"No," Glen said. He sat down abruptly as if his legs had just given out. "It's not bad news, it's good news. But it's very strange."
"What? What is?"
"It's Kojak. I took a nap after lunch and when I got up, Kojak was on the porch, fast asleep. He's beat to shit, Stu, he looks like he's been through a Mixmaster with a set of blunt blades, but it's him."
"You mean the dog? That Kojak?"
"That's who I mean."
"Are you sure?"
"Same dog-tag that says Woodsville, N.H. Same red collar. Same dog. He's really scrawny, and he's been fighting. Dick Ellis - Dick was overjoyed to have an animal to work on for a change - he says he's lost one eye for good. Bad scratches on his sides and belly, some of them infected, but Dick took care of them. Gave him a sedative and taped up his belly. Dick said it looked like he'd tangled with a wolf, maybe more than one. No rabies, anyhow. He's clean." Glen shook his head slowly, and two tears spilled down his cheeks. "That damn dog came back to me. I wish to Christ I hadn't left him behind to come on his own, Stu. That makes me feel so friggin bad."
"It couldn't have been done, Glen. Not with the motorcycles."
"Yes, but... he followed me, Stu. That's the kind of thing you read about in Star Weekly ... Faithful Dog Follows Master Two Thousand Miles. How could he do a thing like that? How?"
"Maybe the same way we did. Dogs dream, you know - sure they do. Didn't you ever see one lying fast asleep on the kitchen floor, paws twitching away? There was an old guy in Arnette, Vic Palfrey, and he used to say dogs had two dreams, the good dream and the bad one. The good one's when the paws twitch. The bad one's the growling dream. Wake a dog up in the middle of the bad dream, the growling dream, and he's apt to bite you, like as not."
Glen shook his head in a dazed way. "You're saying he dreamed - "
"I'm not sayin anything funnier than what you were talking last night," Stu reproached him.
Glen grinned and nodded. "Oh, I can talk that stuff for hours on end. I'm one of the great all-time bullshitters. It's when something actually happens."
"Awake at the lectern and asleep at the switch."
"Fuck you, East Texas. Want to come over and see my dog?"
"You bet."
Glen's house was on Spruce Street, about two blocks from the Boulderado Hotel. The climbing ivy on the porch trellis was mostly dead, as were all the lawns and most of the flowers in Boulder - without daily watering from the city mains, the arid climate had triumphed.
On the porch was a small round table holding up a gin and tonic. ("Ain't that pretty horrible stuff without ice?" Stu asked, and Glen answered, "You don't notice much one way or the other after the third one.") Beside the drink was an ashtray with five pipes in it, copies of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Ball Four, and My Gun Is Quick - all of them open to different places. There was also an open bag of Kraft Cheese Kisses.
Kojak was lying on the porch, his tattered snout laid peacefully on his forepaws. The dog was rack-thin and pitifully chewed, but Stu recognized him, even on short acquaintance. He squatted and began to stroke Kojak's head. Kojak woke up and looked happily at Stu. In the way that dogs have, he seemed to grin.
"Say, that's a good dog," Stu said, feeling a ridiculous lump in his throat. Like a deck of cards swiftly dealt with the faces up, he seemed to see every dog he'd had since his mom had given him Old Spike, when Stu was only five years old. A lot of dogs. Maybe not one for every card in the deck, but still a lot of dogs. A dog was a good thing to have, and so far as he knew, Kojak was the only dog in Boulder. He glanced up at Glen and glanced down quickly. He guessed even old bald sociologists who read three books at a whack didn't like to get caught leaking around the eyes.
"Good dog," he repeated, and Kojak thumped his tail against the porch boards, presumably agreeing that he was, indeed, a good dog.
"Going inside for a minute," Glen said thickly. "Got to use the bathroom."
"Yeah," Stu said, not looking up. "Hey, good boy, say, ole Kojak, wasn't you a good boy? Ain't you a one?"
Kojak's tail thumped agreeably.
"Can you roll over? Play dead, boy. Roll over."
Kojak obediently rolled over on his back, rear legs splayed out, front paws in the air. Stu's face grew concerned as he ran his hand gently over the stiff white concertina of bandage Dick Ellis had put on. Farther up, he could see red and puffy-looking scratches that undoubtedly deepened to gores under the bandages. Something had been at him, all right, and it hadn't been some other wandering dog. A dog would have gone for the muzzle or the throat. What had happened to Kojak was the work of something lower than a dog. More sneaking. Wolfpack, maybe, but Stu doubted if Kojak could have gotten away from a pack. Whatever, he had been lucky not to be disemboweled.
The screen banged as Glen came back out on the porch.
"Whatever it was got at him didn't miss his vitals by much," Stu said.
"The wounds were deep and he lost a lot of blood," Glen agreed. "I just can't get over thinking that I was the one who let him in for that."