“You’ll be all right,” Daisy was saying, licking at Martha’s torn leg. “But you shouldn’t move around.”
Bruno’s sturdy body stood over Alfie, who lay still and broken on the ground. Sunshine stared at the little dog, shivering.
“He needs a vet! He really does!” Sunshine whined. “I wish my longpaws were here.”
“We all do.” Mickey gave her a reassuring lick, but his flanks were trembling.
Then Daisy looked up and caught sight of Lucky. Her eyes widened and she gave a frightened yelp. That set the others off, leaping and scrambling to their feet, falling over one another in their haste. They must think I’m one of the Wild Dogs, Lucky realized. He gave a soft reassuring growl, and came out of the deeper shadows so they could see him better.
“It’s me,” he barked.
Their shock was plain in their faces and their bristling coats, but then Bella’s ears pricked and she sprang to meet him, pressing her face to his.
“You came back.”
“Lucky!” The others trotted to join her, whining and licking him—all but Bruno, who stayed standing protectively over Alfie. Lucky heard him grumble, “It’s a little late for a heroic return, Lucky.”
Sunshine and Daisy jumped up to reach his nose, but their old enthusiasm was subdued. Sadness filled the little hollow. Even the acrid scent of the river was overwhelmed by the tang of blood. Hesitantly, Lucky paced forward to where Alfie sprawled, eyes half-closed, panting weakly. His flank rose and fell barely at all.
“Oh, Lucky,” whined Mickey. “Is there anything we can do?”
They all fell silent as Lucky nosed Alfie’s wound. The skin was split wide and Lucky could see red, glistening muscle like he’d seen on injured prey. The sight of it turned his stomach cold.
A faint whimper came from Alfie’s throat, but he couldn’t raise his head to greet Lucky. The sand beneath him was stained with thick, dark blood, but it no longer flowed from his side in a strong stream. It had been reduced to a limp trickle that seeped feebly in the slash.
Lucky closed his eyes briefly, hating to have to break such news.
“He isn’t bleeding so badly anymore.” There was a faint hope in Sunshine’s voice that made Lucky’s heart turn over.
He licked her muzzle. “Sunshine,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do for Alfie.”
“But . . .” Daisy faltered.
Lucky held her gaze, his heart feeling as heavy as a rock. “There’s less blood because the Earth-Dog has taken most of it already. Do you see Alfie’s eyes?”
Martha took a hesitant step closer. “They’re so blurry—as if he can’t see anymore.”
“Alfie’s essence is flowing out of his body. It’s starting to become one with everything else around us.” Lucky gazed down at the little dog, his shallow occasional breaths barely lifting his flank.
The Leashed Dogs fell silent again, and Martha lay down to push her nose close to Alfie’s. “Oh, my poor little friend.”
“This isn’t fair!” whimpered Sunshine, raising her pleading eyes to Lucky’s. She let out a terrible, mournful howl. “Why did this have to happen?”
Lucky longed to look away, but he knew he couldn’t; his friends were grieving. They needed him to be strong.
Bella raised her muzzle and whined, and then Mickey and Daisy joined in the Pack’s howl. Even stolid Bruno gave voice to his misery.
Lucky dipped his head to tenderly lick Alfie’s face.
“He was barely more than a puppy,” Martha said softly.
Lucky licked each dog’s muzzle in turn, trying desperately to give some comfort. “We just won’t be able to see Alfie, that’s all. But he will still be with us, around us—in the air and the water and the earth.”
Sunshine jerked back from him, and he blinked in surprise.
“What use is that?” she barked. “I liked Alfie being here! In his own body. With us!”
Lucky had no answer. Despite his reassuring words about the spirit essence, he knew just how Sunshine felt. The painful memory struck him again: Alfie, given new heart by Lucky’s arrival and desperate to impress him, charging bravely at the dog-wolf and paying with his life.
Oh, Alfie, thought Lucky miserably, if only I’d stayed out of sight.
He turned back to the younger dog, bending to lick his nose again very gently. No breath came from Alfie’s muzzle now. Bella came to his side, nuzzling Alfie’s ear. The others gathered around her.
“I’ll miss you, Alfie,” mourned Daisy.
“We all will.” Mickey nudged his tail gently. “Safe journey, my friend.”
“Into the world,” added Sunshine, her whines heavy with grief.
Lucky took a small pace backward as he watched them say their farewells. He wished he could see Alfie’s essence escaping his body. It would be reassuring to watch his spirit flow into the trees, and the air, and the clouds. It would make this so much easier for all of them if they could witness his final journey.
But there was only a lifeless little body lying on the dry earth, and the first faint suggestion of the death-smell. There was nothing inside Alfie’s body anymore—no breath, no spirit, no life. Lucky slumped down onto his belly and added his whines of grief to the Pack’s.
Sunshine was right: This wasn’t fair.
He realized that Sweet had also been right: There was still so much he did not know about Pack life, Pack traditions. There had to be some kind of ceremony, he was sure, but he had no idea what it would be, or how it would go. When a City Dog died, the longpaws came and took him away. Perhaps he should have asked Sweet about that aspect of Pack life. He should have asked her about so many things.
Lucky stood up hesitantly. “I think the best thing—the natural thing—would be to leave Alfie here. Earth-Dog will absorb him when she’s ready.”
“Leave him?!” cried Sunshine in horror. “I don’t want to leave him!”
“Certainly not.” Daisy shuddered. “If we do, the crows and the foxes will eat him. We can’t do that to Alfie!”
“Daisy’s right,” Mickey agreed. “When a Leashed Dog died, the longpaws would always bury him—sometimes, they would put flowers and stones on top of the ground, after they put him inside. That’s the proper way.”
“It’s the longpaw way,” muttered Lucky, but so quietly it was only to himself. The last thing he wanted just now was to upset his friends, who clearly still thought like Leashed Dogs when it came to these sorts of decisions.
“Daisy and Sunshine and Mickey are right.” Bella stood squarely on a nearby rock, gazing firmly at them all. She looked like a real leader of a Pack. “We should bury him, like his longpaw would have done.”
Lucky watched, impressed, as the grief seemed to lift slightly from the Leashed Dog Pack. They nodded to one another, shook out their fur, and stood up straighter. Yes, thought Lucky. It’s not about what’s normal for Wild Dogs—this is what’s right for them. Alfie wasn’t ashamed of having belonged to longpaws. They were doing this for him, so they would do it Alfie’s way—the way he would have wanted it.
Besides, at that moment Lucky found himself angry with all the Spirit Dogs.
River-Dog! Forest-Dog! Sky-Dogs! Couldn’t you have helped him? Couldn’t you have protected our brave friend from that dog-wolf brute?
He was so small. . . .
There was softer earth a little way from the riverbank, and Lucky pitched in to help Bella, Mickey, and Martha make a hole. It didn’t take long to dig enough space for Alfie.
Martha was right, Lucky thought, grief burning in his gut. Alfie was barely more than a pup. With all a pup’s foolish courage, too. . . .
This would be the best possible place for him. If his spirit was in these trees and this cool earth, deep in the peaceful valley, Alfie would be happy, he decided. And even the river might one day be clean again.
“I wish we had his ball to leave with him,” whispered Daisy. “The one he brought . . . the one he brought when—”
“When
the longpaw house fell. When he nearly died.” Bella’s eyes were glimmering with sadness. “We saved him then. Oh, Sky-Dogs, why couldn’t we save him today?”
“We don’t have his ball,” Bruno growled. “Lucky made us leave the longpaw things behind.” He sounded angry, but Lucky could not scent any real rage coming from him. The stocky dog was just covering his deep sorrow.
Lucky felt an itch of guilt, but he didn’t want to scratch it away. It had been the right thing to do, but now it was feeling wrong. “Earth-Dog will take good care of him,” he insisted, but there was a catch in his voice. It sounded like an empty promise, even to his own ears.
Martha picked Alfie up in her jaws, moving slowly and carefully—even though there was no way Alfie would feel pain now. Despite her bad leg, he wasn’t much of a burden for her. As she laid his limp body carefully in the hole, the others helped to scrape and kick the earth back over him, until he was hidden from sight for the last time. All the dogs paused and gazed at his final sleeping-place, lit by the dying glow of the sinking sun.
“It feels wrong to leave him,” whimpered Daisy.
“I know what you mean,” said Lucky. To his surprise, he really did.
“Why don’t we stay here, then?” suggested Bella. “Just until the Sun-Dog returns.”
“What if those terrible dogs come back?” asked Sunshine as she pawed gently at the mound of soil above Alfie.
Lucky shook his head. “They ran from the Growl, too. I think we should stay with Alfie.”
“I like that idea,” said Mickey quietly. “We’ll guard his body during no-sun. Our way of saying good-bye.”
Lucky nodded, an odd heaviness in his throat.
“It feels right,” said Sunshine, glancing up at the bigger dogs. “Doesn’t it?”
Mickey licked her neck fondly, before scratching at the ground with his claws three times. Then he touched it with his nose. “Earth-Dog,” he whined. “Look after our friend.” He turned his muzzle to the sky and began to howl.
The sound was eerie and heartrending, and Lucky felt a tremor run through his skin. Then the others began to join in, raising their heads and howling.
“Take care of Alfie, Earth-Dog!”
“Guard him for us!”
“Keep his spirit safe!”
Lucky watched in respectful silence. This was something he had never witnessed, and did not quite understand. Maybe it had never happened before. Maybe it was another way that dogs were changing along with the whole world.
The sky was darkening fast, and Alfie’s sad little burial mound was fading into shadow, but still the mournful howling went on. It was the strangest ritual Lucky had ever seen, but he had to admit that it made him feel a little better. He was sure Bella and the others must feel that way too, however sad they were. There was something comforting about passing Alfie formally into Earth-Dog’s paws for protection.
Lucky trod his habitual sleep circle, then lay down with his muzzle on his paws. He closed his eyes. The howling was almost soothing. . . .
Abruptly he blinked awake from a half dream, his fur bristling.
In his drifting dream he’d thought it was something else, a sound not of grief but of terrible menace. A memory stirred from long ago. The howling . . .
But it was only his friends, still grieving for Alfie.
Lucky closed his eyes again and let sleep wash over him.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lucky could feel the sun on his back. The warmth was comforting after the chill of the night.
Bella walked at his side as they followed the river upstream. Both dogs eyed the water with trepidation; the sinister colors on the surface gave it a strange loveliness in the morning light.
“We should scout around,” Bella had said, not long after Lucky had woken up and stretched his back and neck. “See if there’s been any sign of those dogs since yesterday.”
Lucky sensed that it wasn’t just sensible caution on his sister’s part. She needed to be away from the others for a while.
His litter-sister had something on her mind.
“Tell me what happened when that fight broke out,” he suggested at last. “I heard it from far away.”
Bella sighed. “It was terrible. But I don’t see any way we could have avoided it.”
“But how did you cross those dogs? How did it start?”
“Martha was the one who noticed.” Bella stopped and wrinkled her muzzle at the stained river. “She came down to swim, and realized straight away that the poisoned water had reached us, and it was still spreading. She ran back to warn us. She was so distressed, but then you know how close Martha feels to the River-Dog.”
Lucky growled in agreement. “I noticed the bad water as soon as I saw the river. It’s a dark omen, Bella.”
“Yes.” Bella sighed again. “We knew immediately we couldn’t stay. But we thought, it’s such a big valley, and so fertile—there had to be clean water somewhere close by. So we set off in search of it.”
“And you found some?”
“There’s a place with a lot of water not far from here. I’ve never seen so much water in one place—I don’t think any of us had. It’s strange, Lucky—like the pond at the Dog Park, but so huge, and very still and silent.”
“A lake,” Lucky said. “So what happened?”
“We were worried about drinking the water, because we’d never seen anything like it. But we were so thirsty. Martha paddled in first, and then Bruno, and suddenly we were all splashing and drinking to our hearts’ content. I thought our troubles were over.”
“But you’d moved into someone else’s territory—”
“Yes.” Bella’s head and ears drooped. “We didn’t even know it until we came across a guard. Just one, and there was a standoff—he was as shocked as we were, I think. He was a long-legged dog and when he ran away, he was fast. We heard him barking an alarm, and he came back with his whole Pack.”
“And they attacked you? Just like that?”
“Not right away.” Bella came to a halt, lay down on her belly, and licked disconsolately at a paw. “I tried to reason with them. I asked if we could drink from the lake—if we could at least share that. There was so much water there—more than any dog could ever need!”
Lucky shook his head sadly. “That’s not the way it works.”
Bella gave an annoyed grumble. “But I couldn’t back down, Lucky. I knew my Pack would die if we had to go back and drink from the river. I tried again. I did my best, truly.”
“I know you did, Bella.” Lucky felt a flash of anger at dogs who could be so unfeeling for anyone who wasn’t in their Pack.
Bella’s tail thumped the ground, slowly and heavily. “The more I argued, the more I tried to persuade them, the angrier those other dogs got. It was as if they were offended that I would even try. Finally, their leader gave the order to attack, and they went for us. We ran at first, but when we got close to the poisoned river again, we couldn’t keep running. . . .”
“And that’s where I came in.” Lucky licked her nose. “I saw the fight from a long way off, and heard you from even farther. I wanted to help, but I knew I had to be careful. Rushing in could have made things worse. Then Alfie . . .” His voice caught in his throat as he remembered.
If I had been there, if I had been fighting with them, would I have been able to stop all this from happening? Would Alfie still be alive?
Lucky could not help thinking he’d have handled it differently, had it been him in the standoff with the angry dogs. He would never have tried to argue with that dog-wolf once he had refused them. Bella should have backed off humbly, thought of some other strategy—challenging the Wild Pack’s Alpha was asking for trouble.
Maybe coming back had been a mistake. He knew the others didn’t think so, but . . . the Growl had put a stop to the fighting without his help, and perhaps if Lucky hadn’t shown his face, Alfie would never have made his stupidly brave attack on the dog-wolf. That guilt still pricked at him.
/> “Come on,” he said at last. “We’d better get back to the others.”
Bella rose slowly to her feet, her tail and ears still down, and the two littermates retraced their steps back to the dogs’ makeshift camp. All the sunlight and brightness seemed to have been taken out of the day. Lucky almost wished he hadn’t asked about the battle.
As soon as they came in sight of the rest of the Pack, Lucky realized how much work there was still to do with these dogs—how desperately they needed a streetwise friend. Mickey was licking so hungrily from an old rain puddle, he was down to the mud at the bottom.
Lucky nudged the older dog away with his nose. “You shouldn’t drink that.”
Mickey lowered his ears, ashamed. “There isn’t any fresh water, Lucky,” he said. “Surely this is safer than drinking from that poisoned river?”
Lucky tilted his head thoughtfully. He had to admit, Mickey had a point.
“We can’t rely on the rain.” He licked his chops uncertainly. “The Earth-Dog drinks it quickly, and what she leaves behind is fouled.”
“But Martha’s wounded,” said Mickey, looking at the big water-dog, who lay washing the bite on her leg with her tongue. “She can’t travel far.”
“I know!” Daisy leaped up brightly, tail wagging. “Remember we made that offering before, to the Sky-Dogs? Let’s do the same for the River-Dog now! If we send him a gift, perhaps he’ll clean the water for us!”
The little white dog’s head cocked and her tongue lolled. She looked so pleased with her suggestion, Lucky couldn’t bear to contradict her. He had never known the Spirit Dogs to intervene as quickly or obviously as that, but who was he to say they wouldn’t do so now, in these desperate times? The River-Dog might appreciate an offering, and if there was any dog in the Pack that he might have mercy for, it would be Martha, with her love of water and her big webbed paws.
“Well,” he said slowly, “it’s worth a try. But what will we give to the River-Dog?”
“Food!” Sunshine barked excitedly. “We’ll give him a rabbit—or a squirrel!”
Lucky stared at her, skeptical. “Food? Do you have any to spare?”