The Pack (13 page)

Shep had known this sun would come. In fact, he was surprised that it'd taken the hunting teams until now to catch a cat, though felines were tougher prey to catch than rodents and lizards.

Shep licked Honey's nose — he'd always liked the girldog. “What can I say?” he woofed. “Cats are prey to most dog's noses.”

Honey's tail pressed even farther between her hind legs. She cocked her head. “But I thought you wanted to save the cats,” she whimpered. “Wasn't that part of our plan?”

Shep waved his tail, then gave Fuzz a friendly snort. In reply, the cat swatted at Shep's nose.

“Things are bad right now, Honey,” Shep woofed quietly. He had only the loosest bite on the actual current status of the pack, but he was sure that things remained as bad as ever. “The pack is near starving. If a hunting team's brought in a cat, how can I tell these dogs not to eat it?”

Honey pulled away from him, her eyes cold. “What about when they bring in a dead pup? A dead yapper? What will you say then? ‘It was dead. How can I stop them?'” All the usual joy had been drained from her bark. “I thought you were serious about saving all pets in need.” She flicked her tail and Fuzz climbed onto her shoulders. “What
are
you serious about, Shep? What do you really believe in?”

She hurried away from him into the dark of the lower level.

Shep let her woofs rattle around his skull. He wanted to tell Honey that he agreed with her, that he didn't want the pack to eat cats, but that it was easy to say such things when a dog was only making decisions for himself. He wondered if she'd have the fur to tell the whole pack that they shouldn't eat cats, instead of running to him. He certainly didn't have the fur to bark such a thing. He couldn't even tell Oscar to stop making up lies. Why did it feel like all his friends hated him?

Shep sniffed out Callie in an empty room inside the bottom floor of the boat. She was huddled in the dim light from a small lamp in the wall, with several piles of weeds set out before her.

“Honey hates me,” Shep woofed. “Oscar hates me.”

“I told you not to start in with that cat stuff,” Callie said, her jowls frilled with green leaves. “And Oscar loves you. You're just too stuffed-up to smell it.” Callie chewed and her jowls curled with each bite. She continued, “I've been looking for you for the past few suns. You dash away the heartbeat the meeting is over at night, and there's never a whiff of you in the boat. Virgil told me you even asked him to reassign your guard post. Where've you been?”

“Hunting,” Shep yipped, leaving it at that. “You're not seriously eating plants now, are you?” He sniffed one of the piles. It smelled bitter and bright, and a faint trace of urine coated at least one of the leaves.

Callie spat out the plants from her mouth. “Yes, I'm seriously eating plants.” She slapped the silver paw in the wall next to her and a thin trickle of water dribbled out. She lapped up the water, then spat it from her jowls and smacked the silver paw again to shut off the flow. “Those last ones were terrible, but I've found at least three kinds of plants that will work as kibble.”

She pushed a plant toward Shep. He sniffed it — green, water, a hint of dirt and human chemicals. “You want me to eat this?”

Callie waved her tail. “It's good,” she woofed.

Shep licked up the leaf and crunched it between his teeth. “Good” seemed the wrong word; more like “edible” with a dash of “if desperate.”

“It's fine,” he barked, choking the last bit down. “But a dog would have to eat a bush full of these to feel full.”

“Full is not the issue,” Callie replied, sweeping a pile of pointy, dark green leaves in front of her. “Alive is what I'm working for.”

Shep kept her company as she gnawed on the fleshy shoots. Callie had changed over the moon-cycles. The brightness, the excitement that used to radiate out of her was gone. There was no joy in her eyes, no wag to her tail. She seemed to be slogging ahead out of sheer stubbornness.

“How about you and me run away together?” Shep snuffled.

Callie raised her snout and smiled. Her tail even waved slightly. “Race off to that mystical warm, dry den filled with gravy-laced kibble and velveteen beds?”

“I think we can make it there,” he woofed, “just the two of us.”

“And if the others follow?” Callie yipped.

“Let 'em try,” Shep woofed.

Callie panted. Then her eyes changed — the sparkle went out completely. She began to cough and wheeze. She dug her claws into the floor as hacking breaths wracked her tiny frame.

“Get —
cough
— Higgins!” she yelped.

She fell onto her side and began to writhe uncontrollably. Shep climbed out of the room, his heart pounding in his head.
Great Wolf, no! Not Callie! Please, no!

He nearly fell over Higgins in the kibble den. “Callie!” Shep screamed. “She's sick!”

Higgins raced with Shep back to where Callie lay, still trembling. White foam leaked from her jowls. Bits of green flecked the spittle.

Higgins sniffed over the various piles. He was shivering and his tail was between his legs. “My snout,” he whimpered. “I know nothing of plants.” He sniffed the spittle and then the piles again. “I think it's this one, with the flowers. Get Boji.”

Boji had no idea what to do, either. “Oh, dear,” she whimpered, licking Callie's jowls. “Tastes bad.”

She sniffed the silver paw, then turned it on. She nosed Callie's muzzle under the flow. The water rinsed the foam and green bits away. Boji then forced Callie's jaws open with her paws so that the water spilled down her gullet.

“What are you doing?” Shep groaned.

“She needs to get this plant out of her,” Boji barked. “I'm trying to make her spit it up.”

Callie's eyelids split open and she began coughing violently. She threw up a sickly yellow puddle of foamy spit and leaves, then lay down and dropped into sleep.

Boji sniffed the puddle, and pronounced that this was all they could do for Callie. “She's got to fight whatever was in this herself.”

Higgins trembled against the wall. “I told her not to start with these infernal plants,” he grumbled. “But did she listen? No, never. Most stubborn dog I've ever smelled.” He sounded miserable, like he'd just lost his only pup.

Boji and Higgins were scaring the fur off Shep's back. “But she'll be okay, right?” he barked. “Now that she's coughed up this plant, she'll get better. Right?”

He looked at Boji and Higgins, and they looked at each other.

Higgins coughed, then sat. “Let's hope so,” he woofed.

Boji curled beside Callie, promising to get Higgins and Shep once Callie woke. Shep noticed that she was careful not to bark “if.”

Higgins returned to counting kibbles in the storage room. Shep dragged himself into his old den on the ceiling. He'd not returned there since his fight with Blaze, hadn't so much as woofed hello to her in all those suns. He found her in the den, curled up in the darkness.

“The Champion returns,” she woofed.

Shep padded closer to her. “Why did you challenge me?” he asked, sighing. “Why couldn't you just leave it alone?”

Blaze lifted her head. The dim light through the window was barely enough to show the outline of her muzzle. “I believe what I said,” she barked. “We're lost without an alpha.”

“The pack is fine,” Shep said, feeling defensive and unsure exactly why. “We're managing.”

“Oh, really?” Blaze raised her chest so that she was sitting eye to eye with Shep. “You've been spending your suns sniffing out the problems with the pack? Oh, no, wait: You've been scarce as a fresh bag of kibble. Did you know that Honey attacked some hunters who brought in a cat? Hulk and Virgil dragged her off one she'd gotten a good bite on. She was barking hysterically and snapping at any dog who came near her. She kept screaming, ‘Where will it stop?'” Blaze licked her jowls. “This pack needs an alpha to tell it what's right and what's wrong, what makes you a good pack member and what will get you thrown out. Without that, we're two stretches away from becoming like this Black Dog that Oscar's little club keeps barking about, the one you fought.”

“I didn't really fight him,” Shep tried to explain. “The Black Dog and the Great Wolf is a story —”

“Right, well, Oscar keeps barking about you and some dog Zeus and your big battle,” Blaze interrupted.

Shep startled at hearing his friend's name — his ex-friend's name. “Zeus was a real dog,” Shep woofed. “My best friend. He turned against us during the storm.” Shep looked up at the window, at the clouds bunched in the black. “He was scared. He didn't want to die. Or maybe it's just that he didn't want to fight for something and then lose.”

“Standing up for what you believe in is hard.” Blaze shuffled closer to Shep. “It hurt me to stand up to you in front of the pack. But I would do it again.”

“It must be nice to know what you believe in,” Shep woofed, lying down beside Blaze's paws.

Blaze panted softly, then stepped away from him and circled in the corner. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” she said. “You could lead this pack if you believed in yourself half as much as this ragtag pack of crazy, confused pets does.”

“And you, Blaze?” Shep woofed. “You wouldn't try to stop me?”

Blaze lifted her muzzle. “No, Shep,” she said. “But I don't have to stop you. You've stopped yourself.”

At the first wag of dawn's tails, Shep was in Callie's den, sniffing her sleeping form.

Boji woke at the scent and nosed him away from Callie. “She needs rest,” she woofed. “But I think she'll be all right.”

“Thank the Great Wolf,” Shep muttered.

“I thought you were he,” woofed Boji, a smile on her jowls.

Shep panted lightly. “Well, I have this habit of thanking myself for every thing that happens.”

“Come back around midsun,” Boji woofed. “Callie should be feeling better by then.”

Shep spent the morning hunting along the back alleys near the boat. He didn't want to go too far, in case Callie needed him. He nearly missed catching a squirrel, he was so distracted. It was like reentering the pack for even a heartbeat had taken the bite out of his hunting skills.

Shep passed several other dogs, but ducked away from them. He dreaded the scent of his own pack — he felt like a coward. Maybe he needed to be the kind of leader Blaze wanted, the one reflected in Oscar's eyes. If he'd taken control from the beginning, maybe he could have made the pack into something great, and not simply a bunch of scared dogs waiting for masters who might never return. Maybe he could have kept this Storm Shaker craziness from taking hold like a worm in the lifeblood. Maybe he could have kept Callie from eating that plant.

No
, he reminded himself,
there is no “controlling” Callie
. And what about the pack as a whole? If he couldn't handle one small — strong-willed and stone-headed, but singular and small — dog, how could he expect to have control over a whole pack? Was being an alpha anything more than an illusion?

Kaz had had control, if rampant fear could be called control. But she hadn't cared about being in charge. She led the wild dogs, but only because they all feared her. She herself had been fearless to her last breath. Was that what leadership was? Scaring every one with your fearlessness? Ruling because no dog could smell what you might do next?

Shep gave himself a scratch behind the ears. He'd been right to work as a team, and to always share his power with the pack. Maybe he needed to listen to them more to get them to work together. Maybe the ideal leader was like a window, merely allowing the light of the pack to shine through him.

When the sun rose to its highest point, he returned to the den. He passed the kibble room to drop off the squirrel and noticed that the hunters had had better luck than usual. There was a healthy pile of dead rodents and lizards, and even a bag of kibble, by some small miracle. Higgins was busy gleefully calculating rations for the sun.

“It'll be more than a mouthful for each dog tonight, I'd wager!” he yipped, tail wagging.

Shep felt good, and then even better when he saw that Callie was awake and holding her head up as Boji licked her jowls.

“Thank the Great Wolf,” he whimpered, crouching low to sniff her.

“Thank yourself,” Callie said, her bark reduced to a wheeze. “If you hadn't been here —”

“But I was,” Shep woofed, “and so was Boji, and now you're okay, which is all that matters.”

Callie licked his nose. “Boji thinks I need rest.”

“You do need rest,” woofed Boji. “I can tell that you haven't slept in suns.”

“I'm with Boji,” Shep woofed. “You haven't been yourself. I miss my friend, the one who couldn't keep her tail from wagging.”

Callie panted, then was wracked by a fit of coughing. “But the pack —
cough
— what about the food? Have you counted the new members yet? And there was a fight between a couple of the Yorkies about whether they should be forced to sleep in the same den when the other small dogs each got their own.”

Shep hadn't heard about the fight with the Yorkies, and wasn't exactly sure he could pick out a Yorkie from any other yapper, but more importantly he hadn't known that Callie had been keeping track of all the new members. “Are you barking that you actually know how many dogs are in this pack?”

“Name and breed,” she woofed. “Higgins needs to know so he can divide up the food.”

“No wonder you haven't been sleeping,” Shep yipped. “I'm beginning to feel like I haven't been pulling my weight.”

“You're the muzzle the pack looks to,” Callie woofed. “That's a tough enough job.”

“At least I've slept,” Shep snuffled.

“Well, you do get some perks as the muzzle.” She smiled, then rested her head on her paws. “I feel like all these suns of not sleeping have finally caught up with me.”

“I'll let you rest,” Shep woofed.

Boji wagged her tail, letting him know he could go and that she would watch Callie. “I'll get you if she needs you,” she woofed.

 

Shep decided that he should take over some of what Callie had been doing, starting with sniffing out how many new dogs had been recruited that morning. He caught Honey's scent near the entrance to one of the dens on the bottom level of the boat. She was curled up in the semidarkness, her den being in the floor, on the bottom-side of the boat.

“Hey, Honey,” Shep barked. “I need to know how many dogs your team rescued this sun.”

“That's easy,” she snarled. “None.”

Shep scented that Honey was angry, but not interested in a fight. She seemed to be seething in her own fur. “Did you find empty buildings? Dead dogs?” he woofed, wondering what might be troubling the girldog.

“We, and by ‘we' I mean Fuzz and myself, since our team was gutted to fill the hunting ranks, didn't go out looking for any dogs. If this pack's willing to eat cats, then I'm not interested in bringing any more dogs into it to feed off my friends.” Honey lifted herself and turned so that her back faced Shep. “Now leave us alone.”

Shep scented for where Fuzz was. He smelled like he was under Honey.

“Where's Fuzz?” Shep woofed.

“Why do you care?” Honey snapped.

Shep stepped back, wary of how angry Honey — sweet, gentle, caring Honey — was. An angry dog was an unpredictable dog. “I care about Fuzz, Honey,” he yipped. “I care about you, too.”

“Really?” she growled. “I don't believe you. I believe that you want to be nice to every one, but when the fur's on the line, you don't care.”

Now she's being unfair
, Shep thought. “I smell you're still angry that the pack ate a cat, and I'm sorry about that whole thing. But these dogs are hungry and the pack needs whatever food it can get.” Shep was making a pronouncement on something; he felt strong and sure, now that he had his teeth in the idea. “This pack eats cats, but I'll stand by Fuzz. No dog will touch a hair on his back, if I can help it.”

Fuzz leapt up from a hole in the floor — the window, Shep realized.

“Get out!” the cat hissed. His back was raised in an arch and his ears were flat against his head. His fangs were bared and his long, fluffy tail twitched like a snake ready to strike. “Shep-dog hurt Honey-friend with every bark!” The cat stepped forward, spitting with rage. “Fuzz not allow Shep-dog to hurt Honey-friend! Fuzz and Honey no need help from no-honor dog like Shep! Get out!”

Shep backed away from the cat, who was shivering with fury. Unsure what to woof, Shep left the two in the dark. If Honey wanted to punish him for his decision, that was her choice. She could be angry with him, but he felt good, finally having put that issue under paw. He could stand on that point at least — this pack eats cats. Done. No more worrying about that.

 

As Shep was hunting that afternoon, he met some of the other dogs from the pack, but he only recognized them because they nodded their snouts or wagged their tails at him. To Shep, they were all just dogs, strange dogs he'd never smelled before. He didn't like that the pack was so big that he didn't know each dog individually.
Next sun
, he thought,
I'm going to make a point to sniff out every dog in the den
. He wanted to know each one. What kind of leader could he be if he didn't know each dog, their particular strengths?

He rounded a corner into an alley and discovered Blaze dragging a struggling rat from beneath a slab of stone.

“Get out here, you filthy mound of fur!” she growled through her teeth.

Shep loped to her side. “Need another fang?”

Blaze ripped the rat out, and with a quick flick of her jaw, the rodent fell still. “No,” she woofed, dropping it on the stone.

“I thought you hunted in a team,” Shep barked, sniffing the rat. Lifeblood was a friendly scent to him now: the smell of a successful hunt.
No more nightmares for me
, he thought, happily.

“I did,” Blaze snuffled. “But after our little fight, the other dogs think I'm cursed. Apparently, when you cross the Champion, you lose the privilege of having the others so much as sniff your tail.”

“I'm sorry we had that fight,” Shep woofed. “I know you believe you're right, but can't you smell that sometimes another dog might be on a good scent? Even if it's not the same scent you're tracking?”

“No,” Blaze said, her bark soft, not defensive. “Not on something as important as this.”

They padded down the alley in silence, panting in the hot, humid afternoon air. The rat dangled from Blaze's jowls. The alley ended at a street. Blaze turned toward the boat, but Shep trotted in the other direction.

“You lost?” Blaze barked over her tail.

“I'm going to sniff around a little more,” Shep woofed. “I hate to return home with empty jowls.”

Blaze cocked her head, but then waved her tail and broke into a run down the street toward the boat. Shep trotted lazily in the dying light. The sky above him warmed to orange-blue, and the thin strips of cloud burned bright pink. It had felt good to hunt, good to be alone with the Outside, but it felt even better to be back with Callie and Blaze. And he would bark with Honey in the morning. Maybe she'd be less angry after sleeping on things for a night.

After that I'll woof with Oscar
, he decided.
Maybe if I spend some time chewing a stick with the pup, he'll stop drooling all this Storm Shaker slobber.

He was going to be the best teammate ever to walk on four paws. He rounded a corner to return to the boat, ready to get started on this whole leadership track again, and saw a snorty beast rooting in a bag of trash.

It wasn't one of Blaze's beasts — though it had horny, cloven paws, it was the size of Shep's crate, not a Car. It had a long, flat-nosed muzzle and largish ears on a fat head, with barely any neck separating it from the creature's thick shoulders. Bristles of hair trembled on its back, and a crooked tail hung from its muscled haunches.

The beast snorted and raised its snout from the refuse, revealing bulky tusks that protruded from its thick jowls. Shep could run, leave this king among kibbles alone, or he could take the challenge that the Great Wolf had set before him.

Shep crouched and waited to smell how the beast would attack. He figured it would charge to take advantage of its tusks. He had to disable them as weapons.
Bite the ear.

The beast squealed, then rushed at Shep, aiming to ram him in the chest. Shep held still, waited for the beast to get within range, then swung his body to the side and snapped onto the beast's ear. His fangs sunk into the leathery flesh and held.

The beast fought to free itself of Shep's bite, squealing like an old Car. It dragged Shep along the pavement and drove him into a wall. Shep managed to avoid getting smashed by hopping onto the beast's back for a heartbeat until it pulled away. The animal sank to the ground, then burst back to its paws and ran — anything to shake Shep's hold. But Shep's jaws were locked; he growled and tugged on the ear and knew it was only a matter of tiring the thing out.

After several more dives and dodges, the beast began to wheeze. The next time the creature sank to its belly, Shep jerked the ear, then released the flesh and pounded the beast in the chest with his paws. The thing was knocked off balance and crashed onto its side.

Shep had only a snoutful of heartbeats before it wriggled back onto its hoofs. He snapped his teeth around one thin ankle and broke the bone to make sure the beast couldn't regain its attack stance. Then he went for the neck. When he felt the monster's lifeblood pulse against his tongue, he knew he'd defeated it.

Shep stepped back from the body of his opponent, victorious and splattered with lifeblood. This beast had to be more than twice Shep's weight, and he'd defeated it. No dog had ever brought in such a kill. He was the master hunter!
Let Oscar tell a story about
this!

There was no way Shep was going to be able to drag the beast all the way back to the boat. Maybe he could get Blaze to help him? No, even with two dogs, it'd be too heavy. But he had to show her. She'd never believe him otherwise!

Shep scampered down the street back toward the den, jaws split in a grin and tongue lolling from his jaws. If he hurried, there would be just enough light left for a return trip.