The Big Chihuahua Read online

  They sat down, one to the left and one to the right of the stage, and we all waited in silence for many minutes. Suddenly a curtain to the side was parted and Crystal Star appeared, with a gorgeous Weimaraner at her side. She wore a lime-green caftan that fell to the ground, and her blond bouffant hair was piled high on her head. She swept up to the prow of the stage and looked over us. The Weimaraner moved slowly, his legs stiff. His muzzle was almost completely white. He needed a little help from one of the acolytes to get up to the gold-draped platform, where he lay down, resting his head on his paws and looking over us. With his piercing golden-brown eyes, one could easily believe he was a superior being.

  “Hello. I am Crystal Star. And this is Max.” Star waved her hand at the dog. “An ordinary dog before he was chosen by Dogawanda to be his vessel. A succession of dogs, throughout the centuries, has been thus honored by Dogawanda. Because of my proximity to Max, I am able to access Dogawanda and channel his wisdom for all of you.”

  She looked out over the assembled group, her gaze roving down one row and up the other. She took her time, making contact with each member of the audience. When she reached me, she locked her eyes to mine for the longest time. She had startling, almost golden eyes. They were as piercing as the Weimaraner’s were soulful. It seemed an eternity passed as she held my gaze. Finally I had to look down.

  The next thing I knew she had stepped off the platform and come down the length of the hall and was standing right in front of me.

  “I see you have brought a little brother with you,” she told me, her voice loud enough for all to hear.

  “Well, yes,” I said. “I thought it would be OK. I—”

  “Of course it is right and good that you have brought your companion with you,” Star said. “Dogawanda welcomes all his brothers and sisters. Especially the canine species, as dogs always speak only the truth.”

  “She has that part right,” Pepe told me.

  “You see?” Star said loudly to the entire audience. “This Chihuahua is speaking truth right now.” She turned her focus to Pepe again. “Let me channel more of your truth, little brother.”

  “I came here to learn how to do what you do,” said Pepe.

  “Ah yes!” she exclaimed, addressing the audience once more. “He says he is excited for us to begin! And so we shall!”

  Chapter 7

  “Wow! She got it almost right!” I said as she swept back to the front of the room. I was a little bit jealous. After all, I thought I was the only one who could hear Pepe speak.

  “Merely a good guess,” said Pepe. “She is good at reading people, or dogs, as the case may be. I can sense that about her.”

  Star stood facing the crowd. “Before I channel Dogawanda, there is a distinction you must understand. I am a channel, not a medium. A medium stays in her body providing a conduit for the spirits. A channel leaves her body completely, allowing the spirit to fully occupy her vessel. With that understanding, I am now ready to channel Dogawanda. Listen carefully to his wisdom—too few have this opportunity.”

  A hush fell over the crowd. She seated herself in the thronelike chair and put out one hand to rest on the head of the aged but magnificent dog, who stayed absolutely still, gazing out at the audience with those golden eyes.

  Star’s eyes closed. She shuddered, then lifted her head. Her posture had changed. She seemed to have grown larger, to fill the chair. Her eyes were bright and shining. She smiled wide, her teeth showing brightly.

  “Here am I, Dogawanda,” she said in a voice unlike her own—a voice gruff, abrupt, with a rough cadence. “Since the Before Time.”

  A few people gasped.

  “Dogawanda is pleased,” he said, addressing all of us.

  The hackles on Pepe’s back rose. His lip curled a bit.

  There were several titters from the audience.

  “Healthy is skepticism,” said Dogawanda. “The skeptic is alert. However, too much thinking can make one unwise. I had no need of thought when I rode with Hannibal’s elephants into battle. The greatest times of peace always follow the greatest times of war. Therefore, the war within one’s self is not to be feared or avoided—rather it is to be accepted, for when the battle is won, peace and enlightenment will surely follow.”

  Dogawanda paused, then thrust out a paw, pointing directly at Pepe. “As with you, Chihuahua!” he said. “You have warred a lifetime against your little body. Only when your struggle is won and you accept that you are indeed a big Chihuahua, will you taste true peace and tranquility.”

  “I know that,” Pepe said. His voice quavered and was very small.

  “And you, Ben!” Dogawanda pointed at the squat, bald man seated to our right. “Your wealth will increase but only if you give it away!”

  Ben squirmed a little at that.

  “And you, Angela!” Dogawanda continued, pointing at a middle-aged woman across from us. “Reconstructing your face will not win back your mate. Instead you should focus on enriching your mind!”

  Angela looked amazed.

  I cowered in my seat. I did not want Dogawanda to make a comment about me. But he did.

  “And you, Geri!” said Dogawanda. “Your divorce brought you good fortune and your good fortune will lead you to enlightenment.”

  “She spoke the truth, Geri,” said Pepe. “I, naturally, am your good fortune.”

  I gave him a pat on the head.

  “Time is a conundrum,” Dogawanda continued. “It is both fleeting and enduring. It is said there is no time like the present, but here is the paradox: When you formulate a thought, it is in the past when you finish it. Paradoxically, it is also in the future while you are formulating it. The present exists only in between. Dogs know this. We exist in the present and thus we know a peace and serenity like no others.”

  That made some sort of sense. Dogs do seem to have a simple ability to enjoy life that we humans are missing.

  “If you wish to learn the Way of the Dog, you must commit to a rigorous course of training. As a soldier learns to obey his commander, without hesitation, so a dog learns to respond to his trainer, without thought.”

  “That is surely not right,” said Pepe.

  “The modern world seduces us with many choices,” Dogawanda went on. “But living in the here and now is simple. One can experience constant bliss if one is willing to submit to the will of the One who has loved you since the beginning of time and follow the Way of the Dog. You will learn more of this path throughout this weekend.”

  “I can teach you the Way of the Dog!” Pepe offered.

  “I must now return to Max, my canine vessel,” Dogawanda continued. “But Crystal Star, my human vessel, will teach you the Seven Commandments of Dogawanda. Learn them well, for they are the keys to eternal peace. Aloha.”

  Star shuddered, then slumped forward. When she raised her head again, she seemed dazed. Her eyes blinked rapidly. She stood and swayed. One of the assistants stepped forward and gave her an arm.

  “Aloha?” said Pepe.

  “It means ‘until we meet again,’” I told him.

  “So sayeth Dogawanda,” said Star, holding out her cupped hands. She bowed her head. The audience applauded. “And now for the Seven Commandments of Dogawanda,” she said. “It is important that you memorize these, as they will guide you through the twisting paths toward the one true way that leads to Dogawanda.”

  She exhorted us to stand and repeat back to her the following commandments:

  1. All roads lead to Dogawanda.

  2. Obey your alpha.

  3. The pack always knows best.

  4. One must walk the twisting path with eyes shut and mind open.

  5. If you are not the predator, you are the prey.

  6. Create your own pack.

  7. Reality is every possible outcome.

  When she was satisfied we had learned these, we were dismissed with the command, “Dog be with you!” and told to return after dinner.

  We ate our meals in the dining
hall, which was in a wing on the ground floor of the lodge. Dinner was served as a buffet, with servers standing behind curved glass, and meals presented in silver chafing dishes. To my dismay, the first items offered were fish and steak.

  “But I’m a vegetarian,” I said to the server who asked me what I wanted.

  “But this is an animal who grazed freely on grass and was killed with mercy,” she said, her fork poised in midair, holding a dripping slab of meat.

  “I don’t really care how it lived,” I said. “I don’t eat cows.”

  “I do,” said Pepe, looking up with glistening eyes at the hunk of cow meat.

  “I’ll take a small piece for my dog,” I said.

  “I would like a large piece, por favor,” said Pepe, but I ignored him.

  “How about fish?” the server asked, moving over to the next pan, which was packed with silvery trout. She slid her spatula under one. “Caught in the pure waters of a lake only a few miles from here, just yesterday.”

  I considered it for a minute, but the staring eyes of the fish seemed to accuse me of having a hand in its death.

  “No thank you,” I said, passing down the line, where I was offered a selection of vegetables: spinach, chard, baby greens, carrots, and broccoli. I heaped my plate with those, then added a scoop of raw almonds for some protein. I paused at the end of the line and looked around.

  “Where’s the silverware?” I asked, speaking more to myself than to anyone else.

  “We are serving the diet eaten by our ancestors in Paleolithic times,” said the woman who was arranging grapes and apples on a tiered display at the end of the line. “We eat with our fingers as our ancestors did.” She wore her hair in a long braid, and I could see that it had a red tint. As she turned around to face me, I caught a glimpse of her face. She was, without a doubt, Tammy Darling.

  “Tammy?” I said.

  Chapter 8

  She looked startled. She glanced left and then right to see if anyone was listening. “My name is Leaf.”

  “Geri, she is frightened,” said Pepe. “You must reassure her or she will not speak to you.”

  “What a pretty name,” I said. “I’m hoping that Dogawanda will bless me with a beautiful name like yours.”

  “Yes, I was lucky,” she said. She leaned in closer. “Crystal’s top aide is named Artichoke. Can you imagine?”

  “They are all named after fruits and vegetables?” Pepe asked me.

  “I guess so,” I told him.

  “They better not try to name me after a plant or vegetable,” said Pepe. “Though come to think of it, I would not mind being called Towering Cedar.”

  “What a cute little dog,” said Tammy, gazing down at Pepe with sad eyes. “He reminds me of my little girl, Fuzzy. I miss her so much.”

  “Weren’t you allowed to bring a dog with you?” I asked.

  “Oh no,” she said. “We give up everything that ties us to our mundane lives.”

  I almost dropped my plate. “I would never give up my dog!” I said.

  She gave me a sad smile. “I thought the same when I first came here, but when the wisdom of Dogawanda permeates your spirit, you stop missing those things you previously used to fill up the holes in your spirit.”

  “I do not fill up the holes in your spirit,” Pepe said to me.

  Tammy was still gazing longingly at Pepe.

  “Would you like to join us for dinner?” I asked.

  “I must get permission from my alpha,” she said.

  “Alpha?”

  “That’s what we call the leader of our pack,” she said, and scurried off.

  Pepe and I found a place to sit at a round picnic table out on the redwood deck in back of the main lodge. There was a pleasant view of a little lawn sloping down to the edge of the woods. Huge boulders reared up out of the earth and tall firs and pines left a litter of needles underneath them. The sun was shining, but a light breeze kept the temperature comfortable.

  I cut up the beef into small bites and set them down on the wood of the deck.

  “Geri, do you expect me to eat off the ground?” Pepe asked.

  “Like a wild dog,” I said. “Think Paleolithic!”

  He thought about that for a minute, then attacked the beef, shaking it back and forth in his teeth as if he had just made a fresh kill.

  “Nice work!” I said.

  Leaf slid onto the bench across from me with a plate of her own, heaped with vegetables and a slice of beef.

  “Flicker gave me permission to talk with you,” she said. “She hopes that my faith will help light your way along the path of Dogawanda.”

  “Flicker?” I still couldn’t get used to the weird names.

  “That’s my alpha. She is one of the inner circle, Star’s most trusted assistants. I am so lucky to be part of her pack.”

  “Tell me about your life,” I said. “What did you do before?”

  “There is no before,” she said. “There is only now.”

  “Oh, I meant, what did you do in the past?”

  “There is no past. Only the present,” she replied.

  Hmmm. This was going to be difficult. “What do you do to make a living?” I asked. To give her an example, I added, “I stage houses.” That wasn’t totally a lie since that was what I did before working for Jimmy G.

  “There is no need to make a living. All is provided for us. We have food and pure water. The sun and the stars and the wind bringing scents to delight our noses. The abuse and dissent of the world dissolve here. Wisdom and harmony abound.”

  “Sounds like she is quoting something,” said Pepe.

  “I’m sure it’s Dogawanda,” I said.

  “All is Dogawanda,” said Tammy. She closed her eyes and recited, “‘The Now is like footprints in the sand. The tide washes in, and the tide washes out.’”

  I decided it was time to deliver my message.

  “Fuzzy stopped eating since you left. She is pining away for you.”

  “What?” Tammy’s eyes opened wide.

  “Fuzzy. She misses you!”

  She stood up abruptly. “How do you know about Fuzzy?”

  “Your husband, Mark, hired us to find you. He wants you to come home.”

  She looked at her plate with a furrowed brow, then pushed it away from her. Again she looked to one side and then the other, as if she thought someone would listen in on our conversation. But the nearest diners were a few yards away.

  “You don’t understand. I can’t leave,” she whispered.

  “You mean they are holding you prisoner?” I asked, aghast.

  “No.” She glanced around again. “It’s just that no one can leave without finishing the levels. Dogawanda says that once you have opened your mind, you cannot go back into the mundane world. The negativity there will overwhelm you. Only if you pass the fourth level can you reenter the world. Like Fox Black.”

  “Fox Black is a level four?” I asked.

  “Geri, focus!” said Pepe. “We are not here to meet an idol from your past but to deliver a message. And I would like some more of that beef, please.”

  “Can I have some of the beef on your plate?” I asked Tammy. “Pepe is still hungry.”

  “His name is Pepe?”

  “You can call me Towering Cedar,” he said, jumping up on the bench.

  “Sometimes he goes by Towering Cedar,” I said.

  “Yes, Fox Black has been through all the levels. He is one of the very few who can go back out into the world. But you see how it affects him. He must come back here after every tour to reassemble the atoms that have been scrambled by his contact with those who still live in the darkness.”

  “Ha!” said Pepe.

  “What did Mark want you to tell me?” Tammy asked.

  “He said he missed you,” I said. Although come to think of it, he never actually said those words.

  “That’s odd,” she said. “I would think he’d be more concerned about the money.”

  “Well, yes,
he did mention that,” I said. “He was upset about the twenty-five grand. He said he had closed all your other joint accounts.”

  Tammy looked horrified. “Oh no, that’s terrible! I just signed up for level three. I will be in so much trouble!” She jumped up and went dashing off, her braid swishing back and forth. I watched her disappear into the lodge, not realizing that would be the last time I would see her alive.

  Pepe had polished off the last of the beef and was licking his lips. “I think I could get used to this Paleolithic diet,” he said.

  I poked at the greens on my plate. I like salad but I still felt hungry. “I don’t think I can take any more of this,” I said. “And besides, we have delivered our message. I guess we can leave.”

  Chapter 9

  “First, let us explore our surroundings,” said Pepe. “It has been a long time since I have had the pleasure of being in the wilderness. Let us commune with nature. Perhaps I can find a truffle for you.”

  “A truffle? You mean those very expensive mushrooms that people use to garnish dishes in expensive restaurants?”

  “Sí, the very thing. Only, Geri, they are not mushrooms. To be correct, they are fungus. I was trained as a truffle dog during my sojourn in the south of France.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.

  “Au contraire,” he said. Once in awhile, he slips in some French. Just enough to make me wonder. “And I have heard there are truffles to be found in the Northwest woods. This is my first opportunity to explore for myself.” He dashed off toward an opening in the edge of the woods and I followed. Very quickly the day grew dim as the trees filtered the daylight.