Watchers

rental house came fully—if unimaginatively and cheaply—furnished, with upholstery chosen for durability (vinyl) or for the ability to conceal ineradicable stains (eye-searing plaids). Instead of wood, there was lots of wood-finish Formica that was resistant to chipping, scratching, abrasion, and cigarette burns. Virtually the only things in the place reflecting Travis Cornell’s own tastes and interests were the books—both paperbacks and hardcovers— that filled the shelves in the living room.
    The dog appeared to be intensely curious about at least some of those few hundred volumes.
    Getting to his feet, Travis said, “What is it, boy? What’s got your tail in an uproar?”
    The retriever jumped onto its hind feet, put its forepaws on one of the shelves, and sniffed the spines of the books. It glanced at Travis, then returned to its eager examination of his library.
    He went to the shelf in question, withdrew one of the volumes to which the dog had pressed its nose— Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson— and held it out. “This? You’re interested in this?”
    The dog studied the painting of Long John Silver and a pirate ship that adorned the dust jacket. It looked up at Travis, then down at Long John Silver again. After a moment, it dropped back from the shelf, onto the floor, dashed to the shelves on the other side of the archway, leaped up again, and began sniffing other books.
    Travis replaced Treasure Island and followed the retriever. It was now applying its damp nose to his collection of Charles Dickens’s novels. Travis Picked up a paperback of A Tale of Two Cities.
    Again, the retriever carefully studied the cover illustration as if actually trying to determine what the book was about, then looked up expectantly at Travis.
    Utterly baffled, he said, “The French Revolution. Guillotines. Beheadings. Tragedy and heroism. It’s . . . uh . . . well, it’s all about the importance of valuing individuals over groups, about the need to place a far greater value on one man’s or woman’s life than on the advancement of the masses.”
    The dog returned its attention to the tomes shelved in front of it, sniffing, sniffing.
    “This is nuts,” Travis said, putting A Tale of Two Cities back where he’d gotten it. “I’m giving plot synopses to a dog, for God’s sake!”
    Dropping its big forepaws down to the next shelf, the retriever panted and snuffled over the literature on that row. When Travis did not pull any of those books out for inspection, the dog tilted its head to get into the shelf, gently gripped a volume in its teeth, and tried to withdraw it for further examination.
    “Whoa,” Travis said, reaching for the book. “Keep your slobber off the fine bindings, fur face. This one’s Oliver Twist. Another Dickens. The story of an orphan in Victorian England. He gets involved with shady characters, the criminal underworld, and they—”
    The retriever dropped to the floor and padded back to the shelves on the other side of the archway, where it continued to sniff at those volumes within its reach. Travis could have sworn it even gazed up wistfully at the books that were above its head.
    For perhaps five minutes, in the grip of an eerie premonition that something of tremendous importance was about to happen, Travis followed the dog, showing it the covers of a dozen novels, providing a line or two of plot description of each story. He had no idea if that was what the precocious pooch wanted him to do. Surely, it could not understand the synopses he provided. Yet it seemed to listen raptly as he spoke. He knew he must be misinterpreting essentially meaningless animal behavior, attributing complex intentions to the dog when it had none. Still, a premonitory tingle coursed along the back of his neck. As their peculiar search continued, Travis half-expected some startling revelation at any moment—and at the same time felt increasingly gullible and foolish.
    His taste in fiction was eclectic. Among the volumes he took off the shelves were Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes and Chandler’s The Long Goodbye. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice and Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Two books by Richard Condon and one by Anne
    Tyler. Dorothy Sayers’s Murder Must Advertise and Elmore Leonard’s 52 Pick- Up.
    At last the dog turned away from the books and went to the middle of the room, where it padded back and forth, back and forth, clearly agitated. It stopped,