Barry (8 page)

Later, Prior Louis allowed me to enter the chapel, where the men were saying their final farewells to Michel. Candles burned and the clerics sang. I raised my voice and joined in. This surprised them a little, I think. For a moment, they stopped singing and just stared at me: the dog singing in the clerics’ chapel. Then, one by one, they took up
their song again and we all sang together, each in his own fashion. In the flickering candlelight, I saw tears glistening in the men’s eyes. They say that dogs don’t shed tears the way humans do, but that evening my big canine heart wept.

Michel was my master, my teacher, my friend, my brother. And I had lost him.

A B
IG
M
ISUNDERSTANDING

For the rest of the winter, the heavy snows did not let up. We had little time to mourn Michel’s passing. Once again, the name Napoléon was the talk of the dining hall. Apparently the battle at the foot of the mountains had continued to rage. Everyone except Napoléon was sick and tired of it. The mountains were crawling with families whose homes had been destroyed by the war. There were also many young men who were running away
from having to serve in the Little Colonel’s army.

On our daily forays along the path, we often came across these young men. They were starving and usually dressed in rags. We brought them back to the hospice, where the clerics cared for them, just as they would any other traveler in distress. War was not our business. Rescue was. Once we had fed them and given them warm clothes, many of these young men did not want to leave. They wanted to hide out from Napoléon in the hospice. But they had to go, the clerics explained to them gently as they sent them on their way. They needed to make room for new travelers in need of warmth and comfort.

Those days, it seemed I spent as much time sleeping as I did awake. And I have to admit that, as at home in the snow as I had always been, sometimes the cold crept into my bones and made me
just a little bit achy. The only thing for it was to lie by the fire. As I lay on the hearth one day, I heard the brothers say that I had earned my rest. They said that I had rescued over forty people. I wanted to tell them that I was not done yet! I was ready and willing to rescue another forty. I just needed a little rest and warmth. I was drifting off when something—I cannot say exactly what—woke me up. I lifted my head and cocked an ear.

Outside, all was still. Yet I knew in my bones that Something was coming. I put my head back down. A part of me dozed while the other part stayed alert, waiting for the distant thunder of the avalanche to come. When it did, not twenty minutes later, I leapt up and ran to the front door and scratched. Brother Martin let me out.

“Off you go, Barry,” Brother Martin said. “I pity the poor devils who got caught in that slide.
Don’t worry, old boy. We won’t be far behind you.”

Old boy? Who was he calling old boy? I was the match of any dog at the hospice and I was eager to prove it.

The avalanche had finished rumbling and all was silent again. So you might wonder how I knew where to go. Just as I sensed an avalanche coming, I also sensed where it had happened. And I headed for that spot as fast as I could go. I might no longer have been a puppy, but my legs and hips were still strong. I churned my way across the debris of the avalanche, nose to the ground.

I homed in on the scent right away. I detected one man trapped beneath the snow. My nose told me that he was not buried very deeply. Surely, I could uncover him all by myself. By the time the clerics arrived on the scene, I would have the man out of the snow and ready to be put on a sled.
Wouldn’t the clerics be pleased with me!

I dug down until I reached his head. It was then I saw that he was not much older than a boy. He was hatless, and his hair and face were clotted with ice and snow. He was very cold, but he was alive. I licked the lumps of ice and snow off his face and felt the warmth returning to his skin. He stirred but did not yet open his eyes. I began to dig his shoulders out. The stirring grew to a thrashing as he tried to free himself with no help from me. There was something about the way he was moving that worried me. He was fighting me rather than working with me. Perhaps it was best for me to stand by and wait until the clerics arrived. But I still needed to do my job, so I lay by the traveler’s head and snuggled. The bari hug would keep him warm.

Suddenly, his eyes snapped open and he stared
at me in terror. What was wrong with the boy? What frightened him so?

“Help!” he screamed.

Help?
What was he talking about? I
was
helping. I was snuggling. Snuggling is something that we bari dogs do very well. But the boy kept on screaming so loudly that I feared he might set off an avalanche. So I leaned against him harder, hoping the warmth of my body would calm him until the clerics arrived. But still he screamed and carried on.

Finally, after much struggle, he managed to free his arms from the snow. In one hand he gripped something shiny and sharp. He raised his arm and drove the sharp thing into my body. It was a knife—like the kind the marronniers used in the kitchen! I growled at him, and then yelped in
agony as he plunged the knife into my furry chest, again and again.

The clerics ran toward us, shouting as they came. One of them knocked the knife out of the boy’s hand. The snow was splattered bright red with my blood. The very sight of it made me feel weak. My head began to spin. My legs buckled beneath me. How would I ever get back to the hospice?

“Get him!” the young man gasped, pointing at me. “That wolf tried to kill me.”

“Hush, now,” said Brother Martin as he and Brother Gaston pulled the boy out of the snow and tied him to the sled. “There is no wolf. There is only Barry. And Barry is a good dog.”

“You’re lying. He’s a wolf and he tried to eat me!” the boy cried.

A wolf? The boy thought I was a wolf! If I
was anything other than a dog, I was a bear, and a tame one at that. I did not eat people. I saved them. But this boy was too cold and too frightened to understand. He was out of his mind.

My blood kept pouring out as the boy lay on the sled and raved. The brothers turned away from him and looked at me with great worry in their eyes. They moved quickly, packing snow into my wounds and binding me up with strips of cloth. Then, grunting with the effort, they lifted me and placed me on the second sled. They even wrapped a wool blanket around me. I could not believe this was happening. Barry the rescue dog was himself being rescued!

When we got back to the hospice, they carried me to one of the rooms. Someone had pulled the mattress off the bed and they laid me out on the floor. By now, my wounds had begun to throb and
my nose felt hot. The clerics bent over me, murmuring words of comfort. Gently, they washed my wounds with warm water and soap. I yelped and tried to hold my body still but my jaws snapped at the air. I wanted to bite the pain and make it run away. Such pain I have never felt before.

“This will dull the pain. Poor Barry dog,” said Prior Louis.

He put a small black bitter-tasting pellet on my tongue. I gagged. Brother Martin held my jaws shut and stroked my throat until I swallowed it. After a while, the pain in my wounds lessened. I leaned back on the mattress. And I dropped off to sleep like a rock off the edge of a precipice.

I dreamed. In the dream, Mother came to me. Mother had passed away six years ago, but she stood by my mattress, as large as life. She rubbed her cold, wet nose against my hot, dry one.
Poor Barry
, she said.
What did that bad boy do to you?

He did not mean it
, I told her.
He was scared and cold and confused and not at all in his right mind. I forgive him
.

You are a big-hearted dog, Barry
, Mother said.

After a while, I said,
Mother, it hurts
.

Yes, I know it does, my sweet son. You are very badly wounded. But I also know you are not ready to
join me. You must sleep and heal and return to life
.

Soon, Mother went away. Every time I opened my eyes, I found at least one cleric kneeling by my bed, watching over me. Sometimes there was more than one and they would speak in soft voices so as not to disturb me.

“Will he make it?” one of them asked.

“There is no telling,” said the other. “The wounds are deep and he is no longer a pup.”

I was too weak to climb to my feet and prove to them otherwise. I was too weak to sit up and lap water from a bowl. They had to squeeze water from a cloth onto my tongue.

Day by day, with the help of the men and my powerful will to go on living, I got better. Soon, I was able to return to my beloved corner in the cellar. There I could stand to eat and lap water from a bowl. But I still had to do my business in
the straw. In this respect, it was like being a puppy. And, like a puppy, I was still not strong enough to venture outside. One of the young females named Heloise had whelped while I was healing. Her puppies squirmed in a pile across the room.

They are beautiful pups
, I told her.

Heloise lay back as the pups suckled. I could tell she was very proud.

Every day, as the pups got bigger, I grew stronger. The little balls of brown and white fluff came over to bat my nose with their fat, little paws. I watched them wrestling, just like I had wrestled with Jupiter and Phoebe. Outside, I could smell dirt and green things. I could hear the sound of water dripping off the roof. The snow was melting.

One day, Brother Martin came to fetch me. I climbed to my feet and wagged my tail. Were we going out to rescue people? But when I stepped
outside, I saw that there was no more snow. Spring had come while I was healing. After that, I came outside every day to sit on a blanket by the door and watch the birds and the hares. This was how I spent my days, watching spring turn to summer for however brief a time it visited before the snows returned.

On a warm summer’s day when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, Brother Martin brought out the new puppies. I watched them discover the world as once my brother and sister and I had.

One of them, a pup named Phaistos, came up to me.

Do you want to play, old man?
he asked.

Not today, little one
, I told him.

Is it true that you are a hero?
he asked, wagging his tail.

It is true I am a dog who does his job
, I said.

Mother says you are a hero. She says you rescued more than forty people and fought a bear and saved the hospice from masked robbers
.

Some of that is true, but not all of it
, I told young Phaistos.

Mother speaks only the truth
, Phaistos said.
She said you are a living legend and I have to be respectful
.

I am not a legend
, I said.
I am just a dog who loves his job
.

I want to be just like you when I grow up
, said Phaistos.

But when the first snows began to fall and the clerics made ready their sleds and their winter clothing, Brother Martin came to me.