Winter Moon

when they tried to pet him, a jubilation of fur and warm tongue and cold nose and heart-melting brown eyes. When he calmed down, he chose to sit in front of Toby, to whom he offered a raised paw.
        "He can shake hands!" Toby exclaimed, and proceeded to take the paw and pump it.
        "He knows a lot of tricks," Travis said. "Where'd he come from?" Jack asked. "A couple in town, Leona and Harry Seaquist. They had goldens.all their lives.
        Falstaff here was the latest."
        "He seems too nice to just be given up." Travis nodded.
        "Sad case. A year ago, Leona got cancer, was gone in three months.
        Few weeks back, Harry suffered a stroke, lost the use of his left arm.
        Speech is slurred, and his memory isn't so good. Had to go to Denver to live with his son, but they didn't want the dog. Harry cried like a baby when he said goodbye to Falstaff. I promised him I'd find a good home for the pooch."
        Toby was on his knees, hugging the golden around the neck, and it was licking the side of his face. "We'll give him the best home any dog ever had anywhere anytime ever, won't we, Mom, won't we, Dad?"
        To Travis, Heather said, "How sweet of Paul Youngblood to call you about us."
        "Well, he heard mention your boy wanted a dog. And this isn't the city, everyone living in a rat race. We have plenty of time around here to meddle in other people's business." He had a broad, engaging smile.
        The chilling breeze had grown stronger as they talked. Suddenly it gusted into a whistling wind, flattened the brown grass, whipped Heather's hair across her face, and drove needles of cold into her.
        "Travis," she said, shaking hands with him again, "when can you come for dinner?"
        "Well, maybe Sunday a week."
        "A week from Sunday it is," she said. "Six o'clock."
        To Toby, she said, "Come on, peanut, let's get inside."
        "I want to play with Falstaff."
        "You can get to know him in the house," she insisted. "It's too cold out here."
        "He's got fur," Toby protested. "It's you I'm worried about, dummkopf.
        You're going to get a frostbitten nose, and then it'll be as black as Falstaff's."
        Halfway to the house, padding along between Heather and Toby, the dog stopped and looked back at Travis Potter. The vet made a go-ahead wave with one hand, and that seemed sufficient permission for Falstaff. He accompanied them up the steps and into the warm front hall..Travis Potter had brought a fifty-pound bag of dry dog food with him.
        He hefted it out of the back of his Range Rover and put it on the ground against a rear tire. "Figured you wouldn't have dog chow on hand just in case someone happened by with a golden retriever." He explained what and how much to feed a dog Falstaff's size.
        "What do we owe you?" Jack asked. "Zip. He didn't cost me. Just doing a favor for poor Harry."
        "That's nice of you. Thanks. But for the dog food?"
        "Don't worry about it. In years to come, Falstaff's going to need his regular shots, general looking after. When you bring him to me, I'll soak you plenty."
        Grinning, he slammed the tailgate. They went around to the side of the Rover farthest from the house, using it as shelter from the worst of the biting wind.
        Travis said, "Understand Paul told you in private bout Eduardo and his raccoons. Didn't want to alarm your wife."
        "She doesn't alarm easy."
        "You tell her then?"
        "No. Not sure why, either. Except… we've all got a lot on our minds already, a year of trouble, a lot of change. Anyway, wasn't much Paul told me. Just that the coons were behaving oddly, out in broad daylight, running in circles, and then they just dropped dead."
        "I don't think that was all of it."
        Travis hesitated. He leaned back at an angle against the side of the Rover bent his knees, slouching a little to get his head down out of the keening wind. "I think Eduardo was holding out on me. Those coons were doing something stranger than what he said."
        "Why would he hold out on you?" - "Hard to say. He was a sort of quirky old guy. Maybe… I don't know, maybe he saw something he felt funny talking about, something he figured I wouldn't believe. Had a lot of pride, that man. He wouldn't want to talk about anything that might get him laughed at."
        "Any guesses what that could be?" "Nope."
        Jack's