The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
The irony was, a person wouldn’t have known any of that from watching her as she worked the dogs, not even on the day they were placed, because with the dogs, she became a different woman, almost a character she played—the trainer, who was interested only in what the dogs were doing in that moment. The trainer showed no anger when dogs were unruly. The trainer gave instant, forceful guidance. As their time for placement approached, the only difference the dogs might notice was that they got less attention; if they were a bit lonely, it helped them bond with their new owners.
Edgar didn’t attempt to help his mother. He did morning chores, then pulled Tinder and Baboo and drilled them on close work—heels, stays, leash tangles, and the things they had been practicing in secret: the tag, the drop, the carrying of small items in their mouths. Claude was bottle-feeding one of the new pups. When he came out of the whelping room, Edgar took the dogs into the field.
And Almondine placed herself along his route wherever he went. If he was behind the barn, she lay near the silo. If he was in the barn, she waited in the shade of the eaves to meet his glance. Each time he refused her. Finally, she lost heart and found a place to sleep. It took a long time for that to happen, but he saw the moment she finally turned away. And he let her go.
JUST BEFORE DINNER Doctor Papineau parked his sedan on the grass behind the Impala. Edgar watched from the barn as the old man clapped a hand on Claude’s shoulder and they walked into the house. Shortly, an unfamiliar pickup slowed to a stop at their driveway and turned and trundled past the house. It was a big truck with an elaborate topper and Texas license plates. His mother and Claude and Doctor Papineau walked out of the house with Almondine trailing. There was something about watching Almondine from the barn, thirty yards distant, something in her carriage, tentative and almost frail, that finally made Edgar understand how cruel he’d been. He made a promise in his mind to make things up to her that night, though there was nothing he could do just then—events required him to stay where he was for a little while longer.
Claude walked around to the driver’s window and gestured at the turnaround. The pickup backed around and stopped again, facing the road. Then the door opened and a man stepped out. There was a short conversation. Almondine greeted the visitor along with the rest of them. Then Edgar’s mother looked over and called, “Edgar, would you bring out Singer and Indigo?”
This was the start of the presentation, in which he’d always played a very specific role. When he’d been little, it had especially impressed new owners to see a child hardly taller than the dogs lead them out of the kennel. Now that he was older, the presentation was less dramatic, but the stagey element remained: after the new owner arrived, after introductions and talk, Edgar emerged with the dog (or dogs, in this case—not uncommon, since they placed many pairs). His father had loved the little choreographed drama of it. After all, he’d said, owners meet their dogs just once. Why not make sure they remember it? It was a small, extra guarantee the dogs would be treated right. Sometimes the owners gasped when Edgar and the dogs appeared; he’d even seen his mother smile, despite her dire predictions, as he measured out steps along the drive, affecting a relaxed, nothing-out-of-the-ordinary expression.
The dogs, excited by a stranger’s arrival, raced one another along the lengths of their pens, pushing out through the canvas flaps to get a look and turning and pushing back in again. Edgar quieted them and walked to the pen that held the two dogs to be placed. Singer was a gloss russet male with an imposing stance but an easygoing demeanor. Indigo was petite for a Sawtelle dog and as black as if dipped in ink, except for a blaze of cream on her chest and another swirl across her hips. Edgar drew the slicker brush from his back pocket and went over them one last time. Indigo’s coat was fine and luxurious when brushed up. The dogs stomped in the straw and panted under his brush. Singer protested the delay with a deep moan.
Hold on, he signed. You’ll know soon enough.
He stroked their faces and squatted in front of them. He made them look at him steadily and he put his hands on their chests, seeking the spot that would calm them. Then he put collars on them and brought them into a heel, one on each side, hands on their withers, and they walked up the barn aisle. When they stepped outside, the knot of people by the house shifted. The talking ceased. Edgar paused for a moment with the old goosenecked light fixture overhead. His father had often joked about hearing angels sing when he and the dogs turned that corner.
“Oh my,” he heard the man say.
When they were halfway up the drive, Edgar patted each dog lightly on the shoulders. They turned to look at him. He flicked out a release and they arrowed forward, all silken motion, feet thumping softly on the ground as they ran. Then there was chaos and introductions. The new owner was a slight man, leanly built, with brown hair and jug ears and a thick mustache. His accent matched his license plate, a heavy drawl. He knew dogs; he presented the back of his hand rather than his fingers; his touch was confident and slow. Occasionally, the dogs might be skittish with a new owner, but not this man and these dogs.
“They sure do look at you, don’t they?” he said.
Edgar’s mother and Claude explained about the gaze exercises and then they introduced Edgar. The man’s name was Benson.
“Pleased to meet you,” Mr. Benson said, shaking his hand. They let Mr. Benson get a good look at the dogs, see their structure. Edgar ran them through recalls to get them moving. Mr. Benson knew what to look for. He checked their stifles and hocks and he commented on their gait. By the time they had finished, the sun was almost set and they walked to the house together, the dogs surging ahead to wait by the door.
“Son,” Mr. Benson said, “you’ve got the touch with these dogs, even more so than your mama.” He turned to Trudy. “No offense, ma’am. I mean that as the highest compliment. I’ve never seen like the way they do for him.”
“None taken,” she said. Edgar could see she was reluctantly charmed by the man, and proud of the dogs’ behavior, which had been flawless. “Edgar makes it look effortless.”
“It’s not even so much effort,” Mr. Benson said. “It’s something else. It don’t have a name. They just want to work for him.”
Edgar’s mother laughed. “Don’t be too impressed. They’re on their best behavior tonight. We’ll go over things more thoroughly tomorrow. Indigo has a couple of bad habits you should know about. But they’re good dogs.”
“Well, I’m daunted by the prospect of living up to what these dogs have been used to,” Mr. Benson said. “I’m not ashamed to admit it. I wonder why they’d listen to a dope like me after working with y’all.”
They downed the two dogs, along with Almondine, in the living room and sat down to dinner. Mr. Benson said he lived in the hill country near San Antonio. He wondered if they had ever been there, and they said no, and he told them about it, the live oaks and the pecan trees and the wild mistletoe and the river. They asked about his trip. The drive had been long, he said, but he loved the open highway, that stretch of asphalt opening out before him.
Edgar sat and listened. Mr. Benson had taken a room at Fisher’s Paradise, south of town. He was staying for several days. He liked to talk, almost a match for Doctor Papineau, but his thoughts ran to philosophy and religion. “Tell you something I think is curious,” he said. “In the Bible there’s hardly no mention of dogs. What there is makes them out like vermin. I can’t make sense of that, can you?”
“Sure,” Edgar’s mother said. “Back in those times, for every dog that lived with people, a dozen more ate garbage and ran through the streets. Companion dogs were the exception.”
The man nodded and looked at all of them. Edgar got the impression he’d raised this question before at other tables.
“‘Give not that which is holy to the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before the swine’—that’s Matthew. It’s always bothered me. I’m a heathen nowadays, though. People in my congregation fall faint if I walk in on a Sunday. But a lot of them aren??
Doctor Papineau was inspired to contemplate the population of dogs on the Ark, and from there the conversation turned back to Singer and Indigo. Edgar’s mood had lightened, briefly, while he worked the dogs, but as Claude began explaining the history of the kennel, it turned wretched again. Mr. Benson didn’t question Claude’s authority, though to Edgar every word he spoke marked him as an impostor. Now Claude was explaining about Buddy and the blood tie between the Sawtelle dogs and the Fortunate Fields breeding program. That surprised Edgar—he thought what he’d learned through the letters was a secret, or forgotten, but it wasn’t, and there was no reason Claude wouldn’t know. Now he was explaining how many dogs they placed each season and how the breeding program established by Edgar’s grandfather worked; how half the dogs they placed went to families who had already owned a Sawtelle dog; how the majority of breeding dogs were fostered by farm families nearby. And as Edgar sat and listened to Claude, he wondered why he hadn’t plunged the Impala into the trees when he’d had the chance.
When they finished dinner, his mother brought out Doctor Papineau’s cheesecake and poured coffee. Mr. Benson commented on the cheesecake, and Doctor Papineau chimed in with his shopworn joke. Something about it made Edgar angry. Whenever he looked at Doctor Papineau he saw that fatherly hand laid on Claude’s shoulder and he thought the old man was a fool to let himself be manipulated so transparently. Even the new owner had begun to bother Edgar. Most wanted to get away from the table as soon as possible, to release their dogs from their stays and touch them, but Mr. Benson seemed oddly incurious. The dogs were patiently holding stays; Singer was even dozing. But anyone could see they were waiting to spring up and investigate the man all over again.
Then Mr. Benson turned to Claude.
“Now, I’ve got something to ask, and you should just say no if I’ve overstepped. Of course, we’ll get to this tomorrow when we work through the branch contract and pick out stock, but I’d be obliged if I might have a look at your kennel. That’s a fine barn. I haven’t seen many like it since I passed Killeen. And I want to see for myself what sort of magic happens there.”
Claude and Doctor Papineau were looking at the man with equally self-satisfied expressions. Edgar turned to his mother.
What is he talking about?
She waved him off with a small gesture. He signed again.
Why is he talking about a branch contract?
She turned to him, her expression calm, but beneath that, flushed with anger.
Not now, she signed. You haven’t wanted to talk for weeks. We’ll discuss it later.
What does he mean, selecting stock? Breeding stock?
Not now.
Mr. Benson was watching the exchange and he leaned back.
“I don’t mean to be rude. It was just itching at me. Maybe that’s for tomorrow.”
“Not at all,” Claude said. “I have to tell you, though, there’s nothing magic to be found out there. Just slow, steady work.”
Claude led Mr. Benson outside, followed by Edgar’s mother and Doctor Papineau. Singer and Indigo loped ahead. Edgar stood on the porch. He recalled that game of canasta they’d played the autumn before. You can get anything you want in this world if you’re willing to go slow enough, Claude had said. At the time, Edgar had taken it as beer-fueled backwoods munificence, but now he heard it as a perverse taunt.
When did you start wanting this so badly? he wondered, watching Claude walk alongside the stranger, explaining what they did as something to be replicated, capitalized, multiplied. Was it one of those afternoons you spent on the barn roof watching us all? Were you surprised at what your brother had accomplished after you left? Or have you been thinking of this for longer than that? How slow have you been willing to go?
From out in the yard, Mr. Benson’s voice rose in reply to some question Claude had asked.
“I have good news for you there,” he said. “I talked with the son, James, the night before I left. He’s very excited about this idea, calls it a unique opportunity. He keeps saying over and over: a Caruthers dog, a milestone in catalog merchandising—the first time a breed has ever been brand-named. Says he’s got a mock-up of the Christmas wish-book on his desk, pups on the inside of the front cover and everything. Course, they’re the wrong kind of pups right now, but they can fix that picture in one day flat.”
Almondine walked up behind Edgar and stood at the threshold of the kitchen door. He’d wanted to make amends with her all evening, but now he was seething again and in his mind he saw her lying in the workshop, light streaming over her like some kind of painting, and Claude at work. He swung the kitchen door shut and made sure the latch caught. He trotted after the others. The long twilight had faded. A fitful wind shook the maple. To the west, the canopy of the forest shivered against the darkening rim of blue.
“I forget sometimes what it’s like to be this far from city light,” Mr. Benson was saying. “Our night sky is never this black, with San Antone so close. D’you ever see the northern lights?”
But before anyone could respond to the man’s question, something curious happened. A gust of wind passed through the yard, carrying with it a sheet of warm rain, translucent and swift. The drops pelted the roofs of the vehicles and splashed thinly across them all. The dogs snapped at the air. Dust rose from the driveway. Then the rain was gone, returned to the night. Everyone looked up. There was nothing overhead but a field of stars.
“That don’t surprise me,” Mr. Benson said. “That happens back home. Rain’ll fall smack out of a clear sky. That rain could have been in the air in North Dakota and only now touched ground.”
They’d come to a stop in front of the barn, near the leaden pock of quicklime where the grass had once turned white. The man squatted down to stroke Indigo’s chest. It was the first time he’d touched either of the dogs since dinner, and when he stood again he produced a handkerchief from his pocket and wrung his hands in the cloth and pulled it along each finger.
“It occurs to me every once in a while that it’s raining somewhere, even when the sky is clear—there’s more water in the air than we’re apt to think. You took all the water out of the air, there’d be a flood that only Noah would recognize. When I can’t make sense of things, I try to think big enough to see rain falling somewhere. Water’s always moving—that’s the view I try to get. If it’s not falling, it’s coming up through the ground getting ready to fall again. That comforts me, I can’t say why. Sometimes I only need to get above the treetops. Late afternoons where I live, you can see half a dozen big ole bull thunderstorms coming along, shafts of light between them and rain trailing underneath like a jellyfish. Sometimes, though, I have to go up high enough to see most of the whole country—way, way out to California—before I see rain and clear sky both. That’s all in my mind, of course. But no matter where I am, if I can get to where I see it raining and where it’s clear, that’s when I can do my most powerful thinking.”
Then Mr. Benson caught himself.
“Good God,” he said. “I didn’t realize how long I’ve been sitting alone in a truck.”
Edgar’s mother laughed and they walked into the kennel. None of them seemed to take more note of the rain, though to Edgar, it had felt like a hand brushing his face. For a moment he was unable to move. When he caught up, the dogs began to bark. His mother hushed them, a small thing that impressed the man greatly. Mr. Benson started asking questions: how long did they let the pups nurse, did they believe in docking dewclaws at birth, why didn’t they use sawdust instead of straw, and so on. Claude took down the master litter book and pulled a file at random and talked about the breeding research and the log sheets and the scoring, all with great authority, like a man describing furniture. Edgar’s mother led Mr. Benson up to the mow and showed him the fly lines, the floor rings, and all the rest.
“Where does this young man come in?” Mr. Benson said when they came down again. “He earns his meals, I’m sure.”
&nb
Mr. Benson asked to see Edgar’s litter, and Claude set his hand on Edgar’s shoulder and told him to bring them out. Until that moment Edgar hadn’t decided to have his litter play out what they’d practiced. He’d always imagined some circumstance with just him and the dogs and Claude, but now he saw it didn’t matter who else was there. There was no choice anyway. He had to have an answer. He couldn’t stand the knowing-and-not-knowing, the residue of memory without the memory itself, the coming-apart every time he sat across the table from Claude. All he needed was one unguarded moment, like the one when Claude first spotted him watching from the apple tree. An expression had flashed across Claude’s face then, shock or guilt or fear, but whichever, it had vanished before Edgar had understood what it might reveal. This time he would be ready. He would see it for what it was. And if he saw guilt, he would not be stopped by anyone’s touch, not his mother’s, not Almondine’s. He would not sink to his knees, shaking like a newborn calf.
“Let’s proof them on stays while we’re at it,” his mother said.
He nodded. He walked past the pens and into the medicine room, where he yanked open the drawer reserved for Doctor Papineau’s supplies and stuffed six syringes into the breast pocket of his shirt. It looked strange, he knew, and he tried to act nonchalant as he walked out again. He brought out Opal and Umbra and stayed them in the aisle, then Pout, Baboo, Tinder, Finch, and finally Essay. The seven of them sat, twitchy and excited, forty feet down the aisle from his mother and Mr. Benson and Claude.