A Dog's Way Home

by W. Bruce Cameron

  I remembered the last time I had faced this sort of threat. A good dog learns when things repeat. Having something behind me had frustrated their attack. If I could reach those large bounders, I would not be out in the open where a pack could bring me down. I would have a chance to battle for my life.

  Though my legs were weak from the days without adequate food, I began running uphill, feeling the pack of predators pressing steadily ahead behind me.

  I was panting hard when I arrived at the base of the outcropping, and I lay in a small pool of shade for a time to catch my breath. From where I lay I could see the steeply pitched meadow below, and spotted the three small bad dogs as they emerged from the woods. They had my scent and came in single file straight toward me.

  My lips drew back in an involuntary snarl.

  At that moment I did not remember Lucas, did not think about Axel or any people at all. I was stripped down to my canine essence, gripped with a primitive fury; I wanted to sink my teeth into coyote flesh. I got to my feet, waiting for them to arrive, for the fight to begin.

  Twenty-six

  The three coyotes came up the hill silently, their tongues out, their eyes slits. As they approached they spread out, knowing that with my back to the rocks I could retreat no farther. I could smell the hunger on their exhalations, and they shared a familial odor—these three males were young, from the same litter, and clearly starving. I was bigger than any of them, but they were desperate.

  The instinct to engage them was nearly overpowering, an urge I didn’t understand compelling me, but I stayed with my tail to the boulders, resisting the impulse to lunge, to chase them down. I barked, snapping my teeth, and they pulled back slightly, nosing each other, unsure because I wasn’t fleeing. One of them seemed larger and more bold, and this one rushed a few steps, dancing back when I darted forward to meet him while his two brothers moved to the side. I turned to face this new challenge and sensed the bolder one leaping at me. I snarled and charged and the other two came at me and I chopped the air with my fangs, knocking a smaller coyote over as the bold one sprang and I felt teeth on my neck, tearing my flesh. I screamed and twisted and slashed and bit and we went up on our rear legs and I forced him back and his brother darted forward.

  And then there was a blur of motion from above me and another animal joined the melee, landing right in front of my assailants. The coyotes were snarling and yelping in shock and fear and falling away from a ferocious attack. I stared in amazement as an enormous cat, far larger than I, sprang at the coyotes with nearly blinding speed, claws slashing. Her massive paw struck the bolder one in his haunches and sent him tumbling, and then the three of them were fleeing down the hill in panic, the cat loping easily after them for just a moment before she turned and stared at me.

  I wagged. I knew this gigantic feline. Her scent had changed but still, at her essence, it was Big Kitten.

  She came to me and purred and rubbed her head under my chin, nearly knocking me off my feet with her tremendous strength. I play bowed and she put out a frolicsome paw, swatting without claw at my nose. I was only able to climb up on her shoulders by raising my front feet off the ground. How had she gotten so big?

  When she turned and climbed higher into the hills, I followed, tracking her by smell as night came. I was back on the trail to Lucas, so of course I was back with Big Kitten. Things repeat.

  She led me to a half-buried elk calf, and we fed just as we had done so many times before, side by side over the kill.

  I was tired and lay down in some grasses. Big Kitten came over and licked at the wound on my neck, her rough tongue scrubbing at it until I turned away from her and sighed. She went out to hunt but I remained where I lay, easily sleeping. She did not return until the sun was out, curling up against me and purring. I rested, resisting the urge to get to my feet to do Go Home. This was part of our pattern, to be near food and eat as much as possible before we moved on. We would do this until we were with Lucas, and then he would feed Big Kitten when he fed the rest of the cats.

  * * *

  The nights grew cooler as we traveled together. She would not accompany me during the day, but would always find me at night, sometimes leading me to a meal, usually buried in the dirt. We would spend time feeding before moving on from that spot. I was making steady progress toward Lucas; I could feel it, could smell it.

  Then one day Big Kitten did something very unusual. I nosed her in the morning as she lay half hidden by a downed tree, then trotted confidently away. There was a town ahead, a place where I could forage and bring food back to Big Kitten. It was how we traveled together.

  This day, instead of sleeping and catching up with me later on, Big Kitten followed me. I didn’t hear her, of course—she was soundless on the trail. Instead, her scent caught up to me, so strong I knew she was right there. I turned and looked. She was standing atop a large rock, motionlessly watching me.

  I did not understand this new behavior, and went back to her to see if I could comprehend. She leaped lightly to the ground, rubbing her head against me, then scampering back toward where she had been sleeping, looking expectantly over her shoulder.

  She wanted me to follow, as if luring me back to where we had come. But I needed to continue to make progress toward the smell of home. When I didn’t move, she returned to me. This time she didn’t rub herself against me, she just sat and stared at me. After a time, the two of us just looking at each other, I felt I understood.

  Big Kitten would not be living in the den across the street. She would not be lying on Lucas’s bed with me, waiting for a Tiny Piece of Cheese. She was not going to go any farther. For some reason, she could not or would not accompany me, nor wait for me on the trail when I went to a town to see if I could find food. It was as if she wanted to do Go Home herself, had a place she needed to be, and where we were standing now was too far away from there.

  I went to her, wagging, touching her with my nose. I loved Big Kitten, and knew that if I stayed with her she would hunt all winter for us, find prey when the snow made my progress so difficult. I had enjoyed my life with her, first when she was a defenseless kitty, and then when she grew large enough to protect herself, and now when she saved me from the small bad dogs. But my life had taught me that I would stay with people and animals until it was time to move on, and it was that time now. I had to do Go Home.

  I went back to tracking the odors toward the town up ahead. When I stopped and turned, Big Kitten was back on the rock, watching me with unwinking eyes. I remembered my mother doing the same thing, when I left her at her new home under the deck. Dutch had been confused and upset when I said good-bye but Big Kitten merely watched, just like Mother Cat. She was still there the next time I glanced back, and the next.

  And then I looked, and Big Kitten was gone.

  * * *

  It was dusk when I strolled into the town. There were leaves on the ground, scuttling ahead of me on the light breeze. Cheerful lights blinked awake inside the houses, flickering as people walked in front of windows.

  I was not hungry, but knew I would be soon. I slept under a bench in a park that smelled like children and dogs. In the morning I drank from a cold, clear river, avoiding the men and women I heard speaking to each other. I craved their company, but had no way of knowing which ones would keep me from returning to Lucas.

  Behind some buildings I found a bin so overstuffed that the lid was propped open. I jumped up, trying to get inside, but was not able to get a purchase on the lip of the bin with my fore claws. I remembered trying to clamber out of Sylvia’s pool—there are some things I simply could not do. Instead, when I leaped up, I thrust my snout into the bin and grabbed what I could, which turned out to be a sack with nothing edible in it. I tried again, this time snagging a plastic bag with my teeth. It fell to the ground and I ripped into it. I found a box with bird pieces and bones in it, not chicken but similar, and also a foil wrapping with spicy meat and flat bread.

  There were many people walking
the streets where the cars were, but very few in the narrow roads behind the buildings. The two humans I saw did not call to me.

  One building pulled me irresistibly forward—I smelled dog bones and dog treats and dog food in it. My mouth watering, I saw that its back door was open. I wondered if going inside would mean that I would be chased by a man in white clothes. A very tall truck was backed up right outside the open door, and when I cautiously explored it, I saw that the truck was open like a garage in the rear. By climbing the steps to the back door of the shop, I was on a cement pad at the same level as the deck of the open truck. I nimbly leaped across the gap between the cement and the wooden floor of the vehicle, lured by delicious odors. The enclosure was mostly empty except up toward the front end, where I encountered plastic that did nothing to contain the delicious odors from underneath it. I tore off the plastic and uncovered bags and bags of dog food.

  I ripped into the paper sack and began to feed. I did not feel like a bad dog; I was supposed to eat dog food!

  Then a man came out of the back of the store. I froze, feeling guilty, but he didn’t even look at me. He reached to the top of the truck and yanked on a strap and with a bang the back end of the truck was closed off. I went over to the door, sniffing, smelling the man and dog food and little else.

  The vehicle rattled to life with a roar and, swaying and bouncing, I felt it begin to move. I had to dig my nails into the wooden floor when the room swayed in one direction, and then the roar of the truck grew louder.

  I was trapped.

  * * *

  The truck rocked and bounced and growled for a long time, so long that I fell asleep despite the strange, car-ride feeling pulling at my body. The smells from outside kept changing subtly, but were mostly the same—water, trees, the occasional animal, people, dogs, smoke, food.

  Finally the steady drone of the truck took on a different character, becoming louder. The forces pulling on me became more pronounced and I slid sideways before I leapt to my feet. I felt a shift to one side, then another, and then I fell forward, and then the vehicle shut off, the sudden silence strange after such a long period of vibration. I heard a door shut and the sound of a man walking. I shook myself off and trotted back to where I had first gotten on the truck.

  With a loud rattling sound, the wall in front of me slid up. “Hey!” the man yelled as I jumped down to the ground.

  He did not seem friendly, so I did not approach him. Instead I ran, going up a street and turning toward some bushes, where I gratefully squatted. The man did not chase me.

  I assessed where I was. The place seemed very much the same as where I had spent the night, though I could smell it was a different town. There were buildings and some cars and many people walking around. The sun was setting, but the air was fairly warm. I smelled a large amount of water, clean snow high in the mountains, squirrels and cats and dogs.

  And home. Somehow, during the course of being in the back of that truck, I had become so close to home that the smell of it was separating into distinct parts. It was the reverse of what happened when Audrey drove me away from Lucas. I faced the tall mountains, which were glowing as the sun set. Just on the other side of them was my person.

  Though my belly was heavy from all the dog food, I was painfully thirsty and turned toward where my senses told me I would find a river. I drank from a swiftly moving stream, and then was drawn to the sound of children. It was a park with slides and swings and two small dogs who ran up to me, barking aggressively and then turning away submissively, politely sniffing under my tail. They were both females, one of whom wanted to play, pawing and bowing, and the other who dismissed me and went back to where her people were sitting on a blanket on the ground.

  Though I was anxious to get back on the trail, night was coming and I should find somewhere to curl up. This park would be a good, safe place to sleep.

  And then I would do Go Home.

  * * *

  The sky was barely brightening when I awoke the next morning. It was the time of day when Big Kitten would return from her prowlings, sometimes with food for us. I felt a small pang, missing her, but I was eager to get going. I skirted a lake and then climbed a high hill, tracking next to a big road with many vehicles booming up and down it. On the other side of the hill I found a river that was flowing exactly in the direction I needed to go, toward Lucas. A road wove in and out near the stream, sometimes close, sometimes not close, but nearly always where I could hear the cars.

  Padding alongside the rushing waters, I came across a big bird eating a large fish on a rock. I chased the bird, who flapped hard, dragging that fish, and then finally dropped it and rose high and away. I jumped on the fish and ate it quickly.

  The stream descended into a town where I found some sweet breads in a trash can and a flat piece of cheesy meat in a box. I slept behind a car in that town and was moving again just as the sun was coming up. I was so excited to see Lucas, to finally Go Home, that I found myself running along flat areas.

  I curled up in a park in a different town the next night. I had nothing to eat but I had been much hungrier in my life, and slept without trouble.

  My dreams were vivid and strange. I felt Axel’s hand rub my fur, and Big Kitten’s tongue on my neck where the coyote had bitten me. Heat flowed from Gavin and Taylor, pressed up against my side in their bed. I smelled Sylvia’s breath, and heard Chloe calling her kittens. Dutch groaned in my ear, a content sound he often made as he snuggled up to Gavin. I tasted Jose’s salty treats and felt Loretta arrange my Lucas blanket around me.

  It was as if they had all come to tell me good-bye.

  In the morning I climbed one more long, big hill, and everything was different. I descended into a place of roads and cars and could no longer set a straight course, because where before my obstacles had been hills and rocks, I was now confronted with fences and buildings. I knew, though, that I was making my way in the right general direction, and patiently wound through the streets, passing houses, hearing dogs, seeing people. I was conscious of being stared at by men and women and a few children called out to me, but I deliberately ignored them.

  The light faded from the sky, but the streets were lit and I actually felt more comfortable in the shadows. Car sounds drained away as the night grew late. Dogs left their yards, and their barking became more and more rare.

  I did not sleep, but stayed on the move through the darkness. Sounds grew louder as the sun rose, and I was back to feeling exposed, but I was so close now. I recognized a park where I had been with Lucas and Olivia. Almost home! I broke into a heedless run.

  When I turned down my street I slowed, unsure. Everything was different. The row of low, dirty houses across from our home were missing, including the one where the cat den had been. Tall buildings had taken their place, and I could smell many people, their scents flowing out open windows.

  But I was finally here! I did Go Home, but I did not curl up against the wall as I had been taught. Instead I scratched at the door, wagging, and barked. Lucas!

  A woman opened the door, the smells from home pouring out. “Hello, dear,” she greeted me.

  I wagged, but I could not smell Lucas. I could not smell Mom. Some of the odors were familiar, but I knew Lucas was not inside. Home no longer was filled with Lucas, it instead carried the scent of this woman in front of me.

  “What’s your name? Why don’t you have a collar? Are you lost?” she asked me.

  She was a nice lady, but I needed to find my person. When I pushed past her she said, “Oh my!” She did not seem angry, though.

  I stopped in the living room. She had a couch but it was not the same couch, and the table was different. I went down the hallway. Lucas’s room did not have a bed, it had other furniture instead. Mom’s room had a bed in the same place but it was not Mom’s bed.

  “What are you doing, sweetheart?” the woman asked when I emerged from the bedroom and rejoined her in the kitchen.

  She held out her hand and I went to
her wagging, hoping for an explanation. People can do wonderful things, and I wanted her to fix this for me, because it was not something a dog could understand.

  The woman gave me some water and some meat treats. I ate them gratefully, but inside I felt sick, realizing she would not be able to help me.

  Lucas was gone.

  Twenty-seven

  I was immediately afflicted with a pressing urge to leave, to get back on the trail. It was not Go Home without Lucas. Whatever was happening, that was the only action I could think to take.

  When I went to the door and sat expectantly, the nice woman came over to look down at me. “Are you leaving so soon? You just got here.”

  I glanced from her to the door, waiting for her to open it. She leaned over and held my chin with her cupped palm. “I have the sense that you came for a very important reason, but I don’t have anything to do with it, do I?”

  I heard the kindness in her voice and wagged.

  “Whatever you are doing,” she whispered, “I hope you find what you are looking for.”

  She opened the door and I trotted outside. “Good-bye, girl!” I heard her call behind me, but I did not look back.

  I thought I knew where I should go.

  * * *

  I smelled her scent strongly painted on the ground as I approached her den under the deck built on the hill, where I had followed her once long, long ago: Mother Cat was still alive. When I pressed my nose into the space, I could tell she was in there, so I pulled my head back and waited, wagging.

  After a moment she came out, purring, and rubbed herself against me. She was so tiny! I did not know how she had gotten so small.

  I was so happy to be back with my mother. I remembered back to a time when she took care of me, when my kitten siblings and I were in the den together. Now that I had lost Lucas, I was comforted by having her head touch me. She was my first family, and right now, the only family that I could find.