He opened his nose and fully scented the air. Things were breathing in all the shadows around him — warm, living things. Leaves rustled in a bush, giving away the hiding place of an iguana. Birds cooed in the shadows under the eaves of a toppled roof.
All mine, thought Shep.
He decided to go for the warm things on the ground. Shep focused his nose. His options were a chipmunk in the scrub between two buildings, a clutch of mice hidden under chunks of a broken wall, and a squirrel chattering in a tree off toward sunrise. Shep decided to go for the chipmunk.
He stretched his lean muscles. With a spring like a Car from a streetlight, Shep dove into the bush. The chipmunk, however, scurried out from his scrape in the dirt. Shep’s forelegs got tangled in the mesh of thin branches. He pulled himself out and darted after the rodent. It skittered under any object it could find, but Shep had its scent. He followed it down an alley. He had the thing cornered. It’s all over, my furry friend.
The chipmunk shoved its way under a pile of rubble near the fence in the middle of the alley. Shep flopped onto the pavement and dug frantically. The scent of chipmunk was every where. Every heartbeat drove the lifeblood faster through Shep’s body. His claws raked the stone and a splinter bit his paw pad. Still, he fought to snag the chipmunk’s fur.
Then the scent was farther away. Shep struggled out and up, only to see the chipmunk, a blur of red-brown, running full speed down the alley on the opposite side of the fence.
Frustrated, Shep swiped at the pile of rubble, toppling part of it, and found himself nose to snout with one of the scaly floor-sucker tube creatures. It snapped its dark brown tube-body into a tight coil, raised its tail, and opened its wide, white mouth. Shep was unsure whether to run or bite. He growled at the tube and it shook its tail, creating an awful stench. Shep choked and stumbled back. The tube lowered its tail and uncurled slightly.
Giving up so easily, my scaly kibble? Shep thought, and prepared for a second assault.
“Step back,” growled Blaze from behind him. “Use small steps until you’re a stretch away, then run.”
“From a tube?” Shep needed one, maybe two bites at most, to sever its neck.
“That thing’s a snake,” snuffled Blaze, “and it’s a killer. One bite and a dog’s done.”
Her bark trembled and her ears were flat against her head. Shep had never smelled her so scared. He stepped away slowly, then ran. Blaze dashed behind him, close on his tail.
“A snake killed one of my herding partners,” she woofed as they slowed to a trot. She looked at him with her sparkling eyes; in the sunlight, they seemed flecked with gold.
“I can take one measly snake bite,” Shep said, grinning. He wanted to make her smile.
Blaze licked his nose. “Let’s start you out hunting something a little less dead-making than a snake, okay, hero?” She loped ahead. “At least until you’re not outwitted by a chipmunk.”
“Outwitted?” Shep barked. “No way. The thing cheated! It ran under the trash pile!”
Blaze tipped her head slightly. “That’s cheating?” she yipped. “If that’s how you want to smell it, I won’t tell any dog different.” She smiled, then flicked her tail and ran down an alley.
They stopped in the street near one of the hunting teams. The leaders had organized the dogs on each team into different jobs. The lead dog was the best scent-spotter and identified all the possible prey, indicating the animals’ hiding spots with a flick of the snout or tail. The remaining dogs broke off into pairs: one dog to scare the prey from its hiding place, the other to catch it as it tried to escape the first. At the rear of the group was the general tracker. If the prey escaped any of the pairs, that dog gave the prey chase until the pair could catch up and finish the job. It was a good system. Certainly better than Shep’s method of singular failure. He spotted a bird, bounded after it, and ended up getting a mouthful of feathers.
Blaze caught up with him panting beneath the shadow of the escaping bird. “Not as easy as you thought?” she woofed.
Shep licked slobber from his jowls, and woofed between pants, “They’re faster — pant pant — than they look — pant pant —”
“You’re more of a rabbitter than a bird dog,” Blaze said. “Come with me.”
Shep followed Blaze through the alleys and copied her actions. If she sniffed a crevice, Shep’s nose was on that spot the next heartbeat. Blaze explained that most of the rabbits were escaped pets, and thus were easy prey. “If you can find them,” she woofed, grinning.
Shep drew the scents of the street into his nose. He smelled each nuance of odor: the particular scent of the pool of water beneath a plastic sheet, indicating that it was three suns old; the stinging, sweet reek of a rotted piece of fruit; and the warm breath of life — a rabbit. It huddled, heart racing, only a stretch away under a stumpy palm tree.
Shep sank to his paws, chest to stone, and crept forward. He spotted all of the rabbit’s possible escape routes: forward, into the street; back down the alley; it wouldn’t come toward him, and it couldn’t scamper away from him because there was a wall. The rabbit will go for the street.
Shep barked to scare it out from under the bush. The rabbit bolted for the street as Shep had planned. He sprang over the bush and landed on the creature’s back. With a single bite of his powerful jaws, the rabbit fell still.
Shep dropped the little animal and stood panting over it. He felt that warmth running through him again — not the blind fear and rage of fighting or the weighty glow of being the alpha, but a strength from deep within. Like he was doing what his body was meant to do.
“You feel it, don’t you?” Blaze woofed. She’d crept up beside him. “That fire under your fur? It’s what I felt herding my beasts at the farm, what my man brought out in me.” She sniffed his scruff. “I can smell that fire in you now. You’re alive.”
Shep did feel alive, more alive than he’d ever felt before. And this made him terribly sad. He’d been so happy with his boy — was that happiness a lie? Blaze’s man had brought out the fire in her. Why didn’t the boy bring out my fire?
“What’s wrong?” Blaze woofed, head tilted. “You seemed so happy a heartbeat ago.”
Shep licked his jowls and pushed that terrible trail of thought from his mind. “I am happy,” he said. “Let’s do some more hunting.”
Blaze grinned and waved her tail. “That’s my hero,” she yipped.
Shep picked up his rabbit and followed her down the street.
As they hunted, Blaze’s banter changed from tips on finding rabbits to other advice. “Your team should warn the pack about water lizards,” she woofed. “I saw one skulking across the street, following a wild dog who tried to bite it.”
“Water lizards can leave the water?” Shep asked, scratching at what he swore was a white tail under a heap of garbage.
Then her last woofs registered like a Car to the skull. He stood slowly. “Did you say wild dog?” he barked. “Why didn’t you get me? It could have attacked. There could be more!”
“You were out of the den, in one of your meetings, not around,” Blaze yipped over her tail, as if it were nothing to see a wild dog. “I told Callie about it,” she woofed. “Don’t tell me she didn’t tell you.”
Shep didn’t answer; his mind raced. The wild dogs had crossed the canal. The wild dogs were nearby. And Callie hadn’t told him.
They found another rabbit, but Shep was so distracted he could barely get a claw on it before it scuttled deep under an overturned metal box. They returned to the den with the one carcass, exhausted. The other hunters hadn’t had much better luck and every dog went to bed with a grumbling belly.
At the meeting that night, Shep confronted Callie about the wild dog.
She startled at his question. “Yes, Blaze told me,” Callie answered, her bark wavering.
“And you didn’t tell me?” Shep snarled.
“To be honest, I forgot,” she woofed, sounding tired. “Who knows if it was a wild dog o
r just another lost pet? We have bigger problems.”
“What could be bigger than wild dogs?” Shep barked, hysterical. “Have you forgotten what happened in the kibble den?”
Callie flattened her ears and lowered her tail. “How could you ask me that?” she growled. “No, I haven’t,” she continued, “but we have new problems, like starving and injured dogs.”
“We deemed it a minor annoyance,” Higgins snuffled. “And we figured, smelling as you’ve become so — grr, close to Blaze, she would have told you herself.”
“I alerted the defense team,” yipped Virgil humbly. “We’ve been on an extra alert watch for strange dogs.”
Shep stared into the muzzles of each dog. They’d all known, and none had told him. “Aren’t I the alpha of this pack?” he growled. “Shouldn’t every thing be run by me?”
Callie cocked her head. “Why are you so concerned about being alpha all of a sudden?” she snarled. “I thought we were a team.”
“Well, then act like it, instead of letting me find out about something this important suns after it happens!”
“Fine,” Callie snapped. “You want to hear about things, here you go.” She rattled off all the problems facing the pack. Dogs were dying of serious injuries Boji hadn’t the faintest scent of how to fix. Food was scarce. The hunters weren’t killing enough kibble.
Higgins sat tall as if bracing for battle. “In my humble opinion, I don’t smell why we’re searching for new dogs at all. We can’t even feed the ones we’ve rescued.”
Honey sprang to her paws, ears and tail flat. “These dogs are trapped! Desperate! We’re their only hope!” She was barking so loud every dog in the den had to have heard her.
Shep knew it wouldn’t be popular among a pack full of rescues to inform them that their leaders were abandoning the effort. But what about food?
“We won’t stop rescuing entirely,” Callie woofed. “But we need to cut back on the number of dogs doing it and retrain them as hunters.”
“You’ve already taken three,” Honey whined.
Fuzz, however, purred and nodded his pointy head.
Virgil raised his snout. “I should report that I’ve heard dogs barking about this group,” he woofed. “Seems that some in the pack are confused as to who’s the leader.”
“What does that matter?” yapped Higgins. “If there’s one leader or a hundred, it shouldn’t matter so long as the den’s safe and there’s kibble.”
“But there isn’t kibble, and there was another rat attack last night.” Callie sighed, then shook herself, nose to tail. “Would it help, you think, to have Shep make announcements after each meeting?” She wasn’t looking at Shep, but rather at Higgins and Virgil.
“Shouldn’t I be the one making that decision?” Shep growled.
“Fine,” Callie snapped. “Do you want to make a nightly speech?”
Shep looked at the little girldog who stood fiercely at his paws. She looked beyond tired, like she hadn’t slept in suns.
“When was the last time you took a nap?” Shep asked quietly.
Callie’s stance sagged. “I don’t remember.” She sat down, then began to scratch limply at her ear. “How long since we came to this den?”
“Too long,” yapped Higgins.
“If you think nightly barks will help, I’m willing to try,” Shep snuffled.
“Good,” sighed Callie. “Tonight, we should also put to the pack whether to expand our food hunt to plants. I can tally the vote.”
“Plants?” woofed Higgins, screwing up his little furface with disgust.
“Yes,” answered Callie. “I think we could find some edible plants. There’s a plant that grows in the verge near the canal that’s very crisp and full of nice watery juice. And I think we should let the pack decide, since they’re the ones who are going to have to eat it.”
“But they’ll never agree,” whined Shep. Just the thought of all those dogs barking “Yay, plants!” or “Not until the slobber has dried on my dead jowls!” set his belly groaning.
“Agree or no,” woofed Callie, “isn’t that the kind of pack you started?”
Shep thought about how much he regretted forcing the pack to let the cat join them; he should have let every dog vote on that decision. But the pack had been so small then. He could have guessed every dog’s vote before they made it; he would have known what to say to make the idea appeal to each of them. Now, after so many suns and so many new rescues, he didn’t even know how many dogs lived in the boat, let alone their opinions. Leaving any decision open to a vote was like chasing a rabbit through water in the dark — he had no idea what he’d end up with.
The rest of the leaders were waiting for him to woof. “Fine,” he groaned. However fur-raising the prospect of letting the entire pack vote was, Shep knew it was the right thing to do.
Shep barked for order that night. It was steamy inside the den and several dogs had to be howled in from where they lounged in the cool evening breeze on the plaza. Once every dog was inside, Shep put the plant issue out for a vote. In a heartbeat, all the dogs were barking and yowling, some simply yelping out of nerves. Shep and the defense team used every dominance trick they knew to get the pack quiet again.
Shep turned to Callie, who sat beside him. “I think that’s a ‘no’ to plants.”
Callie nodded her snout. “Let them get hungry enough,” she woofed. “They’ll be begging for plants in a few suns.”
Blaze found Shep after the meeting. “What was that vote nonsense about?” she yipped as they walked to the lower level.
“That was a pack making a decision,” he growled, tired and not in the mood for a fight.
“I smell you’re not happy with the results?” Blaze said, stepping back.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m happy,” Shep barked. “It’s the pack’s decision.” He pulled himself into their den room and curled up in the corner. “Callie thinks they’ll agree to eating plants once they’re hungry enough.”
“You’re the alpha. Why not just tell the pack they’re going to eat plants?” Blaze woofed, following him. “Why all this playing around with voting?”
“Because that’s how it’s done.” Shep wished he had a better retort.
“That’s not how it’s done where I come from,” Blaze grumbled. “On the beast farm, the master whistles, and the dog obeys.”
“Enough with the beast farm,” Shep snapped. “We’re not on the farm, there are no men, and no beasts.”
Blaze’s eyes were wide and her ears were flat on her head. “You don’t need to remind me of that, hero.”
Shep sighed — he hadn’t meant to snap at her. Of course things would have been easier if he’d just howled that they were eating plants and that was the end of it. But he was also glad that the pack made the decision. Now, they had only themselves to blame for the lack of plant kibble — if such a thing existed — and when it was offered to them later, they might give it a try. If he’d just forced it on them, they might have revolted. Shep recalled when his boy tried to shove bitter pills down his throat and how angry he’d been and how much of a betrayal it’d felt like. The last thing Shep wanted was to have a boat full of dogs feeling that way toward him.
“I’m no dog’s master,” he woofed to Blaze. “We’re all equals in this pack.”
Blaze snorted, and curled up in the opposite corner to sleep.
Though Shep was eager to hunt again, over the next few suns he had to devote most heartbeats to helping the defense team ward off an onslaught of Outsiders. Whether it was the concentration of food in the kibble room, or the fact that most of the pack loitered in the shade Outside every sun because it was too hot inside the boat — whatever the reason, other animals had decided that it was a good time to sneak in and cause problems.
Rat attacks were followed by an infestation of bugs the size of Shep’s paw. Shep’s first plan was to have the big dogs sniff out the insects, then get Daisy and Waffle to chase the bugs into the open where the
others could help squash them. This turned out to be a more disgusting plan than he’d anticipated, as the bugs exploded into piles of goo when bitten. Plus, Mooch, Panzer, and Paulie were afraid of the shiny, scuttling invaders.
A few old timers who weren’t assigned to a team saw the big dogs retching and cringing, and asked if they could help with the bug hunt.
“We all would love to eat some insects,” yipped an old timer Chihuahua named ChaCha.
“Please!” groaned Shep as he scraped bug guts off his tongue with his teeth. “Eat them all!”
The old timers hobbled and hacked their way through the den in pursuit of their antennae-ed prey. A weepy-eyed poodle named Mr. Pickles nearly choked on one victim. He came sputtering out from under a broken chair with a huge smile on his jowls wheezing, “The old pickle’s all right!”
All the old timers seemed grateful to have a job to do.
“It’s nice to dig your paws into something,” ChaCha yipped. “Most suns, I feel about as useful as a broken collar.”
When Fuzz heard about the bug hunt, he also offered a paw. The last thing Shep wanted was the meower hissing at him, but Virgil agreed that Fuzz could help before Shep could so much as woof. Much to Shep’s surprise, Fuzz seemed as happy as the old timers to scamper after the insects.
“Bugs taste crunchy-good,” Fuzz growled, a thin stick of leg protruding from his short jowls. “Big dogs not understand what food they miss.”
Shep loved being around all the old timers. He couldn’t help but wag his tail as he watched them frisk about like pups, yelping “Here’s another one!” and “This scrapper’s trying to fly!” It reminded him of how nice it’d been when the pack was smaller and less of a weight around his neck. Back when he could just play. Back when he was just another dog, and not some all-knowing alpha or mystical Champion. Shep was almost sorry when the last of the disgusting creatures was gulped down.
The next morning, a water lizard was sighted sunning itself on the ramp to the canal. The defense team managed to scare it off with a group barking attack; however, for the rest of the sun, no dog wanted to leave the den for fear of being eaten. By midsun, the mob was moaning about how thirsty they were. Shep thought it might help if the defense team dragged one of the water boats closer to the den, but the team jerked the hull too hard and the boat broke. Water spilled out in a torrent onto the sizzling street. Every dog in the den howled with anger at the loss.