Comet's Tale (5 page)

Lindsey, three years younger than Kylie, also had blue eyes and blond hair, which was cut short and gleamed a shade lighter than her sister's. Her long legs put her a good five inches taller than Kylie. Lindsey and I were so close that whenever the clucking members of the flock wanted something, they'd tell her, “You go ask Dad. He won't say no to you.” Lindsey had been not quite three years old and strongly attached to me when her mom and I divorced. I always had the feeling that the breakup had caused her to doubt her worth on some deep level.

Jackie, Freddie's daughter, was still in preschool when Freddie and I married. Her large brown puppy eyes and long eyelashes were the envy of every female who met her, and the cuteness factor was enhanced by round eyeglasses that corrected for a lazy eye. As the years passed, she could usually be found outdoors kicking a soccer ball, chasing the dogs, or leaping into the lake.

Merging the families had not been smooth sailing. Kylie and Lindsey lived with their mother in Omaha during the week but also spent a great deal of time with me. Naturally they were reluctant to share their dad with some new woman, especially one who sometimes spoke a different language and wanted to live in their home. Jackie had been raised by Freddie, secure in the world of her one-parent household. At first she didn't take kindly to being supervised by another adult, especially since her father, Freddie's ex, had not been a major part of Jackie's life. Given the young ages of our daughters, we had a hard time convincing some people that combining our families was a wise idea.

Shortly before our February marriage, Freddie and Jackie moved into the lake house. Fortunately for me, Freddie's inventive, occasionally zany approach to life intrigued my daughters, breaking through their initial reservations about this new familial unit. Within weeks, Freddie came up with the idea of turning our traditional Sunday afternoon suppers into a culinary grand tour.

“What would you girls think if we decided to go around the world with our meals?”

Kylie's forehead creased. “What do you mean, around the world?”

“Every Sunday we'll make food that represents a different country. Like corned beef for Ireland, lobster bisque for France, sushi for Japan. You girls can decide which country will be featured and can help me prepare the meal. How does that sound?” Over the hundreds of Sundays that followed, Freddie flambéed, fried, baked, and broiled us around the world several times.

There were hurdles, hurt feelings, and misunderstandings along the way to forging our new family, but the girls adapted to one another much sooner than Freddie and I did to our new parental roles. Many nights we stared at each other with glazed eyes across the deserted dinner table, silently communicating the same doubts—am I a parent, a friend, or just a presence? Over time we eventually found our balance.

It helped that Freddie was a born hostess. “Of course you can have your friends over for the weekend,” she always agreed. Whenever neighbors on the lake cruised by, Freddie was the first to accept an invitation to hop aboard, relishing the gossip provided by other boaters. Her attitude sometimes struck me as a little reckless: when I advised her to learn how to swim before she tried to water ski, Freddie just laughed and said, “That's what life jackets are for.” But overall her instincts were excellent. As the girls grew older and wanted to boat around by themselves, it was Freddie who excluded me as a passenger. “You taught them how to safely drive the boat. They don't need Dad riding along, telling them to be careful and yelling at the boys to get lost.” And if I did happen to express reservations about any of this, I was always admonished, “Get over it, Wolfie. Life is good.”

I realized very early on in this arrangement that my most humbling blessing in life would be a daughters-only family. It was a surefire antidote to afflictions such as hubris, chauvinism, and tastelessness, not to mention cigar cravings. While not a total cure (symptoms can persist for decades), it did bevel the edges. Still, as the years passed I couldn't help but notice that certain gender stereotypes were often based on more than a smidgen of truth. For instance, I knew that females, especially when traveling in packs, were much harder on other females than they were on men. Poor Comet was oblivious to this phenomenon.

The day after Freddie and I arrived at the lake, all three daughters materialized at nearly the same time. Kylie and Lindsey drove in from Omaha, and Jackie returned from one of her interminable sleep-overs. Though it was still only May, the temperature had pushed into the eighties, and the older girls lugged beach bags full of their summer swim gear. Following hugs and kisses, the five of us were standing in the entryway when Comet made her appearance. Maybe it was dog pheromones. Whatever the reason, Comet was suddenly a slick of bait floating on a very still ocean.

“Aren't the purebreds supposed to be gray?”

“Her nose is so long it looks weird.”

“She's so skinny! She doesn't look anything like
our
dogs.”

“If all they can do is run, how's she going to play with Cody and Sandoz?”

“What good is she if she won't chase tennis balls?”

It was one of the few times the pack's chomping was directed at something Freddie cared about. I didn't count.

“I know what you mean,” Freddie said. “When I went to Sedona to see her, I had this vision of a nervous, skinny animal that I was going to send back to the rancher's farm or farmer's ranch or wherever she was from. But Comet is really sweet and I fell in love with her. Don't you think she's pretty?” Comet, eyeing the three sharks, hung back near the fireplace on the far side of the family room.

For once, the goldens' total lack of timing and grace saved the day. An arrival home by any one of the daughters never failed to inspire an epic welcome, and if all three were there, it was best just to get out of the way. Sure enough, twin lumps of fur suddenly stormed into the room like a Keystone SWAT team. Nails scrambled on wood floors as the wriggling masses propelled forward. Sandoz's long, feathery tail slapped a mug I had left on a coffee table—it clattered to the floor as Cody writhed around Lindsey. Sandoz flopped on the floor at Jackie's feet and loudly whined a high-pitched
Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, look who's here!
Then, like eels in a mating dance around a spire of coral, the retrievers whirled the irked daughters up the staircase and across the landing that looked down into the family room.

“Are you coming outside with us after we put on our suits?” Kylie called down to us. Her voice had a forced gaiety.

“Absolutely. I really missed you guys and want to catch up on everything.”

I was far less confident than I sounded. I had expected that the girls would put Comet through a bit of a hazing, if only to assert their allegiance to their first loves, the goldens. What I hadn't anticipated was the hostile edge to their verbal attack. The face-off that had just occurred carried a not-so-subtle message. The girls were scared. Of me.

During our brief greeting, I caught them surreptitiously staring at me when they thought I wasn't looking. I could almost smell an underlying panic, the type of scent a mink might give off when caught in a steel trap. The shock of seeing me so much worse than when I had left was there in my daughters' wide, uncertain eyes and their stinging reaction to Comet. At least that's what I thought at the time.

The nausea burbling in my stomach as I maneuvered into my swim trunks told me I was as scared as they were. Heart pounding, I made my way out to the beach.

“Hey, girls! The sun sure feels great!”

They turned quickly at my greeting, and the collective sorrow in their faces almost made me puke. Whatever calamity they had expected, it must have paled in comparison to the sagging bag of flesh waddling toward them, jabbing his walking sticks into the soft sand. Comet trailed behind me, only adding to the strangeness of the moment for my daughters. To me, Comet's presence was as necessary as the canes I leaned on. She had never known the other Wolf. She was devoted to this one.

COMET WAS HAVING
her own problems adjusting. While I had been worrying about my upcoming family reunion for the entire car trip, Comet had been traveling in trusting, ignorant bliss. Then, all of a sudden—poof!—she was the new kid in the middle of a school year. And as the new kid, she was in for a crash course about the rules, the cliques, and the hierarchy that had developed over all those years.

Comet's education began with Cody and Sandoz the morning after we arrived. Whenever a new dog enters a pack, all roles are up for grabs. Our pack had always consisted of only two dogs, and Cody was the unquestioned leader, not because he was Sandoz's father but because he had an alpha personality. Sandoz was more than happy to be the family baby. My concern was that with the addition of Comet, the battle over territory would last all summer.

Freddie and I had always fed the two goldens at the same time in the same place without any problems. The dogs had their routine down. First, Cody would interrupt Sandoz so that he could eat some of her food, just to make sure she didn't have any extra treats from Freddie or the girls. Sandoz never complained. Then, when Cody left the room, Sandoz was free to finish the leftovers in his dish. Comet, meanwhile, had been taught that life was a constant competition for scarce resources. When other dogs were around her food, the threat level of going hungry was highly elevated—a dog-eat-dog (or at least her food) world.

For the dogs' first group meal, we placed Cody's and Sandoz's bowls near each other on the kitchen floor as usual. Greyhounds, because of their long necks, prefer to eat from an elevated bowl, and Freddie had purchased one before our arrival. We placed that a few feet from the goldens' bowls. Comet had barely reached her food when Cody and Sandoz pushed and shoved each other into the room. Instantly, Comet's neck and back tensed as she turned her body to hide her dish from the other dogs. Cody stared and walked directly over to Comet's heavily muscled rear, which he purposely, aggressively bumped. Comet spun around and snarled at him, exposing what was left of her teeth.

“Wolfie, not an
idée
good,” Freddie warned, her voice rising.

Comet's snarl was now a slobbering openmouthed threat. A low rumble vibrated through Cody, and his snout lifted to show his entire array of much larger teeth.

“I hate this, but they're going to have to work it out sometime,” I said. “I'll handle it if they go at each other.” But how was I going to do that? Pry them apart with a cane? I started to sweat. Then Cody's bass growl exploded in a thundering roar and he rushed Comet.

“Oh
merde
!” shrieked Freddie.

But almost instantly, the echo of Freddie's scream was the only sound filtering through the room. There was no growling, snarling, or yelping. Comet had simply jumped aside to avoid Cody's body slam. That was it. Cody lowered his square head and sniffed at Comet's dish. Then, without so much as a kernel of food, he went to his bowl to eat. He was satisfied that Comet and he were going to get along just fine.

Now it was Sandoz's turn. The fur on her back rose into a cockscomb as she stalked toward Comet's food, growling. Comet was totally still, her eyes narrowed. Before I could warn the rough-and-tough cream puff, Comet snapped at the air directly in front of Sandoz's face. With one loud yelp, Sandoz scurried to a safe spot between Freddie's legs. There was now another bowl she could clean out, but only after the skinny new kid was done. Order was established and territories marked. There was never another attempt to revise this new hierarchy. With the rules of engagement firmly in place, Comet was ready for her summer education in lakeside living.

5

JUNE–AUGUST 2000—NEBRASKA

Prior to that summer, I was pretty sure that the only water Comet had seen was in her drinking bowl. The mirrored, moving surface of the lake was infinitely more puzzling to her than the television had been. She would spend hours standing several feet from the water's edge, staring at her own reflection. The comedic routines of the Cody and Sandoz show were just as baffling to her. Comet had never gotten the chance to romp with other dogs in Sedona because she was always on a leash, as were the dogs we encountered on our walks. And at the foster ranch she had been too traumatized to join in the pack's antics.

Here at the lake I had decided to let Comet roam the property without a leash. It was something I never would have considered but for the fact that our community was essentially an island bordered by the lake, a canal, and some nearby bluffs. If Comet wandered off, she wouldn't get too far. And the dog deserved to run free! Plus I wanted her to learn how to play with the goldens. I would watch her like a hawk to make sure she was safe.

Comet's first hesitant attempt to get closer to the dog action was foiled by the intensity of the fun. She had tiptoed closer to the two goldens, allowing her feet to get a few inches into the water. Closer . . . closer . . . and suddenly a pummeling pile of dog stampeded right over her, crashing her into the cold lake and thoroughly drenching her. Dazed as Wiley Coyote, Comet stumbled to safety, collapsing in the sand next to me. I could practically see stars circling her head.

For the next several days Comet sat in the damp sand beside my chair, maintaining a vigil over the nonstop canine recess. Ears cocked at attention, eyes alert and focused, head tilted in constantly changing degrees, she watched as the goldens retrieved tennis balls, chased ducks, and harassed shallow water fish. Finally she seemed to be satisfied that the shenanigans never devolved into a snarling act of competition and survival but were actually just for fun. Warily at first, and then more persistently, she attempted to join in. Before long she got the hang of it, and the show became a three-dog circus. Comet would feign a frontal attack that Cody would parry with a body slam. Sandoz would come rolling into the fray, all fur and no bite. Bouncing from the pack, Comet would employ a flanking maneuver and bound away in the water like a deer leaping over fences. Again and again, back and forth, battles raged and allegiances shifted.

Dogs, like kids, have endless imagination when it comes to inventing games. The goldens knew that swimming after the ducks was the equivalent of treading water—lots of exercise with no real reward other than keeping your head above water. But if the dogs hid and waited for the ducks to come close, then ran and dived off the end of the dock, the game got a lot more spirited. At a dead run Cody would fling his body far from the dock and land square in the middle of a loudly confused, panicked world of feathers. Sandoz would follow with a quick trot, barely clearing the end of the dock with a belly flop. The first time Comet tried this game, she waited, then in full stride sprinted off the dock expecting to hit a solid surface. Just as her feet touched water, she brought her powerful legs forward and threw them backward to gain purchase for the chase. With a whoosh, she plunged headfirst into the water, surfacing a moment later looking like an aggrieved celebrity who had just been tipped at a dunking booth.

Comet refused to be deterred. She was now a dedicated water dog wannabe. Her version of swimming was not a thing of beauty, but I always marveled at her willpower. With body fat as low as 15 percent, a greyhound could in no way approach the buoyancy of other large dogs blessed with a 35 percent fat ratio. While the goldens paddled the lake at will, Comet inched along, her head barely bobbing above the surface and her front legs churning furiously. She would return to shore with fur plastered to her sides, so obviously discouraged that you could almost see an embarrassed flush on her nose.

I was always relieved when the shipwreck survivor finally washed up on shore, but still, the whole tableau was hilarious! I couldn't let loose the deep belly laugh that demanded to explode—it hurt too much—but my obvious chuckles struck Comet as not appropriately sympathetic. She would turn her head away, visibly ignoring me. Not even Freddie's baby talk (“Oh, little girl, are you okay?”) seemed to help. If Freddie talked that way to either of the goldens, they would crawl over white-hot coals to be consoled. Not Comet. Invariably, with a twitch of her hind muscles, she would jet away. Skimming along the water's edge like a windsurfer, she would race the beach for a football field length, corner sharply around a distant fire pit, sprint away from the lake, and disappear into a stand of cottonwoods. Soon we'd hear her feet drumming toward us and she would shoot back in our direction, careen just behind us, and close the oval, only to retrace it several more times. Finally—hot tongue extended, flanks heaving—she'd plunge full speed into the water. I never knew if I was holding my breath because I was awestruck at Comet's spectacular athleticism or because I was waiting for her to surface. One thing was certain, though: even Shakespeare would have had difficulty making a more dramatic point.

Those lightning-fast sprints up the shore left me a little concerned that Comet wouldn't stay within the playground's immediate boundaries. Cody and Sandoz had long ago learned not to run off; besides, the fact that all family activities occurred within a short stretch of sand adjacent to our house reinforced our attempts to keep them from wandering. At any moment one of the girls might decide to go on a boat ride, and as certain as a June thunderstorm, the minute the boat was winched down into the water the goldens would rush to the dock and leap on board. The possibility that they might miss their chance to cruise the lake kept Cody and Sandoz within close range of our house.

Greyhounds, of course, had been bred for centuries to chase distant prey. Comet's keen vision could detect the slightest animal movement within a panorama of other activity. If she wanted, she could cover a quarter of a mile in seconds. And what better place to act like a greyhound than at the lake? An unbroken sand beach stretched the length of the canal adjacent to the main lake. Heavily treed bluffs rose to the west before leveling into fields where white-tailed deer snacked on corn. Thick river vegetation to the east provided ideal habitat for beaver, and visiting flocks of waterfowl floated on the quiet water. Gardens were lost to skittering rabbits by mid-June. It was the type of setting that lured any dog's senses.

One dry, lazy summer day Comet pushed up from the damp depression that she had dug in the warm sand. She stretched like a cat, deceptively nonchalant. Relaxed in the early morning sun, I glanced away to watch the goldens wrestling in the water. With the slightest effort and absolutely no sound, Comet twitched her back leg muscles and streaked down the beach. The silent ease of her departure would have shamed a stealth bomber. Her hind paws dug aggressively into the sand and launched her forward in giant skimming leaps. Within three strides, top speed was engaged, and only a spray of sand defined the path. This time she didn't corner at the fire pit. She just kept going.

I grabbed my canes and pulled myself to my feet. Cursing my carelessness, I waddled to the lake's edge and headed in the direction where she had vanished, hoping to get close enough to soothe her into surrender. I was sure her curiosity would slow the speed of her escape, but I saw no sign of her. I returned home alone, as drenched as if I had been swimming. Frustration exploded as I caned down the walkway. “Damn it!” I shouted to no one. My bent body and shuffling feet prevented me from navigating in a straight line. I stopped to straighten and calculate a more direct path to the house. That's when I spotted her.

The fugitive waited expectantly at the lakeside door. She panted, saliva sliding from an extended tongue, her rib cage rhythmically bellowing for air. Not one ounce of anxiousness was evident. Instead, smiling eyes exuded a still, knowing confidence—not quite a boast, but more of a playful jab:
Don't you remember my first walk with Emily?

In the early days of our return, George, the security guard for the area, would get phone calls from residents who noticed a striped coyote on the beach. His investigation of our lake's version of a Loch Ness monster introduced him to Comet. By then I knew she had no desire to wander into trouble. “Comet never goes farther than the two-story house at the end of the canal,” I told George.

“How dare they call you a coyote,” said George, squatting on his haunches to look into Comet's eyes. “I can tell you're very refined.”

But weren't greyhounds
supposed
to run away? Weren't these hounds supposed to mindlessly chase any wild animal that moved? Weren't these rescues supposed to be skittish about the post-cage world? Maybe Comet was pleasantly clueless about her own breed's instincts. Even as I quizzed myself, I could feel a faint tickling at the base of my skull telling me that something strange was going on with this dog. Maybe it was the brain marinade of pain and drugs, but I couldn't quite define what I was seeing. It was like air—I could feel that something was there, but I just couldn't touch it.

AS COMET BECAME
more comfortable with Cody and Sandoz, my daughters became more comfortable with Comet. One June morning, as I made my way down to the lake, I heard shouts of laughter coming from the beach. The goldens were swimming after some ducks while Comet lagged far behind.

“Give her A for effort,” I heard Jackie say.

“And F for form,” Lindsey added.

But it wasn't long before the girls' giggles about Comet's breaststroke turned to loving favors. To give her a fair shot at retrieving a tennis ball, they'd fake-throw a ball for Cody and Sandoz, then quickly fire the real thing into the water near Comet. When Comet was tired, they would help her dig deeply enough into the sand so that the “poor dog” had a cool place to recover while watching the ongoing festivities. When Cody and Sandoz approached, expecting the same treatment, the girls just patted them and nudged them back to the lake.

It was Comet who permanently cemented these new bonds of friendship late one afternoon. Because dog hair magnetically attracts sand and water, each of the dogs gladly submitted to a rinse and a towel rubdown before reentering the house at the end of the day. Cody and Sandoz unquestioningly allowed any warm body to perform this ritual. But Freddie or I needed to be present for a total toweling-off of Comet. The greyhound's experience with muzzles around her snout had been a nightmare that left scars, literally and figuratively. After I adopted her, it was several weeks before Comet allowed me to so much as place my hand on her snout. She still turned her head away when anyone other than Freddie or I tried to touch her there. It wasn't an aggressive move, but it was pointed enough so that many people were left with the impression that she was afraid of them. A towel over her head or near her face was totally unacceptable.

On this afternoon, the three girls were busy with the dog wash. Freddie had been called into the hospital earlier and had not yet returned. I was not having one of my better days, and it was difficult for me to grip the towels. “One of you is going to have to help Comet. I just can't,” I said.

At the beginning of the summer, the girls had been offended when Comet averted her head from them. Then I had explained her past. I gently lifted Comet's ears, displaying the numbered tattoos that still made my stomach lurch a little. The girls' expressions had been solemn as I talked about Comet's early life and how racing greyhounds were routinely mistreated, then abandoned or destroyed. My daughters were now acutely sensitive to Comet's feelings.

“Dad, she's going to have to be a little wet when she comes in. I'm not going to force her to let me dry her head,” said Lindsey. The rinsing commenced, shrinking the dogs down to their skin. The girls dried Comet's body but left water dripping from her head and neck. Comet walked over to me, but I couldn't bend down. I tried to drag a towel over her face from an elevated position, but that was useless. Comet turned in frustration. Spying the towels dangling from the line of girls who had just finished with Cody, Comet walked over, shoving her head under the towels and walking through like it was a car wash. Everyone was quiet, afraid of breaking the spell. Almost simultaneously, all three girls began to rub towels gently over Comet's face. Jackie beamed at me. “I think she really likes us now!” The girls' burbling baby chatter told me that they had fallen for Comet, too.

Although she was now a full-fledged member of the family, it didn't take a Holmes to conclude that Comet's primary focus was on me. The most obvious example was at the lake. Comet had perfected the rules of duck chasing and keep-away and was a spirited and entertaining participant. But even though these games could last for hours, she would bow out long before the activities wound down. After thirty minutes of play, Comet routinely found my chair and rested at my feet. At first I encouraged her to continue with the festivities. “Go ahead. You don't have to babysit me.” Invariably, my companion would arch the inside corners of her brows, partially squint her eyes, and stare at me much like an exasperated daughter who questioned my sanity. Instead of rolling her eyes, Comet would slowly lower herself to a haughty resting position.

I thought that maybe her physiology demanded a break. With their low body fat, greyhounds were susceptible to exhaustion when exposed to extreme heat or cold for long periods. At the lake, every summertime movement was smothered by boiled air. By midseason, skin was steamed into a tanned leathery consistency and the goldens' coats were bleached to a dirty white. Even with relief from the cool lake water, maybe the heat was just too much for Comet. But she didn't seem tired as she positioned herself apart from the activity, reserved but not unfriendly. She would lift her head when Freddie and the girls called her to come join the water fights, but she would not budge. She seemed preoccupied, not fatigued.