Christmas Spirit (Angel Paws Holiday)

by Jordan Taylor

  He spends long hours dozing in the open, starting awake to realize he fell asleep in his tracks, staggering on, feeling unsure of his own body and actions. His thoughts grow random, his senses distorted. He hears branches snap in an empty field. He sees his family wave, calling, but finds nothing there when he reaches the spot. Not a track or scent. He follows trails which lead to nothing, sees bright lights at night and black patches during the day.

  His whole body is nearly numb. He cannot even feel pain in his stomach. When he trips in the snow, he lies there, flat and still as a rug, sunk into snow while he is weightless, floating.

  He wakes, covered in snow, still falling about him. He must move on. South, though he hardly remembers why. He walks across the frozen crust, though below a new snow of three or four inches, nose almost dragging the ground as his paws do.

  “Hhaaaroooooooo.”

  Spirit looks around, too tired to jump, too numb to feel fear. Wild songs split frozen air, lifting and falling, harmonizing. Three, six, seven of them. Voices almost like the howl of a dog. Yet, not dogs. As that animal at the log was no cat.

  He heard them before, listened to their calling from miles off, first one way, then another. Now they are close. He looks in all directions, his vision so blurred, he cannot tell if he sees trees or dogs or nothing at all on the horizon.

  He walks on, down a faint slope to a frozen lake. Through fog in his mind, Something is moving, running, panting. Something approaches behind. Or many Somethings. Fast.

  The lake stretches before him, a white nothing as far as he can see, swirled with falling snow. He starts across, urging a trot from numb limbs, not looking back as Something rushes up behind him. He jogs over light snow and smooth lake ice, due south.

  Hot breath, reek of wilderness, carnivores, large and powerful and in numbers looms behind him. Shifting snow, crunching ice, snapping teeth, soft whimpers and chatters like agitated dogs.

  Spirit looks back. Several enormous, gray animals with thick coats, upright ears, long legs, watch him from the river bank. They start onto ice, turn back, heads low, sniffing, pawing, turning to one another as if for second opinions. None will venture more than five feet onto ice.

  He walks on, breathing labored, heart beat slow, unable to feel his paws. Such strange creatures out here. Perhaps this is what happens to dogs and cats who stay outdoors too long.

  Past the center of the lake, nearing the other side, he finally becomes aware that his senses are trying to convey a message of unease. The sound of moving water blots out the whisper of falling snow. Below and around him, ice rustles, pops, shifts. And cracks.

  Spirit stops, ears back, nose lowered to snow and ice, taking a step back, still able to feel nothing through his paws. As he watches, snow melts around him, soaked with water flowing over ice through widening cracks. Fear comes then: a moment when he wants to jump, run, escape, but it’s too late, even if he could make his body obey.

  Crack.

  Spirit plunges into icy water, shattering thin ice all around him, yelping as the crash of the lake soaks into him. He kicks out, pumping all four limbs, forcing his face above the surface as he claws the edge. Each effort to grip thin ice with his thrashing forepaws only snaps away another fragment. His long, soaked coat pulls him back, the shock to his system of striking the water has knocked out his breath, leaving him so dazed he can hardly keep struggling.

  Cold consumes him, fatigue and numbness swallowing him. He paws the edge, snapping more ice, head still above the surface, but slipping.… Snow and ice, water, darkness. White and black lights fill his vision until he can see nothing else. It seems someone is calling him, shouting even. His people, his family. He must get home.

  Something tight around his neck, choking him as he’s pulled away by his collar. But he has no collar. Not since the day he slipped out of it in the parking lot. The pressure around his neck increases. White lights dominate black. Everything glows, bursts, and he knows nothing.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Come on pup. There’s a good dog.”

  A fire snaps. Wood smoke and bacon. A hand strokes his face.

  Spirit opens his eyes. The room swims, churns. He feels only dimly aware of his own body trembling on … something. A floor, a bed, something inside this dim, warm, woody place. A tiny cabin. A man beside him, talking to him.

  “Try some of this.”

  Hot, rich, fragrant, against his nose: the end of a rag soaked in beef broth. Spirit licks. The rag is removed, then back, dripping hot liquid against his muzzle. He licks again before he fades away.

  The next time he opens his eyes, the cabin is lit only by the fire and an electric lantern, windows dark. The man is still beside him, sitting up in bed, reading.

  Spirit lifts his head, almost startled to discover he can see.

  The man looks up. “Good dog. Hold on.”

  He slips off the bed in wool slippers and pours liquid from a pot on the cast iron stove into a small bowl. He ads a splash of water from a cup on a tiny table, tests the contents with a finger, then returns to Spirit.

  While the man holds the bowl, Spirit manages to shift onto his chest to drink. More warm beef broth. He licks out the bowl, tries to sit up, but falls back on a nest of deep, dry blankets. More blankets and a parka are piled on top of him. His paws sting painfully and his whole body aches and throbs as if he’s been struck repeatedly with heavy objects.

  “You might want to stay where you are for now, eh?” the man says. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t open your eyes. Crazy little dog.”

  He sets the bowl on the table, then climbs back into bed.

  Spirit tries to curl into a more comfortable position, but covers above and blankets below have him tightly wrapped. Finally, he tucks his head down into the warmth and leaves things at that.

  “I thought you were a goner,” the man goes on. “I came out for a look across the lake when I heard the wolves. It’s not often you get to see wild wolves around here. You’re lucky they had more sense than to go out on that ice. Out of the frying pan into the fire, as they say. Not to mention lucky I’m so handy with a rope. Never knew I was, actually. A couple more missed throws on my part and you’d have been a doggie popsicle.”

  He goes on talking about the ice and how he is out too early, waiting until the freeze is enough to start fishing, but he likes the cabin and it’s a good break.

  Spirit hears no more, lulled to sleep by warmth he has not known since his last night at Uncle Chris’s house.

  The next day, Spirit manages a few tottering steps on his searing paws, a careful stretch and yawn, and a visit outside before returning to his nest.

  The man tells him his name is Ethan and he likes the solitude of these annual fishing trips, but he will make an exception: “You stay with me and we’ll take you into town as we’re heading out. Get you to a vet and see who’s looking for you. A dog like you has no business being out here.”

  Spirit has small meals of beef broth with boiled potato, canned corned beef hash, or panfried fish three times a day. By the second day, with much massaging and attention from Ethan, sensation has returned throughout his limbs and face. On the third day, he is beginning to feel like himself again.

  As he gobbles every meal, then searches for more, he finds his portions increased. Never has he eaten so much in his life, yet he still feels hungry, still feels a burning, almost frantic need for more food. He follows Ethan to check ice conditions and walk packed trails around the edge of the lake. At these times, he looks south, sometimes starting that way, but his stomach calls him back to the cabin, the fire, and the man with the full bowl waiting for him.

  Days slip together. A deeper freeze settles over the forest and lake. Spirit sleeps nearly round the clock, as if the fatigue of his journey piled up behind him and he can now catch up.

  More days. More food and fire and rest. He cannot be sure how much time has passed— many sunrises and sets—when he wakes one morning and feels the call southward as
he has not felt it since he began his journey. Time to go.

  He eats a large breakfast, licks Ethan’s hand as the man pulls on two layers of socks and snow boots, then goes to the door. Ethan lets him out.

  Spirit trots away, looking back once, wagging his tail, then jogging off through snow, toward home.

  He approaches mountains now—great, looming peaks ahead and to his right in the west. He trudges on, moving at a trot or lope, day after day, staying in the lee of trees or along a frozen river’s edge whenever possible, making the best of his strength, finding the tightest, snuggest forest places to sleep, curled tightly in on himself with some overhanging shelter to trap warmth.

  By the third sunrise since he left the cabin on the lake, he still has nothing to eat. The sun is setting when he picks up the trail of a wild, pungent animal leaving small tracks in the snow. And the fresh scent of blood. Sights and smells of steak, chicken, moist dog food, and corned beef hash bursting through his mind, Spirit races forward.

  Far ahead, he comes upon a small animal with a thick, red coat, giant brush of a tail, and a pointed face not unlike his own. In its mouth, this animal carries a freshly caught white rabbit.

  It hears him approach and spins, fur on end, ears pinned back. Spirit does not check his stride. Food is life. Before warmth, before south, he knows now that food is what matters out here. You find food, or you are someone else’s food. Food is everything.

  He crashes into the astonished red animal, all teeth and screaming barks. It leaps away, its own mouth bound by the prize. Spirit catches a hind leg in his teeth. This time, the animal shrieks a terrifying cry as it whips back, rabbit dropped, to bite into his face. Spirit feels the blow and sharp pain, lunging forward to counter the attack, snapping at the other’s face. The red animal twists away like water and bursts across the snow, running with that huge tail streaming behind, ears back, mouth wide.

  Spirit rips into the rabbit, hardly noticing the pain and trickle of blood on his brow. Food. Not merely food: hot, rich, life itself. He eats until his stomach bulges, then still eats, splintering thin bones, spitting white fur from his tongue, gulping until he feels that most remarkable sensation of being full. Then he rolls in the snow, kicking his legs, rubbing his bloody face through powder. He shakes himself, sniffs over the few scraps of bone, hide, and claws, and walks on, licking his lips.

  Mountains. First climbing into foothills, then up and up, wind howling, air growing thin. Snow so deep in places it covers him and he must fight his way back out of a hollow to find another path. The shelter of thick forest gives way to rocks and looming peaks he cannot climb. He must again and again backtrack and turn, searching always for a way over.

  More forest, lower trees, more climbing. He comes upon no more screaming red animals with rabbits to steal. No mice, no squirrels, nothing to eat but snow.

  Up. And up. Then back, falling, climbing, numbness setting in once more, stomach sending out fresh pain waves. He closes his eyes, head bowed against blasting wind as he battles his way up a slope through dense trees where the snow is not piled so deep. One day matches the next, each night becoming harder and harder to stave off freezing.

  Again, he sees things—hears things, smells things—which call to him, only to fade into unreality as he approaches. Blowing snow burns his eyes and nose for so many hours, so many days, he can see and smell almost nothing anymore. Nothing but illusion.

  And still he climbs. Days without end, seasons it seems, trapped in these mountains. He staggers on, snow-blind, trembling as he goes, each step threatening to be his last, when snow vanishes between his paws. In a second, he’s flying, not back, as he has so often toppled on this long ascent, but forward, over a precipice. He crashes through drifts, yelping, kicking with all four limbs, gaining speed, hurtling down like a toy in a gathering avalanche, faster, faster, snow buffeting him, wrapping him like the center of a snowball.

  Head over heels, bump and spin, flying through open air, sometimes rolling down a slope, the next moment dropping in free fall, then another snow drift and other long roll, slowing almost until he can get his paws under him, then another drop. It will never end, never stop, he will be falling forever, choked with snow, breath knocked from his lungs.

  At last, the slope grows gradual. His speed lessons. He strikes out with forepaws and slides in a rush of snow down a final slope, hardly able to breathe.

  Everything stops. Too dazed to move at first, only struggling for air, Spirit finally shakes his head, clawing upward from trapping snow.

  He looks up. Behind, the vast mountain slope looms like the sky itself, blotting out all else. North. He looks south to see a great expanse of snow-covered forest descending away through foothills and more mountains beyond. But there’s a valley between. A valley he can follow south.

  Spirit stands, shakes himself, and staggers on, still unsure exactly what has happened. Yet, somehow, he feels much closer to home.

  ~ ~ ~

  He limps through slush at the side of the street, head hanging, tail drooping, soaked and frozen, ribs pressing into thick, matted fur. His color is all the same: filthy gray-brown. His heart beats slow, his claws, worn short and smooth, drag icy pavement at each step. His breath comes in shallow, painful puffs. His eyes are bloodshot, body trembling, nose dripping.

  Not a car passes as the sun rises over a still neighborhood, brightly lit with dancing lights in white, green, red, blue, gold. Pine trees shine through front windows as if on fire. Soft music hums behind closed doors. Smells of coffee and sugar cookies drift down the street.

  He stops at the end of a driveway, looking up with sunken eyes. The stone walkway is shoveled clear. Faint voices drift out from people coming downstairs inside the house. Not cheerful voices, like those from the other homes he passed. Each tone is sad, drawn, low: as if something terrible has happened.

  He limps up the path, faster now, ears pricked as he listens, tripping, hobbling on. With tremendous effort, he struggles up three steps to the porch, coughing as he goes. He tries to bark. Only a whimper escapes. He presses his body to the door, shaking, pushing his nose against the crack. The door does not budge. Whining, he sinks to his chest, ears twitching in answer to voices within.

  The door still does not open. He lifts a paw and scratches. The voices stop, then start again, growing closer:

  “It’s nothing, Olivia.”

  “I heard a dog.”

  “Olivia, please.”

  “I heard something. I did this time.”

  The door opens.

  Spirit looks up as the girl gasps.

  In the next moment, she’s on her knees, pulling the soaked dog into her arms, calling Mom and Dad. She shakes as violently as him, saying his name while he struggles to lick tears from her face, whimpering like a puppy, both of them gasping for air.

  Mom is there, a quilt in her hands, wrapping him, crying, kissing him. “Oh, Spirit, how did you get here?”

  He tries to lick each hand reaching for him, weakly wagging his tail as they talk, praise, hold him.

  “We looked and looked for you,” Olivia sobs into his neck. “We went back to Uncle Chris and stayed for days. We looked everywhere.”

  “Where did he come from? He didn’t walk all that way.” Aidan strokes his head, wide-eyed, trembling like his sister.

  “He sure looks like he did,” Dad says. “And he’s been gone six weeks.”

  “The best Christmas present this family has ever had.” Mom grips his head in both hands, pressing her forehead to his, hot tears running onto cold fur. “Everything’s okay now, Spirit—you’re home.”

  Epilogue

  Spirit hobbles past Aidan as he pulls open the sliding door. “Can you make it out on your own this morning?”

  His family has been carrying him out for two days, protecting his throbbing paws and hurrying him back in as soon as possible. In fact, he has been almost constantly in their arms since he reached them.

  Now, the aches and pains are still fresh
, his nose is still running and he has a low fever—but he can see clearly again, can think of more than just his next meal and one more step south.

  For a moment, he stands on the deck in trampled snow, taking in outside smells which feel tame and familiar. With Aidan following him to the steps and Olivia coming to the doorway to see if he’s all right, Spirit hops slowly down to packed snow on the lawn. He inhales again, starting leisurely across the firm trail.

  “Rar-rar-rar!” A miniature white rocket bursts through the cat flap in the neighbor’s back door and flies off the deck, racing toward him with an explosion of yaps.

  “No, Dino!” Aidan calls from the deck. “Go away!”

  The tiny dog ignores him, racing for Spirit.

  Spirit stands, watching the approach, ears pricked.

  Dino slows, finally stopping, five feet away, yapping.

  Spirit jumps forward, his stinging paws and aching muscles forgotten. Dino runs. Back across the snow, up the steps, across the deck, snap, through the cat flap with Spirit three strides behind. Spirit runs to the flap, standing a moment with his head low, listening. The little dog’s claws click away over hardwood. Then, nothing.

  The children are calling him, Olivia breathless and shocked, Aidan staggering around as he laughs.

  Spirit glances once more at the silent door, shakes himself, then turns for home.

  About the Author

  Jordan Taylor has been a professional dog trainer for over ten years, working in a variety of areas from private consultations to agility and entertainment—training dogs for film, advertising, and live theater. Her first book, Wonder Dogs: 101 German Shepherd Dog Films, traces the history of German Shepherd Dogs in movies from the 1920s to modern times. Jordan continues to merge her love for writing and dogs at home in the Pacific Northwest.

  Stories in the Angel Paws and Angel Paws Holiday series celebrate the unique bond between canines and humans with heartfelt, moving, and insightful tales for anyone who has ever loved a dog.