by Peter Howe
Waggit broke the silence.
“There might not be any choice,” he said, “but it’s still dangerous.”
“So’s starving,” Tazar assured him, and that ended the discussion.
And so it was that Waggit found himself that evening at the back entrance of a Chinese restaurant about a block west of the park. His mission was to scout out the area and find the spots worthy of scavenging. He had been chosen for this duty because his experience in the world outside was greater than any of the other Tazarians. Most of them had never been beyond the park’s boundaries since the day they were abandoned. Waggit, on the other hand, had been dumped in the park, captured by rangers, and then rescued from the pound by a woman who adopted him. When she left him at her brother’s farm for several months, Waggit mistakenly thought he’d been abandoned again and escaped. Because he had successfully made the hazardous journey back to the park, he was considered a well-traveled animal by the team, and the one most suited to venture into the scary streets beyond the park walls.
His head and shoulders were once again inside a garbage can, and he was trying to get his teeth around some delicious-smelling spare ribs, when he heard a low growl behind him. In his hurry to get out of the trash can and face this unseen threat, he fell back and pulled it on top of him. He lay on the ground, covered in Chinese leftovers and empty soy sauce packets. But this wasn’t the worst of his situation, because he was staring into the fierce eyes of the biggest dog he had ever seen, and the dog was not happy.
4
Crossing Boundaries
The dog was enormous, with a dull, matted brown coat; short, stubby ears; a strong, muscled body; and, as far as Waggit could see, no tail at all. But it was his eyes that were his most disturbing feature. There was a black patch over each of them that made it seem like he was wearing a mask. He stared at Waggit with an intensity that made him cower.
“You are in my domain,” the big dog said quietly but menacingly. “Why are you here?”
“I apologize,” Waggit replied. “I came to get food for my team.”
“This is not your team’s territory,” the big dog continued. “Why isn’t there food where you live?”
“The Ruzelas, sir. They’re cleaning up the park, and all the prey has gone and we don’t know where.”
“Ah,” said the dog, relaxing a little. “The park. You’re a country dog.”
Waggit had hated the country when he had been on the farm, but this was not a dog you disagreed with, so he let it pass.
“You hunt your food, am I correct?” the dog asked without waiting for an answer. “It’s a repulsive habit, but you’ve got to survive somehow, I guess.”
“We have to,” Waggit replied. “There hasn’t been anything in the park to scavenge. That’s why they sent me here. We haven’t eaten in a long time.”
“What is your name, boy?” Despite his civilized tone, the dog’s manner was anything but polite. He was threatening and arrogant.
“It’s Waggit. My name is Waggit.”
“Well, get up, Waggit, and shake yourself off. You’re a mess.”
Given the other dog’s grubby appearance, this criticism surprised Waggit, but he kept this thought to himself and did as he was told.
“My name is Beidel,” the other dog said after a moment. “You may have heard of me. I’m the leader of the Ductors. You’ve heard of them, of course.”
Waggit had heard of neither, but he didn’t want to admit it to this intimidating dog, so he kept quiet.
“No,” continued Beidel, “you don’t know who we are, do you? You country dogs lead such isolated lives.”
Waggit couldn’t allow himself to be called a hick twice.
“Actually,” he said quietly but firmly, “we’re city dogs who live in the park, which is a whole lot different from the country. I know. I’ve lived in the country, and believe me it’s not the same.”
Now it was Beidel’s turn to be impressed.
“You’ve been outside city limits?” he cried. “I never have. How was it?”
“Horrible,” Waggit exclaimed with conviction. “But that’s because I’m a city dog.”
Beidel said nothing, then scratched furiously under his chin and got up and shook himself violently, his huge jowls making slapping sounds as his head rocked from side to side. Dogs do this as a way of clearing their minds.
“What are we going to do with you?” he finally said. “We can’t let you scavenge here, but we can’t let you starve either.”
Waggit was relieved that the solution didn’t involve tearing him limb from limb—at least for the moment. There was silence. Waggit watched the other dog carefully, looking for a sudden change of mood that might be a warning sign of an attack. It didn’t come. Instead, Beidel made a decision.
“I’m going to give your team this feeder for the time being,” he said, “but on one condition. You’re going to have to find a solution to your problem that doesn’t involve trespassing on my domain.”
“But,” protested Waggit, “your domain is next to the park, and if we have to go farther out, then the danger gets greater and bringing the food back is more difficult. Besides, if we’re not in your domain, we’ll be in someone else’s, and they’d feel the way you do.”
“That’s true,” agreed Beidel. “If your present situation is unbearable, maybe your team should consider moving. As park dogs you’d be hopeless on the streets, so that’s not an option.”
Waggit thought about living surrounded by concrete and cars, breathing foul air and dodging the constant threat of humans, and a shudder ran down his spine. To give up the park for that would be even worse than staying without enough food.
“There are other parks,” Beidel continued, “that might be better suited to your needs. I’ve never been in them, of course, but I’m told they’re tolerable if you like that sort of thing.”
“There probably are,” agreed Waggit, “but we don’t know where they are or how to get to them.”
“We may be able to help you with that,” said Beidel. “The Ductors assist dogs in need in various ways, mostly to get them out of the clutches of Uprights. We help them escape, hide them in safe dens, and place them in suitable living arrangements. We usually do it one dog at a time, but I suppose we could move a whole team if necessary. It would certainly be better than having our food stolen.”
Waggit sat down and sighed. This was a lot for a young dog to take in. He’d come here only to look for food, and now he was faced with a tough-talking stranger who planned to move the Tazarians out of the park that had always been their home.
“How would we know,” he eventually asked, “if the new park was any better than where we are now?”
“That,” replied Beidel, “is a gamble you’ll have to take. And in the end, what alternative do you have? You either starve where you are or fight us or another street team for a piece of their domain. A fight you’d be unlikely to win.”
“It doesn’t seem fair,” Waggit complained.
“It’s not,” Beidel assured him. “It never is. Go back to your leader and tell him what I just told you. I will allow you to use this feeder for as many risings as there are claws on one paw, but after that, we will defend it.”
Waggit made his way back to the park with a heavy heart. He felt that he’d messed up, but wasn’t sure how. Maybe if he’d been more alert, he would have heard Beidel coming and escaped before he got there, not that it would have made any difference. If the big dog hadn’t cornered him today, he would have got him the next time. It was inevitable. Waggit’s only consolation was that he was returning to the team with a large slab of spare ribs held firmly in his jaws. Even this was hard to enjoy, for he knew that when it was divided up, there would be very little for each team member.
The situation was serious.
When he got back to the team and they had finished off the spare ribs, he nervously told Tazar about his conversation with Beidel.
“No! No! No! We wil
l never leave the park!” Tazar was in a rage. “I don’t care what some full-of-himself street hound says. We stay here, and we’ll survive. If I’d have been there, I’d have shown him a thing or two.”
“But…,” Waggit tried to interrupt.
“No buts, Waggit,” Tazar snarled. “I’m not blaming you. I’m just angry that a mangy, conniving, no-good mutt would try to take advantage of a naïve young dog who doesn’t know better. I tell you, as soon as they moved us out, those—what’re they called, Ductors?—would move in here and take over our realm, sure as fleas bite.”
Silence fell on the group, and for several minutes the only sound to be heard was Tazar’s snorting, for he was still fired up. As usual, Lowdown was the only one brave enough to speak. He cleared his throat.
“While what you say is true, boss,” he said, “whether or not these Ductors is villains don’t change our predicament. I mean to say, we just finished our meal, and I don’t know about you, but I feel as hungry now as before I ate it, and there ain’t much of me. Gordo must be thinking someone slit his throat when he wasn’t looking.”
“Oh no, Lowdown,” said Gordo, “I’m sure I’d’ve noticed if they did that. I am pretty hungry, though.”
“I know, I know,” Tazar assured them. “It’s a bad time. But we’ve been through bad times before and survived them all. Things will get better. They always do.”
But they didn’t. Over the next two days there was still no prey to be hunted in the woods, and even with Cal and Raz helping, the amount of food that they could carry from the Chinese restaurant was scarcely enough to live on. And it was getting more and more dangerous. Cal was almost hit by a taxi, and twice a very angry Chinese man chased them off waving a meat cleaver. There wasn’t much time; they had to make a decision soon. The period that Beidel would allow them to scavenge in his territory was almost over, and not only was Tazar still adamantly opposed to moving, but they hadn’t found an alternative food source either. Waggit turned to Lowdown.
“What are we going to do?” he asked his old friend. “Something’s got to happen. We can’t go on like this.”
“You’re right there,” agreed Lowdown. “I can’t eat any more of that food, for one thing. It makes me all jumpy, and I’m way too old to be jumpy.”
“Tazar’s never going to agree to the move, is he?” Waggit sighed. “His mind’s made up.”
“Well,” said Lowdown, “you can never tell with Tazar. Something might happen to turn him around.”
And indeed it did, but it was nothing that any of them could have anticipated.
5
Rescue and Resolution
The way it happened was like this. The warm spring weather continued, and the park filled up every day with people happy that the bleak days of winter were finally over. This meant there was more wasted food to scavenge, but the visitors still weren’t venturing into the Deepwoods, so the dogs continued to travel into the lower reaches of the park to pick up whatever they could find. This wouldn’t have been a problem if they could have done it at dusk, when there were fewer people, but one of the features of the new and, at least from a human point of view, improved park management was more frequent trash pickups. Now the window of opportunity to scavenge food from the trash cans was very narrow indeed. But the desperate situation meant that the dogs had to take greater risks in order to supplement the Chinese food, which was rarely enough to feed the whole team.
So it was that Waggit and Magica were making their cautious way from shrub to shrub, staying away from the paths whenever possible. They were looking for trash cans with no humans in the immediate area. Because of the dogs’ remarkable sense of smell, they knew which cans had food in them and even what kind it was. They had learned from their previous experience that hiding food anywhere was risky. Once they had retrieved it, they would race back to the pipe as quickly as possible and then return to look for more. All this had to be done with speed, but no matter how fast the two dogs worked, it was still dangerous. Often the crashing sounds that the trash can made as it fell on its side were enough to attract unwanted attention. Because finding and ferrying the food almost the entire length of the park took so much time, they were at risk of capture for longer than usual.
Though this method was less than perfect, it was the best they had come up with, and if you had to do it with anyone, Lady Magica was the dog you would choose. Waggit always loved working with her, whether hunting or foraging. She was fast, smart, and focused. While he enjoyed Cal and Raz as playmates, they were too scattered and prone to making rash decisions. Magica was completely reliable.
They had gone as far as the hill overlooking the lake, where, in days gone by, Lowdown and Waggit used to sit for hours watching the Uprights as they rowed boats across the water. There were no humans nearby, so he and Magica rested for a moment; then she looked around and sighed.
“You know,” she said, “it seems to me that there were never this many Uprights around when we lived closer to the Skyline End.”
“You’re right,” Waggit agreed. “There weren’t even this many during the hottest rising of the Long Light. If it’s like this in the Warming, they’ll be bumping into each other later on.”
“Well, that’ll be worth watching,” said Magica, giggling, “as long as they don’t bump into us.”
Suddenly the two dogs heard a terrified scream. They looked over and saw that a young child, no more than two or three years old, had fallen from a boat. Her mother, in a desperate attempt to pull her back in, had capsized the rowboat, and now both of them were in the water. The woman was able to keep her head above the surface, but the child was desperate, making muffled crying sounds as she struggled to stay afloat. Without thinking, Waggit leaped to his feet and started running down the hill toward the lake.
“Waggit!” cried Magica. “Stop! Are you crazy?”
Ignoring her, Waggit continued toward the drowning child, leaped into the water, and swam to her. As she disappeared beneath the surface, he managed to catch hold of the back of her dress and bring her spluttering once again into the air. Instinctively he headed toward the bank. It was hard work, because the child continued to thrash about, unaware that he was saving her life.
As he came closer to the bank, he saw another hazard that he hadn’t anticipated. A crowd of people had gathered, and some of them had started to wade into the water. At that moment he felt the lake bottom beneath his feet. Realizing that if he could feel it, then she was no longer in danger, he let the child go and started to swim as fast as he could in the opposite direction. Some of the crowd began to run toward him, but he managed to make it to the bank and, without bothering to shake the water from his coat, he ran straight toward the nearest undergrowth. Magica, who had been watching all this in horror, was waiting for him.
“Waggit,” she gasped. “That was so stupid. Brave, but really stupid.”
“I know,” he panted in reply. “I don’t know what came over me. I just heard her cries, and I knew I had to try to save her.”
“Well, you won’t get any thanks from the Uprights,” she said, “after the way those ones came after you.”
“I didn’t do it for thanks,” said Waggit somewhat grumpily. He knew he had done a foolish thing and was irritated to have it pointed out.
When they finally returned to the pipe, however, he was warmly grateful to Magica. She described the incident to the other dogs in glowing terms and told of his bravery and skill. Tazar, however, was not impressed.
“That wasn’t the smartest thing you ever did,” he said calmly. “I know that you had the best intentions, and were obeying a strong instinct, but remember that when you deal with Uprights, your good deed will always be misunderstood. By now they probably think you were the cause of the accident, not the rescuer.”
Waggit felt miserable. It was true that some deep, hidden sense had compelled him to dive into the lake and swim after the girl. He realized now that acting instinctively could sometimes get a dog int
o trouble, and he vowed to think first the next time this happened. He wasn’t sure that he could, but he would try.
The situation worsened the following day, when Alona came running into the clearing with a newspaper in her mouth. She laid it on the ground and smoothed it down with her paws. It was the front page of the New York Post, most of which was taken up with a photograph of Waggit swimming with the little girl firmly held in his mouth. The headline read: “Mystery Hero Dog Saves Child.” Underneath the photograph was a caption that read:
A courageous canine saved three-year-old Amanda Gerschowitz from a watery death in Central Park Lake yesterday. The dog ran off before he or his owner could be thanked by Amanda’s sobbing mother. The child’s father, famed Wall Street broker Andrew Gerschowitz, has offered a $50,000 reward to the pet’s owner.
Unfortunately the dogs couldn’t read any of this.
“This is terrible,” said Tazar, looking at the photograph. “I knew this would happen.”
“What does it mean?” asked Waggit with fear in his voice.
“It means you’re a marked dog,” Tazar replied. “This is what the Ruzelas do when they target dogs they really want to catch. It’s the same as the papers they put on the metal trees.”
Tazar was referring to the notices that the distressed owners of lost dogs taped to the lampposts around the park. He was convinced they were like “Wanted” posters and the dogs they depicted were doomed for the Great Unknown.
“Have you seen any more of these?” he asked Alona.