Dusty

by Jane B. Mason

  There were some loco smells swirling around! There was always a lot to smell on the ranch—humans, dogs, food, trees, dirt—the rubble pile alone smelled like about fifty different things. Today, though, there was even more. He sniffed again and again. The new smells were making him eager to get to work! He walked over and sat down next to Luis and looked up at him, signaling that he was ready to roll.

  “All set?” Roxanne asked.

  “Always,” Luis replied with a nod. He lowered his gaze to Dusty. “Find!” he commanded.

  Dusty did not need to hear the word twice. He took off like a shot, heading for the rubble pile, turning left and skirting the edge. His nose buzzed with the myriad of smells. He raced roughly halfway around, taking them in and listening with his giant ears. Somewhere not too far away someone was using a chainsaw. The loud raarrrr raarrr raarrr made Dusty’s ears twitch, and the smells of gasoline and wood and grease burned his nostrils. Part of him wanted to pause, but he knew he wasn’t supposed to. None of those smells had anything to do with his target.

  He trotted forward, then stopped when one of his favorite smells grabbed his snout. Shelby! He smelled Shelby, and he loved Shelby! Shelby smelled like kindness and enchiladas. Shelby’s lap was warm and cozy and the perfect size. Sheeelllbyyy!

  Shelby was not his target.

  Dusty’s nose twitched. The smell of Morgan was right behind the smell of Shelby. Dusty loved Morgan! She gave him food every morning. She picked up his poop. She hid for him a lot!

  Morgan was not his target, either.

  Dusty’s target was hidden in the pile, and he was getting closer. He trotted forward a few Chihuahua lengths and leaped onto a broken piece of plywood, then ducked under a crumpled piece of chain-link fencing. He scrambled up a massive chunk of cement before stepping onto a pallet that teetered beneath him. He paused, shifted his weight, and continued on.

  “Good dog,” Luis called when the pallet stilled and Dusty continued up the pile.

  Suddenly Dusty’s nose started to quiver in a new way. He smelled something he’d never smelled while on a search. Food! Even after being fed regularly for months, the smell of food still tantalized him. His brain still told him to find food find food find food, and his legs desperately wanted to respond. He stopped and sniffed. Took a step forward. Stopped again. And again. The meaty scent of canned dog food swelled into his snout, making him drool right there on the fat PVC pipe he was standing on. His nostrils widened. He swallowed the saliva. He licked his lips.

  Dusty was not supposed to find food when he was working … nunca. Not ever. He held perfectly still. He took a long, indulgent sniff. Then he turned away from the dog food smell and picked a careful path around to the far side of the rubble pile. Here there were a lot of pipes in all shapes and sizes—some skinny, some fat, some straight, and some twisted. Some set off wafts of metal, while others smelled of plastic. Something lured him into a wide steel pipe. The sides were slippery, but the smell coming from the far end of it was loco strong: rotten chicken!

  Back before he came to the ranch, Dusty would have gulped rotten chicken down in a second and suffered for it a couple of hours later. Not today. Not now. He was working. As stinky good as it was, the chicken was not the target, either. He crawled back out of the pipe.

  “Yes!” Luis cheered. He’d been pacing on the ground next to this section of the rubble pile, keeping an eye on Dusty from a distance. Now he shouted encouragement. “Find!”

  Not too far away, Forrest was banging rebar on rebar. It was really, really loud. Dusty scampered away from him, over some shiny flashing metal and broken concrete. He followed his nose, ignoring the smell of a rat coming from behind the broken drywall. Normally enticing, but not today. Not his target.

  Sniff. Sniff. Sniff. More quivering. He hadn’t smelled that smell since his days of picking through gas station garbage cans. Dirty human diaper! Kind of delicious, kind of disgusting. Dusty was getting a teensy bit impatient. So many smells were assaulting him, but none of them were the right smell! None of them were the rottweiler lady!

  But wait! Dusty stopped. He sniffed again at the delicious disgustingness. There was something mixed in with it, and he needed to check out what it was.

  Yes! It was the smell he’d been sniffing for. At last! Stifling a bark of excitement, he commando-crawled under a plank of wood. The plank was longer and lower than he expected, and he had to press his belly to the ground to get through. Finally he could smell that he was there—he was in the right place. The rottweiler lady and the dirty diaper were both on the other side of a big piece of plywood. Now was the time to bark.

  “Yip!” Dusty alerted Luis. “Yip, yip, yip!” He barked and barked and barked but didn’t dig. He knew that digging on rubble piles could cause problems.

  “Incredible,” Roxanne said as she and Luis approached. “I’ve honestly never seen a dog that was anything like him.”

  Dusty puffed out his little chest, beaming with pride, and so did Luis. “He’s an original, all right,” the ex-cop crowed as he stuck a fresh toothpick between his front teeth.

  “He’s got a laser focus not usually found in strays.” Roxanne was still shaking her head as she and Luis pulled aside the board that concealed Eloise and the stink bomb.

  Eloise stepped out, gasping a little and fanning her pale face. “I can’t believe you made me hide with a diaper!” Her blue eyes were laughing.

  Roxanne patted her on the shoulder and grinned. “Look on the bright side,” she joked. “You just significantly increased your chances of getting hired full-time at the Sterling Center!”

  Shelby groaned, rolled over, and slapped her alarm clock into silence. Why did seven thirty feel so much earlier on Saturday than it did on Thursday? She would have liked to close her eyes and drift back to sleep. There was only one thing that could make her get up this early on a weekend. Okay, maybe two. But the one she was thinking of was black-and-white and had enormous ears and would be leaving the ranch today. No way was she going to miss her chance to say goodbye to Dusty.

  Even though she hadn’t been getting the lap and cuddle time she used to—not since November when Dusty started training, and she and Ryan became a thing—she’d taken comfort in the fact that he was still on the ranch. And she’d visited him whenever she could. But once he received his certification he’d be leaving for Texas with Luis. And Shelby was going to miss him like crazy.

  “Ugh!” Shelby groaned again and sat up.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Morgan asked, pulling her head out of their shared closet. She knew today was going to be hard for her big sister.

  “I’m just really going to miss him,” Shelby whined.

  Morgan pulled a flannel shirt off a hanger and buttoned it on, coming over to Shelby’s bed.

  “He’s probably the best listener I’ve ever met,” her sister finished.

  Morgan finished her buttoning and nodded seriously, then smirked. “Well, with those ears he oughta be,” she quipped. But it didn’t get a crack of a smile out of Shelby. She was too bummed.

  Morgan knew exactly what her sister meant, and how she felt. Some dogs were fantastic listeners. Over the years Morgan had told dogs plenty of things she wouldn’t tell anyone else. She couldn’t totally explain it, but the right dog had a way of making you feel … heard. Understood. Better.

  There was nothing Morgan could say to make Shelby feel better. Dusty was leaving, which was great and also really, really hard. So she just squeezed her sister’s hand in support.

  “That little dog sure has big pull!” Frances looked around the training field at the crowd that had gathered to watch the demonstration and certification ceremony. Certification was a big deal, and it didn’t happen every day. Today three dogs were hopefully going to get certified and move on. But despite the fact that they were incredible dogs with many skills, the crowd wasn’t there to see Radar or Telluride. They had come to see the mighty mini mutt: Dusty.

  This situation had been
brought about in part because Georgia recognized a good publicity moment. She’d alerted the media about their tiny graduate by sending out press releases and making a call to her friend at the local radio station. A notice about the ceremony had been in the local paper, and a guy with a TV camera was there to capture some cute footage for the evening news. Frances saw a couple of other people she suspected were reporters, too, and Pedro’s niece, Sylvia, was a sought-after interviewee once the word got out that she had been the one to rescue Dusty from a trash heap on the side of the road.

  Sylvia, for her part, was thrilled to be there. She’d driven up from school with Xander to see Dusty “graduate” and start his new life—and to meet his human partner, Luis.

  Roxanne surveyed the scene, appearing cool, calm, and collected on the outside. Inside she felt a little like jelly. She was used to having a few observers at certification demos, but there were at least fifty people here—a bigger crowd than the dogs had seen before. She spotted Frances, taking her own survey of the scene. Roxanne suspected the older woman felt a strong sense of pride … this was, after all, her making.

  Just then Frances looked in Roxanne’s direction and caught her eye, giving her a satisfied and supportive nod. It was exactly what Roxanne needed. It made her realize that she felt pride, too—that her trainees had all been proofed and were up to snuff. The dogs were ready, and so were their handlers. Looking over at the bright-eyed, wagging pups standing beside their people, she saw that for them this wasn’t nerve-racking in the least—it was fun!

  Radar was first, and Roxanne shot a video of him on her phone. The hesitation and trust challenges he’d struggled with were nowhere to be seen. He moved with confidence and appeared unflappable. When the crowd applauded at the end of his course, he ate it up like a bowl of peanut butter, completing a victory lap with his tail held high.

  Telluride loved the audience, too. He put on a little extra speed during the second half—just enough to get through the course half a minute faster but not so fast as to risk losing control—and when he finished he ran in tight circles, spinning like a top before grabbing the length of fire hose that was his favorite toy and giving it a good shake.

  But Dusty! Roxanne had to work hard to keep from laughing when her teensy trainee was up. He swaggered to the middle of the course with his chest puffed up in his red vest, totally aware that all eyes were on him. Luis walked beside him, equally puffed, and the pair stood side by side and waited for Roxanne’s cue to start. When Roxanne nodded, Luis gave Dusty a hand signal and the Chihuahua mutt was off. He practically floated through the agility course, his feet only touching down occasionally. He ran through a string of commands with Luis with such intense focus Roxanne wondered if they were communicating telepathically! And when it came time for scent article searching (the dogs had to locate a hidden handkerchief loaded with human smell), Dusty blew the big dogs away. It wasn’t a competition, of course, but nobody could tell that to Dusty. He strutted around the field waving the handkerchief like a victory flag. The crowd loved it.

  Roxanne, still recording with her phone, panned over the faces to catch their reactions. Frances, Martin, Georgia, and Forrest were all grinning ear-to-ear. Morgan, Juniper, and Shelby were standing close together. The two older girls had their arms linked tightly, and though they were all smiling, too, Shelby’s eyes glistened with tears. The folks from town clapped and laughed and nudged one another. Pedro stood with his niece and Xander. Sylvia’s mouth hung open in disbelief. Pedro looked like a proud papa, and when Roxanne caught his eye, she gave him a nod of excitement and gratitude. Pedro had understood early on that Dusty was up for anything, and together they’d prepared a fantastic team. Roxanne felt ready to burst herself!

  With a gulp, Roxanne stepped into the middle of the field and made the certification announcements. She called the teams up, one by one. They were official now and it was time for the dogs to leave the ranch, to go train with units near their new homes. It was time for them to get down to the rewarding and challenging work of being SAR dogs. Certification days were always the happiest and saddest at the center, and today was no exception.

  Dusty stood in the parking lot surrounded by people and wagged. The big crowd that had cheered for him on the field was mostly gone, and now the faces hovering over him were familiar. They were his favorite faces, and they made him wag even faster. Looking up at the kind smiles, Dusty barely remembered a time when he did not like people.

  Sylvia, the human who had pulled him out of the ditch, was the one who started this big shift. She had cared about him when there was no one else to care, when he was totally alone. He remembered how he had shivered in her sweatshirt, too stunned and scared to think.

  “I knew you could do it!” Sylvia said, kneeling down. “I knew you were something special.” Dusty let her scratch him behind the ears, then rolled onto his back so she could get his belly. He was grateful for this girl and would be forever. She had brought him to this place, this dog heaven. The ranch was where things had really changed for him.

  Pedro squatted down, too. “You know I can’t resist that belly!” He laughed. “Gonna miss having you around, big guy,” he confessed in a low voice tinged with sadness.

  Dusty didn’t know what Pedro was saying, exactly. But he could smell his sad mixed in with his tantalizing aroma of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

  Pedro stood. Dusty did, too, shaking off the dust. He shook so hard his feet came off the ground, and a second later he was scooped up into a warm pair of arms.

  Shelby held the little dog high, close to her face. Dusty licked her cheek. Shelby was so sweet to him. He thought of the time when his feet were sore and his stomach was churning and Shelby held him in her warm lap day after day. It was the perfect place to get better. He licked her cheek again. It was wet and tasted like salt.

  The other girls, Morgan and the one who smelled like cat, gave Dusty kisses on his head. Then the boy did.

  “Good luck, rubble rat.” Dusty wagged slowly. “Rubble” was a word he knew. He was good at rubble.

  “I’m afraid we need to get on the road,” Luis said, interrupting the petting and kissing session. His voice was softer than usual. “Dusty and I have a long drive in front of us.”

  Shelby nodded. She pressed her forehead to Dusty’s snout. She smelled sadder than Pedro. Not the same kind of sad she’d been when he sat on her lap months ago. This was a different sad, and Dusty thought maybe it had something to do with him.

  “I will miss you like crazy,” Shelby whispered. “But I know you’ll be happy.” With a last kiss she handed him over to Luis, who set him down on the ground to stand on his own four feet.

  Morgan gave Bear to Dusty, and he carried him in his mouth to Luis’s truck. The tall man opened the door and invited Dusty to climb in. He’d put a crate inside, with two cozy blankets. Dusty took a running leap and hopped up onto the seat. He sniffed the crate and dropped Bear inside, then jumped up to the top of it so he had a full view out the windshield. Luis smiled and nodded. “A copilot, not a passenger,” he said. “I get it.” He closed the door, leaving the window open a crack for some good outside air, and got into the driver’s seat.

  The Sterling family and trainers, Sylvia, and Xander stood together waving as Luis backed the truck up and rolled toward the parking lot exit.

  Everyone watched the retreating truck … except Shelby, who couldn’t bring herself to look.

  “Shelby,” Morgan said in a low voice as the truck disappeared. She tugged her sister’s hand, but Shelby shook her head and didn’t raise it.

  “I think you have a visitor.” Morgan’s voice was insistent. “And I’m pretty sure this will make you feel better.”

  Finally Shelby raised her head and saw Ryan walking toward them. He’d never come to the ranch before—he’d never dared. His dog allergies were terrible, and Shelby was certain that being in proximity of this many dogs would land him in the hospital, unable to breathe! She was glad to see him, super glad,
but …

  Shelby blinked back her happy/sad tears and put up her hand, signaling to Ryan that it wasn’t safe to approach. Ryan, though, wasn’t slowing down. He was speeding up with his arms out, going in for the hug.

  “I’m covered in dog hair!” Shelby protested.

  Ryan wrapped his arms around her, anyway. “I knew this morning would be rough for you,” he said, squeezing her. “So I took extra-strength allergy meds as soon as I woke up.”

  Shelby felt his comforting arms around her shoulders and melted a little. He wasn’t a furry creature with white fur and giant ears, but he was pretty awesome.

  Ryan pulled back and smiled at her. “Now why don’t you show me around this place before the pills wear off?”

  During his months of training, Dusty had been in several cars. He’d even ridden in a helicopter! But this trip with Luis was the longest ride of his short life. At first it was exciting. With the window open, green smells wafted from the rolling hills, and fields of blossoming trees shared their sweet scent. And the cows! Cows really smelled. And underlying it all were the familiar odors of asphalt and rubber and fuel. He tried to take it all in from the top of his crate, sitting up straight and looking around. After a while, though, it got hard to sit. His hindquarters started to ache. So he curled up, still on top of the crate. He watched Luis chomping on the little stick he always kept in the side of his mouth. Luis loved his tiny stick the way some dogs loved big sticks … the way Dusty loved Bear. It was funny that a big man liked such a tiny stick. But then again, he liked a tiny dog.