The Pack (10 page)

Shep slapped the switch again, then padded to Callie's side and looked up at the Great Wolf's shimmering coat.

“I overheard Ginny telling this crazy story,” Shep woofed.

“I've heard it,” Callie yipped. “I thought you'd like it, being barked into the Great Wolf's legend.”

“No,” Shep said quietly. “It's not right. The Great Wolf's legend is special. It means something to me.” Shep looked down at the shadows. “Oscar should have asked me before making up such scat.”

“It's just a story,” Callie grunted.

But it wasn't just a story, Shep wanted to woof. He really believed that the Great Wolf watched over him. The look on Callie's muzzle, however, made clear that she had no idea what he was barking about. And he didn't know how to make her smell that sometimes a story became more than just a story, that sometimes the story became real.

Callie and Shep sat there for several heartbeats, lost in their private trails of thought, no sound but the paw-slaps and chatter of the pack in the den beyond.

Higgins shuffled up the table-ramp, full of bad-smelling news. He waited for Virgil and Honey (and Fuzz), who were close on his tail, then began his grumbling.

First, there was the problem of food shortages.

“But we caught all those rats,” Shep moaned.

Higgins sniffled his furface. “It's not that there's not enough food for the pack,” he woofed. “It's that the pack is constantly growing and most of the new dogs are half-starved, half-fur-brained with fear, or missing half their parts!”

“We're all survivors of this storm,” snapped Honey, whose bark became a squeal as she became defensive. “Just because we find these dogs suns after the storm doesn't mean they're any less worthy of our help.”

“Boji's losing patches of fur, she's so frantic trying to heal the new recruits,” woofed Virgil.

“Maybe we need to reallocate the dogs,” Callie yipped. “Maybe some of the older dogs who can't hunt can help Boji with wound licking? And then we can move some of the search and rescue dogs to hunting to help with getting more kibble.”

“But we also search for food,” whined Honey. “My team is the most important.”

“You're bringing in less kibble every sun,” Higgins grumbled. “And most of what you bring me is rotten beyond being edible.”

“I can switch to hunting,” woofed Shep, remembering that warm feeling during the rat massacre. “The defense team is training itself at this point.”

“Good,” barked Callie. “Honey, I'm taking Rosie, Reggie, and Speckles from your team.”

Honey snorted, but Fuzz laid a paw on her tail and Honey quieted down.

Callie leaned her muzzle into Shep's ear. “I think you should woof something to the crowd,” she snuffled, flicking her nose at the eyes glittering in the darkness along the table-ramp. Apparently, all their barking had attracted an audience. “Something reassuring,” Callie added.

The strength rushed from Shep's legs. Hearing Ginny's story had thrown Shep like a toy. No matter what he woofed, he felt like the pack would take it the wrong way, like he was barking a message from the Great Wolf himself.

Callie raised her eyebrows, waiting for him to begin.

Shep exhaled, his jowls loose. “No dog needs to worry,” he began loudly. “We're going to have more hunters. I promise, your bellies will be full by the next sunset!”

The pack yipped and howled with excitement and the crowd broke up, happy tails wagging.

“That wasn't exactly what I meant,” growled Callie.

“You said reassure them,” Shep snarled. “You don't like what I woof, come up with something more specific for me to bark. You've never had a problem doing that.” He slunk down the table-ramp away from her.

Shep needed a scent of fresh air. The den suddenly felt small and stuffy. He wound his way through the dogs, ignoring the strange, awestruck looks on some of their muzzles as he passed, and bounded into the darkness. Near a small overturned boat by the water, he found Dover. Shep wagged his tail to ask if it'd be okay if he joined him, and Dover waved his tail that Shep could sit.

After many heartbeats, Shep interrupted the silence. “You sleep out here?” he woofed.

“It's quieter,” the old timer replied.

Shep lay down and rested his snout on his paws. “Have you heard the stories?”

“About you?” Dover woofed, still looking out at the stars over the water.

Shep waved his tail.

“Yep,” Dover said, lying down beside Shep. “I've heard.”

“Should I stop Oscar and Ginny?”

“Not my Ball to catch,” Dover woofed. “You'll know what to do when the time's right.”

They lay beside each other under the glittering coat of the night sky. Every few heartbeats, a yapper-sized bat blacked out the Great Wolf's fires as it streaked through the dark. All around, crickets chirruped. A cat's screech echoed from an alley. The chopping
whump-whump
sound of one of the whirly birds echoed off the pavement.

Shep woke at first light. Dover yawned beside him, then waved his tail to say good morning. Shep looked across the plaza and saw that Blaze was already Outside. She sat by one of the water-filled boats, watching him. She flicked her tail.

“I missed you last night,” she barked.

Shep rose, stretched, and loped to her side. “I've been assigned to your team,” he woofed, “so you'll get to smell me all sun.”

“Finally ready to try your fangs at a real job?” she asked.

“Real job?”
Shep said, and lapped up a mouthful of rainwater. “What's so ‘real' about your job? You're catching birds, squirrels. I've seen Cars catch them.”

Blaze nipped his scruff. “Think you're such a well-furred hunter, hero?” she snuffled in his ear. “I can't wait to smell this.”

Shep nodded to the defense dogs on duty — Hulk and Paulie — as he trotted with Blaze out to where the hunting teams gathered. Callie sat woofing with Dover, and Blaze joined them. Shep followed.

“What do you think you're doing?” yipped Callie.

“Just sniffing what's happening.” Shep was confused — wasn't he the alpha here?

“Get back with the trainees, Trainee Shepherd,” barked Blaze. “We have to fit you into one of the beginner teams.”

“Trainee?” Shep grumbled. “Beginner? I can catch more prey than any of these dogs.”

“Really?” woofed Dover. “Then don't let us stand in your way.” He waved his snout toward the street. “Smell you at midsun.”

Shep loped away from the three, tail low.
They think I need training
, Shep grumbled as he walked down the Sidewalk.
I'm a born hunter. I'll show them.

The farther he got from the other dogs, the better he felt. It was good to be Outside, alone, where there were no other dogs to bark orders to, or to worry about, or to listen to tell fur-brained stories.

He opened his nose and fully scented the air. Things were breathing in all the shadows around him — warm, living things. Leaves rustled in a bush, giving away the hiding place of an iguana. Birds cooed in the shadows under the eaves of a toppled roof.

All mine
, thought Shep.

He decided to go for the warm things on the ground. Shep focused his nose. His options were a chipmunk in the scrub between two buildings, a clutch of mice hidden under chunks of a broken wall, and a squirrel chattering in a tree off toward sunrise. Shep decided to go for the chipmunk.

He stretched his lean muscles. With a spring like a Car from a streetlight, Shep dove into the bush. The chipmunk, however, scurried out from his scrape in the dirt. Shep's forelegs got tangled in the mesh of thin branches. He pulled himself out and darted after the rodent. It skittered under any object it could find, but Shep had its scent. He followed it down an alley. He had the thing cornered.
It's all over, my furry friend
.

The chipmunk shoved its way under a pile of rubble near the fence in the middle of the alley. Shep flopped onto the pavement and dug frantically. The scent of chipmunk was every where. Every heartbeat drove the lifeblood faster through Shep's body. His claws raked the stone and a splinter bit his paw pad. Still, he fought to snag the chipmunk's fur.

Then the scent was farther away. Shep struggled out and up, only to see the chipmunk, a blur of red-brown, running full speed down the alley on the opposite side of the fence.

Frustrated, Shep swiped at the pile of rubble, toppling part of it, and found himself nose to snout with one of the scaly floor-sucker tube creatures. It snapped its dark brown tube-body into a tight coil, raised its tail, and opened its wide, white mouth. Shep was unsure whether to run or bite. He growled at the tube and it shook its tail, creating an awful stench. Shep choked and stumbled back. The tube lowered its tail and uncurled slightly.

Giving up so easily, my scaly kibble?
Shep thought, and prepared for a second assault.

“Step back,” growled Blaze from behind him. “Use small steps until you're a stretch away, then run.”

“From a tube?” Shep needed one, maybe two bites at most, to sever its neck.

“That thing's a snake,” snuffled Blaze, “and it's a killer. One bite and a dog's done.”

Her bark trembled and her ears were flat against her head. Shep had never smelled her so scared. He stepped away slowly, then ran. Blaze dashed behind him, close on his tail.

“A snake killed one of my herding partners,” she woofed as they slowed to a trot. She looked at him with her sparkling eyes; in the sunlight, they seemed flecked with gold.

“I can take one measly snake bite,” Shep said, grinning. He wanted to make her smile.

Blaze licked his nose. “Let's start you out hunting something a little less dead-making than a snake, okay, hero?” She loped ahead. “At least until you're not outwitted by a chipmunk.”

“Outwitted?” Shep barked. “No way. The thing cheated! It ran under the trash pile!”

Blaze tipped her head slightly. “That's cheating?” she yipped. “If that's how you want to smell it, I won't tell any dog different.” She smiled, then flicked her tail and ran down an alley.

They stopped in the street near one of the hunting teams. The leaders had organized the dogs on each team into different jobs. The lead dog was the best scent-spotter and identified all the possible prey, indicating the animals' hiding spots with a flick of the snout or tail. The remaining dogs broke off into pairs: one dog to scare the prey from its hiding place, the other to catch it as it tried to escape the first. At the rear of the group was the general tracker. If the prey escaped any of the pairs, that dog gave the prey chase until the pair could catch up and finish the job. It was a good system. Certainly better than Shep's method of singular failure. He spotted a bird, bounded after it, and ended up getting a mouthful of feathers.

Blaze caught up with him panting beneath the shadow of the escaping bird. “Not as easy as you thought?” she woofed.

Shep licked slobber from his jowls, and woofed between pants, “They're faster —
pant pant
— than they look —
pant pant
—”

“You're more of a rabbitter than a bird dog,” Blaze said. “Come with me.”

Shep followed Blaze through the alleys and copied her actions. If she sniffed a crevice, Shep's nose was on that spot the next heartbeat. Blaze explained that most of the rabbits were escaped pets, and thus were easy prey. “If you can find them,” she woofed, grinning.

Shep drew the scents of the street into his nose. He smelled each nuance of odor: the particular scent of the pool of water beneath a plastic sheet, indicating that it was three suns old; the stinging, sweet reek of a rotted piece of fruit; and the warm breath of life — a rabbit. It huddled, heart racing, only a stretch away under a stumpy palm tree.

Shep sank to his paws, chest to stone, and crept forward. He spotted all of the rabbit's possible escape routes: forward, into the street; back down the alley; it wouldn't come toward him, and it couldn't scamper away from him because there was a wall.
The rabbit will go for the street.

Shep barked to scare it out from under the bush. The rabbit bolted for the street as Shep had planned. He sprang over the bush and landed on the creature's back. With a single bite of his powerful jaws, the rabbit fell still.

Shep dropped the little animal and stood panting over it. He felt that warmth running through him again — not the blind fear and rage of fighting or the weighty glow of being the alpha, but a strength from deep within. Like he was doing what his body was meant to do.

“You feel it, don't you?” Blaze woofed. She'd crept up beside him. “That fire under your fur? It's what I felt herding my beasts at the farm, what my man brought out in me.” She sniffed his scruff. “I can smell that fire in you now. You're
alive
.”

Shep did feel alive, more alive than he'd ever felt before. And this made him terribly sad. He'd been so happy with his boy — was that happiness a lie? Blaze's man had brought out the fire in her.
Why didn't the boy bring out my fire?

“What's wrong?” Blaze woofed, head tilted. “You seemed so happy a heartbeat ago.”

Shep licked his jowls and pushed that terrible trail of thought from his mind. “I am happy,” he said. “Let's do some more hunting.”

Blaze grinned and waved her tail. “That's my hero,” she yipped.

Shep picked up his rabbit and followed her down the street.

As they hunted, Blaze's banter changed from tips on finding rabbits to other advice. “Your team should warn the pack about water lizards,” she woofed. “I saw one skulking across the street, following a wild dog who tried to bite it.”

“Water lizards can leave the water?” Shep asked, scratching at what he swore was a white tail under a heap of garbage.

Then her last woofs registered like a Car to the skull. He stood slowly. “Did you say wild dog?” he barked. “Why didn't you get me? It could have attacked. There could be more!”

“You were out of the den, in one of your meetings, not around,” Blaze yipped over her tail, as if it were nothing to see a wild dog. “I told Callie about it,” she woofed. “Don't tell me she didn't tell you.”

Shep didn't answer; his mind raced. The wild dogs had crossed the canal. The wild dogs were nearby. And Callie hadn't told him.

They found another rabbit, but Shep was so distracted he could barely get a claw on it before it scuttled deep under an overturned metal box. They returned to the den with the one carcass, exhausted. The other hunters hadn't had much better luck and every dog went to bed with a grumbling belly.

At the meeting that night, Shep confronted Callie about the wild dog.

She startled at his question. “Yes, Blaze told me,” Callie answered, her bark wavering.

“And you didn't tell me?” Shep snarled.

“To be honest, I forgot,” she woofed, sounding tired. “Who knows if it was a wild dog or just another lost pet? We have bigger problems.”

“What could be bigger than wild dogs?” Shep barked, hysterical. “Have you forgotten what happened in the kibble den?”

Callie flattened her ears and lowered her tail. “How could you ask me that?” she growled. “No, I haven't,” she continued, “but we have new problems, like starving and injured dogs.”

“We deemed it a minor annoyance,” Higgins snuffled. “And we figured, smelling as you've become so — grr,
close
to Blaze, she would have told you herself.”

“I alerted the defense team,” yipped Virgil humbly. “We've been on an extra alert watch for strange dogs.”

Shep stared into the muzzles of each dog. They'd all known, and none had told him. “Aren't I the alpha of this pack?” he growled. “Shouldn't every thing be run by me?”

Callie cocked her head. “Why are you so concerned about being alpha all of a sudden?” she snarled. “I thought we were a team.”

“Well, then act like it, instead of letting me find out about something this important suns after it happens!”

“Fine,” Callie snapped. “You want to hear about things, here you go.” She rattled off all the problems facing the pack. Dogs were dying of serious injuries Boji hadn't the faintest scent of how to fix. Food was scarce. The hunters weren't killing enough kibble.

Higgins sat tall as if bracing for battle. “In my humble opinion, I don't smell why we're searching for new dogs at all. We can't even feed the ones we've rescued.”

Honey sprang to her paws, ears and tail flat. “These dogs are trapped! Desperate! We're their only hope!” She was barking so loud every dog in the den had to have heard her.

Shep knew it wouldn't be popular among a pack full of rescues to inform them that their leaders were abandoning the effort. But what about food?

“We won't stop rescuing entirely,” Callie woofed. “But we need to cut back on the number of dogs doing it and retrain them as hunters.”

“You've already taken three,” Honey whined.

Fuzz, however, purred and nodded his pointy head.

Virgil raised his snout. “I should report that I've heard dogs barking about this group,” he woofed. “Seems that some in the pack are confused as to who's the leader.”

“What does that matter?” yapped Higgins. “If there's one leader or a hundred, it shouldn't matter so long as the den's safe and there's kibble.”

“But there isn't kibble, and there was another rat attack last night.” Callie sighed, then shook herself, nose to tail. “Would it help, you think, to have Shep make announcements after each meeting?” She wasn't looking at Shep, but rather at Higgins and Virgil.

“Shouldn't
I
be the one making that decision?” Shep growled.

“Fine,” Callie snapped. “Do you want to make a nightly speech?”

Shep looked at the little girldog who stood fiercely at his paws. She looked beyond tired, like she hadn't slept in suns.

“When was the last time you took a nap?” Shep asked quietly.

Callie's stance sagged. “I don't remember.” She sat down, then began to scratch limply at her ear. “How long since we came to this den?”

“Too long,” yapped Higgins.

“If you think nightly barks will help, I'm willing to try,” Shep snuffled.

“Good,” sighed Callie. “Tonight, we should also put to the pack whether to expand our food hunt to plants. I can tally the vote.”

“Plants?” woofed Higgins, screwing up his little furface with disgust.

“Yes,” answered Callie. “I think we could find some edible plants. There's a plant that grows in the verge near the canal that's very crisp and full of nice watery juice. And I think we should let the pack decide, since they're the ones who are going to have to eat it.”