by Greg Kincaid
I probably did not pick the best time for driving practice, but I was so ready for Todd to start growing up that I rushed things when I should have known better. Sure, I had let Todd drive on the highway a few times before. Over his mother’s objections, he earned his learner’s permit a few years ago, but had never received his unrestricted license. But concentrating on the dog business and concentrating on his driving business at the same time was presenting a few problems. More than once, I had to reach over and make sure he did not stray over into the other lane.
“Todd, I think we are going to have to do some practicing.”
“You think so, Dad?” he asked.
“It’s real important, Todd, that you stay right in your lane.”
“Somebody is behind me, Dad.” I turned around and looked. Sure enough, a red Ford decided to use the highway that day too. I waved him around us and he passed, disappearing ahead of us. He had out-of-county tags and probably wondered why in the world we were driving so slowly.
When we got to Crossing Trails, Todd did a real nice job at the stoplight and then turned down the road to the shelter.
“You’re doing just fine, Todd. I think you are a good driver. Very safe. Your mom would be very proud of you and so am I.”
“Never had an accident,” he proudly noted.
Stifling my laughter, I said, “Yep, you’re pitching a perfect game so far. Let’s keep it up, okay?”
There were only a few cars in the lot, but two things seemed out of place. The red Ford that passed us on the highway was now sitting in the lot, and someone had placed one of those large construction trailers on the edge of the property.
Todd had no problem parking my truck. It was 4:45, so we made it in plenty of time. We walked through the front door of the shelter. We saw no one around, so we headed back to the animal holding area. We could see Hayley and Jennifer, a part-time employee, discussing something that must have been unpleasant for they looked and sounded tense. An older man stood beside them saying nothing. He did not look pleased either. We approached down the center aisle.
“What do you mean he got out?” Hayley asked.
“I told you the fence needed fixing yesterday,” Jennifer answered.
“Yeah, and I thought you were going to take care of it!”
“With the holiday, it was hard to find anyone who would come out to fix it.”
Jennifer and Hayley saw Todd approaching and Jennifer started to cry before taking off down the hall.
I had a suspicion that it was not good. “What happened?” I asked Hayley.
“There was a weak spot in the fence. I guess Christmas squeezed out. He’s gone.”
Under the circumstances, I wondered why they were just standing around. “Did you call him? Maybe we can get in the truck and find him.”
Hayley shook her head. “Jennifer was so upset, she has been out calling and looking for him since two-thirty. She was afraid to even tell me. He’s been gone for hours now. He could be anywhere.”
The stranger pushed forward, holding something up. “Excuse me, but is this the missing dog?”
All three of us peered at a photo that he held in his hand. It sure looked like Christmas to me.
“That’s Christmas,” Todd said immediately.
The man let out a deep sigh. “When he lived with us, we called him Jake. We learned very early on that no fence could hold that dog. When Jake wanted to go, Jake went.”
“Jake?” I repeated.
“That was his name when he lived with us.” The stranger held out his hand. “Bill Conner.”
I shook his hand and introduced myself and Todd. “We adopted him for Christmas and just came in to get him for good. We didn’t know he was yours.”
“Jake is a bit of a wanderer. I think he goes where he wants to go. When he lived with us he would be gone for a few days, doing Jake business, and then just unexpectedly return.”
“He wasn’t that way with us,” Todd said quickly. “I mean, he stuck around.”
Bill Conner put his hands in his pockets and looked at Todd. “As far as him being my dog, nobody owns Jake. Sooner or later, Jake goes where he wants to go. You can’t just pick Jake out and think you own him. Jake has to pick you out. That’s the way it works with him. It may be that Jake’s business is over with both of our families.” Bill Conner smiled and shrugged his shoulders as if to say that he was accepting a reality even if he did not like it. “Jake has new Jake business.”
We were all silent for a moment until Todd spoke up, seeming slightly offended. “Christmas was a good dog for us.”
I considered that to be an enormous understatement.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” Hayley said. “If Christmas shows up here, I’ll call you both and we’ll see what we can work out.”
Todd reached out and put his hand on Hayley’s shoulder and spoke once more as if to reassure us all. “Don’t worry. Christmas can take care of himself.”
WE PULLED OUT of the shelter parking lot to a light snow shower. It was too warm for the snow to stick, but the gray sky set an appropriate backdrop for my disappointment. Todd seemed to know from my silence that I was upset and bothered. He kept saying, “Don’t worry, Dad. Christmas will be fine.” I was amazed that Todd seemed to be handling this better than me.
When we turned into our driveway after a long and silent trip home, Mary Ann was waiting for us. I dreaded telling her, but when I got out of the truck she just gave me a big hug and said, “I’m sorry, George.”
“How did you know?”
“I called the shelter. I wanted to remind you to buy more dog food. I talked to Hayley and she told me.”
“It’s all right. It’s probably for the best,” I said. I got the collar, the leash, and the yellow tennis ball out of the back of the truck. “I guess we won’t need these anymore.” I tossed them on the ground and walked off toward the barnyard.
Todd started to follow me until Mary Ann called him back. “Todd, why don’t you come to the house with me. I think your dad needs a little time to think.”
I went into the barn and found the milking stool waiting in my thinking spot.
Mary Ann was right. I had been a fool about this dog. I handled the whole thing poorly. What happened was exactly what I feared, but it was my own fault this time. It was like authoring your own worst nightmare. Everybody has something they aren’t very good at and I guess dog relationships just don’t work for me. I stared at Tucker’s old collar hanging on the wall and resolved to toss it into a trash can. I was done with dogs. This time for good.
If Bill Conner was right about this dog, then it might not have mattered. He was destined to drift off anyway. It sounded like he was going to go where he wanted to go. I admired the dog for his independence, but I found it hard to believe that he would have wandered off from this farm. From the beginning, he seemed so comfortable with us and us with him.
I exhaled deeply. On top of everything else, my leg was throbbing in pain. I shifted my weight and tried to get more comfortable when I heard something. Pong. … pong … pong. I was still a little goosey about that cougar, so I tensed up. Before I could place the sound, a yellow tennis ball rolled right up to the foot that was connected to the end of my aching right leg. I was ready to pick it up and throw it right back at Todd.
I turned toward the barn door to throw, but it wasn’t Todd. Standing there in the door frame, with the last remnant of sunlight to his back and snowflakes falling over him like a thousand tiny paratroopers, was a dog named Christmas. His tail was wagging and you would have thought that he never left us. I yelled, “Come here, boy! Come on now!” He hesitated for just a second, but then bounded toward me.
Rising off the milk stool when he jumped, I was knocked back onto my own haunches. He was so glad to see me. I hugged him and buried my face in his winter cold, winter clean fur. For a moment, I’m sure my grin was wider than Todd’s grin on a spring-painting day, a creek-exploring day, or a radio-listening d
ay. I could not wait to show my dog to my son.
Grunting, my stiff leg hindering my ability to stand, I asked, “You want to play catch?” Christmas was wagging his tail. He had clearly chosen us just like we chose him. With all of my strength, I let the ball sail through the barn door and out into the cold winter air. He barked twice and scampered off into the barnyard.
With a second effort, I stood, remembering that for many years my grandfather hung the stool on a nail along the wall. I picked the stool up and turned it over. There was still an old piece of leather strap nailed to the underside. I found the nail and hung the stool up by its strap before heading inside to share my good news with Mary Ann and Todd. I was hoping that it would be a long time before I would need that stool again.
I headed for the back door, yelling, “Mary Ann, Todd, get out here, now!”
Christmas raced around the corner with the ball in his mouth. I tossed the ball again and Christmas disappeared around the side of the barn, out of view.
Mary Ann and Todd opened the door and nearly fell out onto the porch with worry. “What’s wrong?” Mary Ann asked.
“I just figured out how to get Christmas back.”
“How?” Todd asked.
“It’s easy. I’ll just throw the ball and he’ll fetch it.”
“What?” Mary Ann asked.
On cue, Christmas roared around the corner with the ball in his mouth and bounded up onto the porch. I shrugged my shoulders. “See. It worked.”
Christmas was home, this time for good. Todd and Mary Ann’s reunion with him was no less exciting than my own, although Mary Ann could not resist tugging his ears gently and scolding him for running away. “And to not even leave a note. Shame on you!”
After things settled down, I made a call to Hank, letting him know that it all worked out and to thank him for helping me to set things straight. I got another surprise.
“George,” he said, with the confidence I always admired, “I’m not getting any younger, you know.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“It’s time for me to be thinking about the mark I leave with this life. I just want you to know that I sent a construction company out to the Cherokee County Animal Shelter. That place is a disgrace, but it won’t be when I’m done with it.”
“Nope, Hank, when you do something, it’s done right.” So, that explained the construction company trailer in the shelter parking lot. Hank was wasting no time making things right for the dogs of Cherokee County.
Later that night, sitting in front of the dying embers of my fire, I put my newspaper down and closed my eyes. I reached out and stroked my dog’s fur, listening with pleasure as his tail thumped the floor. I thought I could almost hear Mary Ann chuckle and say, “And George, when does Christmas end?”
I smiled to myself while still petting the dog, and then whispered to my wife, to my children, and to the whole world, “As long as we can still make room at the inn, Christmas never ends.”
Author’s Note
During the week of October 17, 2002, a mountain lion was killed on the highway near Kansas City. An expert concluded that it had never lived in captivity. There continue to be numerous sightings in the area.
Acknowledgments
AS A NOVICE to the trade, it never occurred to me how much help I would need to reach the end or just how distant that end might be. A book like this does not have one author. Every sentence on every page is a collaboration. This story started almost ten years ago as five typed pages read to my family and shared with a few friends at Christmas. They offered their support and advice, which resulted in a longer version that I read the following holiday. They encouraged me to try to publish it. With the very capable help of Jean Lucas, a local freelance editor, I submitted the story to Capper’s magazine, and it was published as a short story in the fall of 2003. Several years later, and after writing a full-length novel that’s still stuck in a box, I found Jonathan Clements and Taylor Joseph at the Nashville Agency. They thought the story could be marketed as a Christmas gift book. With their guidance, the now-lengthened text traveled to the desk of Andrew Corbin at Doubleday. Andrew was enthusiastic about the story concept from the beginning, but wondered if I could make some revisions. Armed with some of Andrew’s very good ideas, I set out again. A month later, I resubmitted to Doubleday and nervously waited for Andrew’s call. He got back to me promptly and the conversation went something like, “Love the book, but can you double the length?”
Off to work I went. Fortunately, Andrew enlisted some help for me. In Becky Cabaza, I had a real pro in my corner. Becky took my literary hand and guided me to a final draft. She helped me develop an even better story and mercifully did not require me to add even one more page! To Jean, Jonathan, Taylor, Becky, and all of the other excellent people at Doubleday, many thanks for making this book possible.
As if all this help wasn’t enough, other people contributed too. My good friend and law partner, Joe Norton, spent hours reading each version and offering his ideas and support. My dad, Rod Kincaid, and my legal assistant, Martha Huggins, fixed the details that were too often lost on me. Most especially, I want to acknowledge and thank my wife, Michale Ann, for never accepting anything but the best from me.
This story was born from my rural roots on a Kansas farmstead. To those before me who made it possible, my thanks. I hope you, the reader, enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Greg Kincaid
Olathe, Kansas
Special Thanks
I would like to offer a special thanks to the Olathe Animal Shelter and most especially Todd Kuhn, Carol Falkner, and Carol’s dog, Maggie. Maggie was a former guest at the shelter and now lives with Carol. I visited several shelters while researching this story and was impressed by the dedication of the employees and the gracious reception I always received from so many fine dogs. To all of the dogs that shared their stories with me, thank you too.
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Copyright © Greg Kincaid 2008
Greg Kincaid has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
First published in the United States in 2008 by Doubleday
First published in Great Britain in 2008 by
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ISBN 9780099534631
