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The mansion across the street had stood empty since the All-Star break, and now it was nearly time for the World Series. So we were relieved when a moving truck finally pulled into our dead-end street, a mile north of downtown Columbus, Ohio. Our dog, Pudge, noticed it first—not the truck, but the dog sitting erect and regal between the two dark men in the front seat. Broad-shouldered and shaggy as a wolf, the dog was taller when seated than the passenger on his right, and just a little shorter than the driver, who was so lanky that he had to duck his head to peer under the sun flap.

Pudge thrust his boxy head through the porch balusters and barked at the wolf-dog as he would at any intruder. After the mansion was taken from the previous neighbors—either repossessed by the bank, or seized as part of a meth bust, depending on who you asked—Pudge’s territory had grown to include not just the brick mansion and pillared front porch, but also the yard with its bare patches under pine trees, its sagging white fence, its cracked sidewalk next to the weed-choked grass along the curb, and even a length of the street where the moving truck had now pulled up and stopped.

The cab door opened, and the driver dropped soundlessly to the street. Standing upright, he was as long-limbed as a catalog model, and he was dressed in the fall collection: khaki slacks and a beige corduroy jacket over a matching turtleneck sweater. The fall colors continued into his face and hands, whose skin was tawny as an oak leaf.