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They gave Einstein his medicines on schedule, and he swallowed his pills obediently. They explained to him that he needed to eat well in order to regain his strength. He tried, but his appetite was returning only slowly. He would need a few weeks to regain the pounds he had lost and to recover his old vitality. But day by day his improvement was perceptible.
By Friday, December 10, Einstein seemed strong enough to risk a short walk outside. He still wobbled a little now and then, but he no longer tottered with every step. He’d had all of his shots at the veterinary clinic; there was no chance of picking up rabies on top of the distemper he’d just beaten.
The weather was milder than it had been in recent weeks, with temperatures in the low sixties and no wind. The scattered clouds were white, and the sun, when not hidden, laid a warm life-giving caress on the skin.
Einstein accompanied Travis on an inspection tour of the infrared sensors around the house and the nitrous-oxide tanks in the barn. They moved a bit more slowly than the last time they had walked this line together, but Einstein seemed to enjoy being back on duty.
Nora was in her studio, working diligently on a new painting: a portrait of Einstein. He was not aware that he was the subject of her latest canvas. The picture was to be one of his Christmas gifts and would, once opened on the holiday, be hung above the fireplace in the living room.
When Travis and Einstein came out of the barn, into the yard, he said, “Is it getting closer?”
Upon being asked that question, Einstein went through his usual routine, though with less exertion, less sniffing of the air, and less study of the shadowy forest around them. Returning to Travis, the dog whined anxiously.
“Is it out there?” Travis asked.
Einstein gave no answer. He merely surveyed the woods again— puzzled.
“Is it still coming?” Travis asked.
The dog did not reply.
“Is it nearer than it was?”
Einstein padded in a circle, sniffed the ground, sniffed the air, cocked his head one way and then the other. Finally he returned to the house and stood at the door, looking at Travis, waiting patiently.
Inside, Einstein went directly to the pantry.
MUZZY.
Travis stared at the word on the floor. “Muzzy?”
Einstein dispensed more letters and nosed them into place.
MUFFLED. FUZZY.
“Are you talking about your ability to sense The Outsider?”
A quick tail wag:
Yes.
Yes.
“You can’t sense it any more?”
One bark:
No.
No.
“Do you think . . . it’s dead?”
DON’T KNOW.
“Or maybe this sixth sense of yours doesn’t work when you’re sick—or debilitated like you are now.”
MAYBE.
Gathering up the lettered tiles and sorting them into the tubes, Travis thought for a minute. Bad thoughts. Unnerving thoughts. They had an alarm system around the property, yes, but to some extent they were depending on Einstein for an early warning. Travis should have felt comfortable with the precautions he had taken and with his own abilities, as a former Delta Force man, to exterminate The Outsider. But he was tormented by the feeling that he had overlooked a hole in their defenses and that, come the crisis, he would need Einstein’s full powers and strength to help him deal with the unexpected.
“You’re going to have to get well as fast as you can,” he told the retriever. “You’re going to have to try to eat even when you have no real appetite. You’re going to have to sleep as much as you can, give your body a chance to knit up, and don’t spend half the night at the windows, worrying.”
CHICKEN SOUP.
Laughing, Travis said, “Might as well try that, too.”
A BOILERMAKER KILLS GERMS DEAD.
“Where’d you get that idea?”
BOOK. WHAT’S BOILERMAKER?
Travis said, “A shot of whiskey dropped into a glass of beer.” Einstein considered that for a moment.
KILL GERMS BUT BECOME ALCOHOLIC.
Travis laughed and ruffled Einstein’s coat. “You’re a regular comedian, fur face.”
MAYBE I SHOULD PLAY VEGAS.
“I bet you could.”
HEADLINER.
“You certainly would be.”
ME AND PIA ZADORA.
He hugged the dog, and they sat in the pantry laughing, each in his own way.
In spite of the joking, Travis knew that Einstein was deeply troubled by the loss of his ability to sense The Outsider. The jokes were a defensive mechanism, a way to hold off fear.
That afternoon, exhausted from their short walk around the house, Einstein slept while Nora painted feverishly in her studio. Travis sat by a front window, staring out at the woods, repeatedly going over their defenses in his mind, looking for a hole.
On Sunday, December 12, Jim Keene came out to their place in the afternoon and stayed for dinner. He examined Einstein and was pleased with the dog’s improvement.
“Seems slow to us,” Nora said fretfully.
“I told you, it’ll take time,” Jim said.
He made a couple of changes in Einstein’s medication and left new bottles of pills.
Einstein had fun demonstrating his page-turning machine and his letter-dispensing device in the pantry. He graciously accepted praise for his ability to hold a pencil in his teeth and use it to operate the television and the videotape recorder without bothering Nora and Travis for help.
Nora was at first surprised that the veterinarian looked less sad-eyed and sorrowful than she remembered. But she decided his face was the same; the only thing that had changed was her perception of him. Now that she knew him better, now that he was a friend of the first rank, she saw not only the glum features nature had given him but the kindness and humor beneath his somber surface.
Over dinner, Jim said, “I’ve been doing a little research into tattooing— to see if maybe I can remove the numbers in his ear.”
Einstein had been lying on the floor nearby, listening to their conversation. He got to his feet, wobbled a moment, then hurried to the kitchen table and jumped into one of the empty chairs. He sat very erect and stared at Jim expectantly.
“Well,” the vet said, putting down a forkful of curried chicken that he’d lifted halfway to his mouth, “most but not all tattoos can be eradicated. If I know what sort of ink was used and by what method it was embedded under the skin, I might be able to erase it.”
“That would be terrific,” Nora said. “Then even if they found us and tried to take Einstein back, they couldn’t prove he’s the dog they lost.”
“There’d still be traces of the tattoo that would show up under close inspection,” Travis said. “Under a magnifying glass.”
Einstein looked from Travis to Jim Keene as if to say,
Yeah, what about that?
Yeah, what about that?
“Most labs just tag research animals,” Jim said. “Of those that tattoo, there’re a couple of different standard inks used. I might be able to remove it and leave no trace except a natural-looking mottling of the flesh. Microscopic examination wouldn’t reveal traces of the ink, not a hint of the numbers. It’s a small tattoo, after all, which makes the job easier. I’m still researching techniques, but in a few weeks we might try it—if Einstein doesn’t mind some discomfort.”
The retriever left the table and padded into the pantry. They could hear the pumping of the letter-dispensing pedals.
Nora went to see what message Einstein was composing.
DON’T WANT TO BE BRANDED. AM NOT A COW.
His desire to be free of the tattoo went deeper than Nora had thought. He wanted the mark removed in order to escape identification by the people at the lab. But evidently he also hated carrying those three numbers in his ear because they marked him as mere property, a condition that was an affront to his dignity and a violation of his rights as an intelligent creature.
FREEDOM.
“Yes,” Nora said respectfully, putting a hand on his head, “I do understand. You are a . . . a
person,
and a person with”—this was the first time she had thought of this aspect of the situation—“a soul.”
person,
and a person with”—this was the first time she had thought of this aspect of the situation—“a soul.”
Was it blasphemous to think Einstein had a soul? No. She did not think blasphemy entered into it. Man had made the dog; however, if there was a God, He obviously approved of Einstein—not least of all because Einstein’s ability to differentiate right from wrong, his ability to love, his courage, and his selflessness made him closer to the image of God than were many human beings who walked the earth.
“Freedom,” she said. “If you’ve got a soul—and I know you do—then you were born with free will and the right to self-determination. The number in your ear is an insult, and we’ll get rid of it.”
After dinner, Einstein clearly wanted to monitor—and participate in— the conversation, but he ran out of energy and slept by the fire.
Over a short brandy and coffee, Jim Keene listened as Travis outlined their defenses against The Outsider. Encouraged to find holes in their preparations, the vet could think of nothing except the vulnerability of their power supply. “If the thing was smart enough to bring down the line that runs in from the main highway, it could plunge you into darkness in the middle of the night and render your alarm useless. And without power those tricky mechanisms in the barn wouldn’t slam the door behind the beast or release the nitrous oxide.”
Nora and Travis took him downstairs, into the half-basement under the rear of the house, to show him the emergency generator. It was powered by a forty-gallon tank of gasoline buried in the yard, and it would restore electricity to the house and barn and alarm system after only a ten-second delay following the loss of the main supply.
“As far as I can see,” Jim said, “you’ve thought of everything.”
“I think we have, too,” Nora said.
But Travis scowled. “I wonder . . .”
On Wednesday, December 22, they drove into Carmel. Leaving Einstein with Jim Keene, they spent the day buying Christmas gifts, decorations for the house, ornaments for a tree, and the tree itself.
With the threat of The Outsider moving inexorably closer to them, it seemed almost frivolous to make plans for the holiday. But Travis said, “Life is short. You never know how much time you’ve got left, so you can’t let Christmas slide by without celebrating, no matter what. Besides, my Christmases haven’t been so terrific these last few years. I intend to make up for that.”
“Aunt Violet didn’t believe in making an event of Christmas. She didn’t believe in exchanging gifts or putting up a tree.”
“She didn’t believe in
life,
” Travis said. “And that’s just one more reason to do this Christmas up right. It’ll be your first good one, as well as Einstein’s first.”
life,
” Travis said. “And that’s just one more reason to do this Christmas up right. It’ll be your first good one, as well as Einstein’s first.”
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