going to be fun. You’re a little nervous about me, sure, I understand that, I
really do. But believe me, this is what you need, girl, this is going to turn
your life upside down, nothing’s ever going to be the same again, and that’s the
best thing could happen to you.”
2
Einstein loved the park.
When Travis slipped off the leash, the retriever trotted to the nearest bed
of flowers—big yellow marigolds surrounded by a border of purple
polyanthuses—and walked slowly around it, obviously fascinated. He went to a
blazing bed of late-blooming ranunculuses, to another of impatiens, and his tail
wagged faster with each discovery. They said dogs could see in only black and
white, but Travis would not have bet against the proposition that Einstein
possessed full-color vision. Einstein sniffed everything—flowers, shrubbery,
trees, rocks, trash cans, crumpled litter, the base of the drinking fountain,
and every foot of ground he covered—no doubt turning up olfactory “pictures” of
people and dogs that had passed this way before, images as clear to him as
photographs would have been to Travis.
Throughout the morning and early afternoon, the retriever had done nothing
amazing. In fact, his I’m-just-an-ordinary-dumb-dog behavior was so convincing
that Travis wondered if the animal’s nearly human intelligence came only in
brief flashes, sort of the beneficial equivalent of epileptic seizures. But
after all that had happened yesterday, Einstein’s extraordinary nature, though
seldom revealed, was no longer open to debate.
As they were strolling around the pond, Einstein suddenly went rigid, lifted his
head, raised his floppy ears a bit, and stared at a couple sitting on a park
bench about sixty feet away. The man was in running shorts, and the woman wore a
rather baggy gray dress; he was holding her hand, and they appeared to be deep
in conversation.
Travis started to turn away from them, heading out toward the open green of the
park to give them privacy.
But Einstein barked once and raced straight toward the couple.
“Einstein! Here! Come back here!”
The dog ignored him and, nearing the pair on the bench, began to bark furiously.
By the time Travis reached the bench, the guy in running shorts was standing.
His arms were raised defensively, and his hands were fisted as he warily moved
back a step from the retriever.
“Einstein!”
The retriever stopped barking, turned away from Travis before the leash Could be
clipped to the collar again, went to the woman on the bench, and Put his head in
her lap. The change from snarling dog to affectionate pet was so sudden that
everyone was startled.
Travis said, “I’m sorry. He never—”
“For Christ’s sake,” said the guy in running shorts, “you can’t let a vicious
dog run loose in a park!”
not vicious,” Travis said. “He—”
Bullshit,” the runner said, spraying spittle. “The damn thing tried to bite me.
You enjoy lawsuits or something?”
don’t know what got into—”
Get it out of here,” the runner demanded.
Nodding, embarrassed, Travis turned to Einstein and saw that the woman had
coaxed the retriever onto the bench. Einstein was sitting with her, facing her,
his forepaws in her lap, and she was not merely petting him but hugging
him. In fact, there was something a little desperate about the way she was
holding on to him.
“Get it out of here!” the runner said furiously.
The guy was taller, broader in the shoulders, and thicker in the chest than
Travis, and he took a couple of steps forward, looming over Travis, using his
superior size to intimidate. By being aggressive, by looking and acting a little
dangerous, he was accustomed to getting his way. Travis despised such men.
Einstein turned his head to look at the runner, bared his teeth, and growled low
in his throat.
“Listen, buddy,” the runner said angrily, “are you deaf, or what? I said that
dog’s got to be put on a leash, and I see the leash there in your hand, so what
the hell are you waiting for?”
Travis began to realize something was wrong. The runner’s self-righteous anger
was overdone—as if he had been caught in a shameful act and was trying to