I did not know what we were doing.
“I’m not dreaming, right? This really is Bella, isn’t it?” Olivia asked Lucas.
Lucas nodded. “Oh yes. I was sleeping here and she just showed up out of nowhere.”
Olivia smiled down at me. “Absolutely amazing.”
The other people were straining with chains, and I saw the rock near Lucas budge a little and he winced. Then he looked at Olivia. “Oh, that’s not the amazing part. You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you.”
I sat with Lucas and Olivia and their new friends, who loved playing with rocks. Then I lifted my nose because the air brought me a scent I recognized as well as I would my own. Big Kitten, Girl Kitten, and Boy Kitten were not far, though I could tell from the way their scent was receding that they were still headed away.
I loved them. They were my cat family. Just as Olivia and Lucas were my people family. But a good dog belongs with a people family. I would never forget Big Kitten and her cubs, but I was happiest when I was a good dog.
Epilogue
Things soon changed in the human world in ways even a dog could observe.
Immediately upon returning to our home, Lucas began wearing a thick, heavy boot on one of his feet but not the other. I sniffed it, but it wasn’t any more interesting than any of his other shoes. He abandoned it after some time.
The biggest, most immediate difference is what happened to the Room of Things. This was a place with two windows and a nice summertime breeze and chairs and pillows and boxes. Whenever friends came over for dinner in the past, Lucas and Olivia would run around our home, grabbing items and throwing them in this room, and usually that’s where those things remained. But now Lucas and Olivia, in the space of a few days, moved everything out of the Room of Things, and Lucas applied a foul-smelling liquid to the walls, and Olivia frowned and said, “Now that it’s up, I don’t like the color,” and so he did it again, and she said, “Much better.”
The main new object in the Room of Things was a small wooden bed. It had high sides to prevent a dog from jumping up to nap there, but otherwise, when I stood up on my back legs to examine it, I found it about as interesting at Lucas’s boot. It smelled like a bed that no one had ever slept in, and that was it.
Winter came and applied blankets of snow and then the weather warmed up and Olivia stopped leaving for work in the morning. She had decided it would be better to remain with their dog. It was, in my opinion, the right decision.
I expected Lucas to go back to the lake and retrieve the Jeep, but he didn’t. Instead he wheeled into the driveway one day in a big, boxy car. I learned a new word: minivan.
“Not much longer,” Lucas told me one afternoon. I wagged, hoping he was telling me something about bacon. He turned to look into the living room. “Honey, I’m going to take a shower.”
“Okay!” Olivia called back.
I loyally tracked Lucas into the small Room of Intriguing Odors and did a Sit while he stood behind a rubber curtain and the smell of damp boy filled the air. I wagged when Olivia came in, one arm cradling her stomach, which was how she chose to walk now. She pulled aside the curtain. “Hey, can I use your phone to call mine? I can’t find it.”
“Knock yourself out,” he told her.
I padded out after her and sat on the couch when Olivia eased herself down. She held a phone in her hand. Soon a small sound trilled from their bedroom. “Well, it’s in the bedroom, but now I don’t feel like standing back up,” she advised me. I wagged and curled up on a pillow. “You look so cute. Hang on, let me take a picture.”
My eyes started to ease shut as Olivia held the phone in front of her face. Then she continued to sit, examining the phone as if it were a piece of chicken. Suddenly she sucked in a breath. I snapped my eyes open, alarmed. She was weeping silently, tears flowing down her cheeks.
I joined her as she struggled to her feet and, making tight, choking sounds, returned to Lucas.
He was standing in the same room, toweling himself, and glanced up in concern when we entered. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh my God. I never knew you took a video. You thought you were going to die.”
Olivia dropped the phone and pulled Lucas in tightly, her sobs barely audible.
Soon after that they kissed and I shoved my nose forward, participating in the love. Then they took a very active nap. I did not participate in that.
The woman Lucas lived with when I first met him, named “Mom,” came over to visit every so often. I was always glad to see her, especially when she showed up one day with a mostly white, mottled little dog named Charlie. I loved it when people brought over dog friends.
It was far easier to teach Charlie proper dog games than it had been with Boy Kitten or Girl Kitten. My favorite was when I had a squeaky toy and Charlie tried to get it from me.
Sometimes Charlie had the squeaky toy, which I knew could not be as much fun for him.
Then things really changed. Mom and Charlie spent two nights with me, and Lucas and Olivia were gone the whole time. Charlie wanted to wrestle constantly, but I was worried my boy wouldn’t be coming home and kept breaking away to sit expectantly at the front door. One day, I sensed that Lucas was finally returning, felt him drawing closer and closer, and he walked in the door with Olivia and a baby human named Emma.
Emma slept in the high-sided bed and wasn’t much fun, though Olivia and Lucas spent a lot of time passing her back and forth, trying to get her to play. I demonstrated to the baby what could be done with a squeaky toy—you can toss it, pounce on it, shake it, and, above all, squeak it—but Emma couldn’t catch on the way Charlie had. When she watched me, she had the strangest expression on her face, as if she really weren’t paying attention (which was ridiculous—no one can ignore a squeaky toy).
“You’re a good dog, Bella,” Lucas told me.
That and t-i-i-iny piece of cheese were my two favorite things to hear from my boy.
Snows had come and gone again, and the air was clear and dry when a woman a little older than Olivia arrived to stay with us. I smelled more than one cat on her clothes and skin. She slept on the couch and I slept at her feet to be polite. For houseguests, sleeping with a dog is always better than without one.
“Bella, this is my sister Alexis,” Olivia told me when the woman arrived. I didn’t understand any of it except “Bella,” but with enough repetition I figured out that the woman’s name was Alexis. She was nice to me and would give me a treat if Lucas handed it to her first. I didn’t question the process but didn’t understand why the handoff was necessary.
Alexis was mostly interested in holding Emma, but Emma at that point was mostly interested in crawling around on the floor and putting things in her mouth so that Lucas would pick her up. Sometimes Emma would seize a piece of furniture, haul herself upright, and wobble, beaming at Olivia and Lucas.
Emma, I had come to understand, was Olivia and my boy’s baby human. Sometimes her pants smelled very interesting.
“Look at the big girl!” Lucas would say in exactly the same tone of voice he used when he praised me. He’d be looking at Emma, though. I noted that when he talked to me like that, I got a treat, but he didn’t give her one.
Having Emma live with us, crawling over to me and seizing my fur in her little fists, somehow made being away from Boy Kitten and Girl Kitten less sad for me. It was complicated, but I felt a little like Emma’s mother cat.
The second night Alexis stayed with us, Lucas and Olivia ran around picking up baby toys and dog toys and stuffing them into the closet, which I had come to regard as a smaller version of the Room of Things. All three of the adult humans showered, though not together, and Alexis changed clothes several times.
“You look fine,” Olivia assured her. “Your hair is amazing.”
“I think these jeans make my butt look fat. Don’t you think I look fat?”
“Come on.”
There was a tension in the room, and I yawned, feeling my un
ease rise. Alexis was the most anxious and Lucas was the calmest—except maybe for Emma, who was mostly absorbed in trying to eat her own fingers.
I went to the door when I heard a car in the driveway, and wagged when my senses told me there was a dog in my yard. I assumed it was Charlie. “That’s them,” Lucas announced.
The moment he opened the door, I recognized the odor. It wasn’t Charlie—it was Dutch!
I burst out and crashed into my old friend and we immediately started to wrestle. Gavin and Taylor were with Dutch, laughing.
“Bella!” Gavin called. He knelt and opened his arms and Dutch barreled into him, licking his face. “Okay, Dutch! Okay!” He reached past the big dog and gathered me in a hug, and I gave him a kiss, wagging. I loved Gavin.
It made me very happy that Gavin and Taylor and Dutch had figured out how to do Go Home, but that couch was going to get awfully crowded.
Taylor carried what looked like a suitcase, but there was a baby in it, staring at me with solemn brown eyes.
The humans all clustered in the living room while Dutch and I climbed on each other. He was as big as I remembered.
“This is Noah,” Taylor said, pulling his baby out of the suitcase. The child clung to him. It was a boy, almost exactly the same size as Emma.
Taylor passed Noah to Olivia and Lucas handed Emma to Gavin and the adults all spoke to the babies with happy faces and sing-songy voices.
I thought I understood why Alexis had been tense—somehow, she had known Dutch was coming—but my friend’s arrival did nothing to calm her down. I went to Taylor and he bent down to speak to me.
“It’s so good to see you, Bella,” he murmured.
I loved Taylor.
“Noah took his first steps yesterday,” Gavin announced proudly.
Taylor looked up from where he was petting me. “Actually, it was more like you stood him up and dragged him across the carpet.”
Everyone laughed, so Dutch and I wagged.
“Emma’s got standing up figured out, but I think she’s going to stick with just that for a while. I keep saying, ‘Come to Daddy,’ and she gives me a look like, ‘No thanks, I’m good,’” Lucas told them.
Everyone laughed again. There’s just something about having two dogs in a room that makes people happy.
Gavin held his hand out to me and I sniffed optimistically, but there were no treats. Yet. I hoped he remembered how to do t-i-i-iny piece of cheese.
“I can’t believe you lived with lions!” Gavin told me, then grinned at Lucas. “When I opened that link and saw the footage I almost fell out of my chair. But you’re right, that was our Bella with the cougar cubs.”
“Oh, there’s more to the story, I promise,” Lucas replied.
Then I heard someone else outside the door. The bell rang and Dutch barked, but I did No Barks because I am a good dog.
“Dutch! Stop barking!” Gavin commanded loudly. The words weren’t clear but I thought I understood their meaning anyway. When Dutch looked to me, I wagged in sympathy.
Lucas opened the door and it was Mack! Everyone stood up and the sudden tension flashing off Alexis startled both Dutch and me as we glanced at her. I went wagging to Mack, who for some reason clutched a bunch of plants in his fist. Lucas took them from him. “Great to see you, Mack, thanks. I’ll put these in a vase.”
Everyone wanted to grab hands, but no treats were exchanged. Then Olivia stepped up to Mack, hugged him, and turned to Alexis. “Mack, this is my sister Alexis. Alexis, this is Mack.”
“Nice to meet you,” Alexis told him.
“Happy,” Mack replied. Then he and Alexis laughed. “I mean I’m happy to finally meet you in person. Oh my God.”
Eventually Mack reached for me and hugged me. His hands no longer smelled like smoke. It felt so good to be held by him.
I loved Mack.
I could tell that Dutch did not know who all the people were, and that he understood that I did know, but it didn’t bother him. Dutch never really seemed bothered by anything, except the big stinky bear creature with the enormous claws. He and I did wonderful Sits by the table during dinner, but despite our efforts, no one threw any food to us.
After dinner, the humans sat there, laughing. The two babies were put on a soft spot on the floor and they stared at each other.
Dutch was tired, and so was I. When the children lay down and slept, Dutch and I sprawled next to them.
Lying there, with a huge dog pressed close and two tiny humans nearby, it reminded me very much of sleeping in a den with Big Kitten, Girl Kitten, and Boy Kitten.
I did not know when I would see my cat family again. I only hoped that, wherever they were, they were as happy as I was.
Acknowledgments
It has now been a year since I lost my number one salesperson. My mom, Monsie Cameron, would attempt to force everyone she ever met to buy a book or, failing that, she would just give the person a copy. She set up a table in her church and accosted people on their way in and out of services—people sat in pews with my books stacked up like hymnals. When the priest took her aside and suggested that perhaps running a bookstore in the church was not really what it said to do in the bible, she listened respectfully and then was back the next week at the same table. My mom weighed around 80 pounds and was hardly a threat, but he gave up in defeat. Her favorite way of greeting strangers was to ask, “do you like dogs?” If they said yes, she gave them one of my books. If they said no, they didn’t like dogs, she gave them one of my books to convince them they should.
My mother was in the middle of a conversation with a nurse when she passed away suddenly at age 89. I’ve not spoken to that nurse, but I can only assume my mom had asked if the nurse liked dogs.
This novel, A Dog’s Courage, grew out of my desire to advance the story of Bella, Lucas, and Olivia, whom we first met in A Dog’s Way Home. When I began writing it, huge fires were on my mind, because I’ve lived in both California and Colorado, where such conflagrations are common. I had no idea, though, that after turning in my final draft, a historic fire disaster was slated to hit the western states. I promise you, I was utterly shocked at how seemingly predictive A Dog’s Courage is. That the devastation in Colorado came from the Cameron fire is a further odd coincidence.
My agent, Scott Miller at Trident Media, didn’t know about my mom’s sales abilities or surely he would have bragged about her in the cover letter for the first submission, A Dog’s Purpose. Thanks Scott, for getting the job done on that, and every novel since.
My publisher for every novel my mother hand-sold, meaning, force-fed, to people has been Tor/Forge. Thanks very much to the team there—Linda, Tom, Susan, Sarah, Lucille, Kristin, Eileen. There are probably others and I apologize for not calling you out by name. What a great group of people, dedicated to the hugely difficult task of bringing books to market. There are a lot of steps! Probably you have other authors but I never feel like it when I call.
Thanks Ed for being my editor—you’re great at it, and assume that’s why your parents gave you that name.
I’m typing these words right now, but much of my writing is no longer poked out on plastic keys, but is dictated, using an Apogee electronics microphone. The microphone sends my words to an FBI surveillance team, where every word is transcribed. Thank you everyone at Apogee, especially Betty Bennett and Marlene Passaro, for the donation of the microphone.
I put every novel through a couple of drafts and then hand it to my wife. Her notes, thoughts, and comments are always key ingredients in every success. Thank you, Cathryn, for your hard work on everything except that time you hit me in the face with a pie. I am still not sure how that sells books, and our dog Tucker was equally perplexed. (There’s a video of this whole sordid scene that’s gotten more than two million views. I can’t believe that many people have nothing better to do with their time than to watch an author get a pie in his face.)
And thank you Sheri Kelton, manager, for everything you do for my career. You ask
me what I want and then try to get it for me. I am convinced that if I wanted to play basketball you’d get me a tryout with the Lakers.
If, as we’d expect, I wow the Lakers coaching staff with my ability to throw the ball several or at least two feet into the air, attorney Steve Younger would be the person to negotiate with the team for what color seats I want in my private jet. Thanks for that in advance, Steve, I like the cream-colored accents, and also thanks for navigating the treacherous waters associated with turning my novels into filmed entertainment.
Gavin Polone has produced the movies based on my books, but what I really want is for him to direct. Thanks for always supporting me and for caring about the dogs, Gavin.
Whenever someone tells me I have a right to remain silent, I call Hayes Michael, my personal attorney who has thus far convinced people I am not guilty by reason of insanity. I appreciate having you in my corner, Hayes.
Thank you Olivia Pratt for organizing our operations and running them single-handedly. We couldn’t do it without you. Heck, without you we can’t even find time to eat.
Thank you Diane Driscoll for matching us up with Olivia.
Thank you Jill Enders for helping run our social media, especially since I don’t really understand what it is.
What I do understand is that there’s a Facebook “Secret Group.” The Secretary disavows any knowledge of their actions. If you are a member of this group, you sometimes receive free gifts, you always receive news and updates before anyone else, and once a year we have a fabulous convention except for the years when we don’t. Thank you for being a member! (If you are not, but belonging to a special gathering of extraordinary people with superpowers sounds like fun, track down Susan Andrews on Facebook and send her a message asking her to introduce you to the group.)
Having lost my mom, I must turn now to my two sisters to individually sell all of my books. Amy Cameron has made it her mission to support educators by creating CORE compliant study guides available free on my web site—much easier to download than my original idea, which was peanut butter sandwiches. Julie Cameron is a doctor who diagnoses all of her patients as having W. Bruce Cameron Novel Deficiency Disorder. There’s a cure: she dispenses my books in her waiting room, which works better than an injection for treating this serious medical condition. Dear sisters, Mom would be proud of you.
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