Penny (19 page)

“Penny certainly hated a chain. When you chained her up, she glared at you, her tail drooped, she was utterly dejected.”

“Yet she didn't mind the leash.”

“She practically strutted when she was on the leash. She might try to pull your arm off, but not because she wanted to escape. She wasn't a prisoner, on a leash. She was more like a drum majorette leading a parade.”

One morning over coffee Barbara said, “I can understand why she left Carol's and Tom's. And even why she was restless here—things were pretty quiet here except when she made things happen. But why should she run away and not come back at Sybil's? She had freedom, and she had what you call self-respect.”

“I'm not sure she ran away,” I said. “In your version of what happened, she was coming back when she was kidnapped. Anyway, Sybil's was just a kind of area headquarters. She had a bed and a meal at any one of a dozen other places whenever she wanted it. And there were all those other dogs at Sybil's, house dogs, content to stay put. Penny was a misfit among them. She wasn't one of the gang.”

“Penny wasn't a one-of-the-gang dog. I still wonder where she went.”

“I told you my wildest guess.”

“That she was hit by a car. But they never found her body.”

“Of course not. The ambulance took her to the hospital, and—”

“Yes, yes. And she went off to dog heaven on a pink cloud. I still say somebody would have found her if she'd been hit by a car.”

“All right, so she wasn't hit. She was kidnapped, and drugged, and escaped. And after many harrowing adventures she found a trailer family and was welcomed with open arms to life on the open road. But the truth is that you don't know, and I don't know. Nobody knows what happened to her. And if she was just another mutt we wouldn't care.”

“But we
do
care. Why? What was there about her that makes us remember?”

“You tell me. I remember cows and road trucks and sweepers. All that nonsense.”

Barbara smiled. “I remember the way she looked at me that evening I let her in the first time. Her self-assurance, her confidence that she would be welcome. Her belief in a good world, a happy life. There she was, a little bit of a dog, turning to me, a total stranger, and practically saying, Hello, friend. You look like a nice person. I like you. You are going to like me.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “that's one thing you could count on. Penny was the equal—at least the equal—of anyone, or anything, she met. Even a highway truck.”

Barbara shook her head. “You still—”

“No, I don't. I agree with you absolutely. But she did think she could stop a truck. She proved it!… Really, I remember her because she was so totally the individual, herself. And, as you say, because she loved life, believed in it.”

The weeks became months. Snow came, and ice, and Christmas. Groundhog Day passed, and it was still winter. Now and then the red fox or his vixen, who live in a den above the old railroad right-of-way, came down near the house and barked in the night. One night they came and wakened me, they were so close. I got up to look and saw the vixen lope away, but the fox was right there in the driveway. There was a moon half past the full, and the snow made an eerie half-daylight. He stood there, watching the house, then barked, that hoarse, rasping bark we always recognize. I had a strange feeling that he was trying to say something, but I couldn't understand. He trotted off and I went back to bed, thinking of Penny, thinking what an uproar she would make if she were here.

Then it was March again. Spring peepers began to yelp and the redwing blackbirds were in the willows. An early spring, for a change. It was almost Barbara's birthday.

She came downstairs that morning, in her robe, and went to the front door and looked out, stood there several minutes before she turned away. She came into the library, then, where I was reading over my second cup of coffee, and she said, “I dreamed she came back. She didn't, did she? She's not here?”

“No.”

“It was so real, I had to go look on the porch. She came back and came to the door and barked. You're sure?”

“Positive.”

She brought her coffee and sat down across the table from me. “She was older. The puppy look was all gone. She looked sad. And then she saw us—we let her in—and she was Penny! Dear, bouncy Penny, tickled to death to see us.” She sighed. “Don't you ever dream about her?”

“No. But I've heard her barking several times. Up on the mountain.”

“When was this?”

“Oh, every now and then. The last time was a week or so ago.”

“You didn't tell me.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Well, the first time I heard her she turned into a barred owl. The next time she turned into a great horned owl. Then she turned into a fox. The last time she just turned into the wind, I guess.”

She nodded, understanding.

Nothing more was said about Penny till after supper that evening. Then Barbara said, “I think I'll call Sybil.”

“Tell her about your dream?”

“No, I just want to ask if she has heard anything. Anything at all.”

She called and they talked ten or fifteen minutes. Then she came to the living room where I was half asleep in the big lounge chair. I roused and asked, “Well?”

“No word. Not a thing. She simply vanished. Sybil said everyone knew Penny, for miles around, and she would have heard if anything had happened to her. Somebody would have told her.”

“Did you tell her about your dream?”

“No. But Sybil said
she
keeps waking up in the middle of the night, thinking she hears Penny bark. ‘I go to the window,' she said, ‘and I look and look. But Penny isn't there. I miss her,' she said. ‘I just hope she found whatever it was she was looking for, somewhere.'”

“Well,” I said, “I guess that's that.”

We sat silent, and I thought I heard something, turned to listen. After a moment I said, “The wind. Just the wind.”

But Barbara went to the front door and turned on the porch light. She stood there looking, and after a minute or so I got up and joined her. The big maples across the road were still bare, but their buds were beginning to swell. Beyond them the river glistened in the beam from the floodlight that shone on the driveway and on across the road. You could see down that tunnel of light into the darkness of the night.

Barbara said, “I hope she and Saint Pat have a good time together.”

“Or she and Rusty,” I said. “A dog needs a boy.”

About the Author

Hal Borland (1900–1978) was a nature writer and novelist who produced numerous bestselling books including memoirs and young adult classics, as well as decades of nature writing for the
New York Times
. Borland considered himself a “natural philosopher,” and he was interested in exploring the way human life was bound to the greater world of plants, animals, and natural processes.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

Copyright © 1972 by Hal Borland

Cover design by Mauricio Díaz

ISBN: 978-1-5040-3767-9

This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10038

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