Bobbie, Md

Chapter One

Bobbie sprang close to Danny’s little legs, yipping excitedly, running through the stream, then up the hillside. Like big butterfly wings, the dog’s honey-colored cocker ears rose to a point above his head, fell, flapped, and rose again.

Looking over his shoulder, Danny tugged mightily on the kite string. The brilliant orange, white and blue kite soared behind him, diving and darting in the gusts of wind. The seven-year old boy raced up the grassy rises, then down, twisting and turning and hollering.

Yippee! Watch this, Bobbie! Danny yanked on the string and almost stumbled.

The dog jumped and yelped, nipping Danny’s legs gently, as though to keep him upright.

Bobbie kept pace with Danny, mimicking him at times, looking backwards while running forward, his ears flapping out of sync as his head changed directions. He had exhausted his bark, but his mouth opened and closed as he ran from the flying object that pursued them.

From his spot on the bench, Danny’s father looked up from his medical journal. He smiled as he saw his son and the cocker spaniel racing on their little legs towards the edge of the park.

What a team! he thought. Both seven years old and Danny’s growing stronger every year. He folded the magazine in half, tapped it against his leg, and leaned back against the bench. So much had happened since Bobbie had come, so many wonderful, things. Who would guess that the boy, who now ran like the wind, could not even crawl when he was a year and a half, and there was little hope he ever would, that is, until the young cocker showed up!

His father closed his eyes, remembering. The dog had simply appeared on the front porch and would not leave.

For three days, the cocker stayed, whimpering, waiting, and refusing to leave. It was then that his son first tried to crawl to the glass slider, raising and lowering his bottom repeatedly, but not moving forward, as he reached out for the dog.

When no one claimed the cocker, his wife brought him in and bathed him. The simple act of kindness uncovered the beautiful honey-colored dog hidden beneath hair snarled with foxtails, hairballs and dirt. He would never forget Danny’s eyes, seeing the clean dog. They seemed incandescent! And, Danny repeated the only word he knew: bobbie, his word for baby, so the young dog was named Bobbie.

The attraction between the two was magnetic. As if trying to provoke Danny to move by himself, Bobbie would lick the boy’s face. Danny would extend his little hands and reach for the pup, but Bobbie would playfully back away, his head lowered onto his front paws as he scooted backwards and yipped. Soon, Danny’s reaching out became a scoot along the floor. Then, Danny pulled himself up one day, and he walked to the dog that had stayed out of reach until that moment.

He could never express the joy that he and his wife felt when their son walked. The magical relationship between the boy and this cocker spaniel was beyond words … it was a prime slice of life. Following Danny’s traumatic birth, and the development of meningitis, doctors had given them the worst of news: Their son would not develop normally, and he might never walk. A physician himself, he knew they were probably right, but as a dermatologist with no practical experience in neurological matters, he scoured the literature for a cure and prayed the predictions were wrong, and that something would come along.

Something did come along, Bobbie. In time, because of his relationship with the little dog, Danny overcame the obstacles illness had placed in his path. So impressive was his son’s recovery that he and his wife referred to Bobbie as the real M. D., the real Miracle Dog. It was not long before the restless nights and the leg pains that had plagued Danny were gone. Soon, his only child was chatting and running, and to everyone’s delight, he became a very lively kid. A wealth of memories, he thought, as he looked across at the frolicking pair.

He remembered Bobbie had been the first to sleep through the night, and of course, Danny was the first to say mama. However, Bobbie soon learned to mimic the word and dance on his hind legs. Bobbie had run first, and Danny, to their continuing astonishment, soon followed.

The amazing interaction became even more amazing in a larger sense. Simple things at first, such as the dog watching him read medical books and journals in his den. Soon the dog was trying to sit at the desk, as if not realizing that he was a dog. Many times he would find Bobbie salivating over a medical text that the dog had pulled from a shelf, as if to read, too. Bobbie would chew pencils, croon at the moon, and jump at what Danny wanted to do before the boy said it.

His father brushed a lock of red hair from his forehead and chuckled, recalling how he would find Bobbie on his desk, hunched between journals and golf trophies, voraciously looking at a book. The dog even turned the pages with his paws, and barked, as if asking him to explain the text. Often, the book was the Atlas of the Universe, which would be open to the constellation Orion, and Sirius, the Dog Star, the brightest star of all. So, he would nod, feeling as if he was actually sharing information with Bobbie.

The dog liked television too, but only if Danny turned it on. Then they would sprawl on their bellies in front of the tube, with heads held high, and intently watch the action, especially, if it was on Animal Planet.

When Danny started school, Bobbie would sit and whine, and wait at the window until Danny came home. When Bobbie had to go to the vet for shots Danny almost became ill, waiting for him to return.

Danny learned to ride a bike, and whistle, to read and write, and to fly a kite. Bobbie is still learning, his son would say.

The wind suddenly died down, breaking Danny’s father’s, reverie. The kite looped high then began a crazy, downward spiral.

C’mon, Bobbie! Let’s go! Danny shouted, picking up his pace and struggling to make the sagging pendant soar again.

Running along the rim of the last grassy rise, the silhouetted pair’s rapidly crisscrossing legs were like an image from a silent movie. From atop the hill, the orange, white and blue kite was still high enough to be beautifully backlit by the lumped-up white clouds, stacked to the heavens by the March wind.

Danny’s father sat with an arm across the back of the bench, enjoying the scene. However, as the pair raced down that last rise, he jumped up and yelled for them to stop. The street traffic was on the other side, and there was no railing.

Danny’s whooping and hollering were too loud for him to hear, and his father realized with horror that his shouts of warnings were unheard.

The sounds of squealing tires and a racing engine cut through the air and bore into his father’s ears. From somewhere down in his soul, a pleading voice roared out and felt smothered by the cree-ee-ee coming from the vehicle.

But the cocker spaniel heard the terrifying cries.

Bobbie’s ears flapped, as he looked from the kite to the street. Suddenly, the dog reversed his direction and ran into Danny’s legs, sending the boy sprawling. Unable to stop, Bobbie continued to slide, right into the path of the speeding car.

Smashing into Bobbie, the sporty, red coup continued its frenzied journey, colliding with a trashcan, sending it into the air, and into the windshield. On, went the speeding vehicle, teetering from side to side on screeching tires. It accelerated furiously before slamming its right front fender into a woman sitting on a park bench. Then, with a roar, the car spun in a circle and raced back in the direction it had come from.

While others in the park ran to the aid of the woman, Danny’s father ran to his son and threw himself across his body, holding him tightly, while tears coursed down his cheeks. He raised the boy up and lifted him in his arms. A few feet away, Bobbie lay limp, bloodied and twisted. In his last act, the dog had given everything he had by saving Danny.

The evidence of how the cocker spaniel tripped Danny was in the soil next to the highway. The deep imprints left by the dog’s paws, as he knowingly gave his life to save the boy, were easily read.

Look at that, was all his father could say.

Securely snuggled against his father’s chest, Danny repeatedly asked between sobs, "Is Bobbie dead, Daddy? Is he?"

"Shh, now, Danny," his father soothed. He held his son closer.

"Oh, Daddy! Danny cried. Will he go to heaven? Will he?"

Yes, I’m sure of it, he answered earnestly, placing a tender kiss on the tousled red hair of his son, grateful his boy was alive, and hoping the woman would, somehow, be all right. He glanced at the dog’s broken body, at the points of honey-colored hair wafting in the breeze, noticing for the first time the strands of gray on Bobbie’s ears. Those long, jolly ears — now stilled.

Bobbie! Danny cried aloud, a yearning, calling cry. "Bobbie, Bobbie, I don’t want you to leave me …."

Chapter Two

Bobbie remembered being hit by something awful, and now … he had to think about this, for he was certain that he was falling, but falling upward! Clouds oozed by his silky fetters and ears, as he wafted along on the updraft. This was very strange indeed. He had fallen many times: from the sofa, the bed, even into the pool. But he had always fallen down, and landed, sometimes with a thud. This was not the usual fall.

What’s happening? he wondered.

Through a break in the clouds, he caught a glimpse of something orange, white and blue, crumpled, way down there on the ground. Then something red zipped out of his sight. There were many people huddled together, and a man and a little red-haired boy were kneeling over something, but they were too far away, and the something they knelt over, was too small for him to see well.

"Bobbie, the boy wailed. I need you … don’t leave me … " but the sounds were so far away from the dog, and growing fainter.

Suddenly, Bobbie was spinning through a yawning of space and time, past all the distant light specks. Gorgeous colors blossomed. Rays of light erupted through new, towering clouds, as Bobbie whirled higher and higher.

Then lightning crackled and branched the skies, and he was whirled still higher and beyond. The distant thunder began to sound like a barking chorus of dogs, and mingling with it were strange sounds, like dogs’ voices, coming from the direction of Sirius, the brightest star of all, but the sun.

He’s coming, Major, said the white Irish setter.

From within a great radiance atop the sparkling, ethereal stairs a soothing, but commanding voice spoke. I know. He was splendid, as I knew he would be.

Are you going to tell him? The setter looked lovingly at the Major.

No, I would like you to do that. You are so like him, very gentle and caring. He will understand what you tell him, and he will remember some of what has happened. When you finish, bring him here. I am eager to see him. He is really an amazing dog with a voracious appetite for learning. Why, he read every medical book he could sink his teeth into.

The white setter bowed, lowering his muzzle on to his extended paws as all dogs do, and turned away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Whumff! Bobbie drifted down into a pile of clouds, bouncing gently when he finally stopped falling. He struggled to stand, watching in amazement where his feet disappeared in the vapors. There was something firm beneath the wisps of mist … and that something smelled like … like a dog biscuit! He snorted and blew away a puff of white. There it was! A huge dog biscuit, the size of a step! As the mists cleared beneath him he saw more biscuits laying end to end, forming a road. He blinked hard. The place was paved with dog biscuits, and colorful dog-bone picket fences stretched endlessly across fields strewn with biscuit boulders. Beautiful biscuits, hydrants, and lampposts were everywhere. Which raised the question: Where was he?

Suddenly, a magnificent, white Irish setter stood before him, its hair and fetters gleaming, as though the sun and moon were trapped beneath them. Awed, Bobbie was barkless.

Welcome home, Bobbie. We have been waiting for you.

Oh, thought Bobbie, the setter’s voice is as soft as the memory of my own mother’s tongue, licking my face. He tilted his head, hanging it a bit out of respect for this splendid creature, listening to every whisper. For as dogs’ lives are seven times faster than humans’, their words are seven times faster too, and what sounds to humans like yips, yaps, barks and whines, are a dog’s story. A dog’s hearing is acute, as well, and hears all, and Bobbie, trained in all earthly interruptions, hung on every word the setter uttered, and wondered how he knew so much.

How do you know my name? Bobbie asked. This is not my home. I don’t even know where I am. And, please, who are you?

The great, white setter sat down opposite him. It was some time ago that you left. In dog time, it has been about forty-nine years since we last saw you, Bobbie. There was a very special job to be done, and only you had the qualifications for it. And, he added, you performed splendidly.

The white setter licked his foreleg with his long pink tongue, while he watched Bobbie for a reaction. Is it coming back to you?

Images and sounds flickered in Bobbie’s mind. He vividly remembered a hand stroke his coat, then shouting, feet stirring the ground. He saw darkness, a young dog, a baby, a dog and a boy. There was something else, something he could not see. It had no name, but he felt it, and it soothed him, and caused his heart to ache, all at once. A brilliant orange, white and blue object flashed before him, then a red blob racing away. It was what he had seen through the clouds coming here. It was a speeding car! Then he was here. Yes, it was all coming back. His first special job had been to save the boy. It was so long ago that he had forgotten this place, and ever being here. Now, he had saved the boy … twice. He looked again at