{ FIFTEEN }

I cautiously descended the cement stairs to the room under the barn. Lacey had pulled out a folded blanket and was curled up on it. She wagged her tail as I approached, but otherwise did not get up to greet me. She was panting in distress and I was frightened because something was going on and I did not understand. The area at the bottom of the stairs was very dark. I strained to see what she was doing.

The air was rich with the presence of what I had assumed was another animal but now realized was coming from Lacey. I decided to examine her more closely and was shocked when she halted me with a growl, a warning from deep in her throat. She did not want me any nearer. What was happening?

I stood awkwardly on the steps, peering at shadows, feeble light from the house providing the only illumination in the under barn. I heard Lacey licking and then, astoundingly, I heard a tiny peep, an animal sound. Lacey had just given birth to a puppy, and the dense odors told me another one was coming.

Lacey had made a den down here. I needed to protect her. I was her mate.

Yet when Burke whistled for me, I had to obey. I left reluctantly and lay on the floor in his room with my nose pointed toward the open window because his door was shut. I panted anxiously all night. When he finally let me out the next morning I dashed to the steps and could see my Lacey and several tiny puppies lying down there. She wagged when she saw me.

My affection for her in that moment was overwhelming. I realized then that I not only needed to protect my new dog family—I needed to provide for them. I trotted back up to the house. My human family was sitting at the table. I went to my food bowl, but the first meal of the day wasn’t there yet.

Chase Dad cleared his throat. “Almost time to start bringing in the zucchini, Grant. Let’s go out and check on them this morning.”

“You sure, Dad?” Grant replied. “Wouldn’t it be better if I stayed and helped Burke with his model city?”

There was a silence. I went to peer at my food bowl. Still nothing.

“Grant, you’re just going to have to get glad in the same clothes you got mad in,” Chase Dad said, “because I’m going to need you out there every minute, and even then I think some of it’s going to wind up rotting. Used to be we’d have a hundred migrant workers coming up to help with the harvests, but not anymore.”

I returned to my bowl, picked it up, took it to Burke’s chair, and dropped it at his feet, where it clattered. Burke laughed. “You hungry, Cooper?”

I stared at him expectantly until he wheeled to fill my bowl. My dinner came from an open bag on the floor. I could stick my head in the bag, but I understood this was bad dog behavior and did my best to ignore its wonderful odors. As soon as the bowl was full, I ate greedily and quickly.

When Grant and Chase Dad left I slipped out the dog door and anxiously followed them, hoping they wouldn’t go to the under barn. They were my people and harboring a secret from them made me feel like a bad dog, but I couldn’t help it—something told me that part of protecting the den was keeping it hidden. The two of them went off in the direction of the fields, so I padded down the cement steps.

The scent of dinner still clung to my lips, and Lacey stood up to a chorus of squeaks from the tiny puppies pressed to her side. She nosed me and I held still, letting her inspect me. When she licked my lips, I felt a strange compelling sensation come over me, starting with my throat and working its way down to my stomach, and then everything I had just eaten came back up in a swift and neat regurgitation. Lacey began to feed.

“Cooper! Come!”

I tore myself away, racing out of the under barn and into the morning sunshine. Burke had wheeled himself out into the yard. “Where were you, Cooper?”

Lacey’s scent was strong in the air and I was anxious to return to her, but my boy clearly expected me to remain with him. I finally sank down into the grass with a sigh. When I slept, I didn’t dream Lacey and I were running. I dreamed we were playing with puppies.

Later Burke rolled to his room. When I abandoned him I felt like a bad dog. I creeped back to the little room behind the kitchen and seized the bag of dinner in my mouth. Then I froze: I could tell Grandma was lying down on her bed but wasn’t asleep. Slinking quietly, I dragged the food bag with me through the living room. A noise came from Burke’s room, was he coming out? I felt as if people were running at me shouting, “Bad dog! Bad dog!” I squeezed through the dog door, the bag catching on the frame. I walked backward, pulling, finally breaking free. Then I halted, listening guiltily. Was someone coming? My heart was making the same sort of noise as when Grant ran down the stairs.

The bag bumped on my legs as I ran across the yard and down the steps to the under barn. Lacey did not get up, but I knew she could smell what was in the bag. I did not know if the puppies could, and they didn’t seem to be very interested in me at all.

I was interested in them, though. They made tiny peeping noises, their eyes tightly closed, each face scrunched. I stared, learning every one by sight and smell. These were my puppies.

I was back at the house when Chase Dad and Grant arrived for their dinner. I was very hungry and sat hopefully under the table.

“The new storm shelter doors come yet?” Chase Dad asked.

“No, sir,” Burke replied.

“Not much of a storm shelter if it’s open to the elements.”

“You planning to put the new ones back on yourself, Burke?” Grant asked slyly.

“Maybe. I’ll bet you I could.”

Chase Dad cleared his throat. “I think it will go better if we all help. The new ones are steel and probably weigh a ton. We’ll never have to replace them again.”

Grant stealthily lowered his hand and gave me a tiny piece of bread. A good, attentive dog doing Sit, and that’s all I got, bread.

The next several days I took up a post at the top of the stairs to the under barn. Lacey only emerged at night—she would head down to the pond to drink. I would stay and guard our puppies until she returned. Lacey smelled of delicious milk and of the tiny puppies in the den.

I was shut in Burke’s room at bedtime—my nose up and attentive—when a feral animal smell arrived on the breeze. A growl formed deep in my throat.

My boy stirred. “Go to sleep, Cooper.”

Whatever it was, I knew it was out there stalking Lacey. I jumped off the bed and ran to the door and scratched it frantically.

“Cooper!”

I barked, my lips pulled back from my teeth. Burke sat up and blinked at me. “What’s going on?”

The thought of something happening to my puppies drove me into a frenzy. I wasn’t just scratching the door now, I was pounding it.

“Hey!” Burke shouted.

He swung into his chair and rolled to the door and opened it, and I shoved past him and raced across the living room and burst through the dog door. I instantly spotted the creature I’d smelled—a low, fierce-looking animal with pointed ears. It was the size of a small dog and had canine-like features. Lights popped on above the porch, flaring out into the yard.

The predator saw me and froze, and I did not hesitate, I ran right at it.

“Cooper!”

It was fast, too fast for me to catch. I bounded after it but soon lost track when it fled into the woods.

My boy was calling and I reluctantly returned to him. Chase Dad was standing with him.

“You saw the fox?” Chase Dad asked.

“Yeah. Cooper chased him off.”

Chase Dad petted me. “Good dog, Cooper.”

My boy called me to go to bed, but I went down the ramp and sat in the yard, watching warily for the predator to return. Burke came out and regarded me from the porch.

“What are you doing, Cooper?”

I heard my name and felt like a bad dog, but I would not leave my post. After a moment, Burke sighed. “All right,” he said.

After that, I spent the nights outside in the grass. I did not smell the stalking creature again, but I was not taking the chance that it would return and go down into the under barn. Burke eventually gave up calling for me to sleep with him.

“He just wants a piece of that fox,” Grant observed.

“We better hope it doesn’t come back,” Chase Dad replied.

“Oh, I think Cooper could handle it,” Burke said.

“Right, but not without some vet bills on the other side of the fight.”

One evening Grant and my boy left in Grant’s truck without taking me. “It’s okay, Cooper,” Grandma said. “They are just going to pick up Burke’s girlfriend.” I did not know what she was saying to me, so I went out to lie at the top of the stairs to the under barn. When the boys returned and parked, Wenling was with them!

I sat under Wenling’s chair at dinner, both to be friendly and to give her suggestive nudges with my nose. I was delighted when she figured out I was a good dog who deserved little pieces of meat, which I gently lifted from her hands.

I knew dinner was over when Burke pushed himself back from the table. “Hey, you want to maybe go for a walk?”

Walk! I trotted ahead of Burke and Wenling as they slowly strolled along the path. I glanced up ahead at the open hole to the under barn. Lacey’s scent told me she was down there taking care of our puppies.

“So you said maybe you’d have your operation this year?” Wenling asked.

“I guess not.” Burke sighed. “I’m still growing, which normally should be good news, but not this time. It’s not like I’m trying out for basketball. I just want to get it done, you know? If it’s not going to work, okay, but at least I’ll know.”

Wenling put her hand on Burke’s shoulder and his chair stopped. “It will work, Burke. I know it.”

“Thanks.”

They hugged, then pushed their faces together. I sighed—they seemed to be doing that a lot, lately. Finally, after a long wait, they began moving again.

“Hey, what’s that?”

“It’s the storm cellar. You know, for tornadoes, zombies, like that.”

They turned in the direction of the under barn. I followed, anxious. I both wanted them to find the puppies and not to find the puppies.

“Tornadoes? We don’t get tornadoes in Michigan,” Wenling challenged.

“Oh yeah we do! What about Flint-Beecher? It was like the deadliest tornado in U.S. history until there was this one in Joplin, Missouri.”

“So is that what you do all day, watch the weather channel?”

Burke laughed. “I did a report about Michigan tornadoes in seventh grade. We’re not Kansas, but we’re competitive.”

“Okay, good, as long as we’re in the tornado Olympics.”

My boy laughed again. Wenling, I realized, made him happy.

“So what’s down there?” she asked.

“Like, water, canned goods, a woodstove. I mean it really is so that if you had to spend a couple days there you could, like if there was a nuclear attack.”

“Or zombie invasion. Can I go down there?”

Burke wheeled right up to the top of the steps. I panted anxiously, afraid for what might happen next. I was acutely aware of the empty dog food bag, of each of my puppies, of Lacey. She was tense, too, I could sense her staring up at us.

“Sure. There’s a light at the bottom, just pull the string.”

“There are no rats or anything, are there? Or snakes?”

“No, of course not.”

“Promise?”

“Just go.”

Wenling descended the steps, moving slowly, her hand brushing the wall. I followed helplessly. I thought when her scent flooded the small room that Lacey would growl, but instead, the moment a bright light filled the space, Lacey began wagging her tail, her little puppies squealing.

“Oh my God!” Wenling gasped.