A Dog's Courage--A Dog's Way Home Novel

by W. Bruce Cameron

  Taylor added, “But we’re headed back home to Glenwood Springs the day after tomorrow.”

  “I just can’t wrap my brain around a time line that takes my dog from outside Durango to Glenwood Springs to Denver.”

  “Well,” Gavin replied, “she’s a very special dog, our Bella.”

  “That she is. Hey, speaking of that, there’s something you can do. Bella loves when you take a small chunk of cheese and ask her, ‘Bella, would you like a t-i-i-iny piece of cheese?’ She’ll go absolutely hypnotized. Then you let her have it and she’ll act like you gave her the greatest gift ever.”

  Gavin smiled. “We’ll for sure do that. All right then. Bye, Dr. Ray.”

  “Call me Lucas, please. I’ll call when I know I can come get her. Probably day after tomorrow.”

  “Sounds great,” Gavin agreed.

  Taylor got up, put a hand on Gavin’s shoulder, and then went into the kitchen. “I think the champagne’s still a good idea, so let me fix you something to eat,” he suggested. “And I’ll let the term ‘our Bella’ go by without comment.”

  “Yeah, well, you actually didn’t let it go without comment,” Gavin said with a grin. He leaned down and I knew he wanted to touch me so I sat up. He grabbed my head in his hands and leaned forward and looked into my eyes. “You’re going to go home in a few days, Bella.”

  I wagged at the tender voice, which held a note of sadness. I thought I knew why—Gavin loved me, but he knew I always remained with him only briefly before resuming my Go Home to Lucas, this time with two kittens in tow. I would be sad to part with this pack, but I was the mother cat to Boy Kitten and Girl Kitten.

  “What is it, Gavin?” Taylor asked softly.

  There was a long silence.

  “I was just thinking, when Bella got lost—not the first time, but now, today—she came to us. She barked at our door. Because she trusts us.”

  Taylor shrugged. “I suppose.” There was another long silence. “You have something on your mind. Are you regretting that we called Lucas Ray? I mean, you know we had to.”

  I twitched an ear at the name of my boy. I had long learned, though, that people will say all sorts of things that don’t necessarily have anything to do with dogs.

  “Oh, not really,” Gavin replied. “That’s not it.”

  “Not … really?” Taylor repeated dubiously.

  “I don’t know, it’s just that when I saw her, I felt like our family was back together again.”

  “You seemed pretty happy,” Taylor admitted. “And then it turns out Bella already has a family.” There was another long pause. “Are you thinking you want to get another dog, maybe?” Taylor probed. “Someone to be a friend for Dutch?”

  Dutch lifted his head momentarily when he heard his name.

  Gavin shook his head. “No, it’s just that I realized when we were all together, you know, before we made the phone call, that I’m a good dog daddy.”

  “That you are.”

  “And you are too, Taylor,” Gavin continued. “Maybe I get a little more emotional than you do, but kids need that steady hand.”

  “Kids.”

  “What?”

  “You said kids.”

  Gavin was silent.

  Taylor sighed. “What are we really saying here, Gavin?”

  Twenty-four

  Dutch and I both watched alertly as Taylor ambled over to the refrigerator, and our noses twitched as he produced rustling sounds in there. Bacon, perhaps? Then we really reacted when Taylor returned to the table and handed Gavin something we both recognized. Cheese!

  We scrambled into best-behavior-style Sit. Taylor bent toward Dutch with a hand extended, while Gavin smiled at me. “Bella? You want a t-i-i-iny piece of cheese?”

  I was being so good I was trembling with the effort. I licked my lips, scarcely breathing. When that chunk of deliciousness was within reach, I lifted it ever so delicately from between his fingers. Dutch slurped his own morsel with a great deal of noise, glancing over at Gavin as if expecting to share my treats, which I was not about to allow.

  I was not surprised that Gavin knew about t-i-i-iny piece of cheese. Humans know everything.

  Taylor and Gavin straightened up and away from us, but Dutch and I remained in Sit position because the tantalizing redolence of that cheese still danced in the room.

  “So. Kids,” Taylor prodded.

  “You never said anything about a cat.”

  Taylor arched his eyebrows. “So, the author dissembles on the question.”

  Gavin chuckled and nodded. “Well, okay. Yeah, kids, like we talked about before.”

  “Talked about. Yes, and I said that if you really wanted that, I would never deny you the experience of being a father. And you’ve always said you didn’t think you had it in you. What’s changed?”

  Gavin stood up and went into the kitchen and poured himself something. Dutch and I both tracked his motions, though nothing was pulled out of the refrigerator. He didn’t even reach for the handle! If I could open a refrigerator, I’d sit there and stare into it all day.

  “Well, I kind of was following the thread that you were talking about.” Gavin handed Taylor a glass. “That maybe we should adopt another dog, so Dutch would have someone to play with. There are so many dogs out there who are lost and need families. We could get any breed we want. I mean, a sister for a Bernese would probably not be a Maltese or a Papillon, but maybe a dog the size of Bella. And then I started thinking about how these huge dogs like Dutch don’t live all that long, so would we get one his age? Or a puppy? And then I realized, that no matter what the age, we would wind up burying both of them, someday. And I haven’t been through something like that since childhood, when Blanche died.”

  “I still have trouble processing the name Blanche.”

  Gavin laughed softly.

  “Okay,” Taylor prompted. “If we got another dog, we’d outlive it. And?”

  Gavin agitatedly turned away and sat down in the living room and Dutch struggled to his feet. Sensing the same disquiet that I detected, he put his head in Gavin’s lap. Taylor left the table and joined Gavin in front of the fireplace. Taylor put a hand on Gavin, so I reluctantly left the kitchen table and all its possibilities to join them.

  “Gavin. You’re crying. Tell me what’s going on.”

  Gavin wiped his eyes. “So, say we adopt another dog. And another, sure. Or even a cat. But then I started thinking, there are also children out there who are abandoned. Children who could use a pair of daddies. And I’m not just being selfish. It isn’t only that our kids would bury us instead of the other way around, it’s that we would make as big a difference in their lives as we have for Dutch, and especially as we’ve done for Bella.”

  “I see.” Taylor nodded.

  “I got to say, for me to make a statement like what I just said, and for you to say ‘I see,’ makes me feel like this whole time when you’ve been saying we could adopt kids if I wanted, that what you were really saying was you knew that I’d never want to,” Gavin complained.

  “How is that fair?” Taylor objected. “I’ve always meant it. I just didn’t know you were having these feelings.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s a huge step, Gavin.”

  “Bella came back and I thought our family was back together again, but she has to leave, and her leaving makes me want what we don’t truly have. A real family, with children. Is that so wrong?”

  Taylor pulled in a deep, thoughtful breath. “I have to admit, when you first said Bella was home and I saw her, I was so happy.”

  Gavin raised his eyebrows. “Right? Something about having her walk in that door changed everything.”

  “Maybe not everything. But I see your point. Two dogs and suddenly we’re not just a married couple with a pet.”

  “We’re a family,” Gavin finished for him.

  There was a long silence. Dutch lifted his head and gazed up at Gavin, who no longer seemed sad.

  “So
, would being a human daddy mean you could no longer be a dog daddy?” Taylor asked lightly.

  “Oh, no, I will always be a dog daddy.”

  I was hearing the word ‘dog’ a lot, but with no food out in the open and the cheese gone from everyone’s fingers, I simply couldn’t maintain my focus on the people. I sprawled on the floor and closed my eyes.

  Next, I believed, Gavin and Taylor would take us for a quick walk in the trees. While Dutch lifted his leg, I would head out into the night and get back to the kittens.

  Except that didn’t happen. We were allowed out into the fenced-in backyard, and then we returned through the sliders.

  Though it felt good to be sleeping with Dutch, I was disturbed by the implications of my situation, especially the next morning, when Gavin and Taylor took us for a walk on leashes, and then returned us to the backyard.

  Gavin and Taylor were making no move to let me out so I could return to my duties as a mother cat. It was clear, suddenly and completely, that they intended to keep me at their home with Dutch.

  I loved Dutch, I loved Gavin, and I loved Taylor. But I had to protect the kittens. I remembered the big predator canines circling outside the den. Would they show the same restraint if I weren’t there and it was only the two cubs in the cave?

  I was too agitated to lie down with Dutch while my kittens were defenseless without me.

  I could still smell smoke, but it seemed far away. Also far were Boy Kitten and Girl Kitten—their scents weren’t present on the wind at all, but I knew in what direction they lay. I needed to get back to them.

  Gavin was gone most of the morning while I paced restlessly in the backyard. Dutch watched me lazily, seeming to understand my distress, if not its source. We both alerted, though, when we heard Gavin’s vehicle pull up the driveway. Taylor slid the back door open for us so that we could bound inside and greet Gavin at the front door. I thought that would give me my chance to escape, but Gavin was carrying a big box that intimidated me and I did not seize the opportunity to dart between his legs. Taylor shut the door firmly behind him.

  “Happy birthday!” Gavin announced.

  “Well, it’s not my birthday, that’s one thing, and another is I have never before in my life asked you to get me a chainsaw. Is this about the neighbors? I know you don’t like the guy’s politics.”

  Grinning, Gavin set the box on the floor with a loud thump. Dutch and I both sniffed it curiously, but could detect nothing of note. He straightened. “Okay, I know they say the fire isn’t likely to reach up here, but they’ve been wrong about it this whole time. Nobody thought copycats would keep setting new ones. According to the experts the one thing we need to do is cut down any trees that are up next to our house.”

  “The experts are not saying we need to cut down anything. They are saying the experts need to cut them down.”

  “Sure, great, but it could take weeks to get someone up here. They’re pretty busy—I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the whole state of Colorado is burning. So we’ve got that big dead ponderosa … that one has to come down. Then all those lodgepole pines on the south side are like a ladder coming up the mountain and directing the flames straight into the heart of our home.”

  “Spoken like a true author,” Taylor observed dryly. “What you really mean is you thought this would be fun.”

  “Sure!” Gavin replied brightly.

  Taylor smiled, shaking his head. “I don’t want to be a lumberjack. I’ve never wanted to be a lumberjack. I don’t like plaid. I don’t know how to work a chainsaw. I don’t even know which end you’re supposed to hold.”

  “You’re killing me. Which end.” Gavin slapped the box. “How hard can it be? This baby is top-of-the-line. The guy at the hardware store told me we could cut down the whole rain forest with it.”

  “You meet the most interesting people in the hardware store. I wish you would never go again.”

  Gavin and Taylor exited out the back door together but left Dutch and me in the house. Dutch was anxious and cried a little bit. He jumped up on the couch and stared out the back window, watching as Gavin and Taylor opened the side gate and slid through. Dutch was a good dog to his people.

  Dogs know that humans sometimes leave us by ourselves, which makes no sense—why go anywhere without a dog?

  After a while, we heard what was to my ears a very familiar, harsh, mechanical snarl. I wondered if it meant that soon trees would be catching on fire. That would be bad and it reminded me yet again that I needed to get back to my kittens.

  Now I was as anxious as Dutch.

  Or did the loud noise, which I associated with Scott and Mack and Dave, mean they were coming? I raised my nose—no, they weren’t here yet. But if they did arrive, would they take me back to Lucas? My thinking had been to lead the cubs to Lucas, not the other way around. How would I make my boy understand what we needed to do?

  Dutch and I watched without any real comprehension as the big old tree next to the house suddenly shuddered and began moving. It was falling, just as trees had fallen when they had been burning. Dutch and I looked on in concern as it came down toward us, faster and faster, crushing through the wooden fence of the backyard and smashing with tremendous violence into the roof right over our heads. The whole house echoed with the impact. Broken glass flew everywhere. Dutch yelped and we scrambled to get away. Dust filled the air and we cowered, not comprehending any of this. What was happening?

  “Dutch! Bella!” Gavin called urgently. The back gate burst open and he came running across the backyard to the sliders. He opened them with a bang. “Hey! Stay away from the glass! Come dogs, come!”

  Dutch and I meekly obeyed, running to him with our tails and ears down. He clearly wanted us out in the backyard, so we went.

  Once outside, we relaxed—the danger seemed to be indoors. Dutch lifted his leg as a way of returning to normal. I looked up as Taylor sadly shut the back gate behind him. He put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Well, that was more fun than I would’ve thought.”

  Gavin seemed angry. “We did everything it said on the box. We cut it perfectly. It should have fallen the other way.”

  “Well, let’s call the chainsaw company and complain. Maybe they’ll fix the roof and the window and everything destroyed in the cabin, which looks to be our bedroom, at a minimum.”

  Inside smells were wafting out into the backyard.

  Gavin stared mournfully at the tree as it lay in the crease it had created in the house. Both men seemed upset with what had just occurred, which led me to wonder why they had done it in the first place.

  “We have to keep the dogs out here until we’ve cleaned up the broken glass.”

  Taylor shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I guess I’d rather go down and hang out with my lumberjack buddies at the bar. Throw darts and listen to Garth Brooks. While I’m gone, would you mind getting the tree out of the living room?”

  “Okay, fine, I’m sorry!” Gavin replied testily. “I was just trying to do what they say to protect our home.”

  Taylor laughed. “Oh, you did an excellent job at that! No self-respecting fire is going to show up now. What would be the point? The place is already obliterated.”

  The two entered the house through the sliding door and closed it firmly in Dutch’s face. My friend came over to me, nosing me and putting a playful paw upon my shoulder. Now that Gavin and Taylor were in the house and the machines were quiet and trees had stopped toppling over, he was a much happier dog.

  I examined the big tree, looking at how it had plunged through the fence, smashing a whole section. Right where the fence and the tree met, the debris from the fence formed something of a step for me, and I cautiously ascended until I stood on the tree trunk. Big Kitten had taught me how to stride confidently on big, fallen trees. As if she were leading me now, I carefully walked along the trunk over the flattened fence, until I could leap down safely on the other side.

  I was out.

  I loved Gavin
and Taylor and Dutch, but I could not stay here. I had to protect my kittens. As bad as I felt about leaving them alone, I would feel worse if I did not go back to my cat family and lead them to safety with my boy Lucas. And convincing Boy Kitten and Girl Kitten to follow me here would not be a good idea—Gavin and Taylor would simply shut the cubs in the house, taking them for walks on leashes, never letting any of us do Go Home.

  I trotted briskly back the way I had come the day before, my nose leading me unerringly up into the mountains. I had not gone far before I heard an unmistakable sound behind me and turned to look over my shoulder.

  Dutch was following me.

  Twenty-five

  I knew exactly how to retrace my steps back to the cubs, and did so at a rapid pace, driven by my worry. I pictured Girl Kitten growing impatient and leading her brother through the tight crack and out into the world. Would they try to find me? How long before some predator spotted them? I remembered the gigantic bird with a meal gripped in her sharp talons. Danger like that could descend from the sky without warning.

  Dogs understand that sometimes they are running together, even if only one of them knows the destination. Dutch unquestioningly clung to my flank as I made my way uphill. After a time, he seemed to be lagging. I reluctantly slowed my own pace because we were a pack.

  When I caught the first scent of the kittens, I worried they had, indeed, wandered out into the open.

  Dutch was panting and probably a little confused. He was a big dog and the long run had been hard for him. I slowed as we approached the entrance to the cave, letting him catch up. He nosed me in concern. Both of us could smell that there were animals on the other side of the crack in the rocks, but only I knew that they were a pair of harmless kittens.

  Dead animals emit a different odor from living ones. Carefully, I sorted the commingled scents in my nose.

  They were alive.

  I yipped softly, letting the cubs know I had returned. Within moments, Girl Kitten came springing through the narrow opening right at me, jumping up and seeking to wrestle the way I had taught her. Moments later, her brother joined the fray. Their play contained a certain urgency—they had clearly missed me.