“I don’t think we want to stay here, the smoke’s too dense,” Cloth-eye replied.
The driver of the big truck leaned over and spat into the dirt. “Well, there’s only the one road and it leads straight to the center of the whole thing before you can hook north on 765. It might get hairy, we decide to head that way.”
Turkey-fingers stepped forward. “It’s the only way to get to Paraiso.”
Mack and his friends looked at one another. Cloth-eye shrugged. “What choice do we have?”
We climbed onto the big truck for a car ride, but this time Olivia and Lucas stood with Turkey-fingers in a small space in the middle and some other people got to ride with Mack on the roof in back. There was no room for me to lie down, so I did Sit at my boy’s feet.
People were sad and afraid, which I did not understand because we were leaving the hot cement place. Olivia put the dog bowl back on my face, as if determined to make the car ride even worse.
Two of Mack’s friends passed out dog bowls, each with a hose attached to a metal object that clanked. “Share, okay? Share the masks,” Cloth-eye called from the front.
The truck rumbled as it drove, and I felt the smoke as much as smelled it—burning my eyes, clogging the air. The roar of the fire grew steadily louder. It seemed to me that we were driving directly toward it. I whimpered inside my face bowl.
Lucas passed his dog bowl to Turkey-fingers and coughed, his hand over his mouth. Olivia’s eyes were streaming as she reached out to touch his arm. “I’m worried about you, honey. Are you sure you are all right?”
Lucas nodded and coughed again as Turkey-fingers passed Olivia the dog bowl. I anxiously pressed up against my boy’s legs. Now I felt heat, great gusts of it on currents that were growing stronger and stronger. I didn’t understand what we were doing.
“How far?” Lucas wheezed at Turkey-fingers.
“Not far. Maybe another mile until we can turn on 765.”
Olivia gestured. “Another mile into all this smoke—I don’t know how we’re going to make it.”
Both Olivia and Lucas were coughing. I was drooling inside my face bowl and felt sure I was about to vomit again. I could see nothing, smell nothing but black smoke.
“We have to go back!” a woman cried shrilly.
Lucas shook his head. “We can’t!” His voice was a croak.
“Hang on, folks,” Mack called. “Almost to the turnoff!”
Eighteen
The acrid bite of burning wood was on my tongue and in my nose, more intense than anything I’d ever experienced. I panted, my throat aching. Lucas bent over, his hands on his knees, and Olivia stooped down and pushed the dog bowl at him. The woman who had been screaming collapsed and Turkey-fingers knelt and they vanished in swirling blackness. It was dark as any night.
Then the truck leaned over and everyone grabbed for handholds. I skittered across the metal floor, digging in my claws. I could no longer see Lucas, but his hand snagged my collar, halting my slide.
“That’s it!” Mack shouted, his voice strangling into hacking and gasping.
People cheered, so I wagged, but I didn’t understand. The big truck surged beneath our feet, and I was pressed into Lucas’s legs by the force of it. The vibration from the engine was louder than the fire, drowning everything else out. I glanced up and I could see my boy’s face as he spasmed a cough into his hand.
Then smoke began whistling past my ears. I looked at Lucas, who was wiping his eyes now and spitting out onto the road. With each passing moment, his form became more visible in the black haze, which was breaking apart. He sucked on the dog bowl, then, nodding, handed it to Olivia. He gave her a weak smile.
Even within my dog bowl, I could smell that the fire was lessening rapidly. We were leaving it behind. My vision cleared even further, and the roar and the heat receded. Lucas reached down and took off my face bowl and I blinked away the water in my eyes.
“Pretty much ready for life to get back to normal,” my boy rasped.
Olivia coughed and then smiled. “Remember when you asked me to marry you, and you promised you would make every day interesting? Well, you’ve sure delivered on that.” Swaying, she reached for my boy, who held on to a rail with one hand while he pulled her to him with the other. They kissed, and I wagged and pushed my face in between them because they were doing Love and I knew they wanted me to be part of it.
Every moment brought better air. Soon the car ride on the big truck became even happier when we slowed and I smelled a place we had been before: it was the town with the big soft rooms in the grass.
That night, Mack gave us a ride to our new home, but I spent most of the next several days at the house of barking dogs. All the other animals were in kennels in the back rooms or in the yard behind the building, but I was permitted to lie on a dog bed on the floor near Olivia because I was a good dog. I wasn’t allowed on the couch, though—I wasn’t that good.
I greeted the people who arrived in groups or as individuals, and they were always glad to see me. When Diane or Olivia went in the back of the building and emerged with a dog or a cat, the new people would laugh or cry or yell in joy and the animals would be so glad to see the humans … though it wasn’t easy to be sure with the cats.
I thought I understood why the people were so happy: life is just better with a dog. Cats are not dogs, but they’re pretty good.
The male dog who had so briefly been in my pack, Gus, left on a leash held by a tall man, and Trixie went out the door with a weeping woman. If I had understood that they each had their own person, I would not have been so suspicious of their motives.
Sometimes, instead of remaining with Olivia and Diane and all the animals, I was taken to the outside area with the big soft rooms with Olivia and Lucas and all the people. More and more cars drove on the streets and humans walked around, and a lot of them were sad and needed to pet me and give me hugs. I saw children and, every so often, a new dog. The children and the dogs did not seem sad.
The next afternoon, Lucas was inside one of the soft rooms talking to people—I could smell him—and if I concentrated, I could separate his voice from the buzz of conversation going on all around me. I was sitting under a long table at Olivia’s feet. She was not eating, but I did a good Sit anyway because there had been treats before at this very same table.
Sometimes friends, known or unknown, would sit and talk to Olivia and I would sniff them from under the table, smelling the one thing they had in common—they all still carried the odor of smoke.
At one point, Olivia straightened up sharply. “What’s happening?” she asked a man who was sitting across from her.
They both stood up, so of course I got up, too, thinking we were going to take a walk or at least maybe get a sandwich.
“I don’t know,” the man told her. “Something, obviously.”
“They’ve got guns. Why do they all have guns?” Olivia asked.
I sensed the alarm in her voice, but could not see or smell anything that would cause her to be upset. Many things that happen to people are not really detectable to a dog.
“Scott!” Olivia shouted. She looked both ways and ran across the street to where our friend Scott was in his truck. I followed closely on her heels.
Scott rolled down the window. “Hi, Olivia.”
“What’s happening?” Olivia asked him. “Why do these men all have guns?”
“You didn’t hear?” Scott replied. “There’ve been a couple of mountain lions spotted inside city limits. They must have been driven out of their territory by the fire and now they’re here in town.”
“Well, you can’t just shoot them,” Olivia protested. “They’re probably scared and just need to find a way out of here. They’re not here to hunt, for God’s sake.”
Scott shook his head. “We just can’t take that chance, Olivia. You remember what the district wildlife manager said: predators out of their territories are unpredictable and aggressive. We’ve got kids coming back to Parais
o now … kids and dogs and other pets. We can’t have cougars running around.”
“This is wrong, Scott. You’re overreacting. It can’t be legal and it sure isn’t moral. Let Animal Control handle it.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t supposed to stay and help defend the town either,” Scott reminded her. “Sometimes you got to bend the rules because of the situation. If they want to arrest us, they’re welcome to try.”
“And you really think it’s a good idea to be shooting rifles in town? You said it yourself, you’ve got kids and pets here.”
Scott frowned.
“Could you just wait a bit? I saw that wildlife manager a little while ago. Can you hold off until you speak to her?”
Scott sighed. “Okay.”
“Thanks!” She turned and ran off. I started to follow, but Scott leaned down out of his truck. “Hey, Bella, good to see you, girl. Want a little turkey jerky?” He held out a delicious treat and I delicately took it from his hand. This was the second person I had met with turkey fingers! It was wonderfully chewy, and as I crunched through it, I was aware that Olivia had vanished into the gathering of soft rooms.
Normally I would chase after her, but Scott held out another treat.
A truck pulled up close to us. I could smell the two men inside through their open windows. “Scott! Someone spotted them out by the Safeway. You coming?”
Scott glanced pensively toward where Olivia had gone, then nodded. He tossed me another treat. “Good dog, Bella. Go home.”
I gobbled the small morsel. I did not understand why Scott had just told me to do Go Home. Go Home meant find Lucas, and I knew exactly where he was.
When Scott drove off, I was alone in the street. I wandered around, noting where a female dog had deposited a pile. I sniffed it with interest.
Then I saw a squirrel! It was digging in the dead grass at the base of a black tree. I lowered my head. It took a few hops. It didn’t see me! I stalked it. It raised its head. Yes. I burst into a run and it turned and scampered up the burned tree. I put my front paws on the trunk and stared up at it, and it stared back.
I waited for it to come back down for another try, but after a moment passed, it jumped from the branch, sailing over to another tree, and scaled it. Squirrels often leap from tree to tree and I find it very irritating.
I searched with my nose for signs that the squirrel was coming back down for another fun chase, but there was no trace of it. And then a subtle shift in the wind brought me something on the air besides smoke … besides fire. It was an animal smell, both wild and familiar. I couldn’t help but wag as I turned in that direction. I knew that scent as well as I knew my own. There had been a time when I breathed in that scent every waking moment, and many of my sleeping moments, too.
It was Big Kitten.
She was close by.
I had not been told Stay by either Olivia or Lucas. With a guilty glance behind me, I trotted down the street in the direction of my long-lost friend.
I made my way briskly past piles of charred wood and blackened brick buildings, turning a rubble-strewn corner and descending down a wide dirt road into a low-lying grassy place. I could smell a small stream, and this area was refreshingly unscorched, with moist grass and leaves fluttering in the breeze. I saw no houses nearby—the space felt like a dog park, and I could smell that several male canines had treated it as exactly that. There were big boulders and some trees in this area that had been spared by the fire. And it was here, my nose told me, that I would find my friend Big Kitten.
Her feral scent was strong now, but I did not attempt to track her down in the rocks and shrubs. I knew she could see me; I was standing out in the open in the short grass. I stood, wagging, unsure if she would even remember me after such a long time.
And there was something else: I could smell that there were other big cats with her.
After a moment I spotted some motion and Big Kitten slipped out from behind thick foliage and stood and stared at me. I took a few hesitant steps forward, still wagging, and stopped. What happened next was up to her.
When she stalked out into the sunshine, I play-bowed to greet her. It was so wonderful to see my friend again.
Cats don’t wag, they don’t sniff butts, they don’t really act friendly toward dogs or even each other. But there was one thing Big Kitten did … one thing I knew would show she still remembered me. I wanted to leap around and wrestle with her, but I stood motionless, only my tail moving, waiting as she carefully picked her way toward me. She stopped, facing me, her nose twitching ever so slightly. And then she did it: she lowered her head and rubbed it against me, making that deep rumbling sound in her chest.
Oh, yes, Big Kitten remembered me.
I could smell the other big cats—they were still hiding in the rocks. I looked curiously in that direction.
Big Kitten turned away and glanced back over her shoulder in a way that I had learned long ago meant that she wanted me to follow her. I trotted behind her, eager to meet these new friends.
I was shocked when we slipped into the dense bushes and I saw who was waiting there for us: two kittens!
They were not little, actually; though they were smaller than the wild cat with the rabbit, they were larger than any other cats I had ever met except Big Kitten. But they were smaller than Big Kitten had been when we first met while I was doing Go Home to Lucas.
There was a Boy Kitten and a Girl Kitten. When I approached them, they both scrambled to hide behind Big Kitten. I wagged and bowed but they just stared at me. Finally, I flopped down and rolled onto my back as if inviting a belly rub.
Girl Kitten was the braver of the two and finally advanced, tentatively sniffing while Big Kitten watched impassively. But when I jumped up, Girl Kitten retreated rapidly, eyes large. She apparently was not interested in wrestling with me, nor was her brother.
Big Kitten had become a mother cat. These were her cubs, and I hoped that they would all follow me back to see Lucas. He would be so surprised!
When she was little, Big Kitten loved to play one particular game. I decided to try it now and, when I darted away as if to flee, I turned to see if Girl Kitten followed, but she didn’t budge. She didn’t want to play Chase Me.
I looked up when a fresh animal scent touched me. It was the monsters: the great hulking beasts we had seen before everyone got busy playing with dirt during the big fire. The huge brutes were plodding slowly along the street, plainly visible now because there were no houses, only ashes on the ground. They would soon be passing by the wide dirt road that led down to this dog park.
Beyond them, a truck was rattling down the street. It stopped abruptly behind the pack of gigantic animals, who completely ignored its arrival. The doors flew open and men stood up on either side, pointing what looked to be big sticks at the cats and me. I wagged tentatively. The two cubs were playing with each other and not paying attention, but I saw that Big Kitten was alert, watching the big monsters and the men standing on either side of the truck.
I saw a flash and some smoke and heard a very familiar crack slap at my ears. Big Kitten stiffened. The other man’s stick made the same noise and I was surprised when a clod of dirt near Girl Kitten spat into the air.
Big Kitten and I met eyes and I wondered if she was remembering the same noise, the same smell, from the day we met. The day her mother died in the dirt. And then we both turned because of something else: with the two loud bangs, tension had rippled through the herd of monsters and suddenly the big bull at the front pivoted and ran right down the wide road toward where we were playing! Instantly all the other huge creatures were running, too, following this huge animal. The entire pack was thundering straight for us.
Big Kitten fled and her kittens followed suit. I ran as well, pursuing Big Kitten, who swiftly left me and her cubs behind. We were running hard over rocks and grasses, dodging boulders and foliage. I could smell my friend, but she was very fast, and soon I could not spot her in the dense growth.
Big Kitten would not want Boy Kitten and Girl Kitten to be trampled by the monsters who were still behind us. But she was afraid, and the fear was leading her to abandon us.
I decided to stay with the kittens.
Nineteen
We were falling behind in our pursuit of Big Kitten. She had sprinted so far ahead, only my nose could find her now—the cubs seemed to be following me as much as tracking their mother. Somehow, in these changed circumstances, they were no longer suspicious of this dog who was friends with their mother.
These kittens were not a responsibility I would have wanted, but I instinctively accepted it. Big Kitten and I were part of a pack—long separated by time and distance, but a pack. I would return to Lucas, of course, but for now, following my friend felt natural and instinctive.
Big Kitten was fast, but my nose told me we were not trailing too far behind her. We ascended a grassy hill, where some fallen trees, the sort Big Kitten could clear in a single leap, slowed us down.
The big beasts were no longer charging us, and the men were far behind, but Big Kitten didn’t seem to realize this—she was still on the move. And moving unnaturally. The cat I knew covered ground in sprints and dashes, moving from one hiding place to another, as if she considered herself prey despite being one of the fiercest creatures in the mountains. But what I found with my nose now was a straight path. Big Kitten wasn’t running to something, she was running away.
Concentrating on Big Kitten’s scent, I could smell her hunger, I could smell smoke from her skin, and I could smell her fear.
Big Kitten had never seemed afraid before, not since she was a baby cat.
The cubs and I caught up to Big Kitten at the top of a fire-blackened ridge, far from where we had started. I picked my way through a field of rocks and joined her. We were all panting. Big Kitten’s eyes seemed larger than normal, and she didn’t greet me as if she knew me, didn’t bend down to her cubs, who sidled up to her, craving reassurance. Her ears pressed back on her skull, her fear plain and frantic.
A Dog's Courage--A Dog's Way Home Novel Page 14