The Long Road

by Christopher Holt

  “We have it under control,” Julep said as Dixie nudged the other panicked animals into paying attention. “If we hadn’t helped those wolves, they might well have attacked us. Now that their bellies are full, they’re much less likely to come back.”

  The Pug blinked. “Um, didn’t that wolf say that he’d be going after Max here?”

  “He did,” Darlene yipped. “I heard him clear as the town bell. Those dogs led the wolves here; then they scared off the old lady.”

  “Hey!” Rocky barked. “We didn’t do any of that.”

  “It’s true,” Minerva said. “Everything was fine before these mutts appeared.”

  A puppy whimpered. “Why did they do that to us?”

  “They have to leave,” Darlene wailed. “Right now, Julep. Make them leave!”

  “Enough!” Julep bellowed.

  The German Shepherd stalked forward, glaring at each of them. Dixie stood on the gravel, watching silently.

  “You all go home and sleep,” Julep said. “My officers and I will get this straightened out. Get.”

  “But—” Minerva yowled.

  “I said get!”

  Grumbling among themselves, Minerva and the other animals left the lawn and disappeared down the darkened street. Julep and Dixie watched them go while Max, Rocky, and Gizmo huddled together on the grass. Georgie lay nearby, depressed and blubbering.

  When the pets were out of sight, the police dogs came to sit in front of Max and his friends.

  “Seems you have some explaining to do,” Julep said. “Several of my officers swear they saw the old lady drive out of town, and seeing as how her van is gone, I’m inclined to believe them.”

  “We didn’t make her go away,” Gizmo said. “We would never do that. I can’t believe the things that cat was saying about us!”

  Julep chuckled. “I trust you, little lady. But we still need to know what happened.”

  “And you’re supposed to tell us about Praxis!” Dixie added.

  “It’s all right, Gizmo,” Max said with a sigh. “They have the right to know what happened.”

  Max started with everything Dr. Lynn had told them about the virus and what it could do. He explained that Dr. Lynn left to continue working on the cure that would let all the people come home. Georgie confirmed that she’d helped groups of animals like this before.

  But of course what the two police dogs wanted to know most about was Praxis.

  So Max explained about the laboratory: the white room that blasted electricity, and Gertrude the pig, who oversaw everything with an elephant nicknamed the Mountain. He provided directions to the lab as best he could.

  Dixie trembled with excitement. “That doesn’t sound too far,” she said. “How long will it take us?”

  “You really don’t want to go back that way,” Rocky said. “It took us weeks, and we barely made it here in one piece!”

  “And won’t you be leaving the town unprotected?” Gizmo asked.

  Julep paced back and forth on the lawn, while Dixie watched him, waiting for her leader to speak. “Here’s what I think,” Julep finally said. “We almost let wolves slip through today because our patrols weren’t as good as they ought to be. Fact is, without the human officers we’re not as well prepared to protect this town as we should be. Being smarter would help a lot.” He looked at Gizmo. “But you’re right, we can’t leave the town unprotected.”

  “But Julep!” Dixie barked. “We have to go—we just have to!”

  Julep raised a paw. “Now hold on. Let me finish. What I was going to say is that we’ll leave most of the K9 team here to keep things orderly. But you and I will go to this lab and find this pig.”

  Dixie was practically dancing. “Oh, this is great! I can’t wait to leave!”

  “Let’s see how she feels a week from now,” Rocky muttered to Gizmo and Max.

  Clearing his throat, Max rose to his feet. “Well, good luck on your journey. I hope Praxis is everything you want it to be. If it’s all right with you, my friends and I should sleep. It’s been a long day.”

  Julep nodded. “Of course.” The Shepherd started to walk away, then looked back at Max. “But Max, the other pets might be right. I don’t blame you for the old lady leaving, but there’s no denying the wolf pack is after you. As long as you and your friends are in town, we aren’t safe. You have to move on first thing. Got it?”

  Max’s stomach felt hollow as Dolph’s words echoed through his mind once more. He looked down at his two small, exhausted friends, who were already halfway asleep. They hadn’t even had a full day to spend in this town. It seemed so unfair.

  But they had no choice.

  “We understand,” Max said softly. “We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

  Max lay on the rough floorboards of the front porch, in a darkened corner that shaded him from the glow of the streetlamps. Despite being so tired, he slept in fits and starts, opening his eyes several times to discover it was still night. The gentle snores of his friends wafted across the lawn together with the grunting of farm animals and the chirping of crickets.

  Finally, after hours of battling for sleep, Max rose to all fours. He opened his jaws wide and blinked his heavy eyes, then trotted down the porch steps and onto the front walkway.

  The air was thick with moisture that clung to the blades of grass and to Max’s fur. In the east, Max saw pink and orange seeping into the sky. Dawn was almost here. Which meant he and his friends needed to get out of town.

  Yawning, Max went to the huddled pile of tan-and-black fur that was Rocky and Gizmo and nosed their sides until they woke up. Then he did the same to Georgie.

  The big dog scrambled to his feet. “What is it?” he asked. “Are the wolves back? Or is it the gators?”

  “Shh,” Max whispered. “No, we’re still safe, Georgie. It’s dawn, though. We need to leave.”

  Georgie’s head drooped so low that his long, floppy ears almost touched the ground. “Oh, yeah. That.”

  Rocky and Gizmo were already tearing into one of the bags of kibble. Max couldn’t help but notice that the shreds of the bag the wolves had devoured still littered the front yard. Whole patches of the lawn had been clawed up.

  Dolph’s words came back to Max again, but he couldn’t succumb to fear, not now. He needed to focus on the next leg of their journey.

  Kibble poured free from the bag the two small dogs had bit into, and they leaped back, tails wagging, as they watched their prize pool over the grass. Rocky said, “That’s the stuff. Beef flavor!”

  “Good choice,” Gizmo said, then stuck her snout into the pile.

  “We need to eat quickly,” Max said. “We may have found Dr. Lynn, but we still need to find Belle. We made a promise.”

  Georgie’s head rose from the kibble. “Oh, that reminds me,” the big dog said. “Last night I told you I met some dogs from Baton Rouge.” Georgie cleared his throat. “Well, they had some things to say about Belle that you should know.”

  Max nodded. “All right. We’ll talk to them before we leave.”

  Max joined Georgie, Rocky, and Gizmo in eating kibble, then the four of them lapped up water from one of the many bowls Dr. Lynn had filled. Bellies full, Max asked Georgie to lead the way.

  They walked by the home where they’d had those brief, wonderful hours curled up with Dr. Lynn. Max stared longingly through its wrought-iron fence as they passed, wishing he were still inside in front of a flickering fire, his head resting on the woman’s lap.

  The collar she’d placed around his neck bit slightly into his skin, but Max decided he liked having it. As long as he wore it, she could find them again.

  And as long as he wore it, he wouldn’t forget that the end of his journey was close.

  As they passed tall, stately homes, Max saw the shadows of dogs and cats just waking up from where they’d slept on grass or beneath bushes, on porches or atop eaves. At the end of the street, where another road ran north to south, Georgie stopped walking. They
stood on what was once a playground. Grass rose up taller than Max, hiding swings and the lower portion of a slide.

  Dr. Lynn hadn’t ventured here with her lawn mower. They’d reached the town’s outer limits.

  “This is the place,” Georgie said, gesturing toward the big brick house on the corner. It was the same as every other house on the street—several stories tall with a white-painted porch. A picket fence surrounded the yard.

  Georgie nosed past the gate, which squeaked on rusting hinges, then held it open for the others. “Around back,” he said.

  Inside the yard, Max caught scent of several dogs—and heard them barking excitedly.

  “Good catch!”

  “Watch it, it’s coming for you!”

  “Woo-hoo! Did you see the air Jay got?”

  Max peered around the corner to see five medium-sized dogs racing through the backyard, their tongues hanging out, looking like they were having the time of their lives. One of them had a bright green Frisbee in his mouth, which he released with a snap of his neck. The neon disk soared through the air until one of his companions caught it in her jaws. The other dogs laughed and barked in approval.

  They were nearly identical, slightly smaller than Max, with shaggy black fur that covered most of their bodies. They had white fur on their bellies and chests and in a stripe down their foreheads. Their ears were pointed and alert, their yellow eyes open wide in excitement.

  Border Collies, like the puppies at the beach!

  “Georgie!” one of the females cried. “Did you come back to play?”

  “Hi, Em!” he barked back. “Afraid not. I brought my friends I was telling you about, the ones who are looking for Belle.”

  The mood in the backyard changed in an instant. The dog with the Frisbee let it drop to the grass, and the five Border Collies stared at Max, Rocky, and Gizmo.

  “Brr,” Rocky muttered. “Is it just me, or did it just get chilly out here?”

  “It still feels warm to me,” Max said.

  Gizmo chuckled nervously. “I think he means how they’re acting, Max. But maybe they’re just shy. Let’s go say hi.”

  Max, Rocky, and Gizmo trotted across the grass. The Border Collies still stared, silent.

  Georgie cleared his throat. “These are the dogs from Baton Rouge,” he said. “Dee, Jay, Kay, Em, and Zee.”

  Gizmo wagged her tail. “Wow, you came all the way from Baton Rouge. How brave!”

  “Not really,” the male named Jay said. “It’s not that far.”

  Rocky tilted his head. “Why did you leave? Were you looking for your people?”

  The dogs glanced at one another. “We don’t really have any people,” Em said. “I mean, the people who raised us were just looking to sell us off. They never had a chance, though.”

  “Then why did you come here?” Max asked.

  Em licked her lips, then sighed. “Well, we weren’t taking too kindly to the way our neighbors were acting, the way they were forming packs and making demands. So we decided to head out on our own.” She asked Max, “Why are you looking for Belle, anyway?”

  “We made a promise to a friend of hers who is no longer with us,” Max said. “An old Australian Shepherd named Boss. He wished for her to know that he didn’t abandon her on purpose.”

  The Border Collies gasped.

  “Oh, Boss,” Dee said. “We liked him. I can’t believe he’s gone.”

  Sniffling, Kay hid her head in Zee’s fur. Zee licked her reassuringly.

  “You’ve come a long way for Boss,” Em said, fighting back her own tears. “And Belle should rightly know what happened to him. Just… be careful.”

  Max remembered his dream of the animal parade and Belle’s stormy float. Something told him finding the Collie wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d hoped.

  “Why should we be careful?” Max asked. “Boss told us Belle was known as the nicest dog in the city.”

  “Yeah,” Rocky said. “He made her sound absolutely perfect.”

  “Oh, she was,” Em said. “All I know is, things changed after the people left. Belle changed. Just please.” The Border Collie met Max’s eyes. “Be very, very careful.”

  CHAPTER 18

  ALMOST THERE

  Despite the Border Collies’ warnings, Max asked for directions to Baton Rouge. Em begrudgingly agreed to aid them and scratched a map in the dirt.

  “Thanks so much,” Max told the Border Collies. “This is a big help.”

  Em ducked her head. “I hope so. And I hope when you find what you’re looking for, you don’t get hurt.”

  “I don’t think any of us wants that,” said Rocky.

  With their path memorized, the dogs said their good-byes. Max was ashamed to tell the others that for a moment he’d considered not going after Belle. His dreams lately had seemed almost prophetic, and the most recent seemed to say something was wrong with Belle.

  But images of Boss came back to Max, of the old dog lying near death on the shore of a mighty river, saying how sorry he was never to see Belle again. So Max, Rocky, Gizmo, and Georgie followed the Border Collie’s directions out of town.

  The rising sun burned away the mist, revealing a blue sky dotted with clouds. The swamp was far behind them now, and the air carried with it no real animal scents save for rabbits, mice, and squirrels hiding in the underbrush. The four dogs chatted about what they’d do when reunited with their families.

  Like the others, Max enjoyed being clean and well fed. For the first time in a long while, the journey to find his people felt pleasant. By midday they discovered a gas station that hadn’t been ransacked by other animals. They ate their fill from a bag of kibble and lapped up water that had pooled in a sink behind the checkout counter.

  Evening began to fall as Max led them down a wide road between huge parking lots filled with all types of vehicles. Numbers were painted on the car windows, and Max guessed they were passing some sort of car store.

  Max was wishing that he and his friends knew how to drive—imagine how easy getting around would be!—when Georgie barked excitedly. “Look!” he bellowed. “I know those buildings. That’s Baton Rouge!”

  Craning his neck, Max saw the silhouettes of tall buildings to the north.

  “Em and the other dogs were right,” Gizmo said. “We didn’t have far to go at all.”

  “Maybe not,” Rocky said, sizing up the skyline, “but this road is heading west. The city is north.”

  Max trotted up. “We just need to find the road that takes us in that direction, like in Em’s map.”

  “This way!” Georgie barked, loping into a car lot. “I bet I can find it!”

  As the other dogs watched in surprise, the giant Saint Bernard leaped onto the hood of a silver truck. Then Georgie howled. Though as loud as the wail of the Mudlurker, this howl was different, less desperate, speaking of friendship and hope.

  Max, Rocky, and Gizmo stood in front of the truck, looking up at Georgie in awe. The howl seemed to last forever, but finally he lowered his snout.

  Georgie angled his head to the side, waiting. Max, Rocky, and Gizmo glanced at one another, confused.

  And then a distant howl pierced the evening sky. Another joined in, and another, each one echoing from the north. Soon they heard several barks, and Georgie nodded. Thumping his tail against the top of the truck, he looked down at his friends.

  “The dogs say there’s a shortcut up ahead. We just have to find a tunnel, go through it, and then we’ll be on our way to the farm where I was born.”

  “That’s amazing!” Gizmo said as Georgie leaped down into the parking lot. “How did you know they would answer you?”

  “A lot of us grew up together,” Georgie said. “We used to practice call-and-response like that for fun. It sure came in handy today.”

  Rocky said, “What are we waiting for? Let’s go find this tunnel!”

  Georgie looked at Max, who said, “This is your hometown, so you lead the way.”

  The big dog d
idn’t need to be told twice. He bounded forward through the maze of dusty, dirty cars to a tall chain-link fence. There they found a rusted gate that was easy to shove open for all four dogs to slip through. Next, Georgie led them through a field, periodically raising his fleshy snout in another howl. Every time he did, a bark would echo through the night sky, and Georgie would change their course slightly.

  “This way,” he woofed, disappearing into a small grove of trees.

  Seconds later, Max heard the Saint Bernard let out a startled cry.

  “Georgie!” Gizmo yipped, darting ahead. She, too, vanished into the trees—and then cried out as well.

  “What’s going on?” Rocky shouted. He barked, “Are you all right? Answer me, Giz!”

  “We’re fine!” Gizmo’s voice rose up. “But there’s a steep drop just past the trees. Watch your step!”

  Rocky sighed in relief. “You first, big guy. If I slip on the way down, you’ll give me a soft landing.”

  Max chuckled. “Glad to be of service.” Carefully, he walked between two of the tall trees, taking each step slowly. All he could think about was his tumble into the massive sinkhole.

  Finally, Max raised his left paw in the air—and when he tried to set it down, there was nothing. “Right here is the drop-off,” Max said.

  “Got it,” Rocky said.

  Max stepped forward once more, this time prepared. And then, the dirt crumbled beneath his paws.

  “Whoa!” Max cried.

  The dirt and pebbles beneath him cascaded, and Max had no choice but to run as fast as he could, his legs splashing into an ankle-deep stream of water.

  Panting, Max turned to find Georgie and Gizmo rolling in the water to clean the dirt off their fur.

  “That wasn’t so bad.” Rocky waddled casually into the ditch, having followed Max’s path. “Just have to maintain your balance.”

  Gizmo jumped to her feet and shook herself, sending water flying through the air.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said as she splashed through the water to Rocky’s side. “You were prepared!”