A Dog's Courage--A Dog's Way Home Novel

by W. Bruce Cameron

  The cubs, having eaten their fill, pursued. And then I realized that Big Kitten wasn’t hunting, she was playing. She was knocking the frozen turkey around so that the cubs could chase it and pounce. I sat and watched them enjoy themselves like cats will with a new toy.

  We spent the evening right there, gorging on meats and fish. When night fell, Big Kitten, her belly visibly distended, led us a short distance away and we curled up into a pile near a sheltering rock, out of the rain.

  As always, having a food source meant we ceased migrating in favor of staying put. Big Kitten made no move to bury the meat, perhaps because there was so much of it.

  When the sun illuminated the morning, we were still being pelted by light showers. Big Kitten and her cubs curled up for a daytime nap, while I sniffed around the town. The black mountain’s assault had unearthed unusual smells—animals and food and people odors mixing with mud and burned trees.

  When the rain let up for a time that night, Big Kitten left, presumably to hunt. The cubs, I noted drowsily, remained with me.

  She returned as the light changed from night to a rainy dawn. I could smell that she had not found prey. I made room for her in the den, sighing myself back to sleep, but I raised my head sharply when I sensed something.

  Machines were coming. Machines … which meant people.

  Big Kitten stared at me, clearly understanding that I was reacting to something. She climbed to her feet when she, too, picked up on the approaching sounds. Her cubs felt her alarm and bolted awake, staring at us for guidance.

  Big Kitten padded out into the rain, moving fast. She was headed for the ridge; she wanted no part of the humans and their rumbling machines. The two kittens immediately pursued, but I hesitated, considering.… The machines might mean Mack was coming back for me. This could be my opportunity.

  I was distressed when Girl Kitten suddenly halted, turning to gaze back at me in confusion. She took a few halting steps in my direction. Then Boy Kitten stopped and stared at me as well.

  Big Kitten made a low, moaning growl, clearly admonishing the cubs, but they were obviously reluctant to abandon me. I felt like a bad dog, taking them away from their mother cat. So once again, given a choice between rejoining humans and remaining with my cat family, I chose cats. I lowered my head and climbed up the hill, the cubs accompanying me joyously.

  At the crest, I took my post overlooking the town. I could see that at the far edge of the mound of debris, large machines were snorting and moving slowly, and people were talking and pointing. None of them was Lucas, none was Mack. I wagged a little, as if their human hands were petting me and their voices were calling me a good dog.

  I was surprised when Big Kitten bypassed the den we’d used and kept us moving briskly, as if she had a Lucas of her own to whom she was doing Go Home. This had happened before, the dynamics of the cat pack changing, no longer led by the dog, but by the cat who did not know which way to go. The cubs were glad we were all together, but I wanted to find Lucas.

  The sun stayed behind the rainclouds all day, but I sensed it leaving the sky as night approached, and still we were on the move.

  All at once, Boy Kitten darted away, moving with such speed I was startled.

  A black squirrel of some kind was rooting alongside a fallen tree, and Boy Kitten had spotted it. He was hunting. Girl Kitten joined him while Big Kitten stopped and watched impassively.

  I could teach the cubs how to hunt squirrels, but it was dusk already, and if the squirrel hadn’t had a white stripe, I would not have been able to see it at all. I approached where the kittens lay on their bellies, preparing to give chase. I could smell the squirrel now, and it carried a different odor than the ones who climbed the trees in our neighborhood.

  Most squirrels wisely flee the moment they see a dog, but this one was busy digging around and seemed oblivious to the presence of an entire pack stalking it. Boy Kitten was crawling forward, and Girl Kitten turned her head to see if I was going to help. Her brother might be leading, but I expected Girl Kitten would pounce first.

  As if sensing my thoughts and wanting to deny his sister the triumph, Boy Kitten suddenly rose and lunged for the squirrel.

  I knew how this would end—the thing would dart away, find a tree, and then chatter at us from a branch. So, I was astounded when, just as Boy Kitten was right on top of the creature, he suddenly backpedaled, his face contorted in a wince. I watched, bewildered, as he fled right past me, trailing an odor so strong my eyes watered.

  Whatever it was that laid such a heavy stink upon the air, Girl Kitten obviously smelled it as well, her ears going back on her head. It was so alien and offensive that the black squirrel with the white stripe was forgotten. Girl Kitten sought comfort from her mother cat, who turned and led us in the direction Boy Kitten had taken. I brought up the rear. The rain made the stench even more powerful than it would have been on dry air, something I could taste on my tongue. My nose wrinkled in revulsion.

  When we reached him, Boy Kitten attempted to climb on his mother, but Big Kitten shoved him away. He was the source of the hideous odor, which made him unbearable. Spurned by his mother, he tried to rub against me, but I dodged his affections. If a piece of bacon had been on the ground in front of me, I couldn’t have enjoyed it, so overpowering were the fumes. (I’d have eaten it, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed it.)

  When we stopped moving and found a suitable den, Boy Kitten lay by himself, miserable in the falling rain, rejected by the rest of us. Whatever he had done to bring on such a horrible stink, we were not welcoming him to curl up by our sides.

  The odor of Boy Kitten filled my nostrils and kept me sleeping fitfully, the normal smells of the mountain and rain utterly extinguished.

  When the day came, the storm had lessened, but not Boy Kitten’s stench.

  I moved away from my cat family so I could breathe. We had left behind the town that was buried under black mountain, though I couldn’t tell how far we had gone because my nose was so filled with Boy Kitten.

  I stood in the drizzle unhappily. Big Kitten was leading me away from Lucas, or at least not to him, which was much the same thing. The big meals from the broken building had given her renewed strength but also new determination. I could sense the change in her. There was a place she wanted to go and she expected me to accompany her.

  But I was a dog who belonged to a boy named Lucas. I lived in a house with him and Olivia and slept with a Lucas blanket on their bed and nearly every evening had a t-i-i-iny piece of cheese, fed by his loving hand. I was not meant to be a dog following a giant wild cat, helping to protect one female kitten and one stinky kitten.

  I was, I realized, forming a decision. With Big Kitten leading us, we were no longer doing Go Home. She was forcing me to make a final choice between Lucas and our cat family.

  Had it not been for the imminent threat of the male cat, I would have gone with Mack. The thought, had I done so, that I might already be reunited with my boy, made me physically hurt. Yet more and more, it seemed I was destined to be a dog lost, a dog who lived with cats regardless of what I wanted.

  The all-pervasive stink of Boy Kitten was simply unbearable, interrupting my thoughts. The falling rain had yet to scrub the stench from his fur. Disgusted, I decided to get away and find some clean air.

  I followed a rutted path worn into the rocky ground by the hooves of some animals I had never met. Every step into the wind took me farther from the sickening odor of Boy Kitten. I wondered how he had become so smelly and if he would ever go back to being a normal cat. I supposed I would still love him either way, but it was much easier to love him when he didn’t stink.

  Boy Kitten’s foul malodor refused to stop pursuing me, blocking the usual smells—the wet rocks, the smoke, the animals who had created the trail down which I was walking. Obviously, Boy Kitten was tracking me, which meant his sister was back there, too. Boy Kitten did not have the courage to go anywhere without his sister. But I couldn’t find her when I turned my nose bac
k down the trail—her scent was obliterated by his.

  Ahead of me, a body of water, possibly a river, beckoned with the promise of a drink. I followed the trail until it veered away, and then I was setting my own course through the mist.

  Lucas was on my mind so heavily that I didn’t trust my ears when I heard a human voice shout, “Bella!”

  It was Lucas, and I was headed straight toward him!

  He was close.

  Thirty-two

  There was no mistaking that voice.

  No dog heading to dinner has ever run with my eagerness as I galloped as fast as I could between wet, dripping rocks and over blackened, felled trees. My feet pounded the mud as I kicked up clods. With each bounding leap, I sought my boy’s scent, knowing that it would swiftly grow stronger and more clear.

  And behind me, faithfully following in pursuit, were Boy Kitten and Girl Kitten. My obvious determination was attracting them as powerfully as anything could.

  Behind the two cubs, Big Kitten trailed more slowly. I believed that she was unhappy with this turn of events, much as she was unhappy to be out in the open in the day. And she certainly couldn’t be glad she was being rained on.

  Lucas had not shouted again, but it didn’t matter—my nose had him now, advising me that he was straight ahead even as my ears filled with the sound of moving water.

  I stopped short when I came to the high bank of a stream, heart pounding. I was on a rock bluff a considerable distance above cold, rushing rapids.

  There he was. My boy, Lucas, on the other side of the river. He wore a wide-brimmed hat, from which water dripped steadily. He was standing and watching the rapids with his hands on his hips. On his side of the stream, the banks were flat, sloping only gradually toward the moving currents, whereas I stood on a cliff.

  He raised his hands to his mouth, half turned so that he was facing downstream, and bellowed at the sky. “Bel-la!”

  He was calling my name, but he wasn’t calling me, exactly. There was a forlorn, hopeless quality to his voice.

  Lucas was searching for me in the mountains. My heart filled with love for my boy.

  He did not see me because I was so high above him. I wagged, knowing that in moments we would be together. When I barked, Lucas jerked his head up sharply and registered me standing above him. I saw the shock on his face.

  “Bella!” he cried delightedly.

  I danced in a circle, my joy uncontainable. I could not wait to feel his hands on my fur. I wondered if he had remembered to bring my t-i-i-iny piece of cheese.

  I looked down, hesitating. It would be a long plunge from this height. I wanted to go to him, but I was being held back by a different sort of invisible leash—the pull of an instinct deep and undeniable that feared undertaking such a dangerous leap.

  And what of the kittens? Would they follow me, jumping into space and plunging far, far down into the violent, soot-filled current? I remembered swimming with the kittens’ napes clutched in my teeth. Even if I made it across with Girl Kitten, how could I return for her brother?

  I whimpered, unsure. Once in the river, there would be no scaling the rocks back up; they posed a sheer wall with no path for a dog. I put my paws on the ledge, lowered my head, then pulled it up sharply, barking my frustration.

  Lucas ran to the edge of the blackened water. “No!”

  I cringed from the word, thrown out with such ferocity it was obvious Lucas was angry at me. What had I done? I wanted nothing more in that moment than to have him pet me and call me a good dog. I peered again at the surface of the stream, calculating. The kittens hadn’t followed into the last stream, but this time could be different.…

  “No! Don’t jump! Stay! You can’t survive the fall!”

  Was he upset that I was here and he was there? I regarded the rushing water. Though full of debris, mostly small bits of burned wood, it was flowing fast, an angry boil made black and hostile with all the ash and charcoal. I could not tell if it was deep or shallow. I lowered my head, bunching my shoulders for the jump, lifting first one paw, then the other. I whined again.

  No.… A leap from this height seemed impossible. I paced, panting, searching for a different way. I looked to a large tree on Lucas’s side of the stream that had clearly suffered the effects of the big fire. It was denuded of branches, and had sagged across the river, some of its roots visible where its hold on the opposite riverbank had given up. Rainwater dripped steadily from its trunk, falling silently into the river far below. It was tipping in my direction, its top hanging just over my head. It was far higher than any bed I’d ever jumped up on. This was not the same as the tree that had smashed Gavin and Taylor’s wooden fence. For me to try to leap up and land on the tree and then climb down to him … it seemed an impossible task for a dog. Big Kitten could get up there easily, and I had seen her navigate far more treacherous paths than this tree trunk spanning the river. If she carried the kittens one at a time, she could take them to my boy. But then what? Would she come back for me? I had trouble picturing her teeth on my nape, lifting me and holding me above the rushing water.

  If she did that, I decided, if she carried the cubs down to Lucas, I wouldn’t make her come back for me. I would take the plunge into the river and swim to him, even from this great height.

  “Bella! Don’t jump!” Lucas cried again.

  I knew he was desperate to tell me something, but I didn’t understand. He seemed less angry, but he was still upset.

  The wind was blowing from directly behind Lucas’s back, and I could smell rather than see Olivia and knew that she was approaching from somewhere in the blackened forest behind him. I wagged at the thought of seeing her again. I stepped to the edge of the cliff-like bank, looking down. It was so, so far.

  A motion caught my eye and I glanced over. Some distance away, Big Kitten had maneuvered in front of Boy Kitten and Girl Kitten and was preventing them from advancing any closer to me. She had pushed them away from the river as far as she could. They were huddled against the rock wall behind them, and the kittens seemed to understand the message: this was a dangerous place for any animal, and they were not to approach the edge of the cliff. I glanced up at the tilted tree over my head. Would Big Kitten understand what she needed to do?

  I saw my boy react and realized he saw Big Kitten, too. He put his hands to his face and shouted at me, “Stay there! Bella! Stay! I’m coming!”

  I saw Olivia emerge from the woods as Lucas ran to the leaning tree. He tested it, shaking the trunk, and then climbed up and straddled it. Even from this distance I could see the burnt bark blackening his palms. Above me, the tip of the tree trembled.

  “Lucas!” Olivia screamed at him. “What are you doing!”

  He turned to look at her even as he continued to climb, making his way gingerly up the tree by pulling with his hands and then moving his legs astride the trunk.

  “There’s a cougar! Bella doesn’t see the cougar! I’ve got to get to her.”

  Lucas was coming to me! Humans always know what to do.

  “Stop!” Olivia yelled. Now she was dashing toward him across the opposite bank.

  Lucas looked directly at me. “Stay there! I’m coming!”

  I knew the word “Stay.” It meant I should do Sit and wait and eventually I would get a treat for doing nothing more than remaining still. But it made no sense in this context: How would doing Stay be the right thing here?

  I looked again at the water, which to my eye was visibly starting to rise. Why would that be happening?

  Olivia was running hard in the rain, stumbling and tripping across the blackened rocks, and when she reached Lucas, she didn’t hesitate. She launched herself onto him, tackling him and dragged him off the tree.

  I did not understand and whimpered in confusion.

  Lucas pushed Olivia away. I could tell he was angry. “She’ll be killed! She doesn’t see the mountain lion!”

  “You can’t climb up there! It’s not safe!” Olivia shot back.

&nb
sp; “She doesn’t know she’s being hunted!”

  “Stop, Lucas. Just stop. You can’t help her.”

  Lucas turned back to the tree and as he reached for it, Olivia seized him by the shoulders. “Lucas, you can’t!” She turned him to her and screamed in his face. “I’m going to have a baby!”

  Lucas stared at her while I watched in concern. Something had just happened to him, and now he was holding himself very still.

  “You can’t risk it,” Olivia pleaded. “I need you. You can’t risk leaving me and our child. Not even for Bella.”

  I wagged my tail a little because I could see Lucas’s posture softening. Olivia was nodding at him. They momentarily hugged each other, then Lucas turned and shouted at me. “Run! Run, Bella!”

  I did not know what he was saying, and I looked again at the water far, far below. Was he telling me to jump?

  I had been so focused on my boy and Olivia, I had not noticed that there was a roar building, a roar like the fire, but without the attendant smell of smoke. It was thundering at us from upstream. I turned and stared but saw nothing, only the black stream twisting and vanishing behind the high cliffs. The farther upstream, the sharper and higher the rocks rose on either side.

  Something was coming, but what?

  I could tell by the way Olivia and Lucas were reacting that they’d heard the roar, too.

  “Bella! Run!” Lucas shouted again.

  I wagged uncertainly as they both turned and fled upward toward the woods from which Olivia had emerged only moments before.

  The ground beneath my feet began to tremble in a way that was frighteningly familiar. I stared as the sound grew larger and more powerful. Still nothing visible, though Big Kitten’s ears had flattened against her head and she, too, was focused on the river upstream.