Shep smelled Callie’s approach. The tails of dawn had just begun to wag in the sky behind Shep — their dim light outlined the rim of the tunnel. Before him, the sky was still deep blue and a few fires of the Great Wolf’s coat glittered along the tree line.
“You’re up early,” he woofed.
“I figured you hadn’t slept,” Callie replied. She sat beside Shep’s snout. “I remember what that was like — no rest for the alpha.”
“You’ve gotten more sleep while trapped in that cage?” Shep shifted his muzzle to the other side of his paws, away from Callie.
“What else could I do?” she woofed. She licked one front dewclaw and rubbed it over her short muzzle. “It was loud in that building and the lights were always on, but I was so tired I could have slept in the middle of the street with Cars whizzing over my back.”
Shep decided to dig straight into the idea he’d been chewing on all night. “I want to rebuild the pack,” he barked. “Now that you and I are back together, we have a real chance at surviving.”
Callie placed her paw on the ground and looked at Shep. She planted a light lick on his wet nose. “I can’t,” she woofed. “I’m sorry, Shep, but I want to go home. I want to be with my family.”
Shep pushed himself to sitting. “But why?” he yipped. “It was you who wanted to escape your den back on that grate, before the storm.”
Callie grinned. “A lot’s happened since we met on that grate. For starters, I nearly died.”
Shep panted lightly. “Nearly,” he snuffled. “But we’ve learned so much. I think we could really make it, especially with the humans coming back. There’ll be more food to scavenge —”
“Shep,” Callie yipped softly. “You’re not hearing me. I don’t want to rebuild the pack. I want to return to my girl.”
“I thought we were partners,” Shep grumbled. “I thought you wanted to lead the dogs.”
“I did,” she woofed. “But that was when we didn’t know where our humans were, when all we had were our fellow dogs to rely on. Now our humans are here — they never left! And we can find them. Don’t you smell how different the situation is?”
Shep licked his jowls and scanned the surrounding scents — Zeus was still in his pile of leaves with Oscar; every other dog snored on. “How is the situation different?” he barked. “Pumpkin doesn’t know where she is, let alone how to get to this ‘shelter.’ And what if the place was destroyed in the storm? What if our families are —” He stopped himself, knowing he’d gone too far.
Callie stared at him, frightened by what he’d almost said. “I won’t believe such a thing until I’ve smelled it myself.” She shivered. “I have to believe that, with or without Pumpkin, we will find our families. The humans are here. The city is no longer abandoned.” Callie sniffed the air. “I can smell them, all around. Even if we just go back to our dens, I’m sure our families will return for us.”
“I don’t want to go back.” Shep felt ashamed barking the woofs out loud. “I want to be free.”
Callie smiled a gentle smile and rubbed her muzzle against his shoulder. “Wearing a collar doesn’t mean you’re not free,” she said.
“You won’t be able to see me whenever you want,” Shep grunted. “Or eat what you want. Or chase squirrels through the street.”
“True,” woofed Callie. “But I won’t starve, or eat a poisonous plant trying not to starve, or lose fur over whether I made the right decision by letting a black Lab den with a Boston terrier. I’ll be well fed and in an air-conditioned den with a soft bed, just for me. And I’ll run around in a safe Park without worrying about whether a pack of wild dogs is going to tear my ear off.”
“There will always be a leash holding you back.”
“No matter where you go, Shep,” Callie snuffled, “there’s always something holding on to you, whether it’s a leash or a pack or your stomach.” She waved her snout at the trees, standing black against the lightening sky. “Life isn’t about freedom; it’s about choosing what you want to be free from. I want to be free from worry. This last moon-cycle, I’ve worried enough for one lifetime.”
Shep closed his eyes. Callie was set on her track — he’d failed to convince her to stay. The only question was whether he should take off now and leave the dogs to find their way home alone, or stand by his pack and lead them to safety. Why did he even bother asking the question? There was no other choice but to lead his friends home. It’s what an alpha does.
“If it’s what you want,” he woofed, “I’ll take you home. But I’m staying free.”
A frown clouded Callie’s muzzle for a heartbeat, but then she licked his nose. “Thank you,” she yipped.
Pumpkin woke with a scream. “GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OFF ME!” She bounded in small circles, kicking and scratching and biting her fur.
“What?” barked Shep. “What happened?” He hadn’t smelled or heard Zeus prowling and couldn’t see anything near her.
“A fly!” Pumpkin shrieked. “A horrible, buzzing, nasty, disease-ridden, spiny-haired ball of evil with wings!”
Shep cocked his head. “You’re tearing your fur out over a fly?”
Pumpkin stopped bouncing and panted, nervously twitching every few heartbeats. “They’re evil, I tell you. Pure evil.” Then she shook herself from nose to tail, licked her jowls, and smiled. “I know how we can find the shelter!” Just like that, it was as if Shep were barking with a different dog. “I had this dream,” she yipped to Shep and Callie, who’d joined Shep in staring at the white dog like she’d morphed into an iguana.
“I was back home,” Pumpkin continued, “sleeping in my favorite bed by the window, looking down at the beach.” She looked at each of them with a huge smile on her snout, her tiny tail waving.
“And?” woofed Callie encouragingly.
“And what?” barked Pumpkin, head tilted.
“How does this dream help us at all?” grumbled Shep.
“The beach, silly fur!” yapped Pumpkin. She slapped her paws on the dirt. “If we go to the beach, we can find my den!”
Shep sank into a sit and scratched his scruff. “We’re nowhere near the beach,” he grunted. “And even if we got to the beach, how would you know where your den is? The beach is a huge, long strip of sand, and the only scents I ever smelled there were salt and rotting weeds.”
“I’d know my beach anywhere,” Pumpkin woofed with her snout raised, like a tiny, white version of Ginny.
“Any other ideas?” Shep woofed to Callie.
“No,” she replied, “but I think Pumpkin might be onto something.”
Pumpkin sprang to her paws, vibrating with excitement. “Yes! I am!” She waved her tail and waited for Callie to continue.
Callie looked at the fluffy girldog as if even she found Pumpkin’s exuberance disturbing. “What I mean is that traveling on the beach, rather than the streets, back to our dens would mean that we would run into fewer humans. It might be safer.”
“Yes!” yipped Pumpkin. “It would be supersafe!”
“There are always humans on the beach,” grumbled Shep. “And there are no buildings to hide in or scavenge for food.”
“I don’t think the humans have returned to the city to sunbathe,” barked Callie. “I think they have a few other things nibbling at them besides how brown their skin is.”
“Is that what all those people were doing?” woofed Shep. “They sleep on the sand to turn brown?”
“My mistress sleeps on the sand all the time,” yipped Pumpkin. “I love the sand!”
“And there are buildings alongside the beach,” woofed Callie. “Maybe there will be food inside those dens.”
“Yes!” barked Pumpkin. “My den is next to the beach!”
Shep had that feeling again, of wanting to drop a paw on the little white yapper and plant her in the dirt like a palm tree. That’s not how an alpha should be thinking, he reminded himself and pressed his paws more firmly onto the ground.
“If that’s what you think is best,” he woofed to Callie, “I’m willing to go along with your plan.”
The other dogs had woken at the sound of Pumpkin’s excited barks. They now crowded around the three of them.
Shep turned his attention to Pumpkin, who bounced on her paws. “So, how do we get to your beach?” he barked as calmly as possible.
Pumpkin furrowed her fluffy brow and nibbled a jowl, putting on a bit of a show for her audience. “Well, the sun rises over the beach, so we should walk toward sunrise until we hit the ocean. Then we’ll be at the beach!”
“We’re thousands of stretches from the ocean,” Zeus growled, padding into the clearing. “How does the yapper suppose we’re going to get from here all the way to the beach without getting caught by the dog catchers?” He limped over the dribble of water streaming out of the tunnel and sat near the scrubby bushes that grew under the trees.
Shep’s hackles rose, as did every other dog’s — except Pumpkin’s; she seemed oblivious to Zeus’s menace.
“That’s no problem!” she yipped. “There aren’t that many people working to catch dogs — I only saw a couple in the kennel. The night they brought in Callie and the other dogs you were with, the humans had been yapping about a ‘nest of dogs,’ how they had to ‘break up the nest,’ so I think maybe whoever caught you was a special group organized to catch your pack. Most of the people here are trying to help clean up the mess that the storm left.”
Rufus snorted a nasty little snort, always happy to contribute some tail-dragger comment. “I’d bet my snout that any human would call the dog catchers the heartbeat they spotted us, whether they were working with them or not.”
Pumpkin — immune even to Rufus’s nastiness — wagged her tail and continued yapping happily. “Not if you’re superfriendly, they won’t!”
“I agree with the young ladydog,” yipped Ginny. “I think we’ve been taking the wrong track with all this sneaking about. Humans love dogs. If we just show a sniff of poise and reflect an open countenance, they will do anything for us.”
“I have no idea what the poofy yapper just said, but I don’t like the smell of it,” grumbled Zeus.
“She said we have to act nice and approachable,” Callie barked. “A task it’s not clear you can handle.” She growled softly on her last woofs.
Zeus sneered, but kept quiet.
Well, that is a change, Shep noted. Time was, he’d have bitten her snout off for that….
Pumpkin reared in front of Zeus, planted her paws on his chest, and began sniffing his jowls and turning her head from side to side. “Oh, I think that we can make him look friendly,” she woofed, unaware that she was a heartbeat away from getting swiped with a fang.
Zeus, however, kept his cool. He grimaced at the yapper’s shiny black nose as it wuffled in his ear, but let her finish her analysis of his “countenance” … whatever that was.
Ginny watched Pumpkin’s brave investigation of Zeus with a look of shock but then paraded closer to the boxer herself and gave him a perfunctory sniff. “Yes,” she yipped. “I think that Pumpkin and I can make you all seem like the friendliest bunch of dogs this side of the swamplands.” She gave a nod of her snout and a wave of her tail.
Dover looked at Shep, eyebrows raised. Shep had no idea how Pumpkin thought she could turn Zeus into a friendly dog, but, Great Wolf, he was happy to let her try.