Huck: The Remarkable True Story of How One Lost Puppy Taught a Family--and a Whole Town--about Hope and Happy Endings (21 page)

“Just go,” Barbara said. “Michael’s upstairs with Darian. I’ll let him know you went.”

“I can’t do that,” I said. “I have to tell him we are going.” I did not have to look at Barbara to know she was rolling her eyes.

To my surprise, when I broached the subject with Michael, he was amenable to staying behind. What he was not amenable to, though, was having lunch. Over the past few days, he had eaten some, but very little, certainly not enough for a growing boy. I was constantly worried about it.

Rich and I borrowed a couple of umbrellas from Barbara, got in the car, and drove back to Fawn Hill Drive and the neighborhoods of Mahwah, the town that encircles Ramsey. On our way, we passed many of the signs we had put up that morning, all of which were holding up well despite the weather, thanks to Rich’s foresight and the plastic sleeves.

We started out by the house where Huck had last been seen, by the piles of wood covered with tarp. It was still raining. Traveling now on foot, we searched that street and the ones nearby. We explored every yard and every tree-filled empty lot, desperately looking for Huck. We rang doorbells and stopped cars. We looked behind garages, around garbage cans, under slides and swings, inside open shed doors, underneath anything that might provide a small frightened animal shelter from the elements. As we trudged through the mud and stepped ankle deep into puddles, we called to Huck again and again, our voices begging him to come out from wherever he might be. Minutes turned into hours, and the afternoon turned into early evening. Darkness was falling.

By the time we decided to get back in the car, I was hoarse. I sat next to Rich in the front seat looking at how thoroughly drenched he was. I could see even now that his mind was racing, trying to figure out what else we could do in the waning minutes of daylight. I knew he could not stop. I, though, drenched and distraught, was again wondering how much longer we could all go on this way. And then I pictured Huck, cold and soaked through, somewhere, and wondered how much longer
he
could go on.

We agreed to drive around some, to use what precious little daylight was left to keep our eyes trained on the landscape. It was no use. We both knew it was no use. After the man saw Huck by that woodpile this morning, Huck seemed to have vanished. We had put up all of our signs and no one had called. The trail had gone stone cold.

For a moment, Rich broke the silence. “Huck could be miles away from here, or we could be passing him right now and not even know it.”

I didn’t want to add what we both had considered. Huck might be dead. We drove back to the Clarks.

Barbara and Dave knew. They knew we would come home soaked to the bone and without hope. They did what they knew to do. They had a fire blazing in the fireplace, and Dave offered Rich a stiff drink, even though he knew Rich was not ready to let go.

They reported that no calls had come in all day long. Michael and Darian came downstairs and joined all of us in the kitchen. Michael did not ask about our latest search. He just moved close to me and leaned his body into my lap without really sitting there, the way children that age often do.

Barbara was moving between the sink and the refrigerator, sometimes for no reason at all. The rest of us were staring at the map, still spread out on the kitchen table, as though it would hold the answer to Huck’s whereabouts, to whether he was still alive, and to where we would see him if only we would look.

Eventually, Dave folded the map and Barbara set the table for dinner. They had ordered a few pizzas and some salad from a local restaurant. None of us ate very much. After dinner, Rich and I sat by the fire. Barbara and Dave loaded the dishes into the dishwasher and then joined us in front of the fire. Michael and Darian went upstairs to watch the TV in Barbara and Dave’s bedroom.

The phone did not, would not ring.

Michael fell asleep on the floor in front of the TV and after he had been asleep for a time, I woke him and told him we had to head back to the hotel. We said good night to the Clarks and once again headed back to the Woodcliff Lake Hilton. All of the stores on Ramsey’s Main Street were closed and locked tight, just as they had been when Rich had set out early that morning.

“I don’t want to go back to the hotel,” Michael said sleepily as we pulled into the hotel parking lot. “I want to keep looking for Huck.”

It was heartbreaking. Somehow Rich found it in himself to assure Michael that we would be back at it tomorrow, that Huck had proven he could get through two nights, and that he would again. I don’t know where Rich was getting the emotional strength for this. I was empty.

Rich offered to let Michael and me off in front of the hotel so we would not have to walk through the parking lot in the rain. It was absolutely pouring. But we declined, and we all parked the car together and walked in the rain together into the hotel and across the lobby’s marble floor to the elevator and up to our room.

We each needed a shower. Michael went first, taking what was a specialty of his, a twenty-second shower. I settled him in bed. He was asleep instantly. I took a quick shower, too, though longer than twenty seconds.

Rich plugged in his cell phone to recharge the constantly draining battery. Without thinking much about it, he turned the phone off. He was the last one in the shower, and he, too, was quick. I got into bed. When Rich came out of the bathroom, he slid in alongside me, and turned out the light.

Depressed, my body aching, I closed my eyes, listening to the rain and the howling wind. I thought we ought to call the search off. I tried to imagine how I would tell Michael that these things happen in life and that we had tried as hard as we could to find Huck but that Huck was gone. I would tell him how sorry I was, how I knew how much it hurt, how I would be there to help him get through it. As painful as that would be for us both, I thought it was the right thing to do. I thought I’d be protecting him from this constant, day-in and day-out emotional upheaval we were in. I thought the time had come to help Michael come to terms with his devastating loss.

Rich, too, had closed his eyes. But his thoughts could not have been more different. He was thinking about how long he could keep this going. He thought we’d stay in the hotel for a while longer and keep looking, keep running ads in the paper, keep putting up flyers, and talking to people as they went to work or brought their garbage cans to the road. We’d pay for radio ads. Rich had figured out that once I had to go back to work and Michael to school, he could continue to come out to New Jersey by himself whenever he could afford to take the time from his work. He thought we could afford to drain our savings of thousands more dollars. He had decided to search for another six weeks. Only then, he thought, could he really face Michael and tell him we had done everything we possibly could.

Rich’s last thought that night was of Huck and the cold rain hitting the window of our hotel room. He knew Huck could make it through another night, could elude becoming the prey of wild animals, but he did not know how much more difficult survival would be with the addition of the driving rain. Rich fell asleep praying Huck was still alive.

C
HAPTER 14

A
T 6:30
S
UNDAY MORNING
, the hotel phone rang in our room, startling all of us out of sleep. I was disoriented for a few seconds, but managed enough coherence to wonder who could possibly be calling so early on the hotel phone, especially since the signs all had Rich’s cell-phone number and so did the Clarks. I picked up the receiver and nearly inaudibly said, “Hello.”

“Why isn’t anyone answering Rich’s cell phone?” Barbara shrieked at me. “Get up. We had a call; a man saw Huck just a few minutes ago. You have to hurry. Get to Fawn Hill and Youngs.”

Before I really grasped what she was saying, and certainly before I told Rich where we were to go, I screamed at Rich and Michael, “Get dressed. Hurry up. Someone has just seen Huck. We have to move fast.”

“Janet, Janet,” Barbara called, trying to get me to reengage in our phone call. “Dave has already left. Does Rich know how to get to the intersection of Fawn Hill and Youngs?”

I called to Rich, “Do you know how to get to Fawn Hill and Youngs?”

And without waiting for an answer, before Rich had a chance to get his socks on, I thrust the phone toward him and said: “Why don’t you get the information from Barbara?”

Michael was in the bathroom and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He stood there for a second and thought,
I’ll bet this is it. We might really find Huck right now. This has to be it. I can’t lose him again
. He allowed himself a smile before he walked out of the bathroom.

Rich was now off the phone with Barbara, tying his sneakers as fast as he could. “Damn it. I can’t believe I turned off that cell phone. What was I thinking?” he said into the air. “Barbara had to lose minutes finding the number of the hotel.”

“Forget about it,” I said. “Let’s go.”

We were all in various stages of dress and no one had a jacket on. Rich grabbed the bologna and the cream cheese. “Take jackets,” I yelled.

And with that, we were out the door. Michael was the last one out, reaching for his lucky green Yankees cap as he left the room. We ran down the hall. Anxiously, I pushed the elevator button again and again and again before it came. The three of us ran through the lobby toward the front door. The hotel manager called to us: “Stop. Slow down. Don’t run in the lobby. It is not allowed.”

We completely ignored him. We flew through the lobby and then the puddle-filled parking lot and into the car. Michael was in the backseat. Rich handed him the bologna and the cream cheese.

I have no idea how fast Rich was going, but I am certain he was speeding, past Elmer’s, down Main Street in Ramsey, and up to Fawn Hill Drive, the area where Rich and I had been late Saturday afternoon. At some point Rich looked in his rearview mirror to look at Michael and saw him eating a piece of bologna.

“I’m glad to see you eating, lovee, but you’d better save that for Huck.”

“Oh yeah,” Michael said with a grin on his face. He stuffed what was left in the package into the pocket of his jacket along with the cream cheese.

Dave was already there, having parked his car on the Fawn Hill side of the intersection. Rich parked our car on the Youngs Road side. We stood on Fawn Hill Drive looking at the first house on that street. It was a ranch house, with gray-blue shutters. It had a deep, sloping front yard. But it wasn’t clear whether that was the house at the intersection or whether it was the white-shingled house at the end of Youngs Road.

“I don’t know which house the guy who called meant when he said he saw him at the intersection,” Dave said. “Huck is obviously not out front, so why don’t we look around the back.”

Rich and Dave were once again strategizing. “It looks like the yards run into each other. Why don’t you and Michael go around that side,” Rich said pointing to the far side of that first house on Fawn Hill. “Janet and I will approach it from Youngs.”

As relieved and astounded as I was that Huck had made it through another night, a fiercely stormy night, I didn’t want to mention that I thought Huck was gone again. The man who called in the tip said Huck was at the intersection. Well, he wasn’t at the intersection. In fact, he wasn’t anyplace nearby that you could see from the car. We missed him. A fair amount of time must have passed between when the man who saw him called Barbara, Barbara called us, and we got there. For whatever reason, we just didn’t get there fast enough.

The houses in this area were all set up on a hill. Rich and I climbed the hill, which was slippery because the grass was wet from the downpour the night before. Even though the sun was breaking through, it was still too early for the ground to have dried. Rich reached the top of the hill first and turned to see how far I was lagging. As soon as I reached the top, we walked into the yard behind the house.

Rich started quietly saying something, over and over, something he would say to Huck at times when they would play around on the living room floor: “Are you a good boy? Yes you are a good boy.” It was one of those nonsensical, rhythmic things people suddenly find themselves saying to pets. It was a term of endearment. Rich was hoping Huck would hear it and come back to us.

Startled, I grabbed Rich’s arm to keep myself from screaming. There, just standing there, was Huck. He was about twenty-five feet away.

Huck looked weary and his hair was matted. He looked at Rich, who then started to get down on his knees, but before he did, Huck turned and trotted away. Huck didn’t run, which made me wonder if he was injured. We were about to follow, when Rich’s cell phone rang.

It was Dave calling from the other side of the house. “Michael sees Huck,” he said. “Huck is about thirty feet away from him.”

The moment Michael saw Huck, he summoned all of his self-control. He did not make any quick movements. He squatted. Then he gingerly reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of bologna. He put it on the ground in front of him. He ever so slowly put his hand back in his pocket and managed to open the tub of cream cheese enough to stick his finger into it, intending to rub the cream cheese on the bologna. Michael had managed to go from squatting to kneeling without making a sound.

“Huck is now about twenty-five feet away,” Dave whispered into the phone.

Rich and I behind the house on one side of the yard, and Dave, out of our line of sight, on the other side, each stood frozen in place.

“Hi Huck, how are you, boy?” Michael said softly. “I’ve missed you. Are you hungry? Do you want some cream cheese?”

“He is now about twenty feet away,” Dave whispered into the phone. “Now he’s about fifteen feet away.”

“Hi, Huckie boy.” Michael kept his soft-spoken entreaty to Huck going. “You want some cream cheese?”

It was all Michael could do to hold himself together. He wanted to swoop Huck up in his arms and cry and laugh with abandon. But he was as controlled as a major-league player about to make the winning play in the last at bat of a World Series game.

Rich, with the phone pressed to his ear, stood somewhat bent so that I could have my head right up against his, even though I could not hear a thing.

Dave whispered into the phone, “Huck is now ten feet away from Michael.”

“Huck is ten feet away from Michael,” Rich repeated to me, as he did after every report from Dave.

“He’s about eight feet away.”

“He’s about six feet away.”

“Huck is about four feet away.”

Huck took another step toward Michael and when Michael reached for him, Huck took several steps backward. Michael feared he would run.

“Huck just backed away,” Dave said.

It was an eternity before Rich and I heard another update over the phone from Dave.

“We thought he’d run, but he didn’t. Now I’d say Huck is about five feet away.”

“Huck is about four feet away.”

“He’s three feet away.”

“He’s two feet away.”

“Michael has Huck in his arms.”

Rich and I went tearing around to the other side of the yard. Michael was hugging his dog, his best friend, his most trusted confidante, the pet he had longed for his entire young life, the antidote to his mother’s brush with death. “I love you, Huck. I missed you so much. Where have you been, boy?” he said sweetly.

Huck, licking Michael’s face, his lips, his cheeks, his nose, even his eyes, was too busy to answer.

Dave, who was filled with emotion, spoke in a louder voice than Michael had ever heard him, “Let’s get him in the car and close all the windows.” He was fearful Huck would bolt again.

At the sight of our son and his dog in the backseat of Dave’s car, finally reunited, with Michael smiling and laughing and Huck licking him and climbing all over Michael’s head, Rich and I were each overcome with tears of joy.

A woman, still in her bathrobe, came out of her house and stood on her front steps for a minute looking at Rich, who was jumping up and down and punching the air with his fists. “Did you find your dog?” she called to us.

“Yes, yes, we did,” I called back to her, laughing at Rich’s antics.

“We sure did,” Rich shouted. “Thanks for asking.”

“Congratulations,” the woman said, smiling.

Rich pulled something out of his pocket I didn’t know was there—Huck’s leash. When we were standing by Dave’s car, Rich knocked on the window of the backseat and told Michael to crack the window. He fed the leash through the window. As he did, Huck started licking the window. Rich told Michael to put the leash on Huck and wrap the other end of it around his hand. We were not taking any chances.

Once Michael attached the leash and was holding the end of it securely, I carefully opened the other door to the backseat and got in. I was again overcome with emotion. With Huck jumping on us both, I hugged Michael. I then held Huck in my arms and kissed him before he licked my face. I handed him back to Michael. I was about to get out of the car when Dave got in and said, “Rich said you should stay in my car and we’ll meet him back at the house.”

I felt badly that Rich, the field general, the optimist in chief, the tireless father and husband, had not yet had a chance to hold our newly found Huck. If not for his insistence that this could be done, that we could somehow find our puppy in the dense woods in the foothills of the mountains, the overwhelming joy of the moment would not have been ours.