U Is for Undertow

damp ash, the lingering scent of last winter’s fires.
    Flannagan indicated that I should sit and I settled in a chair with an ancient black horsehair seat. Given my trivial mental processes, I was momentarily distracted by the notion of horsehair, wondering if the chair was literally upholstered in an equine hide. Couldn’t be done in this day and age, but our forebears weren’t troubled by the sorts of sentiments we harbor today, believing animals were intended for Man’s use. Even in death, nothing went to waste.
    Flannagan sat down to my right on a rose-colored velvet settee with an ornate dark mahogany trim. The nap had worn thin in places, but the tufting was still crisp and all the buttons were in place. He rested his elbows on his knees, his gnarly fingers loosely laced together. “What’s your interest in Ulf? He’s been gone the better part of twenty years.”
    “I know. If my information’s correct, he was buried in Horton Ravine in July of 1967.”
    Flannagan was shaking his head. “That’s not possible. You’re mistaken.”
    “According to the best guess, he was a German shepherd.” I reached into my jacket pocket and removed the blue leather collar with the tag attached. I handed it to him. He studied the disk, front and back, and then ran his thumb across the dog’s name.
    “Shit.”
    “I take it you know the dog.”
    “He belonged to my son. Liam died in a motorcycle accident in 1964. Eighteen years old. He laid his Harley down in a patch of gravel on the 101 and skidded into the path of an oncoming car.”
    I watched him without a word, letting him tell it his way.
    He tilted his head this way and that to loosen tension, which created muffled pops. His blue eyes met mine. “Ulf wasn’t a shepherd. He was a wolfdog. You know anything about the breed?”
    “Wolfdogs? No clue.”
    “Ulf was what they call a high-content hybrid, meaning genetically he was more Canis lupus than Canis lupus familiaris . A hybrid is usually the result of a female wolf mated to a male domestic dog. I’m generalizing here, but as a rule, they don’t make good pets. They’re too high-spirited and demanding. Smart as all get-out, but they’re difficult to housebreak. Chain ’em up in the yard and they go berserk.”
    “How long did your son have the dog?”
    “Not much more than a year. Liam was in his biker phase and probably sold dope, though I never pressed him on the subject. He would have lied if I had so what’s the point? He bought the dog from a guy who had a litter of six in the back of his pickup truck. I guess if you deal drugs, owning a wolfdog lends you a certain dangerous air. They’re aggressive and predatory and they have those eerie gold eyes that look straight into your soul. Hold on. I’ll show you something.”
    He got up and crossed the room to a carved oak breakfront he was using as a catchall—keys, junk mail, tools, paperbacks, a silver tea set with the creamer missing. He picked up a framed color photograph, looking at it for a moment before he crossed the room again and handed it to me. “That’s the two of them.”
    I angled the photo to eliminate the glare. Liam must have inherited his mother’s coloring. Unlike his father, he was dark-haired and dark-eyed. He did have his father’s physique in a lighter body style. He wore a black leather jacket, jeans, and black boots. He was hunkered beside the young dog, which stood facing the camera with a wary air of intelligence. He looked like a German shepherd except that his torso was slimmer and his legs were longer. His coat was medium length and appeared rough, a grizzled black with layers of gray near his head. The mask of white across his face attested to the strong genetic presence of wolf.
    “He’s beautiful. The name, Ulf, as in ‘wolf’?”
    Flannagan smiled. “Liam came up with that. He was just a little fluff ball when he got him. Six weeks old. Even as a pup, he was a handful. I never once heard him bark, but when he howled, even as a baby, it would raise the hair on the back of your neck. Dog like that is always testing—the more wolf, the more testing. Liam was alpha male, which meant when he died, no one else could really handle the dog.”
    “So he reverted to you?”
    “That’s about the size of it. Wolves are pack animals. They have a clear social structure. There’s only room for one leader, and it better be you. You want alpha status with a dog like that; you have to teach him he’s