Then suddenly Dutch went stiff. I glanced at him, feeling his excitement growing, though I wasn’t at all sure why. He yawned, panting a little, and when Gavin reached out Dutch licked his fingers. Dutch circled in his seat, staring out the window as if he could see a squirrel. I couldn’t see anything, though I became alert just because he was.
“That’s right, guys, we’re almost there,” Gavin told us wistfully.
When we stopped, Dutch pawed at the window and made a low, excited whining noise. Clearly he thought something was happening—what, I had no idea. When Gavin reached across to let him out Dutch ran straight up to the front door of a small house. Gavin came around to get me and I jumped out of the car, stretching and shaking myself.
An odd place. There were some machines in the yard, sitting on dried mud mixed with papers and some plastic containers I sniffed with interest, detecting something sweet in a few of them. Gavin stood for a moment while I squatted and watched Dutch, who was wagging and turning circles in front of the door.
“What a dump,” Gavin muttered quietly.
I followed him to where Dutch was waiting with such agitation. Where were we? What were we doing here? Gavin knocked on the wood, then waited. Dutch put a paw on Gavin’s knee. “It’s okay, Dutch,” Gavin said reassuringly. He knocked again. “Hello?” he called.
He pushed the door open slightly. “Kurch? Hello?”
“Back here!” a man yelled from somewhere in the house.
Dutch nosed the door and pushed past us, running inside the house. “You’re home, Bella,” Gavin told me.
“Ah, Jesus! Get down, Dutch!” a man shouted from down a hallway.
The place inside was dark. There were socks and shirts and papers and boxes with bits of food in them lying on the floor and furniture, and I examined them curiously. Gavin followed the direction Dutch had taken, so I did the same.
“Kurch? You back there?” Gavin asked.
“Can you get the damn dog off of me?”
In a back room a man lay in bed and Dutch was on top of him, wagging and licking. The man wore heavy, hard white pants, and one arm and half his chest was encased in the same rigid material. He had white cloth wrapped around one of his hands. He was sour with old sweat, but I felt sure he was someone I had met before.
“Dutch! Down!” Gavin commanded.
Dutch eased to the floor with great reluctance. Apparently he thought Taylor’s rule change applied to every bed we came across.
“God, stupid dog,” the man said. “Trying to put me back in the hospital?”
Dutch did Sit, watching the sour-smelling man with rapt attention.
Gavin looked around. “I’m Gavin,” he finally said. I went over and sniffed at a half-eaten sandwich on a plate on a chair, wondering if the edicts in this odd place would allow me to nibble on it a little. “I talked to your sister.”
“Yeah, she said you might be coming over,” the man replied with a grunt.
“It was my husband and I who were the ones who, uh, dug you out.”
“I don’t remember any of that.” The man waved his white-wrapped hand.
“Oh. Well. It’s good to see you; we weren’t sure you would even make it out alive.”
“Yeah, sure, I practically didn’t, I got eleven frickin’ fractures. Then my damn sister just walks out the door last night, says she ‘needs a break.’ What kind of family is that? Like I can take care of myself right now!”
Dutch was still sitting at high attention, watching the man in the bed. I was watching the sandwich with equal focus.
“Sorry to hear of your difficulties,” Gavin said after a moment.
“She only thinks of herself.”
“Ah.”
The two men were quiet for a time. I finally gave up on the sandwich and lay down on the floor with a sigh.
“At any rate, I brought your dogs back.”
“Yeah. Hey, Dutch.” The man dropped his hand, the one wrapped in cloth, and put it on Dutch’s head. Dutch leaned into the touch, his eyes half closed, and I missed Lucas more in that moment than I had in a long time. I eased back to my feet, wanting to get out of there, go back up into the mountains, on the trail. Go Home. “Wait,” the man said suddenly. “You said dogs. Dogs?”
“Yes, I said I brought your dogs back,” Gavin agreed, speaking evenly. I could hear a rising impatience in his tone.
“That one’s not mine.”
Gavin stared at me and I looked back at him. Car ride? Then he turned to stare at the man. “Not yours?” he repeated, shocked.
“Yeah, never seen it before,” the man said dismissively.
“But … Bella was with Dutch when we got to you. They were both digging for you in the snow. That’s how we found you.”
“Huh. Well, musta been a coincidence.” The man made a shrugging motion and then winced.
“A what? A coincidence?… So Bella is not yours?”
I wagged a little, hearing my name so much. I glanced hopefully at the sandwich.
“Nope.”
There was a long silence. “I don’t understand,” Gavin finally said. “I thought I was going to drop off your dogs, both of them. It never occurred to us they weren’t both yours.”
“Drop off? The hell do you mean, drop off?” the man demanded.
Gavin blinked. “Well … we … are you saying you don’t want your dog back?”
“I look like I can take care of a hundred-pound dog right now? I can’t even feed myself. Takes me an hour to get to the bathroom for a piss.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying there’s no way I can have Dutch right now. Sorry.”
“Sorry? You’re sorry? Dutch is your dog.”
“What part of half my body is in a frickin’ cast don’t you understand? I was in a frickin’ avalanche.”
“Because you were snowshoeing in a restricted area! There are signs all over!” Gavin was shouting and I went to him, nosing his hand.
“Fine. Blame the victim. Nobody gives a rat’s ass about me. I’m going to have to go live with my brother and his prissy wife next month. You got no idea what that’s like. They live in frickin’ Oklahoma. Go to church every frickin’ Sunday, I’m like, ‘Hell no, I’m not going, can’t you see I’m hungover?’ Next thing I know my own brother says I gotta leave. He’s so frickin’ whipped.”
“You are telling me,” Gavin stated in a low, angry voice, “that you’re refusing any responsibility?”
“Hey, you’re the guy trying to dump two gigantic dogs on me.”
“My husband and I are going to China for six months. We can’t take care of Dutch. He’s your dog. I’ll figure out what to do with Bella, obviously, but Dutch belongs here, with you.”
The man sighed. Dutch scratched himself behind the ear and then suddenly alerted to the sandwich. He glanced at me and then at the man in the bed and then at Gavin. I could tell by his face that he thought he was being a bad dog to want to eat it, but otherwise I had no idea what he was thinking or what was happening. I only knew that Gavin and the man were getting more furious with each other, their voices tightening and the sweat flashing to their skin.
“I thought you couldn’t take a dog because of China, so a little hypocritical there, don’t you think? Seems to me whatever you’re doing with Bella you could do with Dutch. You and your husband.” The man sneered.
Gavin went very still. “I said before that I didn’t understand you, but I was wrong. I understand you very, very well. Kurch. Come on, Bella. Dutch, come.”
Dutch stared at Gavin, the sandwich forgotten. Then he looked at the man in the bed.
“Go on, Dutch. Get the hell out of here, you’re making me feel guilty and it’s not my fault. Go!” the man snapped.
I followed Gavin down the hall and out the door, Dutch far behind us. He kept turning to glance back down the hall, wanting to remain in this odd, dark place. The angry man in the bed was Dutch’s person. But the man was mad and didn’t love Dutch anymore
.
Dutch was bewildered. When we got in the car, Gavin put his arms around him. I smelled the tears on Gavin’s cheeks, but was unable to provide comfort from the backseat.
“I am so sorry, Dutch. That was horrible. But I promise you that I love you, Taylor and I will be your daddies, we will take care of you.” Gavin wiped his face with a cloth from his pocket. His hand came back over the top of the seat and I licked it. “You too, Bella. I love you and we will be family together.”
Dutch did not stick his nose out the window, not once all the way home.
* * *
That night Dutch and I lay on the couch with Gavin while he held a phone to his face. Dutch had been nosing Gavin’s hand frequently since we returned from the odd place with the sandwich, and Gavin stroked him and spoke to him soothingly each time.
“It was simply awful. The guy was a complete asshole,” Gavin said. He sounded angry again. “He didn’t care at all about Dutch. Treated his own dog like crap. He acted really put out that we dug him out of the snow. Which, I got to tell you, I’m rethinking. All of humanity would have benefited if we’d waited until spring.” Gavin scratched Dutch’s ears. “No, that’s the really strange thing. No idea what Bella was doing there. If God sent her it was a real waste of a miracle.”
At the mention of my name, I looked lazily over at him.
“Of course we’re still going to China. No. I don’t know what we’re going to do with the dogs, obviously I’m still processing.”
Gavin was quiet for a long time. “Thank you,” he said, his voice tight. “I so appreciate that you said that, Taylor. I know this situation is more difficult for you than maybe it is for me, and the fact that you’re willing to do whatever I want … it just means the world to me. I love you.”
After a time, Gavin set his phone down. He touched his wet eyes with the same cloth from his pocket. “All right, guys. We’ve got a real problem on our hands,” he told us.
* * *
The next morning Dutch jumped right down from the bed and went to the door with unusual enthusiasm, eagerly holding still for the leash Gavin put on our collars. He pushed outside and dragged both of us to the car.
“No, Dutch. We’re going to go for a walk. No car ride. We’re not going back to that place.”
We wandered up the sidewalk, Dutch carefully marking over the scents of other males. Up ahead, I caught sight of a cat! It was strolling across a front yard, a heavy black female. I wanted to go greet her, so I pulled at the leash, which drew Dutch’s attention.
The cat and Dutch saw each other at exactly the same moment. Gavin was crouched over because Dutch had done Do Your Business on a yard and Gavin was picking it up with a plastic bag. Dutch lunged forward and I joined him, racing to see the cat.
“Hey!” Gavin shouted, stumbling. “Stop! No!”
I knew that word. I halted, looking at Gavin to see what I had done wrong. Dutch, on the other hand, was so fixated on the cat he didn’t hear the command. Gavin suddenly fell, yanking hard on my leash and dropping Dutch’s.
Dutch streaked after the cat. I did Sit like a good dog. “Dutch! No!” Gavin called.
The cat froze, watching Dutch bear down on her. I thought she would arch her back and rake her claws on his nose, but she suddenly darted for a tree, launching herself at the trunk and flying up into the branches like a squirrel.
I thought Big Kitten was the only cat able to climb trees because she was the only one I had ever seen do so. Dutch was even more mystified: he got to the tree and put his forepaws on it and looked up and barked.
I was a good dog and did No Barks. “Come on, Bella, good dog,” Gavin praised, though he didn’t give me a treat despite the bag of them in his pocket.
Dutch was staring at the cat, who was staring back. “Dutch! Come!” Gavin shouted.
Dutch looked at us wildly, as if he had forgotten anything but the hunt.
“Come here, Dutch!”
And then a change came over Dutch. I saw his ears drop, his eyes slit, a calculation in his expression.
“Dutch!” Gavin repeated in a warning tone.
Dutch turned and started walking away from us. He was being a bad dog!
“Come. Dutch! You come here!” Gavin yelled.
Dutch took off running.
Nineteen
Gavin took me back to the house at a trot. We jumped into the car and I was in the front seat. He put my window down and I hung my head out, drinking in the smells.
Gavin’s own window was down. “Dutch! Dutch!” he called.
We were driving up and down the streets. I did not understand this game at all. Sometimes we were clearly following Dutch, and sometimes his scent was in the opposite direction. Gavin was upset. “I know you would never run away like this, Bella,” he told me. I wagged.
I was doing No Barks but Gavin was so anxious and Dutch was such a bad dog that when we were practically on top of his scent I couldn’t help it and barked out the window. Gavin stopped the car and there was Dutch, cutting between houses! “Gotcha,” Gavin said triumphantly. I was pressed back against the seat as the car turned the corner.
There was Dutch, up ahead, trotting along, his leash dragging behind him. His head was low, his tail down, and I instantly knew what this was about: he was doing his own version of Go Home. He was going back to the dark place with the sandwich and the man in the heavy pants.
Gavin drove up next to Dutch, who whipped his head up when he smelled me. “Dutch!” Gavin said sternly.
The car stopped. Dutch sank to the ground, the tip of his tail flicking, his eyes blinking rapidly. Gavin got out of the car. “Come here, Dutch,” he commanded quietly.
Dutch nearly crawled, looking as if he felt that of all the dogs, he was the most bad.
“I’m your daddy now, Dutch. Do you understand?” Gavin got to his knees and put his arms around Dutch. “That’s not your home anymore. Your home is with us, now. You and me and Taylor and Bella, we’re a family.”
He held Dutch and rocked with him and I realized I knew what Gavin was doing.
Providing comfort.
* * *
Gavin gave us special attention and many treats and hugs for the next several days, and the sadness seemed to be seeping out of Dutch a little at a time.
“I think he’s getting used to the idea,” Gavin said to me, his phone to his face. I wagged. “It’s almost as if, when he got back in the car with me, he knew he was making a choice. They’re our dogs now, Taylor, for better or worse.” Gavin was quiet, and then chuckled. “Okay, but look at it this way, if they do wear out the couch, you’ll be able to buy another one, and you’ll probably want new chairs and a new coffee table. Don’t pretend that doesn’t sound like an attractive proposition to you!” He was silent for a time, rubbing his feet on Dutch, who was sprawled at the other end of the couch. Dutch gave a contented groan.
“Right. China. I’ve been thinking about that and I maybe have an idea. So, before I tell you, will you promise to keep an open mind? Okay.” Gavin took a deep breath. “What would you think of Sylvia?”
Gavin was silent for a long, long time before he started talking to me again. “Right, I agree with all that. But what choice do we have? I can’t see putting them in a kennel for half a year.” He was quiet some more. “Wait, wait, you seriously are objecting to leaving the dogs with my mom because you don’t like her decorating?” Gavin laughed. “Oh, that was another thing about this guy Kurch. He had a snowmobile and a lawnmower and God knows what else lying in his front yard, and his place was a complete pigsty. Sure. Well, not animal cruelty, but close to it. Okay, I get it, I’m trying to let it go. So? What do you think? No, not at all perfect, but maybe in this case perfection is not as good as practical. Thank you, Taylor. I’ll call my mom tomorrow. Love you, too.”
Gavin put his phone down and I yawned. “Okay, guys,” he told us. “Life’s about to get pretty interesting.”
* * *
A few days after Taylor came hom
e with this suitcase in hand, he and Gavin took us for an extended car ride. We were in the car so long that Dutch and I became bored with smelling out the window, and the men rolled up the glass and Dutch and I lay sprawled on each other in the backseat.
After a time, though, I sat up, suddenly aware of a change. Ever since people had begun taking me away from Lucas, I had not only sensed him out there, but I could smell the place where we lived, the town. The way the scents had come together until it was a singular presence on the wind made for an identifiable mark, different from other odors, other towns. But wherever we were going, now, it was far enough away that the presence faded until it was undetectable.
I had lost the smell of home.
The air was dry and dusty and I smelled large animals and open water, but that was all. I did not know if I would be able to do Go Home from here.
We stopped to do Do Your Business, Taylor holding my leash and Gavin holding Dutch’s. “This is not my favorite place,” Taylor told Gavin.
“Is this the pre-bad mood to the bad mood you’re going to be in the whole time?” Gavin asked.
“What’s the industry here in Farmington, anyway? Manure?”
“Coal and gas, mainly. It has its charms. You like the rivers,” Gavin said.
“Charm. That’s precisely the word I was looking for.”
We all climbed back into the car. As much as I liked car rides, I hoped we would now return back to their house, or the cabin.
“Okay,” Taylor declared grimly. “Let’s go see Sylvia.”
As we drove, Taylor and Gavin became anxious, touching each other for reassurance. Their moods affected Dutch and me, and we circled each other in the backseat, our noses to the window.
Eventually the car stopped and we jumped out onto a front yard that was nearly all cement. Dutch marked what little foliage he could find. The door opened and a woman stood there.
“Hi, Mom,” Gavin greeted. I glanced at him, wondering why he would say Mom’s name. But humans will do this, mention other people, and dogs will never understand. Gavin and Taylor also talked from time to time about Dude, one of the boys who fed me salty meat and gave me a car ride. Gavin went to the door and kissed the woman on her face Dutch followed and I did, too.