The Pack (6 page)

She barked at the young man to let her at the beasts, that she knew she could beat them; instead, the man walked her around the whole property, letting her sniff the new smells. The next sun, he put her in a pen with a few of the massive creatures. Blaze scampered up to them, but the beasts didn't move. She wanted them to move, needed them to move so she could collect them for her man, show him that she knew she was these creatures' master. She sniffed at the paw of one of the animals. The beasts' fur ended in a cloven, bony toe, so Blaze nipped at the tender skin just above that horny bit. The beast gave a snort, then lumbered a step forward. Success!

The man then whistled at her, and she remembered that the whistle — high, two blasts — meant to run to one side of the man. He whistled like that again, and Blaze nipped the beasts to move to that side. The man leapt to his feet and fed her a treat. He went through each of the whistles he'd taught her, and Blaze realized that they were never meant to direct her, but to tell her what to do with the fat, snorty beasts.

The man made her practice on the few beasts in the pen for two more suns. Each evening, Blaze lay on the porch of the man's den and looked out at the masses of beasts in the fields, longing to try her skills on such a test.

On the third sun, he took her out into the open grassland. Racing with the beasts, driving them first one way, then the other, staring down charging strays — it was like discovering that the fur she'd always worn was a mere blanket covering the fiery stuff beneath. Lifeblood pounded through her, and she slept each night the dreamless sleep of a happy dog.

There were a few other dogs working on the big herds, and they accepted Blaze as a partner. They were never a pack — each dog kept to herself. But they were friendly enough, and good workers. Some of the men kept dogs other than their herding dogs. Those men would put the other dogs in an empty stall at night to make them fight. Those fight dogs were kept apart from Blaze and her partners.

“It sounded like the end of the world sometimes, listening to those fights,” Blaze snuffled.

Shep knew exactly what she meant.

“So how did you end up here?” Shep woofed.

Blaze panted, grinning. “My man came here a few suns before the storm to visit his kin,” she yipped. “Funny how a chance thing like taking a vacation can lead to such a disaster.”

The winds had howled as loud as the big-wheeled farm machines. The gusts clattered the glass in the windows. Blaze's man and his kin huddled in the dark around the kitchen table, where several candles flickered. There was a pounding at the door; Blaze barked fiercely at the noise. She scented that her man was anxious, and that the knocking only made him more upset.

The man answered the door, holding Blaze back by her collar. Several strangers dressed in green uniforms burst into the room and began shouting commands. The man yelled at the strangers, clutching Blaze to his chest, and the strangers yelled back. Blaze barked and snapped at one of the green men. Something changed after that. She was dragged by one of the strangers in green away from her man and locked in the Bath room. The door was opened a few heartbeats later and a bag of kibble was tossed inside. She heard her man shouting, then the rumble of footsteps and the slam of the door, and then only the wind.

Blaze smelled the air shifting; she knew she had to get out of that den and rescue her man. She broke the door to the room she'd been trapped in, then smashed through a window to escape. She roamed the streets sniffing for her man, but couldn't pick up his scent. When the winds became unbearable, she found shelter under a boxy den near the canal. Then she smelled a strange salt scent in the air — the wave.

She ducked out from under the den and saw the water rising in the canal. A Car lay on its back near the building she'd hidden under. Blaze climbed onto the Car, and scrambled onto the den-building's roof. The winds tore at her fur, and the rain soaked her, and she knew that she clung to her life by a claw. Then the wave smashed into the den beneath her and flattened it. The roof, however, floated on top of the water in a single piece. Blaze rode the roof like a boat until it smashed into a stone wall on the other side of the canal. She clambered onto that stone building and waited until the water washed away.

“After the wave, I tried to keep moving, but that fire inside me had been blown out by the storm.” She licked her jowls and sighed. “I'll never find my man, never get to smell my home or my partners and the beasts again.” She pawed a sheet of rusted metal and a shiny cockroach skittered out of a puddle and under another piece of trash. “All I have left is this wasteland full of scuttling things.”

Shep licked her nose. “And me,” he woofed.

Blaze licked his nose back. “And your pack of yappers,” she yipped.

“
Our
pack of yappers,” he barked.

Shep and Blaze headed back toward the bus. As they loped through the scattered buildings and piles of rubble, Shep told Blaze his story: about the fight kennel, about rescuing the dogs, about the fight at the kibble den, and finally about how much he missed his boy.

“I'd give my front paw to smell my boy again,” Shep woofed.

“I feel like I lost my front paw when the green strangers took my man from me,” Blaze said, sighing.

They went on about their humans, what they were like and the silly things they did, like wearing shoes and watching the light-window. It made Shep happy to tell Blaze all about his boy, and to hear about her man. The only other dog he really barked with was Callie, and she only ever woofed about the stuff of this world, the world of the storm, the world without people.

By the time they turned onto the street where the bus lay, it was midsun and the pack was scattered, sniffing around in the trash. Callie was furious — her hackles were up and her tail was low.

“And where have you been,
partner
?” she grumbled.

“What are you, his master?” snapped Blaze. “We were out. Hunting.”

Callie trembled with rage. “I'm not his master,” she snarled, trying very hard to keep her bark even. “We're a
team
. And teammates don't run off for half a sun without leaving some whiff of where they went.”

Shep stuck his snout between the two before the fur started to fly. “You're right,” he woofed to Callie. “I should have woken you.” Callie's hackles smoothed, but Blaze sneered. Shep continued, “Anyway, looks like every thing's well-furred here.”

Callie's tail started to wag. “Yes, things are good here, no thanks to you,” she woofed. “Virgil and Honey scavenged one of the surrounding buildings and found a whole loaf of bread in one of the dens. We saved you each a slice.” She snagged two pieces of bread from inside the bus's broken front window and dropped them at Shep's paws.

Callie straightened her stance. “This den smells like the perfect haven to wait in for the humans to return,” she barked loudly, as if trying to catch the attention of all the nearby dogs. “We're close to buildings to scavenge, we're safe from the rain, and with only one entrance, we can defend it easily. Now that you're a part of the pack, Blaze, I'm sure you won't mind if we all share your den.” Callie glared defiantly into Blaze's muzzle.

“Clever dog,” Blaze snuffled, a rather frightening smile spreading over her jowls. “Of course, you all are welcome to share this den,” she barked, matching Callie's strident tone. “But I don't recommend it. This bus is not as safe as it looks. There's a hole somewhere in the back that rats can get through. And one way in means one way out: We're too easy to trap.”

Shep felt like something important was going on, but he hadn't the faintest scent of what it was. It smelled like Callie and Blaze were having a marking contest, only no dog was peeing.

Callie stepped closer to Blaze. “So you'd have us wander the streets looking for someplace slightly safer, all the while leaving us prey to whatever wants to attack us, be it a wild dog or a water lizard?”

“No need to wander,” Blaze barked. “I know the perfect place.” And with that, she turned tail and shot off down an alley.

“Virgil!” Callie bayed. “You're in charge. Higgins, follow me!” Then she raced after Blaze.

Shep felt like the odd dog out. Should he follow or stay? He wanted to follow. Callie had left Virgil in charge.
I'm following
, he concluded and charged down the alley. He tracked the fresh scent of Callie's chase — she reeked of anger — and soon caught up with the three of them.

They stood before a wider section of canal, almost the size of the Park. The twisted remains of docks floated in the water. On the sunset side of the canal, the stone wall was smoothed to form a steep ramp up to street level. The space around the ramp was open pavement, edged by trees and grass, and then low buildings — or would have been, save for the pack of various-sized boats cluttering the plaza. The alpha of these seafaring survivors lay on its side several stretches from the top of the ramp, jammed against the buildings: a giant boat, thirty stretches long at least.

“It's sturdy,” Blaze woofed, “and all the walls and floors are intact, even if some of the windows are broken. It's a lot more than one dog can defend, but I think the pack of us can keep it secure.”

Shep stared. His boy had taken him on a boat once, though one much smaller than the specimen lying on the street in front of him. Shep hadn't liked riding in that boat. It had bounced around on the water and spat spray at him as it skittered along the waves. But this boat looked calm enough, sleeping on its side. Perhaps when out of the water, boats couldn't give a dog stomach cramps that made him moan for a whole sun.

If that was true, it was perfect in every way. The boat looked big enough to house the whole pack, with extra space for any other dogs they rescued. The top level was smashed, but below it was a level lined with windows, and Shep thought there was another level still inside the curved beetle-shell of the boat's hull: The part of the boat that cut through the water was a single sheet of plastic save for a band of small windows like eyes around its edge.

In terms of defense, the boat appeared impenetrable. Its topmost level was pressed against a building, its hull was solid, and the space between the curve of the beetle-bottom and the street was jammed full of sand and garbage. That left only the narrow, square back and pointed front, and the windowed top-side exposed. Any attackers would have a tough time finding a way in.

Even better, all around them were buildings to be scavenged for food. And finding a drink wouldn't be a problem, as several of the small boats in the plaza were filled with fresh rainwater. It was paradise!

“My, my,” woofed Higgins, “now that's a yacht if I ever smelled one.”

“It's not a yacht,” barked Shep. “It's a boat.”

Higgins growled, then snorted loudly. “A yacht
is
a boat, you fuzz head.”

“Watch it, Furface,” Blaze grumbled, moving to stand over Higgins.

Surprise flashed across Higgins's muzzle, but he left it alone. Shep panted to himself — it was nice to have one dog on his side. Then again, did he need Blaze to defend him? And from Higgins, at that? Higgins was just joking.
Right?

“If we can stay on the scent,” Callie snapped. “How do we get inside this thing?”

The dogs loped closer to the top level of the boat, which was crushed against the metal-covered front of one of the buildings. The plastic sheets and metal branches that had once formed flimsy walls on this upper deck were bent and folded against the building, forming a web of ceiling. Dim shafts of light shone through the bars, illuminating the tangle of wreckage on the street. About ten stretches in, the cracked remains of a window wall extended above a wide counter with a silver wheel, which Shep recognized as the place humans sat to control the boat.

Higgins sniffed the metal front of the building. “Smells salty,” he yapped. “The wave must've knocked the boat out of the canal and rammed it into this wall.”

Callie poked her nose into the debris. “There's a hole in the boat's wall — grr, former floor, it seems. I think it leads into the den.” She leapt over a toppled stool and trotted straight up to the edge of the hole, gave a quick sniff, then glanced back at the others, ears up and tail waving. “Last dog in is a soggy kibble!” she barked and sprang into the dark.

Blaze snorted, as if offended by Callie's exuberance, then bounded in after her. Higgins scampered through the hole and got stuck halfway through. Shep nudged his rump, pushing him inside. The Furface glanced back, and in a sheepish woof, said, “Much obliged.”

“Oblige taken,” Shep replied, feeling like he'd regained the better bite.

Higgins looked confused for a heartbeat, then snorted and pranced into the dark.

The hole led from the crushed floor into a fancy den, which was maybe four stretches tall, but only two wide. The ceiling and the back wall were entirely made up of tinted windows. The bronze light filtered down to reveal overturned furniture — couches and chairs, all with shiny patterned fabric cushions, and small tables surrounded by broken human stuff. The floor beneath Shep's paws was a wall of windows that matched the ceiling. Some were cracked, but the floor was otherwise solid — no fear of intruders from below.

Toward the front of the boat was a section of wall that ended a stretch up from the floor. Blaze hooked her paws onto the edge of the wall, then pulled herself up onto a landing. “There are more rooms down here,” she barked, sniffing the air. “And I smell kibble.” She took a step, tumbled forward, and disappeared.

“Blaze!” Shep cried, bounding to the half wall and springing onto it. He nearly knocked snouts with Blaze, who was dragging herself up out of a wide hole.

“I found the kibble,” she groaned, pulling her rump onto the landing.

“You okay?” Shep whimpered, tail low. “What's that hole doing in the floor?”

“It's a door,” grumbled Higgins. He'd made a ramp from the fancy den to the raised landing out of a cushion. “Remember, the boat is on its side, so there will be doors in the floor and in the ceiling.” He took a step toward the door-hole and his paw slipped on a strip of plastic. Suddenly, lights blazed throughout the narrow room, which was revealed to be a short hallway. There was a second hole in the floor a stretch farther down the hall, and a matching hole in the ceiling, its door dangling open like a tongue from a jowl. At the end of the hall were two other doors, both closed.

“We have lights?” yipped Callie as she sprang into the hall.

“Appears so,” answered Higgins. He slid his paw along the strip and the light went away.

“Hey!” barked Shep.

The lights flicked on again.

“My snout, this little strip turns the lights on
and
off!” Higgins excitedly shuffled his paw back and forth along the strip, clicking the lights on and off.

“Enough!” bayed Blaze.

Higgins froze, leaving the lights on. He was panting, his eyes wide and furface abristle. “Sorry,” he woofed, giving a curt snort and regaining composure. “Got a bit carried away. Never knew how these things worked. Always exciting to make a new discovery, eh?” He wagged his stub of a tail, growling happily as he sniffed the little strip.

The others seemed to feel as unnerved as Shep was from all the flashing. Callie gave an all-over shake.

“How about we leave the lights off?” she woofed, sliding her paw over the strip and clicking them back into the dark. “I've gotten used to no lights.”

“I agree,” barked Blaze, who recovered her composure with a swift lick of her jowls. “We have to keep it dark.” She leapt over the floor-hole, and stretched up on her hind legs to inspect the door-hole in the ceiling. “If we're the only thing in this city with lights, we're going to attract a lot of unwanted guests.” She gripped the edge of the door-hole with her forepaws and, with a little jump, pulled herself through it into the room above.

“I thought vermin liked to hide in the dark,” Callie barked, a snarky whine to her voice.

Blaze stuck her head down through the ceiling-hole. “I'm not barking about vermin,” she snapped. “I'm barking about wild dogs.”

Blaze explained that she'd run into some wild dogs during the storm. “A big, black girldog,” Blaze woofed. “I didn't like the lay of her fur.”

The memory of Kaz's huge body slumped in a pool of her own lifeblood blinded Shep for a heartbeat.

“You don't have to bother about her,” barked Higgins. “Shep defeated her in a devilish fierce scrap.”

Shep's vision cleared and caught Blaze's stare — a mix of awe and ownership.

“That's my Shepherd,” she woofed, then ducked back up into the room above.

Callie grimaced at the door-hole in the ceiling, a low growl rumbling from her muzzle.

The holes in the floor led into a narrow food room. Shep opened all the cabinets, and Higgins set about figuring out how much edible kibble they'd stumbled upon. Shep left Higgins piling packets of food and pulled himself up into the hallway, then through the door-hole into the ceiling room.

The ceiling-hole led into what had once been a food-eating room. It had a windowed ceiling and the end of the room closest to the rear of the boat was open to the main, fancy den. Blaze was in the process of shoving a long wooden table toward that opening. She jammed her shoulder into the table's leg and the table tottered, then slid down into the fancy den. The bottom of the table landed with a crash on a toppled sofa, but the end nearest Shep leaned against the floor of the ceiling room.

“What did you do that for?” Shep woofed.

Callie answered his question. “Okay, great! Now the chairs!” she bellowed from the main den.

“She's a pushy little yapper,” Blaze said to Shep, “but her brain's kicking with all four paws.”

Shep helped Blaze drag the chairs to the edge of the opening, and Blaze explained Callie's plans. “She thought of using the table as a ramp, so that the smaller dogs could get up here. I haven't the foggiest scent of what she's doing with the chairs.”

Once Shep and Blaze shoved the chairs down, Callie nosed them together to make a more sturdy ramp than Higgins's cushion from the main den up the half-wall into the hallway.

“That's a well-furred idea if I've ever smelled one,” woofed Blaze as she marveled at Callie's engineering.

Callie's tail wagged at the compliment — almost, it seemed, against her will.

Both doors at the end of the hall were easily defeated — they had the best kinds of knobs: the flat, slappable kind. The first door opened into a large room that tapered to a point — the front of the boat. There was a gigantic human bed-cushion splayed on the curved floor (which had been the wall when the boat was upright). The floor and ceiling were inset with small, tinted windows. Just above the entry door was another door. Shep and Blaze piled pillows into a ramp to get up to it and found that the door opened into a tiny Bath room, complete with working water paws. Because the boat was on its side, the water paws and bowls were an easy stretch from the floor; even Callie could swat them and get a slurp of water.