The Pack (8 page)

 

Shep loped to the main den, padded up the table-ramp, and discovered Callie woofing softly with Higgins.

“Shep!” she barked, sounding surprised to see him. “Higgins and I were just going over the food stores.”

Shep felt like he'd started playing with some dogs who'd rather he'd stayed by the fence. “What's wrong with the kibble stores?”

“Nothing,” yapped Higgins. “I just wanted to woof numbers with Callie, you know, how many dogs and how much kibble per sun.”

“Why didn't you wait for me?” Shep woofed. “I know about numbers.”

“No doubt,” Higgins snuffled, though the tone of his bark oozed doubt.

There was an awkward pause.

Callie stood, ears and tail low. “You're right.” She stepped toward him, tail wagging. “I should have waited for you.” She lay down at Shep's paws, rolling to expose her belly. “I'm sorry.”

Shep wagged his tail and licked Callie's head. “No worries,” he woofed, feeling better after her show of submission. “What's the problem?”

Higgins yapped on about how they weren't scavenging enough kibble to feed every member of the pack sufficiently. “Much of the human kibble has gone to rot, and what's left will soon be inedible. We have to find another food source.”

Callie's curled tail wagged in wide circles. “We can hunt!” she barked. “I could show some of the smaller dogs how I caught that squirrel, and maybe Dover could teach the big dogs. He said he's hunted with his master.”

Shep's stomach soured at the thought. He dreaded eating lifeblood for every meal.
What if it turns me?
He'd managed to avoid going wild in the kibble den, but Shep worried that so much lifeblood pulsing through his body every sun might be enough to push him over to the nightmare of the Black Dog.

“I don't think that's a good idea,” Shep woofed. “Lifeblood for every meal? It could turn the dogs wild, and they're already tearing into each other's scruffs for kibble.”

Higgins coughed. “This pack would never go wild,” he snapped. “We're civilized dogs.” He jutted out his furface.

“We'll see how civilized things are when the kibble runs out,” Shep grunted.

“Exactly,” Callie woofed. “This is why we need to start hunting now. We can keep back some of the human kibble to mix in with the hunted meat and keep every dog's fur about them.”

Shep licked his jowls. Higgins was right; with each passing sun, they found less and less kibble, and the pack continued to grow. They needed more food, and the only food out there was scurrying around on four legs.

“All right,” Shep woofed. “We'll have to train some hunting dogs. Maybe Blaze can help. She's spent her whole life chasing after beasts.”

“Double brilliant!” Callie yapped, getting excited about the whole hunting project, enough so that she seemed to forget how much she detested Blaze.

Callie began listing all the things they could hunt. “We'll have to have small, fast dogs for taking down squirrels and other rodents. Maybe the big dogs could catch a giant iguana — one of those could feed half the pack! And Shep, you could eat bugs! I found one earlier in my den. They're delicious and don't have any lifeblood.”

“No thanks,” Shep said, remembering the long, shiny black things he'd sometimes seen in his boy's den. “I'll manage on the squirrel meat.”

Callie's tail drooped. “I'm telling you, the bugs are really tasty.”

Shep panted and licked her snout. “You've got interesting tastes,” he yipped. “Lizards, bugs. Next you'll be telling me how delicious trees are.”

Callie cocked her head. “I hadn't even thought of trees. Brilliant, Shep!”

Shep's tail slumped.
Great Wolf, strike me down with your paw before I eat a tree.

As the moon passed over the windowed ceiling of the room, the three dogs argued and chattered. It was determined that the dogs needed to be divided into teams. One team would train with Callie, Blaze, and Dover in hunting. Another team, led by Virgil, would maintain defenses. A third team would keep up with the scavenging and rescue operation, headed by Honey. Shep would work with Virgil and also keep every dog in line with the plan. At mealtimes, the dogs would eat with their teams, and each team would rotate being the first in line for kibble.

By the time the three had finished planning, it was the middle of the night.

“We shouldn't wake every dog,” Callie woofed, exhausted. “Shep, you make the announcements in the morning.”

He agreed, his woof broken mid-bark by a yawn. “I need some sleep,” he groaned.

“I'm already half-zonked,” grunted Higgins. He crept down the table-ramp toward his den.

Shep began to follow, then saw Callie heading in the other direction. “You coming to bed?” he woofed.

“I just want to check with Boji on how those dams are doing.”

Shep waved his tail. “Smell you in the sunlight,” he snuffled.

Callie wagged her tail back. “Good night, partner.”

 

When Shep returned to his den, he found Blaze already curled in a corner.

“Where've you been?” she woofed. “I waited for you after getting my kibble.”

“I had a meeting about the pack,” Shep replied, curling next to her. Dim moonlight from the small ceiling window shone in her eyes.

“A meeting?” Blaze shuffled around so her snout was near Shep's. “With whom? About what?”

“Just pack stuff,” Shep grunted. “Callie, Higgins, and I worked every thing out.”

“Higgins?” Blaze lifted her head. “Why didn't you invite me to come if Higgins was there?”

Shep smelled the anger wafting off Blaze. “Higgins was there to woof about the food stores,” he said softly, trying to calm her. “It wasn't a big meeting. I wasn't trying to nose you out.”

Blaze laid her head back on her paws. “Fine,” she woofed. “But I don't smell why you need to meet with them at all.” She licked her jowls. “Callie wasn't the one who broke up that fight. You did, and all on your own.” Her breath ruffled the tiny hairs in his ear. “This pack would throw themselves into the canal if you barked for them to. Not for Callie or Higgins — just for you.”

Shep wondered if that was true. Recalling the look in Paulie's eyes after the kibble fight, he thought Blaze might be right. If even a tough dog like Paulie looked ready to throw himself to a water lizard on Shep's command, what horrors would a weakling like Rufus or Snoop be willing to suffer for him? Anxiety flooded Shep's mind. He tried to remember what he'd woofed earlier — he was never careful enough with his barks. What if he'd said the wrong thing? The power he'd felt running through him suddenly felt terrible and cold, heavy like a coat of metal.

“That's not how things are, Blaze,” Shep woofed, giving back whatever role she was trying to collar him with. “Every dog has a say in the way the pack's run.”

“You're the alpha, Shep.” Blaze looked straight into his muzzle. “Never forget it.”

She sat up and stared out the window in the ceiling, up at the Silver Moon. “On the beast farm, there were strict rules about who could give commands. Each man to his dog, and one man to all the other men. One sun, two men had a disagreement. They gave conflicting signals to their dogs, and the stupid mutts drove two groups of stray cattle into one another. The herd stampeded, and the two dogs and one of the men were trampled. The man was healed. I never saw either of the dogs again.”

Blaze looked away, at the dark corner opposite Shep. “I lost a good friend that sun.”

Shep wasn't sure why she was telling him about this. “Was he your mate?” he asked, waving his tail in what he hoped was a sensitive and caring way.

“That's not the point,” Blaze snapped, turning her muzzle to face Shep. A deep sadness was visible in her shining eyes. “Dogs are not meant to follow two masters. They need an alpha to guide them. Without that, we're all as good as trampled.”

She looked fiercely into Shep's muzzle, waiting for his reply.

“Callie and I are a good team,” Shep woofed, finally. “We've protected the pack for this many suns. We'll all be okay.”

Blaze's jaw was set, like she was about to argue, but then she flopped onto her chest and curled in her paws. “I only hope you're right,” she snuffled.

The dogs assigned to the defense team rambled out of the boat and sat in the plaza. Shep watched them from the shade of a collapsed wall held up by a leafless palm tree. There were ten dogs assigned to the team, all chosen by Shep. They were the toughest of the pack, by the smell of them — some big, like Hulk, some small, like Daisy — but Shep had no idea if any of them knew the first thing about defending a den. He wasn't quite sure himself what the job entailed.

Daisy strutted her way across the stone, lifting her paw pads high off the already steamy pavement. “So what's —
snort
— the plan?” she yapped, collapsing into a sit with one hind leg splayed.

What is the plan, indeed
, thought Shep.

Two big dogs — a stout black short-haired dog with red-brown markings Shep had only smelled the other sun and a sleek black and brown Doberman girldog Virgil liked, named Ripley — began to play with one another in the shade of the boat. Shep watched one bat at the other's head, then tumble on the ground and start up play again. He thought of what he would do if he'd been playing with those dogs, how he would've reared for a better angle of attack, how a glancing swipe at a muzzle isn't worth a ripped toy if it isn't a feint toward a better hold on the scruff.

It was like Shep had uncovered a buried bag of kibble. These were just the kinds of tips these dogs needed to know. They all knew how to play, but now they needed to know how to turn play into defense.

“Dogs!” he barked, standing tall. “Come over here by this tree.”

Shep divided the dogs into pairs, matching each with a dog of similar size. The dogs loped into their assigned groups, then looked at Shep with vacant expressions or stared off over the canal. A strange bird with loud, whirly wings chopped through the air high overhead. It was the loudest thing Shep had heard since the storm, and he had to raise his bark over the sound until it flew away.

“We need to think of defense as play, but play with a bite,” Shep woofed.

“I haven't smelled anything bigger than a rat in suns,” the black short-hair barked. “What do we need to defend this den from?”

Some of the others snorted and wagged their tails in agreement.

Another Rufus
, Shep grumbled to himself.
This pack needs another tail dragger like it needs a flea infestation.

“What's your name?” Shep asked.

The black dog stood tall, feeling a little more sure of himself now that Shep was barking directly to him. “Panzer,” he woofed. “Anyway, I'm a rottweiler. What's going to mess with me?”

“Well, Panzer, have you ever fought a rat?” Shep snapped. “What if one came into our den to scavenge our food? What would you do?”

Panzer sneered at Shep's domineering tone. “I'd tear the thing's tail off. I'm a trained guard dog.” He looked at Shep with a smug smirk on his jowls.

So this dog has some skills — I'll let him think he's got something over me.
“Oh,” woofed Shep, feigning awe. “Would you be so kind as to show me?”

Panzer strutted forward, nose in the air and tail flat. Shep sank into a slight crouch. When Panzer was a stretch away, Shep lunged forward, hitting Panzer with his forepaws and knocking him onto his side.

“Hey!” yipped Panzer. “I wasn't ready!”

“No dog or rat or flea who's invading our den cares if you're ready,” Shep growled, standing over the toppled Panzer. “A fight — I mean, a defense dog is ready every heartbeat of every sun.”

Panzer got to his paws and shook his fur. “That was a cheap bite,” he snarled. “If you're just going to nose us around, I'm heading back into the den.”

Daisy gave Shep a concerned head tilt.

Shep lowered his stance and wagged his tail. “You're right,” he woofed. “I'm sorry, Panzer.”

Daisy wagged her knot of a tail. “Let's —
snort
— get this play-biting started!”

Panzer licked his jowls, as if thinking about whether to challenge Shep any further. “Apology accepted,” he grunted, finally.

Shep decided that maybe he would do better with some in-the-heartbeat instruction, as opposed to leading a general lesson. He told the pairs of dogs to play with each other.

“Just go with it,” he woofed.

Paulie the pitbull dove for Hulk's scruff, latching on with a fierce grip of the jaws.

“Shep!” Hulk whimpered. “It hurts!”

Shep pounced on Paulie, knocking his hold.

“What?” Paulie whined, licking and smacking his jaws. “You said fight.”

“
Play
fight,” Shep woofed, panting with exasperation. “I know you're an ex-fight dog, but don't actually tear any dog's ear off! For the love of treats, we're all in the same pack.”

The dogs began playing, some more timidly than others, a mere paw slap here and there. Shep began to wonder if this training plan was going to work after all.

Shep trotted up to Bernie and a midsized girldog, who were just sitting looking at one another. “What's wrong?” he woofed. “Why aren't you playing?”

“The border collie keeps nipping at my paws,” Bernie grumbled. “I don't like any dog touching my paws.”

“My name's Jazz,” the girldog snapped. “And that's how I play, dainty-paw.”

“Call me that again, fur-for-brains,” Bernie growled.

Shep stuck his snout between them. “Whoa,” he woofed. “Let's just back away.”

Bernie and Jazz stepped back, lowering hackles and tails, and taking less hostile stances.

“Let's smell if we can't use this,” Shep woofed. “If rats were attacking, they'd probably go for your paws. What would be the best defense?” He lowered his snout to the stone and looked up at Bernie. “Come on,” Shep yipped. “Take a swipe at my snout.”

Bernie, confused, took a feeble swipe at Shep's snout with his paw. Shep snapped at Bernie's claws, careful not to land a tooth on his pads.

“Hey!” Bernie cried, jerking his paw away.

“I wasn't going to bite you,” Shep woofed, “but that defense was terrible. You protected one paw by opening the other to attack. It would have been better to have come down with your fangs and attacked my head from above, away from my jaws. I couldn't have defended myself from that without backing away from your paw and changing my head angle.”

Bernie raised his ears and tilted his head, impressed. “And if you were a rat, I could have grabbed you and tossed you away.”

“Exactly!” Shep barked. “That's the kind of thinking we have to start doing. Team!” Shep howled. “Let's all practice this move Jazz and Bernie worked out.”

The teams practiced over and over the paw defense, as the dogs called it, and by midsun, all were expert rat catchers. Virgil and Ripley even came up with the double-trouble paw defense, an attack from above with fangs, and from the side with hind claws. Shep felt like he was finally on the right scent with training the team.

The pavement was getting unbearably hot, so Shep brought the team into the shade of the crushed floor where at least the sun wasn't burning their fur. They woofed about the practical aspects of defense — setting up watches, how to protect the two entrances — then Shep had the teams nose some of the more dangerous scraps of wreckage away from the door holes. As Shep was helping to dig a pile of sticks out from under a plastic cushion, Oscar came wriggling out from the main den.

“Watch it, pup!” Shep woofed. “We're moving sharp stuff. I don't want to have to send Boji another injured paw to lick.”

Oscar dropped his snout and sniffed at the floor, eyes scouring the surface in front of his paws, so that he walked right into Shep's hind leg.

“Sorry!” he yipped. “But I was careful, just like you said!”

Shep panted lightly. “Careful of one danger, but you walked right into another. What if I'd been an enemy intruder?”

“But you'll never let an enemy get into the den, Shep,” Oscar woofed, tail swinging. “You're my Great Wolf! Defender of the weak dog! Protector of the pups!” He leapt in little circles, yipping and growling and tackling imaginary foes.

Shep grinned at the pup's display. “All right,” he woofed. “What's got you scampering out of the den?”

“Some of the other pups saw the defense team fighting. I was wondering if we could all come out and watch?”

Shep glanced around the crushed floor. They were almost done clearing the entries and arranging the rubble. “Sure,” he barked. “I'll take the team out and work on some real fight skills.”

“Ha-roo!” Oscar howled. “I have to tell every pup!” He scrambled back into the main den. Just as he was about to disappear through the hole, he looked over his tail. “Did you see, Shep?” he yipped. “I was looking at my paws
and
in front of me that time!”

Shep barked that he'd done a great job, then bayed for the defense team to move out to the street again. The sun was low, as it was nearly sunset, and the surrounding buildings shaded the plaza.

They divided into pairs again and Shep began barking about how to defend against a dog attack.

“The key is to keep your stance loose,” Shep woofed, bouncing lightly on his paws. He glanced at the small pack of pups huddled in the shadows near the crushed floor and gave Oscar a quick flick of the muzzle. The pup nearly knocked himself over, his tail was wagging so hard.

Shep continued, “And to use any attack to your advantage by mastering the roll.” He fell onto his side, rolled, and sprang back onto his paws.

Several of the defense dogs tilted their heads in confusion. Shep rolled again, slower.

“Do you tuck your paws before or after you hit the street?” whined Ripley.

“Just roll, like this,” Paulie barked.

He rolled masterfully, as did Panzer — but they were both trained fight dogs. A fight dog couldn't survive without knowing how to roll. The others simply flopped onto their sides, then scrambled to get back onto their paws. There was no rolling involved.

“No!” barked Shep. “Don't push against the street with your paws, Mooch. Throw them over your belly.” Mooch was gigantic, and when she fell over, Shep felt the vibration in his paws.

The team looked like a bunch of beetles flipped onto their shells. Paulie tried to explain how to roll, but he didn't have the patience for every dog's clumsiness. His instruction degraded into a series of nasty barks.

Shep heard the pups panting and saw them tumbling over one another like Balls in a basket.
What am I doing wrong that I can't get these big dogs to do what they naturally did as pups?

The defense team just could not get the concept of the roll. Shep tried demonstrating the move in slow-motion again and explaining how he used his muscles: Nothing worked. Waffle, the brown and white spotted mutt, could roll like a Ball when lying down, but fell like a stone when he tried to do it starting on all fours. Most of the team, though, couldn't have rolled in any position for all the cheese in a cold box.

In his frustration, Shep thought of Zeus, of how he'd known all of these moves without thinking, as instinctive to him as panting. Shep imagined training these dogs with Zeus. Zeus would have known just what to bark to get a pant out of the pack. Zeus would have made this fun.

Of course
, Shep reminded himself,
that was the old Zeus.
That dog had become the wild Zeus, the dog who tried to kill him.

As the sky turned from orange to deep blue, Shep called off the practice. He could smell that the team was in a foul mood — no dog liked feeling like a failure.

“Great work, team,” he woofed, a happy grin on his jowls and a light wag in his tail. No dog responded; not a single tail wagged back.

Mooch and Panzer offered to take first watch. Shep told Virgil to dismiss the rest of the team.

“Excellent work,” Virgil woofed, as he loped back into the main den at Shep's flank.

“What do you mean?” groaned Shep. “Every dog was ready to scratch my fur off after that terrible practice.”

“Let them whine,” woofed Virgil. “They'll be thanking you when they can roll away from an attack. You came up with a good method. That's why you're the alpha.” Virgil trotted off, sniffing around the main den, barking at any dog who was taking up too much space.

The alpha
. The words slipped off Shep's coat like raindrops. His idea had worked because he hadn't tried to be the alpha; he'd let the whole team work on the defense tactics together. But then, Shep wondered, could that also be a way of leading the dogs? Was sharing power one way of being an alpha? Blaze would have barked absolutely not, that this was exactly the kind of thinking that got her friends killed. But that was a human-dog, maybe a human-dog-beast, problem. Maybe when it was just dogs, it was better to work as a team. It certainly smelled better than trying to bark orders to every dog.

Honey trotted straight up to Shep with Fuzz perched, as usual, on her back.

“We had such a great sun!” she woofed. “Five new rescues! I'm sorry to report that we haven't had much luck getting any other species to join us, so it's just dogs, but Fuzz and I will keep trying! Fuzz nearly convinced this very poofy white cat named Ares, but he hissed something so rude that Fuzz wouldn't even translate it for me. I almost got a pet hamster to come with us, but she seemed to misunderstand Fuzz's greeting and ran into a hole in the wall.”

Honey waved her tail, waiting for Shep to praise her efforts. Shep wasn't sure exactly what to bark. He didn't want to go back on his word to her, but he was also immensely grateful that no other cats or — Great Wolf forbid — hamsters accepted her offer of protection.

“Great job,” he woofed, finally. “I'm sure you'll have better luck next sun.”

“Me, too!” Honey barked. “Fuzz and I are going to spend all night working on our pitch.”