by Kate Messner
Ranger barked and the rope dropped from his mouth. He snatched it up again and pushed it into Joe’s face. Joe sputtered, but he stopped flopping long enough to grab it. Ranger started swimming back to the boat.
“He’s got it!” an officer shouted. “Haul him in!”
Isaac pulled the rope, hand over hand, until Joe was close enough to reach. Then two other soldiers grabbed him and hoisted him over the railing. Another man wrapped him in a blanket.
Ranger was still in the icy river. He paddled closer to the boat. He barked, but no one noticed. The water was pushing him away, and he couldn’t get his paws up on the rail.
Ranger struggled to keep his head above the icy water. He barked again, and Isaac’s face appeared over the railing.
“Dog!” He leaned way down, grabbed Ranger under his front legs, and hauled him onto the boat.
Ranger shook himself off while Isaac scrambled for his oar.
“Watch out! Big one!” someone cried. Isaac barely saw the next ice floe before it slammed into the bow, knocking them off course.
Isaac’s palms burned with blisters, but he pulled harder on the oar. Every time he and the other men made progress, another chunk of ice clunked into the boat and pushed them downriver.
But finally, they straightened their course and made it to shore. Isaac held the boat while the men climbed out.
“Come on, dog,” Isaac said when only Ranger was left in the boat. But Ranger didn’t move. He wanted to see what Isaac would do. Was he staying here or going back?
Isaac thumped the railing with his hand. “Let’s go! Out!”
Ranger just looked at him. Finally, Isaac leaned into the boat, grabbed Ranger around his middle, and lugged him over the railing.
“Stay,” Isaac said. Then he and Joe climbed back into the boat. The soldiers were all here now, but there were horses and guns left to move.
“Make haste, gentlemen!” a deep voice called. General Washington stood at the river’s edge, looking down at his pocket watch.
“We won’t make Trenton before dawn. Not even close,” an officer said. “What now?”
“Now,” the general answered, “we wait for these fine men to return.” He looked at Isaac and the other mariners. “When I march into Trenton, I shall do so with all of you at my side.”
As the boat started back across the river, Ranger walked up the bank to a clearing where some men had built a fire. They stood quietly in the smoke, rubbing their red hands together. Their faces were serious and scared. One of the men sat down beside Ranger and put an arm around him. Ranger could feel the man’s heart thumping through his wet coat.
Finally, the boats returned with horses, carts, and cannons. Where was Isaac? Ranger wandered through the troops until he found him, lining up with his musket over his shoulder. When Isaac saw Ranger, he reached down to scratch his neck. Then their marching order came from the front.
Joe clapped a hand on Isaac’s shoulder. “You ready, my friend?”
Isaac nodded. He looked down at Ranger. “Ready, dog? It’s time.”
Isaac wrapped his wool blanket around his shoulders. He’d stood by the fire for a few minutes but barely had time to warm up. Already, his blanket was crusted with ice.
It was four in the morning — more than three hours later than they’d planned to set out from the river. There was no hope of arriving in darkness now. They’d march into Trenton in full daylight. If the Hessians got word of their approach, it would be a massacre.
The orders had been made clear from the first step. March at a brisk pace. Wrap blankets around the muskets to keep the firing mechanisms dry. And no man was allowed to leave. Anyone who tried would face instant punishment.
It was nine miles to Trenton. Isaac and the others marched up the bank from the river. The road was icy and rutted as it wound through the dark woods. Isaac wished the night could last longer to hide their approach. Once dawn arrived, how could the Hessians miss a mile-long column of men?
When they reached the crossroad at Bear Tavern, the troops turned. The road was still slick, but it was level, and they began to make better time. The storm wasn’t blowing right in their faces anymore, but no matter how tightly he pulled the blanket around him, Isaac couldn’t get warm. It was getting harder and harder to keep up. Joe had already stayed back to help a man who was injured.
Before long, the whole line of men came to a halt. Isaac found himself staring down into one of the ravines he’d seen when he made this journey before. A rocky creek bed stretched out a hundred feet below the road. Crossing it would cost them more time.
But thanks to the information Isaac had brought back from his spy mission, the officers had a plan. One by one, men unharnessed the horses and prepared the artillery. Isaac helped them attach drag ropes to the trees. The men used these to lower cannons to the bottom of the ravine and haul them up on the other side. Time seemed to stand still as the snow and ice swirled, but finally, they made it across.
The clock hadn’t stopped, though. It would be light long before they made it to Trenton. They’d only marched a short way when they came to the second ravine, smaller and steeper than the first. It slowed them down even more.
Finally, they set out on the road again, wide open to the wind and snow. Ranger nudged Isaac whenever he slowed down. All around them, soldiers were shivering and dragging their feet. One man quietly slipped out of line, stumbled off the road, and collapsed. Ranger started toward him, but Isaac grabbed his collar. “Stay, dog.”
Ranger barked. Hadn’t Isaac seen the man fall? Hadn’t anyone? The line of men just kept marching in a tired trance.
As soon as Isaac let go, Ranger broke away and ran to the man by the side of the road. Ranger nuzzled his hand, but he didn’t move. Ranger barked. The man didn’t respond. By then, all the troops had marched on by.
Ranger ran ahead to the soldiers and jumped up on one of them.
“Down!” The man swatted him away, but Ranger kept barking. He went back and forth from the man in the snow to the troops. That was what you did when someone was in trouble and you needed to bring help. Ranger had practiced in his training with Luke and Dad. He’d followed Luke’s scent to wherever he was hiding in the woods, pretending to be lost and hurt. When he found Luke, he’d barked to give the alert.
But sometimes that wasn’t enough. When you were a search-and-rescue dog, sometimes you had to leave the person you found and go get a helper. Then you brought them back to the person who was hurt or sick.
The man in the snow was in trouble, so Ranger kept running back and forth. Finally, an officer stopped. “That dog has found something,” he said. He pointed down the road and ordered two of his men, “Follow him and make sure it’s not a Hessian spy!”
Ranger led the men to the soldier who had fallen. He was covered in snow, nearly hidden. Ranger pawed at the man’s shoulder.
The soldiers hurried to the man’s side and wrapped him in their blankets. When he began to stir, they helped him stand and loaded him onto one of their horses to ride back to the troops.
Ranger didn’t wait for anyone to pat him on the head or tell him what a good dog he was. At home, when Ranger trained with Luke and Dad, he got ear scratches and hugs when he’d done a good job. But this icy road was a long way from home. Ranger didn’t even know where his first aid kit was. But he knew his work wasn’t done.
Ranger raced up to find Isaac. He fell into step beside him and licked his cold fingers. Isaac looked down, but all he could do was sigh and lay his hand on the dog’s ice-crusted head. It felt as if this frigid death march would never end.
Finally, they stopped at another crossroads. Here, the officers explained, they would split into two groups and take two different roads into Trenton. The plan was to surround the town and attack while the Hessians were still sleeping.
Isaac wondered if their weapons would even work. The men had sent word up to the front of the column, warning General Washington that the guns might be too wet to fi
re by the time they arrived.
Word came back from Washington almost immediately. His order was clear. “Advance and charge.” Whether the guns worked or not, they were going.
There would be no turning back.
The sky began to grow light as Isaac and the other men on the River Road marched toward Trenton. Half an hour after sunrise, there was gunfire in the distance. Then a cannon blast. Hessian kettledrums boomed in the center of town. It was a call to arms. The battle was beginning.
Gunfire erupted just up ahead. “Into the fields!” came an order from the front. Isaac scrambled off the road and took cover behind a tree stump. Ranger stayed low at his side. The air smelled dangerous and sharp — like fire and cold metal and fear.
Isaac’s hands trembled as he loaded his musket. Would it even work after this night of rain and wind?
“The Hessian guards are firing on us!” someone shouted. “They’re advancing! Fix your bayonets!”
Isaac held his gun and attached the bayonet, the long, sharp blade that fit underneath its muzzle for hand-to-hand fighting. He shuddered, imagining himself close enough to a Hessian soldier to use it.
“Advance!” General Sullivan shouted.
Isaac scrambled to his feet and ran into the road.
There was gunfire and shouting. Smoke swirled in the wind with the ice and rain.
Isaac’s heart raced with terror as he rushed forward with the other men. Ranger tried to stay with him but there were so many soldiers, so many pounding feet in the snow.
“They’re retreating!” someone shouted.
There! Ranger spotted Isaac running up the side of the road as they chased the Hessians toward town. Ranger ran up to him and nudged his hand so Isaac would know he was there.
“Go on, dog!” Isaac didn’t slow down, but he waved Ranger away with his hand. “Get out of here. You don’t want to be in the middle of this.”
Ranger was good at following commands. That was important in search-and-rescue training. But he wouldn’t follow this one. If Isaac was going to keep running toward the loud noises and smoke, Ranger was going, too.
General Sullivan’s troops chased the Hessians all the way into Trenton. Isaac needed to reload his musket, but there was nowhere safe to stand still. The center of town boomed with cannon fire. Sounds of splintering wood and shattering glass filled the streets. Isaac ducked behind a barrel near a brick building and reached for his cartridge bag.
Ranger stood beside him. His fur prickled all over. The fireworks noises hurt his ears. He wished he were home in the mudroom, where he could hide in his dog bed until it stopped. He didn’t know how to protect Isaac in this awful, loud place where men ran everywhere. But he couldn’t leave him alone.
Isaac finished loading his musket and joined the stream of soldiers running past. The Hessians seemed to have abandoned the town. Everywhere Isaac looked, Continental soldiers had taken over houses and basements. Had they done it? Had they managed to storm Trenton before the Hessians could organize to defend it?
“Take cover!” someone shouted as gunfire erupted again.
A burning pain seared through Isaac’s leg. He dove behind a fence and pressed his hand to his thigh. It was wet and warm with blood. Isaac clenched his teeth. He peered out from between the posts, and his breath caught in his chest. An entire Hessian regiment, under fire from the other direction, was rushing toward them.
Isaac’s leg throbbed. He felt dizzy, but he lifted his musket to his shoulder and tried to hold it steady. Before he could even shoot, the Hessian lines began to break. Continental soldiers were firing from the houses and basements where they were hiding.
“To the bridge!” someone shouted. “They’re trying to escape over the creek!”
Isaac limped behind the rest of the soldiers as they raced with their muskets to the stone bridge. One group of Hessians had already made it across. Instead of chasing them, Glover ordered his men to take the high ground south of the creek.
“Ready the guns!” Glover shouted. Isaac’s legs felt like they might crumble beneath him, but he heaved on the ropes alongside the other men. Together, they wheeled the cannon into place, blocking off the last escape from Trenton.
Just then, another group of Hessians arrived, trying to escape over the bridge. When they saw that it was already under the control of Washington’s army, they filed up the creek, searching for another place to cross. Glover’s men fired on them and pushed them into a swampy area, where the Hessian cannons got hopelessly stuck in the mud.
“Again!” a voice boomed. “Fire!” Isaac wasn’t sure who’d given the order. The commands and cannon booms pounded in his ears, and his vision grew blurry. He started toward the cannon crew but stumbled and fell. Ranger rushed to his side.
Isaac tried to stand, but his wounded leg buckled under him. He sank to the frozen ground, and everything went black.
Ranger nudged Isaac’s cheek with his nose, but Isaac didn’t open his eyes. The other men from Glover’s regiment had pushed forward, surrounding the Hessians in the swamp. No one seemed to notice that Isaac had fallen.
Ranger sniffed at Isaac’s leg. It smelled of dirt and river water and blood. Too much blood. Ranger didn’t want to leave, but Isaac needed help.
Ranger ran toward the other men. Just as he reached them, the cannon booms ended, and a different noise rose up from the troops. Soldiers were shouting and clapping one another’s shoulders. Ranger ran up to one of them and pawed at his leg.
The man looked down and shouted, “We’ve done it, dog! The Hessians surrendered! We’ve beaten them!”
The man kept celebrating. Ranger needed someone who would pay attention. Where was Joe? Ranger weaved his way through the soldiers, sniffing the air until he caught Joe’s scent. He followed it through the men and behind a clump of trees.
There! Ranger ran to Joe and jumped up on him.
“Where’ve you been, dog?” Joe said. He bent to pat Ranger’s head.
Ranger backed away and kept barking.
Joe frowned. “What is it?” Then he looked around. “Where’s our friend? Where’s Isaac?”
Ranger took a few steps in Isaac’s direction. Then he ran back and jumped up on Joe’s legs. He barked and raced back and forth until Joe and another soldier followed him back to the spot where Isaac lay in a heap in the snow.
“Isaac!” Joe looked down at Isaac’s leg wound. “Bring a cart,” he told the other soldier. “He needs a doctor.”
The other man ran off. Joe wrapped his blanket around Isaac’s blood-soaked thigh. He shook Isaac’s shoulder. “Come on, wake up.”
Ranger licked Isaac’s cheek. His skin was clammy and cold. But his eyelids fluttered open.
“That’s it, now,” Joe said. “Stay with me. You’re hurt, but we’ve sent for help.”
Ranger stayed close at Isaac’s side. When the other soldier returned with two more men and a cart, Ranger walked with them to the river. Joe and the other soldiers loaded Isaac into one of the boats. They let Ranger jump in beside him. Ranger sat next to Isaac in the icy, slushy water at the bottom of the boat. It didn’t matter that he was cold and wet. All that mattered was Isaac getting help.
On the other side of the river, the soldiers loaded Isaac into another cart, and Ranger trotted alongside it, all the way back to camp. He had to wait outside while a doctor operated on Isaac’s leg. It took a long, long time.
Finally, Joe arrived. He lifted the tent’s flap and looked inside. Then he turned to Ranger. “Come on, dog.” He slapped his leg and held the flap open, and Ranger followed him inside.
Isaac lay on a long table, his leg wrapped in bandages. He wasn’t awake.
“How is he, sir?” Joe asked the doctor. “Will he be all right?”
“He should be,” the doctor said.
Ranger walked carefully up to Isaac and sniffed at his cheek.
Isaac opened his eyes. “Hello, dog,” he whispered. He looked up at the other men. “What happened?”
; “You took a musket ball in your thigh,” the doctor said.
“What about the battle?” Isaac asked.
The doctor grinned. “It was a victory. And without losing a single man to enemy bullets. General Washington is most grateful.”
Isaac looked at Joe. “You’ll have quite a story to tell when we get home. You should start by telling me what I missed out there.” Isaac tried to sit up, but the doctor put a hand on his shoulder.
“In time, my friend,” Joe said. “You need to rest now.”
The doctor nodded. “We were lucky to save your leg. It’s good that your friend found you when he did.”
“Thanks to the dog,” Joe told Isaac. “He’s the one who brought me to you.”
Isaac reached out and put his hand on Ranger’s head. “Thank you, dog,” he said. Even back in Trenton, in the chaos of the battle, Isaac had felt the presence of this golden dog at his side.
Ranger leaned into Isaac’s hand. In a little while, Joe left, and the doctor went to tend to another patient. The celebration sounds outside began to fade. The camp was hushed.
Then a quiet hum came from a corner of the hospital tent. Ranger knew even before he looked that it was his first aid kit. One of the soldiers must have brought it here. And now it was humming again.
Finally, his work was done. It was time to go home.
Ranger let Isaac stroke his fur a little while longer. But the humming sound was already getting louder. He turned and started to walk away.
“Wait, dog!” Isaac pulled the knotted rope from his jacket and dangled it off the table.
Ranger took the other end in his teeth and gave it a tug. Isaac pulled back and smiled.
“I hope you’ll come with us wherever we go next,” he said. But somehow, he already felt as if the dog might be leaving. “If you don’t, though … I want you to have this.” He let go of the rope. “Keep it. And remember me.”
Isaac leaned back then, and closed his eyes to rest.
Ranger carried the rope in his mouth and found his first aid kid under a pile of blankets in a far corner of the tent. Ranger nuzzled the strap over his head. The humming was much louder now, and the old metal box felt warm at Ranger’s throat. Light was already spilling from the cracks. It grew brighter and brighter. So bright that Ranger had to close his eyes.