The Dogs of Christmas Read online

  Why me?

  Would it distress Lucy to smell the dead newborns? Josh looked over to where Lucy was lying, but she was back to sleeping soundly. Josh touched the back of another puppy and it was equally cold, equally still. Just great.

  And then, under his hand, Josh felt something impossible: the puppy stirred, moving slightly.

  It was alive.

  Josh went from self-pity to alarm in just a second. “Oh my God!” he cried. He picked up the puppy. Yes, it was alive, but so, so cold. What the barely moving creature needed was heat, but the house was still an icebox. Maybe some of the others were still living, too—he had to warm them up, he had to save the puppies!

  Carefully clutching the tiny bundle to his chest with one hand, Josh reached out with the other and grabbed handfuls of kindling and threw it on the fire. The smallest twigs ignited instantly, flaring with a gratifying burst of heat. It wasn’t enough, but the fire was all he had.

  The next puppy in the box was alive. So was the next. Josh didn’t hesitate, he thrust them up under his sweater, pressing them to his bare skin. They felt like snowballs against his chest. Three was about all he could manage to hold while still shoveling sticks into the fire. He went for his newspaper stack, crumpling balls one-handed and tossing them into the blaze. Each wad of paper left a black ghost of itself when it became ash, but before it did so, it gave up its energy in a puff of flame.

  He was so close to the flames his face was hot and his sweater smelled ready to combust. The three puppies weren’t moving much and hadn’t made a sound and there were still two in the box.

  “Here, here,” Josh said. Moving in quick, shaky jerks, Josh laid the three newborns on the floor at his knees and then yanked off his sweater. Tenderly he wrapped all three in the sweater, hot side against their chilly bodies. Okay. He picked up the other two. They were alive! He held them against his bare skin. He’d do shifts, back and forth, two, then three, then two, then three. They were so tiny! He leaned into the dancing fire, letting the heat bake his chest. The two new pups were as freezing and unmoving as the first three, but even still, he could tell by their slight stirring that they were breathing. What if they died now, in his arms?

  More newspaper. The fire was roaring but running out of fuel, his supply of sticks dwindling. Reluctantly, he tossed in a small log that was wet from melted ice. It made a sizzling sound.

  The tiny dog crooked into his right arm moved its head, and Josh inhaled sharply. “Don’t die,” he whispered. “Please don’t die. Please don’t die.”

  He heard a peep, a tiny noise, and glanced down with a start at his sweater on the floor. It lay deflated and flat, the puppies no longer inside.

  Josh jerked his head around wildly and saw Lucy watching him from her soft bedding. Pressed up against her side were the three puppies, and that’s what he’d heard. They were feeding. She’d removed them from the sweater, somehow, and carried them to her pillow. Now she was nursing them. Giving them life.

  “No way,” Josh breathed.

  It was a little cooler over where they were feeding than it was right in front of the fire, but Lucy’s milk was warming the newborns from within.

  After a moment, he stood and crossed over to the dogs. He found unoccupied teats and one at a time held out his tiny burdens until they instinctively fastened on the life-saving nipples with their teeny mouths.

  Even over the roar of the fire, he could hear their sucking, and the peeping was more pronounced, little squeals from the puppies as they had their first meal in the world. Lucy turned her muzzle to them, licking them occasionally with her long, pink tongue.

  Josh allowed himself a few minutes to watch the miracle before he went back to the fire. The wind kicked up outside, more than one tree limb crashing to the ground as the elements ripped them down, but his concentration was so focused on warming the house that he registered the wild storm as nothing more than background noise.

  Josh fed wood to the flames all night, awakening from his place on the couch every hour or so to toss in more logs. The heat was strong enough that he kicked off his socks and then his blankets around midnight, but it didn’t do much to thaw the lasagna from the freezer that he had optimistically set on the hearth soon after Lucy began feeding the puppies. He congratulated himself on his ingenuity when he found a pot with a metal handle and put the lasagna inside and held the assembly over the flames with fire tongs, but that just meant he wound up eating Italian food that was black on the bottom and crunchy with ice crystals in the middle.

  Dawn was impossibly bright, and Josh was up with it. Still no electricity. Outside everything was coated with a sheen of ice, leaves, and twigs all wrapped in mirrors. A big ponderosa—probably the largest tree on his lot—had shattered under the weight of the heavy frozen blanket and lay raw and splintered across Josh’s driveway, blocking access and escape. Not that he would be going anywhere soon anyway. The roads would be impassable until the weather warmed up, and the thermometer on his deck told him the sun would have to find a lot more ambition if it was going to push the temperature above the current five below. Arctic air had arrived with this weather system.

  The puppies were warm and dry to the touch, all sleeping, all alive. Lucy nuzzled his hand with her moist nose when Josh reached for them. There seemed to be a message in that nudge: everything’s fine, don’t disturb the kids.

  His laptop still had juice, but without an Internet connection, he really couldn’t work. When he thought to use his cell to e-mail Gordon Blascoe an explanation and apology for going off grid, he found the phone in the drawer, battery dead, useless. Dude, you don’t answer your cell phone? Ryan had demanded.

  Up here in the mountains Josh had found he could only get a signal if he tromped over to a rocky outcropping in the corner of his property. So no, he didn’t answer his cell phone, because it never rang unless he was in town. He sent texts from his computer when he needed to.

  Josh plugged the cell phone charger into the wall for when the power eventually came back on. Then he dragged out an iron pot, filled it with water, and placed it in the fire. That gave him a dozen hard-boiled eggs, which with the cornflakes and milk would make up the bulk of his diet until the utility company managed to get the electricity flowing. He’d never before considered how dependent he was on the microwave.

  When the eggs were done he poured the water on some coffee grounds in a bowl and then drained the mix through a paper towel and it tasted reasonable enough. He pulled his couch closer to the fire and sat sipping almost-coffee and watching the puppies, who squirmed a little, but basically weren’t moving.

  They squealed, though, when Lucy abruptly stood up and went to the front door. Josh let her out into the frigid air, conscious of the arctic wind sweeping over his feet at puppy level. Lucy was gingerly picking her way across the yard, sniffing, so Josh shut the door and went to the puppies.

  “She’s coming back. Don’t worry,” he soothed. He pulled a blanket off the couch and covered them, but that didn’t stop their upset squawking. Through the big front window he watched Lucy squat in the thin crust of snow, and she watched him back. When she was finished they met at the front door. Lucy went straight to the pups and gave him a pitying look before she pulled the blanket off with her teeth, settling down heavily. It looked to Josh as if she was lying directly on some of the newborns, but Lucy wiggled and they soon were all nursing again. She lowered her head and sighed with a weariness that Josh felt connected her with all the mothers in history.

  Lucy had done it, she’d saved the puppies. All Josh had done was bring in the cardboard box.

  When night came it was less like darkness falling than the fireplace seeming to gain strength. Josh read his book and watched Lucy, who ate a hearty meal and drank from her bowl twice before Josh covered himself and slept.

  He awoke to the sound of falling water, but it wasn’t rain—the day was hazy and much warmer and the ice was melting rapidly. Trees shook themselves free and stood back up in a
cascade of diamondlike droplets. Many of the aspen leaves would never get the chance to show off their autumn colors—they lay on the ground, beaten down by the storm.

  That was Colorado weather for you—give it a few hours and it would change.

  The puppies were still alive, and thus far Lucy showed no signs of rejecting them. When Josh looked into her eyes he thought he could see self-satisfaction, a redemption from what she had left behind in the vet’s office. “You’re a good dog,” he told her.

  Still no electricity. Pockets of frigid air were holed up in the back bedrooms—when he opened a door it poured out like ice water. Good thing the couch was comfortable.

  The power outage could last days. He needed food that didn’t require cooking or refrigeration. Tortilla chips & can of bean dip, he wrote on a pad. Peanut butter. What else? Potato chips.

  If Josh was ever going to drive down into Evergreen he’d need to clear the driveway of the ponderosa pine the storm had knocked down. “You’ll be okay, Lucy,” Josh promised as he put on his rubber boots. Lucy, nursing the newborns, didn’t look too worried about it.

  The chainsaw in the shed only coughed awake after Josh had nearly yanked his arm out of the socket trying to start it, but eventually he had it throttled up and ready to bite into the big pine tree that blocked his driveway. But when it came time to sink the saw’s metal teeth into the thick trunk, Josh hesitated.

  For most of his life, Josh had been too small to put his arms around this particular tree. It had withstood many storms, and still sported a dark scar where his sister, Janice, had backed the car into it when she had her learner’s permit. He’d leaned against it for support when his mother and sister drove off, following the moving van that was removing them from Josh’s life. Now it was down, too old and proud to bend under the relentless buildup of heavy ice. Once he cut into it, it would cease to be a tree. He would stack the logs in the woodpile to season for next winter.

  It felt like an old friend had died.

  For Christmas, Josh’s father had wound strings of blue lights around the trunk, maypole fashion, a tradition Josh had cherished and continued. The lights were waiting in a bag that Josh had impatiently pulled out a week ago—like his mother, Josh always decorated for Christmas early. The nails his father had pounded into the pine tree to support the lights now bristled like barbs on a wire—Josh took special care to avoid them with his chainsaw.

  When he had finished cutting the trunk into segments, he wiped tears away from his eyes, glad no one could see him crying over a tree, of all things. Well, not no one: Lucy was watching him from the window. He went over to let her out, and she quickly squatted before returning to the house.

  What a great dog! Somehow having her made him feel better, less alone.

  He recalled that the vet had said not to let her run loose, but so far the orphan pups were turning out to be the most effective leash possible.

  The ponderosa logs were heavy—he grunted as he carried them across the soggy yard and stacked them at the end of the woodpile. He’d split them next fall.

  He was tired and sore when he finished, but at some point while he was outside the electricity had come on, and after eating a microwaved beef dinner, Josh was able to take a hot shower to soothe his aches. Later he went around the house turning off lights that he’d irrationally switched on when there was no power.

  No Internet yet, nor landline, but the cell phone soon had enough juice stored up for him to make a call. He put his boots back on and squished his way to the high point on his property where crumbling rocks jutted up out of the soil in a mound that was round and dry like an old man’s elbow. He left a message for Gordon Blascoe, explaining where he’d been the past couple of days, hoping that the odd dead sound didn’t imply that the message wasn’t recording. He checked and saw that he barely had a signal, and then called Ryan’s number.

  “The number you have dialed is not in service,” a man’s voice lectured, crackling and popping with static. Josh didn’t know if he was annoyed or relieved.

  The vet’s office returned a fast busy signal, which meant their service wasn’t restored yet, either. Who knew how long that would take?

  He went back to the house and looked at Lucy, who wasn’t lying with her puppies. “Lucy, you want to come over here?” he asked, patting the pillow where the puppies were in a row as if lined up at a cafeteria. Lucy just looked at him with a you think it’s such a great place you lie there for a while expression. It was what Josh had been afraid of—she was having second thoughts about her adoptive family.

  He headed back outside to the rocky outcropping. Taking a breath, he called information, and was connected to the animal rescue in Evergreen.

  “Animal Rescue, this is Kerri,” a woman answered.

  “Hi, Kerri, my name is Josh Michaels,” Josh greeted, clearing his throat.

  “This is a pretty bad connection,” she noted.

  “Yeah, sorry about that. So the reason I’m calling, I have a situation I need help with.”

  “Uh-huh,” Kerri answered slowly. “Tell me.”

  Josh quickly explained everything: how Ryan had dumped his ex-girlfriend’s dog on him, and how he’d come to have puppies that didn’t belong to him.

  “Wow, that’s an amazing story,” Kerri marveled.

  “Yeah.”

  “So how can I help you, Josh?”

  “Oh. So, I guess I need to turn them in.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You know. I need to bring the puppies in. Drop them off.”

  SIX

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying to me,” Kerri responded. Her voice had grown cold.

  “Um…” Josh groped for a way to make himself more clear.

  “You want to bring the newborn puppies here to the shelter?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t get it,” she replied, obviously angry. “Why don’t you save a trip into town and just kill them yourself?”

  “What?” Josh gasped. “What do you mean, kill them myself? What are you talking about?”

  “Yeah, you do know we’d have to euthanize them immediately, don’t you? We don’t have the resources to hand-feed five babies around the clock. You do, but apparently it’s too much of a hassle for you.”

  “I do,” Josh repeated stupidly.

  “It takes a lactating female willing to adopt them, which you just told me you had.”

  “But won’t she eventually figure out the dogs aren’t hers?” Josh asked.

  “So?”

  “So, I mean … I saw this thing one time about wolves, and when they figured out the cubs didn’t have their DNA, the adults killed them.”

  “And that’s why you want to bring the puppies to us.”

  “Sure, yeah, that and I thought that I had to. I mean, legally. I know it can’t be legal to have six dogs living in your house unless you’re a breeder. I thought, abandoned dogs, you’re supposed to call the shelter. I would have called the vet but his line’s still down.”

  “You’re worried about the puppies, that’s why you want to bring them in. Not because you’re the biggest creep in America.” Kerri sounded relieved.

  “Won’t she abandon them when she senses they’re not her puppies?” Josh fretted.

  “You know, I guess she could, but I’ve never heard of it happening. We had a lactating dog here one time who nursed two kittens for us.”

  “No way.”

  “Seriously. I mean, maybe the alpha male wolf would kill cubs that weren’t his, I don’t know about that, but your dog isn’t going to hurt those puppies.”

  “She’s sort of acting, though, like she’s rejecting them.” Josh described how just moments ago Lucy had refused to return to her pillow.

  “You think maybe she’s just tired of taking care of them? Wouldn’t you need a break?”

  “I thought they liked it. You always hear about mothers getting this endorphin release when they nurse their babies.”

 
; “Five of them?” Kerri challenged, laughing.

  Josh had time to think of a reply as a storm of static interrupted their conversation. Unfortunately, all he could come up with was “Oh.”

  “And you’re allowed to have a litter of puppies. You’re right, the county limits you to three dogs, but you have something like six months to adopt them out.”

  “Huh.”

  “You don’t sound happy,” Kerri observed, her voice turning chilly again.

  “It’s just … I’ve never had a dog before in my life and I don’t know how to take care of one and now I have a half dozen of them. The vet says that the reason the puppies were stillborn was because they ate crappy dog food. I’ve got good dog food, but what else am I doing wrong, you know? I don’t have Internet back up yet, so I can’t even research it. Like, it looks sometimes like Lucy’s lying right on top of the babies,” Josh explained, putting his finger on what had been causing him the most anxiety. “Am I supposed to maybe line them up for her or something?”

  Kerri laughed. “No, they’re fine. I’m glad that you’re worried you’re not doing the right things, though. That means you’ll take good care of them. Call us any time; we can help you with all your questions, or tell you when we think you should contact the vet. And if you’re willing to foster the puppies, we’ll take care of adopting them to their forever homes for you.”

  Josh told her that would be great and Kerri took down his address and said someone would be out to see him in a few days. “Are the roads clear up where you are? I’m hearing there are still rockslides and downed trees all over. Crazy weather.”

  “I haven’t been out on the roads yet,” Josh told her. “I was going to head into town soon.”

  “Might be best to wait until tomorrow, you could get stuck sitting on the road while the county clears a rockslide,” Kerri advised.

  After they hung up Josh discovered she was right: standing on the rocks at his connectivity corner and surfing with his cell phone, he found that the road crews were all out clearing rocks and cars and that people were asked not to venture out unless it was strictly necessary. Josh spent the day watching the puppies. Now that he knew Lucy wasn’t going to reject the newborns, he found it easy to just sit and stare at the tiny dogs as they squeaked and nuzzled each other and their mommy.