One Door From Heaven

watches the mist with such interest that she exhibits no impatience when Curtis takes a while to strip off the stubborn wrapping from the second jerky. Ears pricked, head cocked, she focuses not on the treat, but on the mystery that is the meadow.
        Her species has been granted limited but significant intellect, also emotions and hope. What most separates her from humankind and from other higher life forms isn't her mental capacity, however, but her innocence. The dog's self-interest expresses only in matters of survival, never degenerating into the selfishness that is expressed in an infinite variety of ways by those who consider themselves her betters. This innocence carries with it a clarity of perception that allows her to glory in the wonder of creation in even the most humble scene and quiet moment, to be aware of it every minute of every hour, while most human beings pass days or even weeks-and too often whole lives-with their sense of wonder drowned in their sense of self.
        Unwrapped jerky, of course, takes precedence over the meadow and the mist. She eats with a sense of wonder, too, with pure delight.
        Curtis opens one of the packets of crackers. He allows the dog two of the six little sandwiches with peanut-butter filling. She's had all she needs now, and he doesn't want her to be sick.
        Eventually, he'll provide more balanced nutrition for her-but a better diet will have to wait until they are no longer in imminent danger of being gutted, beheaded, shredded, broken, blasted, burned, and worse. Running in desperate fear for your life is pretty much a righteous justification for eating junk food.
        Old Yeller takes another drink from the stream, then returns to Curtis and lies with her spine pressed snugly against the length of his left leg. Eating cracker sandwiches, he strokes her side with his left hand-slowly, comfortingly. Soon she is asleep.
        Commotion contributes to concealment, and motion is commotion. He would be safer if he remained on the move, and safer still if he reached a populous area and mingled with a great many people.
        The dog, however, doesn't have his stamina. He can't ask her to exhaust herself from lack of sleep and risk running herself to death.
        He finishes the four cracker sandwiches in the first pack, eats all six in the second pack, follows the crackers with the candy bar, and concludes breakfast with a bag of peanuts. Life is good.
        As he eats, his thoughts are drawn to Gabby's abandonment of the Mercury Mountaineer in the middle of the salt flats. The caretaker's conduct was at best eccentric and at worst psychotic.
        Gabby's personality and behavior have been the most alien that Curtis has encountered on this adventure. Although many things about the cantankerous desert rat puzzle the boy, the explosive exit from the SUV, punctuated by a storm of foul language, and the flight on foot across the fluorescent plain are the most baffling. He can't quite believe that his well-meant criticism of Gabby's pronunciation of cojones could have caused the old man to hightail it into the barrens in an uncontrolled emotional fit of rage and /or humiliation.
        Another possibility teases at the back of Curtis's mind, but he can't quite haul it out in the light for inspection. As he's puzzling over the matter, he's distracted when the dog begins to dream.
        She signals her dreaming with a whimper: not a cry of fear, but a wistful sound. Her forepaws twitch, and from the movement of her hind legs, Curtis infers that she is running in her dream.
        He puts his hand on her flank, which rises and hills rapidly with her breathing. He feels her heart beat: strong and quick.
        Unlike the boy for whom he named himself, this Curtis never sleeps. Therefore he never dreams. Curiosity compels him to employ the special boy-dog bond that synchronizes his mind to that of his sister-becoming. Thus he enters the secret world of her dreams.
        A puppy among puppies, she suckles at a teat, enraptured by the throb of her mother's heart, which pulses through the nipple into her greedy lips, and then she submits to her mother's licking, the great warm tongue, the black nuzzling nose icy with affection… scrambles clumsily over Mother's furry flank, climbing eagerly as though some mystery lies beyond the curve of her mother's ribs, an astonishment that she must see, must see… and then fur fades into