I can smell you, Culebra, somewhere out there beyond the hills. But not Buddy. Where are you Culebra, that you are not with him?
And how did I end up in that cage with Nothin’? What happened that I ended up there? I remember, I was runnin’ and runnin’ ‘cause I had to keep up with Buddy, I am part of Buddy, I belong in Buddy’s scent, but that big bus that ate him went and went and went and finally—
Where is home? Where is Buddy? Where am I? Why am I even here where they call me Critter?
And where are you, Culebra?
“C’mon, Crit, we gotta get home, it’s nearly seven!”
Yark! Oh, he’s pullin’ me. I got the leash back on, where’d that come from? Okay, we’re going. All the kids! All the kids! I love kids and now I get to go with ‘em!
“Don’t pull like that, you bad dog!”
Okay, okay! I’m comin’, see. Buddy says, “you’re a g-o-o-o-d dog, Bob.” So I’m good and I don’t care what you say, kid.
“Atta boy, Crit. ‘At’s a good boy!”
That’s right! I’m good! I like you, kid! You’re great! We’re gonna get along! I love to lick your hand, you taste good!
“Hey Crit, settle down! Down, Crit! Now, come on, heel! Can you heel?”
Heel? You bet your sweet life, kid! Here, looka this, just like Buddy taught me. Buddy taught me to heel and fetch and sit and go down and walk and get that thing, Bob!
Some things nobody taught me. I herd cattle just because I do, and I learned ducks from Buddy. I learned to dis cats on my own. What’re they doin’ alive anyway, gettin’ in bed where they don’t belong and stuff? Who wants a stinky cat to sleep with you?
I want to herd the cattle, I want to get ‘em in that pen, Bob! I want to get that duck! I want to—well, I gotta go after the cats on my own. I can smell about twenty-teen cats right around here, but I don’t hear none.
Or do I? Oh, yeah, I do. Listen to that purr-box goin’ Now where is that sucker?
“Crit?”
Rrrrrrrright over there! Oh, yeah, lemme go lemme go!
“Come on!”
Gottagetim gottagetim gottagetim!
“What’re you pantin’ about? You’re gonna bust your neck!”
He won’t let me go! He’s stronger than me. I hear his muscles, they’re hardly even cryin’. He’s real strong. Hey, I like him.
“Atta boy! That’s right, Crit, you heel!”
Oh, we’re goin’ home, here’s our house. Okay, and I smell my food bowl and it’s full and I wanna eat! I’m so glad!
“You hungry, Crit? Lookatim eat!”
“He does an awful lot of dog chow in a day, Peter.”
This is great! I love this stuff! It’s makin’ me feel better! It’s makin’ me feel strong. I was tired, now I’m not. Oh, it’s sweet, it’s sweet.
“Somebody’s gonna have to earn the money to buy that chow, son.”
I could use some meat and I smell meat. They got meat in here somewhere. Oh, yeah, up there!
“He’s interested in the dining room table.”
“Don’t let him up there, Pete, that’s a whole huge roast!”
“He just wants to look.”
“Mom, the monster’s after our dinner!”
“Critter!”
“Peter, get Critter outside!”
“Sorry, Mom. C’mon, Critter.”
Heck! They gonna eat that fine meat? Darn, I’d like to jump up there. Or at least be under there, ‘cause maybe somebody’s gonna drop something. I just love to get my muzzle down under the table, and Buddy, he used to drop me stuff on purpose. That was the best I ever ate, that food he dropped, ‘cause it smelled like the very best food in the world and it had a little taste of him in it, too. It had the taste of love in it. We dogs can smell it and taste it, love.
“C’mon, Crit, time to go outside!”
We’re goin’ outside. Great! But hey, what about you, kid? Oh, I get it, I been pushed out in this little yard ‘cause they don’t want me with ‘em. Hey! Hey! I’m parta the pack! Hey! Hey!
“Shut up, Crit, you’ll make ‘em mad!”
Heyhey?
“No!”
Okay. I get it. Just lie down and go to sleep. Okay. Well, what did I do today? I swam and I ate and I caught the Frisbee and, oh, yeah, I smelled Culebra way away but could not tell where.
Culebra, I remember when we worked, how it felt like we were two halves of the same dog, and Buddy would yell, “yeah, you guys, oh yeah” when we cut ‘em and moved ‘em just right. I wonder if you have another partner, Culebra, a thought that makes me soooooooooooo saaaaaaaaad!
Sad as I was after I had to bite that guy.
I can bite off a hummingbird’s tailfeathers if I care to. Or a man’s arm. I could bite off a arm.
I guess I bit somebody real hard once, that guy who was comin’ after Buddy. It was night, it was very dark, and we was in the woods huntin’ ‘coon. I was smellin’ ‘em out and treein’ ‘em and then Buddy he would come along and boom they would come down dead. ‘Cause he could do that, just like with the ducks and the quail. He had a long finger that shot out fire. Dad had one, too. Pow! Dead’n, just like that!
That guy came up outa the woods, he says, ‘What’re you doin’ all alone in the woods, boy?’ and I smell Buddy’s fear, so I just go over and cut through the man’s shirt with my teeth, and pull out a bit of skin, and he run off. We went home then, pretty quick.
That guy was bad.
Now I’m in the yard all alone and I don’t like it, it’s like in the cage after Sanchez went away and all the dogs started cryin’ in there, as I guess they still are.
This isn't very big. I want a field! We were in the park, why’nt we go back there? Hey! Hey!
Oops. Better not call ‘em, now it’s goin’ dark. The sun’s gone away. Gotta sleep, it's dark. It’s quiet. I hear the squirrels snorin’ in the trees, and the bird’s feathers rustlin,’ and the breeze speakin’ its secrets, and far off, the song of the dog rising to the moon.
Hey! Hey! Hey! Ooooooooooooohhhhhhhhh yeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!
“Heavenly God, now it’s yowling!”
That’s the bigun. He sounds mad. What about?
From far off, the challenge of another dog, sayin’ his bark name: hey! hey! hey!
I’m bigger than you. Hey! And a whole lot LOUDER. HEYHEY!
“Shaddup!”
Oops. I guess I better sleep, that’ll shut me up. I guess I better, but I got no blanket for me. I gotta sleep just on the grass. Okay, then I’ll talk to the grass. The grass knows everybody who walks on it, ‘cause it makes a different noise for each who treads there. For Dad, the grass would go hrrroooo-skootskot. For Mom, it would go hooeeea-a-a-pip a-pip. For Buddy it would go squit-squit-squit ‘cause he didn’t push it down as hard till he got big. The grass groans when the rukkita rakkita pop-pop noise monster cuts it, then afterward it moans all night long. I push my nose down in the grass, and it goes skukkle skee along my jowls, and the smell of the grass makes me feel home in me.
When I raise my muzzle, the moon is in the sky, and all the birds are breathing like they were awake. Later, the tweet twooter will sit on the wire and sing to the moon. The oh!oh! will sail in the air and I will hear the sprut when she looks me over and snaps her claws closed, angry ‘cause I’m too big to drag off into the sky.
The squirrels will be very still when she casts her moon shadow.
I hear ‘em in there eatin’ that fine meat. I smell ‘em. But I don’t get none. Why not bring me some? I want some! Whassa matter wit me, I don’t get none? This ole food bowl out here is empty.
Now I hear foosteps. Pete. Pete’s comin’!
“Crit?”
Open the door, yeahyeah! Oh, open it, yeahyeahyeah!
“Don’t take him out front, son.”
“Why not, Dad?”
“You can’t play hide and seek with a dog following you.”
“Can too!”
“You won’t be able to hide. He’ll show the other kids where you are.”
His footsteps are goin’ away! Heck! Why can’t Bob go? I want to go! Hey! Hey! What about Bob? Bob’s here, Bob loves to play! Hey! Hey!
“Quiet! Oh, honey, this dog of his is a disaster, we can’t keep it.”
Heyhey!
“How am I gonna tell him that?”
HEYHEY!
“Quiet, Critter!”
Oops.
Now the bigun comes out. Okay. He pets me. Okay. Where’s Pete? I wanna be with Pete. Now he goes in. I get to come? Yeahyeah! Yeahyeah! Nope! Closes the door in my face.
So I end up lyin’ down and sniffin’ for bugs. But I can hear the kids anyway. I like that. I listen for a long time, then I sniff all round the yard, but there’s no way out. I could jump the fence, but that'll just take me farther from them.
I smell all the dogs sendin’ their scents into the night air. I smell for Culebra, but I can’t make her out at all now, let alone find her direction.
Culeeebrraaaa! Cuuleeebrrraaa!
"God save us, he's howling at the moon!"
Now the kids’re comin’ in. They’re comin’ in the house. I hear voices. I hear ‘em movin’ around. Why don’t nobody come see me? Don’t they know how lonely I am?
I concentrate on the scents of the night, take my mind off how much I miss bein’ with the people. The scents of food leftovers and ice melting and sleeping people, their scents rich and slow.
When I smell people sleepin’, I get sleepy, too. The house gets dark, it gets quiet. But the perfume of the night gets stronger, the smells of other dogs and the smells of the road.
If only I could get out of here, maybe I could catch Culebra’s scent better. I am a good tracker.
I don’t think I’m right about bein’ able to jump that fence. I try it, but it’s a little too high. I try again. I can just get my head up, but my leg is hurtin’ and that makes me hold back.
They’re all asleep in the house. I can hear ‘em breathin’. Pete is breathin’ light ‘cause he’s the littlest. Kim is deepest asleep. The biguns—well, they’re lyin’ still and talkin’ low. Low grownup talk always made me an Buddy sleepy. And look up there at the blue of the moon, riding the very top of the sky. It moves something in my blood, the ole moon…
OOOHHHHEEEEEEOOOOoooooooooooo….yipyipyip!
“Ye gods I never heard anything howl like that! It sounds prehistoric!”
“Sh, you’ll wake up the kids.”
“Wake them up? Everybody in the neighborhood must be awake, Charlie! In the town!”
Oh, you moon, you got my lonely heart lonelier still. OOOOOOOOOOOOeeeeeeeeooooooooooooooo…
“You go down there and shut that thing UP!”
“Mommy, what’s the matter with it?”
“It’s lonely out there, Kimmie.”
Yeah! I hear ya! HEY! HEY!
“Quiet, Critter!”
“Peter, I believe that Critter may be a throwback. He’s what dogs were before they were dogs. When they were still a form of wild animal.”
“They were wolves.”
“Well, Critter might be part wolf. But there’s a lot of other stuff mixed in there, too.”
“Tyrannosaurus Rex.”
“No way, Kim! They walked on their hind legs.”
“You kids go back to bed. Critter will still be there in the morning.”
Better just get up here on the stoop, as close to the house as I can. I can smell them and hear them better here. Now I’m hearing the dad using one a them waterholes they have inside. Thing is, a dog drinks outa there, he’s gonna get it. That’s just for them.
Hey, smell that! Wasn’t that Culebra? Yes!
Hey! Hey! Whoeeeeeeee! HEYHEYHEY! I smell ya! OOOOEEEEEEeeeeeee! HEYHEYHEY! Gotta get outa here! Gotta get—HEYHEY!
I can’t jump so I dig and dig and dig and the dirt is flyin’ and the sweet smelling plants but I am getting out, I am gonna make it, just—uh oh.
“Oh, I think it’s in my roses!”
Bang bang bang go their feet on the stone walk.
“It’s dug up the whole bed, oh, Charles!”
“Get outa there!”
Ouch! You hurrrrrrt me. You betterrrrrr watchit!
“Wow, he doesn’t like me too much.”
“Charles, we’ve got to get rid of him. We can’t handle this animal.”
“If I tie him up over here, he won’t be able to touch the roses.”
“Look, he wants out, he’s pulling toward the fence. If we just open the gate—”
“Pete’ll be heartbroken.”
“Pete will get over it if we do it tonight. But if he gets to keep the dog a week, only to have to give it up? He’ll really suffer then.”
“Mom? Dad? What’s goin’ on out there?”
“Critter’s a little upset, Peter.”
“He wants to be inside with me.”
“It’s after midnight, son. You go to sleep. Critter’ll be fine. It’s just that it’s his first night. Things are strange to him.”
Then I hear her whisper: “Charles?”
The bigun whispers back back: “Okay.”
He takes me to the back fence and there is a click, a rasping sound, and suddenly the gate is open to the outside and the alley and the streets beyond, and, farther away, the wide fields swimming in the moonlight and all those dogs, and somewhere out there in the unknown, Culebra and my true home.
“Come on, Hon,” she says. Holding hands, heads bowed, they go back to the house, which is fine by me because oh the world smells soooo good!
I can go HOME HOME HOME!