We had an adventure on a lonely beach and then a long walk out of the jungle. Mette said, “I think I just saw something orange come out of the trees.” It was Chewbacca darting down the road ahead of a big black dog. Ilse and Bindi fended off the big beast and Chewy took a quick liking us. A couple came out from that side road. They had let Chewbacca out from their hideaway, and figured he’d mosey back of his own accord. They were from Idaho and the Mexican light had gotten in their heads and they were now floating through the jungle path. But there was that big black dog. Chewy didn’t want to go back. He followed them and then he fell back and followed us. We tried to shoo him back home. But he was sneaky.
It was proving to be a really long walk, telescoped by Mette’s little legs. She passed from our backs to shoulders. We finally hailed a passing acupressure therapist in her jeep with Vermont plates. “You drive that all the way down here?” Ilse asked. “Only once.” She drove us out to the road and down a piece to the Sayulita cutoff. We passed Chewy one last time in the jungle and he came galloping after us but then was lost in the dust.
Before we stepped off the highway I looked back up the tarmac. Here he came. Oh no. Bindi and I started back up the road, we’d only get one shot. And he did it, came right across as a car was coming. My hand moved from Bindi’s shoulder to just above her eyes. I was ready to cover her from the sight. But he jooked just as the car swerved. He made it across then and into Bindi’s arms. She carried him all the way to town. Lots of stray dogs in Sayulita. She held him close and he snuggled right in. He didn’t seem like he’d know what to do or how to get home if left to his own devises. He was soft and kept. He was the product of the cult of puppies that had swept Sayulita, all cute and bundled up in arms. By the limps and three legged-ness of many of the grown dogs, it looked as though the enjoyment of the puppies ended as they grew.
I combed the town for the Idaho couple as the girls sat at a café with Chewbacca on a lead of hemp from the corner hardware store. I couldn’t find them. I sat to my lunch and then Ilse got a glimpse. “They’re out on the beach.” I raced down and followed that floral shirt. You meet people passing in the jungle, you don’t necessarily remember too much about them. We had been detectives and tried to dredge up all that our memories would spit from their froth as they were preoccupied with other more glorious things. Without even discussing it, we were both looking for that red and white print shirt with the pretty geometric cut to the open back. And those orange sunglasses up on his almost orange hair.
I caught them at the surf line. They smiled. I smiled, but with a twist of mercy and pronounced, “We have Chewbacca.” I explained how he’d followed us and how I’d seen the end of them and had tried to follow and had only now caught them by chance. They came to the café and collected him, not really sure what to do, but realize he really was their charge, not ours. They headed off with him on the lead. He was sad to leave us, not least of which because of the bits of sandwich he’d been receiving from the CHICKS. But he was, as I said, happy to be Kept. And he scampered along as soon as he intuited who his new charge was.
I bumped into Idaho the next day. They had a new glow to them. They had played not the beach with Chewy, letting him off the leash and he had kept at their heals all night. Going to dinner with them and generally making family. They had ferried him home at the end of the night and the owner of the palapa had returned the next day none the wiser.
I explained to our CHICKS that perhaps our big adventurous ordeal of hiking back from the beach wasn’t for us, but really for them. So that they could have time together with Chewbacca and realize that they were ready to be committed to something together, ready for family making. The girls looked at me wryly. “No really, the Universe works that way sometimes. It’s not all for us.” But of course, it is.
