Cormac: The Tale of a Dog Gone Missing (3 page)

“We’ve talked about that,” I said. “One reason we gave Zeb a try was because he was already housebroke. Puppies chew and whine all night and pee on the floor and poop in the corner.”

“All of that?” Diana asked.

“And more.”

“Right,” she said. “And some of the more is the love the boys and you and I will toss into the mix.”

I took the wineglass from Diana’s hand, put it on the counter and wrapped her in my arms. “A puppy’s going to be a pain in the neck. Just so you know and there’ll be no yelling at me when a chair leg gets chewed off.”

“You are often a pain in the neck.”

“I’ll be expected to clean up the mess, I suppose,” I said.

“Thereby setting a great example for your sons, who will help out.” Diana said.

“Maybe this new doggie,” I said, lighting up, “will show me where the bone of great riches is buried. Teach an old bookseller some new trick.”

“You don’t need a dog to show you where your fortunes are hidden,” Diana said. “We both have a good idea where you need to dig.”

I knew Diana was talking about the novel I’d been writing. She read each new chapter as I finished it. She told me it was a good book, that I would find a publisher. “If I could believe it the way you do,” I said.

“You will,” she said. I felt a small lift, like some kite winging up just before a pine tree branch snagged it from the sky. She walked to the door, held it open for me. We stepped outside into the remainder of a warm day.

“Boys…” I called, letting my voice trail off as I noticed a first star winking in the twilight’s fading of the sun.

“DOES DADDY ASK the computer everything, Mommy?” asked little Dylan. “How does the computer know about our dog, Mommy? Will it show us a picture?”

Moments earlier, sitting in the family room talking about the idea of getting a puppy, Diana and John Luke had giggled when I suggested asking the computer for help. Now they gathered around me at the computer in the study as I typed a question into the search engine, then sat back from the screen. “Okay, guys, I did a search for the most family-friendly dog.” Even a glimpse at the page of matches revealed the first choice for families and kids: Golden Retriever.

“Does it show us our dog?” Dylan asked.

“Well, son, the all-knowing computer…” I said, pausing for effect. My histrionics drew from Diana a roll of her eyes. “The oracle here tells your mom and me that we probably want to get a Golden Retriever. You guys look here. Here are some pictures of Goldens.”

John Luke leaned in close. “Some are dark and some are light,” he said. “There’s one that’s almost white.” He pointed to a pair of goldens on the webpage. The one on the right had a Scandinavian blond coat.

“Do they get big?” Diana asked, a frown forming.

“Let’s see,” I said. “Says here 75 pounds or so.”

“Or so?”

“That’s the upper limit in the weight range. But nothing says our dog will get as big as it possibly can.”

“Okay,” she said, “we’re getting a big dog.”

“It starts off little,” I corrected, holding my palms six inches apart.

“Daddy’s funny, right, Mom?” Dylan asked.

“Only sometimes,” Diana answered. And with that we set upon our mission to acquire a Golden Retriever. When John Luke wanted to know, would we find a dog on the internet? I said no. “We’ll do this the old-fashioned way. Which means—ah, I don’t know what it means.” I rocked back in the chair pushing it away from the desk, my fingers laced behind my head. I looked at Diana. “I cannot believe this.”

“What?”

“It dawns on me, here and now, that I have never been shopping for a puppy. Diana,” I said, as if discovering my toes were webbed, “I have never owned a puppy.”

“Are you sure? Never is a long time for an old guy like you.”

It was as if I hadn’t heard a word she’d said. “I’ve never owned a puppy,” I said. “All the dogs in my life…”

“Well,” Diana added, “it’s not like there have been thousands.”

“No. But there have been some.” I thought of the Basset Hound I’d handed off to my Aunt Lillian when I was in college. I thought of the Labrador mix I found after the Navy and gave to a woman who lived alone on a farm near my mother.

Diana stepped closer, taking Dylan’s hand. “Mommy’s never had a puppy either.”

I socked John Luke on the arm, and hopped to my feet. “There you have it,” I said. “We’ll get a puppy. But right now let’s get pizza!”

We piled into my Jeep, talking all the way to the restaurant about getting our new doggy. On the drive home from Benny’s Pizza Shop, with the boys occupied in the backseat, I told her it still bugged me how easily the boys had given in to Zebbie’s new home with Drew.

“Well, the boys know Drew, and they both like him and Linda to visit,” Diana said. She told me that John Luke had asked her if Drew would bring Zebbie to visit sometime. “The way Dylan put it,” she said, “was, ‘Can we borrow Zebbie if we want to, Mommy?’”

Still, it seemed to me, I said to Diana, that they were over it, man. I had even mentioned to Drew how quickly the boys let Zebbie slip from their lives. He’d repeated his belief that we didn’t have rapport with Zebbie. Drew had preached, “Y’all didn’t have it with the Zebulon. I do. Linda does. You were simply an instrument, brother, in the universal intent to set things right. Get over it. Move on.”

Diana and I talked on the drive home and mostly she agreed with Drew. “Zebbie was a surprise when you brought him home. We’ll all be in on this one together,” she said, “and we can do some things differently.” We agreed that our poor experience with Zebbie living indoors, the new dog would be an outside dog. I suggested installing a dog door on the screened back porch, effectively eliminating the need for a doghouse. “With liberal inside visitation,” Diana offered.

“That should suit everyone,” I agreed.

The backyard was already fenced, but when we got home, even though it was the dark of night, I took my flashlight and announced I would go outside and double-check for low spots where a pup might be able to get out. Diana and Dylan plopped down at the kitchen table, while John Luke switched on the television.

The backyard was quiet as I walked slowly along the fencerow, training the flashlight beam on the bottom of the chain-link fabric. I wanted to let my mind settle. It had been another slow day in the bookstore. I’d sold only three books all day.

An owl called from a dark treetop somewhere very near, and I switched off my light. Three blocks away another owl answered. I looked up, but could see nothing, only tree branches and deep shadows. I wondered, would the owl almost directly above me go to the other? Or would the other leave its branch and wing on over this way? For ten minutes I stood in the dark listening to the exchange between the pair until, finally, the more distant bird ceased to answer.

“Too bad, old man,” I said. I turned on my light and completed my survey, satisfied the new dog would stay in the fenced yard. Then I walked to the corner of the yard where there were no trees. I switched off the light and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I looked up at a million stars, pinholes in a black cape draped over the world. I waited for a moment in the quiet. When I was standing at the back door ready to go inside, the owl from off in the night decided to get back on line. The close one responded right away. “I guess that’s one for not giving up,” I muttered, then opened the door into the kitchen. There, on the table warmed by the room’s yellow light, lay Dylan’s coloring book, open. His crayons were scattered about on the table. I looked at his handiwork, and was closing the book when I saw the freehand drawing he’d done on the inside front cover. It was a big red dog.

HIS FATHER’S NAME was Rock. His grandfather’s name was Bear. When the man on the phone told me this, I was encouraged. I was searching for a rugged but good-looking male, and this could be just the place to get our Golden Retriever puppy, a fellow we might name King. I knew the naming of the pup would be a challenge. Diana and the boys and I had been known to pour ourselves into hot debates on lesser matters. I thought with a chuckle that I could always suggest we Google a list of names.

On the other hand, Diana and John Luke and Dylan and I had all given a unanimous nod to a Golden for the family dog, so there was a fair hope of agreement on a name. Whatever the dog’s name finally, a Rock and a Bear should add some manly gristle and good looks to the gene pool.

“And you don’t run a puppy farm, right?” The man on the phone told me no.

“Come on out to the house,” he said. “You’ll see my dogs, and you’ll be satisfied I’m telling the truth.” His voice reminded me of Wilford Brimley, with some Garrison Keillor nuances. “We’ve got four puppies left. Two boys and two girls.”

He hadn’t said two males and two females. His pups were boys and girls. That was good, I thought. I told the man on the phone that I’d load up my family and come to see his young Golden Retrievers the next day.

On Saturday morning, I asked Pierre to mind the bookstore for a bit, something Pierre had repeatedly offered to do. He seemed not to mind leaving his own store under part-time supervision. “I’ll swap stores with you, if you want,” Pierre often joked.

“One of these days,” I said, “I might surprise you and take you up on it. So don’t offer lightly, mon ami.”

I had my coffee, then paid a visit to Belle, who warned me to be patient as I looked for a dog. She said Goldens are so popular they’re often overbred, and many are too lean and look more like short Irish Setters.

“A good Golden will be blocky and muscular,” Belle told me. “What you’d expect a fine Lab to look like, with a handsome square head and a strong muzzle.” I told her I’d found the son of a Rock, the grandson of a Bear. She laughed and told me it sounded promising.

I went by the bookstore and talked to Pierre for a few minutes. He’d lost the password to the computer. I wrote it on a note card and taped it to the counter underneath the laptop. While I was doing this, he said he thought I should take a couple years’ break before getting another dog. “It’s not for me,” I said. “It’ll be a family pet.”

“Sure thing,” he said, nodding, his eyebrows raised.

“Besides,” I said, “it could take two years to find the right dog.” He shook his head, and walked me to the door. I drove home to pick up Diana and the boys. We all piled into the Jeep and drove toward Bay Minette, a small town twenty miles north of Fairhope. Diana held the driving directions.

“You know,” I said, as we got closer to our destination, “I had sure hoped we’d find a puppy through a reference from someone we know, not though a classified ad.”

“But all our referrals we got came from people whose Goldens look more like Setters, and you said Belle said…”

“I know. But this seems so, so…”

“Like shopping for a used sofa,” Diana offered.

“Exactly.”

“Well, let’s just have a look. A look won’t hurt.”

“No,” I said. I was silent for a moment. “But, you know, looking for a puppy should be that: looking. We haven’t looked at a single pup, Diana. We’ve just been talking,” I complained.

“Just relax,” she said. “Life is good.”

“If this is a puppy farm…”

“Sonny!”

“Sorry, honey,” I said. “Isn’t this my turn coming up?”

Diana nodded, and I turned onto an unpaved side road of smoothly packed crushed white oyster shells. It was a comfortable ride up the long drive, lined with pruned azalea bushes and young live oaks. We wound our way up a low hill to a two-story brick colonial with white columns. An ebony black Chevy Silverado gleamed on a concrete parking pad.

“Not the Deliverance setting you were imagining, huh?” Diana asked.

“Whatever I imagined,” I said, “it wasn’t this.”

An old man walked around the corner of the house followed by a prancing and beautiful dark-red Golden Retriever, obviously the mother, her quartet of puppies wending and stumbling at her feet. The man wore faded jeans, boots, and a cowboy shirt not tucked in. He pinched off a piece of biscuit he was eating and handed it to the mama dog. He ruffled the fur on her head.

“How do, folks? You’ve come to look at my pups, I reckon.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, my eyes on the puppies, not the man.

“Tell them boys to come on up here,” the man said. “You got to get the little ones together with the little ones to get this right.”

Diana and I exchanged looks, smiled, and nodded to the boys, who clearly understood they were being given a special invitation. John Luke and Dylan rushed forward and dropped to their knees. All four puppies surrounded them. The man in the cowboy shirt stepped forward and extended his hand. “My name’s Jack Bennett.”

“I’m Sonny Brewer. This is my wife, Diana.”

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” He nodded to me, “Sir.” Then Mr. Bennett turned his attention to the dogs and the boys rolling and giggling on the grass with puppies all over them. Mr. Bennett approached the mama dog. She wrapped her body around his leg and leaned her entire weight against him.

“Look at that,” I declared to Diana.

“What?” she asked. “Where?”

“At the mother dog. I swear she smiled.”

“Of course, she’s smiling,” Mr. Bennett said. “She doesn’t always. When she does, you can be sure she okays the adoption.” I decided this was not a puppy farm where dogs are merely inventory. This man’s dogs were about as close to family as four-leggeds could get.

“You know how it goes when you wade through a litter of puppies?” Mr. Bennett asked. “How one little guy’s tail is wagging just for you? You step back. He follows. You take a side step, he follows.”

“I could see that,” I said.

“Don’t look now, but there’s a reddish-brown pup who’s been shadowing you since you stepped out of that vehicle of yours…” I was surprised when I looked at the ground near my feet and saw the puppy there.

“Now, that’s what you call bonding, Mr. Brewer. I don’t often see it that pure and natural. No, sir, not many times.”

The adoption seemed fated. I dropped down on my knees and patted my thighs. The puppy was a ball of fur the color of Ann-Margret’s hair in those movies where it was between red and auburn. He crawled immediately into my lap. Diana got the attention of our sons. She pointed to me snuggling with the nipping, wiggling pup. John Luke and Dylan glanced quickly at their playmates, and, realizing they had not singled out one puppy from the others, ran to join me.