The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. David Wroblewski

said, when Edgar asked her about it. “That’s how Claude feels. To him, the dog’s a trespasser.”

      Then, perhaps sensing its efforts were underappreciated, the dog stopped bringing gifts, but by then Claude had begun his campaign. Bitter arguments erupted, Claude adamant that the stray be shot, Edgar’s father steadfastly refusing. His mother tried to make peace, but she, too, thought the stray needed to be dealt with. Two nights later there was an uproar in the kennel that had all four of them out in pajamas trying to calm the dogs. They couldn’t find anything wrong. What had happened was obvious, Claude said. The stray had tried to climb into one of the pens. At the idea, some pure form of anxiety inhabited Edgar. He didn’t want the dog caught, not if it meant loading it into the truck and driving it away. Yet, if it was getting bolder, something bad was bound to happen.

      The problem was, he’d begun thinking of names. It was his job, he couldn’t help it, even if he knew it was a bad idea. And only one name seemed right. As if the original Forte had come back.

      ON SATURDAY, HIS PARENTS took a trio of yearlings to Phillips for Ice Age Days to proof them around crowds. At first Claude planned to go along, then decided to work on the barn while the good weather held.

      Edgar and Almondine spent the morning with a litter of three-month olds. After the crazywalking, which taught them that people were unpredictable and must be watched, Edgar put them in stays and tossed tennis balls to Almondine in front of them. She was an old hand at distraction training, and she chewed the prizes ferociously, whipping her head from side to side. When the pups held their stay for a ten count, he motioned them free, and there was a mad scramble. Now and then Claude hoisted himself up onto the ridge beam of the barn and sat, shoulders brown and slick with sweat.

      After lunch, Edgar fell asleep on the couch while watching television and reading. Distantly, he heard Claude come into the house and leave again, but he thought nothing of it. When he woke, the apple trees seethed in the wind. Outside he found Almondine standing beside the silo, tail down and peering into the western field.

      Two deer and a fawn grazed in the hay, small dun figures at that distance. Downwind of them, Forte crouched, stock still, and Claude, in turn, stood downwind of Forte near the wind-lashed tree line. In his arms, loosely cradled, the long black form of a rifle.

      The deer flicked their tails uneasily and cantered along the woods’ edge. As soon as they moved, Forte trotted forward, hips low, but instead of charging the deer, he slunk into the woods and disappeared. When the deer began grazing, Claude also retreated into the trees, taking steps so slow Edgar could hardly see the motion.

      He turned and ran Almondine to the porch, then closed the door and bolted for the trail behind the garden. At the rock pile, halfway downfield, the path curved around a patch of dogwood, and there he found Claude standing in a small clearing, looking over the raised barrel of the rifle. Thirty yards farther, just inside the forest’s edge, stood Forte. Edgar hadn’t seen the dog in daylight since he’d faced them at the old oak. His ribs showed through his coat and his belly drew up in a steep arc against his backbone. The dog’s ears were peaked forward, and he was drawing fast, deep breaths.

      When Edgar reached Claude, he put his hand on the rifle stock. Claude knocked Edgar’s hand away.

      “Get out of here,” he muttered. “Get back to the house.”

      He’s almost come in twice, he signed, knowing that at best Claude would only gist it. He can’t catch them, not by himself.

      He reached for the rifle again. This time Claude turned and grasped the front of his shirt and Edgar found himself sprawling backward into the dry leaves and undergrowth, fighting for balance and then hoping he might make enough racket to get Forte’s attention. But the wind was gusting through the treetops, and the stray was intent on the motions of the fawn.

      He didn’t hear Almondine coming. Suddenly, there was a huffing beside him and she stood there, panting furiously, gaze riveted on the stray.

      Edgar swept an open hand in front of her face.

      Stay.

      She saw the command coming and tried to look away, but he got her attention and repeated it. She dropped into a sit. When he turned, Claude had settled the rifle against his shoulder. Edgar watched his finger tighten over the trigger, but there was no kick, no roar. Claude fumbled along the stock, searching for the safety.

      From the time they were pups, Sawtelle dogs learned that stay meant remaining not just still but quiet—that whining and barking were a kind of following. And Almondine was in a stay.

      Edgar turned to her and touched a hand to his temple.

      Watch me.

      Her great head swiveled to face him.

      Release.

      He meant to catch her before she moved, but her hindquarters came off the ground before he’d even completed the sign. All he could do was lunge and clamp his fingers around the hock of her back leg. She sprawled out in the path with a loud yelp.

      It was enough to make Claude glance away from the rifle sights. Then Almondine was up again, forging ahead, half dragging Edgar along the path. He finally got in front of her and put his hand around her muzzle and forced her to look him in the eye.

      Speak, he signed.

      And then Almondine began to bay.

      This time Forte couldn’t mistake the sounds behind him for wind. He turned and saw them and leapt away all in a single motion. Claude swung the muzzle of the rifle to track the fleeing dog, but there was nothing left to sight on but swinging branches.

      Edgar didn’t realize he’d loosened his grip on Almondine’s collar until she was already away, bounding down the path. She crossed in front of Claude. For a moment, the muzzle of the rifle dropped and tracked her, and then, without pause, Claude pivoted to the field and shot the smaller of the two deer as it stretched its neck, wide-eyed and preparing for flight. The other deer shrieked, executed three springing leaps, then vanished into the woods with the fawn close behind.

      Edgar scrambled into the field. The doe lay kicking convulsively. Blood arced from the wound in her neck. Her eye rolled to look at him. Claude walked up beside Edgar and lowered the muzzle of the rifle to the animal’s chest and pulled the trigger. Even before the report finished coming back off the hills, Claude had turned and begun walking toward the house, rifle grasped loosely by his leg like a stick of lumber.

      For a long time Edgar stood looking at the deer—her brown hide, her black-tipped ears. Crimson blood seeped from her wounds and then stopped. Almondine appeared at the edge of the field, panting. She trotted over, then froze and approached the animal step by step. The moment when Almondine had passed in front of the rifle’s muzzle kept replaying in Edgar’s mind.

      Come on, he signed. Get away from that.

      They met Claude walking back into the field carrying a hunting knife and a spade.

      “Hold on a second,” he said.

      Edgar stopped, then began to walk again.

      “Okay, but you’re gonna have to make a decision in a while,” Claude said to his back. “We can help each other here if we want to.”

      HE SPENT THE EVENING in the barn, Almondine close by, grooming dogs until his hands ached. Claude approached him once, but Edgar turned away. The sun had set and the stars were coming into sight overhead when the truck pulled into the driveway.

      The carcass of the deer hung by one back leg from a low branch of the maple tree. His father was asking questions even before he was out of the cab. Claude walked over to meet them. Forte had finally downed a deer, he said. He’d watched it from the barn roof, but by the time he’d gotten the rifle the deer was down and the stray was working on it, and he’d fired a shot to scare it off.

      “The doe was still alive but tore up pretty bad. No choice but to shoot it. I didn’t want to leave it, so I dressed it out and took off the one leg he’d chewed up and brought it back here,” he said.