Falstaff.”
“Really?” Heather said. “Hardly seems fair, does it? But he’s two
years old and used to it now. I hear from Paul Youngblood you’re in
the market for just such an animal as Falstaff here.” Toby gasped. He
gaped at Travis. “Hold your mouth open that wide,” Travis warned him,
“and some critter is going to run in there and build a nest.”
He smiled at Heather and Jack. “Was this what you had in mind?”
“Just about exactly,” Jack said. Heather said, “Except, we thought a
puppy . . .”
“With Falstaff, you get all the joy of a good dog and none of that
puppy mess. He’s two years old, mature, housebroken, well behaved.
Won’t spot the carpet or chew up the furniture. But he’s still a young
dog, lots of years ahead of him.
Interested?” Toby looked up worriedly, as if it was beyond conception
that such an enormous great good thing as this could befall him without
his parents objecting or the ground opening and swallowing him alive.
Heather glanced up at Jack, and he said, “Why not?” Looking at Travis,
Heather said, “Why not?”
“Yes!” Toby made it a one-word expression of explosive ecstasy.
They went to the back of the wagon, and Travis opened the tailgate.
Falstaff bounded out of the wagon to the ground and immediately began
excitedly sniffing everyone’s feet, turning in circles, one way and
then the other, slapping their legs with his tail, licking their hands
when they tried to pet him, a jubilation of fur and warm tongue and
cold nose and heart-melting brown eyes. When he calmed down, he chose
to sit in front of Toby, to whom he offered a raised paw.
“He can shake hands!” Toby exclaimed, and proceeded to take the paw
and pump it.
“He knows a lot of tricks,” Travis said. “Where’d he come from?” Jack
asked. “A couple in town, Leona and Harry Seaquist. They had goldens
all their lives.
Falstaff here was the latest.”
“He seems too nice to just be given up.” Travis nodded.
“Sad case. A year ago, Leona got cancer, was gone in three months.
Few weeks back, Harry suffered a stroke, lost the use of his left
arm.
Speech is slurred, and his memory isn’t so good. Had to go to Denver
to live with his son, but they didn’t want the dog. Harry cried like a
baby when he said goodbye to Falstaff. I promised him I’d find a good
home for the pooch.”
Toby was on his knees, hugging the golden around the neck, and it was
licking the side of his face. “We’ll give him the best home any dog
ever had anywhere anytime ever, won’t we, Mom, won’t we, Dad?”
To Travis, Heather said, “How sweet of Paul Youngblood to call you
about us.”
“Well, he heard mention your boy wanted a dog. And this isn’t the
city, everyone living in a rat race. We have plenty of time around
here to meddle in other people’s business.” He had a broad, engaging
smile.
The chilling breeze had grown stronger as they talked. Suddenly it
gusted into a whistling wind, flattened the brown grass, whipped
Heather’s hair across her face, and drove needles of cold into her.
“Travis,” she said, shaking hands with him again, “when can you come
for dinner?”
“Well, maybe Sunday a week.”
“A week from Sunday it is,” she said. “Six o’clock.”
To Toby, she said, “Come on, peanut, let’s get inside.”
“I want to play with Falstaff.”
“You can get to know him in the house,” she insisted. “It’s too cold
out here.”
“He’s got fur,” Toby protested. “It’s you I’m worried about,
dummkopf.
You’re going to get a frostbitten nose, and then it’ll be as black as
Falstaff’s.”
Halfway to the house, padding along between Heather and Toby, the dog
stopped and looked back at Travis Potter. The vet made a go-ahead wave
with one hand, and that seemed sufficient permission for Falstaff. He
accompanied them up the steps and into the warm front hall.
Travis Potter had brought a fifty-pound bag of dry dog food with him.
He hefted it out of the back of his Range Rover and put it on the