The Pack (5 page)

Shep stepped back, not wanting to start a fight with a wild dog in such a tight space. The girldog crept forward, her head low and fangs bared. The faint light's flicker in her eyes and on her wet nose gave Shep a sense of her size: smaller than him, but not by much.

“I said
out
,” she growled.

“We're not here to start trouble,” Shep woofed, his bark calm but firm. He kept his tail and head high. He did not want to show any submissiveness to the girldog.

The girldog glanced behind Shep at the others, barely visible in the evening's shadows. She sniffed the air. “You smell like pets,” she woofed. “Wet pets.”

“We
are
pets,” Callie yipped. “And we'd like to get out of this rain.”

“Who's the yapper?” the girldog snapped.

“That's Callie, and I'm Shep,” Shep woofed. “We need a safe den for the night and were hoping to sleep here.” He waved his snout into the dark recesses of the bus. “Smells like there's room enough for all.”

The girldog glared at them for a few more heartbeats, then snorted. “You can sleep here tonight,” she grumbled. “But you'll have to clear out come sunrise.” She loped along the floor, which had been the windowed side of the bus, and disappeared behind the half wall created by the last row of seats.

“Quite rude,” Higgins yapped. “She's a Queensland heeler, and a pet like the rest of us, I'd bet my tail on it. No need to be all huffy.” He scampered into the bus and flopped down on a mound of fabric.

The others padded timidly into the bus, wary of the small, dark space. The roof was a row of windows; the rain drummed on the glass, creating a thundering roar inside the metal walls. Some dogs curled in the spaces between the rows of seats, but most huddled in clumps near the front of the bus and anxiously scanned the dark streets.

Shep loped to the back, near where he'd seen the girldog disappear. He found her curled up against the floor-wall, snout on her paws.

“What?” she grunted. “I need my rest.”

“Don't get growly,” Shep woofed. “I just came to smell if you were all right.”

The girldog panted. “Oh, are you going to be my big protector?” she moaned. “Well, you're four suns too late,” she snapped. “I've learned to protect myself.”

Shep flattened his ears. Why was he barking with this girldog, who was clearly a tail dragger? Then again, she smelled like grass and sunshine and human hands, like the very best sun at the Park.

“You mind moving, hero?” she grunted. “You're drooling on my snout.”

Shep licked his teeth, trying to scrape his tongue clean so he could bark a witty retort, something that would make him look less like a drooly, fur-brained mutt with two paws in the hole.

He dropped onto his haunches and flicked his ears forward. “I'm more than a protector,” he snuffled. “I'm a door opener, kibble finder, and endlessly yapping snout in your ear.”

The girldog lifted her head. “A full-service pain in the tail if I've ever smelled one,” she said. Shep could tell from her bark that she was grinning.

The girldog pushed herself up into a sit. The faint light silhouetted her lovely tall, pointed ears and long, tapering snout. Her short fur was a mottled gray-black that reminded Shep of the Great Wolf's silvery coat. Her muzzle was a mix of black and brown with a slash of white cutting from above one eye, along her snout, and under her jaw. When she turned her head, the cloud-dimmed moonlight shone in her eyes, and Shep saw that one was bright blue and the other brown.

“So, how did you come to lead this pack of misfit pets?” she woofed.

“I, uh, well,” Shep sputtered, still gazing into her eyes.

“You, uh, well, what?” she barked, cocking her head and smiling.

“We all just sort of came together,” Shep managed, “for protection.” His mouth felt dry; his barks were all wrong again. “You could join us,” he yipped. “If you wanted to. I mean, I smell you've been doing pretty well on your own. Right?”

She stood and her snout was a whisker-length from Shep's own. All he could smell was her scent and it was rich as lifeblood. Her warm breath misted on his nose.

“Not so well that I wouldn't mind some company.” She licked his jowl; her touch sent shivers down to his toes.

“I'll join your pack,” she woofed. She flicked her snout toward where the others were piled in the shadows. “Looks like you could use another real dog to balance out all those yappers.”

Shep's tail wagged in circles, though he tried to keep a serious look on his muzzle. “Well, that'd be very good. I mean, good. I mean, I'm glad to have you.” He licked his jowls.

“You can call me Blaze.”

“Blaze,” he sighed.

She curled back up on the floor, grinning. “Good night, Shepherd.”

“Shepherd,” he sighed, standing. “I mean, good night.”

Shep stumbled over sleeping dogs as he made his way toward the front of the bus. He felt dizzy and fur-brained and needed a sniff of fresh air. He also figured some dog should keep a watch out for water lizards or anything else that might surface in the night. Just as he was about to stick his snout through the shattered front window of the bus, Callie strutted out of the shadows.

“Where were you?” she yapped.

“I went to check out the rest of the bus,” he woofed nervously, though he didn't know why he felt so nervous. “And to scent out that girldog.”

“So that's why you're all slobber-tongued.”

“I'm not slobber-tongued,” Shep protested, though even he could sense how silly he sounded. “I mean, I thought I should give her a smell, make sure she isn't wild, you know?”

“Really?” Callie's brown eyes were like noses sniffing his thoughts.

“She's a very nice girldog, in fact,” Shep continued, barks pouring from his jowls like drool, “not wild at all, and I asked her to join our pack, and she said yes.”

“She called me a yapper,” Callie snapped.

“I'll tell her to stop saying that, if it bothers you,” Shep woofed.

“It doesn't matter if she
stops
saying it. She's already barked it! It's already out there, stinking up the whole den.” Callie was yapping loudly. Dogs were lifting their heads and staring.

Callie was nearly frothing at the mouth. “In sum,” she snarled, “I don't like her.” She panted loudly.

Callie didn't smell like her usual reasonable self. Shep tilted his head. “You sure that's what's itching you?” he asked.

“What, that's not a good enough reason for you? You think that's nothing, calling some dog a yapper?”

“I just think —”

“Well, don't think,” Callie snapped. “
I
know. Calling me a yapper is as good as calling me a mutt.”

“What's so bad about calling a dog a mutt?” Shep woofed.

Callie dropped her snout and looked at the floor. “Only a purebred could woof that.”

Shep crouched in front of Callie and gave her a quick lick on the jowl. “Callie, every dog in this pack thinks you're made of bacon. Especially me. We'd have lost the Great Wolf's scent a long time ago without you.”

Callie looked at Shep. “I hope you tell the new dog that,” she woofed. “She called me a yapper to make me feel unimportant, worthless. To show the pack — to show
you
that she was better than me.”

“I'm sure she doesn't think that,” Shep woofed, not at all sure that Blaze didn't think of Callie as just another dog. Shep knew he should tell Blaze that Callie was the real leader of the pack, but then Blaze would know that Shep was only the doer, the snout out of which Callie barked. He didn't want Blaze to see him that way. He wanted to be her hero.

Callie limply scratched at her ear. “Just remember what I said back at the tree: The last thing this pack needs is a power struggle. And that dog smells like she thinks she's the alpha, not you and me.” She retreated into the dark of the bus and sank into sleep.

Shep sat at the front of the bus and looked out the window at the sky. A steady rain fell from a sheet of cloud. The city was as dark as Shep had ever seen it, with only the faintest light shining through the clouds from the hidden moon high above. He wished he could see the Great Wolf's sparkling coat; he needed guidance. How could he lead as a team with Callie and not have Blaze think less of him? But he didn't want to lead without Callie. He also didn't want to kick Blaze out of the pack. Everything was so difficult in this storm-wrecked world.

Shep wondered, as he had every night since the storm, if his boy was somewhere in this darkness, looking up at the same cloud-cluttered sky. He hoped not. Shep didn't want to be trapped in this ruined place; he wouldn't wish such a fate on any dog. But at least he'd been trained to survive in the fight cage; at least he was toughened to the harsh things of the world. His boy was as soft as a new pup. He wouldn't last a sun on the streets of the drowned city.

As if answering Shep's thoughts, a howl echoed through the dark. If he hadn't seen him washed away in the wave, Shep would've sworn it was Zeus's call.

 

The first tails of dawn woke Shep from his slumber. He'd dreamt of the river of dogs again, only this time it was he who was drowning. He'd looked up and seen the endless stream of pounding paws. He'd barked for help, but not one dog had glanced down as he sank deeper and deeper.

He lapped at a foul-tasting puddle of rainwater Outside the broken window of the bus, then scanned the surrounding street. Both sides were lined with stone buildings, some a few floors tall, all in various states of destruction. He wondered if the pack shouldn't split up and scrounge for scraps in smaller groups — they might have better luck looking in more than one place.
We'd be easier prey for any attacker. Then again, with strange things like water lizards around, are any of us safe, even in a pack?

Callie woofed in her sleep, her tiny paws twitching. He wondered what she was dreaming about and hoped it was a happy dream. He would hunt up some kibble for her, to make up for their spat.
Maybe I'll catch her a squirrel
, he thought, though the idea made him gag.

Blaze hopped over Snoop's sleeping form and joined Shep on the street. “You're the first pet I've encountered who wakes before midsun,” she barked. “Look at the rest of them,” she yipped, waving her snout at the bus. “Lazy as the cycle is long.”

“Why are you all proud-snouted?” Shep woofed. “You're a pet like the rest of us.”

Blaze swiped at a pile of rubble. “You and I are not like
them
,” she woofed. A chunk of stone tumbled out of the pile, revealing a cache of hidden kibble. Blaze waved her tail. “Want a bite?”

Shep scented jerky treats in Blaze's stash. Slaver cascaded from his jowls. “Maybe just a nibble,” he yipped.

“So why don't you tell me your story?” barked Blaze.

Shep wondered what story to tell. Begin in the fight cage? Would that be too horrible? Begin with the storm, with meeting Callie?
Was that where my life began?

“Where were you born?” Blaze prompted.

“I was born in a kennel,” Shep answered. “Now you.”

“Me, too,” she barked.

“And?” he asked.

“And?”
she repeated mockingly.

Shep whipped around and leapt at her chest, toppling her into a puddle.

“Ha!” she snapped. “Fight dog, right?”

Shep was surprised — impressed? — that Blaze could divine this information from a single attack. But the excited look on her muzzle made him nervous.

“Yes,” he grunted, “I was born in a fight kennel.”

“Don't be shy,” Blaze yipped, slapping the dirt, her tail and rump waving behind her. “It's nice to meet a dog who hasn't had his life handed to him in a silver bowl.”

Shep stepped back, away from Blaze, cutting off their play. “The fight kennel never handed me anything except a cage,” Shep barked flatly. “You wouldn't understand.”

Blaze stood, tail lower but still wagging. She slinked closer to Shep, rubbing his flank. “This is a tough world, and you're a tough dog. Why are you ashamed of it?”

“I'm not ashamed,” Shep woofed, wondering what she meant, whether he
was
ashamed. “And what's so tough about your world? You look like a pet who's seen her share of comfy beds and bowls piled with kibble.” He sounded a bit more defensive than he'd meant to.

“Now look who's barking about things he knows nothing about.” Blaze trotted away from the bus, toward the canal. She paused and looked back over her long tail at Shep. “You coming, hero?”

Shep glanced at the bus full of snoozing pets. He should stay and guard them. But he could go with Blaze just for a few heartbeats, maybe hunt up some kibble, and no dog would notice.
Right?

He saw Blaze's marbled coat shimmer in the morning light. “I'm coming!” he barked.

 

As they snuffled through the jumble on the street, supposedly scenting for food, Blaze told Shep about her past. She was born in a kennel inland, near a big lake filled with water lizards. She was taken from her litter by a young man in a wide-brimmed brown hat. He started to whistle and talk to her, and fed her scraps of dried meat. It took a few suns, but she soon understood that with each whistle he wanted her to sit, or stop, or walk toward him, to lie down at his paws or jump at a toy in his hands.

After a moon-cycle of work, the man took Blaze to a fat building with a curved roof, which oozed the acrid stench of manure and was surrounded by endless fields broken up by long stretches of fencing. It was hot and humid, like her kennel had been, but the only life in this place was the huge, snorting brown beasts. They groaned and grunted in the fat building, and tromped lazily through the open grasses. Blaze knew that she was the alpha of these creatures, though they were a full stretch taller than she was, and longer and wider by more, outweighing her like a Car to a yapper.