The Dog That Saved Stewart Coolidge

by Jim Kraus

  He hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair, smug and almost happy.

  No dog is going to make a fool out of me.

  He wrote on a Smith & Sons Produce notepad, "Pick up sign. Insta-Print. This P.M.”

  That’s the trouble with this town. Everyone wants to make a fool out of me.

  “I can get a couple of the bag boys and the ladder in back and we’ll hang the sign between the telephone poles out on the street,” he said aloud, even though he was alone. “Everyone will see it. And then we’ll see who gets the dog first. Grocery money will beat out a fake discount on a beat-up wreck of a car any day.”

  Jerry Mallick checked his gas gauge again. The four dollars of gas he’d pumped yesterday had hardly made a dent in his tank and barely budged the needle above the red empty line. But, from experience, he reckoned he had another thirty minutes of cruising time left before he had to coast to a stop or pull up the front seat cushion and root for loose change. He had done that seven months ago and come away with nearly five dollars’ worth of lost dimes and quarters. The pennies he had left where they were, as a primer for future cash-searching expeditions under the seat.

  “That stupid dog has to be around here somewhere. I figure he’s no more than ten blocks from the store, holed up in somebody’s backyard or under a porch or something.”

  As he drove, he let his left hand dangle out the window, still holding on to three-quarters of the beef jerky strip he’d bought at the gas station.

  “Dogs like meat, right? And they got good sniffers. He’ll smell the jerky and come running and I’ll have myself a new truck in no time.”

  After several trips circumnavigating the downtown area of Wellsboro and seeing not a single dog, Jerry decided that he had pushed his luck just far enough for today. He headed home, the truck sputtering slightly as he turned into the gravel driveway.

  “I think I got a gas tank in the garage for the lawn mower. Maybe. Or does that got oil in it for the snowblower?”

  If it did, the gas was two years old, since the snowblower had stopped working two winters ago.

  “Rents aren’t due till next week.”

  The truck door squealed as it opened.

  “I really need a new truck,” he muttered as he slid to the ground.

  “I can drain what’s left in the lawn mower. Maybe there’s some left in the snowblower, too. That’d be enough to catch that darned dog.”

  At that moment, Stewart turned off the sidewalk and headed to the mailboxes.

  “Hey, Stewie, you seen that dog around? You know, the one with the reward.”

  Stewart shook his head. “I haven’t. But I keep looking. I know a lot of people are looking. I hope I get to him before they do.”

  If Jerry had been a student of human expressions, he might have detected that Stewart was beginning to spin an elaborate falsehood. But Larry was not such a student.

  “Tell you what, Stewie. If you see him, and maybe like, you can’t catch him ’coz your car’s not running, you tell me and we’ll both go out in the truck after him. I’ll split the reward with you. Okay?”

  Half of that discount is still like…a couple hundred dollars, right?

  “Sure, Jerry. I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  Jerry started toward the garage, then turned back.

  “Hey Stewie, if you see that Lisa, could you tell her to keep an eye out as well? I saw on TV the other night that women are better at spotting hidden things than guys are. I think that’s what the guy on TV was saying. I ain’t never seen a woman hunter that’s any good, but I figure they can’t say stuff on TV that ain’t true. Right?”

  “Probably,” Stewart responded.

  They both heard a dog bark, off in the distance.

  “That ain’t him,” Larry declared. “That’s Simpson’s stupid mutt over on Walnut. Mangy dog tried to bite me once when I was plowing their driveway. Stupid dog. I remember barks.”

  Again, if Jerry had been observant, he might have noticed how nervous Stewart had become, glancing up to the steps and then to the small window in his kitchen that overlooked the backyard.

  “Well, thanks, Stewie. I got some gasoline to drain. Hey, you have any gas in your car? I mean, it ain’t running, is it? I could siphon it out. Probably no good anymore, right?”

  “You know, Jerry, I think the tank is just about empty. You’re welcome to try, but I don’t think there’s much in it.”

  “Hey, thanks, Stewie. I might try. If I can find a hose. I had one, but I don’t know where now. Probably lost it. Or somebody kipped it out of the garage.”

  “Okay.”

  “And you keep an eye out for that mutt. We’ll split the reward. Maybe we can both get new wheels. Okay?”

  “Sure thing, Jerry,” Stewart replied and hurried up the stairs, obviously anxious and in a sudden hurry—and without checking his mailbox at all, which was most unusual.

  Unusual, if Jerry had been observant, that is.

  Which he was not.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE BREAK ROOM at the Tops Market was again all atwitter with the brazen return of the dog bandit. The canine had struck again only twenty minutes prior to the break.

  “Another daylight robbery,” Dennis King said, pushing his straggly hair behind his ears and then capturing it with a faded SeaWolves baseball cap, the minor league team from Erie. “Somebody should call the Gazette.”

  Stewart had already sent a text message to Lisa outlining the bare basics of today’s heist.

  “Somebody said the dog’s already a felon. That’s pretty bad, isn’t it?”

  That was Darlene Killeen, a very young and very naïve cashier, less than a year from walking the halls at Wellsboro Area High School as a Lady Hornet on the pep squad.

  Dennis waved his hand in dismissal.

  “Nope. A felony has to be five hundred dollars all at once. You can’t steal a bunch of little things over a month and be charged with a felony.”

  Darlene nodded, sipping on a Diet Coke.

  I wonder why all our stock people are well versed in felony matters? Stewart thought to himself as he typed another text message to Lisa—this one about the felony discussion.

  “The dog looks healthy,” Darlene said. “I got a good look at him as he scampered past. I only looked because I heard Mr. Arden screeching from over in Dairy, I think. Or maybe it was Produce.”

  “It was Dairy. He was complaining ’bout how the chocolate milk was stacked. We had so much in the back cooler that we had to use two rows instead of the one on the plan-o-gram. He made us pull it all out and reset the whole case. And stick the rest in the back reefer. A definite pain.”

  “Well, anyhow,” Darlene continued. “The dog looks healthy enough. Like he’s being fed somewhere. Not like a runaway dog or anything. He’s got to belong to somebody—somebody who doesn’t care if he’s like a criminal or something.”

  “But not a felon,” Dennis added as he finished off his large can of Monster. “Just a simple misdemeanor, that’s all. A fine and a week in jail, tops.”

  “What about the owner?” she asked as she stood up to return to work, smoothing out her apron and making sure it was correctly tied and adjusted symmetrically.

  “That’s who I was talking about,” Dennis said firmly. “The dog—well, maybe they’ll put it down. Dogs in grocery stores, that just ain’t right. Probably a public nuisance or something. Or a health hazard. And for a dog, being a public nuisance or a health hazard ain’t good.”

  As the three of them walked down the stairs and back to work, Stewart wondered if Dennis actually knew what he was talking about or was simply playing at being a semi-hardened criminal to impress the easily impressed Darlene.

  When Stewart arrived home that afternoon, Hubert was sitting in the middle of the kitchen, his tail wagging happily, a smile on his face. Stewart knew he was excited, as if Hubert could barely prevent his haunches from ecstatic wiggling.

  Stewart knelt down and in three jump-steps
, Hubert was nose-to-nose with Stewart, whining softly, a happy whine, offering gentle head butts against Stewart’s chest.

  “I’m glad to see you, too, Hubert.”

  After a few moments Hubert settled down and Stewart sat next to him on the kitchen floor.

  “Hubert,” Stewart said, his voice rising on the end of the word.

  Hubert immediately lowered his head.

  “Did you come to the store today?”

  Hubert lowered his head farther.

  “Did you steal a rawhide bone?”

  Hubert then looked up, just an inch, with his eyes focused on the living room.

  Under the corner of the rug were two rawhide bones, still wrapped in plastic, slipped under the corner of the rug, almost totally covered, but not really.

  “Hubert, why did you steal another bone? You know that’s wrong.”

  At this Hubert lay down, put his head between his paws, his chin on the ground, and closed his eyes.

  Maybe he’s just hungry. I’ve been feeding him just like the bag said. And even a little more.

  Then Stewart looked to the bones again.

  He’s not eating them. He hasn’t even chewed the plastic wrapping off.

  After letting Hubert wallow for a moment in guilt, Stewart reached out and put his hand on the back of the dog’s head and stroked him a few times.

  “It’s okay, Hubert. I know you don’t know right from wrong. At least people’s right and wrong.”

  Hubert jumped up and almost enveloped Stewart between his front paws, demanding, as it were, to be hugged back, to be forgiven, to be loved.

  “You have to remember, Stewart,” Lisa said as she sipped at her tea in Stewart’s kitchen, “Hubert is a dog of deprivation. We don’t have any idea how long he was out on his own.”

  Stewart liked Lisa in his kitchen. He liked having her near. He’d even bought a new box of tea, thinking that if she ever wanted tea in his kitchen, he would have fresher tea than the four-year-old box of Tetley tea bags he’d had since his senior year in college.

  He didn’t smile when he looked at her, though he wanted to. He didn’t want to make it too obvious. Perhaps his lips formed a slight smile, just a snippet of a smile, and that was all.

  “What if he lived around here? Maybe he’s local and he’s just a bad dog?” Stewart said.

  At this Hubert growled, just a little, just to register, as it were, his complaint with Stewart’s personal assessment and character assassination.

  “I don’t think so, Stewart. I talked with Mr. Grback about it, and he was virtually certain it wasn’t a local dog.”

  “How would he know?”

  Hubert got up from the rug in the living room and walked to Lisa and sat next to her, looking up at her with both admiration and expectation. She smiled at him and began to scratch behind his ears.

  “He said he’s been running that free classified section in the Gazette for lost pets since he’s been editor. He said that no one loses a pet that they don’t call him for a free ad. He said it doesn’t matter if it were a gerbil or a mouse or a moose. People call because they know the ad is free. So if Hubert had an owner in town, that owner would have called.”

  Stewart shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “He said somebody probably dumped him off on a back road somewhere. Or even on the interstate. It happens all the time, he said, because people don’t want to pay the twenty-five dollars to a shelter to take an unwanted animal. And he said that most people are jerks.”

  Stewart laughed.

  “He’s a keen observer of human nature.”

  Lisa’s face beamed. “He just likes being gruff with reporters. Like he’s still in New York City, I guess. But I like him. He’s smart.”

  “Of course he is. He’s printing your stories, right?”

  Lisa tilted her head and smiled at Stewart—more than just a smile, a thank-you sort of expression on her face.

  Stewart let it be silent for a long moment. It was obvious that the both of them enjoyed that moment.

  “But the hard part of all this is I can’t figure out how to keep Hubert inside,” Stewart said, finally breaking the silence.

  “Your lock still doesn’t work?”

  “It never did, really. All it takes is a little push—or pull—and the door opens. And if I ask Jerry to fix it, which I doubt he will—or can—he’ll see Hubert. He’s already asked me to be on the lookout for him. Wants to split the reward. And Hubert growls a little bit when someone is at the door—even me. Larry would hear him.”

  “I know. It’s kind of touching, that Hubert wants to protect you like that. What about a little hook-and-eye latch on the outside of the door?” Lisa asked.

  “I thought of that. But if Jerry sees that, and he will for sure, he’ll know something’s up. He has some sort of idiot-savant radar for spotting things that don’t belong. He noticed when I bought a new tire when the Nissan was still running. Who looks at tires? Anyhow, a hook-and-eye I could understand on the inside—but not on the outside.”

  Lisa nodded her understanding.

  “I guess I could try to put a chair or something in front of the door—but then how would I get out?”

  Lisa switched hands on Hubert.

  “And the door downstairs doesn’t lock at all, so that’s no help either,” he added. “I watched him open it with his nose in about two seconds. So no barrier there.”

  Lisa sipped at her tea.

  “This is really good, Stewart. Thanks for getting it just for me.”

  Stewart hoped his blush did not show. Hubert offered a contented growl.

  “Thanks. It’s the store brand—but the good store brand. There’s good and then a little better. This tea is from the little better section.”

  “Well, I like it,” Lisa said with finality.

  At that, Hubert looked up at Lisa and rumble-growled again, but it was a pleasant, happy growl, as if he were in on the discussion.

  Which Stewart was pretty sure he wasn’t, but then, he could never really be sure with Hubert.

  After the tea and coffee had been consumed, after evening had come upon Wellsboro, Lisa picked up her purse and stood.

  “You want to go to the Frog Hut?” she asked, surprising Stewart, surprising him a lot. “For ice cream?”

  Again, girls don’t normally ask me out—ever.

  “I didn’t think it was open yet.”

  Lisa’s face scrunched up in thought.

  “I think it’s open all year. Pretty sure, anyhow. But it’s open now for certain. I saw people coming out at lunch. I feel like an ice cream cone. Want to go for a ride?”

  “Sure.”

  Hubert danced about, happy that something was happening and that Stewart and Lisa appeared to be happier than normal.

  “No, Hubert, you can’t go.”

  Hubert appeared crestfallen.

  “No, he can go,” Lisa said. “It’s dark enough to sneak him into the car. And I think Jerry is over at the Moose Lodge tonight. Two-for-one draft beer special, I think.”

  “Oh, yeah. That is tonight, isn’t it? Well…okay. But do dogs like being in cars? I never had one.”

  “They love cars. My grannie’s dogs did. And I bet Hubert does as well. Right, Hubert?”

  At this, Hubert jumped up and down, in excitement, obviously not knowing what was about to happen but excited that he was being included.

  Hubert walked quickly to Lisa’s car, walking between Lisa and Stewart, not looking left or right, but head down, taking deliberate, firm steps, as if he knew that he had to remain hidden, at least in the vicinity of Jerry, the dog hunter. Hubert jumped up into the car without a second of hesitation, though he did have to be persuaded to climb over the center console to the backseat.

  “When I was young,” Lisa said as she backed out of the driveway, “my grannie used to take me and one of her dogs with her to get ice cream at the Dairy Mart in town. Back then, she said, they used to give away doggie cones for free. Or maybe she sai
d they did that when she was young. But now they cost a dollar.”

  Stewart rolled the window down, letting the full force of the brisk air wash over Hubert.

  “I’ll treat tonight,” Stewart said. “Since you’re driving. I’ll even pick up the tab for Hubert.”

  “You don’t have to, Stewart. I can get my own ice cream.”

  “I know. I don’t mind. And how much can ice cream cost?”

  Nine dollars and forty-five cents.

  That was what it could cost.

  A couple of deluxe sundaes and a doggy cone apparently cost $9.45.

  The three of them sat outside on one of the benches and ate, while the humans alternated holding the cone for Hubert to lick at delicately as if it were some forbidden pleasure food.

  The dog kept looking around, as if to make sure no one was sneaking up to steal this chilled and creamy delicacy. After the top of the cone was consumed, Hubert took the rest in his mouth and crunched it noisily, smiling as he did, with streaks of vanilla soft serve dripping from his chin.

  While they sat, another couple, an older man and woman, shuffled outside and stopped suddenly, as if hitting an invisible force field. Without speaking, they turned to each other, and then back to Stewart, Lisa, and Hubert.

  “Is that the bandit dog?”

  Lisa spoke up first, with confidence.

  “No, we get that all the time now. Some bad dogs just give mutts like this a bad name.”

  Hubert growled a little at the term mutt, but Lisa ignored him.

  “We see the resemblance, but our dog is much taller. And he has more white on his paws than the criminal dog.”

  Hubert looked up and stared at Lisa, as if asking Just what dog are you describing?

  “Well, it sure looks a lot like the bandit dog. I bet you could turn him in and get the reward.”

  Lisa offered a gay laugh.

  “We’ve thought about it. But we could never do that to poor Hubert here.”