The Summer of Riley (12 page)

On and on I scrolled down the long list. If so many people loved dogs, why wouldn’t they give me back mine?

I added “rescue,” something I’d done before, but not on Yahoo.

Old English Sheepdog Rescue of California.
I’d seen that one before on AOL.

“Riley’s almost a sheepdog,” I’d told them.

Almost wasn’t enough.

Swiss
Search Dog Association.
I’d called them, too.

I’d called eleven different listings without any

success.

“He’s not the right breed, the right size, or in the right place,” I’d told Grace angrily. “They’re full. They have no more room. They have too many dogs already.”

I switched off the computer.

Mom and I had dinner on the couch in front of the TV. We watched
True Grit,
an old TV movie that we’d both seen before. If John Wayne were here, he’d ride into that cage and rescue Riley, throw him over his saddle, and ride off with him into the sunset. But maybe not. John Wayne probably liked horses better than dogs, and he’d be on the Sultan’s side.

The movie ended at ten after ten. No way to put off going to bed any longer.

I peeled the tape from the corners of the calendar without even X-ing in this, the last day, folded it small, and put it in the kitchen trash can. The end of the calendar. The end of the waiting. Now there was just tomorrow.

R
iley was going to be euthanized. We got the call.

Euthanized is just another word for being put to sleep. Which is another word for being killed.

It wasn’t Joel Bell who called at 10:30 in the morning to tell us. It was my dad.

When the phone rang, I rushed to it. As soon as I heard his voice, I gasped, “Dad, I can’t talk now. We’re waiting for Mr. Bell to call us.”

“William?” The way he said it made my breath stop. I think I knew from that one word. “I asked Joel Bell to let me know so I would be the one to tell you,” Dad said, “… good news or bad.”

Mom was at the kitchen table, staring at me over the top of the Monk’s
Hill Gazette.
The paper shook in her hands. She put it down and came to stand next to me.

I swallowed hard. “So … is it good or bad?”

“I’m afraid it isn’t good, son.”

Which was another way of saying it was bad. Another way of saying my dog was to be euthanized.

I stood there, my hand clenched on the phone, staring at the wall. It had an old piece of Scotch tape stuck on it where I’d once put up the list of numbers of my soccer team.

Mom unpried my fingers, took the phone, and asked Dad, “When?” Her back was turned to me as if to save me from knowing, but I already knew the worst, didn’t I? “I think it’s better to just tell him,” she said. And then, “Thanks, Douglas.” She hung the phone back on its hook, put her arm around my waist, and turned me toward her. I leaned my head against her instead of the wall.

“When?” My mouth felt numb as if I’d been to the dentist.

Her arm tightened around me. “Tomorrow.”

I don’t cry very often. I mean, I don’t cry hard and out loud very often. I did when Grandpa died and maybe back when I was little. I cried now. I pulled myself away from Mom, went up to my room, and lay down on the bed with my face pressed into the pillow.

Downstairs, the phone rang and there was the murmur of Mom’s voice. It rang again and again.

Sometimes it didn’t ring, and I still heard the low sound of talking anyway. She’d be calling Aunt Jo to tell her. And Grandma and Grandpa Halston. And probably Peachie at her sister’s house. Hadn’t she promised to do that? She’d be calling Stephen. Of course, he might know already. At the pound they might have started getting things ready for the execution.

After a long time, Mom came upstairs. “Grace wants to know if she can come over.”

“Not now,” I said.

Mom nodded. I heard her go back down the stairs, her soft speaking-voice.

My mind jumbled around.

Was there anything else I could do? Anything? There was such a thing as a last-minute reprieve, wasn’t there? I’d seen that in movies. The guy walking to the room where they had the electric chair, and the phone ringing and someone saying, “The governor has granted a stay …”

I pushed the pillow onto the floor and sat up. How come I’d never appealed to the governor? Who was he anyway? I couldn’t even remember his name.

Mom knew and she helped me find his number.

“Sweetheart,” she said, “I don’t think it’s going to do …”

I stopped her.

Someone was answering the phone. The governor was in Bermuda on vacation, I was told. His secretary did not feel it would be appropriate or beneficial “to interrupt him for this.”

“I guess my dog’s not important enough,” I shouted, and Mom took the phone from me and said, “Shhh, William. Shouting doesn’t help.”

Neither she nor I wanted any lunch.

“Stephen says to tell you how sorry he is,” she told me.

I shrugged. “Is he going to be the one to do it?”

Mom stared at me. “Do what?”

“Kill my dog.”

“You know he wouldn’t, couldn’t, do that to Riley.”

“Why not? That’s part of his job, isn’t it? Killing dogs?”

Mom spread her hands. “I don’t know,” she said miserably.

“It doesn’t matter who does it.” I slumped into one of the chairs.

Later I went outside and walked around our yard, round and round. I went into Peachie’s yard, past the Sultan’s closed stable door. I’d seen Mom water Peachie’s roses a couple of days back, but I took the hose and watered them again, and watered the fuchsia and the hedges that were twined with honeysuckle and sticky blue flowers. The stream of water was a ribbon of diamonds, looping toward the sun.

The drapes in the living room weren’t tightly closed, and when I peered through the gap, I was looking at the painting of the Sultan on the wall above the couch. Peachie wasn’t gone forever. She’d said she’d be back and she would never leave that painting behind. She’d be back, she and her horse, and there’d be no big galumphing dog around to bother either of them. Riley was the one who’d be gone forever.

I went back to my house and upstairs to Grandpa’s room. I brushed my hair with his hairbrushes and watched myself in his mirror. I was as numb as a rock.

I went to the kitchen and sat in front of the computer. The message came across the screen:
Unable to connect to server.
Stupid server. Always busy.

I waited and tried the Internet again. This time it came up.

All the same old dog listings. Nothing different.

Buddy the Dog Hero.
I’d already read about him.

Terriers Who Tried.
Tried what? I couldn’t remember.

And then … and then. Every muscle I had pulled as tight as a rubber band. What was this? I hadn’t seen this before. Something new. My eyes darted across the printed words without understanding the sense of them. I made myself read them out loud, taking the words into my brain.

“Mom!” I screamed. “Mom. Come here. You’re not going to believe what I’ve found. Come here and see this.”

I wasn’t going to send an e-mail. I needed to talk, one-on-one. Information gave us the number.

“I’ll pay for the call,” I whispered as I waited for it to ring on the other side. “I’ve got money left.”

Mom was smiling. “Don’t worry. We have loads of money. Your dad’s paying for the attorney …”

I interrupted. “But a call to Texas … must cost …”

“Don’t worry,” she said again, and stopped talking as I held up my hand.

“Hello? Are you Rudi Corona?” I asked.

“No, but I’ll get him.”

I held on. Someone was shouting, “Rudi! Phone call!”

Mom squeezed my hand. “I’m praying,” she whispered.

I shuffled my feet. Impossible to stay still.

“Rudi Corona,” the voice on the phone said.

“Hi.” My heart drummed against my ribs. “My name is William Halston, from Monk’s Hill, Oregon. I wanted to ask you … to tell you …”

He only interrupted me once. “What sort of a law is
that
?” he asked. “You’re saying he has to be killed simply for chasing a horse? Not even attacking him?”

I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see me. “That’s all. My friend Grace calls it a putrid law.”

“I’ll say.”

I truly thought his voice sounded just like John Wayne’s. I pictured him in a cowboy hat.

The whole story of the flyers and the posters and the advertisements spilled out of me, and in the end, I said, “Please, please can you take him? It’s his only chance.”

“Sounds like you tried real hard, William. But
your dog’s not a Border collie, is he? So far that’s all I’ve used.”

“No,” I said. “He’s part collie, though. That’s what Stephen, he’s sort of the vet at the pound, says. The rest of him is Lab. He’s really fast, though. He can go like the wind. Running is his favorite thing.” Sobs were coming and I couldn’t stop them.

There was this awful silence when I could just about hear Rudi Corona considering, wondering if he should take a chance, or maybe wondering how to say no in a nice way.

“What do your parents say about this. proposition?” he asked at last.

“My mom, she thinks it would be great. My dad’s not here, but I know he would, too. He wants my dog to live and for me to be happy.”

Vaguely, through all the muddle in my head, I heard what I’d said and I knew it was true. That’s what Dad did want.

“And don’t worry about expenses,” I said quickly. “I’ve got money, and if there’s not enough, my mom and dad will help.” I was shaking so much I didn’t think I could push out any more words, but I did. “Please save my dog.”

“Take it easy, son.” His voice was so soft I could
hardly hear. “Let me speak to your mom.”

I handed over the phone and watched her, listening. “We’d be willing to do all that,” she said. “We’ll be waiting. I can’t tell you what this would mean to my son.” After a pause, she said, “Yes, I expect you do understand.”

When she hung up the phone, she touched my cheek. “He’s calling the commissioners right now. But William, if he does get permission to take Riley, well, it may not work out. It may end up that Mr. Corona can’t use him in Texas after all. And then …”

I pressed my hands tight against my ears. I didn’t want to think about it not working out. It had to.

R
iley was going to go to Abilene, Texas, to learn how to be an airport dog. He was going to be trained to wait, along with other dogs, on the edge of the big private airport field. At Rudi Corona’s command, he’d race across the grass and chase the birds that were massed there. They’d rise into the sky, and then the runways would be clear and safe for the small jets to take off.

The words I read on the screen were: “These Border collies are not for the birds.

“Birds get sucked into jet engines and the propellers of small planes. Even one bird can cause an accident. Airport owners have tried everything to discourage birds from congregating on runways. Finally they discovered that dogs are the best solution. They scare the birds away and save lives, the
lives of people and the lives of birds.” I’d just about stopped breathing.

Rudi called and told us what happened when he’d talked to the commissioners about Riley.

“If you’re willing to try with this animal, we have no objections,” they’d told him. “We have no desire to kill a dog that can be useful. But Texas is a long way from Oregon. Have we your assurance there will be no cost to the taxpayers?”

“None,” Rudi Corona told them.

“And it will be a one-way ticket?”

“One-way,” Rudi said. “All expenses paid for by the boy himself.”

“And if the dog is not trainable?”

“I haven’t met one yet that wasn’t,” Rudi said. “Dogs and I bark the same language.”

So my dog was going to live. Not with me. But he was going to live. I’d told Mom, way back, that was all I wanted. And that’s what I told myself again.

We had his one-way ticket to Texas. Counter-to- counter, it’s called.

Stephen brought him to the airport in a big plastic carrier. It had a wire gate in front and a ventilation screen in the back.

“He’ll be in the baggage compartment,” Stephen told us earlier. “It’s pressurized, so he’ll be fine. It’s too bad that from that far back he won’t be able to see the movie, but heck! You can’t have everything.”

Mom and I and Grace went to the airport to see Riley off. I was filled with so many feelings. Excitement and longing to see him. Sadness at the thought that he was leaving us forever. Relief that this was the day he was to die, and he wasn’t. Mostly I was dazed, the changes came so fast.

When Stephen’s truck pulled into the parking lot, my insides were turning over so much I thought I might be sick. I could see the kennel, like a small red barn, in the back.

Stephen got out and called, “William? Help me lift this out. Your dog is no lightweight.”

Mom gave me a gentle push to make my feet move, and I went across, peered through the crisscross wires of the gate, and saw Riley. He looked back at me. He knew me. He made these little excited sounds. His tail swept across the kennel, thumping each side.

“We need to check him through pretty quick. Still …” Stephen scratched his head under his cap, checked his watch. “I’ll just go talk to your mom and
Gracie for a minute. You stay with your dog.”

Nice Stephen.

When I put my face against the mesh, Riley’s big rough tongue came out, curled like a dry leaf so it would fit through the wire. It covered me with kisses. He licked at the salty tears that trickled down my cheeks. He wasn’t making happy sounds anymore, and we stood in silence.

“You listen to what Mr. Corona teaches you,” I whispered. “You’re smart, Riley. It’s going to be so great for you, chasing birds, being with other dogs.”