The Dog That Saved Stewart Coolidge

by Jim Kraus

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  To good dogs everywhere and to the humans that love them.

  Chapter One

  THE DOG, who did not yet possess a name, stood no more than twenty feet from the twin automatic doors of the Tops Super Market in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, trying not to be conspicuous. If anyone noticed him, they would think nothing was out of the ordinary, at least in Wellsboro, that is. Dogs, outside dogs, were not an uncommon sight.

  This one particular dog, a sturdy animal, solid, with no pampered excess weight, perhaps even edging toward skinny, was of middling height and mostly black with white paws, muzzle, and chest, and a pencil-thin white stripe of fur running from nose to forehead. His deep-set, wide eyes glistened with intensity and showed a focused, steady gaze. He had arrived in Wellsboro that morning. He did not remember how far he’d walked. He did know that he was hungry.

  And he knew that food came from buildings just like the one he stood in front of. He looked up at the sign above the door. It was not a sign that appeared familiar. He knew food came from other places, but he also knew that those places would not offer what this place did.

  This dog possessed a keen intellect, and he appeared to be more aware of his surroundings than most people—as if he knew and sensed and felt everything that was occurring within a large radius, and nothing occurred within that circle that escaped his notice. He assumed all dogs, well, most dogs, dogs who spent time outside, possessed these abilities. And he considered some humans to be so aware, as well. But not many humans. Of that, he was certain.

  The dog sat down and sniffed, his nose in the air, just slightly, opening wide to draw in one particular scent.

  From beyond the whooshing doors came scents that he recognized. One, in particular, he took notice of. And when he was certain that it came from inside, he stood up and walked closer to the doors, then sat again, to the side, out of the way of customers, as if he had been told to sit there by some person.

  And, in fact, a few people stopped, on their way out of the store, either carrying bags or pushing a cart. He could tell which people were dog people and which were not—and which were cat people, but they were of a different breed altogether.

  The dog people had the scent of dog on them. That was an easy thing to discern. He could almost tell what sort of dog it was—small or large, male or female, young or old. Most of the time, anyhow. And a few of the dog people stopped and chatted with him.

  “You’re such a good dog,” one lady said. “Your owner must be very confident.”

  Another woman, an older woman by the scent of things, stopped and patted him on the head. He looked up and smiled. He knew humans felt a special kinship when a dog smiled.

  “Good dog,” she said, her voice like wrinkled linen.

  The dog waited until an older man walked up to the door. He did not stop to chat. He was not a dog person, but he moved slower than most. When the automatic door swished open, the dog stood and followed the old man, only a few steps back, but not close enough that he would be aware of being followed. The dog was convinced that the old man would not be observant enough, nor hear well enough, to hear the muted, quiet chatter of a dog’s nails on the rubber mat.

  When the second door opened, the dog smiled, just a little, more to himself than to anyone. He sniffed again. The scent was oh-so-obvious. There were scents of meat and fish and chicken and chemical smells and the scent of fresh-cut green things, but none of those mattered, not this morning.

  The dog walked, with canine confidence, along the row of checkout counters, mostly unoccupied at the moment. After all, it was not that many hours since sunrise. Without hesitation, the dog turned and headed straight down the fifth aisle, not that he could count. It was the scent. Halfway down that aisle, amid the paper and kibble smells of long rows of bags of food, was what he had sought. He saw it and then he did smile fully—a bin of rawhide bones, at floor level, large rawhide bones. Smaller ones were kept higher up. Those he did not want.

  The dog walked to the floor-level display and calmly grabbed the largest and the closest one to him in his mouth. He made sure he had a good grasp on it, turned around, and headed to the front of the store again.

  If people saw him, they paid no notice.

  That was unusual. In the past, someone, from somewhere, would get excited and call out.

  Not today.

  The dog walked slowly toward the doors again, watching carefully. A young woman, carrying a small person in one arm and a bag in the other, made her way to the rubber mat that would cause the door to whoosh open. The dog matched his pace to hers, and as she walked out, he accompanied her.

  It was at that moment that the dog heard the shout.

  He had heard such shouts before. They were usually too late to stop him, and this morning, he was already outside.

  “Stop that dog!” a man shouted, his voice rising in intensity. “He didn’t pay for that bone!”

  The dog took off down Main Street at a trot. He was not certain where he would go, but soon enough, a quiet place would be evident, a safe, quiet spot, out of the way, almost hidden, where he could nibble off the plastic wrapper and begin gnawing on his breakfast, the first food he had had in a few days.

  Mr. Ralph Arden stood in the front of the Tops Super Market in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, flapping his arms, looking much like a perturbed bird, or perhaps more accurately a perturbed, wet rooster, his white smock designating him as the store manager flapping along with him, the overstarched fabric creaking as it inhaled and exhaled, as it were.

  When upset, Mr. Arden’s voice rose in pitch, so his shouts of excitement sounded like the screech of a twelve-year-old boy. Or a twelve-year-old girl, depending on the severity of the situation.

  This event had evoked his highest pitch.

  “That dog stole from my store!” he shouted, glaring at the two bag boys who were on duty that morning. “And you let him go!”

  Mr. Arden tried to glare, did not do glaring well, and then pointed at the bag boy closest to the door. “You. What’s-your-name. Go get him. That’s one hundred percent organic gourmet rawhide and I want it back.”

  Stewart Coolidge pointed at himself in a puzzled manner.

  “Me?”

  “Yes. You. Go. Before he gets away.”

  Stewart shrugged as if this sort of activity was an everyday occurrence at the Tops Super Market in Wellsboro, which it wasn’t, but Stewart did not feel up to discussing this aberration of employee responsibilities with his employer. So he took off, after waiting for Mrs. Grace Thickens, who stood, puzzled by the commotion, in between the two automatic doors.

  By the time Stewart got to the street, all traces of the dog were gone.

  If Stewart had had a dog with him, perhaps a bloodhound of some sort, he could have given chase, but he did not. So instead of running aimlessly, he set off with quick steps toward the west side of downtown, figuring he would search Main Street until he got to the Wired Rooster Coffee Shop, where he might catch a glimpse of Lisa Goodly, his downstairs neighbor.

  No sense in wasting a break and having it end too soon. And the w
eather this morning is really…nice.

  As Stewart walked, he felt something twinge, an unusual twinge, somewhere inside himself, as if this moment would be a moment he would look back upon and tell himself, That’s when it all started. Right there. On Main Street. In the spring. Chasing a dog.

  Chapter Two

  STEWART RETURNED to the Tops Super Market empty-handed.

  “Did you catch him?” Mr. Arden demanded. He must have remained on vigil, at the front of the store, waiting for a firsthand report on the chase and hopeful of apprehension of the thieving dog. Stewart imagined his level of success, or failure, was obvious, since he had returned without a dog or a rawhide chew.

  “Nope,” Stewart said. “I looked all over. But there wasn’t any trace of him anywhere.”

  Mr. Arden drew his eyes nearly shut, puckering his lips in apparent disgust, but he held his tongue.

  “Well, from now on,” he said, his words clipped, “you will be responsible for making sure this…does…not…happen…again.”

  When Stewart had applied for this job a few months after his graduation from Penn State, he’d assumed it would only be temporary, until something better came along. He had never once imagined that his duties would include being placed on permanent dog patrol.

  “Okay.” Stewart had read somewhere that a worker should accept challenges without hesitation. What’s the worst that can happen?

  “I know dogs,” Mr. Arden explained, “and I know criminals. Criminals return to the scene of the crime. That’s a well-known fact. And so do dogs. That one, I could tell, he’ll be back. A criminal dog, to be sure.”

  He stared at Stewart’s name tag, which sat a few degrees off horizontal above his left pocket.

  “And…Stewart, you’ll be ready next time. Correct? Ready, right?”

  Stewart nodded, feigning enthusiasm, then added, “You bet. I’ll be ready.”

  But, as the tale unfolded, Stewart was not ready.

  It was as if the dog had overheard the conversation and cleverly adjusted his modus operandi.

  Stewart’s shift ended at two in the afternoon, and he walked home, enjoying the pleasant weather. He walked because his 1997 Nissan had given up the ghost during the winter and Stewart spent hours debating with himself over the merits of spending good money on a very old car, or saving up slowly and buying a different car, but newer. Delaying his decision was the fact that springtime in Wellsboro, and perhaps everywhere in mid-central Pennsylvania, was a most pleasant season—sharp, crisp air, not cold, with the hint of warmer days to come, when the mornings were marked with an orchestra of birdcalls, and the scent of new greenings enveloped the area.

  Stewart liked walking. It gave him time to think. And he had only a few places to go, and those didn’t absolutely require a car.

  Stewart thought he should be happier than he was, but he wasn’t.

  As he walked, he used his phone to check e-mails. There was a spate of junk e-mail that he immediately deleted. There were a few Facebook postings from friends, nothing important. There were no e-mails from any corporation or business where Stewart had applied for open positions. Over the past months, Stewart had sent out dozens of e-mail applications and letters of inquiry, and had posted his résumé, scant as it was, on several job sites—all promising to deliver some sort of job.

  “Nothing.”

  He turned off Main Street and walked down King Street and on to Rectory Lane, where he lived.

  “Rats.”

  There might be a rectory on Rectory Lane, or had been one once, Stewart thought, but he had never seen any signs pointing to a rectory, nor were there any structures that looked like a rectory, although Stewart wasn’t sure what your standard rectory was supposed to look like.

  Maybe they don’t want to advertise where they live. Priests, I mean.

  Then he thought for a moment longer.

  And I’m not sure just what a rectory is. Priests live in them, right?

  Not being Catholic, or a functioning religious person in any denomination, Stewart had only a faint understanding of such things.

  Midway down the block stood an old, hulking, nearly ramshackle, three-story Victorian house. Overgrown evergreen shrubs crowded the front, while gray paint peeled on the east side. The front porch listed, but the turret didn’t, and most of the original decorative woodwork was still in place. Stewart occupied the entire top floor, which sounded large, but it was not. He stopped at the mailboxes on the front porch and pulled out a thicket of mail, the bulk of it made up of the weekly Tops Super Market flyer, which, of course, he had already seen, a large, glossy postcard from a local car dealer offering “Dyn-o-mite Deals,” and a few credit card solicitations. There were no bills and no personal letters.

  When was the last time I got a real letter in the mail? Must have been my birthday when my grandmother sent me a birthday card. Do birthday cards count as real mail?

  He tossed all the mail into the blue recycling bin behind the house.

  I think they do.

  As he approached the back staircase, he noticed, just at the far corner of his vision, a slight blur, a black-and-white sort of blur. He spun around.

  It’s that dog.

  But when he looked, there was nothing. The backyard had always been relatively unkempt, and the copse of bushes along the rear of the property line was more unkempt this year than last. If it had been a dog, it could have easily disappeared into the jungle of a new growth of weeds and vines and brush.

  Maybe it followed me?

  As he stood and looked, and listened, he told himself that it probably wasn’t a dog, or, more specifically, that dog, and more likely a squirrel or a couple of squirrels giving chase.

  After all, this is springtime and all that.

  He walked up the two narrow and long flights of stairs, thinking about what he might have for lunch and wondering, for the hundredth time that week, about his decision to major in political science at Penn State and not something useful, and eminently employable, like nursing or computer repair, where he would be assured of a job at this moment.

  No one could tell me anything back then, could they?

  He stood in the middle of his small kitchen and looked out the eyebrow window, catching the first shafts of the afternoon sun. He wished things were different. He wished that the lost feeling inside his chest would dissipate, would lessen. But instead of growing smaller, the lost and alone and abandoned feelings grew.

  Something has to change. Something has to be better than this. Life, I mean. Something better.

  Stewart’s late lunch consisted of macaroni and cheese—the Tops private label brand, which was on sale when Stewart bought ten boxes of it—and a banana.

  I should probably eat better. Or more healthy. Healthier. Or something.

  He read through this week’s issue of the Wellsboro Gazette. The help-wanted section ran two full columns: bartender, road crew for asphalt repair, radio advertising sales, assistant track coach at Wellsboro Area High School, night custodian for the school district, part-time housekeeper, and kennel supervisor.

  Stewart sighed and stared out the window of his tiny living room, situated in the house’s turret, with two upholstered chairs and an ottoman taking up the majority of the floor space. The two oak trees out front had just started to green and he looked forward to the dappled sunshine they would allow once the leaves came in.

  Maybe I could apply for that kennel position. I like dogs.

  Then he remembered that he had never owned a dog growing up, only a cat, and that was just for two months, until his grandmother decided it was not a clean animal and sent it off to live with another relative.

  They did say “supervisor.” I’m not sure what a kennel supervisor does.

  He tossed the paper to the floor.

  I don’t think I learned much about kennels in college. Or dogs.

  From his perch he heard the familiar squeal of worn brake pads. He stood up and peered out the curved window that ove
rlooked the street. He caught the flash of a faded red car. That would be Lisa coming home.

  He checked his reflection in the small mirror by his front door and smoothed his short hair. He wished it were a more dramatic color than mousy brown, but that was what had come with him into adulthood. He always said that his hair matched the color of his eyes. He practiced a smile.

  Not bad. Not Brad Pitt, but…okay. For Wellsboro.

  He grabbed the small bag of trash he’d left by the steps and waited until he heard the downstairs door squeal open on its rusty hinges. Then he bolted out his door and hurried down the stairs.

  He and Lisa met on the second-floor landing. Her apartment consisted of most of the west side of the second floor. It was a good deal larger than Stewart’s, and he imagined that either the coffee shop paid better than Tops Market or her parents augmented her meager earnings with some sort of stipend or she was just wealthy on her own.

  “Hi, Lisa,” Stewart said as unrehearsed as he could.

  Lisa smiled back at him as she fished her key out of her purse.

  “Oh, hi, Stewart. You’re off early.”

  “Morning shift this week,” he replied, trying to be both blasé yet interested in conversation at the same time.

  “Me, too. But I guess I don’t start as early as you.”

  “I guess.”

  She inserted the skeleton key into the lock. Stewart imagined that any criminal with a bobby pin could pick all the locks in the house, but he also imagined them casing the residence and saying “Why bother,” after looking at the general shabbiness of the place, and “What could be worth stealing in there?” Stewart’s lock and key on his front door had been replaced when he’d moved in, and featured a contemporary latch/lever sort of mechanism, with a modern key, but was no more secure.

  The lock clicked open and Lisa hesitated, just for a moment. Stewart managed to suppress his excitement.

  “Anything happen at work today? I thought I saw you walking down Main Street this morning. Were you on your break or something? Do you get to leave the store on breaks? We don’t.”