Chapter 1: How a Dog Met a Boy

The great, black doglike creature stood higher up the hill than the teen he was watching wander around, obviously lost. He watched the boy look around, confused. He appeared to be thirteen or perhaps fourteen years old and he was definitely lost. He moved like someone who had no idea where he was. Then the giant animal sensed a faint hint of the panicky thoughts radiating from the boy. Could it be? Could this unlikely specimen be one of the special few? He dared not hope, and yet ... He crept nearer and listened.

Gage admitted to himself he was lost. He wasn't completely afraid yet; but he had reached the point where he admitted to himself he was for certain lost and he started to feel more than a little nervous about it. He and his parents had gone to the Superstition Mountains in Arizona for a vacation. It was late spring and the desert was still green. The early spring rains caused the giant cactuses to become all swollen with the water they had stored inside to help them survive the hot dry summer season when it never rained.

Right then, to the young man, those big barrel cactuses all looked very scary and quite threatening. Who knew what or even who was hiding behind them just waiting to pounce on a guy? That was when Gage admitted to himself; well maybe he was a little afraid, not too much, but a little. It was just when a guy got even slightly lost everything began to look scary.

"I thought I came this way," he muttered to himself, "Nothing looks right. It all looks different."

"Perhaps because it is different, foolish boy." The rumbling voice seemed to come from all around him and inside his head at the same time. "Could it be you are on the other side of the hill from where you think you are?"

"Hey, who said that? Come on out and show yourself. I'm not afraid," he yelled.

"Oh yes you are afraid," the voice answered him, "and you know you're afraid and you're afraid to admit you're afraid."

"I am not afraid," Gage said in a scared, quivering voice.

"Well, if you're not afraid, then why are your knees shaking? And your chin is quivering too. That seems pretty afraid to me."

"Well all right then, so I am a little bit scared." He paused a moment, then asked, "How come I seem to hear you in my head? Where are you? Are you scared, too?"

"Well now, since you admit you're scared I'll answer your first question. The reason you hear me inside your head is because where I'm talking to you is inside your head."

"Oh, that's impossible," Gage replied, "People only talk to each other with their minds in comic books and old Star Trek reruns. Why won't you show yourself?"

"Okay, here goes. Just turn around and look behind you. Here I am. Now don't you get all sissy scared on me."

Gage slowly turned around. Suddenly, his eyes grew round and wide and he yelled, "Hoo boy!" He bent forward and prepared to start running as fast as his strong young legs would let him. In front of him he saw the biggest, blackest dog of some kind or other he had ever seen before in his whole life.

"Hey, I thought I told you not to get all sissy scared on me." Somehow, when he looked at the big, black, four-footed monster, the voice in his head became even clearer. The huge dog stood there with a big, wide grin on his face. This made him not seem quite so fearsome. Awesome, yes, definitely awesome, but not quite fear making. He looked almost friendly.

"Hey. I'm not a sissy." Gage indignantly told the beast, "If some great big ugly, hairy black monster showed up in front of you, you'd be scared too."

"Hey, yourself, puny little pink creature, watch who you're calling ugly. I think I look quite handsome. After all I have all this beautiful black hair all over my body. And what do you have? All you have is a little patch of yellow fuzz on your head."

"Wait a minute," Gage told his new acquaintance, "You still haven't told me how come I hear you in my head. People who hear voices in their heads are nuts."

"Usually you would be correct with the unkind remarks you made in a thoughtless sort of way. This is the exception to the rule. I am here, you are here and we are 'talking.' Also you are definitely not one of the unfortunates whom you call 'nuts.' Ergo we converse, therefore we are." Somehow the big monster dog's face appeared smug and self-satisfied.

"How come you use all those big words, if you're a dog?" Gage asked. "I never heard of a dog who knew big words, before."

"Oh ye of little imagination and less mind. My last companion was a scholar, a gentle man of many interests." Gage sensed, a great sadness in the mental voice as the big dog continued. "He has been dead these many seasons and I have been seeking a new companion, one who could detect my voice ever since. There are so very few of you, you know. Besides, I am quite brilliant in my own right. It's hereditary you know."

"No, I didn't know. Do you mean not everyone can hear you?" Gage hadn't considered that possibility. "Then what will people think if I tell them I talk to a dog who knows big words?"

"Well, one possibility is they will think you're nuts." The dog cocked his head to one side and grinned.

"Oh man, now we're right back where we started. When I tell my folks I met a dog who talks and only I can hear him, they will say I'm nuts for sure," Gage replied.

"There is one solution to your little problem you know."

"What?" Gage asked.

"You don't tell them." The big dog looked at Gage doubtfully, "I know you're such a blabbermouth, you could never keep a secret."

"I can so keep a secret."

"No you can't because you have a big blabbermouth."

"Well, it doesn't matter, anyway," Gage told his new acquaintance. "If you'll tell me which way to go, I'll get back to my folks."

"Do you mean you'll go away and leave me here alone?" There was a hint of alarm in the dog's gruff mental voice.

"Well, you can't expect me to stay here forever, can you? I got my own family and they need me."

"Then why can't I go with you? I'd like to belong somewhere again." Gage sensed a great loneliness in the great beast.

"Well, come on, we'll see what happens." Gage was doubtful. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Just call me Dog." Gage got a sense Dog didn't care what he was named.

"Okay," Gage told his new friend, "but I got some doubts, I got some real big doubts. You don't know my mom. When she makes up her mind nobody can change it."

"We'll see." Dog led Gage around the hill and back to where Gage's parents were sitting in the shade of their big motor home, drinking iced tea and listening to the FM radio play old people's music from the eighties and early nineties. "There you are. You aren't going too far away from the ... GOODLORD THERE'S A MONSTER BEHIND YOU, LOOK OUT." His mom was the best "screamer" of any female parental unit he knew of back in Minnesota. Gage was willing to bet she could be heard almost all they way back to Minnesota.

His dad was much less excited. In a very soft and controlled voice he said, "Now Son, when I tell you to, you walk slowly toward the door to the motor home and slowly go in. Honey, you slowly get up and very slowly go to the door when Gage opens it and slowly go in and lock the door. I am going to try and distract it, whatever it is."

"Dad, he thinks you're funny. He likes the way you are trying to protect Mom and me. If he wanted to eat me he would have done it up on the mountain. I want you to meet Dog, he's lonely."

The big, black scary beast sat on his haunches and held a front paw up to be shaken. He looked right at Gage's dad, grinned and waited with his paw up in the air. When nobody moved, he opened his mouth and went "meow." It was a credible imitation of an old tomcat.

Gage grinned and said, "See? He does imitations, too." Dog still waited for his Dad to shake hands.

"Who ever heard of a dog that sounded like a cat? I bet he must be some special breed and valuable too. Where's his owner I wonder?" He walked over to Dog, who now didn't seem so dangerous and said, "Hello boy." He "shook hands" with Dog who then returned his paw to the ground.

"Well, Mom, Dad, he doesn't belong to anyone. His master died a long time ago and he has been waiting and looking for the right person to be with. He says, er..." Gage caught his slip and said, instead, "He won't go to just anybody you know.

"Can I keep him? He followed me back here and he's a real great person and, well... ," Gage was excited he had found Dog. At that moment he realized he wanted to keep Dog. Somehow Gage realized Dog would be very special to him, in fact he already was.

"Well, Son, we will have to take him into town and find out who owns him," his dad replied, "If nobody has reported him missing, maybe we can cross that path when we get to it." At least his dad was sort of thinking about keeping this strange animal.

"Oh no." his mother cut in, "We'll cross that path right now. There is no way I am going to travel with a big, mean and smelly old animal. He might even eat us in our sleep. I am putting my foot down right now." And to prove it she raised her foot slightly off the ground and stomped it back down.

Dog wandered slowly over to Gage's mom and rubbed his head gently against her leg. Then he lay down on his back and stuck all four feet in the air and said, "Wuff." in a very low voice, not quite a growl.

"He likes you, Mom." Gage exclaimed. "See, he isn't smelly or dirty. He rides in a car real good, too." Gage thought for a moment and added, "I bet."

His mother relented a little. After all, the animal seemed to be okay. He looked big and scary, yet he acted like a little puppy almost. "Well, we'll see," she let herself soften up a bit.

"When we get back to Apache Junction we'll ask the police if they know of anyone who lost this dog. You can tell he has been taken good care of." From Mom Gage knew this was very high praise. His mother was not a fan of any big animals, except horses or cows that were supposed to be big.

Dog wandered over to a cactus like plant and bit off a shoot of it and brought it to Gage's mother and laid it at her feet. He looked at he expectantly.

"Whatever is this for?" she asked.

Gage read the answer in Dog's mind. "It's Aloe vera plant, Mom, sometimes called the burn plant. It grows wild out here on the desert. You got a sunburn coming on and the juice of a leaf of Aloe will make your sunburn go away. Your nose looks like Rudolph's right now and it isn't even Christmas." Gage grinned at her.

With mock seriousness, Mom looked at Gage and said, "I know I have a sunburn coming on, Gage. It isn't nice for you to make fun of anyone, even when you don't mean to be cruel." She thought a bit and added, "Say. How do you know so much about a medicine plant? Even more to the point, how did this dog know to get it for me?" She began to frown. There was just too much not known about this strange beast.

"Aw, Mom, he was just trying to be nice to you. See? He likes you." Dog had picked the long, thick Aloe leaf up and offered it to her again.

"I'm not so stupid I got to have a dog prescribe medicine for me." She accepted the proffered gift as she remembered what she had seen on the Discovery Channel about the healing properties of Aloe. Reluctantly, she went inside the motor home and began to peel the tough outer skin off the Aloe leaf with a paring knife. She rubbed the juicy pulp of the plant on her sun burned nose and the backs of her arms and neck. Almost immediately, she could feel the soothing plant juices do their job.

She came back outside and smiled at Dog. "Maybe you aren't so useless, after all," she told him and patted him on the head. Gage got the distinct impression Dog was going to make his mom pay for not taking him serious. He, Gage, didn't get the feeling of anything painful happening, only he got the feeling there would be a lesson somewhere in the future; he was very certain of it. Gage already knew Dog did not like to be taken lightly by what he considered "mere humans."

Gage and his parents readied the motor home for the trip back to town. The aluminum chairs were folded up and placed in the storage compartment and the now empty iced tea jug was washed and put away. Because of the possible dangers of loose objects when traveling, it was best for sloppy housekeepers to not own a motor home. A knife left out on the counter in the morning could fall off and cut somebody's foot in the afternoon.

After he was invited inside the motor home for the ride back to Apache junction the first thing Dog did was to look around. He found a knife left out and barked once, letting his right paw rest by the offending blade. Gage's dad saw where he had his paw and said, "You found some real smart dog, there." As he took the knife and put it away where it belonged, he said wistfully, "I like this dog, he's as smart as my boss at work." Dog looked at him and gave a bark. "Well, okay, then, he's smarter than my boss."

Dog gave a small "woof" of agreement and nodded. He curled up under the table in the breakfast nook out of the way of careless feet. Gage saw his dad look approving at the way Dog settled himself in for traveling. "I think you found yourself some kind of fine dog there, Son. I truly do. Now don't you get disappointed if someone claims him."

Gage grinned, "Don't worry, Dad, nobody is going to claim him. I already know he doesn't have anyone looking for him." His dad looked at him, wondering why Gage was so certain about the dog.

Gage's mom sat in the passenger seat as usual while his dad drove the big forty feet long home on wheels. Gage sat on the seat at the end of the breakfast nook where he could use the table to place his games while he played them. He was seat buckled into place and feeling bored. He looked out the window at the passing landscape and sighed.

He was still daydreaming when he heard Dog in his head, "Look out the window." There was a man lying in the ditch alongside the road. He was obviously injured; a motorcycle lay in a twisted wreck a few feet away.

"Dad. There's someone in the ditch back there. Stop," Gage called to his father.

""Uh, what?" his dad asked.

"Go back, Dad there's a man laying in the ditch back there, it looks like a motorcycle accident. He was bleeding. Dog smelled the blood."

"I didn't smell the blood. I saw it." Dog corrected Gage mentally

"Whatever," Gage thought back, "If I tell them you 'saw his blood' they would think I was real nuts and needed a keeper."

"They would be right," Dog thought right back at him. "Besides, how can I smell blood through the walls of a motor home?" Gage mentally shrugged his shoulders.

The big motor home came to an easy stop and then began slowly backing the distance it had traveled between the time Gage called and his Dad stopped it. Using both side mirrors, his father carefully backed up until Gage exclaimed, "There he is."

His mother looked out her window and said, "Yes, I see him too." Before the vehicle was stopped completely, she was out of her seat and hurried back to get her big emergency first aid kit out of the storage closet in the bedroom. Gage's dad put the shifter in park and set the emergency brake. He opened the side door and hurried to the fallen man who was bleeding from a bad cut on his leg. There was a lot more blood on the ground under him.

Mom hurried up with the big kit, took one look and said, "Honey, take the cell phone and call 911. He's bleeding bad." As Dad called 911, Mom quickly cut away the injured man's pant leg. She cleaned the wound with alcohol in order to get a better look at the cut. Blood was slowly spurting out of a gash above the knee. She took a length of rubber surgical tubing and made a tourniquet around the man's thigh above the cut. The bleeding stopped.

She took the phone from her husband as he handed it to her, "Hello, who am I talking to?"

"You got the emergency dispatch here, Ma'am. Like I told the gentleman, we only have one ambulance available right now in this part of the county and it's taking a ten year old girl into Mesa to get her appendix out. There isn't anyone else available for forty-five minutes to an hour. Sorry."

"Well, I am an OR nurse and have seen too many injuries like this man has. If he doesn't get medical treatment immediately, he is going to die."

"Are you giving your 'expert' medical opinion, ma'am?" the voice asked sarcastically.

"Yes, an expert opinion is exactly what it is." She took a deep breath and continued. "Look, Goober, or what ever your name is, I am rendering first aid to an unconscious accident victim. My husband and I shall place him in our motor home. We are headed west on the highway toward Apache Junction and would like to be met by a highway patrolman who will escort us to an emergency treatment facility. Now I don't have time to talk to an amateur so I'm hanging up. You just make sure we get our escort."