. Mallick, Hubert sat and let the morning sun shine on his face. The dog’s eyes were shut. The warmth of the sun felt good. It had been a long time since the dog had felt warm and safe with a nearly full stomach.

  He wondered why the human gave him only one measure of food. He’d kept talking as he poured it out, so he must have some sort of reason for it. And while the dog’s stomach was not totally full, it was fuller than it had been in a very, very long time.

  It had not been this full since the dog had to leave the place where those other humans lived—the humans that were not nice, who were sometimes hurtful and mean.

  An unpleasant expression came over the dog’s face as this memory came to mind. His eyes closed tighter, just for a moment, as if he were bracing for something, or against something, and wincing in response.

  Then he opened his eyes and stood and shook himself, as if he were wet from a rain.

  He wasn’t, of course, but the act of shaking provided a clearing moment for his thoughts, shaking the bad memories away as best he could. His left shoulder still bore a long jagged scar and it ached sometimes, but he did not bring attention to it, or whimper, or favor that side.

  Dogs simply endured, and did the best that they could with the reality that was presented to them. Who would listen if they hurt? And there were only a few humans, that Hubert encountered, who would try to understand the language of a dog.

  Hubert. He smiled slightly at the sound of that word in his thoughts—it sounded funny to the dog, that was all.

  Hubert.

  Hubert.

  Maybe it was funny because it was like the sound of that bird that he once heard in the woods.

  Hubert.

  He had quickly realized that was the sound that this human made when he was speaking to him. It would do.

  Hubert.

  Hubert.

  And, after all, a dog has little say in what sounds a human assigns to certain objects—or to certain dogs.

  The dog, Hubert, looked up and stared at the ceiling.

  It was the first time in many, many, many days that he could not see the sky and the sun and the clouds and the stars when he looked up.

  This was different from his previous reality.

  Not bad, but different.

  He had forgotten, almost, how sweet the sleep felt when he no longer had to listen for the creak and the crack of the twigs and the rumble of some other animal clumping through dried leaves, perhaps a larger animal that had gained his scent. No, the sleep inside this place was sound, and real, and deep.

  The dog sniffed. He had already memorized the scent of this human.

  But when he looked in his eyes, the human’s eyes, Hubert saw something else. It was the same expression that the dog had carried with him for so long. The look of being lost. The look of being confused. The look of being just a little scared. The look was hidden, put away, but Hubert knew it was there. Kindred spirits know these things. Shared pain is not easily disguised.

  Hubert then smiled. I like him.<
br />
  And that other human, the smaller human who smelled like flowers. The dog liked her, too.

  She knew exactly how to scratch and where to scratch, not too hard, not too soft, and in just the right place.

  She lived here, but not here. She was behind that wooden thing on the steps. That must be her den.

  The dog thought of his mother again, who was soft and kind and was the nicest dog any dog could imagine. This human reminded him of her.

  The dog sat back down, and when he lay down his head remained in the sun.

  It felt good to be warm and safe.

  The dog knew, he simply knew, all during his lost days, that a dog should not be lost—and that someone or something watched over dogs and would keep him from more harm and lead him to a place where he could be warm and fed and a member of a pack once again.

  That was the way dogs saw the world.

  Dogs should be with those who loved them, who watched out for them, who could be trusted. That was the way that a dog saw as right and true and perfect—as perfect as nature allows.

  He had spent too long by himself. Being alone was not how a dog’s world should be. He needed to be part of a pack. He needed to protect others in his pack. They all needed to look out for each other. That was the way of the dog world. He knew it to be true. He knew it to be right.

  And now, perhaps now, after all this time, the power that graced all of nature with life had brought him here to be part of this pack. The dog tilted his head, trying to understand if this feeling was correct and true and not just a desire born of cold and hunger.

  No, he decided, it was true. He was supposed to be here. This pack needed him.

  And he needed them.

  The dog that needed to be found had found his pack at last.

  And with that thought in his mind, he let sleep come over him again, with just a soft smile on his lips.

  Chapter Twelve

  AFTER WORK, Stewart planned to stop in at the Wired Rooster. He wanted to see Lisa but did not want to see Lisa. If she were dead-set on moving to Pittsburgh and forgetting all about him and Hubert, well, there wasn’t anything he could do about it, so why should he invest the time getting to know her better when all she was going to do was break his heart in the end? It’s happened before, he thought, and this time is probably no different.

  And what about poor Hubert? He really seems to like you, too. You’re just going to up and leave him? He’ll be crushed.

  Stewart took a deep breath.

  Dogs feel crushed, right? Probably, anyhow. I bet they have feelings just like people.

  Stewart stopped a block away from the coffee shop and thought about slapping himself on the face and telling himself to “snap out of it.”

  He knew he had a tendency to see the gloomy side of any situation, and also to take possibilities to the worst possible ending there was—well before any early indicators pointed in the direction of that grim outcome.

  They just want to talk to her. And then they’ll be gone and everything will be forgotten and the fancy TV reporters will move on to the next story in line. She’ll stay in Wellsboro.

  Stewart looked down at his hands and sighed.

  That’s what I thought about my mother, too. That she would stay here. And she didn’t.

  But Lisa is different than my mother was. She’s nice. And she’ll stay here. For Hubert, at least. The TV people won’t make her leave.

  Of course Stewart had no way of knowing, just then, that he was totally and disastrously wrong—concerning just about everything he was obsessing about at the moment.

  “Hey, Lisa,” he said as he entered, putting his best, most positive tone of voice out there so she would not suspect anything wrong.

  “Stewart,” she called out. “You stopped after work. This is so sweet of you.”

  He ordered a small latte, calling it a small and not a piccolo latte as it was listed on the menu.

  “Listen, if you can sit with this for ten minutes, then I can join you on my break. Can you wait for me? Say you can, okay? Please?”

  She is just so cute.

  “Sure. I’m off work. I’ll read the paper while I wait. I’ll reread your story.”

  She laughed, and Stewart liked it when she laughed.

  In eight minutes, Lisa joined Stewart at the small table in the corner, well away from the entrance. She carried a plastic cup filled with ice and water.

  “After a day of making coffee, the last thing I want is another coffee,” she explained as she sipped the water.

  “Must be why I don’t have any food or groceries in my house,” Stewart said, thinking it was a serious reply, but to which Lisa broke out in a loud peal of laughter, much like the sounds of bells chiming.

  “You are so funny, Stewart. You lived upstairs from me for what, over a year, and I never knew how funny you were.”

  Neither did I.

  “So when do the people from the TV come?”

  “Tomorrow at one. They said that they may want the story for the late news that night—can you imagine? Me being on TV? Like a real reporter? They said they would have to drive back right after the interviews and pictures and all that. And if it was too late, they would use it in the morning.”

  Stewart nodded.

  “It’s at least a four-hour drive.”

  “I know. I checked on MapQuest.”

  See?She is thinking of leaving. Why else would she be looking at directions to Pittsburgh?

  Stewart sipped his latte, now almost room temperature. It still tasted better, much better, than the instant coffee he made at home.

  It should—it was several dollars more expensive.

  “Stewart, this could be a huge break for me. And it might be nothing at all. But at least the editor of the paper knows me now. And if nothing else, I can keep writing things for the Gazette. Build up a portfolio.”

  “Sure.”

  I wonder what sort of portfolio I could build up for being a political science major.

  “Hey, Stewart, can I ask you a question? You don’t have to answer it, if you don’t want to.”

  “Sure. You can ask me.”

  “Well, you know, you had that calendar on your counter, and I sort of assumed that you went to church and all that. The calendar with the Bible verses on it.”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, we’re like friends now, aren’t we?”

  “Sure. Friends.”

  Lisa looked uncomfortable, or embarrassed, or perhaps even hesitant, but she pressed on.

  “Well, since we’re friends, maybe we could go to church together? I mean, we wouldn’t have to go to my church. We could go where you go. I mean, just two people going to church. That’s all. I’ve been going by myself for a long time. I know people there and I have people to sit with and all that, but it would be nice to go with someone. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Sure. With someone.”

  What church do I go to? Which one? Not the Catholic church. I’m pretty sure she’s not Catholic. Maybe that Lutheran one on Main Street. That looks like a nice place. It has stained-glass windows. That means it’s a good church, right?

  “So…do you want to…this Sunday?”

  Stewart had never, ever been asked out on a date by a girl. He knew going to church was not exactly a date, but still, a girl had asked him, and that was a first.

  “Sure. That would be okay. But we can go to the church you go to. Since you asked, right? You get to pick. Like going out to dinner.”

  She laughed again, then looked at her watch.

  “My break is over, Stewart. Can I come up tonight and ask you about today’s robbery?”

  “Sure. I’ve got some video of it. Maybe you can show it to the TV people. Sort of the back end of Hubert.”

  He rose as she did and she leaned forward and gave him a quick hug, right there in the open, right there in the middle of the Wired Rooster and everything.

  “I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Sur
e.”

  As he walked outside, he took a deep breath.

  Maybe she won’t move to Pittsburgh. That would be really nice. If she didn’t.

  Chapter Thirteen

  LISA’S SHIFT ran through six o’clock, which she did not mind because it got her closer to forty hours and a more substantial paycheck—although even at forty hours the evaluation of substantial was debatable.

  It was a different crowd of people in the afternoon than in the morning. Folks in the morning, the majority of them, were stopping in on their way to work. A few patrons, older folks, mainly, who had retired and had no real appointments, came in, sat, and talked for a while. They were her regulars and she knew many by name.

  But in the afternoon it was a different crowd. They were older, but not old, and most of them were not skipping out of a job for a few minutes—they simply had no job to skip out of. They would buy a small coffee and sit and talk and stare out the window for hours on end.

  I guess it would be better than watching afternoon TV.

  Lately, many of their conversations centered on the “bandit dog.”

  They talk louder than the old people. Maybe because they spend too much time at bars shouting over the music.

  One semiregular, Kevin or Kellan or Carl…

  He has that backwoods accent that no one understands.

  …was speaking about catching the dog.

  “I wuz talkin’ to crazy Jerry Mallick las’ night…”

  Hey, that’s my landlord.

  “…and he said he was headin’ out dog hunting t’day. If he could scramble up ’nuff money fur gas.”

  Lisa usually did not enter into the conversations of customers, but the place was nearly empty and she could not stop herself.

  “Dog hunting? What do you mean, dog hunting?”

  Kevin or Kellan or Carl looked up, surprised that anyone was listening to him.

  “Whale…huntin’ dogs, ye know. That dog robber one. With the reward. Jerry said he got his shotgun all ready and that wuz that.”