“I always wanted a dog,” Twisty said wistfully.

  He meant me. He wanted a thing, and now that thing was me. I had been a dog, a free dog of limitless propulsive capacity and eyes without obstacle, and now I was a thing this man owned. I was the fulfillment of some desire he had.

  “My parents wouldn’t let me get one,” he went on. “But now I got one.”

  “Kinda smells, though,” Pamela said.

  She really said this!

  It is important to me that you know I do not smell. I live outdoors, yes, and partake in unwanted food, yes, and have run through mud and rain and ocean water, but I am clean. The smell was theirs! These people in this vehicle—did I tell you this already?—they smelled! Oh they smelled. I had noticed it right away, but it was more obvious to me when Pamela made this errant remark about me and my own odor. Which does not exist.

  The city was growing larger in the windshield. For the first time in my life I didn’t know what to do. Nothing I could do would get me free. The windows were closed. Even if I barked and leapt around and bit at random, nothing would change. And then Twisty turned me on my back and began rubbing my tummy. He did!

  “Aw, I think he likes it,” Pamela said.

  She was incorrect.

  But I was smiling.

  I was smiling because, while on my back looking up, I noticed a window in the roof of the vehicle. There was a window, and across it I saw the passing shape of a great bird. It passed quickly, but deliberately, and hope swelled in my heart.

  I squirmed free and got on my feet again.

  I had to be ready.

  And then it happened.

  A great flurry of wings on the windshield started it off. The wings were almost as wide as the glass, and blocked Rainbow’s view completely.

  “Gah!” he said. I don’t think that is a word in any language but this is what he said. He was so surprised, so startled. He stopped the vehicle. Now the wings calmed for a second and I saw that it was Bertrand. I had assumed it was Bertrand, but now I knew for sure it was Bertrand. He peered through the windshield, looking for me. Finally his eyes found mine and he smiled a smile both confident and mischievous. I had never been so proud to have such a magnificent friend.

  Thump, came another bird. Yolanda. Oh she is heavy. I had never before heard the sound of her landing on the front of a van like this, but wow it was loud. She landed, then spread her wings—so much wider than Bertrand’s even!—and now there were two great birds on the hood of this vehicle, and the humans inside were screaming.

  “Ahhhh!” Pamela yelled.

  “Eeeahaow!” Twisty yelled.

  More thumps came. More and more and more, from more and more and more birds. They were everywhere. Every window was darkened by birds, flapping their wings and cracking their beaks against the glass. Even I was unnerved, and these were my friends. Finally Bertrand gave me the briefest of winks, as if to say, This madness is for them, my friend, not you!

  It was a frightening commotion, and was having all the desired effects: the vehicle was stopped, the humans were terrified, and soon I could be free.

  But how?

  The windows were still closed, the doors were closed, and the people inside seemed disinclined to open any of these openings, given the onslaught of wings and beaks outside.

  Rainbow began driving again. The van lurched, and soon was moving far faster than before.

  “Ha ha!” Rainbow yelled, because Bertrand and Yolanda, who had been standing on the hood and flapping their wings, were now thrust upward and behind us. They would regain their wings and catch up momentarily, but we were so close to the city, closer than ever, and once there everything would change.

  And then I heard a scream like I’ve never heard a scream. It was so high and so loud and so spiraling I thought first of fire. Were we all on fire?

  “Hey there!” said a voice, and I saw it was Sonja.

  Yes! I thought. That hole in the floor! Of course. While the van had been stopped, a squirrel would have had time to make it through, and had in fact made it through, and this squirrel happened to be Sonja. She said hello to me as she leapt from human to human, scratching and terrifying every one of them. Oh lord she was fast! Have you ever seen a squirrel in a confined space, jumping from person to person with the express purpose of causing havoc? It is something. Never have I seen so much chaos in one small place at one time.

  She was in Pamela’s hair, then Twisty’s, then she was all over Rainbow’s head and eyes and ears until he had no choice but to stop the vehicle and throw open the door to escape.

  “You coming or what?” Sonja asked me, so casually, so brightly, as if she were inviting me to look at a sunset on a Thursday.

  Rainbow had fled through the open door, and was running from the vehicle, his arms flailing around his head in a way I thought very funny and very sad.

  And yes, yes, yes, I followed Sonja. First I gave a nice chomp to Twisty’s leg, to free his hand from my leash. Oh when that leash went slack! It was glorious, glorious! And then, with two mighty strides I was at the steering wheel, and then I leapt through the open door, and out into the light again.

  I followed Sonja back to the safety of the park, back to the woods as Bertrand and Yolanda and everyone else thumped their wings and rose above the treetops cackling and whooping in happy skyward soundings.

  NINE

  “Of course we saw you!” Bertrand said. “I saw you when they first put you in the van.”

  “From then on it was just a matter of figuring out when to rescue you,” Sonja said.

  We were all on the dunes by the ocean, having a bit of a celebration and recounting the rescue. Bertrand and Yolanda and Angus and Sonja were all there, as were an assortment of other birds and mammals, all telling the story over and over, laughing about Twisty and Pamela and Rainbow running around, wailing and flailing.

  “Of all the rescues over the years,” Yolanda said, “that was probably my favorite.”

  “You took your time,” I said.

  “You know we wouldn’t have let them take you away in that van,” Yolanda said.

  “What I’m trying to figure out,” Bertrand said, “is how that Twisty guy managed to get you on a leash. You’re the fastest guy I know. On land at least.”

  I let that comment stand. It’s a personal matter for me, whether or not I could beat a gull like Bertrand in a contest of pure speed. His velocity is aided by gravity—by falling through the sky, really—whereas I have to grab at the earth for every bit of propulsion. I decided we’d settle it another time.

  “So how did you get caught?” Yolanda asked me, her huge head tilted inquisitively.

  “Well, it was a rectangle, actually,” I said, and went on to explain how I’d been staring at a strange and magical rectangle at some kind of show near the cathedral of flowers.

  “Like a photo?” Yolanda asked. “Like when the humans hold the little screen up and mimic the world?”

  “That’s a camera,” Bertrand said. “A cam-er-a.” Of all of us, Bertrand knows the most about human things, and is always sure to remind us.

  “No,” I said, “this wasn’t like anything that actually exists, I don’t think. It wasn’t a copy of actual life. It was like a crazy combination of actual things and made-up things and everything stuck together in this way that made no sense but seemed like the answer to a bunch of questions I’d felt in my bones.”

  One of the seagulls started laughing. The others joined in, cackling in their irritating way.

  “Shh,” Bertrand told them. “Don’t act like twits.” He turned to me. “I’m sorry you went through this. And we’ll make sure it never happens again.”

  * * *

  —

  After our beach celebration, I went to see the Bison, which I had intended to do anyway. I was nervous about the encounter, given I would have to report my brief captivity, my close escape, and the embarrassing way I’d been abducted in the first place. I feared they would lose faith in me as the Eyes. They counted on me for information about the park; if I could be so easily distracted, mesmerized to the point of becoming vulnerable to being leashed, would they still see me as a reliable envoy?

  “We’re just glad you’re safe,” Freya said. “Do you want to spend the night here?”

  I was touched by this gesture. The Bison were very particular about their lair, and never wanted to bring undue attention to their way of life. If I were found in their lair, for example, the Parks People would come in, inspect things and probably change things, too. They would certainly mend the hole in the fence that allowed me to enter for our nightly meetings.

  “No, thanks,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  “Maybe you need to run,” Freya said.

  Oh, Freya knows me!

  She was so right.

  I needed to run, so I said goodnight to the Bison and slipped through the hole in the fence and ran out into the park, luxuriating in my re-found freedom.

  It was so good to run again. Oh-oh-oh! I had no idea how deeply the day of being leashed had affected me. I ran and ran but kept feeling a tightening around my neck. I feared that at any moment the leash would tighten and I would be yanked back to that life. Oh! You cannot imagine!

  So I ran harder.

  I smelled the night, I heard the trees, I named every gust of wind as I sped faster, hurtling through the park with joyous fury. Every breath I took was left miles behind me, hours behind me, oh I had never run so fast and so long! I ran through the night, circling the park, circling the park, never tiring.

  I ran until I saw the first lavender light of day, and I greeted the Sun with a happy grin and wild eyes and it was only then that my muscles told me it was time. Time to stop and to rest. I found my way to my hollow and by the time I had turned and turned within and was ready to sleep, the sky was pale and sighing.

  God is the Sun, I thought.

  Clouds are her messengers.

  Rain is only rain.

  And gratefully I slept.

  TEN

  I woke up late, after the Sun had risen. It was the longest I’d slept in maybe nine hundred years. As I shook free of the heavy cloak of sleep, scenes of my brief captivity flashed through my mind and I shuddered with revulsion.

  I had been on a leash! Just yesterday!

  I ran to the nearby meadow to take in the Sun—the Sun only wants you to bask; that is truly all she wants; it pleases her to no end—and in the meadow, with my eyes to the Sun, it seemed so obvious: the Bison needed to be free.

  Instantly it was so inevitable, so necessary. Freya and Samuel and Meredith should be free! They must be free. Over the years I had wondered if they wanted to be free like I was free, but because they never themselves mentioned it the notion did not much occupy my mind. But now, having been kept myself, having been leashed, controlled, held captive, and knowing the abandon I felt as a free-again dog, I wanted the same for them. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before. Yes, my captivity with Twisty had shown me what it meant to be kept, and had woken me to the glory of liberation.

  I decided I would make a plan for the Bison, and present it to them as a gift. I was happy thinking of this plan, and when I am in the midst of happy thinking I need to run, and I need to see Bertrand.

  Bertrand liked all that was bold and new, and I felt sure he would embrace this particular bold and new notion. So I went to the waterfall where he liked to perch and did not find him there. I went to the garbage can, always overflowing, where he often scavenged for french fries and avocados, and did not find him there.

  I hoped he would not be at his next-favorite place.

  When I found him there, my heart cinched tight. He was among the archers. At the archery field, there is a long row of targets, each attached to a bale of hay. Aiming at these targets is a long row of human archers, who use simple bows and complicated bows and shoot at different times and with varying results. Some of the archers are very good, and some are not good at all.

  Which makes it very dangerous and dumb to do what Bertrand likes to do, which is to fly across the field, between the archers and their targets, as fast as he can, eyes closed.

  “Please don’t do it,” I asked him.

  He was perched on a post on one side of the field. Watching. Assessing. Grinning.

  “There are only six today,” he said. “Almost too easy.”

  The field was indeed lightly populated by archers, but still, I did not understand then or ever why Bertrand, who otherwise was such a reasonable creature, would fly in harm’s way like this, daring the arrows—fate itself!—to strike him down.

  “But why at all?” I asked.

  He looked at me seriously.

  “We’ve talked about this,” he said. “You have your running. You take pride in your speed. And in your work as the Eyes. This is like that. It’s something I am good at, something that sends torrents of bliss through me.”

  “But when I run, there’s no one shooting at me,” I noted.

  “Point taken,” he said. “But my soul wants this.”

  “To fly in front of flying arrows.”

  “Very slow arrows, shot by aimless aimers,” he said.

  “I ask you again not to do it. Especially not right now. I have something to talk to you about.”

  “In a second,” he said. “Be right back.”

  And he lifted himself from his perch and with three mighty thumps of his wings he was high above me, describing a wide arc that would give him the speed and trajectory he needed. I watched my friend soar high into the white ceiling of the sky, till he briefly disappeared, and then followed his path with dread as he came barreling toward the field. He was a lightning bolt, coming at me and the field with tremendous speed. I looked to the archers, to see if they saw his approach, but none were aware. I scanned to see who among them was about to release an arrow, hoping the answer was none, but with dread I saw three with bows stretched and arrows ready.

  I thought I could bark. Bark to warn them about the gull coming toward them. But that would alter Bertrand’s plan, would throw into all his considerations an unplanned factor—like a sudden gust of wind. If I altered the archers’ motions, or distracted Bertrand in any way, all of his calculations would be mucked up and his peril would increase.

  So I made no sound.

  And did not look.

  I could not look.

  If anything were to ever happen to Bertrand I did not want to see it. I’d decided this long ago.

  I closed my eyes, and felt the rush of wind as he raced past me, and heard the release—twong, twong, twing—of one arrow, two, three. I listened grimly for the sound of an arrow’s flight interrupted, of an arrow striking wing and flesh, and heard nothing but thunk, thunk, thwissle.

  Two archers had hit their targets, and the third had missed, her arrow landing in the thicket beyond the hay bales.

  And then Bertrand was beside me again, having flown happily back, panting and grinning on his perch on the post, very satisfied with himself.

  “See that?” he asked.

  “I did not,” I said.

  “Now what was it you wanted to talk about?” he asked.

  And though I was upset with him, I told him of my plan to free the Bison, and he thought it a very fine plan, and I forgave him for his trespasses and madness, and went to the Bison to tell them of this unimprovable scheme to set them free.

  ELEVEN

  First I circled their enclosure, acting casually so they did not suspect anything, though of course they did.

  “There he is,” Samuel said.

  “What are you doing?” Freya asked.

  “Looking for something,” I said.

  “Come to me,” she said, and I came to her. I wove between her legs and she nuzzled me and I did figure eights again and again under her and I was home.

  “I’m so sorry you went through what you did,” she said.

  I told them I was okay. I told them that in the morning I still felt the pull of the leash, but that when the Sun burned the fog away I felt myself liberated once more.

  “You won’t see those travelers again,” Samuel said. “You must forget them.”

  “I’m trying,” I said. “It helps to make plans.”

  “Is that what you’re doing sniffing around? I thought you were scheming,” Freya said.

  I couldn’t lie to them. That had been the arrangement from the first day, when they told me I was the Eyes. I could not lie and would not lie.

  “I’m planning your escape,” I said.

  Samuel’s eyes opened wide and he smiled. “You are, eh?”

  “I am. And I think I can do it. With the help of the birds and probably the raccoons we can do it. I only need some time to make the plans. I just had the idea this morning.”

  Freya seemed amused. “Well, I’m intrigued. And I’m grateful for your thoughtfulness.”

  “Would you like to be free?” I asked.

  Samuel snorted. “How do you mean, free?”

  “My son, we’re not on a leash,” Freya noted. “We have three entire acres to run. We come and go as we please. No one tells us what to do or when.”

  “I know,” I said. “I just meant—”

  “You have an enclosure, too,” Samuel said to me. “The park. You stop when the park hits the stone human homes, do you not?”

  “I’d like to be free,” Meredith said.

  Samuel gave her a hard look. “Where would you go? You’re twelve thousand years old.”

  “I’d like to run,” Meredith said.

  “You never run! You can run here, and you never run,” Samuel said.

  “If I had enough space, I’d run,” Meredith said defiantly.

  Samuel snorted and Freya laughed gently.

 

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