by Susan Wilson
Waking abruptly, he knew that the man was still there. He raised his head, sniffed the air to gather in the man’s now-familiar scent, and, satisfied, allowed himself to go back to sleep.
Chapter Fifteen
“We’ve got a lot more dogs. No sense wasting any more time with that one.” The civilian trainer’s name is Rod Barlow and he’s been working with dogs, as he puts it, his whole life. A sturdy fifty or so, he says that he’s encountered dogs like Pax before and if their people don’t want him back, the best recourse is to put them down. In this case, though, sending the dog home is the best option, and his donor has made it clear that if he fails, he goes home. Lots of dogs have bombed out of the program; Pax is just the first to bomb out because of aggression.
“One more day, I promise. I won’t waste any more time. Just give me that.” Keller doesn’t know why he’s being so stubborn about this. It’s not like the dog is giving him any notion of a breakthrough; and, in all his life, Keller has certainly never been one to embrace personal challenges. Meadowbrook taught him about finding the easy way out. Clayton taught him that hard work does hurt. Besides, he’s falling behind his cohorts, as they have already mastered teaching their dogs to sit, heel, and come. At this rate, even if he gets Pax to cooperate, they’ll end up in the next group and his new pals will be assigned and gone.
Pax doesn’t know that he’s about to get sent home. He has no sense of failure, so why should Keller care? His buddies are already teasing him about his stubborn belief that the big shepherd will make a great war dog.
Keller stands in front of the fence with Pax’s breakfast bowl. He’s already decided that he’s not going to spend the day waiting for this mess of horse meat and kibble to stink. He’s going to go in, feed the dog, and if he growls, Keller will call it quits.
“Okay, Pax. Here’s your breakfast. I’m coming in and you’re going to let me.” Keller lifts the U-shaped latch and steps into the kennel as if he expects a happy greeting, not a bite. He doesn’t move slowly, just deliberately. He sets the bowl down and picks up the empty water bowl. “You must be pretty thirsty. Hang on.” He refills the water bowl and places it beside the untouched food bowl. All this time, the dog has been standing, A-frame ears at attention, panting softly, but not growling. Keller doesn’t move away from the food and water. “You want it, you gotta get past me.”
There is a slight shift in the air, a barely discernible breeze that touches the back of Keller’s neck, evaporating the line of early-morning sweat trickling down into his collar, and he shivers. The dog raises his nose to the air. Keller squats, snaps his fingers. The dog eyes him, and for a moment Keller feels like prey, until the dog’s big ears fold back gently and the “at attention” look recedes into “at ease.” “Good boy. Come on, Pax.”
Keller stretches out his fingers and the dog stretches out his nose. The soft, hot breath of the dog travels up his hand and along his arm to the elbow, then to his crotch. He tells himself, This is how dogs behave; don’t move. Pax continues his olfactory investigation against Keller’s bent knees and, finally, to his neck and then his face. Keller’s thighs are screaming at this point and he goes to his knees. He keeps both hands open and to his sides. He makes no move to touch the dog.
Suddenly, it seems like the dog is satisfied with Keller, as if he’s passed some canine test of character and the dog has decided that he is sufficiently harmless. The dog walks past Keller to his food, which he bolts, then empties the water bowl. Keller stays on his knees, remaining at the dog’s eye level. It isn’t enough to feed the dog; he needs to leash him and take him out of the kennel. He needs the dog to be willing to be touched.
“This is your last chance, Pax. You’ll get a dishonorable discharge if you don’t cooperate with me. You don’t want that, do you? Sent home in shame? You’ve got too much pride for that, don’t you? I know what it’s like for your family not to want you. I know how mean people can be. I do. So I know how hard this must be. No one can tell you that you’re more valuable to the U.S. government than you are to your family. Maybe they didn’t want you anyway, and this is a better option than some others. Maybe you scare them, too. I don’t know. Maybe you were a burden to them. Are they poor? Are you yet another mouth to feed? The army will keep you fed; I can promise you that. I’m still eating a lot of chipped beef, but I can’t complain. I’m still getting a lot of orders and sleeping in a roomful of men again, but I’m not complaining. At least I get a paycheck. At least I get some respect. You will, too. You work with me, boy, and we’ll be top dogs in this outfit. You and me against the Nazis.” He keeps talking and the dog begins to visibly relax.
“Did you have a cruel master? Someone who put the viciousness into you with a beating? That happens. I’ve seen that, too. Too many blows with the strap doesn’t teach a boy to be good; it teaches him to hate.”
Pax is still standing, but now he’s standing beside Keller. Keller offers his right hand again to the dog. Pax sniffs, then lowers his head; his eyes turn away, and Keller takes that as permission. He scratches under the dog’s chin, then runs his hand up to his skull. He strokes the ears down to his neck. Beneath his hand, the dog tenses up; Keller can feel the muscles in his shoulders harden. He pulls his hand away. The dog swings his big head up and sniffs Keller’s face again. It takes a lot of nerve to remain perfectly still this close to the dog’s teeth, but Keller knows that he has to pass some kind of test with this animal, and showing fear won’t help him.
Pax sits in front of Keller. There is no longer any feral hostility in Pax’s expression. He is panting, and it looks more like grinning than a hostile show of teeth. Suddenly, he yawns, a great gaping and wholly benign action. Keller reaches out again, and this time the dog raises one big paw and sets it in Keller’s hand. The dog sighs, a sound less of capitulation than of relief.
* * *
Keller has never been in love, but he’s pretty sure it can’t hold a candle to the feeling he has as he and his one-man dog work together. Now that he’s accepted Keller—and only Keller—as his leader, the dog responds to training with a joyous enthusiasm, as if it’s all a game. They breeze through the basic obedience exercises: sit, heel, down, stay. They quickly catch up to Keller’s pals, and he and Pax are now fully engaged in the training that will eventually determine their assignments: scout, casualty dog, messenger, or sentry.
Pax can scale walls, crawl on his belly as if under fire, sniff out a hidden “enemy,” and stay put like a sculpture when asked. One of the two most difficult and make-or-break accomplishments is to ride happily in the back of the troop truck, which, surprisingly, several of the farm-raised dogs have failed. That seemingly ordinary test is frightening to them because they’ve never before been given the opportunity to do it. Pax bounds into the truck and acts like he expects to drive.
The second, and even more critical, test is to stand under small-arms fire without flinching. This one, Keller has worried most about, but here again, Pax stands his ground and tolerates the noise of a sergeant firing beside them, even as he folds his ears back. His expression is one of dislike, but not fear.
Pax can leap a three-foot hurdle as if he’s got a springboard under him and scale a seven-foot solid wall like a champ. Keller puts him into an off-leash long down and walks away. After a time, he signals to the dog to come. Just as the dog hits the midway point, Keller abruptly signals a new command and the dog instantly flattens himself against the ground. As if he’s under fire, Pax crawls to where Keller squats waiting for him.
Rod Barlow nods at Keller. “Good work.”
Keller finds himself flushed with pleasure. Good work. It’s as if a craving has been satisfied. A craving he was unaware of having. He keeps his head down as he praises his dog. Good work.
Keller hasn’t written to Clayton at all since he left for induction, has never planned to write to the old man. And certainly he hasn’t received any letters from his uncle. But he’s filled with the helium of praise and he needs to share i
t. No, he won’t write to Clayton, but there is someone else he can share this unexpected happiness with.
Dear Miss Jacobs,
I am well and I hope that you are, too. I want to let you know that I’m on my way overseas soon. I am a dog handler in the K-9 Corps and my dog is named Pax (which I remember you teaching me means “peace”.) We’re assigned to be scouts, which means we’ll make sure that the way is safe ahead for our troops. Because I did so well, they asked me if I’d stay on here as an instructor, but I said no thanks. I can’t imagine not being with Pax after all the training we’ve done together. I trained him and I want to be with him over there. Pax is a big dog, mostly German shepherd, and really handsome. We work really well together and it’s not like work at all, but fun. You’d be surprised at what we can do. He’s the best thing to have happened to me. If you saw him, you’d understand.
Keller isn’t quite sure how to end this very first letter he’s ever written.
Not much else to say. Keep well and don’t let those rowdy students give you trouble. They’ll have to deal with me if they do. Your friend, Keller Nicholson
He examines the page for handwriting flaws and, finding none, folds the page and slips it into an envelope and addresses it to Miss Ruth Jacobs, care of the high school. It seems too impertinent to send it to her house in Hawke’s Cove, although he knows where she lives—in a small house with blue shutters and a well-trimmed hedge. Slipping the letter into his pocket, Keller nudges Pax, who’s sleeping the sleep of the well exercised. “Go for a walk?”
Before the last word is out of Keller’s mouth, the dog is on his feet and waiting for the command to heel, ready for anything.
Chapter Sixteen
Pax is off leash, his flat leather working collar is fastened on, and his attention is riveted to the woods opposite. He is telling them in no uncertain terms that the enemy is there. Keller flags his squad and they take cover behind pines and oaks. There is no sound, and Pax understands that this means the enemy is aware of them, too. Everyone is keeping deathly still.
At Keller’s signal, Pax has flattened himself against the ground and is about ten feet in front of Keller and the platoon. His ears are pricked and his nose works the air. He hears what the men cannot, the susurration of living breath in nervous men. He can smell what they cannot, the sweat of unwashed and exhausted men. Pax can tell, too, just how many of the enemy lie behind the trees on the opposite side of the rough circle of woodlot. If he could, he’d tell them there are only five to your seven, and one of those is wounded. But he’s capable only of warning his platoon, not comforting them.
Their platoon leader signals for his six men to split up, half to circle to the left, the other three, Keller included, to move to the right of the woodlot. Keller nods and then signals to Pax to slowly move back to his side. Like his feral ancestors, Pax understands the exercise. To him, this is his pack. They are hunting. Race memory excites the dog, but his human training keeps him in complete focus on his man, his pack leader, just as, in the wild, he’d be focused on the alpha dog, unquestioning of his leader’s orders. They are circling their prey, trapping it within the confines of their numbers. Pax becomes rigid, his very skin tense with the need for soundless movement, his muscles hardened with the exertion of moving like liquid. In moments, he is back at Keller’s side; only the slight touch of his nose against Keller’s hand breaks the discipline of the hunt.
* * *
Pax has become a dog with purpose. As much as living with Rick and Francesca had been rewarding, and comfortable, this life with Keller has hardened him into what his nature meant for him to be. A hunter. A guardian. A pack member with a job. Even when his feet are sore from the miles of hard terrain, his belly growling in anticipation of a battle-delayed dinner, his thirst barely slaked with the shared contents of Keller’s canteen lapped out of his helmet, Pax is happy. Bivouacked in bombed-out cellars, or in the field, or against the crumbled walls of a village, Pax presses his long body against Keller’s, settling his muzzle against his partner’s neck, keeping them both warm. Like littermates, they play and eat and sleep and work in constant companionship, excluding all others. Their exclusivity suits Pax; he has only Keller to worry about. The others may surround them, and Keller interacts with them in their human language, but touch and comfort and food and grooming come only from Keller.
Pax loves his work, his purpose, and he has come to love Keller for giving it to him.
* * *
Now Pax alerts his pack to the presence of the enemy. The game is on.
Chapter Seventeen
It’s been more than a year, but Keller has lost track of time. It seems like he and Pax have been together forever, been in this war all their lives. They’ve seen action in Italy and in Morocco. Now they’re back in Italy as the rumblings of a major offensive can be felt. They’ve come a long way since those first few months, when he and Pax were viewed with suspicion at best and considered a waste of space and supplies at worst. Until Pax alerted him to the sniper barely visible in the bell tower of a village church. The dog’s clear warning got the squad out of harm’s way, and Big Sully, the most vocal skeptic regarding the usefulness of a war dog, took the sniper out.
After that, Keller and Pax were welcomed any time they showed up, ready to make the way safe for the squad or the platoon or the division. Everyone wanted to pet Pax, or feed him scraps, but Keller and the authority vested in him by the K-9 Corps strictly forbade such overtures. Pax is a one-man dog, he told them. One man’s partner. His.
* * *
Another night patrol. Each patrol has the same purpose—to seek out the hidden enemy and get him before he can get them, and there is a certain rhythm to it, a dance of hide-and-seek. The dog is in his point position a few feet in front of Keller. The rest of the squad is fanned out behind the man and dog. As always, they are aware of the intensity of their task and the certainty that they will succeed.
They move, knowing that every step they take is fraught with the potential to reveal their presence to the enemy before they can locate him. For those who have been in this squad for more than a day, they are certain that the dog will give them the edge over that unseen enemy. He is their good-luck charm, their guardian angel. A quarter mile, a half, and the dog will freeze; no statue was ever as immobile and yet so expressive. Like a bird dog, he’ll point out the machine-gun nest or the sniper. They’ll protect their flank, fire, lob a grenade or two. Maybe take a prisoner, maybe simply pull the fallen enemies’ Nazi-version of dog tags from beneath blood-saturated shirts and put them into slack-jawed mouths. Someone will come and claim these dead. Then, the signal to the platoon that the way is safe. Pax has made the way safe. They have become complacent.
The first shots ring out over their heads. The next round comes closer and the members of Keller’s platoon fire their weapons toward the covert, where the Nazis lean around the trunks of pine trees and fire back at them. The veiled moon breaks free of its gauzy web and casts a silvery light down on the woodlot, filtering through the trees and giving shape to the dozen men engaged in this skirmish for possession of land none of them wants.
A bullet whizzes past Keller’s ear and splits the thin sapling behind him. Even before his mind can register the nearness of that bullet, Keller is on his belly, crawling through the pine needles in the direction that every sensible bone in his body is telling him is wrong. Pax is beside him, slinking silently along the pine needle–strewn ground. Keller fires again, aiming at shapes, at the firefly flicker of rifle fire. He knows that every time he discharges his weapon, he, too, is betraying his position. The cross fire intensifies.
Keller is hit; the violence of the bullet throws him backward. He fights the pain and the insult; fights against panic. He is face up in the pine needles. Pax is beside him, whining and grasping at Keller’s tunic with his teeth as if he could pull him to his feet. Voices fill the night, loud now, orders shouted in two languages; more gunfire and then the crash of boots pounding thr
ough the woods—whether running away or chasing, he can’t know.
Keller stares up at a patch of starry sky no bigger than a handkerchief, visible between the trees. He misses the clear open sky above the cove, the stars and the constellations pinned to the velvet of a pure winter night. Pax stands over him, panting, growling. Keller feels the blood seeping out, touches the place with one hand and holds it up to the unfiltered moonlight. Pax licks that hand. Pain blurs his senses, blinding him to everything but the white-hot pain. He feels himself losing consciousness and fights it. He’s got to make sure, make sure of something, but he can’t recall what it is. Is he late for school? Is he out on the water, his boat wallowing against a beam sea? Is he impaled on the spear-point finial of the wrought-iron fence surrounding Meadowbrook?
Keller hears voices coming closer, thick with the incomprehensible speech of the enemy. His dog growls, a throaty savage sound, feral. Pax’s blood lullaby. But the voices don’t move away; they grow louder, closer. The growl becomes a snarl. Keller struggles to open his eyes, struggles to his knees and claws the ground for his rifle. He sways a little, and his rifle feels ten times heavier than it did. He can’t quite get the muzzle up to point it at the Kraut who is coming at him, a trick of the moonlight making the blade edge of the German’s fixed bayonet glint.
With a sound more roar than growl, Pax flies through the air.
Keller can close his eyes; his dog will keep him safe. The velvet darkness of oblivion takes Keller away.
* * *
“Pax? Where’s my dog?”
“Nicholson, just take it easy.”
“Where is he?”