One Door From Heaven

here. I'll be back. With food."
        A man looms over them-tall, with a glossy black beard, wearing a green cap with the words DRIVING MACHINE in yellow letters above the bill-not the customer who was at the cash register, but another who's on his way into the restaurant. "That's sure a fine tailwagger you have there," the driving machine says, and the dog obligingly swishes his tail, sweeping the pavement on which he sits. "Got a name?”
        "Curtis Hammond," he replies without hesitation, using the name of the boy whose clothes he wears, but at once wonders if this is a wise choice.
        Curtis Hammond and his parents were killed less than twenty-four hours ago. If by now the Colorado authorities have realized that the fire at the farmhouse was arson, and if autopsies have revealed that the three victims were savagely assaulted, perhaps tortured, all dead before the fire was set, then the names of the murdered have surely been heard widely on news broadcasts.
        With no apparent recognition of the name, the bearded trucker, who may be only what he appears to be, but who may also be Death with facial hair, says, "Curtis Hammond. That's a powerfully peculiar name for a dog."
        "Oh. Yeah. My dog," the boy says, feeling stupid and dismally incompetent at this passing-for-nobody-special business. He hasn't given a thought to naming his four-legged companion, because he's known that eventually, when he bonds better with the animal, he'll arrive at not just any name, but at the exactly right one. With no time to wait for better bonding, scratching the dog under the chin, he takes inspiration from a movie: "The name's Old Yeller."
        Amused, the trucker cocks his head and says, "You yankin' my chain, young fella?"
        "No, sir. Why would I?"
        "And what's the logic, callin' this beauty Old Yeller, when there's not one yellow hair from nose to tail tip?"
        Abashed at his nervous bumbling in the face of this man's easy and nonthreatening conversation, the boy tries to recover from his foolish gaff. "Well, sir, color doesn't have anything to do with it. We like the name just because this here is the best old dog in the world, just exactly like Old Yeller in the movie."
        "Not exactly like," the driving machine disagrees. "Old Yeller was a male. This lovely black-and-white lady here must get a mite confused from time to time, bein' called a male name and a color she isn't."
        The boy hasn't previously given much thought to the gender of the dog. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
        He remembers his mother's counsel that in order to pass for someone you're not, you must have confidence, confidence above all else, because self-consciousness and self-doubt fade the disguise. He must not allow himself to be rattled by the trucker's latest observation.
        "Oh, we don't think of it as just a male name or a female name," the boy explains, still nervous but pleased by his growing fluency, which improves when he keeps his attention on the pooch instead of looking up at the trucker. "Any dog could be a Yeller."
        "Evidently so. I think I'll buy me a girl cat and call her Mr. Rover."
        No meanness is evident in this tall, somewhat portly man, no suspicion or calculation in his twinkling blue eyes. He looks like Santa Claus with a dye job.
        Nevertheless, standing erect, the boy wishes the trucker would go away, but he can't think of a thing to say to make him leave. "Where's your folks, son?" the man asks.
        "I'm with my dad. He's inside getting takeout, so we can eat on the road. They won't let our dog in, you know."
        Frowning, surveying the activity at the service islands and the contrasting quiet of the acres of parked vehicles, the trucker says,
        "You shouldn't stray from right here, son. There's all kinds of people in the world, and some you don't want to meet at night in a lonely corner of a parkin' lot."
        "Sure, I know about their kind."
        The dog sits up straighter and pricks her ears, as if to say that she, too, is well informed about such fiends.
        Smiling, reaching down to stroke the lovely lady's head, the trucker says, "I guess you'll be all right with Old Yeller here to take a chunk of meat out of anyone who might try to do you wrong."
        "She's real protective," the boy assures him.
        "Just don't you stray from here," the driving machine warns. He tugs on the bill of his green