I’m a 26-year-old delivery driver who spends more time with my three-legged Lab than with actual people — and on one frozen night at a gas station, that dog reacted to a stranger in a way that forced me to face a part of my past I’d been avoiding for years.
I’m Caleb, 26M.
I delivered medical supplies. Oxygen tanks, meds, rush jobs. If someone paid extra, I drove it, snow or not.
My partner was my dog, Mooney.
Mooney was a three-legged yellow Lab.
Front left gone, big scar, bigger ego. He rode shotgun like the truck was his.
I got him after my best friend from the Army, Bennett, was killed overseas.
The funeral was a haze of uniforms I didn’t really see.
After it ended, a guy from our unit walked up holding a leash.
On the end was this skinny yellow Lab with stitches and a cone.
“Stray got hit by a truck near base,” he said. “Bennett harassed everyone till they fixed him up.”
I stared.
“Because Bennett said, ‘If I don’t make it, give him to Caleb.'” He shrugged.
“Said you needed someone who wouldn’t leave you behind.”
He shoved the leash into my hand and walked away.
So Mooney came home with me.
He learned stairs on three legs. Learned where I kept the treats. Learned to bark at anyone who got too close to my truck.
A year went by.
Then came one brutal January afternoon.
Windchill was subzero.
Roads were ice. I’d been driving all day, delivering tanks to houses that smelled like worry.
On my way back, I pulled into a gas station by a big-box store. I needed fuel and coffee or I was going to fall asleep.
I parked at a pump.
Mooney sat up, fogging the window with his nose.
“Two minutes,” I told him. “Don’t steal the truck.”
He snorted.
As I stepped out, I saw the van.
Rusty white, parked near the edge of the lot. One window taped over with plastic.
It looked tired.
An older man stood next to it with a red gas can, tipping it into the tank and getting almost nothing.
He wore a faded Army jacket. No hat. No gloves.
His hands were cracked and red, one knuckle bleeding.
Something in my chest clenched.
I walked over, pulling a 20 from my wallet.
“Sir,” I said, holding it out, “please grab something hot. Coffee, food.”
He straightened like I’d insulted him.
“I’m not begging,” he said. Voice rough, steady.
“Got a pension coming. Just waiting on paperwork.”
I froze, hand still out.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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