Wisecracking Across America - 18. Chapter 18

Sunday, May 30, 1999

The morning began with tiny drama---the dog ran away. When I woke, just before seven, Tom was at the door. "Going for coffee?" I mumbled, already heading back to sleep. That was his usual routine.

"Looking for the dog," he said. Then left.

That was enough to jump start the day, though I'd been dreaming of young Brenda Vaccaro. (Who knows why?) I pulled on clothes and wandered outside.

We hadn't really looked at the motel the night before, happy enough to find a place that wasn't booked and would take a dog on the holiday weekend. Because the town---Ironwood, Michigan---was five minutes from a time zone change, it also got dark sooner than we expected. So we'd checked in, parked the dog, headed out to find dinner, eaten, then come back. I was mainly aware of a perfect moon and a long strip of red neon running the length of the motel, neither evident before.

"Gonna be hard to sleep with that," Tom mentioned, pulling the thin curtains. Still, when the neon clicked off at eleven, Tom was long out of it.

This morning, everything was bright. I don't usually go out without sunglasses, but they were in the truck---which I assumed Tom had taken. I usually wore shoes too. Still, limited to mainly standing there, blinking, I got a sense of where we were.

It was fairly wooded, with a kind of campground/local park just across the two-lane highway. To my right a Northern Electronics sign advertised cell phones.

I got shoes. I circled the motel. Behind us were more trees, with a red-dirt tire path cutting through them. Following that, I found myself in a huge cemetery.

People were setting out flags. They also set out flowers. Not a lot of people---it was still early. But it was Memorial Day.

There was no sign of the dog, and I wasn't about to shout her name. Even on unpatriotic holidays, that could get me arrested. At least, embarrassed.

I went back to the motel, then crossed the highway. There wasn't much in the campground either: A couple of RV's. A permanent trailer. Several cottages. As I surveyed, Tom pulled up in front of our room, followed by a car.

"Any luck?" I shouted.

None. When I reached him, Tom introduced his fellow Samaritan, a salesman on vacation with his wife. "I was just sitting in my car, doing some paperwork," the man explained, "when I saw the dog scramble. Figured I could help."

Only a very dedicated salesman does paperwork in the front seat of his car at dawn on a national holiday. Or a guy who needed a smoke.

Tom looked terrible. "You have coffee?" I asked.

"No."

"Shower?"

"No."

"Sleep well?"

He couldn't remember.

"Go lie down," I suggested. "Or wash up. Relax a minute. Let's see what I can do."

He reluctantly went inside. I'd noticed a guy sitting in front of the motel office, and went and introduced myself. He was the motel manager. Last night, his wife had checked us in.

I explained the problem. He told me to call the police.

"For a dog?" I laughed. "Who'd take me seriously?"

"It's a small town," he replied. "You'd be surprised. And phone the radio stations too." He gave me their numbers.

I did as instructed. No one laughed. Since Tom was in the shower, I went back to the manager, to report.

"We had a guy here from Fort Wayne," he soon advised me, tacking on "Indiana," as if I might get confused. "He lost his dog. Took two weeks to come back."

I think he was trying to sound encouraging.

"The guy drove all the way back here," he went on. "Just to pick up the mutt."

"We're in no hurry," I assured him, then made certain he had rooms available. I knew Tom wouldn't go on without the dog.

It was funny: Tom liked the dog. But he didn't like the dog. But he liked the dog. Maybe because I'd never had one, I wasn't as attached.

Reaching into the glove compartment for my sunglasses---I was still squinting---I noticed the wooden train whistle from Rogers Pass. I'd blown it a few times since then---sometimes I'm a hopeless kid. Each time, it irritated the dog.

I took the whistle, walked across the road, and blew it a few times in the campground. Nothing. I went back to the motel, whistled, waited, then moved on. I blew it some more following the dirt path into the forest, not sure what to expect. "Who's the geek with the toy?" I imagined anyone who saw me thinking.

At the edge of the cemetery, I blew the whistle quietly, with as much respect as you can get out of one note. It didn't wake the nearby O'Learys---two dead, young, in World War II and Viet Nam. A third lived out his long life, but his stone still mentioned the Army. All their graves were decorated with flags.

I turned and blew the whistle almost routinely, then headed uselessly back to the motel. Suddenly, the dog flew from the underbrush.

"Hey!" I shouted. "Here!" She leaped around me, playing. But I quickly grabbed her collar, yanked off my belt, and looped it as a leash. She wasn't getting away.

At the motel, Tom was talking with the manager. Both grinned to see us. The salesman too, and his wife. "She's wet," the woman quickly observed.

"Playing in the river," the manager decided. "It runs back there."

Tom didn't care.

I called to thank the police and radio stations. They'd already reported a dog---running on a local street near the cemetery. Named Hemlock.

Small towns.

Standing in the shower, finally waking, I realized how close we'd come to losing the trip. If something had happened to the dog, Tom wouldn't have gone on. He might have taken up residence. He might have skulked home. But he wouldn't have just continued.

But nothing had happened. Everything was fine. We'd all had a little Memorial Day adventure, and---if nothing else---I could add another credit to my resume: Pet Detective.

392 miles