They did look like excellent shelters. . . .
“The River-Dog must have done this,” announced Martha. “He wasn’t angry last night at all. He answered us, and dug these holes for us to hide in. Your idea worked, Mickey!”
“Thanks to you, Martha,” he said a little shyly.
“We asked the River-Dog for clean water,” said Sunshine, “and he’s given us that, too!”
Lucky cocked his head in surprise as he watched Bruno stride to the water’s edge. He dipped his head toward the water, gulping happily. Then he raised his dripping muzzle to look proudly at him.
“Are you sure?” Hesitantly Lucky padded forward and sniffed. “It does smell a bit better,” he agreed. But he wasn’t sure the river was entirely pure yet. There was a lot more water after the storm, and it had spread. Maybe the poison was hiding, preparing to come back and strike them later?
He wouldn’t give voice to his doubts for now. It was nice to see the Leashed Dogs looking happy and confident after their terror in the storm. Their certainty in the River-Dog’s help could do nothing but good for their mood.
Martha plunged into the water, right up to her shoulders, looking delighted to have a chance to swim once more and bathe her injured leg. Daisy and Sunshine watched happily from the shallows, less inclined to fling themselves in. Leaving them to their high-spirited splashing and lapping, Lucky wandered back to the exposed caves.
Bella came quietly to his side, sniffing and gazing at the great holes with him. “They look like they might be useful,” she murmured. “But I’m not sure I’d want to stay in them for very long.”
“Just what I was thinking,” Lucky agreed. “After all, there’s no saying the river can’t rise again. If it does, it might wash away anything inside these caves.”
“Just like it washed away the mud that was here,” said Bella with a shiver.
“Still, they’ll make a good temporary camp.” Lucky ventured inside one, and pawed gently at the wall, leaving shallow scratch-marks. “It will do the others good to rest for a while.”
“Yes.” Bella averted her eyes. “I’m sorry about what happened during the Sky-Dogs’ fight, Lucky. We . . . I panicked.”
Lucky nodded. There seemed to be nothing to say. Bella obviously understood how dangerous their pointless frenzy had been. She’d know to stay calm next time, he thought. At least, he hoped so. “I wonder where you should go after this though, Bella—” He froze, interrupted by a dreadful sound: a sickening, choking, heaving growl. As he and Bella turned, another guttural noise rattled his ears—a monstrous retching.
“What is—”
“Bruno!” Bella cried.
As they bolted toward him, the thickset dog gave one last ghastly heave, spewing thick, evil-smelling chunks from his mouth. Then he collapsed onto his side, his paws flailing weakly. The rest of the Pack crowded around, and Lucky shouldered his way through, shoving them aside. Standing over Bruno, he stared down in horror. The burly dog’s lips had turned a ghastly color, and lumps of the foul chunks clung to his mouth and gasping jaws. He was drooling nasty-smelling foam. His breaths made it sound as though his throat was twisted and knotted.
There’s rottenness inside him! thought Lucky, feeling a burn of dread in his body. Like a spoil-box—but a living one!
He knew what to do, although he had never done it before. Lucky lunged for the struggling dog, slamming his head into Bruno’s heaving belly. Before the others could object, he did it again. Then the Pack was pawing at him, yelping and barking.
“Lucky, don’t!”
“Leave him alone! What are you doing?”
Shaking them off, Lucky growled and head-butted Bruno again, making the dog thrash and squirm. Again and again he slammed his skull into Bruno’s gut, ignoring the protests.
Then Bruno gave a great, retching cough, spraying more foul chunks from his mouth. The mess hit the ground like rain as the sick dog’s head lolled back.
Lucky drew back, trembling. Bruno’s eyes had lost their glazed, dead look, but he didn’t stir from the ground, and his weak breathing was still a horrible hacking rasp.
“What was that?” whispered Bella. “Lucky, what did you do to him?”
Lucky shook his head. “The sickness had to come out of him, and that was the only way to do it. Old Hunter told me the secret. I never had to use it until now.”
Daisy looked stunned. “But what—what would it have done to him?”
“It can kill a dog,” said Lucky. “But not if he spits it out. Haven’t you heard of this?”
The others exchanged embarrassed glances, and Lucky sighed. “No,” he said. “Your longpaws would just take you to that vet of yours, wouldn’t they? The longpaw-healer?”
“Yes.” Mickey seemed dazed, too. “It’s a good thing you were here, Lucky.”
Bella nuzzled him gratefully. “It is. Or we’d have been giving Bruno to the Earth-Dog along with Alfie.”
“Bruno’s still very sick,” Lucky pointed out, as Bruno tried and failed to lift his great fierce head. “We’ll have to take care of him for a while.” He added quietly to Bella alone, “And Martha’s leg is still healing. Which means we should not be doing any difficult traveling, anyway.”
Bella whined in agreement. “That’s true. But what made Bruno so sick?”
“It must have been the water he drank.”
“I was afraid of that.” Bella’s head dipped for just a moment, but Lucky’s litter-sister was not going to be sad for too long. She picked it up again and addressed the Pack. “Everyone, remember you mustn’t drink the river-water. It is still not safe for dogs.”
The atmosphere was subdued as the others slowly dispersed to investigate their new, temporary territory. Lucky wished there was something he could say to make them all feel better, but what could that be? Without him, they would not have a chance of surviving at all. As long as they needed him, he would have to stay.
However long it takes, he promised himself.
“Lucky! Bella!”
Daisy had wandered away, unwilling to watch poor Bruno’s agony, but now her bark was urgent.
What now? thought Lucky, as a thrill of fear rippled through his skin. If they were under attack, with Bruno so sick and vulnerable, and Martha injured, they were in big trouble. . . .
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lucky’s tense muscles sagged with relief as he turned to see Daisy’s head sticking out of one of the caves. She looked a little excited but unafraid.
“Look in here, quick!” she barked. “And bring Bruno. There’s clean water—really clean. There’s a sort of bowl in the rock, and some rain has gathered.”
“Well spotted, Daisy,” said Bella. “Now let’s get Bruno into the cave. You too, Martha. You need to rest that leg.”
With some difficulty they managed to drag Bruno’s limp bulk into the cave; his claws scrabbled on the cave floor as he tried to help them, but to little effect. Once inside, they managed to roll Bruno onto his belly so that he could lap at the pure rainwater. Only when he and Martha had drunk their fill did the others line up to do the same.
Mickey poked his black-and-white nose out of the cave. His ears were pricked high with excitement. “Lucky, come and see what I’ve found!”
Lucky trotted over curiously to where Mickey was nosing at small objects on the cave floor. He heard Bella walking after him.
Mickey’s eyes were shining brightly. “Do you see?”
“I’m not sure.” Lucky wished he could be as enthusiastic as Mickey, if only to make the whole day more cheerful for everyone, but all he could do was paw at a piece of twisted metal, cocking his head to the side. “What are they?”
“Bella, you see it, don’t you?” Mickey nudged a stone bowl, making it roll and clatter to Bella’s feet. “These are longpaw things!”
Bella cocked her head and gave a happy bark. “You’re right! Look, here’s one of those skin covers that they would put over their bottom paws before they went for walks.” She picke
d it up delicately in her teeth and showed it to Lucky.
“So what?” asked Lucky, bewildered. “We’re not very far from the city—”
“Don’t you see?” yelped Mickey. “When the water washed the mud away, and showed us all this—it wasn’t the River-Dog at all. It was our longpaws—they’re still watching over us!”
Lucky gave a soft growl of disapproval. He hadn’t always been very good at keeping in touch with the Spirit Dogs, and sometimes he’d been less than respectful, but what Mickey was saying sounded like an outright insult to the River-Dog.
Still, the others didn’t seem to notice that. They were beginning to crowd around Mickey. Martha, still favoring her injured leg, limped over as fast as she could. When she’d had a thorough sniff at the longpaw relics, she confirmed exactly what Lucky had been thinking.
“You shouldn’t doubt the River-Dog, Mickey,” she said. “He’s been good to us.”
“He made Bruno sick,” grunted Mickey, but he didn’t meet her eyes.
“I’m not sure either.” Daisy sat back on her haunches, inspecting Mickey’s haul. “If our longpaws were near, wouldn’t they come to get us?”
“Maybe they can’t,” objected Mickey, gathering the longpaw things into a tidy pile. He had moved his own longpaw glove to lie with them, Lucky noticed. “Maybe this is their way of telling us they still care, even though they can’t come for us. And they’ve given us shelter, and water! See? Even the hollow in the floor looks like my old longpaw bowl that they gave me to drink from!”
“I’ve never heard such nonsense,” muttered Lucky, and Sunshine and Daisy gave him uncertain looks.
“And I still trust in the River-Dog!” declared Martha firmly.
But Mickey showed no sign of being swayed by her argument. “They’re protecting us,” he growled, “and they’re watching over us. That means they’ll come back!”
“Oh, Mickey—do you really think so?” Sunshine yipped.
Daisy barked excitedly. “Perhaps it is true! Yes, maybe the longpaws still want to keep us safe!”
Lucky shook his head as the two small dogs bounced and yapped with happiness. They clearly wanted to believe that Mickey was right, that the longpaws were looking after them even from far away. He sighed to himself. There seemed to be no convincing these Leashed Dogs that they were on their own now. He might have said this out loud, but Bella nudged his shoulder before he could.
“Come with me, Lucky,” she said softly. “While the others are distracted. There’s something I want you to see.”
Lucky paced after his litter-sister as she led him out of the caves and away from their camp. There was a thin copse of trees a few paces up from the bank, where the ground was soft and wet.
“Here.” Bella stopped and sat down, nodding her head at something on the ground. She looked very solemn—almost afraid.
Lucky bent his nose to the paw prints. He felt a shiver of nerves, and couldn’t help jerking his head back, but then he sniffed again.
The paw prints were from a small dog, and that at least was reassuring. What was more worrying was that they seemed fresh, as if they’d been made only hours ago, but try as he might, Lucky could pick up almost no scent at all, just the smell of river-water. He took the deepest breath through his nostrils that he possibly could, but still there was nothing.
The print had not been made by one of his own Pack, but that was all Lucky could figure out.
It’s as if some kind of ghost dog has passed by, he thought.
But ghost dogs did not leave prints in the mud. Lucky shook his head and growled with frustration. He had no idea if the dog was still close, even, or if it was long gone and far away.
So perhaps they had better not hang around. . . .
“Lucky, I’m scared.” Bella, beside him, echoed his own thoughts too closely, and his neck prickled.
“There are other dogs nearby,” he said. “That’s for sure.”
“Bruno has been poisoned, and Martha is still hurt. Our two best fighters. And even if no one else drinks the river-water, they will probably still get sick from having nothing to drink at all! There isn’t enough water gathering in that cave—if it doesn’t rain tonight, we’ll be right back where we started. And we haven’t hunted for a while. We’re going to need food soon!”
This wasn’t just Bella’s cry of despair, Lucky realized; there was the gleam of an idea in his litter-sister’s eye. With a sense of foreboding, he licked his chops. “What are you suggesting?” he asked her.
Bella lay down on her forepaws. She gazed up at him with determined eyes. “We have to get to that other Pack’s water supply. And we have to be able to share it. We have to have water, and we have to be allowed to hunt in this valley!”
This was typical Bella thinking, thought Lucky, half in admiration and half in sheer irritation. His litter-sister always wanted to do the impossible thing, always sure she could have her way by sheer force of will. Stalling for time, he gave the prints another sniff.
Still nothing.
“Bella,” he told her, trying to keep his tone as reasonable as possible. “Don’t you remember what happened to Alfie?”
“Of course I do!”
“Then think!” he yelped. “The dogs in that Pack aren’t going to change their minds just because one of us has fallen sick! All that means to them is there’s one less dog that they have to fight!”
Bella glanced over her shoulder, as if checking to make sure no one else had come close. When she turned back, her eyes had that stubborn look he dreaded. “And that’s exactly why we need to insist on sharing the lake and the hunting.”
“No—it’s why you need to get away from here. That Pack is vicious and ruthless. There is no way you will ever persuade them to share their territory. That’s how Packs work in the Wild. Bella, you have to figure out how to tell when you’re picking a fight you can’t win.”
Her lips curled back over her teeth. “I won’t let them drive us away. We’ve survived this long, out in the wild without any longpaws to take care of us! I won’t give up now. We can do this.”
“But you don’t need to be so stubborn!” Lucky didn’t want to lose his temper with her, so he concentrated for a few moments on scraping sandy earth across the mysterious paw prints. He didn’t want anyone else seeing them and panicking. “You wouldn’t be letting them drive you away. You’d be steering clear of them so that they won’t kill you and the others. You would be making the smart decision.”
“No.” Bella’s face had that stubborn look about it, the one Lucky remembered from their days in the Pup-Pack. “This time it’ll be different.”
Lucky barked at her. “How?”
She didn’t avert her eyes from his. “Because now, we will go in with a plan. Last time I couldn’t think straight to argue properly with that Pack leader. But I will make him listen to me.”
“He won’t wait to listen,” Lucky growled through his own bared teeth. “He will just drive you off, no questions asked or answered. That’s if he doesn’t kill you first.”
“No.” Bella sat up, staring directly at him. “I said I had a plan, and I do. It’s a good one, Lucky.”
“Don’t be ridiculous—”
“One of us needs to infiltrate that other Pack,” she interrupted. “To become a member, so that they can speak for us as one of them. Do you see now, Lucky?”
There was triumph in her voice, and Lucky let out a low growl.
“The other Pack never laid eyes on you, because you weren’t in the fight.” Bella paused, her eyes narrowing as she stared at him. “Because you had left us.”
Lucky’s jaws clenched. Part of him resented that Bella was trying to make him feel bad about that, but another part of him felt that she was right to be angry with him. After all, he had his own guilty secret. How could he explain to her that one of the dogs from that other Pack had seen him? And that this dog knew exactly who he was, and maybe even knew him as well as Bella did?
There w
as no way to explain this to his litter-sister now, not without raising questions to which Lucky was not sure he had the answers. Perhaps if he had told them at the very beginning, when he found Bella and the others under that tangle of roots, but now?
Impossible.
Lucky fell silent, torn by conflicting loyalties, but Bella seemed not to notice his sudden unease. He could sense her hide prickling in excitement as she pondered her plans, her tail thumping the ground enthusiastically.
“You’ll make friends with them,” she continued. “You’ll earn their trust. You’re good at making dogs like you. Once they do, you’ll be able to get them to let us share their water. If that doesn’t work, you’re clever enough to find a way for us to get at the lake without them realizing! It’s a good plan, Lucky!”
“It’s a crazy plan,” he grumbled. “How long do you expect me to spy for you?”
“Oh . . . just until we’re back to our full strength,” she told him airily. “When Martha’s leg has healed and Bruno’s feeling better, we can make our move—if the other Pack still doesn’t want us here, we’ll be able to go somewhere else. It’s only for now, Lucky. You know how desperate we are. You will do it, won’t you?” She looked at him with pleading eyes.
Would he? He hated the idea. He didn’t want to be a spy; he didn’t want to pretend he was something he was not. But if he refused Bella’s request, he would be letting down his litter-sister, and the rest of the Leashed Dogs.
If he agreed, he would have to deceive Sweet.
Bella was right. Martha and Bruno needed food and water and a place to rest, and how else were they going to get it? And there was no other member of Bella’s Pack who could do this. Not only was he the only dog the Wild Pack hadn’t seen, Lucky was the only one of them who had a chance of succeeding.
He was a cunning street dog.
Lucky sighed and sat down, ears drooping. “Yes, Bella. I’ll do it. You know I will.”
“Great,” said Bella. “Now, I spotted something before that other Pack attacked us. Farther up the valley—about five or six rabbit-chases—there’s an old longpaw camp. It’s just like the ones I used to go to sometimes, with my own longpaws. They went there to play and eat—you know, there were places for dogs to chase balls, and wooden tables, and big pits where the longpaws made fire.”