2

Stopping at an Arco service station on the outskirts of Carmel, Nora found the vet’s address in a phone book and called him to be sure he was in. Dr. James Keene’s office was on Dolores Avenue at the southern end of town. They pulled up in front of the place at a few minutes before nine.

Nora had been expecting a typically sterile-looking veterinary clinic and was surprised to find that Dr. Keene’s offices were in his home, a quaint two-story Country English house of stone and plaster and exposed timbers with a roof that curved over the eaves.

As they hurried up the stone walk with Einstein, Dr. Keene opened the door before they reached it, as if he had been on the lookout for them. A sign indicated that the entrance to the surgery was around the side of the house, but the vet took them in at the front door. He was a tall, sorrowful-faced man with sallow skin and sad brown eyes, but his smile was warm, and his manner was gracious.

Closing the door, Dr. Keene said, “Bring him this way, please.”

He led them swiftly along a hallway with an oak parquet floor protected by a long, narrow oriental carpet. On the left, through an archway, lay a pleasantly furnished living room that actually looked lived-in, with footstools in front of the chairs, reading lamps, laden bookshelves, and crocheted afghans folded neatly and conveniently over the backs of some chairs for when the evenings were chilly. A dog stood just inside the archway, a black Labrador. It watched them solemnly, as if it understood the gravity of Einstein’s condition, and it did not follow them.

At the rear of the large house, on the left side of the hail, the vet took them through a door into a clean white surgery. Lined along the walls were white-enameled and stainless-steel cabinets with glass fronts, which were filled with bottles of drugs, serums, tablets, capsules, and the many powdered ingredients needed to compound more exotic medicines.

Travis gently lowered Einstein onto an examination table and folded the blanket back from him.

Nora realized that she and Travis looked every bit as distraught as they would have if they’d been bringing a dying child to a doctor. Travis’s eyes were red, and though he was not actively crying at the moment, he continually blew his nose. The moment she had parked the pickup in front of the house and had pulled on the hand brake, Nora had ceased to be able to repress her own tears. Now she stood on the other side of the examination table from Dr. Keene, with one arm around Travis, and she wept quietly.

The vet was apparently used to strong emotional reactions from pet owners, for he never once glanced curiously at Nora or Travis, never once indicated by any means that he found their anxiety and grief to be excessive.

Dr. Keene listened to the retriever’s heart and lungs with a stethoscope, palpated his abdomen, examined his oozing eyes with an ophthalmoscope. Through those and several other procedures, Einstein remained limp, as if paralyzed. The only indications that the dog still clung to life were his faint whimpers and ragged breathing.

It’s not as serious as it seems, Nora told herself as she blotted her eyes with a Kleenex.

Looking up from the dog, Dr. Keene said, “What’s his name?”

“Einstein,” Travis said.

“How long have you owned him?”

“Only a few months.”

“Has he had his shots?”

“No,” Travis said. “Damn it, no.”

“Why not?”

“It’s… complicated,” Travis said. “But there’re reasons that shots couldn’t be gotten for him.”

“No reason’s good enough,” Keene said disapprovingly. “He’s got no license, no shots. It’s very irresponsible not to see that your dog is properly licensed and vaccinated.”

“I know,” Travis said miserably. “I know.”

“What’s wrong with Einstein?” Nora said.

And she thought-hoped-prayed: It’s not as serious as it seems.

Lightly stroking the retriever, Keene said, “He’s got distemper.”

Einstein had been moved to a corner of the surgery, where he lay on a thick, dog-size foam mattress that was protected by a zippered plastic coverlet. To prevent him from moving around-if at any time he had the strength to move-he was tethered on a short leash to a ringbolt in the wall.

Dr. Keene had given the retriever an injection. “Antibiotics,” he explained. “No antibiotics are effective against distemper, but they’re indicated to avoid secondary bacteriological infections.”

He had also inserted a needle in one of the dog’s leg veins and had hooked him to an IV drip to counteract dehydration.

When the vet tried to put a muzzle on Einstein, both Nora and Travis objected strenuously.

“It’s not because I’m afraid he’ll bite,” Dr. Keene explained. “It’s for his own protection, to prevent him from chewing at the needle. If he has the strength, he’ll do what dogs always do to a wound-lick and bite at the source of the irritation.”

“Not this dog,” Travis said. “This dog’s different.” He pushed past Keene and removed the device that bound Einstein’s jaws together.

The vet started to protest, then thought better of it. “All right. For now. He’s too weak now, anyway.”

Still trying to deny the awful truth, Nora said, “But how could it be so serious? He showed only the mildest symptoms, and even those went away over a couple of days.”

“Half the dogs who get distemper never show any symptoms at all,” the vet said as he returned a bottle of antibiotics to one of the glass-fronted cabinets and tossed a disposable syringe in a waste can. “Others have only a mild illness, symptoms come and go from one day to the next. Some, like Einstein, get very ill. It can be a gradually worsening illness, or it can change suddenly from mild symptoms to… this. But there is a bright side here.”

Travis was crouched beside Einstein, where the dog could see him without lifting his head or rolling his eyes, and could therefore feel attended, watched over, loved. When he heard Keene mention a bright side, Travis looked up eagerly. “What bright side? What do you mean?”

“The dog’s condition, before it contracts distemper, frequently determines the course of the disease. The illness is most acute in animals that are ill-kept and poorly nourished. It’s clear to me that Einstein was given good care.”

Travis said, “We tried to feed him well, to make sure he got plenty of exercise.”

“He was bathed and groomed almost too often,” Nora added.

Smiling, nodding approval, Dr. Keene said, “Then we have an edge. We have real hope.”

Nora looked at Travis, and he could meet her eyes only briefly before he had to look away, down at Einstein. It was left to her to ask the dreaded question: “Doctor, he’s going to be all right, isn’t he? He won’t-he won’t die, will he?”

Apparently, James Keene was aware that his naturally glum face and drooping eyes presented, merely in repose, an expression that did little to inspire confidence. He cultivated a warm smile, a soft yet confident tone of voice, and an almost grandfatherly manner that, although perhaps calculated, seemed genuine and helped balance the perpetual gloom God had seen fit to visit upon his countenance.

He came to Nora, put his hands on her shoulders. “My dear, you love this dog like a baby, don’t you?”

She bit her lip and nodded.

“Then have faith. Have faith in God, who watches over sparrows, so they say, and have a little faith in me, too. Believe it or not, I’m pretty good at what I do, and I deserve your faith.”

“I believe you are good,” she told him.

Still squatting beside Einstein, Travis said thickly, “But the chances. What’re the chances? Tell us straight?”

Letting go of Nora, turning to Travis, Keene said, “Well, the discharge from his eyes and nose isn’t as thick as it can get. Not nearly. No pus blisters on the abdomen. You say he’s vomited, but you’ve seen no diarrhea?”