A Dog's Purpose

by W. Bruce Cameron

  It was a parking lot, big glass doors on a building swinging open for people carrying small bags. The woman who had collapsed reached into her bag and pulled out a toy.

  “We’ve got the mall locked down,” someone said.

  Jakob came to my door and opened it. He handed me a toy to sniff. “Ellie, okay? Got it? I need you to Find, Ellie!”

  I leaped out of the truck and tried to sort through all the smells, to Find one that matched the toy. I was concentrating so hard I didn’t notice that I’d trotted out in front of a moving car, which rocked when the driver hit the brakes.

  Okay, I had it. There was a scent, a scent that was oddly married to another, a strong male smell. I tracked them both, sure of myself.

  The smell vanished at a car—rather, next to the car, telling me that the people we were working had driven away in a different vehicle and this one had pulled in to take its place. I alerted Jakob, cringing at his sense of frustration and disappointment.

  “Okay, good girl, Ellie. Good girl.” His play was perfunctory, though, and I felt like a bad dog.

  “We’ve tracked her to here—it looks like she got into a vehicle and left. Do we have surveillance on the parking lot?”

  “We’re checking now. If it is who we think it is, though, the car’s stolen,” a man wearing a suit told Jakob.

  “Where would he take her? If it’s him, where would he go?” Jakob asked.

  The man in the suit turned his head, squinting at the green hills behind us. “The last two bodies we found were up in Topanga Canyon. The first one was in Will Rogers State Park.”

  “We’ll head up that way,” Jakob said. “See if we can pick up anything.”

  I was startled when Jakob put me in the front seat of the truck. He’d never let me be a front-seat dog before! His mood was still tense, though, so I stayed focused and didn’t bark when we passed some dogs who yipped at me with unrestrained jealousy. Jakob and I drove out of the parking lot, and he held the same toy out to me, which I dutifully sniffed. “Okay, girl, I know this is going to sound strange, but I want you to Find.”

  At the command, I turned and stared at him in bewilderment. Find? In the truck?

  The smells coming in the window lured my nose in that direction. “Good girl!” Jakob praised. “Find! Find the girl!”

  My nose was still filled with the scent from the toy, which was why I alerted when a stray breeze brought me her smell, still entwined with the man’s. “Good girl!” Jakob said. He stopped the car, watching me intently. Behind us, cars honked. “Got it, girl?”

  I couldn’t smell her anymore. “That’s okay; that’s okay, Ellie. Good girl,” he said.

  I understood, now—we were working from inside the truck. He drove and I kept my nose out the window, straining, rejecting everything except the smell from the toy.

  I felt the tilt of the truck as we headed uphill, and with it a rising sense of disappointment from Jakob.

  “I think we’ve lost her,” he muttered. “Nothing, Ellie?”

  At my name, I turned, then went back to my work.

  “Unit Eight-Kilo-Six, what’s your twenty?” the radio squawked.

  “Eight-Kilo-Six, we are proceeding up Amalfi.”

  “Any luck?”

  “We had something on Sunset. Nothing since.”

  “Roger that.”

  I barked.

  I normally didn’t bark when I caught a scent, but when this hit it was strong and steady, carried on a current of air that filled the cab of the truck. “Eight-Kilo-Six, we’ve got something, corner of Amalfi and Umeo.” The truck slowed, and I stayed on point. I could still smell her, and the man’s scent was strong as ever. Jakob eased to a stop. “Okay, which way here, Ellie?” Jakob asked.

  I climbed across the seat, shoving my face out his window. “Left on Capri!” Jakob shouted excitedly. A few minutes later the truck started to bump. “We’re on the fire road!”

  “10-4, we’re on our way,” the radio said.

  I was on alert, focused dead ahead, while Jakob wrestled with the truck to keep it on the narrow road. Suddenly we banged to a stop, facing a yellow gate. “Be advised, we need the fire department up here; there’s a gate.”

  “10-4.”

  We jumped out of the car. A red car was parked off to the side, and I ran right to it, on alert. Jakob was holding his gun out. “We’ve got a red Toyota Camry, empty; Ellie says it belongs to our man.” Jakob led me around to the back of the vehicle, watching me intently. “No indication anyone is in the trunk of the car,” Jakob stated.

  “Roger that.”

  The scent from the car wasn’t as strong as what was coming from the air currents rising up from the canyon below. A steep road held the man’s scent as it descended, while the girl’s was more delicate. He’d carried her.

  “Be advised, suspect took the road down to the camp. He’s on foot.”

  “Eight-Kilo-Six, hold and wait for backup.”

  “Ellie,” Jakob said to me, putting his gun back on his belt. “Let’s go find the girl.”

  { TWENTY }

  I felt strong fear from Jakob as we descended down into the canyon, so strong I kept returning to him for reassurance. Then the girl’s scent pulled me forward and I galloped ahead, racing toward a collection of small buildings.

  I spotted the little girl sitting quietly on some steps that led up to a big porch while a man pulled at the front door to the building with some sort of tool. She seemed sad and scared, but she perked up when she saw me approach, holding out a tiny little hand.

  The man suddenly whirled, staring at me. My hackles rose when our eyes met—I felt the same dark sickness from him that I’d felt in Todd, only stronger, more vicious. He jerked his head up, looking over toward the road I’d come from.

  I ran back to Jakob, the little girl calling, “Doggy!” as I peeled away.

  “You got her,” Jakob said. “Good girl, Ellie. Show me!”

  I took him back to the building. The little girl was still sitting on the porch, but the man was nowhere to be seen.

  “Eight-Kilo-Six, victim is secured and unharmed. Suspect fled on foot,” Jakob said.

  “Stick with the victim, Eight-Kilo-Six.”

  “Roger that.”

  I could hear in the distance the wap-wap-wap of a helicopter blade beating the air, and the sound of footsteps running down the road behind us. Two policemen came around the bend, sweating.

  “How are you, Emily? Are you hurt?” one of them asked.

  “No,” said the little girl. She picked at a flower on her dress.

  “My God, is she all right? Are you okay, little girl?” a third policeman asked breathlessly as he ran up, putting his hands on his knees. He was larger than the other men, both taller and built more heavily. I smelled ice cream on his breath.

  “Her name is Emily.”

  “Can I pet the doggy?” the little girl asked shyly.

  “Yes, sure. Then we’ve got to go back to work,” Jakob said kindly.

  I perked up my ears at the word “work.”

  “Okay, I’ll . . . go with you,” the large policeman said. “Johnson, you guys remain here with the girl. Watch that he doesn’t circle back around.”

  “If he were close, Ellie would tell us,” Jakob said. I looked at him. Were we ready to go to work?

  “Find!” Jakob said.

  The brush was thick in places, the soil underneath sandy and loose. I could easily track the man, though—he was headed steadily downhill. I found an iron rod coated with his scent and ran back to Jakob. “Show!” Jakob commanded.

  When we returned to the tool, we had to wait more than a minute for the bigger policeman to catch us. “I fell . . . couple times,” he gasped. I could sense his embarrassment.

  “Ellie says he was carrying this crowbar. Looks like he dropped his weapon,” Jakob observed.

  “Okay, now what?” the policeman wheezed.

  “Find!” Jakob commanded.

  The man’s s
cent was painted on bushes and hanging in the air, and it wasn’t long before I could hear him ahead, scuffling along. I closed in on him in a place where the breeze was moist from a tiny stream and the trees lifted their limbs high overhead, providing shade. He saw me and ducked behind one of these trees, just like Wally might do. I ran back to Jakob.

  “Show me!” Jakob said.

  I stayed close to Jakob as we entered the woods. I knew the man was hiding, I could smell his fear and his hate and his fetid odor. I led Jakob straight to the tree, and when the man stepped out from behind it I heard Jakob shout, “Police! Freeze!”

  The man raised his hand and a shot rang out. Just a gun. I’d been assured guns were okay, except that I sensed a flash of pain from Jakob and he fell to the ground, his warm blood spraying the air. Jakob’s gun clattered away.

  I got it, then, connecting separate pieces of information in a flash: Grandpa’s guns, and the way Ethan’s cans leaped off the fence. Todd’s firecrackers, and the snap of pain when he threw one too close to me. The man by the tree was using his gun to hurt Jakob.

  He was still standing there, his gun pointed at us. His fear and fury had turned to elation.

  What came over me then was exactly the same primal impulse that had seized me when I attacked Todd on the night of the fire. I didn’t growl; I just lowered my head and charged. Two loud shots rang out, and then I had the man’s wrist in my mouth, his gun falling to the dust. He screamed at me and I held on, shaking my head violently, feeling my teeth tear into his arm. His foot smacked into my ribs.

  “Let go!” he shouted.

  “Police! Freeze!” the big policeman yelled, coming forward.

  “Get the dog off me!”

  “Ellie, it’s okay. Down, Ellie, Down!” the policeman commanded. I let go of the man’s arm and he fell to his knees. I smelled his blood. His eyes met mine and I growled. I could feel his pain but also his cunning, his sense that he was going to get away with something.

  “Ellie, come,” the policeman said.

  “Dog ripped off my arm!” the man shouted. He waved at something behind and to the left of the policeman. “I’m over here!” he yelled.

  When the policeman quickly turned to see who the man was shouting at, the man lunged forward, scooping up his gun. I barked. He fired and then the policeman fired, several shots punching deep pain into the man. The man lay down in the dirt. I felt the life go out of him in a whoosh, the black, angry sickness unclenching its hold on him and letting him slide away peacefully.

  “Cannot believe I fell for that one,” the policeman muttered. He still pointed his gun at the now dead man, cautiously advancing and kicking the other man’s gun away.

  “Ellie, you okay?” Jakob asked faintly.

  “She’s okay, Jakob. Where you hit?”

  “Gut.”

  I anxiously lay down by Jakob’s side, nuzzling his unresponsive hand. I could feel the pain working its way through his body, and the blood smell was alarming for how much of it there was.

  “Officer down, suspect down. We’re . . .” The man looked up at the sky. “We’re under some trees down the canyon. Need medivac for the officer. Suspect is 10-91.”

  “Confirm suspect 10-91.”

  The policeman walked over and gave the man a kick. “Oh, he’s dead all right.”

  “Who is the officer?”

  “Eight-Kilo-Six. We need help down here now.”

  I didn’t know what to do. Jakob seemed unafraid, but I was so filled with fear I was panting and trembling. I was reminded of the night when Ethan was caught inside the fire and I couldn’t get to him, the same feeling of helplessness. The policeman came back and knelt next to Jakob. “They’re on their way, bro. You just got to hang on, now.”

  I felt the concern in the policeman’s voice, and when he gingerly opened Jakob’s shirt to get a look inside the shock of fear shooting through him made me whimper.

  Soon I could hear crashing and stumbling as several people ran toward us. They knelt by Jakob, shouldering me aside, and began pouring chemicals on him and wrapping him in bandages.

  “How’s Emily?” Jakob asked them faintly.

  “Who?”

  “The little girl,” the policeman explained. “She’s fine, Jakob; nothing happened. You got to her before he was able to do anything.”

  More people arrived and eventually they carried Jakob out on a bed. When we got to where the cars had been parked, a helicopter waited.

  The policeman held me as they loaded Jakob on the helicopter, his limp arm hanging off of the bed. As the loud machine rose into the air I twisted free and ran beneath it, barking. I was a chopper dog; why didn’t they let me go? I needed to be with Jakob!

  People watched as I circled helplessly, my front legs in the air.

  Eventually Amy came and put me in a cage on a different truck, one filled with Cammie’s scent. She took me on a car ride back to the kennel and exchanged me for Cammie, who trotted past me and leaped up into the truck as if offended I’d been in it. Gypsy was nowhere to be seen.

  “Someone will check on you, and we’ll figure out where you’re going to live, Ellie. You be a good dog; you are a good dog,” Amy said.

  I lay down on my bed in the kennel, my head swimming. I did not feel like a good dog. Biting the man with the gun was not part of Find, I knew. And where was Jakob? I remembered the scent of his blood, and it made me whine in anguish.

  I’d fulfilled my purpose and found the girl and she was safe. But now Jakob was hurt and was gone and I was sleeping at the kennel for the first night ever. I couldn’t help but feel that somehow I was being punished.

  The next several days were confusing and distressing for everyone. I lived in the kennel and was only let out into the yard a couple times a day, always by a policeman who radiated awkwardness with the unexpected new duty of dog care. Amy talked to me and played with me a little, but she and Cammie were gone a lot of the time.

  There was no sign of Jakob, and gradually his scent faded from the surroundings, so that even when I concentrated, I couldn’t locate him anymore.

  One day Cammie and I were in the yard together. All Cammie wanted to do was nap, even when I showed him a rubber bone one of the policemen had given me. I didn’t understand what Cammie’s purpose was, why anyone would want to have a nap dog.

  Amy brought her lunch out to a table in the yard, and Cammie was willing to wake up for that. He walked over to where Amy sat and lay down heavily at her feet, as if burdened with many cares that could only be cured with a bite of her ham sandwich. A woman came out and joined Amy.

  “Hi, Maya,” Amy said.

  Maya had dark hair and dark eyes and was tall for a woman, with strong-looking arms. Her pants smelled faintly of cats. She sat down and opened a little box and began chomping on something spicy. “Hi, Amy. Hello, Ellie.”

  The woman didn’t greet Cammie, I noted smugly. I moved closer to her, and she petted me with a fragrant hand. I caught a whiff of soap and tangy tomatoes.

  “Did you put in your paperwork?” Amy asked.

  “Fingers crossed,” Maya replied.

  I lay down and gnawed on the rubber bone so that Maya would conclude I was having so much fun I could only be enticed into paying attention to her with a little lunch.

  “Poor Ellie. She’s got to be so confused,” Amy said.

  I looked up. Lunch?

  “You sure you really want to do this?” Amy asked.

  Maya sighed. “I know it’s hard work, but what isn’t, you know? I’m just getting to that point, it’s the same old thing every day. I’d like to try something new, do something different for a few years. Hey, you want a taco? My mom made them; they’re really good.”

  “No thanks.”

  I sat up. Taco? I wanted a taco!

  Maya wrapped up her lunch as if I weren’t even there. “You people in K-9 are all in such good shape. Losing weight is so hard for me . . . do you think I can hack it?”

  “What? No, you�
��re fine! Didn’t you pass the physical?”

  “Sure,” Maya said.

  “Well, there you go,” Amy said. “I mean, if you want to run with me, I usually go to the track after work. But I’m sure you’ll be great.”

  I felt a tinge of anxiety come off Maya. “I sure hope so,” she said. “I’d hate to let Ellie down.”

  I decided that no matter how many times they said my name, this conversation wasn’t going to result in anything edible. I sprawled out in the sunshine with a sigh, wondering how much longer it would be before Jakob came back.

  { TWENTY-ONE }

  Maya was happy and excited the day she took me for a car ride.

  “We’re going to work together; isn’t that great, Ellie? You won’t have to sleep in the kennel anymore. I bought a bed for you; you can sleep in my room.”

  I sifted through her statement: “Ellie,” “kennel,” “bed,” “room.” There was nothing there that made any sense to me whatsoever, but I was glad to stick my nose out the window and breathe the scent of something besides Cammie and Gypsy.

  Maya parked in the driveway of a small house that I knew, as soon as we crossed the threshold, was where she lived—painted everywhere was her smell, plus the distinctly disappointing odor of cats. I inspected the dwelling, which was tinier than Jakob’s apartment, and immediately encountered an orange feline, sitting on a chair at the table. She regarded me with cold eyes, and when I approached her, wagging, she opened her mouth and gave an almost silent hiss.

  “Stella, be nice. That’s Stella. Stella, this is Ellie; she lives here now.”

  Stella yawned, unimpressed. A flash of gray and white motion out of the corner of my eye drew my attention.

  “Tinker? That’s Tinkerbell; she’s shy.”

  Another cat? I followed her into the bedroom, where a third feline, a heavy black and brown male, sauntered out and sniffed at me with fish breath. “And that’s Emmet.”

  Stella, Tinkerbell, and Emmet. Why on earth would a woman want three cats?

  Tinkerbell was hiding under the bed, thinking I couldn’t smell her there. Emmet followed me into the kitchen and looked curiously into the bowl Maya filled with food, then lifted his head and walked away as if he didn’t care that I was eating and he was not. Stella watched me unwinkingly from her perch on the chair.