I could feel the tension, strong and tight in both Ben and Roxie, and thought it might have something to do with the motionless person in the car. After all, nothing was wrong with Ben, and nothing was wrong with Roxie, and nothing was wrong with me. So something must be wrong with the woman in the car to make everybody so worked up.
“Hey,” Roxie called out. “Hey, are you in there?”
“Yes!” a woman’s voice screamed back. “Yes, please. Oh God.”
“What’s your name?” Roxie responded.
“Birgitta!”
Ben dropped to his stomach and crawled forward. I followed, my nose low, not sure what was happening. The woman who was trapped in the car peered out through the narrow space where the back window had once been, pushing her silky white hair away from her pale face.
“Are you hurt, Birgitta?” Ben asked.
“No. I mean, yah, I’m banged up, but I’m not bleeding,” she replied. The spikes of fear were sending tremors into her voice. “I can’t get out, though. I can’t squeeze through the space.”
Ben and Roxie unsnapped the leashes from their harnesses.
“Don’t worry about that,” Ben reassured her. “They’re going to send down jaws of life. Do you know what that is?”
The woman shook her head. “Well, maybe. I mean, no.”
“All right. It looks a little like a cross between a chainsaw and a giant seafood fork,” Roxie explained. “It pries open doors and things. We’re going to use it on the roof of your car so you can slide out.”
The woman nodded and swallowed. “Thank you. It was a deer, don’tcha know. A deer crossed the road, and I swerved, and I didn’t hit it, but my car spun and then came down here. My airbag went off. I’m fine, I think, I’m just…” She looked around. “I don’t like small spaces.”
“She sounds pretty close to losing it,” Roxie observed to Ben in a quiet tone.
“Well, hey,” Ben called to the woman. “See what I’ve got here, Birgitta?”
Ben reached for me and thrust my face forward. I gazed solemnly at the woman inside the ruined car. She seemed very unhappy in there, and I wondered why she didn’t just climb out.
“Oh for cute! A puppy!”
“Almost full-grown,” Ben agreed, “but actually still very much a puppy. Would you like him to come in and be with you while we do this?”
“Oh, that would be wonderful,” the woman answered in a rush.
Ben turned and whispered to Roxie, “Seafood fork? How big are the crab legs you eat?”
I understood when Ben gently urged me forward that he wanted me to squeeze through the tight space and into the car with the woman, so that’s exactly what I did. Her smells reminded me of Samantha the day we were in the big room the first time, when all the people gathered to watch us—tension, fear, anxiety, misery.
I knew my role now was to help this person calm down. I focused on her and let her reach for me, her hands shaking just like Samantha’s had been. She pulled me into a tight hug.
“That’s Ripley,” Ben informed her.
“Ripley. Ripley,” she whispered into my ear. “Thank you, Ripley.”
I could feel the fear uncoiling inside of her a little bit as she held me, so I waited patiently. I was good at this, I knew. I had helped Samantha through many, many episodes just like this.
I wasn’t at all surprised when Hutch and the tall man, Willets, decided they wanted to come down and join us in this strange place. What did surprise me was the amount of racket they started to make with a big metal toy that they brought with them. They shoved this toy into the space where the side window had once been and fired it up with a loud roar. I could feel the entire car trembling. The woman buried her face in my fur.
“Good dog, Ripley,” she told me, holding me tight.
Metal shrieked and bent. I did not like the noise of it at all, but I remained with her, solid and unafraid, being Good Dog Ripley. Soon the racket was over.
“Okay,” Ben called to her. “Birgitta, can you crawl out? I think there’s room now.”
The woman let me go and pushed me gently through the side window, which had now somehow grown to be much larger. Then she reached up, taking Ben’s and Hutch’s hands in hers. They pulled her out.
“Oofda!” she exclaimed.
“All right. Let me take a look,” Roxie said.
She took a small light, shined it in the woman’s eyes, examined her up and down, felt her wrist for a bit, and then smiled at her.
“I think you’re fine. We’ll take you to the hospital just in case, but I don’t see any sign of serious injury.”
Hutch held out a harness. “This’ll help the climb up,” he told her.
The woman put her arms through the holes in the harness and let Roxie fasten it around her legs. I felt and saw the leash grow taut, and then Roxie and the woman and Hutch and Willets ascended slowly up the steep slope.
I knew what was coming next.
Ben tugged on two more long leashes, attaching one to my harness and one to his. He looked up, then grinned at me and said, “Let’s go.”
I batted at the sandy slope with my paws on the way up, but mostly the rope lifted me without any effort on my part.
When we returned to Captain Bee’s big house, it was exactly the opposite of how we’d left. Instead of running around frantically, the men were yawning and trudging slowly around, shrugging off heavy coats, hanging up their hats, and gradually drifting back to the room with all the beds. No one was paying attention to me.
I trotted through the big open door and raised my leg on the shrubbery in the dark and then lifted my nose. I could smell the direction of home, cutting through the dry, fragrant leaves scuttling across the lawn in the night breeze.
As much as I loved being with Ben, and as strange and wonderful as it was in Captain Bee’s house, I knew where I belonged. With no one saying a word to me to call me back, I headed out into the night.
It was a longer walk than I’d expected, a longer one than I’d ever been on before. I trotted along sidewalks and was careful to keep my distance from cars when I had to cross roads. I did not want any of the vehicles to make that loud, shrieking noise that the car had made when I’d tried to chase the squirrel.
When I arrived at last, Samantha’s house was dark. I padded up the front steps and scratched at the front door. I expected that Samantha would open it. She’d be standing right there on the other side, waiting for me. But there was no response.
I sat back, puzzled. Eventually, I barked. Nothing happened. I barked again. This time I could feel vibrations as someone moved throughout the house. Moments before she opened it, I could smell Samantha and I began wagging.
“Ripley, what are you doing here?” she whispered in surprise.
I pushed past her into the house, wagging harder and harder. I was home.
Lights came on and Mom joined us, yawning. “Oh! Ripley!” she exclaimed.
It felt so good to be with my people. Samantha sat down on the floor to pet me while I sniffed her face and hair. Mom went into the kitchen and came back out a few moments later.
“I texted Ben,” she told Samantha.
Samantha watched Mom warily. “What’d he say?”
“He said,” Mom replied, putting her hands on her hips, “that Ripley is a bad dog.”
I heard that phrase and wondered what it meant. It seemed to come up every once in a while. Mostly it was said to me by people who were not inclined in that particular moment to give me treats.
Ben arrived the next morning as Samantha and Mom were sitting at the table, eating something that smelled like milk and a bit like bread. I didn’t know what it was but I was sure willing to try some and was sitting attentively. Ben pushed the door open and stood just outside, leaning in.
“Good morning!” he called.
“We’re in here,” Mom replied from the kitchen.
“Ripley, geez Louise, you’re a bad dog,” Ben scolded gently.
There was that word again. Still no idea what it meant. I wagged tentatively in case it was a good thing.
“I’m going to have to teach you to stay,” he lectured firmly. “Can you stay?” He held up his hand palm out. Oh no. Samantha had told Ben about Stay. I did Sit instead and hoped that would get his mind off the whole Stay thing.
Mom stepped out of the kitchen and approached Ben, smiling shyly.
“Would you like some oatmeal this morning?”
“You betcha!” Ben responded with a grin. “Thanks for taking care of Ripley, the famous escape artist.”
Mom shook her head ruefully. “No problem at all. In fact, Samantha was ecstatic. She tries to put a brave face on it, but I can tell she really misses Ripley when he’s not here. I’m not sure what we’re going to do about that.”
Ben looked at Mom thoughtfully. “Should I give her the dog? We’re at the point where I’m going to start integrating him into our rescue operations.”
Mom gasped and shook her head. “What? No, of course not. You’re not going to give up your dog, Ben.” She paused, giving him a soft look. “But it means a lot to me that you’d even offer.”
They were silent for a moment.
“Still on for dinner?” he asked finally. “I’m so excited, I haven’t eaten for a week.”
Mom smiled. “Sounds excellent.”
I spent the day with Samantha, and we were busy. We played Come and Lie Down and the dreaded Stay in the backyard. Samantha tried a new game with me, one she must have learned from Ben—he and I played it sometimes. It was called Bring Me the Rope and it meant I had to pick up rope in my mouth, trot over to Samantha’s side, drop the rope on her feet, and get a treat.
The treats were flowing, and I was happy that my girl was happy—especially when she let me run in and out of the cones.
Aunt Emily came over, and I greeted her with kisses and also licked her glasses when they fell on the floor. Ben arrived at about the same time, and Mom came down the stairs to meet them both.
Mom smelled strange, with a flowery, overpowering odor that made me wrinkle my nose a little bit. Ben smelled a little less like smoke than usual.
“You look fantastic,” Ben told Mom.
She smiled, and they went out the door together, her heavy boot making a dull thud with each step. I felt sorry for Ben that he would have to be in the car with her as they drove down the driveway. That flowery odor would overpower him.
Aunt Emily made something called pizza for dinner. It didn’t take her long once a nice woman handed over a flat box at the front door. I discovered I loved pizza much better than oatmeal.
Ben brought Mom home a while later. Samantha was sleeping and I was curled up against her feet in our bed.
Aunt Emily had fallen asleep on the couch but jumped up and left rather quickly. She was probably as bothered by Mom’s stink as I was. Ben and Mom seemed both happy to see her and happy to see her go. People are difficult to figure out sometimes.
After I’d come downstairs to greet both Ben and Mom, I hurried upstairs to jump back on Samantha’s bed. When I fell asleep, Ben and Mom were still talking together.
Humans seem to like talking as much as dogs like sniffing.
A few days later, Ben took me back to Captain Bee’s house. We weren’t there for very long before Roxie and Ben and I took another one of our really fast, loud car rides. This was just something they liked to do.
We arrived at a house that was oddly quiet. They approached the front door, and a man came around the side of the house to greet us.
“I’m the one who called. I live next door. I was just looking in the back window,” he told us.
“Did you see anything?” Ben asked.
The man shook his head. “That’s why I called for an ambulance. Something must be going on. Margit doesn’t really leave the house much. She can’t drive anymore, don’tcha know. I’ve been the one driving her, so it’s unusual that she didn’t answer her door.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone. “And I’ve been trying to call her. She doesn’t answer.”
Ben and Roxie glanced at each other.
“All right, as long as we’re here, we’ll do a wellness check,” Roxie offered.
The man made to follow us, and Ben turned to him.
“I think I’d like it better if you’d stay out here, sir, if that’s okay with you. We need room to operate in the house.”
The man shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Once inside the house, Ben called loudly, “Margit. Margit!”
I did not know what a Margit was or why Ben wanted one, but I paused when he and Roxie both froze. Was something happening? I couldn’t tell. Ben and Roxie seemed to be worried about something, though, so I brought my focus to the situation.
A strong smell of a woman was everywhere in this house. I could tell she was still with us, and the smell was strongest coming under a crack beneath a door in the kitchen. But we didn’t open that door. Instead, we walked up and down the hallways, knocking on other doors, opening them, and stepping inside.
“So the doors were unlocked, no sign of a struggle, but nobody’s here,” Roxie summarized. “Should we call the police? This doesn’t feel like our kind of call.”
I had returned to the door in the kitchen and was sniffing at the crack. Ben watched me, frowning. “What is it, Ripley?”