by Donna Milner
Last Christmas, their first without me, was torture for them both. They hid from it. Dad at his office downtown, Mom in the wine she drank while she sat all alone in front of the TV in our family room. No lights, no Christmas decorations, no tree, no gifts, no turkey. But the harder they tried to pretend it was just another day, the worse it became. Now she dreads next month, October 26th, the one-year anniversary of ‘The Day.’ Instead of celebrating my living, she wallows in the circumstances of my dying. And although I can wait forever—forever meaning something entirely different from where I am now—Levi can’t.
Even the Elders, who come to talk to ‘their warrior on ice,’ leave shaking their heads. It’s Mom who Levi needs to speak to. If she would just meet with him, if she could see what was happening to him, she would have to listen to what he has to say. She wouldn’t turn her back on someone who needs her. Would she? Mr Emerson says these are not the questions I should be asking.
Hanging onto earthbound worries will not lead to understanding and remembering.
I’m not sure anymore if these are his thoughts or mine. It’s getting harder and harder to tell. There is an elusive memory about the white light that teases me. Like wisps of smoke, remembrance floats within my grasp, if only I could let go of my attachment to earth and reach for it.
But I can’t. I can’t let go or stop worrying. About Mom and Dad and Levi. Especially Levi. My father, and even my mother, could find a way to heal, a way to go on with their lives, given enough time. But Levi doesn’t have time. Like Mr Emerson, he’s fading away. His face is so hollow now; the dimples I once loved to see appear no longer mark his cheeks, even if he could remember how to smile.
His sole plan right now is to do a sweat—a vision quest to the spirit world—on the anniversary of my death. If Mom had only answered his call, he was going to invite her to join him in the sweat, or to participate in a healing circle. At one time I know she would have seen this as an honour. I’m not so sure now.
With the arrival of this puppy though, I see a tiny chink in the armour of her grief. It’s freakin’ funny watching the cute little guy follow Mom around the house. He shadows her every move, while she does her best to ignore him. In the kitchen, she fills his dish and places it on the floor. The dog remains sitting on his haunches, looking from her to the dish and back to her, as if waiting for permission. “Okay, go get it, Pup,” she says. She doesn’t know what to call him, hadn’t thought to ask Terri. Watching him gobble down his dinner, she catches herself mulling over names, then shakes her head. She starts to turn away, muttering to herself that she will do nothing more than the necessary for the dog before she delivers him to Virgil. She stops short, and looks down at the puppy pushing the dish forward with his nose trying to get at the last dregs of his food. “Now you have me talking to myself,” she tells him before heading into the den. The dog looks up and follows her, his huge paws padding across the kitchen tiles. He plops down in the doorway and lies with his head between his paws, his tail swishing across the floor, while his black eyes watch her, watching television. The moment she glances over at him, he lifts his head, and his ears stand at attention. She lets out an involuntary chuckle, the first genuine laughter I have heard from her since, well, since ‘The Day.’
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she scolds him. “You’re not worming your way into my heart.” After a while she glances down during a commercial and is startled to find the puppy’s mottled grey head resting on her lap, his eyes closed while her hand unconsciously scratches behind his ears.
She jumps up and switches off the television then goes out to the back porch to bring in his kennel for the night. The puppy watches her drag it into the mudroom. He enters it without coaxing, but remains standing behind the wire grate, his eyes following her as she leaves the room. On her way upstairs Mom tries to ignore his whimpering. But I know she’ll give in. She was always a soft touch. Sure enough, before long she’s back in the mudroom, letting the dog out, telling him that it’s only because she can’t stand listening to all his whining. She wrestles the crate up to her bedroom, bumping and banging the walls, while he follows at her heels. The minute the kennel is in place next to her bed he enters and settles down.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Mom says climbing into bed, “this is only for one night.”
Hah! Yeah right!
27
“What’s this?” Ian asks coming into the mudroom early the next morning.
“I thought you could tell me,” Julie says, glancing up from the stool where she is hastily pulling on her runners. At her side the puppy lets out a low growl. “It’s okay,” she assures him, then stands up, grabbing her jacket from the hook by the door. The dog rises as well, keeping himself between her and Ian.
“Where did you come from?” Ian asks kneeling down to eye level with the black puppy, who pushes his body against Julie’s legs.
“Apparently from Virgil. Did you ask him to get us a dog?”
“No, of course not. I wouldn’t…” He stops mid-sentence. “Oh Jeez. I might have nodded when he suggested it in one of his notes, way back. I never gave it any more thought. Maybe I gave the impression that I had agreed to it.”
“Yeah. Maybe. Because here it is.” She leans over to snap on the leash, and then opens the door. “And it needs to go right now.”
Ian rises and follows her out. “He certainly seems protective of you already. Maybe a dog’s not such a bad idea, Julie.”
“No!” she replies, without looking back. “No!”
After the puppy relieves himself, he heads straight for the north road, dragging Julie like a pull-toy on the leash behind him. Nearing Virgil’s driveway, his straining becomes more urgent. She allows him to turn down the road, struggling to keep up with him.
Virgil’s pickup truck is once again parked at the back of the cabin. Well, now is as good a time as any.
Suddenly the leash is yanked from her hand and the dog bolts. Julie chases after him, then realizing where he is headed, she slows to a walk, watching the puppy streak past the cabin and down to the lake—the last place he’d seen Terri. He leaps onto the dock and paces back and forth, yelping out over the water as if he can summon her back. Julie smiles sadly at the sight, then joins him on the dock. After a few half-hearted whimpers, he comes over and stands at her side, his attention still on the lake. He looks so forlorn that Julie can’t resist stroking his neck. “I’m sorry, Pup.”
After a while she turns and looks up at the cabin, then back to the dog. “Well, what do you think?” she asks.
He tilts his head. “You decide,” Julie says making her way off the dock. Walking up to the cabin she peers over her shoulder just as the dog stands up and pads over to the ramp, the leash dragging free on the wooden boards behind him. The moment he is on shore he starts toward the road then stops and glances at her impatiently, as if asking whether she is coming or not.
Julie holds her hand up in the ‘stay’ gesture she saw Terri use, then climbs the porch steps. Even before she reaches the door she senses the cabin is empty. She knocks anyway, listens for any signs of life then knocks harder. Hearing nothing inside, she goes over to the window. Unable to detect any movement in the darkened interior, she makes a peephole with her hands against the glass to block out the light and tries to peer past a dreamcatcher hanging on the other side of the glass. She jumps at the sudden touch on her hip, and looks down to find the puppy pushing up against her.
“Caught me,” she laughs nervously. She bends over to retrieve the dragging leash. “Looks like we don’t really need this. But, just in case,” she says, leading him off the porch. “Wouldn’t want to lose you before we can hand you over to Virgil.”
With the leash hanging loose between them they walk away from the cabin, Julie feeling a twinge of disappointment, mixed with an equal amount of relief, that Virgil isn’t there.
Only when she is taking off her runners in the mudroom back at the ranch house, does it occur to her that she had slept t
hrough the entire night last night—without hearing either Virgil’s truck or Ian return home—that in fact last night was the best sleep she’d had in almost a full year.
Later over breakfast, with the dog fed and curled up at her feet, she tells Ian about Terri Champion’s visit. Like her sleep last night, the conversation is the easiest she and Ian have had in a long while. She finds herself laughing while she relates Terri’s request for a china teacup, and compares it to her mother’s preference.
“Sounds like an interesting character,” Ian says taking the last bite of his omelette.
“Yes, she is. I like her.”
Ian bends over and looks under the table. “And what about you?” he asks.
“He is going back to Virgil.”
Ian straightens up. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“That’s too bad.”
“I already tried to return him,” Julie says, ignoring Ian’s words, “but either Virgil’s not home, or he’s a very sound sleeper. We were just over there.”
Ian raises his eyebrows but quickly recovers. Julie wonders briefly if his reaction is to the unlikelihood of her remark about Virgil sleeping in, or to the fact that she had gone over to his cabin.
“He’s probably logging.” Ian takes a sip of coffee, then adds, “If you want, I’ll take the dog back to him later.”
“That’s okay.” Julie reaches for his empty plate and stacks it on top of hers. “I’ll do it myself.”
Once again an expression of surprise flickers across Ian’s face, but he says nothing as Julie clears the table.
28
By the time Julie finishes puttering in the kitchen, changes her clothes, puts on her backpack and hiking boots and goes back outside, the sun is directly overhead. How quickly the landscape has changed overnight. Earlier this morning, preoccupied with chasing after the dog, she had missed the brilliant display of fall colours. Now, in no rush, the puppy at her heel, she takes it all in.
Unlike the reds and orange of the coastal autumns of her youth, the Chilcotin fall blooms golden. Across the lake, poplar, cottonwood and aspen groves burst yellow among dark hues of evergreen. All along the north road, sunlight slants through the forest, giving the deciduous trees a fluorescent glow, and accenting the rust undergrowth. A sudden gust of wind creates a tiny dust devil on the road in front of them, lifting up a whirlwind of golden leaves. Like snowflakes, they swirl and rise on the updraft, before fluttering back to the ground to litter the dirt road. Excited by their flickering movement, straining at the end of his leash, the puppy pounces and snaps at one, then another.
Julie laughs out loud at his antics. She catches herself and shakes her head, mentally relisting all the reasons why she does not want a dog.
It’s too long a commitment. Years.
I don’t have the energy to train him. He’s already trained.
Pets tie you down. Where is she going anyway?
They’re messy. No, that’s her mother’s reason, not hers. At any rate she’s not keeping him and that’s that. She doesn’t have the space in her head, or her heart.
Still, as they approach the turnoff up to the landing she catches herself slowing down, delaying, just as she had dragged her heels leaving the house after breakfast.
Without the music blaring from her backpack—chalk up one advantage to having a dog—she can hear the distant whine of a chainsaw. She gives the leash a gentle tug and starts up the rutted trail. At the same moment Virgil’s dog suddenly appears at the top of the hill. He stands motionless, his tail curled into a question mark, the hair on the ridge of his back standing up. “It’s okay,” Julie calls out. She has no idea what the dog’s name is and can only hope he remembers her. On guard, he watches them approach. The puppy yips and leaps forward tugging at the leash, wanting nothing more than to play. The older dog starts moving stealthily toward them, looking for all the world like a wolf ready to spring. Julie stops and pulls the pup to her side. Suddenly a whistle sounds from above and Virgil’s dog stops in his tracks. He remains where he is as his master joins him.
“Thanks,” Julie calls out continuing up the hill, “I wasn’t sure what his reaction would be to us.”
As if expecting them and there’s no need for acknowledgement, Virgil points to her hand and then at the puppy’s collar.
Julie stops and looks down at the leash. “Really?” she asks. “Let him go?”
Virgil nods.
“Okay,” she says slowly. Fighting her reluctance, and she realizes, her protectiveness, she does as he asks.
The moment the pup is free, he crouches down, submissive, allowing the older dog to check him out with his nose. Virgil watches for a few moments, then turns back up the hill. Finished sniffing and apparently satisfied, his dog follows. The puppy bounds after them. Julie rolls up the leash and shoves it in her pocket. All the way up to the landing the older dog struts beside his master ignoring, or tolerating—Julie is not sure which—the exuberant puppy.
When they enter the clearing, the Clydesdales, more concerned with their noon meal, don’t bother to lift their massive heads from their feed bucket. Julie follows Virgil to the far side of the landing, where the remnants of his lunch sit on a stump. As they approach, a crow lifts from a chair-high log bolt next to the stump and wings clumsily away, a bread crust clasped firmly in its ebony beak.
Motioning Julie to the log bolt, Virgil sits on the edge of the stump and removes a Thermos and a blue tin cup from his lunch bucket. While she shrugs the backpack from her shoulders and takes a seat, he fills the cup and the Thermos lid with coffee. With neither offer, nor acceptance, the tin cup passes from his gnarled fingers to hers.
She wonders if he would like to hear the music again—is about to ask when he rests his elbows on his knees, and with steam rising from the Thermos lid cupped in his hands, he watches the puppy. At his side his dog sits at attention, also keeping an eye on the pup, who has tired of trying to entice him to play and has now turned his attention to the horses.
The pup circles them cautiously, snapping and retreating with a yelp when a hind leg suddenly kicks out the moment he gets too close. Julie restrains the impulse to call out a warning. If Virgil is unconcerned, why should she be?
She settles back and sips her coffee, while the lulling sounds of autumn surround her: dried aspen leaves clicking in the breeze; the chick-a-dee-dee-dee call of the tiny migrating birds flittering through the branches; pine cones thudding to the ground nearby. Lazy autumn insects add a background drone to the music of the forest. Finally the puppy tires of being ignored by the horses and scurries around investigating his surroundings.
Beside her, Virgil takes a final gulp of his coffee, rises and throws the dregs in an arc across the ground. From the top branches of a nearby spruce tree a crow barks impatient orders. Virgil packs his Thermos away, and fishes out an unfinished sandwich. Tearing it apart he tosses pieces into the air and the demanding bird swoops down to claim his due. As if waiting in the wings, a squirrel races across the landing for his share.
Without ceremony, Virgil pulls on his work gloves and walks away, leaving Julie sitting on the stump as he returns to his horses. Without wasted movement, he removes their feed buckets, adjusts leather harnesses and collars, then takes up the reins and turns the team around. Dismembered boughs and branches crunch and snap beneath their hooves, filling the air with a renewed evergreen scent. Feeling dismissed, Julie watches Virgil drive the team toward a logging trail on the north end of the landing. A moment later the puppy plunks his head onto her lap.
She jumps up and hollers, “Wait!”
Without breaking stride, Virgil glances back over his shoulder.
Pulling the leash from her pocket, Julie rushes forward, waving it in the air. Halfway across the landing, with a will of its own, her arm drops to her side. She stops. The pup halts beside her. She hesitates for a moment, and glances down at it. When she looks up again Virgil has turned his attention back to his horses.
<
br /> She shoves the leash back into her jacket pocket. “Thanks for the dog,” she says to his retreating back.
29
Within days there’s no longer any need for the leash. During their walks, the puppy bounds here and there, giving fruitless chase to teasing squirrels and chipmunks, flushing out flared-neck willow grouse. Yet the moment she calls him, he always stops mid-bound and races back to her for his ear-scratching reward.
Ian accepts his presence without questions or an I-told-you-so, for which Julie is grateful.
They both laugh out loud the first time they catch themselves speaking to each other through the animal.
“You need to tell Julie she’s feeding you too much, Pup.”
“Tell him that’s because that’s just what you are, a growing puppy.”
And yet, even in their awareness, before long, this using the dog as a conduit between them becomes habit.
“What do you think, Pup? Should you and Ian fill the woodbox?”
“We’ll go do that little thing for her right after lunch then, eh, Pup.”
Pup. Unoriginal at best, but she can come up with no other name that seems fitting. And so Pup it is.
His exuberant company adds a dimension to her daily hikes that is comforting, reassuring. He’s an excuse to talk out loud, to raise her voice in hopes of warning any larger animals that may be nearby. She turns the iPod backpack speakers on less and less.
Each morning arrives a little darker, a little cooler, yet by afternoon the temperature can often rise to a summer high. Stiff winds come out of nowhere—patiently undressing the leaf-bearing trees—and then disappear just as quickly. Hoping to record the beauty of this Chilcotin autumn before the aspen, cottonwoods and willows are naked skeletons, Julie brings along her camera whenever she’s outside. Snapping pictures wildly during her hikes, she returns home and downloads them every evening, only to be disappointed not to have captured the true colours of the day. Still, she tries again and again, hoping to find the right light, the perfect shot, before those golden hues are stripped away.