Karma raced after her mother’s spoor. Even with the wind that stirred and scattered the scent like stuffing from a chew toy, the trail shined brighter than moon glow to her discerning nose. She remembered the search games the girl played, hiding trails of kibble with a bonus cache of treats at the end. If she could find treats by following that smell, she’d find Dolly, too. She smothered a whimper. She didn’t like being alone. Dogs were meant to be with family, not by themselves. Finding her littermates and dam would be better than a treat.
She had to concentrate to unravel the skein of distracting scents like bugs and grass and even sounds beneath the sod and focus on the important treat-smell. And sometimes smells disappeared and only re-appeared if she ran ever widening circles to find where they’d hidden. Karma learned to relocate hidden scent by seeking out low spots where smells settled and pooled the way water followed the earth’s surface.
The recent rain had washed the ground so that little else offered distraction from the recent passage of her littermates and dam. She loped along, ducking under leafless saplings that whipped and stung her hide as she passed. The trail led downhill, toward the shushing of water that grew louder and louder. Karma didn’t let that distract her, though. She kept her nose close to the ground to catch every whiff. Snuffling through the mounds of white ice balls made Karma’s nose sting. She liked to nudge them and watch them roll away. She batted one with her rust colored paw, and she bounded after when it bounced ahead.
“Puppy-puppy-puppy!”
Karma’s head shot up. The girl! Calling for her!
She whirled, staring back the way she’d come. Her stubby tail wiggled and her cautious stance softened. She could almost feel Lia’s small, soothing hands stroking her body, and scratching all her hard-to-reach itchy places. She whined, licked her nose, and glanced back and forth between the girl and her mother’s beckoning scent that led the opposite direction.
People could do amazing things her frightened mother could not. Lia made treats rain from the ceiling, provided tug-tag games and toys for good-dogs to chase, and even turned night into day when inside a building. And humans made cars go fast-fast-fast, even faster than a big dog could run. Karma and the other puppies liked car rides a lot, but not the poking and fussy handling by the white-coated man that Lia called a doctor. The view and smells through car windows made up for it, though, and Karma’s heart race. It never rained or grew cold inside cars or the houses. Well, not until someone threw a tree at Karma’s sleep spot.
Karma’s mother protected and loved all of the pups but feared everything. The girl feared nothing and was all seeing, all knowing, even if scent blind and sound deaf compared to dogs.
Light flashed again across the sky and Karma flinched, and her hackles bristled. The girl would know what to do about the jagged lightning, the way she had taught Karma about the sky-noise. Maybe Lia brought the fleece toy with her, too.
Decision made, Karma whirled and hurried back uphill in the direction of the girl’s call. She didn’t think to backtrack the scent trail, just arched her neck and cocked her ears for Lia’s voice. She pranced forward, mouth parting with each anxious whine of anticipation. She jumped over a toppled tree branch and landed on a round limb that didn’t roll. It recoiled, whipped around, and tried to slither up Karma’s leg.
Screaming, Karma hopped backward, shaking her foreleg so hard she fell sideways in her frantic effort to shed the crawly creature. With dismay, she saw many of the slithering things, some with open mouths making hissing sounds. The hole in the ground left by the uprooted tree had filled with water, and out of it spilled more of the long, thin creatures. Some poked out strange ribbon-like tongues or wagged tails like an excited dog. They smelled like cucumber.
She scrambled to her feet, growled and feinted toward the closest one that coiled nearby. It struck at her, head splattering in mud when it missed.
Karma yelped and leaped away and banged sideways into the fallen tree trunk.
Lesson learned, she’d never again mistake it for a toy. Karma tried to dodge past, but the writhing copper-scaled things blocked her way. Now Karma couldn’t follow the scent trail to reach her mother. But neither could she backtrack to rejoin the girl.
Plodding footsteps approached and made Karma’s ears twitch, but she refused to look away from the writhing serpents. She preferred the soughing breeze in her face even if the cold made her ears numb. Her nose wrinkled, recognizing dog-scent—the old one the girl called Thor—along with clean Lia-smell. Karma wanted to cry out for help but stayed frozen. Motion would make the snakes strike at her again. She enjoyed bite-games with her siblings, but these creatures didn’t want to play.
Thor’s paw-sounds drew closer along with the girl’s footfalls. Thor must be seeking Karma just the way Karma had tracked Dolly and her siblings. For a moment, her chest swelled with pride that she’d done what Lia wanted, too. But the wet, slick ground made Lia slip and trample with lots of noise. The undulating coil of scaly creatures grew even more agitated, tongues flicked and tails twitched. The triangular coppery head of the nearest turned back upon itself, away from Karma for a moment, as if to target the old dog. Or maybe the girl.
Thor and Lia would tramp right over the creatures. If Karma yelped a warning, Lia would hurry even faster and blunder into the nest. Karma shuddered, imagining the multiple bites, the choking cucumber smell.
Thor was old, blind and deaf. The girl might as well be. Neither knew about the threat, but Karma knew. And Karma could smell, and hear and see, and run very fast with her four paws. She was brave, too, even when scared.
As Thor and the girl came into sight, snakes thrashed toward the vibration of their footfalls. Karma bounded forward and grabbed the twitching tail of the nearest copperhead.