Christmas with Tucker

by Greg Kincaid

  Doubleday

  Copyright © 2010 by Greg Kincaid

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Doubleday Religion, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. www.crownpublishing.com

  DOUBLEDAY and the DD colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kincaid, Gregory D., [date]

  Christmas with Tucker / Greg Kincaid.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Irish setters—Fiction. 2. Dogs—Fiction. 3. Human-animal relationships—Fiction. 4. Christmas stories. 5. Domestic fiction. I. Title.

  PS3561.142526M9 2010

  813′.54—dc22 2010011755

  eISBN: 978-0-307-58964-4

  v3.1

  To my grandparents Chester and Maurine Richardson.

  Like all great grandparents, they finished up where my parents left off.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Prologue

  With one paw in the wild and another scratching at the door of humanity, dogs are caught in an awkward spot. It misses the mark to describe a dog as just an animal. We recognize that our pets can be both beasts and evolved life-forms keenly attuned to human needs. Country dogs may be more appreciated for their animal nature—hunting, herding, and guarding—while city dogs are cherished for their humanlike ability to expertly deliver companionship and unbridled affection.

  From time to time, for a lucky few of us, we come across a dog that seems to move naturally back and forth from one world to the other. Such a dog can howl at the distant coyote, hunt for his own food, refuse to back down from a charging adversary, and run hours on end with equal glee under snow or sun. In an animal like this, we respect the sheer aliveness that radiates from his eyes. And, when the day’s work is done, he’ll lay down by our feet, content. For this dog, you know that there is nowhere he would rather be than with you. This dog is complete in both worlds. He models for us how to simultaneously be good and alive—animal and angel.

  Frank Thorne owned this kind of dog. He received the four-year-old Irish setter in exchange for repairs he made to an old tractor. The owner of the broken-down machine had inherited the tractor and the dog from his grandfather. He kept a picture in his wallet of the old man standing beside that proud setter, taken after one of their weekend hunting trips. The snapshot was good enough—he had no room for a dog.

  Thorne was too sick, too broken, and too mired in personal problems to know the value of his bargain. The setter spent most of his days tied up outside on a chain attached to a giant steel corkscrew that tightened into a clay loam, binding him to the ground like concrete.

  Tethered, he could only watch wild turkeys amble across the meadow, roosting to a setting sun, or rabbits venture from their winter thicket as snow danced across Thorne’s barnyard. The dog yearned to experience all that was outside the radius of his twenty-four-foot circle.

  From time to time, when Thorne had better days, he would take the dog for rides in the truck, long jaunts along the banks of Kill Creek, or just let him into his modest, run-down house to enjoy warm evenings by the fire that glowed in an old potbellied stove. Thorne was a lonely man incapable of realizing a friendship with the dog or anything else.

  Not long after his arrival, the dog saw a boy walking across the field to the west. He pulled on the chain, whined, and pulled again. His tail wagged, but there was no give. In the late afternoons, before Thorne returned home, he could hear a school bus full of children stop at the top of the hill. The same boy he had seen walking through the fields was on the bus, too.

  He saw or heard the boy almost every day until June. As the summer progressed, the boy ventured out less frequently. By August, he did not come out at all. When he heard the boy in the yard, the dog could tell that the boy’s energy was different. There was less laughter on the hill.

  Things grew worse with the man, too.

  Thorne stopped leaving the house and a putrid odor seeped from his pores. The dog knew the smell. He recognized it from his previous owner, who ran a tavern near the city. October turned to November and Thorne became less attentive to the dog’s needs. The setter lost weight and the sheen vanished from his red coat. As hunger set in, his disposition naturally deteriorated. He paced nervously.

  One day in November, around 3:00 P.M., though it was still some distance away, he could hear Thorne’s truck rapidly approaching home. There was another sound farther in the distance that caused pain in the dog’s ears. He whined and tried to bury his head between his paws as it grew nearer. It was the sound of sirens.

  Impervious to his own discomfort, he wagged his tail excitedly as Thorne’s truck screeched on its brakes and turned wildly into the driveway. The truck fishtailed to a stop not ten feet from the dog’s run.

  The dog did not know what to expect from this tall, gaunt man. In the past, he was affectionate and seemed to value the dog, but lately his master treated him like an inconvenient responsibility. Thorne stumbled out of the truck and, without bothering to shut the door, fell to the ground. This is the position from which humans often play with dogs, so the dog grew excited and ached for a greeting, some acknowledgment of his existence, but there was none. Instead, Thorne pulled himself up, brushed the dirt from his clothes, and made sure the package he so carefully clutched in his hands was still intact.

  The pain in the dog’s ears grew more severe as the sirens grew closer, but still all he wanted was to be with the man. He ran excitedly at the end of the chain and barked for attention.

  It was still early in the afternoon, but not too early for the ubiquitous bottle in the brown paper sack, the bottle that held the scent that the dog now associated with his master. Thorne gripped the sack in his left hand like a lion trainer clutches the whip that separates him from certain death. The red setter whined again and even let out a little yelp, but Thorne still ignored him. Instead, he walked into the house and slammed the front door behind him.

  Soon more cars pulled into the driveway; two of them carried the painful siren. The noise ended when the drivers turned off their engines, got out of their cars, and approached the master’s house.

  The dog was confused. It was rare for other people to enter his area. The strangers’ voices seemed nervous and there was a scent in the air that he associated with danger. The dog barked furiously and pulled at the chain.

  The uniformed men talked to the dog. They said that they would not hurt him, but still they stayed well away from his run as they approached the house, and he could sense their aggressive pos
tures. He was prepared to lay down his life to defend Thorne from this strange new threat.

  The men banged on Thorne’s old front door. The dog desperately threw all of his weight at the chain, but still it did not give.

  A few moments later, one of the men led his master out of the house in handcuffs, locked behind his back. The dog sniffed the air to assess the potential for danger. There was no odor of blood, but the smell of alcohol, stale and sour, clung to his master. Thorne’s head hung down as he walked toward the cars. He said nothing to his dog as he was shoved into the patrol car.

  An older man had arrived at the scene and he spoke to the uniformed men in a voice that the dog recognized; he had heard it before from the top of the hill. There was no fear in this one.

  The old man went to his truck and pulled out a half-eaten bologna sandwich and tossed it to the dog, eyeing him from a safe distance as the setter devoured the human food. The man approached him, and the dog hunkered down in fear—still uncomfortable with a stranger entering his space. It was not difficult for the dog to trust the old man, who spoke in a deep, soothing tone and brought him food when no one else had. Tired, and exhausted from trying to take care of his master, he rested on the ground. When the man reached out to pet him, he calmed to his touch and rolled onto his back in a submissive gesture.

  The old man stood and looked west. The sky was darkening. A difficult winter would soon be upon them.

  Chapter 1

  MOST BARNS double as family museums. The vertical beams are riddled with the nails and hooks that hold history. Pieces of harness, rusted tools, license plates from old trucks, or a calendar from a bygone era—they all tell a story. It is the task of the curator to pick the right exhibits, to find the single pieces that sum up the entirety of a people, a place, or a time long past.

  From the window of our old wooden barn, I could see my son, Todd, throwing the ball to our dog, a mature yellow Lab he’d named Christmas. The engines of both his truck and my wife’s car were warming up. Todd’s breath was condensing in the cold winter air. We were all preparing for another day’s work. For myself, I had an unusual task, one that I had embarked on nearly fifty years ago. It was time to finish it.

  I lifted Tucker’s leather collar off a hook, the letters of his name faded but still visible. At six o’clock, one of our family’s most important museum patrons was scheduled to visit. I wanted to put together that one exhibit that would make the past clear, not just for me but for her, too. To do so, I had to go back to a cold wintery place where I had been reluctant to travel. If I was to assume the curator’s role, I had no choice.

  Everyone has a winter like that one. A place and time that changes us forever. A place and time when the wind blew so cold that the memories still hurt. It was now time to walk straight through that hurt and excavate an important piece of my life. For her, I would do this work.

  The sound of gravel crunched in the driveway as Todd and Mary Ann each pulled out, leaving me alone on our farm. I would have the entire day to focus on my project. It seemed that I had been way too busy the last few decades, often doing unimportant things, to take the time to do something this important. Now the work had to be done.

  With the collar in my hand, I walked toward the house.

  Once inside, I collected the other pieces that would form the exhibit: an old tin cup from the kitchen windowsill; from the top shelf of a closet, a stack of letters carefully banded together and arranged chronologically, and a tattered puzzle box with hundreds of rattling pieces. I poured myself a cup of coffee, threw a few hickory logs on the fire, and settled into my old rust-colored corduroy recliner, the treasures assembled on my lap. This spot had always been a good place to think, to explore a few crevices and crannies and, if things went well, rejoin parts of myself that had been split apart.

  I picked up the tin cup and closed my eyes, waiting until I could feel the steely cold of that winter of 1962 blow across my face and hear the faint rumble of the old truck as it labored up McCray’s Hill.…

  Chapter 2

  THE TRUCK DOOR creaked open and then slammed shut. The old man walked through the back kitchen door and took off his hat, exposing gray hair cut short. He had high, flat cheeks that were tanned in the summer from hours spent working outside, a Roman nose slightly large but proud, and a complexion that was surprisingly immune from wrinkles for his seventy-two years.

  He was an inattentive shaver who apparently believed that using a razor on alternate days was good enough. His eyes were as blue as the Kansas sky and as sharp as a red-tailed hawk.

  There was not a suggestion of fat on his frame, which was steeled by work too hard to imagine by today’s standards. After fourteen-hour days in the barns and fields, he moved stiffly. The no-nonsense look on his face was as constant as the cuts, bruises, and scrapes on his body.

  Now he gently kissed on the cheek the tall, white-haired woman standing at the kitchen sink, and filled an old tin measuring cup with the cool rainwater drawn from their cistern. He tilted his grizzled head back, drained the cup empty, and then let out a long “Ahhh.” He repeated this ritual several times a day during their nearly fifty-year marriage. It unfailingly brought a contented smile to her face.

  Standing there together by the sink on that early-winter afternoon, they appeared a perfectly matched team, ready to plow through the prairie sod that had sustained generations of McCrays. She was lithe, beautiful, and wore one of her ubiquitous flowered dresses, beneath which radiated a calm goodness that was a wellspring of comfort to all who knew her.

  In the summer months, he might fill and empty the tin cup four or five times before his thirst was quenched. Any water that remained at the bottom of the cup he would unceremoniously pitch out the kitchen window onto his wife’s jewel-toned flowers, the blossoms of which she chose for one purpose alone: the nectar that best attracted her beloved hummingbirds.

  But that day, one cup full of water was enough. Grandpa Bo set the cup down, clutched Grandma Cora’s elbow, and pulled her close to him.

  In a secretive way, from behind my book, I watched them from my reading spot on the living room sofa. For several months now, I had been hiding behind, or perhaps in, my books. That afternoon, I had to leave Tarzan stranded in a tree, so that I could pick up a few words of the conversation between my grandparents, two of the people I loved most in the world and whose house I’d shared every day of my thirteen years.

  My grandmother’s voice seemed surprised. “Not again. Oh, no. Bo, I’m so disappointed.” After letting out a pained sigh, she continued, “I shouldn’t be surprised, though, given his state of mind. The poor fellow practically had to raise himself with those parents of his, and he’s lost more than he’s gained in this life—so many jobs, his marriage, and now a friend.”

  There was a silence and I could not hear their words until her much louder “You what?”

  His baritone voice reassured her. “Don’t be upset, Cora. This can work out.”

  “I’m just shocked, that’s all. I never thought … Are you sure?”

  He grunted. “I stopped being sure of anything on June 15, 1962.”

  When I heard that date, a sinking feeling came over me. Like December 7, 1941, it was one of a half-dozen dates our family would never forget. After putting my book down, I got up and walked into the kitchen. The talk stopped when I entered the room.

  They both looked at me expectantly, so I invented a question. “Grandpa, did you sell the cows?”

  “Yes, I sold them, and had lunch at the Ox. Saw Hank Fisher and his wife.” He hesitated and then just spat it out. “And I made a stop on the way and brought home a dog.”

  “A dog!” I had always wanted a puppy and I could barely believe my ears.

  “It’s not exactly what you think, George, so don’t get excited.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “He’s not a puppy and you don’t get to keep him. Frank Thorne has himself in a bad spot again. He has to leave his farm for
a while. He was your dad’s friend and he’s our neighbor, so I guess it’s up to us to help him out. I’d appreciate your help.”

  “You mean that mean-looking red dog that he keeps tied up in front of the house? The one that barks like a devil every time my school bus goes by?”

  “That’s the one.”

  My idea of a good dog was a friendly puppy. I let my feelings be known in a simple and direct way. “I don’t think I want to take care of Thorne’s dog.”

  Bo McCray had the same simple, direct communication style. “You’ll do it anyway.”

  I looked to my grandmother for support, and she stared hard at me in a way that signaled this issue was not up for discussion. “All right, then, where is he?” I asked.

  With a tinge of annoyance, Grandpa set his battered tin cup down on the countertop. “In the truck,” he answered, pointing toward the back door. “And if he has a name, Thorne didn’t mention it.”

  The old truck was typically parked in the implement barn, but this afternoon it had been left in the gravel driveway close to our farmhouse, so I walked out the back door, without another word. I stopped and stared at the truck for a moment, not sure what to expect and having no idea of the value of the cargo in the hold.

  Chapter 3

  AS I LET the kitchen door slam behind me, it occurred to me that, like an elephant or a giraffe, a dog was foreign to the McCray farm. The adult words, spoken frequently by my father and by my grandfather, too, came rushing back to me. Dairy cattle and dogs don’t mix, George. Quit asking for a puppy.