Bernie strapped on the headlamp. I growled at him and felt bad right away, but I couldn’t help it: that headlamp on his forehead makes him look like some kind of machine, and there’s more than enough machine in humans to begin with, no offense.
“For God’s sake, Chet—you do that every time.”
I do? News to me. But I got most of my news from Bernie, so no problem.
We took a recon or recoy or whatever it was of the whole campsite, ended back at the fire pit. Bernie sniffed the air. That caught my attention: Bernie has a nice big nose for a human, but what’s that saying? Not much.
“Smell anything, big guy?” he said.
Did I smell anything? Was that the question? Where was I supposed to begin?
“I do,” he said, “and it stinks.”
Wow. That Bernie! I smelled so many things at the moment— the boys, Turk, Bernie, me, a female coyote, some squirrels, different flowers, tree sap, another mushroom like the one Bernie had pulled out of the ground, name gone from my mind, the dirty locker-room-hamper thing, and lots more if I took the time to sort them all out—but nothing that qualified as actual stinking. I waited to hear.
“For example,” said Bernie, “his backpack’s gone but not the sleeping bag.”
The sleeping bag? Was Bernie saying it stank? I went over and gave it a sniff or two. It smelled strongly of Turk, no surprise, but did it stink? Not to my way of thinking.
Bernie started taking down the tent. I helped by pawing at it a bit. Soon we had it all folded up and stuck inside the pack. Bernie hoisted it on his back.
“Okay, Chet, where did he go?”
That was the problem. There was so much of Turk’s scent around, old and new, that I started going in circles again, frustration building inside me. Had to produce in this business, Bernie said so.
“Take your time,” Bernie said. “No rush.”
Bernie had the nicest voice, if I haven’t made that clear by now. I felt calmer right away, and just then picked up a new trail, a little fresher than any of the others. It led over a mossy patch, so soft under my paws, and down to the stream, where it kind of petered out. I crossed over, sniffed around on the other side, came up with zip.
“He walked in the stream,” Bernie said.
I knew that one. A perp name of Flyhead Malone had tried to lose me once by doing the same thing; he was now wearing an orange jumpsuit up at Northern State. The warden, a pal of ours, invited us to the inmate rodeo a while back. What a day! It ended a bit early, but if we’re ever invited again I’ll handle the excitement much better. Those bulls, snorting and pawing! What got into me? But perhaps a story for another day.
Bernie gazed at the flowing water, mostly black but a little silvery here and there. I glanced at the sky, and over in one direction it was turning milky. Bernie switched off the headlamp and put it away. Way better.
“The question is,” he said, “upstream or down?”
Bernie thought. Upstream or down, a tough one: I could tell by the look on his face. I sat beside him. We did our best thinking that way. When Bernie’s brain is really working, you can feel it, like breezes springing up in the air, dying down, springing up again—not a bad feeling at all. The milky part of the sky turned red and then orange, and day spread around us.
“Upstream’s the contrarian answer,” Bernie said. “But that’s the way I’m feeling right now.” He gave me a pat. “How about you?”
Me? I felt tip-top.
We walked beside Stiller’s Creek. Sometimes there was a path, sometimes not, and once or twice we had to make inland detours when the going by the stream got too rocky. Too rocky for Bernie is what I meant: too rocky for me is hard to find. As for whether this was the right direction, I was picking up just faint scents of the kids—although never Devin—but there were stronger whiffs of Turk, plus the odd weak one, too. So, were we right or wrong? I didn’t know. Did I worry about that? Not a bit.
I hadn’t spent much time around creeks—we have them, too, in the Valley, and even rivers, but they all run dry, although back in Indian times, Bernie says, things were different. Donny O’Donnell, an Indian pal of ours who heads up security at the Little Bighorn Casino, always tells Bernie his tribe is hiding all the water until the palefaces go back where they came from, and Bernie gets a big kick out of it every time, but who the palefaces are and what Donny’s talking about is anybody’s guess. And it doesn’t even matter—what matters was how much fun creeks with water in them turned out to be. I even saw a fish that jumped right into the air! I was after him in a flash, of course, almost got a paw on the little bugger, but he dove back in and sped away with a flick of his tail.
“For God’s sake,” Bernie said from the side of the creek, his clothes kind of wet for some reason, “you don’t even like fish.”
True, but only on account of this bad incident with a fish bone—that’s what they’re called despite not looking at all like bones. I climbed onto the bank, gave myself a good shake— “Chet!”—and headed up-country, focused, alert, professional.
The creek grew twistier and narrower and flowed faster; at the same time our path steepened. I came so close to making—what would you call it? a connection?—yes, a connection, between all those things. Was I cooking or what?
We passed through some woods—mostly more of those Christmas trees—and came to a small clearing, Bernie huffing and puffing a bit. He sat on a log. I sat beside him. The white-streaked mountain peak rose in the distance, maybe closer now. In between stood a series of ridges, growing bluish the farther away they got.
“Did he really bring the kids all this way?” Bernie said. “And we haven’t even reached the mine yet.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and first finger. I never liked seeing that, not sure why. “But it’s always possible that …” His voice trailed away, so I didn’t find out what was possible. Fine with me: one thing I’ve learned in this business is that lots and lots of things are possible. “Either that,” Bernie said, “or we’re on a wild goose chase.”
Whoa right there. Did Bernie just say we were on a wild goose chase? I’d waited so long for this moment, wanted to go on a wild goose chase more than anything.
“Chet! Knock it off!”
Oops. Was that me standing up, my front paws on Bernie’s shoulders, almost pushing him off the log? Yes, my paws for sure, nice and big, one mostly black, one mostly white. A mistake, and I corrected it immediately.
“What’s with you?” he said, tossing away a button that had somehow come loose from his shirt. “Did you hear something?”
As a matter of fact, I did hear something at that moment, the unmistakable whap-whap-whap of chopper blades. I’d even been up in a chopper once, so I knew the sound from the inside out. Hey! Does that make any sense? Probably not.
“You do hear something, don’t you?” Bernie said. He cocked his head, ear to the sky. I love when he does that. Bernie has very nicely shaped ears, not that small, so even if they can’t do much, they’re still nice to look at. “Don’t hear a thing, myself. There’s the creek of course, and maybe a bird was singing a minute ago, but—”
WHAP-WHAP-WHAP. A chopper roared in at treetop level, zoomed over us, tilted a bit, and circled. WHAP-WHAP-WHAP. Bernie heard it now, no doubt about that. The human face does a sort of cringing thing when real loud noises start up, like someone’s going to hit them. Not that Bernie would ever cringe—and anyone who ever did hit him, and we’ve had a few who tried, got paid back good—but I could tell. He waved at the chopper. It tilted the other way and flew off.
“Rescue,” Bernie said, “probably dropping a team at the campsite.” He checked his watch. “Should be more coming on foot, all experienced people. Plus other positives, like clear weather and plenty of drinking water. So why don’t I feel good about this?”
Bernie didn’t feel good? That was a surprise. I gave him a little bump. We moved on.
The sun was high overhead when we reached a slope where there were no more trees. The footing was all broken-up flat rocks, kind of tricky for Bernie. Also that strangeness about the air, like I couldn’t fill up even with my deepest breath, was getting stronger. What else? The creek had thinned out to a trickle. We followed it to the base of a cliff where it disappeared, or maybe not completely, since it seemed to be bubbling right out of a hole in the rock.
“Pure spring water,” Bernie said, in between huffs and puffs. He gathered a double-handful and splashed his face. “Ah.” He looked around. “Imagine what life was like back then.”
I didn’t quite get that. What about right now? Life was pretty good, no? But Bernie had reasons for everything, so I tried to imagine some other life. No other life came to mind. Bernie made a little shrugging motion, adjusting the pack. We started working our way along the base of the cliff, and soon, in a shadowy spot under an overhang, spotted some white stuff, white stuff that reminded me of the white streaks on the mountain.
“Snow, big guy.”
Snow? I’d heard of it, of course, seen it lots of times on TV during the divorce, when for some reason Bernie had really gotten into skiing videos. The snow sent coldness up into the air. I sniffed at it. Snow went right up my nose! I sneezed. Bernie laughed. I licked at the snow. It turned into water on my tongue, although not much water. Bernie picked some up and patted it—hey!— patted it into the shape of a ball. Yes! One thing about Bernie: just when you think he’s done with amazing you, he amazes you again. Now, after all this time, I was just finding out he could turn snow into a ball. I knew what was coming next, one of my favorite feelings.
Bernie reared back to throw. He has a great arm—pitched for Army, in case that hasn’t come up yet—and can fling a ball a long, long way. Whoosh. The snowball rose high in the sky. I took off after it, this bounding run I have when quick starts are needed. The snowball, sparkling against the blue sky, came arcing down. I caught up to it at the last instant and snatched it out of the air. But what was this? It broke apart and kind of vanished, leaving me with a cold nose; very different from any other ball I’d fetched.
I turned back toward Bernie, and as I did noticed a big dark hole in the face of the cliff. I could see some thick wooden beams inside, and beyond them just shadows and darkness. This was an old mine. We’d been in lots, me and Bernie. It was one of our hobbies, if hobbies meant things we did that made no money and annoyed Leda.
Bernie came up, gazed at the mine. “No way Turk took them inside, is there?”
Not sure where Bernie was coming from on that one, although I remembered Turk very well. In fact, his scent was strong at the moment; the scents of the kids were pretty much gone.
Bernie went to the mouth of the mine. “Devin,” he shouted. “Devin.”
No reply. I sniffed the air, smelled nothing of Devin at all. Bernie unslung the backpack and was taking out the headlamp when he spied something on the ground, maybe a tiny scrap of cloth. He picked it up. Yes, a tiny scrap of cloth. I’d seen something like it, and not long ago. It came to me: the name tag on Devin’s sock.
I could see writing on this one, too. Bernie read it aloud. “Devin Vereen,” he said. “Oh, Christ.” He put on the headlamp. We entered the mine.