THREE

1

Throughout the early part of the evening, the retriever exhibited none of the remarkable behavior that had stirred Travis’s imagination. He kept a watch on the dog, sometimes directly, sometimes out of the corner of his eye, but he saw nothing that engaged his curiosity.

He made a dinner of bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches for himself, and he opened a can of Alpo for the retriever. It liked the Alpo well enough, consuming the stuff in great gulps, but it clearly preferred his food. It sat on the kitchen floor beside his chair, looking at him forlornly as he ate two sandwiches at the red Formica-topped table. At last he gave it two strips of bacon.

Nothing about its doggy begging was extraordinary. It performed no startling tricks. It merely licked its chops, whined now and then, and repeatedly employed a limited repertoire of sorrowful expressions designed to elicit pity and compassion. Any mutt would have tried to cadge a treat in the same fashion.

Later, in the living room, Travis switched on the television, and the dog curled up on the couch beside him. After a while it put its head on his thigh, wanting to be petted and scratched behind the ears, and he obliged. The dog glanced occasionally at the television but had no great interest in the programs.

Travis was not interested in TV, either. He was intrigued only by the dog. He wanted to study it and encourage it to perform more tricks. Although he tried to think of ways to elicit displays of its astonishing intelligence, he could come up with no tests that would reliably gauge the animal’s mental capacity.

Besides, Travis had a hunch that the dog would not cooperate in a test. Most of the time it seemed instinctively to conceal its cleverness. He recalled its witlessness and comical clumsiness in pursuit of the butterfly, then contrasted that behavior with the wit and agility required to turn on the patio water faucet: those actions appeared to be the work of two different animals. Though it was a crazy idea, Travis suspected that the retriever did not wish to draw attention to itself and that it revealed its uncanny intelligence only in times of crisis (as in the woods), or if it was very hungry (as when it had opened the glove compartment in the truck to obtain the candy bar), or if no one was watching (as when it had turned on the water faucet).

This was a preposterous idea because it suggested that the dog was not only highly intelligent for one of its species but was aware of the extraordinary nature of its own abilities. Dogs-all animals, in fact-simply did not possess the high degree of self awareness required to analyze themselves in comparison to others of their kind. Comparative analysis was strictly a human quality. If a dog was especially bright and capable of many tricks, it would still not be aware it was different from most of its kind. To assume this dog was, in fact, aware of such things was to credit it not only with remarkable intelligence but with a capacity for reason and logic, and with a facility for rational judgment superior to the instinct that ruled the decisions of all other animals.

“You,” Travis told the retriever, gently stroking its head, “are an enigma wrapped in a mystery. Either that, or I’m a candidate for a rubber room.”

The dog looked at him in response to his voice, gazed into his eyes for a moment, yawned-and suddenly jerked its head up and stared beyond him at the bookshelves that flanked the archway between the living and dining rooms. The satisfied, dopey, doggy expression on its face had vanished, replaced by the keen interest Travis had seen before, which transcended ordinary canine alertness.

Scrambling off the sofa, the retriever dashed to the bookshelves. It ran back and forth beneath them, looking up at the colorful spines of the neatly arranged volumes.

The rental house came fully-if unimaginatively and cheaply-furnished, with upholstery chosen for durability (vinyl) or for the ability to conceal ineradicable stains (eye-searing plaids). Instead of wood, there was lots of wood-finish Formica that was resistant to chipping, scratching, abrasion, and cigarette burns. Virtually the only things in the place reflecting Travis Cornell’s own tastes and interests were the books-both paperbacks and hardcovers- that filled the shelves in the living room.

The dog appeared to be intensely curious about at least some of those few hundred volumes.

Getting to his feet, Travis said, “What is it, boy? What’s got your tail in an uproar?”

The retriever jumped onto its hind feet, put its forepaws on one of the shelves, and sniffed the spines of the books. It glanced at Travis, then returned to its eager examination of his library.

He went to the shelf in question, withdrew one of the volumes to which the dog had pressed its nose- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson- and held it out. “This? You’re interested in this?”

The dog studied the painting of Long John Silver and a pirate ship that adorned the dust jacket. It looked up at Travis, then down at Long John Silver again. After a moment, it dropped back from the shelf, onto the floor, dashed to the shelves on the other side of the archway, leaped up again, and began sniffing other books.

Travis replaced Treasure Island and followed the retriever. It was now applying its damp nose to his collection of Charles Dickens’s novels. Travis Picked up a paperback of A Tale of Two Cities.

Again, the retriever carefully studied the cover illustration as if actually trying to determine what the book was about, then looked up expectantly at Travis.

Utterly baffled, he said, “The French Revolution. Guillotines. Beheadings. Tragedy and heroism. It’s… uh… well, it’s all about the importance of valuing individuals over groups, about the need to place a far greater value on one man’s or woman’s life than on the advancement of the masses.”

The dog returned its attention to the tomes shelved in front of it, sniffing, sniffing.

“This is nuts,” Travis said, putting A Tale of Two Cities back where he’d gotten it. “I’m giving plot synopses to a dog, for God’s sake!”

Dropping its big forepaws down to the next shelf, the retriever panted and snuffled over the literature on that row. When Travis did not pull any of those books out for inspection, the dog tilted its head to get into the shelf, gently gripped a volume in its teeth, and tried to withdraw it for further examination.

“Whoa,” Travis said, reaching for the book. “Keep your slobber off the fine bindings, fur face. This one’s Oliver Twist. Another Dickens. The story of an orphan in Victorian England. He gets involved with shady characters, the criminal underworld, and they-”

The retriever dropped to the floor and padded back to the shelves on the other side of the archway, where it continued to sniff at those volumes within its reach. Travis could have sworn it even gazed up wistfully at the books that were above its head.

For perhaps five minutes, in the grip of an eerie premonition that something of tremendous importance was about to happen, Travis followed the dog, showing it the covers of a dozen novels, providing a line or two of plot description of each story. He had no idea if that was what the precocious pooch wanted him to do. Surely, it could not understand the synopses he provided. Yet it seemed to listen raptly as he spoke. He knew he must be misinterpreting essentially meaningless animal behavior, attributing complex intentions to the dog when it had none. Still, a premonitory tingle coursed along the back of his neck. As their peculiar search continued, Travis half-expected some startling revelation at any moment-and at the same time felt increasingly gullible and foolish.