David Wroblewski - The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Baboo lay whimpering and jerking his leg, dreaming of voles running along weedy tunnels. In his dream, he’d shrunken to their size and bounded after them, blades of grass passing swiftly as he gained, but he was full-size, too, inside and outside the tunnel, big and small at the same time. And likewise with the other dogs, drafting the warm afternoon into their chests and exhaling sighs, dreaming and listening to the whoosh and slosh of water and the wind in the trees.

At first the dogs had thought they’d left home on a lark and would soon return. Now it seemed their world had come unmoored and their home traveled with them while the earth turned beneath their feet. Creek. Forest. Marsh edge. Lake. Moon. Wind. The sun presently baking them through the treetops. Back at the kennel they’d slept near Edgar many times-in the mow, in his room in the house, even in the yard-but it had never been like these recent nights, never curled beside him so intimately that his thrashing drove them to their feet, where they stood and watched him struggle against some unseen threat. It raised their hackles. They dropped their heads beneath their shoulders and grumbled and peered around. So vulnerable he was with his blue skin in the moonlight and his arm twisted over his face and blood pulsing beneath his skin. At such times only Essay wandered off, hunting in the dark.

They worried when he walked off for food. They argued among themselves. He’s gone. He’ll come back. What if he doesn’t, what happens then. He will. Ofttimes, in his absence, the trees bent round, carrying their freight of jays and squirrels engrossed in bitter dispute. Sometimes he returned bearing delicacies unknown before. Sometimes he came empty-handed but ready to play.

That afternoon, they’d set their fretting aside. The place was familiar. There was nothing to do but flick away flies and let the sun pass. Edgar half slept, more hypnotized even by the afternoon sun than they. He didn’t catch the scent that drifted into the clearing, nor react to the sounds that, one after another, the dogs heard. It wasn’t until they leapt up-Essay first, then Tinder, and then, in a big scramble of leaves, Baboo-that Edgar finally woke and stood and saw what had happened.

BY THE TIME THE YOUNGER of the two girls reached the glade, she and her companion had long since talked themselves out. They came to a driveway cut into the woods that ended at a red cottage. A car was parked in the weeds, but no one seemed to be home. They picked their way through the woods and along the shoreline looking for a sandy spot until they found the spit of land and there the older girl walked out and sat with her back to a tree and looked across the water at the campgrounds. The younger girl dawdled her way along the reeds and sedge. She came upon a fisherman’s satchel and a child’s fishing rod propped against a tree. She looked around. There was a clearing in the woods penetrated by a shaft of sunlight and she wandered in that direction, hoping to spot the white, three-petaled trillium blossoms that were her favorites.

The boy was already watching her when she looked up. He was standing on the far side of the clearing, tall and limber-looking, with thick shocks of hair hanging across his forehead and over his eyes, all of which suggested youth, though in the bright sun his face seemed lined like an old man’s. A heartbeat later she saw the three animals standing around him, one forward and one at either side. Wolves, she thought, but of course they weren’t. They were dogs-shepherds, maybe, though not any kind she’d seen before. Their coats were chestnut and black and their tails swept down to trace the extension of their hind legs. But what struck her most was the poised stillness of their bodies, and especially their gaze, fixed on her and unwavering.

Then the boy gestured and the dogs were whisking through the clearing. One leapt away into the woods. The other two bounded toward her in an unswerving line, their shoulders rolling lionlike and their backs bowing and stretching. The sight made her gasp. When she looked up, the boy was pointing at her. He pressed an upright finger to his lips, then held the flat of his palm out in a way that clearly meant she should be quiet and stand still.

The two dogs that had crossed the clearing came to a halt in front of her, left and right. They didn’t look unfriendly but they didn’t look completely benevolent either. She took an instinctive step back, and from behind her came a disquieting rumble. She froze and turned her head. The third dog stood with its muzzle at the back of her knee. It nosed her leg and looked at her. When she put her foot back where it had been, the dogs in front of her stepped closer, and that made her sway a little, as if she were pinched in a slowly tightening vise. Yet as soon as she’d regained her balance and stood still, the dogs stepped back again.

She looked across the clearing. The boy was gone.

Now, from behind her she heard the older girl’s voice: “Jess? Let’s go. Jess?” The girl wanted to reply, but she couldn’t tell what the dogs would do if she starting hollering. Besides, there was something fascinating about the way they had lasered in on her. The way they stood just out of arm’s reach. She had the distinct sense that the dogs just wanted to keep her still. And they were beautiful, with furrowed, honey-colored brows over brown eyes that shone with an extraordinary sense of…what? Concern? Serene concern. She wondered what would happen if she talked to them. Would they step forward and touch her?

She was about to test this idea when she heard a sharp double clap. Instantly, the dog to her right dropped away, oozing into motion and disappearing into the bushes. A moment later, the dog behind her wheeled and vanished as well. But the third dog didn’t move. It stood looking at her, then stepped forward and sniffed the hem of her shorts, quivering. She held out her hand. The dog stepped back with a look of something like guilt on its face. Then it, too, bolted. She craned her neck to watch it move, so graceful and surefooted. A dozen yards away the two other dogs waited beside the boy, who was kneeling and gesturing to draw the last dog toward him. When it arrived, the boy’s hands flashed expertly along its sides and down its legs, as if checking out of long habit for injuries. The little fishing rod she’d seen earlier lay on the ground near him, and the satchel was looped over his shoulder. He stood. The dogs looked at her across their flanks one last time and then they were gone and the underbrush had flicked back into place.

She let out her breath.

I should be scared but I’m not, she thought. And, strangely: Nothing like this will ever happen to me again.

She waited another moment, then let out a whoop and raced toward the sound of the older girl’s voice.

HE KEPT THEM MOVING until it had grown so dark he couldn’t see the way. Long ago, on their first night running, the sky had been clear and a full moon had shone directly overhead, but now the moon was a waxing crescent. He chose a spot near a stand of jack pines and scraped together needles, tossing away any resinous clumps. He downed the dogs. They knew it meant no water or food for the night and a chorus of grunts and complaints followed.

Four and a half days at Scotia Lake. They should have been pushing west and north, but instead they’d lingered where the food was easy at the risk of being spotted. He’d known it was a mistake even as they’d done it. The howling had been bad enough the night of the fireworks, but now the little blond girl had gotten a good long look at him and an even better look at the dogs. He’d heard her shout as they were running from the clearing, “Hey, Diane! DIANE! Over here! Oh my God! You’re never going to believe this!”