by Greg Kincaid
In our hall closet I found an old blanket on a shelf and I placed it on the kitchen floor. Christmas approached and pawed until all was situated properly, as dogs will do. Once it was acceptable, he lay down on his new bed. Leaning against the door frame, I listened to Todd recount the remainder of the day’s adventure to his mother. They were so absorbed in conversation that I don’t think they’d noticed me playing innkeeper.
Fifteen minutes passed with only an occasional pause for breath. I finally interrupted. “I offered to get him an elephant, but he passed.”
“Oh, George, let him tell his story.”
After all the events had been thoroughly reported, Todd and Mary Ann gave Christmas a tour of our small home. Apparently this approval process worked both ways and they wanted to be sure that Christmas found our accommodations to his liking. They moved out of the kitchen into Todd’s room and the guest room, through the dining room, and finally to the living room, which stretched across the entire front of our home. Against the interior wall of the living room is a fireplace that warms our house.
Todd, dragging the dog’s blanket along, stopped within range of the radiant heat cast from the fire. He spread the blanket out, marking their territory, and sat down on the floor. Christmas stretched out and ordered up a canine massage that Todd gladly administered, starting with his paws and finishing with just the right amount of therapeutic belly rubbing. Christmas yawned and Todd lay down beside him for a lazy rest by the fire. It seemed that our weary traveler had found a comfortable place and a good friend.
When Christmas woke from his afternoon snooze, he made his way through the kitchen to the back door and let out one small bark as if he had done it a million times. Mary Ann let him out and we were all pleased that Christmas was not shy about communicating his needs to us—one less worry about having a dog in the house.
By the next morning, a warm front had moved in and the snow was melting fast beneath a blue sky crowded with large scattered clouds. Several geese were honking loudly as they made their way from our lake and into our fields for a day of foraging for the bits of sorghum, corn, and oats that the combine generously left behind.
Todd and Christmas were still asleep while Mary Ann and I ate breakfast. My experience with sleepovers told me that last night might have been more about talking than sleeping. I left Mary Ann humming at the kitchen sink when I left to do my chores.
After feeding the stock, I turned and saw the two of them, Todd and Christmas, ambling toward me.
“Good morning,” Todd said.
“How’s that dog?”
“He’s fine.” Todd slipped through the rails of the corral and started to inspect the cattle. Christmas started to follow him in. Not wanting him to spook the herd, I said, “Christmas, sit.” I used the same hand signal that Hayley used and he went straight to his haunches.
Todd grinned at me in his lopsided way. “Good dog picker, aren’t I?”
“Indeed, you are a fine dog picker.” I went over and scratched the dog’s head and his tail wagged excitedly. I softly praised him, “Good boy, Christmas.” After Todd left the corral, I said, “Okay, Christmas, good boy, you can go now.”
He spun a few circles and stood by Todd. “Can I go to the creek with the dog?”
“Sure.”
“Can I drive the truck down?”
It was a treat for Todd to drive the truck, even though his mother insisted that he keep the transmission in first gear. I fished my car keys out of my pocket and handed them over. “You just drive slowly or your mom will have me sleeping in the barn.”
Todd opened the truck door. Christmas hopped in and once again settled easily on the middle of the bench seat. Todd started the engine and headed ever so slowly south toward Kill Creek. The creek always fascinated him.
For some reason, as I watched them leave, it occurred to me that I was about Todd’s age when Tucker died. How different Todd’s early adult life was from mine.
These thoughts made me grateful that I wasn’t saying good-bye to my son as he boarded a military bus, bidding this dog a final farewell. Todd would never have to know that returning home was only the first part of a difficult journey back. My Vietnam memories remain painful, but I’ve grown better at working my way through the resentment.
It’s important to have a few choice spots for sitting and thinking, places that resonate with good memories and ample privacy. The whole idea of watching a son you love go off to war sent me straight to my favorite sitting spot at the back of the barn, furnished with a three-legged milking stool that my great-grandfather hewed from an oak tree right here on this farm.
Considering the unpleasant memories of war service was something that the army psychologist encouraged us to do. Even after all these years, with very little effort, I can still close my eyes and hear bomb blasts, the rapid fire of the M-16s, the heavy thuds of a .45-caliber pistol, the shouts, the pleas, the orders, choppers, F-4s dropping napalm, and against it all—insects, a dull roar of crickets, gnats, mosquitoes, and flies.
In the middle of winter, I could imagine the oppressive damp jungle heat. After enough remembering, I opened my eyes and tried to think of happier memories from that time in my life.
Mary Ann wrote me every day. Her letters are in a box on the top shelf of my closet. I tried to break up with her before leaving. I told her that she was too young to be sitting around waiting for me to come back, if I ever did. Because she was two years older than me, I kidded her that she had better act fast before her marrying years were a faded memory.
She would have none of it. After all the teasing about robbing the cradle, she was not giving up on me. When it was time for us to break up, she would let me know. Mary Ann said she would be there for me then and always.
We were married six months after I got back and she has been true to her word ever since.
My leg was stiff, so I got up to take a look at Tucker’s old dog collar that hung on the wall. Turning to go inside for lunch, I heard the Ford truck grinding slowly toward the house in first gear. I felt better, grateful to be right there on the farm with my son. I was so pleased that Todd was not a young man going off to war. Little did I know that day how close I was to finally completing my journey home.
The barn door flew open. Todd was shouting, “Dad, guess what Christmas and I found! Cat tracks at the creek that were as big as my hands!” He held his big paws up in the air.
“Those would be very big prints. I don’t think bobcats are that big and there hasn’t been a cougar around here in years.”
“They sure looked like big cat prints to me, Dad.”
I thought a minute. “When the snow melts, it plays tricks on you and it makes prints seem two or three times larger than their actual size.” I laughed. “Did you see any giant raccoons down there?”
Todd thought about it. “No giant raccoons. I guess you’re right. It was just a bobcat.”
“Makes sense to me.”
Many years ago, my grandfather told me that when he was a young man out hunting, he heard that strange grunting noise deer make when they are startled. He turned and saw a cougar chase a doe into the forest. Just a few years back, another man I know, a lawyer in town, claimed to have seen a big cat flash across the eighth hole of the local golf course just as the sun was setting.
I put little confidence in these sightings for several reasons. Sooner or later most wild animals in these parts end up tangling with a car and losing. I had never seen or heard of that happening to a cougar in our area. Also, bobcats are much bigger than people think and they move so quickly that they could easily be mistaken for a larger cat.
Still there was one thing that made me wonder. It had been four years ago and I couldn’t explain it then, so I forgot about it until now. A cow and a newborn calf got out through our fence. Two miles south of us are nearly a thousand acres of privately owned timber, left untouched for generations, if not centuries. I rode my mare, following the cattle tracks deep into the timber, un
til I came to a small creek.
The creek bed was damp and there were occasional pools of water collecting gnats and mosquitoes. There was not much of a trail and I had to constantly push spiderwebs out of my face to make progress. The cow and calf had stopped to drink. Given the volume of tracks, they had lingered there for several hours, perhaps all night. Cows have cloven hooves and leave distinct prints. I saw strange tracks around the edge of the pool. I got down off the horse for a closer look. There appeared to be cat prints the size of my hand stamped in the mud.
Not wanting to add my name to the list of local crackpots who swore to mountain lion sightings, I never said a thing. Later that morning, I found the missing cow and calf unharmed and forgot about the whole incident.
There was little risk in being careful, so I cautioned Todd as he walked away, “Just the same, maybe you and Christmas should stay away from the creek for a few days. I’ll check on those tracks later.”
Todd shrugged his shoulders. “Sure, Dad, but that cougar is no match for Christmas.”
“You’re wrong there. No dog can take a cougar.”
Todd and Christmas left the barn and I walked slowly up to the house behind them. Christmas circled back several times, apparently wondering why I was so slow. When Todd wasn’t looking, I crouched down and he kissed my face and wagged his tail. Todd was a fine dog picker.
On the days leading up to the holiday, I tried to put the war and memories of Tucker and Good Charlie aside, but it wasn’t easy. Several times Mary Ann would stop and ask me, “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” I told her, but she knew when I was struggling with those memories.
“Is it the dog?”
“No,” I answered, though we both knew I was lying.
ON SATURDAY, THE day before our holiday open house, the temperatures were still moderate but the wind speed had increased. Because the breeze was blowing from the south, we would continue to enjoy warmer than normal weather. After Todd, Christmas, and I finished the morning chores, I drove the tractor down to the back field to check on the mystery tracks Todd had seen a few days earlier.
As I headed south toward Kill Creek, the wind blew even harder and I had to pull my jacket tightly around me and put on my gloves. Most of the snow had melted off the ground and the fields were wet but not yet muddy. Some green shoots of grass sporadically peeked up, but most of the fields had put on winter browns, tans, and grays.
I did not hurry the tractor along and instead enjoyed the time outdoors to think.
On the television that morning the political pundits were jawing about the latest war and I started to wonder why I could never make sense out of these debates. Behind me I pulled an old yellow and green John Deere manure spreader that cast cattle waste into the meadow—nature’s fertilizer—and it occurred to me that these talking heads were spouting the same stuff I was spreading. They debated war like it could be right or wrong and like they were somehow uniquely positioned to know the difference. On the microscopic level of one soldier, I knew that wars seldom make sense, and maybe that’s why I struggled listening to their dialogues.
Slowing the tractor down, I crossed over a culvert and then passed through a wooded hedgerow where I had to protect my head from low-hanging branches. A pair of red foxes sauntered out of the woods and through the meadow. I pushed in the clutch of the tractor and watched. Like most foxes, they were unbothered by a mere human. After they passed from sight, sliding the throttle down a notch, I let out the clutch and continued toward the creek, my mind returning to the war debates.
There was another tragedy of war that was never discussed or even acknowledged and this one had bothered me a great deal over the years. Thousands of dogs served in Vietnam and saved countless lives, including my own. No awards or medals were ever given to these brave and loyal dogs. It was as if it did not matter when a dog sacrificed his life.
Few of these war dogs survived and the ones that did were callously abandoned. It had to be traumatizing for the remaining soldiers to evacuate and leave behind a friend that would lay down his life, not just once but every day. Each time I thought about it, I became hurt and angry.
The creek was in sight and I saw an owl fly just over the treetops and land in a giant sycamore that stood at one side of the creek crossing. I stopped the tractor just short of the creek and sat. I could smell the distant odor of a wood fire, perhaps my own. This area of our farm never stopped being beautiful to me. It was a good place for putting life into perspective. I could hear the water moving gently through the riverbed, not like a roaring Colorado mountain stream teeming with trout and gold dust but like a river that takes its time and can say a lot if you have the patience to listen, which is exactly what I did. My mood lifted thanks to its wise counsel.
I turned the tractor off and applied the emergency brake, climbed down, and then looked for tracks. There were plenty of them. Raccoons, birds, rabbits, size 12 Converse tennis shoes, and a Christmas dog, but I did not see any big cat prints. So, I got back on the tractor and headed home, with the transmission in low gear.
Twice later that day, when Todd left Christmas alone for a few minutes, the dog wandered down to the barnyard and found me. He came over and nudged me, sliding his head under my hand, as if to say, “Pet me.”
Wanting to see if he would follow commands for me like he had done for Hayley, I used this time to practice—sit, stay, and roll over—with him. I even got him to fetch and bring me an old tennis ball on command. He was very obedient and I had the sense that this dog, just like Good Charlie or Tucker, would give everything asked of him. Kneeling down, I held Christmas’s face close to mine and felt his warm breath and soft ears. “You’re a keeper,” I said, without realizing the irony of my words.
I liked the smell of this animal. All of the outdoor scents that I recognized from our farm seemed to waltz freely through his fur, distilled and mixed into a nice natural aroma that was the outdoors I loved.
Remembering and missing my other old canine friends, I hugged Christmas extra hard. He seemed to understand. He rested his muzzle on my shoulder and pressed his cold nose against my ear as if to say he was very happy to be with us. When I released him, Christmas ambled over and picked up his ball and dropped it by my feet.
“You’re pretty direct, aren’t you?” I tossed the ball as far as I could and he chased after it. Good Charlie liked to play fetch too, although he preferred a Frisbee.
We buried Good Charlie in a graveyard by a small Buddhist monastery in the foothills near our base at Tan Son Nhut. When we told his story to the monks, they conferred among themselves for a few minutes and then concluded that Good Charlie was a reincarnated American war hero from our distant history. They seemed very pleased to have his presence with them and they promised to care for his grave. They undoubtedly meant it.
I have a couple of tangible reminders from those days of my life. One is a scar than runs from my buttocks down to my right knee like an ugly set of pink railroad tracks. The second is a damaged right leg, which, while keeping me on military disability pay, still throbs, aches, and causes me to move slower than I would like. Last, there is a Purple Heart in the top drawer of the dresser by my bed. Someday I plan on hanging that medal where it belongs—on Good Charlie’s grave.
Christmas whined for me to attend to the ball he dropped at my feet and forced me away from my thoughts. I looked at him and said, “Well, old boy, taking you back may not be as easy as I thought, but a deal is a deal. Right?”
Christmas was sitting down and I took a wild guess and said, “Shake, boy, shake.” Sure enough he held out his paw and we shook on it.
It was nice to have a dog around again and I remembered how special the friendship between members of the human and canine worlds can be. I tossed the ball toward the house and we both headed in for supper.
Mary Ann decided to make the evening meal an event. She set the table in the dining room with special Christmas dishes that our daughter had given us some years back.
The table was covered with one of her favorite Christmas tablecloths, and red and green candles were arranged as a centerpiece.
After dinner, we helped Mary Ann clean up the dishes, a chore that Christmas cheerfully performed, licking every last scrap of food. We spent the rest of the evening watching television in the living room warmed by the fire. Eventually, I shut off the lights and we headed up the old stairs for bed.
When the sun leaves the winter sky, temperatures drop quickly. Even with the addition of insulation and central heat in the 1970s, our old house is still often cold, making pajamas and electric blankets necessary winter companions. That night, after I was in bed under the warm covers, Mary Ann felt especially good beside me. We could hear Todd muttering something to Christmas in his room downstairs.
“I think he likes that dog, George.”
“You sure about that?” I asked.
“How about you, George—do you like the dog?”
“Oh, yeah, I suppose so. If you like the furry types, he’ll do.”
“You seemed better today.”
“I felt better, much better.”
“What was wrong, George?” she asked as she held my forearm.
“I had some thinking to do.”
“You expected this, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Yes, I suppose so.” She rested her head on my shoulder and I said, “I want to thank you for something.”
“What’s that?”
“Have I told you enough just how much all of your letters meant to me?”
“You’ve told me a thousand times.”
“I should have told you a million times. Thanks again, Mary Ann.”
“I love you, George.”
“I love you too. Good night.”
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20, arrived and we readied for our family dinner and neighborhood open house. The scent of roasting ham and turkey wove its way down to the barnyard, making the swine and fowl nervous. Steam from the mashed potatoes condensed on the kitchen windows and coffee percolated in the old pot on the stove top. Several times during the day, I interrupted my work to inspect Mary Ann’s efforts, using the taste method. My timing was good. Around two o’clock, I came in just as Mary Ann pulled sugar cookies in the shape of Christmas trees out of the oven. Oatmeal cookies were already cooling on the old oak countertop. Todd, Christmas, and I decided it was too much for Mary Ann to do all on her own.
