Together: A Novel Of Shared Vision Part 15

"Atta-boy," Brenden said. "Where's Charlie? Find Charlie, boy."

Now Brenden pointed his hand up the mountain. "He's up there, boy. He's up there," he said enthusiastically, rising to his feet. "Charlie's up there. We've got to find Charlie. Let's go get him, boy. Let's go get him."

The dog began to animate. Did he know? Was he figuring out what his master wanted? Brenden wasn't sure, but he felt that maybe he was. And then the dog began to lean forward in the harness with antic.i.p.ation.

"That's right, Nelson. That's right," Brenden said. "Are you ready, boy? Okay. Let's climb. Let's find Charlie."

The dog began to move across the meadow, up over the cairn, and onto the snow-packed glacier surface.

Brenden kept talking, kept encouraging, as the rescue team followed behind them. "Where's Charlie, boy? Where's Charlie? Find Charlie, Nelson. Where's Charlie?"

Brenden wondered how his animal conducted the search. Certainly there was no scent coming from Charlie. The snow covered everything, so there were no visual cues. Charlie wasn't calling out, so the animal certainly wasn't hearing the lost climber. So what drove Nelson across the glacier, angling from right to left, gaining the right side of the mountain? It had to be instinct, Brenden thought, an instinct born of the dog's unique need to please his master.

"Find Charlie," he told Nelson again. "Atta boy. Find him, boy."

The dog came to a stop, whining.

"Where's Charlie, Nelson?" Brenden asked.

The whining continued, and the animal sniffed the air. Had he picked up something? A scent? Maybe, Brenden thought, maybe.

"Listen," he said to the team, "call Charlie's name together."

"Charlie!" the climbers chanted. "Charlie!"

The sound prompted Nelson to bark, and the cacophony of noise cut through rocks and chasms.

"Charlie!"

No reply came, and Brenden understood why. His dear friend was too weak to respond-or worse.

The dog continued to sniff the air, and soon he began to quiver with excitement. Brenden decided to go for it all. Reaching down, he unfastened Nelson's harness and took off the leash.

"Find Charlie," he said. "Find Charlie. Go get him, boy, go get him. Follow the dog, guys. Follow him."

Nelson almost ran now, laterally across the snow. He came to a stop just feet away from the edge of the chasm where Charlie had fallen. The night-lights of the men took in the scene.

"We got him. We got him," they said over the radio to the helicopter.

Hours later Charlie lay in the same hospital that only a year ago had saved Brenden. They had operated on his leg, inserting pins to stabilize the broken tibia and fibula along with controlling the internal bleeding. His ribs were heavily taped, and he was substantially sedated. Then there was the question of hypothermia. Time would reveal the extent of the frostbite. But he knew that Brenden, Mora, Kathleen, and his father were standing around his bed.

"Am I alive?" he croaked, smiling through parched lips. "Or is this just a dream?"

"You're going to be okay, Charlie," his father said, blinking back his own tears. "You're going to be fine."

"We're all going to be all right, Dad," Charlie said, through the haze of the medication. "We're all going to be fine. The mountain's tough, but we're tougher." Reaching out, he touched Brenden's arm. "Give me five, pal."

Instead Brenden leaned forward and gently hugged his friend's shoulders.

"You've got it," he said quietly. "The mountain is tough, but we're tougher, and so is Nelson."

Brenden couldn't sleep. His mind still raced with thoughts of what he and the dog had just been through, not just on the mountain but also over the last year of change, growth, and love. He knew in his gut that Nelson had become an appendage of himself, as relevant to him as his arms and legs, senses and brain. The man and the dog were one, bonded in interdependence unlike anything he could have ever imagined.

So was he better off than he had been when he was sighted? No, he couldn't say that. Certainly he wished he could see Kat or look once more on his mother's lovely face. His love of the outdoors reminded him that he would never again look at the natural beauty of things in the same way or have quite the same freedom and independence he enjoyed before he went blind. But he had learned so much about life through the application of all of his senses and the ability to be empathetic when it came to the issues facing his fellow man. He knew without question that he had become a better person and that much of the change in who he was had been brought about by the example set by the big black dog.

Nelson was a part of him, but he believed he also had fulfilled the animal in a significant way. They were a team that would spend years together getting better at the work. He understood that much of what he learned from Nelson would carry over into his relations.h.i.+p with Kat. Simply put, he thought, Nelson has taught me how to love, and that love, that friends.h.i.+p, that perfect goodness expressed without hesitation or reservation in every experience will make me a better man, a better friend, a better husband, and someday-he smiled-a better father.

epilogue.

Winter had ended, and the big dog had shed his coat for a lighter summer one. Life was a wonderful experience for the magnificent animal. Working daily to take Brenden to cla.s.ses or anywhere else the man needed to go, along with weekend hikes and climbs with Brenden and Kat. Then there was his relations.h.i.+p with Gus and any other friend of his master's who was willing to play ball.

As winter turned into summer, the three became four. A few grey hairs were beginning to appear around the black muzzle.

They called the boy-human Brian, and Nelson called him his. When he wasn't working, the big dog would lie wherever the baby was. Somehow, like dogs had done from the first when they became man's best friend, Nelson had adopted another person as his responsibility.

Just now, as Kat watched, little Brian was attempting to crawl toward something he probably shouldn't have been grabbing, and Nelson was right with him, eventually reaching down and gently pulling the baby back by the seat of his pants to where Kat had originally placed him. The girl laughed out loud, making the animal perk his ears.

"You're an amazing dog," she said to Nelson. "You take care of Brenden, you love me, and now you take care of Brian. Aren't we the luckiest people to have you?"

The dog agreed with a thump of his tail.

That night the bed was kind of crowded. Brian had a slight upset tummy, so Kat had brought him in to sleep with his mother and father. The view Nelson took of the whole situation was that if three of his family members were sleeping together, it made sense for him to join them.

Feeling the bed shake as Nelson came aboard, Brenden couldn't bring himself to tell him to get down, mostly because as the little boy worked to get comfortable between his parents, he kept looking at the big dog and making cooing noises.

Brenden turned out the light, comfortable in the darkness that had become so familiar. He lovingly took in the smells of his family-the baby's head, as clean as the child's innocence; Kat's essence-musty and magical-wife, lover, mother, friend, and all his-forever; Nelson, a little pungent from free time in the backyard. But it didn't matter. In fact, it was comforting, reminding him that Nelson represented his eyes on the world.

Getting drowsy, Brenden reflected on how things had changed. Oh sure, he thought, I'd love to see again, but I still have pictures in my head of so much-mountains and sunsets and... I wish I could see Kat and Brian-and Nelson too-but what I have now is a dimension I didn't even know was possible.

Am I sorry I'm blind? Oh, sometimes, but I am so blessed by this family and G.o.d's grace that I think my life's about as perfect as human beings are allowed to have. Challenge to opportunity, disadvantage to advantage, negatives to positives, growing all the time. Would that growth have happened if I had been sighted? Who would I be today, I wonder?

He was aware of Kat's even breathing and knew she had fallen asleep, as had little Brian.

How right Smitty had been way back then. Brenden smiled, thinking of their phone conversation earlier in the day. He still can't resist an "I told you so" every once in a while.

They remained fast friends through periodic phone calls, and Smitty had even come to visit them a couple of times. Of course, Brenden had no illusions-he knew who Smitty really came to see.

Nelson stretched, taking up a little more s.p.a.ce on the bed.

"Hey, fur ball," Brenden said quietly. "Leave a little room for us, will ya?"

As if he understood, his best friend pulled his paws in closer to his body with a heavy sigh.

Sleep came to the whole family then-the deep, untroubled sleep of those bonded in contentment, faith, and the truest love.

Acknowledgments.

To Julie Cremeans and the ladies of EDA: Words don't say enough, so thank you, thank you.

To Dr. Rob Hilsenroth: My friend, my confidant, my eyes on the mountain.

To my agent, Jan Miller: I'll keep writing. You keep selling. We're an unbeatable team.

To Dr. Thomas Larkin: Thanks for all the accurate medical information.

To my daughter, Blythe: You gave me maps, love, and support. What more could a father ask?

To Ami McConnell: Your sensitivity and professionalism made editing a breeze. To an author, that's very appreciated.

To Allen Arnold and all my friends at Thomas Nelson: Thanks for continuing to believe in me and bringing my work to the public.

To Terry Barrett, director of Training Operations, Guide Dogs for the Blind: Your help was invaluable, and your love for animals and the work shone through every conversation we had.

To my friend and trainer, Harold Smith: Every time I pick up the harness, the knowledge and feel for the animals you provided flows through my hand.

To John Zell: Thanks for all of your help with mountain rescue information and for your spirit as a volunteer, saving hikers and climbers.

To every guide dog: Through their love, dedication, and hard work, freedom is possible.

author's note.

I suppose all novels are different in the way they develop. Some come out of historic investigation; others are loosely written around biographies of either the writer or people the writer has known. This novel, Together, arose out of two wonderful relations.h.i.+ps that forever changed my life.

The first was with my friend and writing partner, Betty White. We met when Betty and her husband, Allen Ludden, discovered me singing in a club on Cape Cod. Not only did they do everything possible to further my burgeoning show business career, but they also were responsible for making sure that I understood that the beautiful blonde girl who came in night after night to listen to me sing was a person I ought to be taking seriously. That was Patty, and thankfully, we have been married for thirty-nine years.

The second contribution to writing this book was a relations.h.i.+p that Betty and I shared with another golden girl-a golden retriever named Dinah. Dinah was my leader dog, and for nine years she guided me around the country and around the world; but when her eyes became clouded by cataracts and age began to slow her down, it became necessary for me to take on a new friend that would share my work and my life. His name was Nelson, and he was a strapping young black Lab. The arrival of this enthusiastic young animal caused Dinah to believe that her life had no more meaning, so she retreated to our bedroom, crawling under our bed, unwilling to share, love, or play with anyone in our family.

Simply put, Dinah had given up on life, and I was brokenhearted, not having any idea what to do; until Betty White came to dinner. She immediately understood the seriousness of my situation and asked me if I thought that maybe, just maybe, she could help by taking Dinah into her home and into her heart. Well, the magic worked. Dinah and Betty shared just over five glorious years together. This shared relations.h.i.+p with Dinah prompted Betty and me to write another book a few years ago called The Leading Lady-the story of Tom's life with Dinah and Betty's life with Dinah.

Since that time I have had the privilege of working with Nelson, the black Lab, and then another dog, Partner, a wonderful German shepherd whose life was cut much too short by the ravages of cancer. And now a second shepherd, Edison. All these animals provided me with love, joy, and blessed freedom. So it made sense that Betty and I write a fictional novel, Together, that we hope you have enjoyed reading.

It is impossible for me to express the unique relations.h.i.+p blind people have with these astounding animals. The pages of this work cannot adequately express the feelings of grat.i.tude that I experience every time I pick up the harness of one of these remarkable animals. No relations.h.i.+p between man and animal is as intimate, and no love shared could ever be more fulfilling.

We hope you have come to appreciate and understand the special bond between a blind person and their best friend. Our additional hope is that in the privacy of your own lives, you will see your own pets differently, knowing that from the toy breeds to the Great Danes, from a purebred to a Heinz 57 variety, dogs have a fundamental purpose: to love us all without hesitation or reservation. It becomes our responsibility and our joy to return that same love and affection.

Tom Sullivan March 2008.

end.