by Dan Dillard
STRAYS
It was a Thursday when Raleigh brought the dog home. I named him Raleigh because it was that town where I’d been raised and always had fond memories of it. I remembered it was Thursday because there was a huge football game on that night and I lost a small fortune betting on it. The dog was half frozen and dehydrated, but he limped up to the door next to my son who looked at me with the most soulful eyes he could muster and simply said, “Please?”
It was all I could do to tell Raleigh, who was only eight years old, that dog probably belonged to someone and would be missed. I explained that we would feed him and warm him up, but then we had to get on the stick and find his real home. His eyes gleamed at the notion that we were keeping the animal, if only for a few hours or a few days and I could see in his heart he had already claimed ownership.
“Thanks! I love you, dad,” he said.
He told me that every night before bed, but that ‘I love you, dad’ held a new level of sincerity and gratefulness that made me swell in my chest. I couldn’t see any harm in keeping the dog if no one claimed it. Every child should have a dog to learn responsibility, to learn about unconditional love, and to learn a bit about patience.
“Just one thing,” I said before he ran off.
“What’s that?” he asked me.
“Don’t name him. Not yet.”
I hoped it would stave off some of the pain when the owner showed up.
“But he’s already got a name, daddy. Says ‘Smoke’ right here on his tag.”
My throat knotted up.
“Well if he has a name and a collar, then he has an owner, son. We need to find them and get this little guy home.”
Raleigh hung his head and looked at the dog, “I know.”
I reached down and scratched the little pooch on the top of its head. It shivered and wagged his tail.
“Let’s get him some food and water. Then we’ll get him warmed up,” I said and Raleigh smiled and bounded toward the kitchen.
“Come on, boy!” he said.
The dog looked back at the door and reluctantly followed, checking back after each few steps.
“What’s wrong, Smokey?” Raleigh asked.
The little dog laid its ears back in submission and wagged its entire rear end at the boy.
“He’s probably nervous, son,” I said. “It’s a new place and he isn’t used to it.”
Smoke sat next to my son and watched the door as if we weren’t in the room. Raleigh found a couple plastic bowls in one of the kitchen cabinet and set them on the counter. He pulled a couple leftovers from the fridge and warmed them in the microwave. Then he scooped them into one of the bowls and tested the temperature. A splash of water in the other bowl completed the meal which he presented to the scraggly mutt on the floor. Smoke sniffed the bowl and began gulping gratefully. Then he got a drink of water before going back to his food.
“Look daddy! He’s starved.”
I smiled at my son, proud of his compassion and a little hurt at the probable future of his relationship with the dog. I could take a half day and we could go to the pound, pick out one of our own if this one didn’t work out.
“He probably was, buddy. You’re doin’ a great job,” I said.
The fuzzy little guy perked up a bit after his meal. He spent the next half-hour or more giving his undivided attention to the boy, eventually falling asleep on his lap while they watched TV in the living room.
-~‑--~@
After sleeping for about an hour, the dog jumped up nervously and ran for the door, frantic. He pawed at the wood and whimpered.
“What’s wrong, daddy?”
“Looks like he’s housebroken, Raleigh,” I said with a laugh. “Little guy’s got to go. Why don’t you run him out back.”
The back yard was fenced in I thought it would be a safe place to walk the unfamiliar dog so he wouldn’t run off again. Raleigh put on his hat and coat and followed his new friend outside smiling. Snow was falling and I could see their breath as they wandered. Smoke was interested in sniffing everything and I figured it would be a while before they came back in. It wasn’t long before Raleigh was stomping his boots at the back door to shake the snow off of them.
He burst through the door with the little dog in his arms.
“Daddy, he was tryin’ to dig under the fence!” he said and plopped the dog on the floor.
“Dogs do that, son. We’ll figure out some kind of leash for him until we can find his people.”
He seemed satisfied with that answer. We found a piece of rope and a small spring lock clip that attached nicely and would allow easy attachment to the dog’s collar. Then I got on the phone and called the pound and the local vet to see if anyone had reported a missing dog. No one had. I called the newspaper and the police station with the same results. Everyone told me to check back the next day and that became the plan.
The winter sun went down that evening with a quickness. Raleigh folded up a blanket for the dog to sleep on at the foot of his bed and soothed the animal with calm words and back scratching. Smoke lay still for the boy. Before too long they were both snoring and all was right with the world.
About two in the morning, I woke to the sound of scratching. It unnerved me at first, but once I came out of my deep sleep, I realized what it was and rushed downstairs. There was Smoke pawing at the door again. I clipped on his leash and pulled on some shoes and tried to walk him toward the back door. He pulled against me stubbornly and whimpered.
“Nope, going out back. Come on,” I said.
He gave in and followed me reluctantly out the back door. I walked and waited while he sniffed the air and each snow-covered blade of grass. Smoke caught scent of something and pulled his leash taught enough to choke himself. Then he barked and pulled me to the back corner of our fence.
Must be another animal about, I thought and pulled him back closer to the house. He fought me the whole way.
“Either you’ve got to go or you don’t, pup. Just please hurry because it’s cold out here,” I said.
The little dog looked at me and snorted. He had no business to attend to and seemed to only want to explore so I headed inside. He made one last effort to run toward that back corner of the fence before I shut the door but the leash stopped him. When I got upstairs, Raleigh was sound asleep. I got Smoke settled on his blanket and he seemed content for the moment to lay there. His overly expressive face showed frustration, maybe anxiety. I got the feeling he missed his home. Satisfied that the house was still, I went to bed.
-~‑--~@
The next morning came all too soon. I woke to the bouncing of a small boy on my bed. Raleigh was quaking with excitement as he patted the mattress in attempt to get the dog on the bed with us.
“Come on, boy! C’mon Smokey!” he said.
His patting and bouncing became more and more pronounced until the whole house felt like it was shaking. I peered over the bed at a little dog that paced and circled with its tail tucked.
“You feed him yet?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“You walk him yet?”
“Nope.”
“Well let’s try those first,” I said.
He looked at me and said, “Ok!” before bouncing off. Smoke followed. I rinsed my mouth out with some cold water and splashed a little on my face before going down after them. When I got to the window, I could see the little dog at the same point near the back of the fence barking and pulling my son with all his might. Raleigh leaned against the leash in the opposite direction and I found myself chuckling at his struggle.
All day long, the little dog would bark or whimper at the front door to go outside. Then he would bark and whimper at the fence corner when we’d go outside. He wouldn’t eat or drink any water. He wouldn’t relax. He acted like he had an appointment to get to. It wasn’t until he growled at Raleigh that I saw the sheer determination in the dog’s mind. There was somewhere he needed to be.
I swatted him when he grow
led. Probably shouldn’t have, but it was a reaction to his threat and not the other way around.
“Don’t you growl at my son!” I said.
“He’s just playing, dad!” Raleigh protested.
He wasn’t playing. He was trying to escape and I knew how a trapped animal would eventually react. There would be no explaining that to an eight year old boy. I got on the phone and called the police and the pound and the veterinarian’s offices again with the same results. No one had reported a missing dog to fit Smoke’s name or description in the past week.
The next time he scratched at the front door, I let him run. Raleigh screamed, “Dad!”
“Wait here,” I replied. “I just want to see what he’s so interested in.”
“I want to come,” he said.
Meanwhile the dog stopped at the edge of our property and was staring back at me.
“Why doesn’t he run, I wonder?”
“He doesn’t want to leave me, Daddy.”
“Get your coat and shoes on,” I said and Raleigh quickly obliged.
The little dog stayed at the end of the property line and waited for us to get within fifteen or twenty feet, but never close enough to grab him, before bolting a little further. He looked back every few steps to make sure we were still there. Smoke trotted down the property line along our back fence until he got to the corner which had worried him so. We met him there and he took off into the woods beyond.
“Daddy, I think he wants to show us something!”
“You might be right, son.”
Smoke bounced over twigs and fallen branches, he maneuvered about shrubs and through small thickets of winter-dead brush. Still, every few yards he would look back to make sure he was being followed. He was trying to lead us somewhere. The further we walked, the more my heart sank.
He punctuated his trek with a series of barks for my benefit and I immediately regretted my decision to follow the animal into the woods. At the end of the trail he had blazed through the snowy forest, we found his owner. The man lay there on the frozen ground with a broken ankle. There were drag marks starting fifteen or twenty feet away, probably where he’d initially fallen. I imagine when his skin was still pink, he had screamed for help, maybe he was thankful for the little dog that ran off to find some. I could only imagine what he must’ve been thinking as the cold took him and his little friend hadn’t come back with some assistance. His little friend, Smoke, who was trying his best to get back to his master.
“Is he…?” said Raleigh.
I hugged my son to my chest to shield him from the sight of the frozen dead man.
“Yes, baby. He’s gone.”
The little man had no family we could locate. There was no one to take the dog, so we kept little Smoke. He was a daily reminder to me of fate and bad decisions, a horrible tribute to not thinking things through. My son loves that dog dearly, but it might never be enough.
I may never forgive myself for letting the dog in the house that morning, for not seeing the truth. And I will never tell Raleigh what I knew. In a way, we had killed someone.
