Barry (3 page)

Instead of growling as she had at the Little Colonel, Mother pushed me toward the general.

He gently picked me up with his rough hands.

My stomach dropped as I felt myself rising high up into the air. He smelled like damp wool and sweat and gunpowder. He scratched me beneath the chin and behind the ears. I licked his fingers. They tasted good and salty.

“You’re an armful already, aren’t you!” the general said. “And very friendly, too.” I wagged my tail and looked up at him. I was not old and wise like my mother, but I saw that this man had eyes like Michel—eyes a dog could trust. “Good Mother, do you mind if I take your pup for a little stroll around the hospice? I’ve been out in the cold for so very long. Holding this warm bundle of fur in my arms will offer great comfort.”

I looked down at Mother, expecting her to demand my return immediately. But instead, she said,
Barry, go with the nice man and tour the hospice. Behave yourself and come back soon
. Then she showed him her soft eyes and let him know that it was all right to take me.

Goodbye, Mother! I’m off to see the world!
I said as the man draped me across his arm. He took me through the door and up to the hospice. Right
away, there was so much to see. The halls were long and narrow and crammed full of what had to be soldiers. Each man put one hand to his head when he saw the general. As the general walked by, some of the soldiers petted me. We passed through a room where men sat with their long legs stretched out. They held small square things in their hands and tossed silver pieces down on a table. Every few minutes, one would slap down the square things and say, “I win!” The others shouted some words I didn’t understand, but Mother later said they were words a tender, young puppy was not meant to hear.

We walked past the game-playing soldiers and through another door. My nose twitched. I smelled food. We seemed to be following its scent. The general was a man after my own heart. The scent was delicious. I licked my chops. We soon found
ourselves in a room Mother had told us about. It was the kitchen. It was the place where all food, even dog food, was prepared.

The shelves groaned beneath bags of beans and flour and rashers of bacon. Slabs of meat and whole ducks and chickens hung from the ceiling. There was a big iron stove where pots of soup and stew boiled and gave off heavenly clouds of steam. One-handed, the general helped himself to a cup of stew. Some of it splashed on his wrist, and he let me lick it off. It tasted even better than Mother’s milk. While he ate, we watched the fireplace, where a large roast skewered on a spit dripped into the flames. Old Luc, one of the most senior dogs, was hitched to a big round wheel. He walked in a slow circle. As he walked, the spit holding the meat turned slowly over the fire.

I looked down at him and said,
You must grow
dizzy walking around and around like that
.

Old Luc looked up at me and ran his tongue over his sagging jowls.
This is not as hard as it looks, little one. And after I have turned the spit and the meat is cooked, they will give me a heel of bread dipped in the juices. It is the best
.

“The clerics have devised a very clever contraption here,” the general said to a nearby soldier. The soldier, a tall, skinny lad, stood watching the meat with hungry eyes.

“These big dogs have many talents,” said the soldier. “I watched one of them save the life of a man today. We had been marching through the snow for hours and my friend could not go another step. He staggered and fell into a snowdrift. You should have seen him. He looked so peaceful, as if he were settling down for a nap. But I know that’s how we freeze to death. I was too weak to lift
him up, and ice had begun to form on his face. His breath was slowing. Then one of the dogs came along. She licked the ice off his face and kept licking until the soldier woke up. I watched as the dog grabbed his hand and pulled him to a seated position. After a bit, my friend came to his senses and took to his feet. But that dog kept an eye on my friend until we came to the hospice. If it weren’t for that dog, Napoléon’s army would have had one less soldier. That’s a cute puppy you have there. But one day that puppy will perform miracles like the rest of them.”

“Is that true?” the general said, scratching me on the back. I wagged my tail and licked his fingers.
Give me a taste of what’s on that spit and I’ll perform a miracle right now
, I growled.

The general laughed. He held me in his arms all that evening as he went around the hospice and
visited his men. Some of them were in bed, exhausted from the trek up the mountain. Others lounged by the fire. Still others sat around the table in the dining hall and ate and drank and grumbled about the folly of dragging guns across the Alps. But all of them spoke of the bravery of the dogs. Hearing this made me feel very proud to be one of them. Many men petted me and chucked me under the chin and fussed over me.

Late that night, the general sat with me by the fire in the refectory. I shrank back from the red and orange tongues of flame.

The general said, “That’s fire, my little pup. It cooks meat, but it also warms bodies. It won’t hurt you so long as you don’t get too close to it. It will also make you drowsy.”

Other dogs had come in from the cold. They shook out their coats. Then they lay down on the
hearth, soaking up the warmth from the fire.

I don’t mind the soldiers
, said the dog named Marius.
But I do mind the guns
.

I was just beginning to fall asleep in the general’s snug, warm lap when Michel’s voice awoke me.

“There you are!” he said. “Venus is beginning to worry about her little pup. And I am sure that by now you must be missing her, too.”

Now that I thought of it, I did miss Mother. I liked the general, the warmth of the fire, and all this attention, but I was hungry! The general let me gnaw on his big finger, but there was no milk to be had there.

“I have so enjoyed holding this puppy,” the general said to Michel. “All of your dogs are so well behaved and friendly.”

“They are happy in their work,” said Michel.

“What would you say to my buying this pup?”
said the general. “I think he would fit in very well with Napoléon’s army, don’t you?”

Michel had been friendly with the general until that moment. Now I glimpsed a coldness in his eyes that rivaled the blizzard outside.

Michel clicked his tongue. “Barry is far too young to be taken away from his mother,” he said.

“In that case, I would be happy to wait a week or two until he is old enough to be separated from her,” said the general.

“These dogs are not for sale. The hospice needs as many dogs as we can get. We lost a dog today, in fact, when one of your cannons went over the edge of a cliff, and another was buried in an avalanche last week. We can’t afford to lose a third.” Michel held out his arms for me.

The general sighed. “I understand.” I could sense his reluctance to let me go. But he handed
me to Michel. I think he sensed the marronnier’s displeasure. “I want to thank you for your gracious hospitality and for letting me hold Barry. He and all the dogs have made us weary soldiers feel very much at home.”

Many of the soldiers were very happy there with us, up on our mountain. So happy was one of Napoléon’s generals that the Little Colonel later had his body taken to the Great Saint Bernard Hospice to be buried. Whenever I saw his tomb, I would stop and sniff and remember the soldier with the kind face and gentle voice who wanted to buy me. I marvel at what a different sort of life I would have led had I gone away with the general and the Little Colonel to fight in battles. Instead, I remained at the hospice and grew up to fight a lifelong battle against the White Death.

S
NOW

One morning, Michel came down to the wine cellar to fetch me and my brother and sister. He clapped his hands. “Come along, puppies. Come with me! You’re going outside!”

We scrambled after him, tripping over our big paws. We were big now, two months old. I came up almost to Mother’s knee.

Have fun, children!
Mother called after us. I think she was secretly happy to be rid of us. By
then, we had begun to eat food instead of drinking her milk. The cellar was getting too small to hold us. We spent our days romping and snarling and battling each other. We were excited and ready to get up and go.

We followed at Michel’s heels, up the stairs, along the hall, down the steps, and out the front door into the great wide world!

Phoebe and Jupiter tumbled out the door, but I stood on the sill.
Wait just one moment
, I said slowly, looking around. I wanted to give myself a chance to take it all in—the sights, the scents. I did not want to rush headlong into this new world.

Wait? Who wants to wait? There’s so much to see!
Phoebe said as she followed a black beetle until it disappeared down a hole. There were smaller ones just like it in the cellar. This one was big!

Jupiter was staring at a little brown creature sitting
on the top of a scrubby bush. The next we knew, the thing flew up in the air and flapped away. Jupiter ran after it, barking.
Hey, where do you think you’re going?
he hollered.

“Come back, Jupiter,” said Michel, laughing. “That bird is a ptarmigan. Be nice to it.”

I joined Michel at the bush. I liked it. I had a friendly feeling toward it. I lifted my leg and did what came naturally to us dogs. My piddle ran down the bush’s twigs and soaked into the ground.

I shook myself and stopped to look around. The bush and the bird were all very fine. In the distance I saw a row of rocky crags. There was a wide blue expanse of water down below. But something was missing. I looked up at Michel, sat down on my haunches, and whined far back in my throat.

“What’s the matter, Barry?” said Michel. “It’s a beautiful summer day in the mountains and, for
once, there’s not a patch of snow in sight.”

My point exactly! Where is the snow?
I had waited all my young life to see the snow and now it was nowhere to be found. What was the meaning of this?

“Don’t worry, Barry,” said Michel. “Enjoy the mild weather while you can. The snow will be here before you know it.”