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.
“I claim this room for Shep!” barked Blaze. “He’s the alpha, so he gets the best den.”
Just as Shep was about the mark the door frame, Callie snorted her disapproval.
“What does he need this huge space for?” she yapped. “No, this big den should be for dams and pups, or sick dogs.” She sniffed the giant mattress and pawed at the overstuffed pillows strewn around it. “Yes, this will be a perfect, quiet, dark den for them.”
Shep whimpered softly — he’d liked the idea of himself, and perhaps Blaze, curled up on that giant bed — but he knew Callie was right. “This is a perfect sick den,” he woofed, loping back into the hallway.
Blaze followed him out of the room. “Who’s the alpha of this pack again?” she snarled.
The other door at the end of the hall, which was in the floor, opened into an enclosed stairwell. One set of stairs led to the crushed level.
“A second exit,” woofed Blaze.
“A second entry to defend,” grumbled Shep.
The other staircase led deeper into the boat, to the curved beetle-bottom of the hull.
The bottom level of the boat was dark as the Black Dog’s hide. Shep and Blaze pushed open the door from the stairwell and hooked their paws onto the wall, which was now the floor. Shep’s claws scraped one of Higgins’s plastic strips. When clicked, the lights illuminated a narrow hall lined with three doors each in the ceiling and floor, and one door in the wall at the back end of the boat. That door opened into a huge, dark room crowded with pipes and smelling of chemicals and grease, like a pack of Cars was huddled inside. The other rooms — some a few stretches long, others barely a stretch — contained human bed-cushions and little Bath rooms, also with functioning water paws. Each room had one or two small, Higgins-sized windows.
Higgins decided that one of the small rooms near the front of the boat on the bottom level would be good as a kibble storage room. “I’ll be able to keep better track of what’s going in and out if I’m not amidst the hubbub of the main den.” Shep, Callie, and Blaze helped him to drag the kibble from the boat’s food room to the designated storage room.
When they had finished moving the food, Callie gave the bottom deck of the boat a once-over sniff. “The big dogs will stay on this level,” she woofed. “The small on the main level, in that big fancy room.”
“No good,” barked Blaze. “Then you yappers will be exposed to attack. I say we build ramps into and out of the dens on the lower level for the small and sick and old, and keep the working and fighting dogs closer to the entry points.”
Callie glared at Shep. “I thought you were going to woof with her about the whole ‘yapper’ issue?”
Shep sighed. “Blaze, Callie doesn’t like the word ‘yapper.’ Please don’t bark it anymore.”
“Fine,” yipped Blaze, like this was a ridiculous request. “What do you want to be called?”
Callie seemed flustered by Blaze’s reaction. “Well, small dogs, or just dogs.” Callie regained her defensive stance. “And what’s this about working dogs? You don’t think small dogs can work?”
Shep stuck his nose between the two girldogs. “Do we have to get our hackles up about every thing?” he woofed. “Can’t we just take each other’s barks with a bite of kibble? At least pretend to get along? For this sun?”
Both the girldogs dropped their tails and smoothed their hackles.
“You’re right,” yipped Callie. “I’m sorry.”
“Well,” barked Blaze. “So long as that’s settled. Let’s build some ramps.”
“Shep!” whined Callie.
Shep sighed. This was not going to work, having to negotiate every woof between Blaze and Callie. “Why don’t I go back and get the rest of the pack? You two stay here and sort yourselves out.”
He turned tail and navigated the maze of holes through the boat before either of them could argue with him. As he stepped Out from the main den onto the crushed floor, he saw Blaze emerge from the stairwell’s exit. She picked her way across the debris; Shep waited.
“I told the yapper — Callie — that she could organize the den however she wanted,” Blaze woofed. “I don’t want to push you away.” She touched her nose to Shep’s, and he felt that tingle ripple under his fur.
“Callie has good ideas,” Shep said, trying to stay focused. “You said so yourself.”
Blaze stepped over a piece of plastic that separated her from Shep. “You’re right,” she yipped. “And she is smart.” Her mismatched eyes sparkled in the golden, late midsun light. “I sense there’s something between you two.” Blaze brushed past him and stepped out onto the plaza.
“She’s my best friend,” barked Shep, joining her. “We’ve been through a lot together.”
“Well, so long as she’s just a friend,” Blaze woofed, sidling up to Shep’s flank.
He licked Blaze’s snout. “Callie and I have made a good team,” he said. “She’s the brains, and I’m the muscle.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself,” barked Blaze. “You’ve got a good share of both.”