the wind, “Your old man is thum dog.  You’re lucky tuh have him.”

Toby nodded.  “Don’t I know it.”

It was a bleary-eyed man who came to the door, blinking away sleep at the sound of barking and scratching.  “Pete,” he groaned, “You’ve got a pet flap, why all the-” he stopped abruptly as he opened the door to find Pete lying on his doorstep more dead than alive.  “What the devil?” he blurted out.  “Pete, what  in the Sam hill have you gotten into?”

With a grumble the pajama-clad man bent down and picked him up, carrying him inside.  Muttering a string of questions and comments, he tended the dog’s injuries while Toby listened with rapt attention at the door.  Rex had departed as quickly as possible to see Trixie home safely and then get back himself, already sneezing violently.

“And with the vet’s office closed hours ago,” Pete’s owner grumbled.  “I just hope you last till morning, boy.”

Toby groaned apprehensively.  He hoped Pete would make it, but he sure wasn’t going to take the chance.  When all was quiet, he slipped into the darkened house.  A fire crackled in the hearth, providing some illumination.  “Hey, Pete?” he whispered.  A whimper from a pile of blankets by the fire answered him, and he padded over.  “How are ya?”

“Practically dead,” came the reply.

“Oh, come on, don’t even talk that way,” Toby groaned.  “We’re all rooting for you, even Dad.”

“Rex?” croaked Pete.  “That reminds me, what about the sentence?”

Toby shrugged.  “I smoothed it over,” he assured him.  “He says to consider the sentence suspended.”

Pete sighed.  “Might not matter now,” he groaned, his voice sounding like gravel.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Toby replied.  “You were out when we brought you here, but I heard your owner as he was fixing you up.  If you’re not better fast, he might… you know.”

Pete took a deep breath.  “Maybe I deserve it,” he admitted.

Toby was aghast.  “Don’t even say that!” he yelled.  “Pete, if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t still be alive!  Remember Christmas?  Heck, remember an hour ago.  Without you, Trixie would be dead.”

“You don’t get it,” Pete grumbled.  “I’m the reason she was there.”

“Pete,” Toby pleaded, “You’ve gotta hang in there.  For Mom, for Dad…” he trailed off for a moment before adding, “For me.”

Pete turned one eye to stare at him.  “You for real?” he asked.

Toby nodded.  “You may be a jerk sometimes, but I don’t want you to die.”

Pete sighed.  “If you really mean that, then tell Trix…ie…” and with that he passed into oblivion.

Toby felt himself begin to weep, uncertain whether Pete had died or just fainted.  “Come on, Pete,” he pleaded.  “Pull through this, for all of us.”

The next morning, Pete awoke to find his master bent over him.  The man placed a hand on his side to feel the steady up and down of his ribs.  “Pretty weak,” he murmured.  “Maybe you just don’t have enough in you.”

Pete held his silence.  He was determined not to let out a whimper, not to show any sign of weakness.  If he was going to die, he was going to do it the way he should have lived, with dignity.

“I’m sorry, boy,” his owner whispered, “but I’m afraid I gotta do this.”

He lifted Pete off the floor and took him outside to a corner of the yard.  With a determined grunt, he pulled out a pistol and clicked back the hammer.  Moonlight glinted off the steel barrel.  Straightening his arm, he pointed the weapon at his dog’s head.

“Sorry, boy.”

“Come on!” Toby called to Terry, running for all he was worth.  “We’ve gotta see if he’s alright!”\

Despite her age and lack of experience, Terry was only inches behind him.  “I just hope we’re not too late,” she panted.  Snow flew out behind them as fog puffed out of their open mouths like smoke from racing train engines.

“You and me both, Mom.  Now come on, we’re only a block away.  We can still…”

BANG!

A gunshot shattered the air.  Terry stumbled and fell in the snow as Toby screeched to a halt.  “It’s not…” he breathed.  But despite the echo, there was no doubt where the shot had come from.  Pete’s yard.

“No,” cried Terry, gasping.  The tears wasted no time in pouring from her eyes.

“Mom, it’s gotta be a mistake,” Toby insisted.  “Pete can’t be dead, he’s…” but he knew the words were empty.  He had spoken to the dog last night.  What did he have to live for?  What pity would his master, a hunter, have on a dog who would survive for maybe a week at best?

“He’s dead,” Terry cried.  “Pete… my son…” her words trailed off, and a moment later she let out an agonized howl.

Toby stood stock-still.  Never in his life had he felt so powerless, so useless.  Not when he had hurt Luna as a puppy, not when he lost the way in the wilderness, not even when Luna went through labor while he was trapped outside.  ‘I failed,’ he thought. 

‘I tried and tried to give him a chance, and now…’

He turned away.  A few weeks before, the thought of never seeing Pete again would have left him dancing for joy.  Now he felt that if all the world were made of dog food, and every plant and tree a soup-bone, he’d give it all to see his brother again.

Tail between his legs, Toby all but limped back home.  He tried to find something in the whirl of thoughts to grab onto, some thread of hope to ease the pain, but there was no way out, no escape from the accusing voices that jeered inside his heart.

Guilty.  Guilty.  Guilty.

“He’s dead?!” cried Luna.

Toby nodded weakly.  “Mom and I were going to see him, and… and we heard a gunshot.”  He hung his head.  “Pete’s master was always kinda rough.  I think he must have put him down.”

“Uncle Pete’s dead?” asked Arrow.  She was usually a tough girl, but there was no missing the catch in her voice.

Toby’s ears drooped towards the floor.  “I’m afraid so.”

Luna’s face drooped too.  “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” she confessed, “but I really thought he had a chance.”

Toby sank bodily to the floor.  “It’s all because of me,” he lamented.  “I tried to help him, and look where it got him.  If I had just said no, Pete wouldn’t have kept going after Trixie, Trixie wouldn’t have run off, neither one of them would have been hurt, and he…!” his words died away, replaced by a whimper.  “It’s my fault.”

Luna spoke softly to him.  “You can’t know that,” she reasoned.

“And why not?” he challenged.  “Give me one reason this isn’t my fault, just one!”

She thought for a moment.  “Well, for all you know Pete could have gotten hurt some other way if you hadn’t helped him.  He probably would have kept up the pursuit even if you hadn’t tried to help, so there’s no reason you’re responsible for the accident.”

“Mom’s right,” asserted Arrow.  Even through the tears, she managed to be supportive.  “You did your best.”

Toby closed his eyes.  “Then why do I feel so bad?”

“Because you have a heart,” Luna answered.  “A good one, and one that was in the right place.  You wanted to see Pete find the same happiness you found.  You agreed to help him save Trixie from doing herself in.  You gave him something he never could have had on his own.  You gave him hope, and even if he’s dead he died a hero.”

“Yeah,” the blusky conceded, “but the point is, he died.”

No one could seem to get through to Toby after that.  Luna, Arrow, Terry, and Rex all tried, but to no avail.  Even the humans began to see a change in him.  He wouldn’t play, wouldn’t go near the sled he and Charlie used for errands, and barely even ate or drank.  The doctor looked him over but confessed he could find nothing wrong with him.  Terry was especially worried – she had seen a dog act this way once before.

It was weeks before Toby dared to go back.  He hated to go anywhere near the place, but he wanted to see if Pete had been given a decent grave.  Yuke’s cross had been replaced just a few days after Pete’s rampage, but no one knew about Pete.  Toby was pretty sure he knew what had happened, though.  Pete’s owner wouldn’t go to the trouble of burying his dog when the ground was still hard.  At best he’d put him in a box or something outside and wait until the thaw.

As he crept into the yard, Toby felt the full force of trepidation his late brother had gone through entering Terry’s back yard.  Gazing around, he saw no cross, no rock, no sign of digging.  The only thing that caught his eye was a box by the corner of the house, just the right size for a dog.  He walked over, his entire body made of lead.  So it was true.  He knew Pete was dead, but the sight of his coffin brought it home afresh, like violently reopening a wound just to pour in salt.

He walked up to the box and sniffed it.  Sure enough, it smelled like Pete.  “Hey bro,” he choked.  He was silent a moment.  How did one talk to someone who couldn’t hear anymore?  “I just want to say sorry… for everything.”  Images passed through his mind, not flashing but shifting through torturously slow.  Images of times when he had been cruel to Pete, supposing it justified because Pete himself was so cruel.  From little ones, like taunting him over his countless romantic failures, to severe ones like setting him up to fail on the sled team after he himself lost the position.  Choking back sobs and blinking back tears, he recounted them to the lifeless corpse in the box.  All justification and self-righteousness were gone, replaced by one question: If he had done a better job of being the good guy, would Pete be dead right now?

“Are