The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances (11 page)

“I know you agree with me about Snoopy,” I said.

I was really only letting him get used to my voice. I thought it would be fair to give him a chance to see that he was an insider with me. I wanted him to know I was imagining him outside a house where people were moving about, passing by windows, making noise.

Maybe he knew that not all dogs in the world are attached to a chain. Or maybe he thought he was the same as everyone else. Maybe, even at the height of being hopeful, he knew he was never going to be inside that house. At night, he probably saw the weird glow of a television throbbing in a window, whites and grays and pale blues. If he were a little kid, he might have fantasized those lights turning into a vehicle—a spaceship, say. There it would come, hovering above him, opening a hatch. Friendly aliens would use unearthly powers to get him out of there, off the chain, away from his own shit and piss. It must have shamed him to live every day in his own mess.

I wondered, how can anyone go to a place inside someone where the loneliness is, when the someone was never anything but lonely?

And I wondered if, at sunrise, Shadow lifted his head to see light coming into the sky. Maybe he did for a while, but then he stopped bothering. Maybe he was twilight and darkness inside himself and that was all there was.

I thought about what it's like to give up on looking at light.

“Scooby-Doo,” I said. “That's another example of famous dogs in cartoons for kids. Trust me, they're all idiots.”

He stared at the ball. I tried another approach.

“If you were a kid in school with me,” I said, “I'd want you near me all the time. I could have used the support. You wouldn't believe what it was like to keep trying to figure out why everyone loved things I thought were stupid.”

He backed away a little and lay down. One day, or perhaps it was night, in a secret operation, someone showed up. A stranger? A neighbor? Someone who lived in the house? I wondered what it was like for him when the hand of a human took hold of the chain where it was attached to him, to a choke collar. A choke collar is metal. When he came to the Sanctuary, he had to be treated for a ring of infection, like a necklace. How many times did he pull at that chain with the collar digging into him? How many times did he bark before he stopped barking?

A hand of a human undid the chain. Somewhere in the world a person went to bed with this thought: I saved a dog today.

Mute Shadow. Maybe he fell in love with his silence, like a monk in the vault of a cloister, softly padding through the hours. I wondered if he barked in his dreams.

I had looked at his neck. There wasn't a scar from the infection. His collar now was a loose, fabric one. Nothing was wrong with his vocal cords. But if he went into search-and-rescue, he needed to first have some rehab. I pictured him finding a hiker in an avalanche. He'd be standing there proud of himself, licking the face of the person. The person could be dying, and he'd keep the news to himself.

Then the person would be dead before humans arrived with life-saving things, and they'd throw him off the rescue team and there would go his pride. He would sink to new levels of silence, and feel worse about himself, like he was back on the chain, but this time his chain was invisible.

“Ask me for the ball,” I told him.

That was when Mrs. Auberchon walked in. She was wearing her coat and boots. A purse was on her arm. She seemed anxious. For once, she wasn't looking at me as if she'd call that treats woman and say,
I can't believe this girl is
still here.

“You'll never guess what happened. The Jeep has to go to Midas Muffler.”

Shadow looked up at her with interest. Like Tasha, he connected her with the kitchen. A little drool was slopping out of him. Maybe he thought drooling was a form of talking.

I said, “I guess that can only mean one thing.”

“It does,” said Mrs. Auberchon. “Someone donated the money for a muffler, directly to the shop. It's a gift certificate. From an anonymous donor.”

“Wow,” I said. “That's so cool.”

“I don't like the change in my plans, but George is in charge of it, and he can't drive into town. I don't like driving. I like the bus. I like taxis.”

I was sure she'd only confided in me because of her agitation. She liked her routine.

“I'm taking George with me,” she said. “You'll be keeping Shadow here with you.”

I waited for her to give me a list of things not to do, like I was a babysitter she'd hired. But she just gave me a distracted little wave of goodbye before she hurried outside. Shadow pricked his ears at the noise of the Jeep. It was entering the lane.

“It's not coming here to pick you up. You're stuck with me,” I said.

Suddenly, in the absence of Mrs. Auberchon, I felt the inn around me in a big, expansive, comfortable, familiar way. The stove was radiating heat. The sun was shining. The temperature outdoors had risen to double digits for the first time since I'd arrived. I realized I wasn't sure what the day was. I also realized it wasn't important to me to know, or to care, as if I'd lost the ability to measure time by what it said on a calendar, or even a clock.

But Shadow and I were not to be on our own. A whining was coming in from just outside the front door, like the sound of a broken heart. It was a whimper and a moan, combined. I knew right away who it was.

Shadow stayed put while I opened the door. Tasha was splayed in her Rottweiler self on the ground, as if someone turned her into a rug.

She raised her eyes but not her head. I guessed what had happened. My first reaction was all softness and sympathy, but I decided I'd better be tough.

“Get in here, Tasha,” I said. “Stop with the misery and come in.”

She sighed so deeply, it was almost the sound of wind.

I said, “You came down in the Jeep with Giant George, right? And then you got thrown out because they wouldn't take you to Midas Muffler, right?”

She started whining again, but softly, mixed in with her normal breathing.

“Did you chase the Jeep down the lane? And then you gave up?”

I'd guessed right. Tasha entered the soprano range of the whine, letting out long, reedy notes. She sounded like an oboe in the opening lines of something so melancholy and wrenching, you'd want to start crying right away.

“This is not like how it was like before,” I told her. “Do you have any idea how fucked up it is to live over and over the worst thing that ever happened to you? It's pretty fucked up, Tasha. Come on. Get up and come inside
now.
”

There was no reaction. I felt Shadow brushing up against me. I couldn't tell from his expression if he felt sorry for Tasha, or worried, or nothing at all.

“Tasha got dumped from a vehicle again,” I told Shadow. “She's having a flashback, and she can't make it go away.”

Then Shadow was pushing past me, bounding out the doorway. When he reached Tasha, he placed himself in a stand in front of her. He lowered his head as far as he could, and looked into her eyes, and started barking at her.

At first it was weak, almost like the squeak of a puppy, but then he got the hang of it. He was a tenor. He was a trumpet. He was . . . a siren! After several big barks with little pauses between them, he lifted his head and howled, like an ambulance, like a fire engine, like a hound. So that's what people mean when they say dogs like to howl at the moon, I was thinking, even though the moon was in a phase of being invisible in daylight.

Tasha's eyes opened wide, but not in amazement, not like mine. She could not have cared less if Shadow found his bark or stayed mute forever. She was irritated. She looked at him like he was hurting her ears. She didn't get hostile to him, or casually lift a paw to smack him away, but maybe she would have done so if I weren't there.

She heaved herself up and walked around him. I stepped back from the doorway so she could come in. She wouldn't look at me, but she let out one bark, which was more like a Rottweiler-grunt of information, in case no one had figured out that she was having a terrible day.

Shadow had turned around so he could bay at her bum and her tail. I threw him the tennis ball. I was shaky with too many feelings at once, so my aim was off, and he didn't catch it. But that meant he had to search for it. He had to rescue it. He came up from the depths with a beard of snow and a snowy ball in his mouth, and I threw back my head and laughed at him. I didn't try to remember the last time such sounds came out of me. But I felt it might have been never.

Shadow stared at me proudly, like I'd done a copycat thing, like I'd learned from him to make a good noise, even though it wasn't on a level with barking and howling. I had to ask myself, who
are
you?

I looked at who I was:
new Evie.
I was someone holding out a hand to pat a dog in front of me, while my other hand was reaching to grab the collar of the huge dog behind me, who very much wanted to get into my pockets to see if I had treats. I was someone with echoes ringing in my ears, both human and dog, and I wanted them never to stop. I was someone waiting for a cranky middle-aged woman who didn't like me to come back in a Jeep with a big teenage boy who was a total mystery and also a pain in the ass, and the Jeep would have a muffler that didn't sound like gunshot. And as soon as they returned, I'd be telling them, “Shadow barked and howled.”

I was someone outside the world. I was someone with a phone turned on briefly to make a call. I was someone with a credit card taken out of a wallet. I was someone who remembered three muffler shops starting with M: Meineke, Midas, Monro. I was someone who picked Midas because the Meineke customer service phone went to voicemail, and a person answered at Midas, because of course I had to go in alphabetic order. I was someone who said to Midas, “Put down my name as Anonymous.”

That was all I could think of, plus the fact that I knew I didn't want anything bad to happen to any dog ever.

I motioned for Shadow to follow me inside. He was barely through the doorway when Tasha saw the ball in his mouth and decided it ought to be hers. I was still holding her by the collar. She was pulling like crazy. She'd opened her jaws to try to go for a grab, and I saw that most of Shadow's head could fit between her teeth. But he was smart. He rushed to the armchair, slid under it, and curled himself up, his chin on top of his front paws, his front paws on top of the ball. I was proud of him all over again.

“Tasha, sit,” I said. “I'll get you a treat when you
sit.
”

That was a mistake. I should have known not to say ahead of time the only word in human language she cared about. She pretended to do what I commanded, but one second after I let go of her collar, she jumped me. She got her paws on my shoulders. We were nearly the same height, body to body, like we were dancing partners. Her tongue slobbered on my cheeks.

Then the phone was ringing in Mrs. Auberchon's kitchen, where no one was.

“Down, Tasha,” I said.

She made me push her off. It wasn't easy. I was busy with that as the answering machine kicked in. The kitchen door was open, so I heard the message being left.

The voice was a woman's, strong and clear. The caller was addressing Mrs. Auberchon.

Tasha recognized the voice. She sat at once, tilting back her head, with her tongue lolling and her eyes full of calmness. Under the chair, Shadow stuck out his head. His ears perked up. Yes, I know the voice, he was saying to me, with a look. That was how I knew the call was coming from the Sanctuary.

“You can send Evie up today, Mrs. Auberchon,” the voice said.

And suddenly I was someone who was going up the mountain.

Going up the mountain!

But first, I had to deal with Tasha, whose day was getting worse. Her calmness was over when the voice from the Sanctuary stopped. She jumped again, a little rougher this time, not like play, but I remembered
don't allow.
I whirled around, so Tasha thudded off my back and bounced down.

“No jumping, Tasha,” I said.

Her look was pure innocence. Her eyes were saying, jumping on humans is a thrill. I looked over at Shadow. His eyes were closing. He'd exhausted himself. He needed to stay in his safe place, dreaming of barking and howling and finding something hidden in snow.

I was full of new confidence. I made up my mind to teach Tasha the basic commands—well, maybe one or two. I slid open the door to the other room, and she bounded in.

“Tasha, listen,” I said. “You have to learn the five basics. Five like fingers. On a human.”

Again, a jump. Again I spun around. Again a thudding.

Then I faced her, arms folded across my chest. I refused to turn into a softie from being melted inside by the sweetness of her face, especially with those polka dots above her eyes, bronze-brown like new pennies, but soft and smooth. How could anyone resist the urge to stroke each one?

I resisted. I walked backward toward the storage containers and took a biscuit. I almost held it up in the air to show it to her, but I figured out quickly it would have been stupid, as if I'd brought this dog here to give meaning and purpose to jumping.

“Sit, Tasha. You know what that means.
Sit.
”

I grabbed her collar as she started going into another jump. But I didn't hang on to the biscuit. It fell to the floor. Tasha started going for it as if she hadn't eaten anything for days and might die of starvation. I heard a sound of gasping. I will never forget that sound. I realized she was panicking, as if I'd cut off her air, on purpose.

The power of her pulling sent hot shocks of pain up my arm and into my shoulder. But still, I didn't agree with her that what I was doing was choking her. I didn't think I was yanking on the collar too hard because I'd gone out of control with trying to control this animal—this animal I was suddenly not allowing to breathe.