The vet said, “He sure doesn’t seem much like a genius dog.”
“He’s still sick,” Nora said. “All he needs is a little more time to recover, and he’ll be able to show you that everything we’ve said is true.”
“When do you think he’ll be on his feet?” Travis asked.
Jim thought about that, then said, “Maybe tomorrow. He’ll be very shaky at first, but maybe tomorrow. We’ll just have to see.”
“When he’s on his feet,” Travis said, “when he’s got his sense of balance back and is interested in moving around, that ought to indicate he’s clearer in his head, too. So when he’s up and about-that’s when we’ll give him a test to prove to you how smart he is.”
“Fair enough,” Jim said.
“And if he proves it,” Nora said, “you’ll not turn him in?”
“Turn him in to people who’d create this Outsider you’ve told me about? Turn him in to the liars who cooked up that baloney wanted flyer? Nora, what sort of man do you take me for?”
Nora said, “A good man.”
Twenty-four hours later, on Sunday evening, in Jim Keene’s surgery, Einstein was tottering around as if he were a little old four-legged man.
Nora scooted along the floor on her knees beside him, telling him what a fine and brave fellow he was, quietly encouraging him to keep going. Every step he took thrilled her as if he were her own baby learning to walk. But what thrilled her more was the look he gave her a few times: it was a look that seemed to express chagrin at his infirmity, but there was also a sense of humor in it, as if he were saying, Hey, Nora, am I a spectacle-or what? Isn’t this just plain ridiculous?
Saturday night he had eaten a little solid food, and all day Sunday he had nibbled at easily digestible vittles that the vet provided. He was drinking well, and the most encouraging sign of improvement was his insistence on going Outside to make his toilet. He could not stay on his feet for long periods of time, and once in a while he wobbled and plopped backward on his butt; however, he did not bump into walls or walk in circles.
Yesterday, Nora had gone shopping and had returned with three Scrabble games. Now, Travis had separated the lettered tiles into twenty-six piles at one end of the surgery, where there was a lot of open floor space.
“We’re ready,” Jim Keene said. He was sitting on the floor with Travis, his legs drawn up under him Indian-style.
Pooka was lying at his master’s side, watching with baffled dark eyes. Nora led Einstein back across the room to the Scrabble tiles. Taking his head in her hands, looking straight into his eyes, she said, “Okay, fur face. Let’s prove to Dr. Jim that you’re not just some pathetic lab animal involved in cancer tests. Let’s show him what you really are and prove to him what those nasty people really want you for.”
She tried to believe that she saw the old awareness in the retriever’s dark gaze.
With evident nervousness and fear, Travis said, “Who asks the first question?”
“I will,” Nora said unhesitatingly. To Einstein, she said, “How’s the fiddle?”
They had told Jim Keene about the message that Travis had found the morning Einstein had been so very ill-FIDDLE BROKE-SO the vet understood what Nora was asking.
Einstein blinked at her, then looked at the letters, blinked at her again, sniffed the letters, and she was getting a sick feeling in her stomach when, suddenly, he began to choose tiles and push them around with his nose.
FIDDLE JUST OUT OF TUNE.
Travis shuddered as if the dread he had contained was a powerful electric charge that had leapt out of him in an instant. He said, “Thank God, thank you God,” and he laughed with delight.
“Holy shit,” Jim Keene said.
Pooka raised his head very high and pricked his ears, aware that something important was happening but not sure what it was.
Her heart swelling with relief and excitement and love, Nora returned the letters to their separate piles and said, “Einstein, who is your master? Tell us his name.”
The retriever looked at her, at Travis, then made a considered reply.
NO MASTER. FRIENDS.
Travis laughed. “By God, I’ll settle for that! No one can be his master, but anyone should be damned proud to be his friend.”
Funny-this proof of Einstein’s undamaged intellect made Travis laugh with delight, the first laughter of which he had been capable in days, but it made Nora weep with relief.
Jim Keene looked on in wide-eyed wonder, grinning stupidly. He said, “I feel like a child who’s sneaked downstairs on Christmas Eve and actually seen the real Santa Claus putting gifts under the tree.”
“My turn,” Travis said, sliding forward and putting a hand on Einstein’s head, patting him. “Jim just mentioned Christmas, and it’s not far away.
Twenty days from now. So tell me, Einstein, what would you most like to have Santa bring you?”
Twice, Einstein started to line up the lettered tiles, but both times he had second thoughts and disarranged them. He tottered and thumped down on his butt, looked around sheepishly, saw that they were all expectant, got up again, and this time produced a three-word request for Santa.
MICKEY MOUSE VIDEOS.
They didn’t get to bed until two in the morning because Jim Keene was intoxicated, not drunk from beer or wine or whiskey but from sheer joy over Einstein’s intelligence. “Like a man’s, yes, but still the dog, still the dog, wonderfully like, yet wonderfully different from, a man’s thinking, based on what little I’ve seen.” But Jim did not press for more than a dozen examples of the dog’s wit, and he was the first to say that they must not tire their patient. Still, he was electrified, so excited he could barely contain himself. Travis would not have been too surprised if the vet had suddenly just exploded.
In the kitchen, Jim pleaded with them to retell stories about Einstein: the Modern Bride business in Solvang; the way he had taken it upon himself to add cold water to the first hot bath that Travis had given him; and many more. Jim actually retold some of the same stories himself, almost as if Travis and Nora had never heard them, but they were happy to indulge him.
With a flourish, he snatched the wanted flyer off the table, struck a kitchen match, and burned the sheet in the sink. He washed the ashes down the drain. “To hell with the small minds who’d keep a creature like that locked up to be poked and prodded and studied. They might’ve had the genius to make Einstein, but they don’t understand the meaning of what they themselves have done. They don’t understand the greatness of it, because if they did they wouldn’t want to cage him.”
At last, when Jim Keene reluctantly agreed that they were all in need of sleep, Travis carried Einstein (already sleeping) up to the guest room. They made a blanket-cushioned place for him on the floor next to the bed.
In the dark, under the covers, with Einstein’s soft snoring to comfort them, Travis and Nora held each other.
She said, “Everything’s going to be all right now.”
“There’s still some trouble coming,” he said. He felt as if Einstein’s recovery had weakened the curse of untimely death that had followed him all of his life. But he was not ready to hope that the curse had been banished altogether. The Outsider was still out there somewhere… coming.
TEN
1
On Tuesday afternoon, December 7, when they took Einstein home, Jim Keene was reluctant to let them go. He followed them out to the pickup and stood at the driver’s window, restating the treatment that must be continued for the next couple of weeks, reminding them that he wanted to see Einstein once a week for the rest of the month, and urging them to visit him not only for the dog’s medical care but for drinks, dinner, conversation.