The  red dog

                                                           by howard maier

                  One man’s best friend and choice only he could make

     This is the story of a dog named spook .from his nose to the point of his tail, he was the king as a king, he ruled me with love.

    When I was called into the army, I had no closed friend to take care of my dog ,for a long time I thought about what I should do with him .

    At  last  I put spook in the car ,we went to a little valley where I used to stay in the summers ,the man who owned the small-town store was an old friend ,we had often gone hunting together. 

    Would he take spook? Would he hunt with him ? and ,most of all. would he love him?

     Yes, the man said .he would  take him and hunt with him and take care for him ,but he said nothing of love ,for though people may write this word,they almost never use it, I watched him as he patted the dog’s head,the hand was gentle,spook’s tail moved,but his eyes were looking at my face.

   Without a word ,I got into my car and went away .

   After I went into the army,I wrote to my friend ,asking about spook,there was no answer ,each place I was went to after that was farther away,from each place I wrote a letter .no answer ever came.

    I began to write to other friends in the town, asking about my dog,some of them answerd,but no one told about the dog,spook  must have died,I thought ,

    I gave up asking ,and tried not to think about the dog.

    Four years went by,I finished my time in the army,I had  a wife now,and we lived in the city,when summer came, we wanted to go to the town  where I had left spook,as we put the bags in the car,laurette,my wife,asked,”what if we see your spook?”

   “He died,”I said,

    After a day in the car,.we came to the small town,I headed for the store,

    I left laurette  in the car and went inside,my friend acted as though we had talked only a day or two before ,he acted as if there had never been a dog, I couldn’t stand it any longer .”what happened to spook?” I asked,

    “why ,”said my friend, ”nothing  happened to him,he is as well as you or I ,I saw him only the other day,”

    In surprise I asked,”what do you mean,you saw him?don’t you have him anymore?”

   “ I was called into the army too,”he said ,”so I gave spook to a man who lived near here.”

   “who is he ?”I asked.

   “oh ,spook’s not there now,he lived in five or six places after that .lives up with some people name crocker now,but we all see him,he visits around,he’s valley dog now.”

  “a valley dog?”

   “on his own,goes here and there,he’s in fine shape.in the fall a man goes out and there spook is ,ready  to go hunting ."

    there was nothing to say ,i could tell he thought the life of a valley dog was the best life any dog could have.

     i went back to the car without saying a word. my wife was quiet for a time,then he said,"

spook’s alive ,isn’t he ?”

    I nodded my head.

   “will you try to see him?”

   “sure,” I said .”why not?”

   “it would only hurt you ,and him,too,” lautette said .”don’t try to find him.”

   “do you think he could remember me –after all this time ?”

   We didn’t talk about it again.

   Time went by,and we went swimming and fishing ,but we never talked about the dog.

   Then one day I saw spook. I  was going up the side of the valley,I stopped to the rest on a rock looking over a field. a boy around twelve years old came out of the trees,then spook ran out in front of the boy,with the sun shining on his coat,I knew him at once.

   The  boy was walking across the field, but spook ,as always,raced far in front of him,then back again ,and all the time the sun was shining on his beautiful red coat,

    I had never seen spook looking  so well or so beautiful, it took them about three minutes to cross the field .,then they went into the trees. 

     When  I went back to laurette ,I told her about it,the next time I saw spook ,laurette was with me ,it was late afternoon ,a heavy rain was failing, we were having dinner on the covered porch of the town restaurant , up the street came a dog—head down ,tail down,he looked as and as only a dog can look when it’s wet.

   As the dog came into the light ,I said ,”that looks like spook.”

   The dog stooped,and his head came up,it was spook.

    He walked across the porch and came up to my side, he stood there,with water drooping off him coat, and looked up into my face for a minute ,then without a sound or a wag of his tail,he lay down at my feet.he dropped his head in his paws but never closed his eyes, he watched every move I made ,just the way he used to。

    When we walked out,spook followed us ,when I opened the door of the car,he was the first in,he  jumped to his place in the back corner and put his head next to the window。

   “what are you going to do ?”my life asked.

  “what can I do on a night like this?”I said.

  “let’s go home,then,”she said.

    We took spook to our house, the fire dried out his coat,he lay on the floor between laurette and me,facing me.

   At about ten,he came over to my chair,placed a paw on my leg ,and looked at me.

   “what does he want?”laurette asked.

   “out,”I said. I got up and opened the door for him, the rain had stopped and the moon was up.looking out into the dark.i said,”well ,that’s that,I guess,he will to home now.”

   And for a minute I wished I had petted him or talked to him in the old way.

   After a time ,two quick barks sounded outside the door,I jumped from my chair,not knowing what to do.

   “well ,go on.”laurette said,”let him in.”

    When I went to bed,spook took his place  on the floor beside me and went to sleep.

   “this is why I didn’t want you to see him again.”laurette said.

   “but he was only two years old when I left him!after four years,who would have thought he would know me this way?”

   “don’t think of that.”said laurette .” think of spook . think how beautiful and fit he is ,and remember that he has a good life for a dog,what kind of life would he have in the city? Both of us work,what would he have? A walk in the morning and again in the night? Never any grass or sun ,never to run free,you don’t want to take him back to that ,do you ?”

   “but l’m not doing anything !”I said ,”I haven’t even petted him .spook is doing it all himself ,”

   “ you are the one who has to say .”

   “all right ,”I said .”he goes back to the crockers tomorrow,”

    We started out the next day,it was boiling hot,.turning off the road,we came up to the house,when I let spook out of the car,he was making a crying sound ,noting in the world could have made me look into his eyes.

   The boy I had seen in the field that other morning answered the door,he looked surprised to see me with the dog,and all the time I talked to him,spook kept pulling break my hold on him.the boy understood what had happened,he held spook.and I got back in the car and went away.

    In a minute I saw him in the mirror ,he was racing after the car ,”the boy let him go!”I cried.

   I kept looking back .spook was running  and running ,and I knew he would never give up.

   Laurette cried out ,”do you want to kill him?stop the car!please!”

   Pulling off the road, I got out of the car and waited,spook came up and dropped at my feet,laurette was crying.

  “spook ,poor spook ,”she kept saying,”we can take him with us. It will be all right .you can walk him in the morning before you go to work , I’will come home at lunchtime and walk him then, we can work it out.”

   But I put spook in the back of the car and headed for the crocker place.

   Laurette put a hand on my arm.

  “no,dear,”I said to her ,”last night you were talking with your head,now you’re talking with your heart , the head talk is better。”

    This time I told the boy to put spook in the house, when we drove away, I drove very fast,

    All this took place more than three years ago. But even now,after all this time , I have a terrible dream three or four times each year.

    The dream is aways the same ,I am ne ,in the car,and the same time I am spook . I run and run, and the car never stops. The hard road hits my paws ,and the hot sun shines down on me ,and I keep saying over and over,”he doesn’t want me ,he doesn’t want me.”

   Then I feel a sadness so great that I cannot bear it ,at this point  I wake up, and I get out of bed,I have never told lautette about the dream .

   I stand looking out of the windows,the streets are empty ,the dark ,cold houses,crowd them in ,there are no trees ,and that helps, I make myself think of spook as  I saw him that day in the green field, I see him running free,with  the soft grass under his feet and the sun shining on his red coat, that helps,too.

   I  go back to bed and to sleep,but even now,after writing it all down ,I don’t know if the decision I made for spook  was right or wrong.