Chasing Augustus

by Kimberly Newton Fusco

  I’ve really lost him?

  I let the towel slip from my elbow, press my hand on my throbbing brow, try to block the pictures in my head.

  Her old dog whines. Swanson writes in her notebook:

  I’m sorry, Jack’s girl. I’ll show you.

  I don’t want to see the place where I lost my Gloaty Gus. Swanson walks to the door three times and keeps coming back and pulling on my good arm to get me to follow, but I sit where I am.

  My head short-circuits, hornets whirl. It’s a good thing my mum isn’t here. The snorting bull rearing inside me would shove her under the waves.

  The only reason I let Swanson pull me up is because it’s been eons since anyone called me Jack’s girl.

  Rain falls in thick sheets and we are soaked before we reach the driveway. I hold my elbow close to my chest and the old dog leans her soggy body against Swanson as she plods ahead. This is how we shuffle along, silently. Finally, an adult who doesn’t talk all the time.

  I am surprised when we turn sharply toward the tractor strung up with the poison ivy. This is a long way for the milk truck to come. But when we reach the apple orchard, where the trees are bent like old men, Swanson points to several small crosses, all made of branches, all without names.

  My heart splits. So this is what she meant. She wasn’t going to show me where my dog died, she was going to show me where he is buried.

  Water streams down my forehead and into my eyes and inside the coat, many sizes too big. Swanson pulls the hood higher on my head. It smells of fireplaces and dogs, maybe a little of Augustus.

  Swanson’s old dog noses at my side. My legs shake. I lean against one of the apple trees but even that can’t hold me up and I slip and land in a lump on the ground and stay there for a very long time, and the tears come then, finally, after all these months, and they come slowly at first and then they are a river let loose, and I sob and sob and sob because the hole in my heart is bigger than even the universe.

  Swanson grabs my good arm to pull me up but I slump so far into the ground I become part of the earth and I breathe in the wet smell of fallen leaves.

  She clucks at her old dog, snapping her fingers, and the dog (that is not my dog) sniffs the air with her white muzzle raised and barks a moaning yelp—which I now know could never be my dog’s.

  I take a deep hollow aching breath, and when I let it out, Swanson tugs at my coat to get me up.

  The ground tilts, the sky wails, the earth moans.

  After all this time,

  I’ve lost him.

  Swanson’s old dog hobbles through the wet grass, sniffing constantly, brushing up against logs and boulders, navigating from one apple tree to the next, pointing her muzzle into the rain, following a compass I cannot see.

  She yaps again through all the pouring rain, and again and again and again.

  And then, from somewhere deep inside the chicken coop, a rich booming glorious bark reaches out through the hurtling rain to find me.

  I jump up.

  I’d know that bark anywhere.

  After all this time,

  I haven’t lost him.

  Then, still dizzy, with muscles weak as Jell-O and toes that are gushing about how they knew all along that everything would work out, I run. Just like in Harry’s old movies, I fly, and when I reach the chicken coop and yank open the door, my Gloaty Gus leaps on me, and of course I fall—because he is such a big lug—and he licks my face like I am a piece of sweet butterscotch and my cheeks are also wet from the rain.

  It is all I ever hoped it would be.

  It takes the rest of the afternoon, but thanks to Swanson’s old notebook and a tattered diary she pulls from the nightstand by her bed, I finally piece things together.

  Her dog’s name is Queenie, although once upon a time it was Emmeline Morning Star of Boston, and my toes breathe a sigh of relief that things got changed. Queenie is a purebred golden retriever and, unlike my mutt Augustus, was given a very formal show name by her former owner.

  Queenie never won a single ribbon, though, because she began losing her sight as a puppy and Swanson rescued her right after. She is twelve now and sleeps on Swanson’s bed, and when Augustus saw how things were here, he told them roll over Beethoven, and I wonder how they all fit, since my Gloaty Gus is such a pillow hog.

  Swanson began locking Augustus in the chicken coop and sometimes the barn on milk delivery days because of that thing he has about the milk truck. She padlocked the barn because she was worried about Avery Taylor coming out. She also couldn’t leave him in the house because we all know how he jumps out.

  He broke two windows.

  It all makes sense when you think about it. My mum giving my dog away—that’s what doesn’t make sense.

  Your mother told me you didn’t want him anymore. I would never have taken him if I had known.

  I pull Augustus up on the couch and wrap the quilt over us, and when he is all snuggled up next to me, he sighs and gets his Gloaty Gus look on him, like he has the best life of any dog ever, and of course I have to hug him because he is right.

  —

  We stay like this for a very long time—with the rain pouring down outside and the love of a great dog keeping me warm. Swanson rewraps the onions, and the dog (that is not my dog) pads over and noses into our business, looking at us with her eyes that never open, whining, and then she lies down in front of the couch, dropping her muzzle on the rug.

  It is too much for Augustus. Before I can grab him, he jumps on the floor and licks at that spot just above Queenie’s nose, then circles until he finds the right place. He flops down and nestles his head in the warm place between her chin and chest.

  I call him back to me but he makes that sigh that big dogs make and nestles closer to Queenie and that’s the exact moment a worry worm begins winding its way into my heart.

  Swanson slices a fat loaf of homemade bread, melts butter in an old fry pan, and sprinkles it with cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

  She slices a banana and fries the pieces in the spiced butter. She spreads the bread with crunchy peanut butter, lays sizzling banana slices on top, then fries the whole sandwich. When she puts it in front of me, the bread is toasty and buttery.

  While I eat the best sandwich of my life, the rain pours against the windows and thumps the roof. Every so often Queenie moans in her sleep and Augustus pricks his ears forward and lifts his head to look at her. He keeps licking that spot just above her nose. I try to pull him back to me, but he snuggles closer to her.

  I snap my fingers and call Augustus and he looks up for a minute, grins that grin, and burrows closer to Queenie. When she tries to get up but can’t get a good hold on the floor after lying there for so long, Swanson lifts under her belly. Stone-faced, I watch Augustus yawn, stand up, stretch long and deep, and push his flank against hers so they can navigate the room together.

  “Get over here,” I snap, but Augustus ignores me as Swanson opens cans of Blue Buffalo dog food. She fills two bowls and sets them on the floor. When Queenie sticks her face in the one on the left, Augustus gently nudges her to the other side.

  One good thing, Augustus still eats like a wolf.

  Swanson wants to show me something.

  She pulls two harnesses out of the hutch and straps one on Queenie, and when she buckles Augustus into the other, he sits tall and barrels out his chest.

  Then Swanson snaps one end of a rope to Queenie and the other to Augustus, yoking them like sled dogs, like oxen, like beads on a string.

  She motions for me to follow her to the porch. Outside in the pouring rain, she makes that clucking noise and waves her hand at Augustus, and he jumps off the porch like a horse rushing out of the gate, and Queenie jumps, too. Harness bells ring through the rain and Augustus slows his pace for just a moment so Queenie can match his powerful stride.

  My heart swells as my Gloaty Gus and Queenie fly through the sopping fields, flanks heaving, tails soaring, fur rippling. Water flies off the tall gra
ss as they jump over logs and gallop toward the apple orchard, heads high, Augustus setting the course, Queenie, with her eyes closed, trusting, her left shoulder brushing against his right.

  I hear my mum telling me at least he’s making something of himself, and the worry worm plunges to the center of my heart.

  After a few minutes Augustus leads Queenie back to the porch, and even though my toes keep warning me that part of Augustus belongs to Queenie now, I heave a tennis ball into the wet field and watch them run side by side, and the tall grass weeps right alongside me.

  He is her conductor, her leader, her guide, her friend, and together they fly across the field for the ball. Like a lead sled dog, he has a job to do and a grin on his face. I push my mum’s voice out of my head so I can talk to my papa:

  What do I do? I can’t leave him here with them.

  When I get no answer, I tell my papa: I won’t give up the true-blue friend of my soul when I’ve just found him. I won’t. Don’t even ask me to do that.

  My papa is silent, as he is more and more these days so I can work things out for myself.

  God’s bones, I tell him, I could use some help.

  “Are you insane?” is what Harry roars when he jumps out of his truck.

  I try not to concentrate on the fire that shoots out his eyes.

  “I’ve been looking for you for hours! You could’ve been killed riding your bike in that hailstorm. You could be dead in a ditch!”

  Swanson’s knuckles go white squeezing the porch column. Her bone face turns ash.

  Rain slides off Harry’s fishing hat and onto his yellow slicker. Augustus and Queenie trot out to the porch, and the screen door snaps behind them. They have been resting by the woodstove after flying through the sopping fields, and hearing Harry bellow, Queenie sniffs the wet air, then pushes her muzzle into Swanson’s knee.

  Augustus takes one look at Harry and barks his bloody head off. I grab for his collar but of course he’ll have none of that and he leaps off the porch and roars about five feet from Harry’s work boots. With the scruffy fur on his back raised up like knight’s pikes, he doesn’t make a good impression.

  Augustus doesn’t believe in people yelling at me.

  Harry doesn’t believe in barking dogs.

  It’s a terrible combination.

  “No, Augustus! Bad dog. Bad, bad, bad dog!” I yell, flying off the porch into the pouring rain. I lunge, but Augustus sprints away, circling back to bark at Harry, and already my toes are warning me that things could go very badly for my dog and me if I don’t do something quickly.

  I leap and my fingers barely touch my dog’s wet fur before sliding off. “Augustus, stop that now!”

  My very bad dog ignores me and dashes around my grandpa’s feet, barking and sending fountains of puddle water spurting up.

  Harry balls his fists.

  Cheetahs claw inside my head. “No, Augustus! Bad dog. Bad, bad, bad dog.”

  When Augustus takes a breath to glance at Queenie, I jump and fly on top of him, belly-flopping, plunging my fingers into his fur, cinching his collar with a choke hold.

  My dog whimpers and I feel terrible. I scratch his ears and whisper that he better knock it off.

  Smoke is circling Harry’s ears when I finally look up.

  “I found my dog,” I say finally.

  “I see that.”

  Harry looks incredulously at Swanson. “You’ve had her dog all this time?”

  Swanson backs up a few paces. Somehow she has managed to get her wool hunting hat pulled down to her nose. Queenie whines and burrows into her leg.

  I hear my papa in my head: Show Harry. Show him what your dog can do.

  I drag my dog to the porch and pull the harnesses off the hook. Augustus barrels out his chest when I link him to Queenie. Then Swanson makes that clucking noise and sweeps her arm, and Augustus jumps off the porch and Queenie follows.

  This time they head for the barn. Augustus gently arcs his body around the edges of the building and Queenie glides like a sailing ship beside him. When they come around the back, his chest muscles ripple and there’s a grin on his face.

  Harry opens his mouth, closes it.

  I notice my bike is already in the back of the truck.

  My grandpa pulls his hat off and rubs his temples. He sees me looking at my bike.

  “I saw it in the bushes. I didn’t know where you were. All this rain…it’s a flood. I’d been looking for hours when finally Philippe told me about that snake in the suitcase and that you were bringing it out here. What I couldn’t figure out was why would you do that?”

  Hornets whirl. I could wring Philippe’s neck for telling on me.

  I brace myself for more fire, but Harry leaves the snake subject alone. Instead, while my dog flies across the wet fields and through the apple orchard once more, he pulls me close. It is the first time he has hugged me that I can ever remember and the metal clasps on his slicker pinch.

  “I told your mother I knew nothing about raising a girl,” he whispers in that gruff Marines voice that makes even steering wheels steer straighter. “But I’m not giving you up for anything, Rosie.” And then he hugs me so tight I have to make a space so I can breathe.

  When my dog finally leads Queenie back to the porch, they flop down together, panting. Swanson unhooks the harnesses.

  “How is that even possible?” I can’t tell if Harry is talking about Augustus helping Queenie or me finding my dog.

  “Let’s go home,” he says after a while. “Go get your dog.”

  Harry climbs in the truck and waits for me, tapping his thumbs on the steering wheel. My papa would have gone over and said something kind to Swanson, but Harry is not my papa.

  I take a few steps toward the porch. The worry worm plunges deeper and my toes warn me that many things have changed over the past year. My mum would say I lost my potential. I would say my dog found his.

  I call to Augustus but he nuzzles closer to Queenie. I call again and again and then I realize in one terrible moment how dashed my dreams really are.

  Eventually I turn back in the pouring rain, tears streaming down my face, and climb into the truck. Harry starts the motor, shifts the truck into reverse, puts one arm around me and one on the wheel, waits without words.

  My dog sits up and raises his ears and barrels out his chest. Swanson is too far away for me to hear that odd clucking noise, but she waves her arm out in front of her and in one mighty leap my Gloaty Gus jumps off the porch.

  I open the truck door and Augustus jumps in.

  “Unbelievable,” my grandpa says.

  At a little before six o’clock on Sunday night, Harry grabs his fishing hat and heads for the door.

  “Stop!”

  Augustus looks up from his spot under the table.

  “Why can’t you talk to her?”

  “I don’t need to talk to her. You do.” Harry picks up the paper bag filled with little flags and pulls a clean apron from the laundry basket by the couch.

  “I don’t want to talk to her.”

  He leaves his yellow slicker on the coatrack because finally, after all these days, the rain has stopped. “You’re not the sharpest pencil in the box, are you?”

  Hornets whirl when my grandpa talks like this. Cow-flop-breath.

  “You work it out with her, things will go better for you. That’s all.”

  “But she gave my dog away.” I can’t help the whine that flies out of my mouth.

  “People forget how much a kid can love a dog, Rosie.”

  Well, isn’t that the truth. “I don’t want her to take me to California.”

  “Did I ever once say anything about giving you up? Now go ice that elbow.”

  Fine. I dump ice cubes into a plastic bag and toss one on the floor because ever since he’s lived with Swanson, Augustus has a thing about ice cubes.

  Harry slams the door and the picture of me, Augustus, and my papa flips on the floor. I pick it up, swipe off the grit. Of the th
ree of us in that picture, only one of us is still missing.

  My papa would understand how I don’t want to talk to the person who gave the true-blue friend of my soul away, and why do I have to? When the phone rings, I let it go until it stops. A few minutes later it rings again.

  My dog and I decide to take a nap. I pull the army blanket over our heads. The Old Spice smell is long gone and in its place is the warm clumpy smell of dog fur.

  I snuggle up to him and doze off. When the phone rings a third time, my toes start their warning thing that maybe Harry is right.

  “Rosalita?”

  “It’s Rosie.”

  My mum pauses. “Yes.” She stops, takes a breath.

  “I called to remind you that I will arrive in a little over a week.”

  I scratch that long skinny spot at the top of my dog’s nose. I can hear my mum’s breathing.

  “Did you hear me, Ro?”

  I nod. Ro?

  The early-evening train rumbles into town. Our whole apartment building shakes and grit sifts through the screens.

  My mum breathes sharply, then sighs, softening her voice. “I want you to think more before I arrive about my idea of moving you out here. We have wonderful schools in California”

  “I found my dog,” I snap, sinking my nose deeper into his clumpy dog fur.

  My mum is quiet; I hear her breathing. “Your grandfather told me. He cussed me out, as you can imagine.”

  I didn’t know that. Augustus makes that deep sigh that big dogs make.

  “I’m fine here.” I scratch my Gloaty Gus on his chest the way he likes.

  “Yes, I understand that. But you almost had to repeat the entire last school year. You must admit that you’re not much of a success with your grandfather. But if you came out here, you could have a fresh start, really begin making something of yourself.”

  I breathe in sharply. Augustus flicks his ears.