Finally, after trying for at least ten minutes to determine the reason for the dog’s dread, Travis pointed to the slab-jawed, wickedly fanged, luminous-eyed movie monster and said, “Maybe you don’t understand, Einstein. This isn’t a picture of a real, living thing. This is a make-believe demon from a movie. Do you understand what I mean when I say make-believe?”
Einstein wagged his tail: Yes.
“Well, this is a make-believe monster.” One bark: No.
“Make-believe, phony, not real, just a man in a rubber suit,” Nora said.
No.
“Yes,” Travis said.
No.
Einstein tried to run off behind the sofa again, but Travis grabbed him by the collar and held him. “Are you claiming to have seen such a thing?”
The dog raised his gaze from the picture, looked into Travis’s eyes, shuddered, and whimpered.
The pitiful note of profound fear in Einstein’s soft whine and an indescribably disturbing quality in his dark eyes combined to affect Travis to an extent that surprised him. Holding the collar with one hand, his other hand on Einstein’s back, Travis felt the shivers that quaked through the dog-and suddenly he was shivering, too. The dog’s stark fear was transmitted to him, and he thought, crazily, By God, he really has seen something like this.
Sensing the change in Travis, Nora said, “What’s wrong?”
Instead of answering her, he repeated the question that Einstein had not yet answered: “Are you claiming to have seen such a thing?”
Yes.
“Something that looks exactly like this demon?”
A bark and a wag: Yes and no.
“Something that looks at least a little bit like it?”
Yes.
Letting go of the collar, Travis stroked the dog’s back, trying to soothe him, but Einstein continued to shiver. “Is this why you keep a watch at the Window some nights?”
Yes.
Clearly puzzled and alarmed by the dog’s distress, Nora began to pet him, too. “I thought you were worried that people from the lab would find you.”
Einstein barked once.
“You’re not afraid people from the lab will find you?”
Yes and no.
Travis said, “But you’re more afraid that… this other thing will find you.”
Yes, yes, yes.
“Is this the same thing that was in the woods that day, the thing that chased us, the thing I shot at?” Travis asked.
Yes, yes, yes.
Travis looked at Nora. She was frowning. “But it’s only a movie monster. Nothing in the real world looks even a little bit like it.”
Padding across the room, sniffing at the assorted photographs, Einstein paused again at the Blue Cross ad that featured the doctor, mother, and baby in a hospital room. He brought the magazine to them and dropped it on the floor. He put his nose to the doctor in the picture, then looked at Nora, at Travis, put his nose to the doctor again, and looked up expectantly.
“Before,” Nora said, “you told us the doctor represented one of the scientists in that lab.”
Yes.
Travis said, “So are you telling me the scientist who worked on you would know what this thing in the woods was?”
Yes.
Einstein went looking through the photographs again, and this time he returned with the ad that showed a car in a cage. He touched his nose to the cage; then, hesitantly, he touched his nose to the picture of the demon.
“Are you saying the thing in the woods belongs in a cage?” Nora asked.
Yes.
“More than that,” Travis said, “I think he’s telling us that it was in a cage at one time, that he saw it in a cage.”
Yes.
“In the same lab where you were in a cage?”
Yes, yes, yes.
“Another experimental lab animal?” Nora asked.
Yes.
Travis stared hard at the photograph of the demon, at its thick brow and deeply set yellow eyes, at its deformed snoutlike nose and mouth bristling with teeth. At last he said, “Was it an experiment… that went wrong?”
Yes and no, Einstein said.
Now at a peak of agitation, the dog crossed the living room to the front window, jumped up and braced his forepaws on the sill, and peered out at the Santa Barbara evening.
Nora and Travis sat on the floor among the opened magazines and books, happy with the progress they had made, beginning to feel the exhaustion that their excitement had masked-and frowning at each other in puzzlement.
She spoke softly. “Do you think Einstein’s capable of lying, making up wild stories like children do?”
“I don’t know. Can dogs lie, or is that just a human skill?” He laughed at the absurdity of his own question. “Can dogs lie? Can a moose be elected to the presidency? Can cows sing?”
Nora laughed, too, and very prettily. “Can ducks tap-dance?”
In a fit of silliness that was a reaction to the difficulty of dealing intellectually and emotionally with the whole idea of a dog as smart as Einstein, Travis said, “I once saw a duck tap-dancing.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. In Vegas.”
Laughing, she said, “What hotel was he performing at?”
“Caesar’s Palace. He could sing, too.”
“The duck?”
“Yeah. Ask me his name.”
“What was his name?”
“Sammy Davis Duck, Jr.,” Travis said, and they laughed again. “He was such a big star they didn’t even have to put his entire name on the marquee for people to know who was performing there.”
“They just put ‘Sammy,’ huh?”
“No. Just ‘Jr.’
Einstein returned from the window and stood watching them, his head cocked, trying to figure out why they were acting so peculiar.
The puzzled expression on the retriever’s face struck both Travis and Nora as the most comical thing they had ever seen. They leaned on each other, held each other, and laughed like fools.
With a snort of derision, the retriever went back to the window.
As they gradually regained control of themselves and as their laughter subsided, Travis became aware that he was holding Nora, that her head was on his shoulder, that the physical contact between them was greater than any they had allowed themselves before. Her hair smelled clean, fresh. He could feel the body heat pouring off her. Suddenly, he wanted her desperately, and he knew he was going to kiss her when she raised her head from his shoulder. A moment later she looked up, and he did what he knew he’d do-he kissed her-and she kissed him. For a second or two, she did not seem to realize what was happening, what it meant; briefly, it was without significance, sweet and utterly innocent, not a kiss of passion but of friendship and great affection. Then the kiss changed, and her mouth softened. She began to breathe faster, and her hand tightened on his arm, and she tried to pull him closer. A low murmur of need escaped her-and the sound of her own voice brought her to her senses. Abruptly, she stiffened with complete awareness of him as a man, and her beautiful eyes were wide with wonder-and fear-at what had almost happened. Travis instantly drew back because he knew instinctively that the time was not right, not yet perfect. When at last they did make love, it must be exactly right, without hesitation or distraction, because for the rest of their lives they would always remember their first time, and the memory Should be all bright and joyous, worth taking out and examining a thousand times as they grew old together. Although it was not quite time to put their future into words and confirm it with vows, Travis had no doubt that he and Nora Devon would be spending their lives with each other, and he realized that, subconsciously, he’d been aware of this inevitability for at least the past few days.
After a moment of awkwardness, as they drew apart and tried to decide whether to comment on the sudden change in their relationship, Nora finally said, “He’s still at the window.”
Einstein pressed his nose to the glass, staring out at the night.