dark mood. Suddenly he grinned, and Chivas, knowing the morning routine, trotted ahead and disappeared around the corner of the garage. When Mark caught up with him a moment later, the big dog was already sniffing at the cage full of Angora rabbits. Mark had been caring for them ever since he was twelve. It was another bone of contention between him and his father.
“If it wasn’t for those damned rabbits,” he’d heard his father telling his mother several months before, “maybe he’d start getting some exercise and build himself up a little.”
“He gets plenty of exercise,” Sharon Tanner had replied mildly. “And you know perfectly well his size doesn’t have anything to do with how much exercise he gets. He’s never going to be as big as you, and he’s never going to be a jock. So stop worrying about it.”
“Oh com’on!” his father had groused. “Rabbits?”
“Maybe he’ll be a vet,” his mother had suggested. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
And maybe he would be a vet, Mark thought now as he opened the big plastic trash barrel that held the rabbit food and scooped out enough to fill the dish inside the hutch. He hadn’t really thought much about it before, but since he’d overheard that conversation, he’d been thinking about it a lot. And the more he considered it, the more he liked the idea. It wasn’t just the rabbits, and Chivas. It was the birds out in the flats by the bay, too. As long as he could remember, he’d liked to go out there by himself, to wander around the marsh and watch the birds. Every year he’d waited patiently for the migrations, then watched as some of the flocks passed by while others came down to nest in the marshes and tidal flats, raising their young during the summer, then moving on again.
A couple of years ago his mother had given him a camera for Christmas, and soon he’d begun photographing the birds. Once, while he’d been stalking the birds, searching for a perfect shot, he’d come across one that was injured and rescued it, bringing it home to nurse it back to health before taking it back to the marshes and releasing it once more. To watch the small creature take flight had been one of the most satisfying moments of his life. The more he thought about it, the more his mother’s suggestion to his father seemed to make sense to him.
He opened the rabbit hutch and Chivas tensed, his eyes fixed on the little animals within. As Mark bent down and reached in to pour the food into the feeding dish, one of the rabbits saw its chance and slipped out of the hutch, hopping madly across the lawn toward the fence that separated the Tanners’ house from the house next door.
“Bring him back, Chivas,” Mark called out, though his words were unnecessary since the big dog was already bounding across the yard after the fleeing rabbit.
With the scoop of rabbit food still in his hand, Mark stood up to watch. The chase was over in less than a minute. As always, the rabbit reached the fence a few yards ahead of the dog, froze for a moment, then began frantically running along the fence, searching for a way to get through. Chivas caught up and, reaching out with one of his large forepaws, pinned the rabbit to the ground. The rabbit squealed in protest, but the retriever ignored the squeak, picked the wriggling creature up by the scruff of its neck, then proudly carried it back to the hutch. His tail wagging furiously, Chivas waited while Mark opened the cage door and dropped the rabbit inside. The white-furred animal, unharmed as always, scuttled away, then turned and stared dumbly at the dog, almost as if it couldn’t understand why it was still alive.
“Good dog,” Mark murmured. He patted Chivas’s flanks, then filled the rabbits’ bowl with food. He changed their water, slid the tray that caught their droppings out from under the hutch, hosed it out and replaced it. Just as he was finishing the job, he heard his mother calling out to him from the back door.
“Come and get it, or I’ll throw it away!”
Smiling fondly at the half-dozen rabbits who were now gathered around their dish, Mark lingered for a moment, then reluctantly turned and started toward the house. Sensing his master’s change of mood, Chivas paced beside him, his tail curving downward.