It's a bit long.

       I don't hear most noises in Salt Lake City. I've gotten used to city noise, and my mind ignores all the sirens, the engine backfires, the startup of traffic when the lights turn green. I realize how surrounded by sound I am only when I go home to Idaho and walk out in the night and hear how profoundly still it is. But in Salt Lake City last April 15, at 11:30 at night, I realized the Barretos' black Labrador had been barking next door for some time. I remember the date and the time because I had just finished my taxes and had gotten up to get my coat and the car keys, turn off the lights, and drive down to the post office.

      I walked outside and looked over the fence to see if anything was going on in the Barretos' yard. I try to watch the Barreto place since Elicardes died of a heart attack in March. Besides, you learn early when you grow up on a farm that you should not ignore a persistently barking dog. Dogs bark for reasons: sometimes reasons you CAN ignore, like a homeless person looking for cans in the trash, and sometimes not. You'd better find out which.

     I couldn't see the dog at first-it was dark outside-but I could hear it barking in the Barretos' backyard. It had been raining, and the grass was wet. I put my tax envelopes in the car, then walked back along the fence between our places, looking for what, I asked myself- a stray cat? A prowler? The dog knew what was normal and what wasn't, so something was going on.

    But i couldn't see a prowler. There wouldn't have been a place for one to hide, really, in the Barretos' backyard. They had a flowering plum tree in the back corner betweeen our yards, two spruce pines in the opposite corner, a swing set and a sandbox. The dog was barking by the plum tree, so I walked back to it. I couldn't make out anything up the tree, but I could see the dog. He was standing close to the trunk of the plum and barking. I whispered his name: "Lucky."

     He stopped barking and looked at me. I crouched down and stretched a hand between the slats of the fence. "Here, Lucky."

    He walked over and smelled my hand. He knew me. I petted his head, and he licked my hand. He was shaking, wet from the rain. I looked up at the tree, but nobody was in it. I could have seen that. I thought maybe a cat could be hiding up there. Lucky usually didn't bark at cats- he actually seemed to like them- but maybe this was one he didn't take to for some reason. "Quiet down, Lucky," I said, and I left to mail my taxes.

     He was barking again when I got back.

    In the night, Edwardo, the youngest Barreto boy, opened his window and shouted for the dog to shut up. I realized he was making more a whine now. I got up and looked out my kitchen window into the Barretos' yard. The dog was standing on the back step, whining at the tree. A light was on in the ANdersons', the house on the other side of the Barretos'.

     Maria came out and talked to Lucky in a low voice and petted him. She walked over under the plum tree, looked around, and after a few minutes walked back insider her house. The dog was quiet wile Maria was outside, but he started barking as soon as she closed the door.

    In the morning, he was still barking and whining. I watched him for a minute from my winow. He was sitting on the back step where it was dry, still barking at the plum tree. I drank a glass of orange juice, pulled on my boots and a hat, grabbed a broom, and walked out under the branches of the plum that stretched over the fence and shaded part of my yard, too. The morning smelled rancid, like the city. Petals were falling from the tree in the still air, and they mottled the grass. I thought it was early for the petals to fall. Maria walked out when she saw me poking around in the branches of the tree, knocking rainwater down on top of me. It would run down the broomstick onto my hands and up my sleeves.

     "What's up there?" Maria asked.

     "I don't know," I said. The dog had followed her over and had stopped barking as if he were confident we were finally going to do something to put a stop to whatever was bothering him.

    "I came out earlier and looked," she said. "I couldn't see anything."

    I couldn't see anything, either, or drive anything out with my broomstick. "There has to be something up there," I said. I jumped over the fence and started thrusting my broomstick up in the branches on the Barreto side, but i could see there was nothing up there. The tree wasn't that tall. I didn't scare anything out. The dog started whining, then barking. He left us and walked back to the steps, sat there alternately whining and barking. Maria and I just looked at him.

   "I'll go get the boys off to school," she said. She took the dog in the house with her.

   When I got home from work that afternoon, the dog was outsied again, and barking. My friend Ellen was coming over for dinner, and I needed to start cooking, but I thought I'd take a few minutes with the dog to try to calm him down. I didin't want him barking during dinner. I hurried to change clothes. THe old shoes I'd worn the night before were covered with a dusty film from the rain. I'd seen that sort of thing plenty of times. See it once, and you'll never stick your toungue out in the rain again, like you can in the country. I brushed off the shoes and went for the dog.

    "I walked him twice today- once in the rain," Maria said when she handed me the leash. "But maybe you can do something."

   Lucky was glad to get out of the yard. He keept running ahead, pulling on the leash, then he'd suddenly stop and look back at me as if he were relieved to be away from his house, as if he wanted to say thanks. Dogs do things like that. They feel emotions, like relief, and-maybe because we're both mammals- we feel the same things, and we recognize similar emotions. Some say we just anthromoophize the animals, but I don't think so. Lucky was relieved. I petted him when he'd stop to look at me. "It's all right, boy," I said. "We'll work this out of you."

   I started running, and he darted out ahead of me, pulled on the leash for a while, then matched his speed to mine so we could run together. We ran east down Arapaho, north across Apache, the west back up Shoshone. I tried to dodge the puddles, and so would LUcky, usually, but sometimes he'd run right through them and splash us both. Good, I thought. The exercise should make him tired and calm him down.

     The air stank, an I was surprised the rain hadn't cleaned the air. Life in the city, I thought. I started thinking maybe the guys who jogged around with breathing masks over their noses might be smart after all. Who knows what I was breathing into my lungs?

     Three blocks along Shoshone, Lucky started to slow dow.

     And bark.

     "Stop it, Lucky," I said.

     He stopped and whined and would not go forward.

     "Come on," I said, tugging on the leash. "We've got to get back."

     He growled at me. I began to wonder if he were sick. "Lucky?" I said. I walked back to him. He didn't growl as long as i didn't try to make him go forward.

     I looked around the neighborhood to see what could be making him act like that. But I couldn't see anything unusual or anything that could be connected with the Barretos' backyard.

    Except the four cherry trees on the corner of Shoshone and Blackfoot, three houses down from us. The trees were in bloom, and the petals were falling around the trees, carpeting the grass. Was this dog upset by flowering trees? Allergies? He didint seem stuffed up at all, or sick. Just on edge. Besides, how would a dog associate allergies with flowering trees? He wouldn't.

Part 2 tomorrow.