When Carl Lindgren died in Tucson in March, his family managed to settle most of his affairs within days. The house was sorted. The truck and fishing boat found new homes.
But there was one thing nobody knew what to do with.
Otto.
For 12 years, the aging bloodhound had rarely been far from Carl’s side. With his long ears, graying face and bad hips, Otto had grown old alongside the man he trusted most.
After Carl’s death, his sons faced a painful problem. Both lived in apartments and couldn’t take the dog. Otto was eventually brought to the county shelter, where his file included a request from the family asking staff to give him a little extra time.
Then Carl’s niece made one final phone call.
She called Carl’s older brother, Herb Lindgren.
Herb was 84 years old and lived alone outside Salina, Kansas, roughly 1,100 miles away from Tucson. He had undergone cataract surgery the previous fall and had become careful about driving, limiting himself to daylight hours.
His daughter immediately told him that driving all the way to Arizona was out of the question.
Herb called the shelter anyway.
The woman who answered gave him news he couldn’t ignore. Otto had barely been eating. Most of his days were spent lying quietly in his kennel, his nose pressed against the door.
Herb asked just one thing.
“Can you hold him until Saturday?”
Then he prepared his 1999 Ford pickup.
On Wednesday morning, Herb placed a folded quilt on the passenger seat and started driving south.
He never drove after dark. Every two hours, he pulled over and walked around the truck before getting back behind the wheel. He spent his nights at motels along the route, including stops in Amarillo and Albuquerque.
Herb and Otto weren’t strangers, but they weren’t exactly inseparable either. Herb had usually seen the dog only a few times a year, during Christmas visits or family fishing trips.
Still, there was something about Herb that Otto apparently hadn’t forgotten.
Family members had often joked that Carl and Herb sounded almost identical on the telephone.
When Herb finally arrived at the shelter, an employee led him toward Otto’s kennel.
The old bloodhound was lying beside the door with his eyes closed.
Herb lowered himself as far as his aging knees would allow.
“Hey, old man.”
Otto’s eyes opened.
His head lifted.
Then the dog struggled onto his bad hips and released the unmistakable, booming bay of a bloodhound.
The sound was so loud that two other shelter employees reportedly came out to see what was happening.
Otto knew that voice.
Perhaps it wasn’t Carl’s voice, but it was close enough to something familiar, something connected to home.
The shelter waived Otto’s adoption fee.
Outside, Herb opened the passenger door of the old Ford. Otto tried twice to climb into the truck but couldn’t manage it with his weakened back legs.
So Herb leaned down, wrapped his arms around the dog’s hindquarters and helped him onto the quilt waiting in the passenger seat.
Then they started the 1,100-mile journey back to Kansas.
Herb drove exactly as he had on the way down, only during daylight and with regular stops.
But this time he wasn’t alone.
Otto rode beside him, often resting his chin near the armrest between the seats.
Somewhere in New Mexico, Herb began talking.
He told Otto stories about Carl.
There was the story of the ice-fishing shelter that sank. Then came the story of the Buick the brothers wrecked in 1958.
One memory led to another, and Herb kept talking as the miles passed beneath the truck.
By the time they reached Kansas, Otto had heard decades of stories about the man he had spent almost his entire life following.
Today, the old bloodhound sleeps on a rug beside Herb’s recliner.
And Herb has kept one small piece of his brother’s life untouched.
He continues paying for Carl’s old cellphone.
The number still works, and so does the voicemail.
Some evenings, Herb calls it and switches the phone to speaker.
Carl’s recorded voice fills the room.
And Otto lifts his head.
