The Storm (5 page)

Shep felt bad about having scared her into submission, but they were heading home now and that made him happy. “You want to hear the legend?”

“What! Legend? Where?” Callie's teeth chattered with fear.

“It's the story of the Great Wolf and the Black Dog,” Shep woofed. He figured it might calm her down. “Listen.”

 

The Black Dog didn't like the Great Wolf or the peace he'd created; the Black Dog had liked things the way they'd been. He thought it was the way of the dog to kill or be killed. He was chaos, a wildness that hurtled toward death, and he hungered for the Great Wolf and the end of his reign.

The Black Dog knew that the Great Wolf could only remain great if he commanded the respect of all dogs. He figured that the Great Wolf could only command such respect so long as he was the toughest dog. With this thought in his jaws, the Black Dog dug up a plan.

The Black Dog considered himself a crafty fight dog, and so he challenged the Great Wolf in front of all the other dogs. The Great Wolf had to accept the challenge or submit to the Black Dog, and the Great Wolf knew that submission would mean a return to chaos. He accepted the challenge.

They fought a fierce battle, but after many heartbeats, the Black Dog sensed that the Great Wolf would prevail. Unwilling to accept defeat, the Black Dog took a final slash at the Great Wolf's muzzle, then stole away into the shadows, ragged tail between his legs.

The Black Dog did not give up. He found other dogs, big, tough dogs, and convinced them that they could replace the Great Wolf if they defeated him. One after the other, these dogs challenged the Great Wolf, and one after the other, all were vanquished.

Still the Black Dog would not concede his failure. It occurred to him that perhaps he had gone about things all wrong. Perhaps there was no bigger or tougher dog than the Great Wolf. As he passed a litter of pups, just a few moons old, scrabbling outside their dam's den, he got an idea. Perhaps he did not need to find a bigger, tougher dog than the Great Wolf.

One of the pups was full of lifeblood, a real terror to his littermates.

“You think you're tough?” he asked the pup.

“Tougher than you,” the scrapper snarled.

“Tougher than the Great Wolf?” the Black Dog growled. “A scrawny pup could never best the Great Wolf.”

The pup looked up at the Great Wolf, who sat at the mouth of his den, high on the mountain above. “I can best him,” the pup growled. He scrabbled his way up to the Great Wolf's den and challenged him to battle.

 

“Shep!” Callie screamed.

Shep whipped around. Tugging on Callie's scruff were the talons of a yapper-sized bird of prey. Its brown, speckled wings beat about Callie's head and tail. Callie tried to roll to get its claws out of her fur, but the bird had her firmly in its grasp.

Shep leapt and caught the bird's wing in his teeth. He wrenched the wing down and the bird screeched. Dropping Callie, it wheeled around on its free wing. It began pecking at Shep's ears and muzzle with its sharp beak and grabbing at his fur with its talons.

Shep released the wing and flung his body away from the bird's slashing claws. Then he swiped his fangs down onto the bird's head, snapping his jaws tight. Its skull crunched between his teeth and its body fell still.

Shep dropped the bird and scrambled over to Callie. She sat in a puddle, desperately trying to lick the wounds on her back.

“I was watching for dogs,” she whimpered. “You never said anything about birds.”

Shep licked her scruff. “I didn't know birds went after dogs,” he said. “Cats, yes.”

“I'm the size of some cats!” Callie snapped.

“Well, I'm sorry I didn't say anything,” Shep barked back at her. “It's not like I
asked
the bird to attack you.”

Callie licked her fur, stopping after every few licks to flash a withering look at Shep.

“Can we at least get out of the rain?” Shep woofed. “I can get a better sense of the injury if we're not constantly being pelted by water.”

“Fine,” she said. She got out of the puddle and shook herself, whimpering pathetically as her fur ruffled. “That building looks nice.”

She trotted across the street to a stone building painted bright yellow with a wide cloth stretched over its entry that covered half the Sidewalk. The building had fancy white stone balconies with flowery designs for railings — nothing like the plain metal grates on Shep's building. Even the entry was fancy: A pair of tall windows stood where the door should have been.

Callie sat in front of the clear front doors and they opened with a swish. “Shep, look! We can really get out of the rain!” She scrambled into the building. As soon as she was inside, the doors slid shut.

Shep panicked. This little yapper was nothing but trouble! He raced across the street and jumped onto the door. As soon as he did, it slid open again. Shep fell onto the floor inside in a heap.

“Hello!” Callie yapped. She stood over Shep's head, her tail wagging. “It's nice and dry in here, and there's no wind.”

They were in a large, cool room with a white stone floor. Opposite the sliding clear doors was a blue wall with a wooden counter in front of it. Next to the counter, in the blue wall, were two shiny silver doors. The sides of the room were open, leading to dim hallways.

The air smelled overwhelmingly of chemicals and flowers — the humans that lived there had cleaned nearly every surface of its scents. Still, Shep could tell it was an older building; the walls smelled of the many humans who'd made their dens in this place. Also, scattered around the room were plants of various sizes, which the humans had forgotten to clean. Callie walked over to a palm tree in a pot and sniffed.

“Smells like dog central,” she yipped.

Shep got his paws under him and shook the water from his coat. “You seem to be feeling better.”

Callie immediately sat and licked her shoulder. “It's nice to be dry, that's all.” She winced and yowled miserably.

Shep panted lightly. “Fine, fine. Let me take a look at it.”

Callie came over to Shep, wagging her tail low. “Does it look bad?”

Shep gave her a long lick, covering her whole scruff. “Just a little puncture. You'll be good as new by next sun.” He walked over to the clear door and began pawing at the metal along the bottom. “Now it's time to go home. How do we get this open again?”

“Help!”

“What now?” Shep barked, annoyed. He had to figure out how to get this door to slide open. He had to get back to his den.

“I didn't say anything,” Callie yipped. “I think there's another dog here.”

“Of course there's another dog here! And I need your help!”

Shep and Callie followed the bark of the other dog to a door a few stretches down one of the hallways. The light on the ceiling was dim, but even in its faint glow, Shep could see that there was no window or other opening in the door.

“We're here,” barked Shep. “But there's no way for us to get in to help you.”

“Just open the door!” yapped the dog.

Just what I needed
, thought Shep.
Another yapper.

“How can we open it?” asked Callie. She sniffed the bottom of the door, then rested her head on the floor. “I can see your paws!” she barked.

“Wonderful,” groaned the other dog. “You can see the rest of me when you open the door. One of you smells like a big dog. Am I right?”

“Yes!” yipped Callie. “Shep's a big dog.”

“Good,” said the other dog. “Big dog — er, Shep. You need to bite the knob and turn it. Then the door will open.”

Did this yapper just call me “Big dog”?
thought Shep.
And who does he think he is, ordering me around? Does this dog want his tail bitten off?
Shep didn't have time for this, especially from a little dog. He had to get home. He had to wait for his boy.

“I'm leaving,” Shep woofed to Callie.

“You can't leave!” Callie pushed out her chest and raised her ears and tail. “Where's your sense of honor? This dog needs our help.” She squinted her little eyes and cocked her head. “What would the Great Wolf do?”

Shep sighed.
Why did I tell her about the Great Wolf?
“What's a knob?” he barked. “And how do you turn it?”

The little dog snorted and snuffled on the other side of the door, muttering something about ignorant mutts.

“Who're you calling an ignorant mutt?” Shep snarled.

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” yapped the other dog. “Just barking to myself. Nothing at all.”

They heard claws scratching on the metal of the door.

“Up there,” the dog barked. “On the door. That shiny piece that sticks out. That's the knob.”

Knob
, Shep realized, was a yapper word for the metal paw that stuck out of every door. He'd seen his boy and other humans push on these paws to open doors before. He'd tried it himself back in his den, but the door never opened for him.

“I know about knobs,” Shep said. “I didn't know they were called knobs, but I've seen them before. They don't work for dogs. I've pushed on a lot of knobs and the door has never opened for me.”

The other dog started snorting and snuffing all over again, this time clearly growling about ignorant mutts.

“Hey,” Shep grumbled, “you want help, you cut it with the ignorant mutt stuff.”
Ungrateful little yapper
, thought Shep.

“Yeah, stop getting all huffy,” growled Callie. “You asked
us
for help and we're trying to help you.”

The other dog sighed. “Yes, yes. I'm sorry.” He coughed a bit, then continued. “You don't push knobs. You turn them, then push them.”

Shep shook his head. Knobs were like paws and paws didn't turn. “Turn them? How can a knob turn?”

“Turning means — Turning is where —” The dog snorted loudly. “Oh, hang it all!” There was a sound like the yapper was fighting with himself, then a loud cough, and he continued. “Excuse me. Very sorry. Just a bit frustrating, trying to explain things. You know? Perhaps you don't. Never mind.” He coughed again. “The knob rotates. Yes? You understand that?”

“No.” Shep was losing patience. Even the Great Wolf must have given up on
some
things.

“Fine, fine,” the dog growled. “Forget turning. Just bite the knob straight on and tilt your head.”

“Bite, then tilt?” Shep woofed. “Why didn't you just say so?”

Shep positioned himself directly in front of the knob, then stood on his haunches, placing his forepaws against the door. He dropped his head to the level of the knob and bit the shiny surface. His teeth slipped off it, and where they didn't slip, they hurt, but he wanted to be done with this yapper in as few heartbeats as possible, so he clenched his jaws and tilted his head. His teeth scratched along the knob, but the knob itself didn't move. Shep pressed his paws on the door to see if it'd worked, but no: The door wouldn't budge.

“Okay, yapper. I bit and tilted and still the door won't open.” Shep spat, trying to get the harsh metal taste out of his mouth.

“Did the knob move or just your head?” asked the yapper.

“Just my head.”

“Well, that's not going to get us anywhere,” grunted the dog. “You have to tilt your head, and move the knob at the same time.”

If this little dog yaps at me one more time
… Shep's teeth hurt and there were flakes of something stuck on his tongue and he was more than a little disappointed that he couldn't make a knob work when it seemed that, at least at some point, the grumbly old yapper could.

I should just drop these yappers
, he thought.
Drop every thing and turn tail for home.
But why? His den would be empty like the rest of the city. Wherever his boy was, he wasn't around here. Shep had to accept that everyone he loved had abandoned him. Now, his only friends were a nervous little girldog and an annoying old yapper stuck behind a door and this horrible, splintery, bad-tasting, teeth-hurting, tongue-poking, jaw-breaking knob!

All his anger and frustration buzzed inside him like a fly against a window. He sprang at the knob and snapped his fangs around it. Jamming his forepaws into the door frame, he tugged at the knob as if it were a tug toy. He imagined his boy on the other end of it, taunting him, so close, but always pulling away. Why did the boy leave him? WHY?!

The knob turned and the door swung open, with Shep still dangling from it, and hit the yapper square on the snout.

“Oof!” yelped the dog.

Shep released the knob and collapsed onto the floor, exhausted. He'd had a long, wet, depressing sun. He needed some kibble and a nap.

The door had dropped him inside a spare, cave-like den. The floor was shiny wood, and the gray walls stretched high to the wood-slat ceiling. The food room was connected to the main room, separated by a counter lined with tall, thin-legged chairs. Everything was too clean and hard for Shep's liking.

He spotted a comfy-looking bed near a couch made of some chemical-smelling skin. Shep loped over to it and flopped his body down. The bed was too small — his head and forelegs stuck out one end, his hindquarters the other — but it was otherwise very comfortable.

“Please, make yourself at home,” grumbled the little dog sarcastically. “I'm Higgins, of the Brussels griffon line, and you must be Shep. Short for German Shepherd, I presume?”

Shep flapped his tail. “The one and only.”

Higgins was very small, about half Callie's size, with wiry, short brown fur on his body and an explosion of long grayish fur all over his snout.
Like my man
, Shep thought, panting. Higgins was a dog with a human hairface! He looked ridiculous!

“What are you panting about?” Higgins asked.

“Nothing,” Shep said, stifling his pants. “Just happy to have finally helped you.”

“Yeah, now you can stop bossing us around,” Callie yipped, sniffing a narrow table next to the door.

“And might I have the plea sure of your acquaintance,” Higgins yipped, “Miss, uh, pug? Mixed with, might I say, beagle?”

Callie was instantly defensive, chest out and tail stiff. “Just because I'm not a purebred doesn't mean I'm not just as good as you,” she growled.

Higgins rolled over onto the floor, paws up, showing he meant no harm. “I do apologize,” he moaned. “I'm merely curious. It's part of my research.”

“Research?” Shep asked.

Higgins sprang to his paws, tiny tail wiggling. “Yes! Research!” he yipped. “My human researches bugs: collects them in jars, pokes them with sticks, things like that. I thought that I should study something a bit more relevant: dogs. Did you know that pugs can see a stone placed right on their nose?”

“Well, if it's for research,” Callie said, sounding a bit confused, “my girl always says ‘Jack puggle terrier' after my name, which is Callie, by the way.”

“Jack puggle terrier,” Higgins snuffled, a far-off look on his muzzle. “My snout, it's a new breed.”

Shep had no idea what a breed was, but it seemed to him that between this research stuff and the mystery of the Red Dot, there was something weird about being a yapper that big dogs had been spared.

“I smell another dog,” barked Callie.

“That'd be Frizzle,” Higgins grumbled. “A French bulldog. Laziest pup I've ever met. He doesn't normally live in this den, but my master offered to take care of him while his master is away.”

“Why were you so desperate for help?” Shep asked. “This den looks comfortable enough.”

Higgins sighed dramatically. “Frizzle ate all the kibble because he was, and I quote, ‘starving' in the middle of the night. And now we are in fact starving, without a kibble or treat left.” Higgins leapt onto the smelly skin couch and sat, looking down at both Callie and Shep.

Shep got out of the bed and began sniffing around the den. He wasn't about to let this little hairface stand over him, as if the yapper were the dominant dog in the room.

“I smell kibble,” barked Shep. “Over here, in these cabinets.”

Higgins leapt off the couch and stood in front of the cabinet Shep was sniffing. His flap-ears pricked forward and stumpy tail wagged ecstatically. “Yes, I smelled it as well. I've been scrabbling at the doors all sun without luck. If you can open them, I'll gladly share whatever kibble's inside.”

Share?
thought Shep.
Like this yapper could keep me from eating whatever I find.

“Did I hear something about kibble?”

Claws clicked on the hard floor. Air snuffled through a stunted muzzle. Shep knew that voice.
Oh, Great Wolf, not that dog.

It was the little black yapper from the other sun at the Park. His wing-ears pricked forward, his stump tail wagged, and he puffed out his chest like a pigeon wooing a mate.

“Hey, I met you in the Park!” the black dog — Frizzle — woofed. “Never got that palm tree back from me, did you?” He strutted over to Callie and began sniffing her over. “Why, hel-
lo
, gorgeous,” he growled softly.

Shep waited for Callie to bite him square on the nose, but instead, she sniffed him back, tail wagging furiously. “Hello there!” she yipped excitedly, her bark cracking a bit. “That's Shep and I'm Callie.”

Callie slapped her front paws on the floor, head low, rump raised, and tail in full swing. “Let's play!”

Frizzle slapped his paws. “You're on!”

The two began a ferocious little tussle on the floor, yipping and squealing and scrabbling like two pups. Both Higgins and Shep looked on, Higgins with a tired, not-again expression on his snout, while Shep was frozen in disbelief. Could Callie actually
like
that annoying little yapper?

Then again, Callie was also a yapper, under the strictest of definitions. Maybe it was a yapper thing. But Frizzle was in a different, more annoying class of yapper. Callie was a nice girldog who was helpful with breaking things and good at catching vermin. Frizzle, on the other hand, was a waste of fur with a Car-sized ego who wouldn't be able to fight his way out of a dog bed, let alone the fight cage.

Shep had to break things up. This Frizzle was no good for Callie. As her defender and rescuer, he had to get her out of there, and quick. He jammed his claws into the cabinet and scratched the door open. “There,” he barked loudly. “Kibble for all.”

“Finally!” howled Higgins. He dove unceremoniously into the cabinet and started tugging on the kibble bag. Seeing as Higgins was a midget and old, the bag didn't budge. Shep grabbed a corner and dragged the bag, with Higgins hanging from its side, out onto the floor.

The smell of food roused Frizzle from his play with Callie. He scrambled over to the bag and dug furiously at the packaging.

Shep put his paw on the black dog's back and shoved him aside. “Allow me,” Shep growled.

“Watch it, Big Nose,” Frizzle barked angrily. “I've been in my fair share of scraps. I could take you down — if I had to.” He puffed his chest out even farther and kicked his little hind paws, head low and ears back.

One look and Shep knew for sure that this dog had never fought anything more than a stuffed toy in his life. His stance was all wrong — Shep could flip him with one swipe of his muzzle.

“Hey now,” Callie whimpered, shoving her way between Shep and Frizzle. “Let's just eat, okay?” She looked at Shep, then at Frizzle, and gave each a lick on the nose.

Shep decided to ignore the annoying little dog's threat, for Callie's sake. And because it wouldn't have been a fair fight. He gripped the bag with his teeth and tore a gash in it, spilling kibble all over the floor. The four ate that bag, and then Shep showed them how to open the cold box. There wasn't much food in Higgins's cold box, but Shep nonetheless enjoyed exploring the various flavors of kibble inside.

Frizzle sniffed the empty tray he'd just polished off, then licked his jowls. “Now that was a meal, eh, Higgy?”

Higgins lifted his head from a bowl. His muzzle was coated in white stuff that dripped off his whiskers. “It's Higg-
ins
, pup. How many times do I have to tell you?”

“You might want to clean up your fur, Higgy,” Shep woofed, panting.

Higgins ran a paw across his nose. “Good gracious,” he said. He began wiping his snout with his paws and licking them clean.

A noise like a giant Car grumbled Outside. Shep loped over to the window and rested his forepaws on the ledge. The roar of the storm sent vibrations through the wall and into Shep's claws. The rain was falling so hard that the water didn't even bead up on the window; it poured down the clear surface in a single, rippling sheet. Palm trees swayed all the way to the middle of their trunks, their green fronds whipping in the wind like Shep's woman's long hair. Shep couldn't see anything in the street — no birds, no lizards. The clouds were a gray wall, like thick fur across the sky.