There he went with the cliffhangers again.

“Then who?” I asked, exasperated. “Who did they get instead?”

“All in good time, my dear Catson, all in good time. First, I must tell you a story.”

“I thought that’s what you were doing!” I said, more exasperated still. Honestly.

“I suppose I am,” the dog said. “Very well. A story within the story, then.”

Oh, brother.

My heavy sighs, my exaggerated eye rolls – they did nothing to affect or deter the dog.

“Picture this,” he said, squinting at a dusty horizon only he could see. “Young Lucy Fur at age seventeen, still considered young to us for a human, but in that time and place considered to be a young woman of marriageable age. One day, she is out riding on a horse – ”

“She has a horse now?” Puppy #1 interjected. “When did she get a horse?”

Bone chose to ignore him – a rare move on his part. Some animals and humans are just always getting distracted. True, I can get distracted by a moving piece of yarn, but that, I think we can all agree, is completely understandable.

“No matter. So, Lucy was out riding around on her horse when, suddenly, she found herself trapped inside a herd of cattle.”

“How does that even happen?” Puppy #2 asked. “Did she not see them coming? Could she not get out of the way?”

Wisely, with a heavy sigh and a paw swipe across his own brow, Bones chose to ignore these questions too. “It seems to me,” Puppy #3 said, “that lots of things happen suddenly in the west in the United States of America. Dust storms, herds of cattle surrounding you, even stories jumping ahead twelve years – it all happens suddenly.”

“She was in dire peril! Then, suddenly!” Bones cried so loudly, I dropped my fork. “A man on a horse appears! Out of nowhere!”

“What did I tell you?” Puppy #3 said with a nudge to Puppy #4.

“The man saves Lucy!” Bones cried, louder yet.

For one who was normally such a practical being, the dog was certainly wrapped up in the romance of the thing.

“Afterward,” Bones continued, in a less dramatic voice, “the man tells Lucy he believes that, years ago, his family and Lucy’s family – or at least Joe Fur – knew each other in a different state within the United States of America. The man is just passing through, a stranger to the town when he rescued Lucy – and this is not the sort of town that likes strangers – but he decides to stick around for a bit. He finds a place to stay at an inn in town. He even makes a few friends – perhaps it’s more accurate to call them acquaintances, since no one in the Group much cares for outsiders.”

“But where did he even come from?” I said. “Did he really just appear out of nowhere?”

“Pretty much.” The dog shrugged. “In those days, in the American West, people were always appearing out of nowhere. He was heading west, like so many before him, in hopes of finding gold.”

“He had no money of his own?” I asked.

“Oh, he did.” The dog shrugged again. “A fair amount, actually. But you know humans. They always want more.”

That’s certainly true.

“The man never made it far enough west to find gold, however,” Bones said. “But he found something even better. He found love.”

By this point, there were a few misty eyes in the room and Puppy #2 clasped his paws to his chest.

“To continue,” Bones continued, “in time, the man falls in love with Lucy. Joe Fur really likes the man. The man wants to marry Lucy. Then the man says he must leave for two months.”

“Wait. What?” I made my paw-to-paw timeout sign. “The man falls in love with her, says he wants to marry her … and then disappears for two months?”

“What can I say?” The dog shrugged. “Things were hard back then, in the west. That’s the way it was, with people often having to go to other places to do things for a time.”

He took another helping of spaghetti before continuing. “Of course, Joe Fur was thrilled with this turn of events. The last thing he wanted was for Lucy, who he really did think of as his daughter at this point, to marry anyone from the Group.”

“But why?” Waggins said. “Seems to me, the Group done all right by old Joe Fur. They saved him from death. Gave him new people. Next thing you know, he’s not only alive but wealthy too.”

“Let’s just say he had his reasons,” Bones said, giving a most unsatisfactory answer to what seemed to me a perfectly logical question. “Let’s just say that Joe Fur was very happy at the idea of Lucy marrying someone from outside the Group.”

“Fine,” I said, “let’s just say that. And … ?”

“And,” the dog said, “at this time, there were a group of people who … took care of things … whenever anyone tried to go outside the Group. And, also at this time, the Leader – you do all remember him, don’t you?”

Plenty of nods all around.

“Yes, well, the Leader decided to pay Joe Fur a visit. He told him there’d been much talk among the sub-leaders of the Group and it had been decided that Lucy Fur should marry either, er, John Smith or the Secretary, both of them being sons of the sub-leaders and all grown up now.”

“They decided?” I sputtered, sputtering a considerable amount of spaghetti out of my mouth. “Who were these men to decide who Lucy Fur should marry?”

“My dear Catson,” Bones said, a rare look of sadness combined with sympathy on his face, “I do empathize with your feelings on this matter. But this is how it was at this time and place and with these people. This is what the Leader and the others wanted for Lucy. The Leader gave Joe Fur one month to decide: Would his daughter marry the man who was an outsider to the Group and suffer the consequences or marry one of the two chosen for her by the Group?”

“Seems like no choice at all,” I said. “She should choose the one she wants.”

“And I would agree with you,” Bones said, “only keep in mind: I did tell you there was another group, whose job it was to take care of business for the Group, and this group within the Group was a very bad group indeed. Still, Joe Fur wanted what was best for his child. He did not want, er, John Smith for her. He did not want the Secretary for her. And so, he sent a telegram to the man who’d fallen in love with Lucy, a telegram calling him back.”

I had a tear in my eye. I couldn’t help it – the story was that romantic. Either that, or Mr. Javier had neglected to dust the chandelier in the dining room and my allergies were kicking up.

Then something struck me.

“You keep using ‘the man’ in place of the name for this person Lucy Fur fell in love with,” I said. “And yet, earlier, you said we were going to have some sort of names for the people in this story.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Just who is this ‘the man’?”

“That is most observant of you, my dear Catson,” the dog said, his own eyes twinkling. “Not only that, but you have hit on the most fun and intriguing part of the story. Who do you think the man is?”

“Oh no,” I groaned, “not this again. Another guessing game?”

“No.” The dog’s eyes flashed. “I don’t want you to guess. I want you to use your deductive powers of reasoning. Think, Catson.”

I went through the same process I had before, going through the list of people that the dog knew that I also knew, eliminating people based on impossibilities.

Once I finished, I did it all over again, because it couldn’t possibly be possible, the person I thought it must be … could it?

“No!” I said.

“Yes,” Bones said.

“But it can’t be,” I said.

“Oh, but it is,” the dog said. “Come on, Catson, say it.”

“Jefferson Hope?”

Slowly, the dog nodded.

“But it can’t be,” I said again, dumbfounded. “The man who is ‘the man,’ the man who fell in love with Lucy and she with him, is the Jefferson Hope, the man responsible for the deaths of, er, John Smith and the Secretary?” I paused. “That Jefferson Hope?”

“Ding, ding, ding!” the dog cried, triumphant.