fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in
themselves.
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Greater love hath no man than this:
that he lay down his life
for his friends.
—The Gospel According to Saint John
EIGHT
1
On the Thursday that Nora drove to Dr. Weingold’s office, Travis and Einstein
went for a walk across the grassy hills and through the woods behind the house
they had bought in the beautiful California coastal region called Big Sur.
On the treeless hills, the autumn sun warmed the stones and cast scattered cloud
shadows. The breeze off the Pacific drew a whisper from the dry golden grass. In
the sun, the air was mild, neither hot nor cool. Travis was comfortable in jeans
and a long-sleeved shirt.
He carried a Mossberg short-barreled pistol-grip pump-action 12-gauge shotgun.
He always carried it on his walks. If he ever encountered someone who asked
about it, he intended to tell them he was hunting rattlesnakes.
Where the trees grew most vigorously, the bright morning seemed like late
afternoon, and the air was cool enough to make Travis glad that his shirt was
flannel. Massive pines, a few small groves of giant redwoods, and a variety of
foothill hardwoods filtered the sun and left much of the forest floor in
perpetual twilight. The undergrowth was dense in places: the vegetation included
those low, impenetrable thickets of evergreen oaks sometimes called “chaparral,”
plus lots of ferns that flourished because of the frequent fog and the constant
humidity of the seacoast air.
Einstein repeatedly sniffed out cougar spoor and insisted on showing Travis the
tracks of the big cats in the damp forest soil. Fortunately, he fully understood
the danger of stalking a mountain lion, and was able to repress his natural urge
to prowl after them.
The dog contented himself with merely observing local fauna. Timid deer could
often be seen ascending or descending their trails. Raccoons were plentiful and
fun to watch, and although some were quite friendly, Einstein knew they could
turn nasty if he accidentally frightened them; he chose to keep a respectful
distance.
On other walks, the retriever had been dismayed to discover the squirrels, Which
he could approach safely, were terrified of him. They froze with fear, Stared
wild-eyed, small hearts pounding visibly.
WHY SQUIRRELS AFRAID? he had asked Travis one evening.
“Instinct,” Travis had explained. “You’re a dog, and they know instinctively
that dogs will attack and kill them.”
NOT ME.
“No, not you,” Travis agreed, ruffling the dog’s coat. “You wouldn’t hurt them.
But the squirrels don’t know you’re different, do they? To them, you look like a
dog, and you smell like a dog, so you’ve got to be feared like a dog.”
I LIKE SQUIRRELS.
“I know. Unfortunately, they’re not smart enough to realize it.”
Consequently, Einstein kept his distance from the squirrels and tried hard not
to terrify them, often sauntering past with his head turned the other way as if
unaware of them.
This special day, their interest in squirrels and deer and birds and raccoons
and unusual forest flora was minimal. Even views of the Pacific did not intrigue
them. Today, unlike other days, they were walking only to pass the time and to
keep their minds off Nora.
Travis repeatedly looked at his watch, and he chose a circular route that would
bring them back to the house at one o’clock, when Nora was expected to return.
It was the twenty-first of October, eight weeks after they had acquired new
identities in San Francisco. After considerable thought, they had decided to
come south, substantially reducing the distance that The Outsider would have to
travel in order to put its hands on Einstein. They would not be able to get on
with their new lives until the beast found them, until they killed it;
therefore, they wanted to hasten rather than delay that confrontation.
On the other hand, they did not want to risk returning too far south toward
Santa Barbara, for The Outsider might cover the distance between them faster
than it had traveled from Orange County to Santa Barbara last summer. They could
not be certain that it would continue to make only three or four miles a day. If