| |
I sat there a long time, watching the river flow by. I hadn’t given up on finding Brandy, but I couldn’t go on without food. My stomach hurt. My legs were wobbly. I could barely stand, let alone run or even walk for miles.
I knew what I needed to do. I just didn’t know how to do it. Or if I even could.
If I went back up the riverbank to the highway, I could cross the river and go to the city that way, where there was bound to be something to eat. But there wasn’t much room on the edge of that bridge. The danger was too great. No, that wasn’t an option.
I could swim across. After all, Brandy had taught me how. But my hunger had made me especially tired and the river was wide, the water flowing fast. I wasn’t sure I could make it.
The water churned and bubbled at the river’s edge, a brown foam collecting in small pools where the rocks had trapped it. It wasn’t clear like the lake where Brandy had taken me fishing with her father. It was brown and smelly.
For a while, I paced along the bank beneath the bridge. If there was any chance of finding Brandy, I had to just pick a direction and go.
Finally, I turned to follow the river farther up, away from the highway bridge. I spotted another metal structure beyond a bend that seemed to span the river. The closer I came to it, the more I realized my good fortune—there were no cars or trucks on it, just two pairs of metal strips running parallel and beneath them, broad, weathered slats of wood.
It didn’t take all that long to get there, but my observation was confirmed—cars did not go this way. My path across was clear. The convenience of it was stunning.
Partway up the embankment, two boys appeared. I was never quite sure what to make of children—especially the half-grown ones like these.
“Logan, look—a dog.”
The other one rushed to the concrete barrier that ran along the road next to the river. He hopped up, then dangled over it. “Hey, puppy, come here. Here, puppy, puppy, puppy!”
I stayed where I was. Under other circumstances, if Brandy had been with me, I might have said hello, but it was better to stay safe for now.
“That’s not a puppy.”
“I know that, Becker. But what else am I supposed to call it? Not like it’s gonna tell me its name or anything.”
“Yeah, I guess. What kind of dog do you suppose it is?”
“Looks like a mutt to me. I reckon its tail got run over, and they had to amputate it.”
“You think so?”
“I bet.”
“I heard some dogs are born without tails. Some cats, too.”
Humans and their incessant babbling. These two were starting to irritate me. If I continued up the bank to the bridge, I’d have to go right past them. Too close.
They stood there a while, talking more words that made no sense, calling to me at intervals.
“Think we should tell someone, Logan?”
“Tell who what?”
“That there’s a dog down there. Maybe it’s lost or something.”
“Maybe it’s wild and has rabies.”
Enough of this. Turning, I started to run back the way I’d come, even though my leg hurt so badly now I couldn’t help but limp. Far enough away I had a good head start, just in case they did come after me. Finally, I turned around to look, but they’d already lost interest and gone on.
When I was sure it was safe, I returned to the bridge. I had to squeeze beneath a metal fence between the river and the road. It snagged my fur, pulling clumps loose.
At the bridge, I paused. This road was different. The twin strips of metal ran across it and on into the city. In the other direction, they ran out into a field, seeming to go on forever. The wooden slats beneath the rails had gaping spaces in between them. I’d have to be very careful where I put my feet. If I missed a step—
My toes tingled. The ground beneath my feet buzzed. Soon, the ground shook.
Far off in the general direction I’d come from, a long mechanical beast with no end in sight snaked along the metal tracks. It was headed for the bridge.
If I didn’t go now, I might never get to.
I started off at a stilted trot, hindered by my bad leg. The throbbing increased with every stride. The shaking from below grew stronger. I tried to hurry, worried the beast would beat me to the end and I’d have to jump over the edge into the murky water. Then I came to a spot where a board was missing. I stopped, looked behind me... shouldn’t have.
It was getting closer. Through the pads of my feet, I felt the rumble of its roar and knew it was after me.
It was too late to turn back. I had to go on, had to concentrate. When I focused ahead, it was as if the bridge were suddenly twice as long as it had been only seconds before.
I gathered myself, leaped, landed on my front paws, pitched forward—
My rear foot slipped. My leg went down in the hole, nothing but a roiling river far below. I tumbled, fell on my side, my bad hind leg twisting.
Pain was nothing when danger bore down. I pulled myself up—bad leg and all—and continued. Step by step by step.
My heart beat strong and fierce. My lungs drew air, deep and life-giving, fueling my muscles. Fear propelled me—faster, ever faster. Each stride growing longer and stronger, my feet barely grazed each board before pushing off and flying forward again.
A drawn-out blast slammed inside my ears. The ground shook, vibrating every bone in my body. I cast a glance behind me, seeing it had reached the start of the bridge. If I stayed my course down the middle, there was no escape. Shifting toward the side, I ran fast now, but the thing chasing me was impossibly faster.
Something in the river below caught my eye. The water flowed and splashed around a fallen branch... I lost my rhythm, placed a foot too far forward, wobbled.
For the briefest moment, I lost my balance. My shoulder hit the metal structure framing the bridge. Terror filled me. I scrambled to get my legs underneath me, each foot in the right place. Claws digging in, I veered back toward the center and raced on, never glancing back.
I ran until my heart threatened to explode. Ran until I thought my lungs would burst and my legs give way.
Until bridge met earth again.
Leaping free of the tracks, I tumbled down another embankment covered in loose rocks and scratchy weeds.
When I came to a stop, I swung my head toward the tracks just as another blast sounded. The beast thundered by, its wheels gliding over the smooth tracks. Closer up, I could see it was not just one beast, but many beasts trailing the leader. A strange thing. Just like the mechanical bird.
When it was long gone, I straggled out from the brush, more battered and bruised than before. The city sprawled far and wide.
And in its midst, the heady smells of food everywhere.
—o00o—
––––––––
That day and the next, I ate plenty by stealing cat food off porches and turning over trash cans. I slept in a cluttered garage one night and a stuffy crawl space the next. With a full belly and plenty of rest, I should’ve felt better, yet I was anything but.
I missed Brandy. Missed the sound of her voice, the gentle scratches under my chin, and the crunchy treats she used to feed me that tasted of cinnamon and apples. Somehow, I had to get back to her.
Although I wandered the city in search of her, deep down inside, I knew she wasn’t here. I needed to go back to where she’d left me.
First though, I’d eat one more time while I could. So I went to a yard with overgrown bushes, where it was easy for me to hide until it was clear. After I squeezed under the chain-link fence, I crept carefully through the tall grass. Beneath the tree in the center of the yard was nothing but a patch of dirt. I sniffed the trunk. It reeked of urine.
A dog had been here not long ago. I peered around, ready to bolt. It wasn’t there now, so I peed to leave my scent. As I kicked up dirt, I noticed a metal chain hanging from a clothesline.
I crept closer to the porch, watchful. I lapped at the stale water in the first algae-stained bowl. Then, as fast as I could, I ate the large chunks of kibble in the second.
Greedy, I ate and ate, until I was full and happy.
Until the back door of the house swung open... and the biggest, ugliest dog I had ever seen blustered out and locked eyes with me.
Face to face with Death itself, I froze from the inside out.
His jowls hung from a sagging face heavy with wrinkles. Tiny ears flanked the top sides of his overly large skull. They weren’t really ears so much as little flaps of hide where his ears should be. His eyes were a piercing gold, the irises half hidden beneath drooping lids. His coat was a shiny blue-gray, the color of metal. His leg bones were gnarly like the trunks of a tree. The knuckles of his toes splayed on the weathered planks of the porch. Two of me could fit beneath him.
A rumble vibrated in his throat. He licked his lips. His spine bristled.
I was going to die. Today. Cruelly. Painfully. My guts ripped from the softness of my bloated belly. My insides laid open for the buzzards. He’d leave my skeleton there as a warning to any others who dared to trespass.
I lowered my head below my shoulders in a signal of submission. His lip curled up, quivered, revealing yellowed fangs. He lifted a giant paw, took a step toward me. Drool dripped from his jowls in steaming globs. Behind him was an older man in nothing but his boxers and a stained undershirt, half-stooped with the burdens of old age and decrepitude.
“What’s ‘at, Beau? Some damn mutt eatin’ yer grub?”
The monster dog licked his lips, then growled again. The old man cackled.
It wouldn’t matter how much I groveled. This was fight or flight. Since this dog was four times my size and could fit my head inside his mouth, well, running away was the best option.
Turning tail, I made for the gap under the fence. Speed and agility were my best traits, but sometimes even those were not enough. After I crossed the yard in six strides, I dove for the opening, knowing my pursuer would be too big to follow. I ducked low. The links, some of them bent open and sharp, scraped at the top of my head, but I wasn’t about to stop to avoid a few scratches.
The problem, however, was my collar—the pretty green-patterned collar Brandy had bought for me at a dog show when I was an older puppy. My traveling collar, she’d called it. It had a tag on it with symbols that meant something to humans. Whenever she loaded up the van, she’d buckle it on me, and off we’d go on some adventure.
A wire from one of the fence’s links hooked beneath it as I rammed my head through the opening. The bottom of the collar hit my windpipe, choking me. A twist of my head only tightened it more. I couldn’t go through, couldn’t pull back. The entire rear portion of my body was exposed, vulnerable.
The monster dog thundered across the ground. Low woofs boomed from his throat. Up on the porch, the old man goaded him onward.
“Git ‘em, Beau. Git the sucker!”
I pushed and pulled and thrashed side to side, all the while aware if I called out, I would surely mark myself as fallen prey. Panic rose in my chest. Fright filled me.
Clods of dirt thwacked against me as the dog slid to a halt. I didn’t see what came next. I felt it. Deep and wounding.
His teeth sank into my haunch, that fleshy part just in front of my good rear leg near my belly.
I whipped my head back reflexively with a strength I hadn’t known I had. The collar slammed against my windpipe again. The snap broke. The release was so sudden I didn’t have time to think about it. I only knew I was free—and that flight had turned to fight.
Teeth snapping, I whirled and dodged, hitting each foreleg in turns, then his throat and jowls. He was strong and big, but I was a tornado that couldn’t be contained. Bite, bite, bite. Sounds I’d never before made ruptured from deep within. Bite! I would not stop until I’d won my freedom—and if I injured or killed him in the process, so be it.
I would win this fight or die trying.
Thinking was not something that consciously happened when life could end at any moment. I bit and tore and bellowed. Growled and twisted. Reacted to his every action. It was instinct. Survival.
As I took hold of his throat, pinching with all the force of my jaw, he went down and rolled, pinning me beneath him.
A madness took hold of me. Snatched my mind and carried it to a dark and forbidding place.
Never. Give. Up!
Fury consumed me. Emboldened me. Latching onto his lip, I shook my head back and forth.
With a yelp, he released me. I sprang to my feet. Ran. Bounded onto a trash can next to the fence—and sailed over. I hit the ground on the other side, tumbling forward. In the next heartbeat, I was up and running again.
The old man’s shouts followed me, empty threats fading as I ran. Through streets, across yards and parking lots, and past busses teeming with humans. I ran across the bridge where the beast had chased me. Back along the river. To the highway.
Not until the wounds of my skirmish took hold of my senses did I stop for rest. I crawled into a large pipe that ran beneath the road. Muck and stagnant water choked the tunnel. But it was dark there. Out of sight of human eyes. Away from predators.
There I lay on a narrow flat of soft mud. Afraid. In horrible pain. Until night came.
Then I mercifully slept, while my body healed in small and seemingly insignificant ways. Safe and alone.
—o00o—
––––––––
A fire raged inside me. Too stiff to move from the tunnel, I licked my wounds slowly while every inch of me burned. I stopped often to sleep more, unable to resist. Couldn’t have moved on even if the monster dog had been on my heels again. Whenever I woke up, it was only long enough to lick the deep puncture wounds clean, see whether it was day or night or if anything had changed, before I slept again.
At some point, I drank from one of the fetid pools of water. I regretted it a hundred times over when I puked up every last bit of food I’d eaten that day—or maybe it was the day before. I didn’t know anymore.
How many days had passed since Brandy’s van had crashed? Had she gone back to look for me? Was she okay?
Would I ever see her again? I was beginning to doubt it.
As I lay inside that tunnel, my energy ebbing, the fire inside me draining away my strength, something within me shifted. Tomorrow and yesterday didn’t matter as much as today. And today there was only pain and misery and shattered hope.
So I did what my body demanded: I rested. For days. My belly drew up tight. Mouth went dry. My eyesight blurred, senses dulled, and muscles grew so weak I stopped trying to stand or move to the edge of the tunnel to look out.
I had so many dreams. Of Brandy and me. Of running fast and free through a meadow. Chasing a Frisbee and bringing it back as she praised me. Climbing and jumping over the obstacles Brandy gave names to: teeter, walk-it, frame, over, tunnel...
Tunnel. Like this place in a way, but not nearly so long or nasty inside.
I dreamed of doing obedience with Brandy—heeling at her side in precise position, my head craned up to watch which way her shoulders moved and to better hear the commands she gave.
I hadn’t stayed. I hadn’t been loyal. I’d thought I could find her, but I couldn’t.
If I ever saw Brandy again, I would never leave her.
—o00o—
––––––––
Brandy’s hand lifted my chin so she could stare into my eyes.
“I told you to stay.”
Ashamed, I averted my eyes. No, I don’t think you did tell me that. But yes, I should have stayed.
She shook her head. “Why? Why did you leave, Sooner?”
To find you.
“They came back to look for you—my friends did. They called and called for you. But you were gone, to heaven knows where. What have you been doing all this time, huh, Sooner?”
Just trying to make it to the next day. To survive. So we could be together again.
“Nothing can keep us apart, Sooner. We were meant for each other. You have to believe that.” She leaned over and kissed me on top of my head. “Now let’s go. It’s morning. Time is wasting. You can’t lie around like a log all day.”
—o00o—
––––––––
Morning. The light that poured in was a pale pink. The air smelled of dew.
Brandy wasn’t with me. She hadn’t been. It had only been a dream. A wish. A vision born of hope.
Why had it felt so terribly real, though? I’d felt the brush of her fingers beneath my jaw. Looked into her eyes. Heard her voice as if she were standing right before me.
My heart ached for her. For what might never be again.
I stretched my legs. Some of my wounds had closed over. But blood had matted my fur and formed scabs in more places than I cared to know. The fire inside me, however, was gone. In its absence, I felt the tiniest bit stronger. Like I might not die after all.
On quivering legs, I stood. When I was sure I wouldn’t fall over, I took a step, then another, and another... until I stood at the opening of the tunnel.
It took some time for me to realize the buzz I heard was from the vehicles on the road above. It took even longer to figure out which way to go.
The going was slow, but I went. It didn’t matter how long it took. What mattered was I was going back to wait for Brandy.
Because even though I hadn’t done what I should have, I was sure she wouldn’t give up on me.
“Love you, my Imperial Princess Sooner,” she’d say every night at bedtime. “More than the sun and the moon and the stars.”
All I knew was that meant she loved me a lot.
And me? I would always love Brandy. More than bones and squeaky toys and Frisbees and food and sleep. No matter how far away she was or how long it had been since I’d last seen her.
I’d loved her from the first moment I saw her—and I would love her even if I never saw her again.
Because even though love had a beginning and started from nothing, it had no end and no limit.