by Kate Messner
Ranger lowered his tail. He didn’t bark to alert, but he stopped for a moment and tipped his head until Tom noticed and gave a sad nod.
“We need a crew over here!” Tom called out. “I think he’s found remains.”
While workers moved hunks of metal and concrete, Ranger kept searching. He picked up the sad, quiet person smell over and over. But never the flowery smell of Risha’s mom. When Ranger finished searching an area, he’d come back to Tom. Tom would pet him and say, “Good job, boy.” But his rough hand felt heavier and heavier on Ranger’s head.
“K-9! Over here!” someone shouted. And Ranger searched. But again, he found nothing.
Ranger’s head felt heavy, and his tail drooped. How could he do his job when it felt like there was no one to save?
“Over here, dog!” someone called, and Ranger set out for another spot on the pile. Building frames towered over him, with jagged tops and blown-out windows. Ranger’s paws hurt. His fur was matted with dust. But he knew he couldn’t give up. He had to keep searching for Tom’s friends and Risha’s mother.
The sun was high in the sky when Ranger finally caught a trace of person smell. He followed the scent trail over a pile of beams and charred carpet pieces.
There! The smell was coming from a wide, dark space between two beams.
Ranger barked.
He made his way closer and barked again to alert Tom.
Right away, a firefighter popped up from the opening.
“Good job, boy!” he called. He hugged Ranger and gave him a nice, long neck scratch. Ranger looked back at Tom.
“Good dog!” Tom called. “You found Joe!”
Ranger wagged his tail, but he knew Joe wasn’t who he was supposed to find. Joe was doing what Luke used to when they practiced. He was hiding just so Ranger could find him. Still, Ranger let Joe scratch his neck a little more. Tom and Joe seemed happy that he’d found someone, at least.
“Let’s get you some water,” Tom said. He started to lead Ranger off the pile, but another rescue worker called to them.
“K-9! Over here!” she shouted, so Ranger went. He circled the area she’d been pointing to, sniffing the air. She was right. There was a person here, but not one who had survived. Ranger dropped his tail and paused for a few seconds.
“We’ve got one,” the woman called to someone. She bent and patted Ranger’s head with a sigh. “Good job, dog.”
It happened over and over, every time Tom tried to take Ranger off the pile for a break. Other workers would see them and call out.
“Over here!”
“Check here!”
Ranger wanted to help. He wanted to find everyone, if there was anyone left to find. But mostly he wanted to find Risha’s mom. He wanted to bring her back to Risha and Max so they could all go home. Maybe then Ranger could go home, too.
But finally, Ranger’s nose was so full of the stinging dust that he couldn’t smell anymore. Tom saw him panting and said, “That’s it. You need a rest.”
He walked Ranger off the pile and down the street to a tent where people had set up a sort of hospital for the search-and-rescue dogs who had come with their handlers to help. A border collie named Bella was having her paw bandaged, while a German shepherd named Anna waited to see the vet.
A kind woman with a ponytail gave Ranger a long drink of cool water. She washed his paws in a bucket and rinsed the dust out of his eyes and nose.
“There you go,” she said, stroking the wet fur on his neck. “That’s a good job you did today.”
When Ranger headed back up the street with Tom, almost everyone stopped to pet him. Police officers and rescue workers and firefighters with sad, tired eyes. Some of them hugged him for a long, long time. One firefighter buried his face in Ranger’s neck and cried.
When Ranger went places with Luke at home, people always liked him. But here, they needed him. He nuzzled every hand that reached out to him. He stayed the longest with people who seemed the saddest.
“Good dog,” Tom said, bending down to pet him after everyone else had finally moved on. “You want to go back to work?”
Ranger didn’t want to go back at all. It was awful, finding people he couldn’t save. But maybe there was still someone he could help. He knew he had to try.
“Can we get a dog here?” a tall firefighter shouted from atop a pile of concrete. “Joe heard something, but it may have just been more settling!”
Ranger trotted ahead of Tom. He climbed the mountain of rubble.
The firefighter pointed into a dark crevice next to a crumpled staircase. “Search here!”
Ranger lowered his head and sniffed. He smelled all the same things — fire and metal and concrete dust. But there was something else, too.
Ranger couldn’t fit down into the space. It was blocked with pieces of building and twisted steel. He pawed at a chunk of concrete.
“He might have something!” the firefighter shouted. Joe and Tom rushed over. Ranger backed away so they could pull some of the heavy pieces from the heap. When they’d opened it up a little more, Ranger leaned in again. With his back feet on a thin railing, he crept deeper into the space, sniffing the air.
There!
It was a person smell! A living person who smelled like dust and smoke … and flowers. The same flowers he’d smelled on Risha’s scarf.
Ranger barked. There was a muffled thump from below.
Ranger pawed at a chunk of concrete. He barked again, and a quiet voice rose up from the dark.
“I’m here …”
“He’s got a survivor!” Tom shouted, and more firefighters came running.
“We’re here!” Tom called into the darkness. “Hang on! We’re going to get you out!”
More and more rescue workers arrived. They brought axes and crowbars and big metal jaws for cutting away steel beams.
The fur on Ranger’s neck prickled. The debris kept shifting under his feet. The firefighters couldn’t feel it, but Ranger could. The whole pile was moving and shifting under them. It felt trembly and unstable. Not safe!
But they’d finally found someone to save. No one was leaving now. It felt as if the whole world were holding its breath.
Working together, four men managed to move the huge beam that was blocking their way. Slowly and carefully, they lowered themselves into the darkness.
“She’s all right!” one of them shouted up.
Ranger couldn’t stay back. He walked to the edge of the opening and looked down. The flower smell from the scarf was strong, and now Ranger could see Risha’s mother! The firefighters were helping her to stand. Two other rescue workers leaned way down and lifted her into the light. Her purple dress was torn and charred, and her hair and face were covered with the sticky gray dust. She blinked at the bright sun, squinted across the pile of rubble to the street, and stumbled forward. “My daughter and her friend …”
A firefighter grabbed her arm to catch her. “We’ll find them,” he said, and eased her onto a stretcher. “But first we need to get you to an ambulance.”
Together, the rescue workers carried Risha’s mom over the mountain of rubble. When they reached the street, a team of doctors swooped in to help. While they were checking her over and giving her water, Ranger took off down the sidewalk. He had to find Risha and Max.
Ranger could still smell smoke from the towers, but soon there were new scents. River and boat fuel and people. So many people! They were huddled together on the riverbank, waiting. Boats of all sizes came to shore and went away again, loaded with people. The whole river was full of boats, ferrying people away from the disaster. Were Risha and Max still here?
Ranger hurried into the crowd. He wandered through little groups of people standing together. He kept walking, kept sniffing the air until …
There!
Ranger caught the Risha smell. He followed it to a pier where she and Max were just about to get on a little tugboat. Ranger ran up to her and barked.
Risha whirled around. “
Dog!” Had the dog found her mother? She was afraid to hope, but she had to find out.
She turned to Max’s father, who had made his way to the river to find them. “This is the dog that was with us. We have to go with him now!” she blurted out. “I think he’s found my mom.”
“You coming?” the tugboat captain called out.
Max’s father frowned. He looked at Risha. Then he looked back at the boat and shook his head. “Not yet.”
Risha kept her hand on Ranger’s neck as they hurried back up the street. Max held her other hand, and she was grateful. If they didn’t find her mother, she’d need the whole world to hold her up.
“This area is restricted!” a police officer shouted as they turned onto West Street.
“Wait here …” Max’s father said. He walked up to the officer and talked quietly with him for a moment. He pointed back to Risha and Max and Ranger. The officer’s eyes grew wide. He waved them forward and led them up West Street to an area with doctors and nurses and ambulances. They wove their way through a long line of rescue vehicles until Risha caught a glimpse of purple.
“Mom!” Risha ran ahead, dropped her backpack, and climbed into the back of the ambulance, right into her mother’s arms.
Tears made muddy streaks down her mom’s face. “Oh, thank God!” she said, and buried her face in Risha’s hair. “You found me.”
One of the firefighters turned to Max’s dad. “She was one of the last ones down,” he said. “She was almost out when the tower fell. Somehow she managed to be in the one spot that didn’t collapse. One of the search dogs found her.”
“This one,” Risha said, pointing to Ranger. She hadn’t been there when he found her mom, but she knew. She climbed down from the ambulance and hugged Ranger around his neck. She took off her mom’s scarf. “Here … I don’t know who you belong to, but you can keep this.” She tied it around Ranger’s neck like a bandanna and squeezed him again. “Thank you, dog.”
Ranger leaned into the hug. He breathed in Risha’s warm smell. Smoke and sweat and the flowery mom smell from her scarf. And then he heard a quiet hum.
Ranger turned and saw Risha’s backpack on the street. When Risha climbed back up to be with her mom, he crept quietly over to the backpack. It was halfway unzipped. He pawed at it until it opened, and his first aid kit slid out onto the street.
Ranger looked down at the old metal box. Then he looked out at the mountain of rubble. There was more work to be done here. So much more, and so much sadness. But there was nothing else Ranger could do. His job was done. It was time to go home.
Ranger looked up at Risha hugging her mom in the ambulance, and at Max standing close beside his dad. It felt good to see them together, and safe.
The humming was louder now — loud enough to drown out the sounds of fire trucks and cranes and shouting rescue workers. Light spilled from the cracks in the old metal box. Ranger lowered his head and nuzzled the leather strap around his neck. The box grew warm at his throat as the light grew brighter and brighter. Brighter than the sun that still shone through the smoke and dust. It was so bright that Ranger had to close his eyes.
When he opened them, he saw Luke at the kitchen door with a bowl of chili.
“Hey, Ranger!” Luke said, leaning into the mudroom. “Dad put a little extra ground beef in a bowl for you.”
Ranger lowered his neck and let the first aid kit drop into his dog bed. Then he looked at Luke and wagged his tail.
“Hey, what’s that?” Luke asked. He put his chili down on the shoe bench and pulled the scarf from Ranger’s neck. “Where’d you get this? Have Sadie and Noreen been dressing you up in Mom’s stuff again?”
Ranger barked. He took the scarf gently in his teeth and pulled it back from Luke.
Luke laughed. “Okay, but if Mom gets mad, you have to tell her I’m not the one who gave you that.” He picked up his chili and headed back to the kitchen. “Don’t forget there’s meat when you’re hungry!”
Ranger liked ground beef. But before he went to the kitchen, he took Risha’s scarf to his dog bed. He pawed his blanket aside to uncover his treasures — all the things he’d been given on his other adventures. There was an important paper full of words from Walt, the young man on the war-torn beach. There was another scarf — a purple one from Clare, the girl in the hurricane — and a funny-shaped leaf from Marcus, the boy from the big, loud arena far away. Ranger dropped the new scarf into the bed beside them.
He’d miss Risha and Max. They’d been such good friends to each other and to him. But they were safe with their parents. Ranger had done his job. He’d helped as much as he could. And for now, his work was through.
Ranger pushed his blanket around until all his treasures were hidden again. Then he walked to the kitchen door and sniffed the air.
It smelled like Luke and sizzling meat and chili spices and home.
This is the eleventh Ranger in Time book, and it was one of the most difficult to write because I remember the morning of September 11, 2001, so well. My daughter was just over a month old, and I was home with her when my husband called and told me to turn on the television. I watched in horror at what was happening until I couldn’t watch any more. Then I went outside and sat with my daughter by the lake, trying to imagine how the world could ever feel all right again.
When my son came home from kindergarten, my husband and I told him what had happened. We explained that terrorists had hijacked four airplanes. That they’d flown three of them into buildings, killing almost three thousand people. That the passengers and crew had heroically struggled to take back the fourth plane, which ended up crashing into a field in Pennsylvania.
But mostly, we told our son about the helpers. We told him about the brave firefighters who had gone into the Twin Towers to rescue people trapped on high floors. We told him about the people who worked in those towers, how they cared for and helped one another that morning, so that many thousands more were able to escape. We told him how so many people are working every day to make the world better and safer and kinder.
The characters in this story are fictional, but they were inspired by the real office workers, police officers, firefighters, rescue crews, and other New York City residents who came together on that day. And it wasn’t just people who helped out. An estimated 250–300 search-and-rescue dogs were called to work after the 9/11 attacks. They came from all over the country to assist in search and recovery efforts. Sadly, only twenty survivors were pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center, most in the first few hours after the towers fell.
After September 12, there were no more people to rescue. Instead, the dogs helped workers recover the bodies of those who had died in the attack. They also served as therapy dogs for rescue workers, firefighters, police officers, and families around the scene. Search-and-rescue dog handlers who spent time at the World Trade Center site talked about how patient their dogs were, how every tired worker who needed a snuggle got one.
Immediately after the attacks, people began planning a memorial. They knew that the world would need a place to come and remember what had happened and to honor those who lost their lives. Ten years later, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum opened to the public at the World Trade Center site. Israeli architect Michael Arad designed the memorial — two reflecting pools where the Twin Towers once stood, surrounded by trees. The names of the victims of the attacks are inscribed in the stone around the pools.
The World Trade Center site also includes an extensive museum with exhibits on what happened on September 11, the days leading up to the attack, and its aftermath. It includes objects that tell the story of what happened that day — shoes and eyeglasses found on the sidewalk, and rescue vehicles that were destroyed when the towers collapsed.
This fire truck from New York City’s Ladder Company 3 was parked on West Street, near Vesey Street. Eleven members of this fire station died in the collapse of the North Tower.
This staircase is the one that led from
the World Trade Center Plaza to adjacent Vesey Street. It’s called the Survivors’ Stairs now, because so many people used these battered steps to escape.
At the center of the museum’s main gallery is the last column to be removed from the World Trade Center site at the end of the cleanup effort in May 2002. Rescue workers, first responders, volunteers, and relatives of victims signed the column and left mementos of the people they lost there.
Perhaps more than anything, the museum shares stories of courage and compassion from a terrible day in history. There are stories of rescue workers who climbed into the smoke to help people and neighbors who invited strangers into their homes. Stories of a city that came together after an unspeakable tragedy to lift one another up.
If you’d like to read more about the 9/11 attacks, rescue efforts, and search-and-rescue dogs, look for the following books:
10 True Tales: Heroes of 9/11 by Allan Zullo (Scholastic, 2011).
Fireboat: The Heroic Adventures of the John J. Harvey by Maira Kalman (Penguin, 2002).
America Is Under Attack: September 11, 2001: The Day the Towers Fell by Don Brown (Square Fish, 2014).
I Survived the Attacks of September 11, 2001 by Lauren Tarshis (Scholastic, 2012).
Sniffer Dogs: How Dogs (and Their Noses) Save the World by Nancy Castaldo (HMH Books, 2014).
I’m grateful to the staff of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum for answering my questions and especially to North Tower survivor Wendy Lanski, who talked with me about her experience escaping from the twenty-ninth floor on the morning of September 11, 2001, and served as an early reader for this story. The following resources were also helpful:
Bauer, Nona Kilgore. Dog Heroes of September 11th: A Tribute to America’s Search and Rescue Dogs. Allenhurst, NJ: Kennel Club Books, 2006.
Dwyer, Jim, and Flynn, Kevin. 102 Minutes: The Unforgettable Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers. New York: Times Books, 2005.