Chucho and Camille were littermates, but as full-grown dogs they do not resemble each other in the least. Chucho is a big heavy male with a barrel chest and short black hair—very much a water dog. Camille is slightly taller than Chucho, but slender and brown and longhaired and wholly disinterested in water. On those rare nights when the temperature falls below freezing, Chucho reluctantly comes inside the house to sleep; otherwise he is to be found out of doors. Camille prefers life on the plush sofa in front of the fire.
Chucho always rides in the bed of the pickup, rain or shine, reveling in the chilly breeze off his beloved ocean. Camille will occasionally deign to ride in her master’s truck, but only on the non-negotiable condition that she sit beside him in the cab. Chucho only rests when he is too exhausted to take another step, whereas Camille doesn’t seem to have a restless bone in her body. Yet they have the same mother—a purebred Dalmatian.
Only when their food is served—morning and evening—do Camille and Chucho meet to exchange cordial licks before eating from their separate bowls. Chucho devours his mountain of food in a few ravenous gulps before dashing out the door to resume his patrol of the woods, while Camille eats slowly and daintily before returning to her sofa.
These unlikely siblings have not grappled since puppyhood, and if life were static, their peaceful coexistence might never be disturbed.
The humans in the mix are a large man named Tony, a former anthropology professor, and Maria, a former elementary school teacher. Tony supplies firewood to rustic inns and vacation homes that abound in the vicinity of their forest cottage. He gets the wood by clearing logging residue from coastal creeks. Maria is an herbalist and midwife. She gathers her herbs in the wilds and from their deer-fenced garden.
ONE FOGGY MORNING in August, Tony leaves Maria slumbering in their bed and wanders to the kitchen to feed the dogs. Hearing Tony padding down the hallway, Camille leaves her bed by the fallen fire and traipses after him. To their mutual surprise, Chucho does not come barging through the dog door, as is his custom upon hearing the rustling of the food bags.
Tony fills Camille’s bowl with fine kibble imported from France, and goes outside to see what Chucho is up to. Camille is so distracted by her brother’s uncharacteristic absence at breakfast that she exits through the dog door—an extremely rare occurrence—to see where her brother is.
As she steps onto the porch, Camille spots Chucho emerging from the woods with what appears to be a large gray sausage held tenderly in his mouth. The sausage whimpers. Camille growls, recognizing the thing to be a newborn puppy.
“It’s okay, Sweetie,” says Tony, turning to smile at Camille. “He’s just a little baby. Nothing to be afraid of.”
Camille’s wolfish eyes narrow and she growls again before going back inside. She disdains her food and retreats to her sofa where she lies down and covers her eyes with her paws.
Having delivered the pup into Tony’s hands, Chucho rambles into the house, finds his bowl empty, gobbles Camille’s kibble, slurps a quart of water, and rushes back outside.
MARIA IS FILLING an eyedropper with warm milk for the ravenous newborn when Chucho enters with another pup in his mouth, this one dead.
Maria raises an eyebrow and says to Tony, “I think our hero has found a litter in the creek.”
While Tony goes to get his shovel, Maria swaddles the living pup in a wool sweater and sets him in a cardboard box on the kitchen table. She wraps the dead pup in an old bandana, and places the shrouded corpse in her knapsack.
THE HUMANS FOLLOW Chucho through a forest of young redwoods and ascend a deer trail beside a nameless creek that swells to roaring when the rains come. In a shallow pool where the creek crosses a meadow, they find seven little corpses in a burlap sack weighed down with river rocks—three more bodies loose in the water—the litter so recently drowned, the ravens have yet to discover the carrion.
Knowing Chucho will eventually bring home all the dead babies if allowed to, the humans bury the bodies in a deep hole and place four boulders atop the grave to discourage Chucho from digging them up.
AS THEY COME in sight of their house, Chucho bolts ahead of the humans and crashes through the dog door to do battle with Camille—the humans arriving just in time to separate the snarling dogs before they can seriously injure each other.
The cardboard box stands upside down on the floor—a fortuitous landing that saved the tiny passenger from Camille’s murderous jaws.
“Bad girl,” says Maria, shaking a finger at Camille. “That little baby can’t hurt you.”
“Please don’t yell at her,” says Tony, intervening. “I think I can explain this to her.”
CRADLING THE PUP against his tummy, Tony sits on the sofa with Camille and pets her with his free hand, while Chucho straddles the threshold between the kitchen and the living room, watching Camille and listening intently to Tony.
“Here’s the thing,” says Tony, scratching Camille’s ears—her favorite place to be touched. “I understand you’re upset about having a new dog in the family. Everything happened so suddenly. We didn’t give you any time to get used to the idea. Maybe you think this puppy will get in the way of our loving you. But if that happens, I promise we’ll find the puppy some other place to live. Because we want you to be happy, Camille. We love you. You know that. So what we’d like is for you to give this little guy a chance. You don’t have to do anything special. You don’t have to change the way you do things. Just don’t hurt him, okay? Because he’s important to Chucho. And he’s important to us, too. So I’m asking you, as my very best friend, to be kind to the pup and not hurt him. Okay?”
Tony offers the newborn to Camille. She sniffs at the pup and gently licks his tiny body.
Now Chucho joins them, wagging his tail and licking the puppy, and licking Camille, too, as Maria comes in from the kitchen, smiling radiantly.
