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