“Shep-dog no wait,” hissed Fuzz, who padded into the room. “Fuzz have idea.”
Shep sneered at the cat. Where’d he come from? “Why aren’t you out with Honey?” he asked.
“Ate bad bug last night,” Fuzz meowed. “Fuzz stomach like Shep-dog’s brain — full of knots.” He hissed a high-pitched cackle.
“Your idea?” Shep growled.
Fuzz shot Shep a snarky look, like Shep should have laughed at Fuzz’s insult. Then he hiss-barked his plan. “Dog-with-fur-for-nose have things all wrong,” he meow-barked. “Fuzz go down hole, then scare rats up to big snarl-and-drool dogs, yes? Then dog eat rat.”
Daisy sniffed the edge of the hole. “Could — snort — work,” she yapped. “Not like any dog has a better idea.”
Before any other dog could so much as grunt a response, Fuzz was through the broken window and down into the dark. There was some hissing, some squeaking, a loud meow, and then the first rat burst out from the window hole and scurried for the pile of food.
The stupid squeaker never knew what bit him, Jazz was on him so fast. With a snap of her jaw, the rat fell still. Jazz dropped it onto the kibble pile.
“One down, countless more kibbles to go!” she barked with excitement.
There was more meowing and hissing and squeaking, and soon the rats were popping out of the window hole like kibbles from a bag. The defense team tore into them, shredding each rat into bites for the food pile. Shep chased one intrepid rodent into the hall and massacred it against the wall, leaving a splatter of lifeblood.
As they ravaged the rats, a feeling welled up inside Shep. Not the blind fury of the fight cage, but a satisfaction, like the whole world was his for the sniffing. And it was different from the glow he felt after giving a speech and having all the dogs stare up at him. That glow also weighed him down like a golden collar — he shouldered so much responsibility when he led the pack. The rush he felt hunting down the squeakers was pure energy — light and fiery. Was this what Frizzle had felt all those suns ago? Shep felt like the whole world was full of good things, and that they were all for him. Attacking this measly rat, surrounded by strong dogs who listened to his barks — he was the Great Wolf.
The pack was glad for the extra rat-kibble that night, and Shep actually looked forward to the nightly meeting of the team leaders. Maybe tonight we won’t have to listen to Higgins whine about food rations.
Shep crossed the main den and overheard Ginny woofing to some other small dogs about Lassie. He heard his name mentioned, and the Great Wolf, and decided to eavesdrop on the group — he had a few heartbeats until the meeting started. He lay down behind an overturned couch so he could listen undetected.
Ginny’s squeaky bark pierced the darkness. “As Oscar has told us, when dogs most need guidance, the Silver Moon sends us a leader. First there was the Great Wolf, who saved dogs from turning wild, then came Lassie, who helped dogs and humans live together, and now, in our time of need, she has sent us Shep, the Storm Shaker.”
And then she launched into a story that sounded all too familiar to Shep.
There came a time when the sky chased the humans from their dens. Their fear of the angry sky drove them to leave quickly, and in their hurry, they were unable to bring more than they could carry on their bodies: They had to leave all their dogs behind.
Dogs had not lived on their own in many cycles. The Great Wolf saw their distress, and the fierce sky that threatened them, and knew something needed to be done. He curled himself tighter around the Silver Moon, and shook free some moonstuff. Then he searched for a dog who might be worthy of such a gift.
The Great Wolf saw the Storm Shaker on the street and watched. The Storm Shaker did not fear the winds and rain — he walked boldly through them. He cared for his fellow dogs — he traveled with a small companion. The Great Wolf decided to test the Storm Shaker’s muster. He fashioned the moonstuff into a vicious bird of prey and sent it to attack the companion. The Storm Shaker descended upon the bird in a fury of teeth and claws. The bird was easily vanquished and the companion saved. The Great Wolf knew then that he had found a worthy dog. He licked the hide of the Storm Shaker, and with that lick, gave him the magic moonstuff.
The Storm Shaker felt its power swell within him. Soon, no door or boundary could keep him from his task of saving trapped dogs. The sky raged, tearing buildings to pieces; the Storm Shaker raged, tearing doors from their hinges to free his packmates.
The fierce winds blew through the darkest caves under the city, and so strong did they blow that they reached the lair of the Black Dog. The winds carried the scent of the Great Wolf’s moonstuff on the Storm Shaker’s hide.
So the Great Wolf has chosen a champion, the Black Dog thought. I must smell this new hero. He slunk from the blackest shadows and crept after the scent.
The Storm Shaker’s scent led him to a building. The Black Dog wanted to scare the Storm Shaker, so he turned into a shrieking wind and attacked the building, tearing apart its walls. But the Storm Shaker was not afraid. He looked the fierce wind in the muzzle and snarled back at its whirling fangs.
The Black Dog was impressed by the Storm Shaker. He ruminated upon a new means to destroy the Great Wolf’s Champion. He scratched his black hide and stiff hairs fell onto the street. The Black Dog blew upon the hairs and they each grew into a snarling, snapping wild dog.
“Are you hungry, my children?” the Black Dog asked. And the newly grown dogs, grotesque and growling, howled their assent.
“Then you must find the Storm Shaker,” the Black Dog replied. “The Storm Shaker has stolen your kibble.”
The wild pack tore after the Storm Shaker’s scent. They found him in a cavernous den and attacked him with all their strength and ferocity. The Storm Shaker and his packmates fought bravely against the wild dogs. The Black Dog looked on, surprised by the Storm Shaker’s defense, and knew something more needed to be done. He licked the fur of one of his wild dogs, and that dog swelled to twice the size of a normal dog.
The monstrous girldog’s fangs glistened. “What is your bidding, master?” she snarled.
“You must defeat the Storm Shaker,” the Black Dog answered.
“It is done,” she growled.
The girldog, a full head taller than the rest of the wild pack, loped through their ranks, and the wild dogs stepped aside, letting her pass. The Storm Shaker stood tall, his ears forward and brave muzzle high.
“I do not want to fight my fellow dog,” the Storm Shaker barked, his voice clear and sonorous.
“Then I will kill you with a single bite,” the girldog snarled.
“I do not want to fight,” the Storm Shaker replied, “but I will always defend my pack, even if it means my very life.”
The girldog lunged at the Storm Shaker with her sharp fangs. The Storm Shaker spread his strong jaws and bit into her shaggy neck. With a jerk of his head, he took the life from the girldog. She withered like a popped Ball, then fell to the floor; she was again merely a hair.
The Black Dog bellowed with anger. He saw that these phantom dogs were no match for the Storm Shaker. He needed a real dog, and what better dog than the Storm Shaker’s best friend?
The Black Dog licked the hide of the friend, a proud dog named Zeus. The Black Dog coursed through Zeus’s veins like poison, and he became like the Black Dog — ruthless and wild.
“I challenge you!” Zeus cried. “I challenge the Storm Shaker!”
The Storm Shaker bowed his great head. A heavy sadness came over him. He did not want to fight his friend. But then he saw the frightened eyes of his packmates and knew that he had to defend them, no matter the cost.
The Storm Shaker answered the Black Dog Zeus’s challenge, and they fought a battle that shook the very earth their paws stood upon. Then the Storm Shaker reared, and crashed down on the Black Dog like a boulder, and Zeus fell still against the floor. The Black Dog’s spirit slithered out of Zeus, a vile shadow across the stone, and into the night, finally defeated.
The Storm Shaker stood over his friend, and wept. His packmates joined him and their tears flowed. Their sadness was so great, the tears became as a flood and washed over the city like a wave.
The Great Wolf, moved by the dogs’ mourning, took up Zeus’s spirit to join him as a companion of the Silver Moon. The Storm Shaker thanked the Great Wolf and pledged to always protect any animal who needed help. In return, the Great Wolf dried the flood of tears so that the dogs might live again in the city.
“All praise the Silver Moon,” moaned the other dogs. “All praise Shep.”
Shep was numb with shock. Oscar had made him into the Great Wolf’s Champion? What madness had taken hold of the pup?
The dogs rose and trotted off to their various beds. Shep emerged from the shadows just as Ginny was about to hop into her own nest of pillows.
“Shep!” she cried, flustered. “I hardly ever smell you at this end of the den.”
“What was that I just heard you saying to those dogs?” His bark trembled.
“Do you like it?” she woofed, tail waving and eyes sparkling with excitement. “It’s a story that Oscar and I have piled together. We thought that the dogs might like a story to help them in these dark times. ‘Storm Shaker.’ Isn’t that deliciously dramatic? It was my contribution!”
“But it’s crazy,” Shep woofed. “I’m made of moonstuff from the Silver Moon?”
“It’s not crazy,” Ginny said, standing tall, defensive. “Why is it crazy to want to believe your leader is powerful, and powerful in a way that no other dog could be? It gives the old dogs and the pups a mea sure of comfort to think of you as an all-powerful defender of the pack.”
Shep thought about this. He’d been comforted by the old timer’s tales of the Great Wolf back in the fight kennel. Why deny the members of his own pack a similar comfort?
“You’re right,” he woofed, dropping his stance. “Just remember to tell them that it’s only a story.”
“Of course,” Ginny yipped, standing again and waving her tail. “Every dog knows it’s just a story.”
On trembling paws, Shep sniffed out Callie in the room at the top of the table-ramp where the team leaders — Virgil, Higgins, and Honey (who was always accompanied by Fuzz) — met every night. Callie was the only one there. She sat staring up at the large window in the ceiling.
“I’m just finishing up telling Frizzle about my sun,” Callie barked, dropping her muzzle to look at Shep. “I always think of him, romping around with the Great Wolf, sparkling in the sky, the way we imagined him.” She looked out the window again. “Before the storm, there were always so many lights in the city, you could never see the lights in the sky. But now, it looks like the city is in the sky, and we’re caught in the darkness.”
Shep slapped his paw on the light switch and soft yellow lights began to glow. “Now it’s light,” he yipped, grinning, trying to hide how shaken he was by Ginny’s woofs.
Callie panted lightly. “That’s not what I mean, silly fur,” she barked. “Turn the lights off. I want to see the moonstuff glitter.”
Shep slapped the switch again, then padded to Callie’s side and looked up at the Great Wolf’s shimmering coat.
“I overheard Ginny telling this crazy story,” Shep woofed.
“I’ve heard it,” Callie yipped. “I thought you’d like it, being barked into the Great Wolf’s legend.”
“No,” Shep said quietly. “It’s not right. The Great Wolf’s legend is special. It means something to me.” Shep looked down at the shadows. “Oscar should have asked me before making up such scat.”
“It’s just a story,” Callie grunted.
But it wasn’t just a story, Shep wanted to woof. He really believed that the Great Wolf watched over him. The look on Callie’s muzzle, however, made clear that she had no idea what he was barking about. And he didn’t know how to make her smell that sometimes a story became more than just a story, that sometimes the story became real.
Callie and Shep sat there for several heartbeats, lost in their private trails of thought, no sound but the paw-slaps and chatter of the pack in the den beyond.
Higgins shuffled up the table-ramp, full of bad-smelling news. He waited for Virgil and Honey (and Fuzz), who were close on his tail, then began his grumbling.
First, there was the problem of food shortages.
“But we caught all those rats,” Shep moaned.
Higgins sniffled his furface. “It’s not that there’s not enough food for the pack,” he woofed. “It’s that the pack is constantly growing and most of the new dogs are half-starved, half-fur-brained with fear, or missing half their parts!”
“We’re all survivors of this storm,” snapped Honey, whose bark became a squeal as she became defensive. “Just because we find these dogs suns after the storm doesn’t mean they’re any less worthy of our help.”
“Boji’s losing patches of fur, she’s so frantic trying to heal the new recruits,” woofed Virgil.
“Maybe we need to reallocate the dogs,” Callie yipped. “Maybe some of the older dogs who can’t hunt can help Boji with wound licking? And then we can move some of the search and rescue dogs to hunting to help with getting more kibble.”
“But we also search for food,” whined Honey. “My team is the most important.”
“You’re bringing in less kibble every sun,” Higgins grumbled. “And most of what you bring me is rotten beyond being edible.”
“I can switch to hunting,” woofed Shep, remembering that warm feeling during the rat massacre. “The defense team is training itself at this point.”
“Good,” barked Callie. “Honey, I’m taking Rosie, Reggie, and Speckles from your team.”
Honey snorted, but Fuzz laid a paw on her tail and Honey quieted down.
Callie leaned her muzzle into Shep’s ear. “I think you should woof something to the crowd,” she snuffled, flicking her nose at the eyes glittering in the darkness along the table-ramp. Apparently, all their barking had attracted an audience. “Something reassuring,” Callie added.
The strength rushed from Shep’s legs. Hearing Ginny’s story had thrown Shep like a toy. No matter what he woofed, he felt like the pack would take it the wrong way, like he was barking a message from the Great Wolf himself.
Callie raised her eyebrows, waiting for him to begin.
Shep exhaled, his jowls loose. “No dog needs to worry,” he began loudly. “We’re going to have more hunters. I promise, your bellies will be full by the next sunset!”
The pack yipped and howled with excitement and the crowd broke up, happy tails wagging.
“That wasn’t exactly what I meant,” growled Callie.
“You said reassure them,” Shep snarled. “You don’t like what I woof, come up with something more specific for me to bark. You’ve never had a problem doing that.” He slunk down the table-ramp away from her.
Shep needed a scent of fresh air. The den suddenly felt small and stuffy. He wound his way through the dogs, ignoring the strange, awestruck looks on some of their muzzles as he passed, and bounded into the darkness. Near a small overturned boat by the water, he found Dover. Shep wagged his tail to ask if it’d be okay if he joined him, and Dover waved his tail that Shep could sit.
After many heartbeats, Shep interrupted the silence. “You sleep out here?” he woofed.
“It’s quieter,” the old timer replied.
Shep lay down and rested his snout on his paws. “Have you heard the stories?”
“About you?” Dover woofed, still looking out at the stars over the water.
Shep waved his tail.
“Yep,” Dover said, lying down beside Shep. “I’ve heard.”
“Should I stop Oscar and Ginny?”
“Not my Ball to catch,” Dover woofed. “You’ll know what to do when the time’s right.”
They lay beside each other under the glittering coat of the night sky. Every few heartbeats, a yapper-sized bat blacked out the Great Wolf’s fires as
it streaked through the dark. All around, crickets chirruped. A cat’s screech echoed from an alley. The chopping whump-whump sound of one of the whirly birds echoed off the pavement.
Shep woke at first light. Dover yawned beside him, then waved his tail to say good morning. Shep looked across the plaza and saw that Blaze was already Outside. She sat by one of the water-filled boats, watching him. She flicked her tail.
“I missed you last night,” she barked.
Shep rose, stretched, and loped to her side. “I’ve been assigned to your team,” he woofed, “so you’ll get to smell me all sun.”
“Finally ready to try your fangs at a real job?” she asked.
“Real job?” Shep said, and lapped up a mouthful of rainwater. “What’s so ‘real’ about your job? You’re catching birds, squirrels. I’ve seen Cars catch them.”
Blaze nipped his scruff. “Think you’re such a well-furred hunter, hero?” she snuffled in his ear. “I can’t wait to smell this.”
Shep nodded to the defense dogs on duty — Hulk and Paulie — as he trotted with Blaze out to where the hunting teams gathered. Callie sat woofing with Dover, and Blaze joined them. Shep followed.
“What do you think you’re doing?” yipped Callie.
“Just sniffing what’s happening.” Shep was confused — wasn’t he the alpha here?
“Get back with the trainees, Trainee Shepherd,” barked Blaze. “We have to fit you into one of the beginner teams.”
“Trainee?” Shep grumbled. “Beginner? I can catch more prey than any of these dogs.”
“Really?” woofed Dover. “Then don’t let us stand in your way.” He waved his snout toward the street. “Smell you at midsun.”
Shep loped away from the three, tail low. They think I need training, Shep grumbled as he walked down the Sidewalk. I’m a born hunter. I’ll show them.
The farther he got from the other dogs, the better he felt. It was good to be Outside, alone, where there were no other dogs to bark orders to, or to worry about, or to listen to tell fur-brained stories.