Down below, at the base of the ridge, I could see and smell a huge fire charging up a mountainside opposite us. Big Kitten was terrified of this fire. I couldn’t tell her that when there’s fire, Lucas and Olivia and the other humans throw dirt at it and put blankets over us and make it safe for everyone.
Though she seemed exhausted, Big Kitten turned and fled yet again. I had no choice but to follow, as the cubs struggled to keep pace with their mother. She moved more slowly now, making it easier to keep her in sight. She was no longer in a mindless panic, but she obviously wanted to be far away from the threat of fire.
There had been many times in the past when I sensed that Big Kitten knew where she was taking me. Her self-assurance was clear and evident in her purposeful stalking.
This was not one of those times. I knew she wanted to flee the fire, but the fire was everywhere, sending her in a variety of directions. As we ran, I would smell it getting stronger, and then we’d change course and head a different way until a wall of smoke hit us, and we’d change direction again. She was running in bursts now, always moving but only occasionally breaking into a sprint. The way she was behaving frightened me; she seemed heedless of her cubs struggling to keep up, unaware of my presence, focused solely on the urgent need to escape danger.
At one point, I smelled water and deliberately broke away from Big Kitten, who sensed I was changing direction and turned to look at me. Girl Kitten followed me, and Boy Kitten ran to his mother cat.
I found a small stream and, ignoring the bitter taste of the burned wood floating on the surface, lapped it up gratefully. Soon I was joined by my cat family.
With some water in her belly, Big Kitten seemed less panicked. I wondered if she understood, now, that everything was burning all around us, and that the smartest thing to do would be to find people to take care of us and give us a car ride back to Lucas.
The sun was lowering to the horizon, oddly looking more like the moon through the haze of smoke painting the sky.
We could not keep fleeing. Even refreshed by water, the cubs looked exhausted. I knew I needed rest, and the dull sheen in Big Kitten’s eyes told me she was drained as well.
She allowed me to guide her, and we soon found a safe-seeming place by some fallen, blackened trees. Big Kitten nudged her kittens with her nose, forcing them to take shelter. They went rigid with alarm when I climbed into the hollow space with them, but then Big Kitten joined us, and that seemed to decide things for them, and they relaxed. I had met many other kittens in my life and it usually went like this: mistrust and fear, followed by acceptance when they understood what a good dog I was.
We slept, but Big Kitten soon roused herself in the growing gloom.
I knew what was coming, and as night fully descended, Big Kitten stared at me for a long moment, then abruptly departed into the darkness. This was her pattern: Big Kitten hunted at night, which made no sense. Dogs know the time to hunt is when the prey can be seen, but cats don’t really pay attention to the things dogs can teach them.
I was tired and ready for sleep but Boy Kitten and Girl Kitten decided it was time to play. They wrestled with each other while I looked on tolerantly. I was drowsy, but every time I was about to slip into luxurious sleep, one of the cubs would pounce on me. I had apparently been accepted into the cat pack.
I wearily bore their assaults because with their mother out prowling, they were my responsibility. It was what Big Kitten would have wanted, and what Lucas would have wanted. Lucas and Olivia often took care of cats.
The kittens were sprawled against me and the sun was just barely giving light to the morning when Big Kitten’s scent arrived on the smoky air. I wagged, because I could smell that she had brought a meal.
When she emerged from the gloom, she had a small deer clamped in her jaws.
At the scent of blood, Boy Kitten and Girl Kitten roused themselves and we shared that meal, just as Big Kitten and I had done so many times in the past. The little cats seemed unsurprised to be feeding next to a dog, though Girl Kitten paused from time to time to sniff curiously at my face.
I was not surprised when, after we had all eaten our fill, Big Kitten dragged the carcass over near the boulders and began scratching at dirt, covering the kill the way she always did when we were finished eating. Another cat tendency that made no sense to me.
Boy Kitten and Girl Kitten watched their mother raptly. I wondered if they were as perplexed as I was at this behavior. I had no way of letting them know that it was simply what Big Kitten liked to do.
I knew what would happen next: we would spend a few days right there, feeding on the deer, remaining out of sight during the day and hunting at night—well, Big Kitten would hunt. This was the pattern of behavior we had long ago established. But now, of course, I would stay with the family, because the kittens seemed too young to leave alone. Which meant I would not be doing Go Home to Lucas on my own—the cubs would have to come with me. I knew he was probably calling for me, but I could also sense that the fire had descended from the mountains and was separating me from my humans. I would not go toward flames without Lucas guiding me.
All of this made me confused and anxious. Every decision was too hard for me to make. I needed my person to tell me what to do.
Several times during the next day, I heard a loud crack, followed by the booming rumble of a tree falling suddenly. It was as if, having been consumed by fire, the trees no longer had the will to remain upright. Many that remained erect lost the strength in their limbs and dropped heavy branches to the ground in a shower of black, cold embers. The cubs always jerked and stared at the noisy trees.
Big Kitten’s nocturnal forays were unproductive for the next several nights. We were running out of food, and I was beginning to feel desperate. This wasn’t merely a matter of my own hunger—the kittens were young and needed to eat frequently.
My nose sensed that the flames that had threatened us were weakening, losing their grip on our area. Even though I knew the fire was still out there, it felt safer now. I could smell that many places had become like the forest of dead black trees—no longer hot and burning, but smoldering and passable.
So I could do Go Home now, I thought, find my way to Lucas. But not while my kittens were starving. I had to be sure that Big Kitten could take care of them.
I lay panting in the heat, wind whipping, bringing me scents of the rising and falling of the flames in trees near and distant. I longed to be with my boy again. I wanted to eat at his hand, to be a good dog doing Sit.
If Big Kitten could not find food, I wondered if she’d follow me back to the town where Olivia and Lucas waited. Would she understand I was leading my cats to a meal?
Night fell and I prepared myself to stand vigil over the kittens, both of whom seemed to develop a reckless wanderlust whenever the sun went down. I had learned to keep them from straying too far by going to them and prodding them with my nose, just like Big Kitten. Occasionally I found it necessary to growl at them a little, a sound they seemed to find fascinating. When I did it, their eyes widened and they stared at me as if in amazement. But they understood, especially when Girl Kitten seemed determined to leave her brother at the den and go for a long walk by herself. I always scampered after her, got in her way, and barked. That startled her, and she’d turn and flee back to the den, where her brother would pounce on her.
At night, I was Boy Kitten and Girl Kitten’s mother cat.
Thankfully, Big Kitten finally hunted successfully, returning at sunrise with prey. Rejuvenated and no longer hungry, we all played together. Big Kitten and I wrestled as we always had, and when I tumbled, the kittens pounced. I was so happy to have a full belly and to be rolling around with cats!
Afterward, I napped with Big Kitten and the cubs, thinking this would be my last full day with them. They had food now. I could return to my humans knowing the kittens would be all right. I was sorry I could not remain with my cat family, who must have come very far to find me. Just as I had long s
earched for Big Kitten, she had been looking for me. But perhaps if I did Go Home, Big Kitten would return to wherever she lived now.
Back at the house where Olivia lived with Lucas and me, there was a woman across the street who had cats. Lucas called her the “cat lady” and I liked to go over and visit her. I hoped Big Kitten was living with someone like that. She distrusted humans in general, but so had my original mother cat, back before I went to be with Lucas, and now my mother cat had a woman who took care of her. Cats can always find a person to love them, though it’s much easier for a dog to do so.
Girl Kitten yawned as we lolled together, and the sight filled me with peace and love. It would not be easy to say goodbye to her and her brother. When I left Big Kitten several summers ago, she had become an adult. These kittens had not, but I had stayed away from my boy for too long.
As usual, the presence of a new food supply made little difference as far as her habits—Big Kitten would still hunt that night. As she left, she turned and stared at me, and I wondered if she knew I had decided that I would leave her and the kittens the next morning.
When she slunk off, I realized how much I would miss the three of them. We had been through so much together. But I’d made my decision.
I awoke the next morning to a fierce wind and the realization that Big Kitten had not yet returned. The wind forced an eye-stinging smoke upon me—somewhere fairly close, a large gathering of trees was being devastated by flames. The kittens remained huddled in the shade, snoozing, while I restlessly prowled the area, lifting my nose for a sign of Big Kitten. I could not feel her or smell her. She must have gone far away.
I thought back to her mindless retreat the last time she’d felt threatened by fire. If she had ended up near this new outbreak, she could be fleeing in any direction.
I was concerned. This was not a good time to be away from her cubs.
There was no sign of Big Kitten all that day, and she did not return during the night. Boy Kitten and Girl Kitten seemed anxious and pressed closer to me than usual, trying to lure me into reassuring play. Boy Kitten rubbed his head against my shoulder and made a rumbling sound in his chest, exactly as his mother would do.
When the sun came up the next morning, I woke with a start, thinking I had heard Lucas calling my name. There was no sign of him on the wind, though—just the ever-present smoke. The cubs were peacefully slumbering. I shook, stretched, and stepped out of our den.
There was still no sign of Big Kitten.
She was gone.
Twenty
A desperate fear and loneliness settled over me as I watched the kittens sleep soundly at my feet. Their faces were undisturbed. They didn’t know anything except the peace of being with the good dog who was taking care of them.
But I knew other things. My previous time with Big Kitten had taught me the mountains were a dangerous place. Predators would see the cubs, and even a solitary dog like me, as a meal worth hunting. But such attacks were far from the only threats. The fire was still out there, claiming what it could. And then there was hunger, which could sap our strength and destroy our will to survive.
I only knew how to hunt from the hands of people, or indirectly through large bins that contained the remains of human dinners. But such opportunities had been thinned by the fire. Now, when I sorted through the scents on the air, I found no people, only smoke.
We were utterly alone.
A helpless whimper escaped my lips. The humans might never come back, now that there were flames everywhere again. But I couldn’t possibly protect my kittens without them.
The only thing to do was to do Go Home to Lucas. He would know what to do with Boy Kitten and Girl Kitten. He would take care of us, love us, and give us each a t-i-i-iny piece of cheese.
The thought of food ignited an insistent hunger within me. There was little left of the carcass of Big Kitten’s kill. I nuzzled the sleepy cubs awake and demonstrated that it was time to eat. They accepted my guidance, and we ate what I knew would be our last meal in that safe place.
The scent of their mother was faintly overlaid across the surface of the carcass, and I wondered if it provided the young cats any comfort.
Lucas felt far away—it would take some time to reach him. I resolved to depart that morning.
I hoped Big Kitten would soon return to this den and find us no longer here and follow us. I had the sense that a mother cat could always find her kittens. In any case, I couldn’t wait any longer, so we set off.
But I was not able to be a good dog and do Go Home, because the fire seemed determined to stop us, pushing us to take another direction. I could smell it constantly now; sometimes the sky would grow dark during the day when our path took us too close to flames. Desperate to get back to Lucas, I kept up a steady, hard pace, moving as fast as the little cubs could tolerate. At night, they collapsed in a heap, too exhausted to pounce or wrestle.
I was depleted as well. We found water; there were streams and ponds, some tainted with the now-familiar taste of fallen embers, but all drinkable. Still, we were hungry, and I could tell after two days that the kittens were running out of energy.
We needed to find food or they would not survive many more days like this.
They trusted me, but they didn’t understand fire. They didn’t seem afraid of the encroaching danger, only hungry and tired. Whenever I halted to allow them some recovery time, they would paw at me, not in play, but in a frantic attempt to communicate their need for food.
I was very afraid. When the cubs were curled up against me for the night, their warmth and the tiny sounds of their breathing stoked a love within me as powerful as anything I had ever felt for Big Kitten. I sometimes lowered my nose to their soft fur, the better to breathe in their scents. I was desperate to take good care of them, but I was failing.
As was true of Big Kitten, they were wary of a road when we came across one. They gingerly approached this new surface, sniffing at it, probably distrusting the human and machine odors embedded in the gravel. But for me, a road made for an easy path away from the fire. We struck a compromise, the kittens and I, walking along the edge of the road and staying as hidden as possible.
We hadn’t traveled very far when I came across an odd sight: items I recognized as being human in origin. I found bags, a small shovel, and other objects strewn along the side of the road. It was as if several people were walking through here and suddenly decided to drop their belongings. The scent of humans was still strong on everything—the objects had only recently been abandoned.
The most interesting of these was a big backpack exactly like the one that Lucas often carried. It was lying on the ground next to the road and was yawning completely open. The kittens were alarmed when they saw me approach it, and they bobbed their heads and flinched when I thrust my face into the opening, but I could smell something edible in there. I tore out some cloth items and tossed them aside and dragged out a big pouch, which I ripped open with my teeth. I was rewarded by succulent dry meat, along with something crunchy. I greedily gobbled it down while Boy Kitten and Girl Kitten watched me in what appeared to be astonishment. They reacted with more interest, though, when I tugged out a long and hard tube of what turned out to be a spicy meat. I let the two of them share this and they pounced on it with such eagerness I felt a stab of shame—I had let them come so close to starving.
I pulled out more packets, and Girl Kitten needed no encouragement to approach one and eat the contents. Boy Kitten wouldn’t do this until I ripped it open and shook it violently as if it were a pair of Lucas’s socks. Food chunks scattered everywhere, and Boy Kitten pounced and gobbled up the small morsels, crunching on the dried meat.
Everything edible I shared with the kittens. They had no interest in a spongy cookie infused with a deliciously sweet honey flavor, so I ate that myself. Even when famished, cats will often turn away from treats that dogs are smart enough not to ignore.
Invigorated by the snack, we proceeded at a brisker pace, eventua
lly leaving the road when it became apparent that it was curving back around in the direction of the heaviest smoke.
Big Kitten had trusted me to take care of her kittens, and I was doing my best. But I was dismayed to realize my best might not be good enough. I still felt that I could sense the direction I should take to find Lucas, but we were not headed that way at all. Instead, we were stuck fleeing the fire.
At one point we emerged from a scorched forest into a meadow with green grass unaffected by flames. There were horses in this field, their noses down. They appeared to be eating grass, something I might do from time to time but never with the enthusiasm that these big creatures showed for it. Boy Kitten and Girl Kitten were fascinated by the horses, staring at them, and then, in a move that surprised me, slinking down to their stomachs and creeping slowly toward one of the smaller ones. The horses lifted their heads in unison and stared at this spectacle. The kittens jerked when a horse took a single step forward, though they continued their low-belly advance when that same horse put its head back down to the grass.
I had a bad feeling about this. I did not know what the two kittens thought they were doing, but their movements clearly had caught the horses’ attention. The grass-eating creatures were big and powerful and their feet looked dangerous. And since they weren’t running, I assumed that they weren’t the slightest bit afraid of the approaching kittens.
I eventually realized what the kittens were up to: they were stalking, with motion and manner similar to how I hunted squirrels. But these were not squirrels—they weren’t about to bound away and dash up a tree. I knew that if I allowed them to continue their hunt, they might be killed. I couldn’t let that happen!
So, I barked.
The effect was electrifying. Both kittens turned and gawked at me in shock. The horses, on the other hand, were now staring at me intently. I barked again, charging forward with bared teeth, and one of the horses turned its head and began trotting away; and with that, all the horses suddenly galloped across the field.
A Dog's Courage--A Dog's Way Home Novel Page 15