The rain stopped. The clouds fled past, leaving the star-swept sky clear. The dog watched Bony Boy sleep in the darkness. He lay on his back, his mouth open, his eyes shut.
She stretched cautiously, ready to run or snap if he moved. He gave a half snore, half cry, then breathed quietly again.
The dog lifted her nose and took in the smells around them. Land and sea, but much more sea than land. This land was a drift of sand in the ocean, no more. No smell of trees. Worse: no scent of fresh water.
Only one cord bound her to the canoe now. It didn’t take long to bite through it.
She leaped from the canoe, feeling it shift slightly as she did. Still Bony Boy didn’t move. She trod carefully through the star-dappled darkness up to the highest point of this tiny piece of solid ground. She lay down, keeping her nose pointed towards Bony Boy and the canoe, so that she’d know if either of them moved. She shut her eyes and allowed herself to snooze, her ears pricked, ready for what the dawn would bring.
Bony Boy slept as the far horizon grew grey instead of black. The dog gazed around. The waves had crept back across the sand, now the storm was gone.
She padded down to the water’s edge, her ears still pricked in case Bony Boy moved, or a crocodile lurched from the water. It didn’t take long to trot around the island.
It was pretty much as she had smelled it during the night: a long drift of sand above the waves. But there was a new meat smell now. She nosed around the seaweed and tangles of branches and leaves, then pounced.
A dead seagull!
She was more thirsty than hungry, but she needed to eat too. She carried the dead bird up to the top of the island again, then lay down with it between her paws. She nosed off the feathers, then bit into the flesh, enjoying crunching the bones. The salt-sodden feathers stung her lips and tongue.
She lifted her nose again, hoping that, somehow, there’d be the scent of fresh water. But there was just the sea and Bony Boy and the canoe.
She had never been so alone. There had always been the pack: the big female with her pups, the top dog, the uncles and aunts, the pups, toddling and learning to hunt. Even when she couldn’t see them she knew where they were by their smell; knew where they’d been, what they were doing. She could smell where dogs had been for generations leaving their scent by trees and rocks. Her world was full of dog, if you knew how to smell it.
This world was empty.
How could you be a dog without a pack?
The pack would find her, she decided. There had to be dogs, even here. There had always been dogs.
She put her head on her paws and waited.