Lily to the Rescue: Foxes in a Fix

by W. Bruce Cameron

  Mr. Martin’s friend waved goodbye to us and walked off. The rest of us went in a different direction, to where a man was waiting for us in a car. “This is Nick. We went to college together,” Dad said. The man, Nick, hugged Dad and shook hands with Mr. Martin and nodded at Maggie Rose and patted me.

  “So appreciate you volunteering your services,” Nick told Mr. Martin.

  “Flying is my passion. And I wanted to help the foxes out of their fix!” Mr. Martin replied.

  We took another car ride, and it was by far the better one. The outside was back, and I could see it through the window, which my girl lowered a little bit for me. We drove to a big house with lots of windows.

  I was immediately excited when we jumped down out of the car. My nose told me there were dogs here. Many, many dogs!

  I didn’t have time to search them out, because we all went inside the big house. I followed Dad and my girl down a hallway to a room. Dad put a box with a handle and a zipper on a bed. Maggie Rose pulled on the zipper and opened the box.

  “I have a surprise for you, Lily,” my girl said.

  10

  My girl pulled something like a towel out of the box and showed it to me. I sniffed it. It didn’t just look like a towel—it smelled like a towel, too. “It’s a sweater, Lily! See? You get so cold, I bought you a sweater!”

  It was, apparently, a sweater. She seemed awfully excited, which I thought was a little odd, because a sweater was nothing more than a towel with holes in it. But then she knelt down and played Tug with each one of my legs, and when she was finished, the sweater was hugging me tightly.

  I sat and looked up at her, hoping she’d take this sweater thing off me. I wanted to follow my nose to all the dog smells I’d picked up on the way into this big house, not sit around with a strange towel clinging to me.

  “You look so cute! Come on, Lily!”

  I followed her back down the hallway. My tail stuck out of a hole in the sweater and I did not wag.

  Mr. Martin and Nick and Dad all turned and smiled at me. I thought maybe one of them might help me out of the sweater. “Well, look at that,” Mr. Martin said. “You sure look silly, Lily.”

  My girl looked troubled. “Lily gets cold easily because her fur is so short.”

  Mr. Martin nodded. “Makes sense.”

  “But there are plenty of dogs who don’t get cold at all,” Maggie Rose added firmly. “Like the huskies outside in the pen. Can Lily go play with your dogs, Mr. Cooper?”

  My girl called Dad’s friend “Mr. Cooper” because she didn’t understand that his name was Nick.

  “Oh, no, that wouldn’t be a good idea,” said Nick. “They’re sled dogs, and they’re bred to work. They’re not going to want to play, especially with a strange dog wearing a sweater. They might even hurt Lily if she goes running up to them.”

  He reached down to pet me.

  “Oh,” my girl replied in a quiet voice.

  “Tell you what, though. I’ve got some dogs who would love to meet Lily,” Nick told her. “One of my females had a litter about eight weeks ago. Want to see some puppies?”

  Maggie Rose became very excited, so I wagged. That’s what I do, make fun things even more wonderful by adding a little wagging tail to the action.

  We followed Nick down a different hallway to a different room. Dad came with us. In the room we met a mother not-sweater dog and a lot of not-sweater puppies.

  “They’re adorable!” my girl exclaimed.

  “Hardly anything cuter than a husky puppy,” Nick agreed.

  The puppies all charged me at once while the mother dog looked on calmly. Instantly I was in the middle of a pile of wrestling pups. When several of them snagged my sweater with their sharp little teeth, my girl unsnapped it off of me, and then we really had fun!

  Maggie Rose laughed and cuddled the puppies as they crawled onto her lap and then off again to play some more.

  “Look, this one has something wrong with his foot!” Maggie Rose said, bending close to a puppy in her lap. She rolled the pup over onto his back. He wiggled and nibbled her fingers.

  Nick, who was sitting near the mother dog, nodded. “Yep, we don’t know exactly why, but he was born without his right front foot. So he doesn’t really use that leg, but he gets around on the other three pretty well. And you have to admit, he’s darn cute.”

  “He’s wonderful,” Maggie Rose said. She hugged the puppy close.

  Nick nodded. “Can’t be a sled dog on three legs, though.”

  “So what’s going to happen to the little fellow?” Dad asked.

  Nick shrugged. “I know a guy who reclaims auto parts who wants a dog to chain up to protect the place at night.”

  Maggie Rose glanced up. “So he’ll be all alone in a junkyard all night?”

  Nick smiled at her. “This part of the world, the dogs all have jobs, Maggie Rose. There’s no use for a dog who can’t work.”

  I did not know why my girl suddenly seemed sad, especially with a puppy in her lap and a dog like me giving her a lick on her cheek.

  Nick stood. “Well … ready to take the foxes to their new home?”

  I was excited to leave the big house and go back out into the snow-filled yard, but I was not excited when my girl put me back in the sweater. Worse, she kept me on a leash, so I wasn’t able to run over to the huge pen and visit all the big, furry dogs who lived there.

  The dogs did not wag, did not bark, did not seem friendly at all. Their stares were as cold as the frosty air.

  I am a dog who can make friends with anybody. I have crow friends and pig friends and a leopard friend. But I did not think these dogs wanted to be friends with me.

  I blamed the sweater.

  Nick and another man carried the crate full of foxes over to a long skinny car that lay flat on the ground. It had no wheels and no sides and no top. I followed my girl and Dad to another such car.

  Then I watched in amazement as Nick and his friend let the silent dogs out of their pen. The dogs were excited as they were hitched up to long leashes. Were we all taking a walk? If so, why was my girl holding me still as we sat down in the car with no wheels?

  “Ready for a sled ride, Lily?”

  I did not know what Maggie Rose was asking. I spotted Jumper in his crate with his foxes friends. He was not wearing a leash and did not look excited.

  Nick stood up in front of our car. “Line out!” he yelled.

  I watched with no understanding as the other dogs formed a straight line, standing in their leashes.

  “Mush!” Nick shouted.

  To my amazement, the silent dogs lunged forward on their leashes. Dragging a person on a leash is considered bad dog behavior in my family. But when these dogs pulled hard on their leashes, our car started to move and everyone seemed happy about it.

  “Here we go!” Dad cried.

  11

  I have seen dogs do lots of jobs. There is the Chase-Squirrels job, the Bark-at-the-Doorbell job, and the Remind-Humans-About-Dinner job. These are all important, and dogs work very hard to do them right.

  The dogs on leashes apparently had the job to be Bad. They threw their whole weight into the harnesses, and they yanked as if they were pulling us toward a very delicious dinner. No one yelled “No.” No one was unhappy with them.

  Nick’s friend stood in the other open-air car, and the two men talked to the dogs, calling out words I didn’t understand.

  What sort of place was this, where it was fine for dogs to yank on their leashes, and a good dog like me was forced to wear a sweater?

  “Dad,” Maggie Rose said. She seemed unhappy, and I nuzzled her hand.

  “What’s wrong, Maggie Rose?”

  “I don’t want that little puppy to live on a chain in a junkyard. He’s sweet and loving and cute,” my girl said firmly. “If Mr. Cooper is going to just give him away, why can’t we take him? Take him back to the rescue and find a good home for him?”

  Dad gazed back at her, but didn’t answer. />
  I wondered why my girl kept saying “Mr. Cooper.” At first, I thought it was because she thought that was Dad’s friend’s name, and no one told her it was actually Nick. But now I wasn’t so sure.

  There were no trees. The ground was flat and mostly snow-covered, and the wind came to my nose from far, far away. Soon we came to the top of a very low hill and I saw a large lake with a rocky shore and chunks of ice floating in the still water. Dad turned and grinned. “This place is perfect!”

  How could he be so happy with dogs yanking on their leashes? I did not understand.

  “Gee!” Nick and his friend yelled. The dogs turned us toward the lake. I do not like swimming, and hoped that wasn’t what was coming next.

  “Whoa!”

  We stopped. The leashed dogs were panting. Nick’s friend gave them water.

  Nick came over to us. “There’s a small skulk of foxes living around here. Plenty of lemmings come down to the water, and there are large colonies of voles nearby, so they have a good food source.”

  “It’s great,” Dad replied.

  “Why aren’t there any trees?” Maggie Rose wanted to know.

  “It’s called tundra,” Dad explained. “The air is too cold and the growing season is too short for anything but a little grass and moss. The foxes are going to love it here!”

  I watched curiously as Nick and Dad carefully picked up the crate with the foxes and carried it down toward the lakeshore. I saw Jumper glance at me and wagged at him. I didn’t really understand what was happening, but I knew if Dad was involved, everything would turn out just fine.

  The two men set the crate down and opened the door. “All right!” Nick said. Both of them ran back up to us. They were very happy.

  “How long will they stay in the crate?” my girl wanted to know.

  Dad shrugged. “They feel safe in there. Eventually, curiosity will get the better of them, but right now, they obviously don’t want to go exploring.”

  I yawned. The air was very cold, but for some reason I wasn’t shivering.

  We sat in silence. I could smell the foxes and I could smell the leash-yanking dogs, who were lying down, still attached to one another by their leashes. Finally, they were being good dogs.

  And there was another odor on the air, dank and strong. I lifted my nose to it. I had never smelled anything like it, though it reminded me of the huge beasts at Zoo, the ones with the fierce claws. This smell wasn’t the same, but it was similar.

  “Oh, no,” Nick said softly.

  “What is it? What do you see?” Dad asked.

  Nick pointed. “There. See?”

  Dad’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, boy.”

  “What is it, Dad?” my girl asked anxiously.

  Dad gave her a grim look. “See up there on that small rise? Where there’s no snow? He’s not moving now, so you can barely make him out. He’s dark with white markings.”

  “Is it a badger?” Maggie Rose guessed.

  “Close. It’s a wolverine,” Dad replied. “One of the fiercest animals on the planet. Worse, wolverines hunt Arctic foxes, especially young ones.”

  “Oh,” Maggie Rose replied in a small voice. “No wonder they don’t want to come out of their cage.”

  “That’s right,” Nick agreed. “They know he’s there.”

  “Does he know about the foxes?” Maggie Rose asked.

  “Wolverines have amazing noses,” Dad answered. “He knows they’re there, all right. He just doesn’t understand about the crate. But if one of them tries to make a run for it, his instincts will take over.” Dad gazed sadly at my girl. “I’m sorry for what you’re about to see, Maggie Rose.”

  “What do you mean?” Maggie Rose asked. Her voice made me look up at her, worried. What was wrong with my girl? “We have to do something!”

  Then my gaze returned to the animal with the strong odor, because it had moved down the slope toward the crate. It kept stopping to raise its head. It was about the size of Brewster, but it was not a dog. It smelled fierce and wild.

  “We can’t do anything,” Nick replied unhappily. “Wolverines are very rare. We can’t interfere.”

  “But he’ll hurt the foxes!” my girl protested. “It’s not fair. They’re stuck in the cage!”

  “Maggie Rose,” Dad said gently. “This is just one of the things we have to accept. We have to let nature take its course.”

  My girl was so upset that tears were slipping down her cheeks.

  This was a day I could not understand. I didn’t understand why the leash-yanking dogs were allowed to misbehave. I didn’t understand what we were doing out here in the cold, or why my foxes friends were sitting, not moving, in the crate. I didn’t understand why I was wearing a sweater.

  But I did understand that my girl was frightened and sad. And I did understand that the odd, Brewster-sized not-dog was the reason she felt so bad.

  There was only one thing I could do.

  12

  I lunged to the end of my leash, and, with all the anger I could muster, I barked at the new, wild animal.

  A dog always knows what’s going on with other dogs. I could feel the leash-yanking dogs react to my fierce barking.

  “Lily,” Dad murmured.

  All the dogs, still leashed together, rose to their feet and joined their voices with mine. I wasn’t even sure they knew what we were barking at, but they matched my fury with their own. Together, we made a loud chorus of dogs.

  For a moment the wild creature froze. Then, with an odd, hopping gait, it turned and fled up over the hill, vanishing from sight.

  We all kept barking, because once you’ve started it’s a little hard to stop.

  Nick turned to Dad. “A wolverine is too tough to care about a single dog, but a dozen dogs … that’s a different story.”

  “We let nature take its course,” Maggie Rose added happily. “It was natural for the dogs to bark.”

  “You’re right, Maggie Rose,” Dad replied.

  “Lily thought of it first!” My girl beamed.

  After what seemed like a long time, an adult foxes slipped out of the crate, followed moments later by the rest of them. I saw Jumper bringing up the rear. He spotted me and leapt up into the air, full of joy. But he didn’t pause as he followed his friends. They all ran away across the snow, heading in the opposite direction from the wild, Brewster-sized not-dog.

  I had been through this sort of thing before, making friends with animals before they ran off to live somewhere else. They didn’t know how soft and sweet Maggie Rose’s bed was, so they didn’t know what they were missing. I thought I saw Jumper turn and give me a last look before he vanished into the snow, but I couldn’t be sure. His scent lingered for a while longer.

  The leash-yanking dogs started with their bad behavior again, and they did it all the way back to the big house. There Maggie Rose unstrapped the sweater from my back and I played with puppies.

  One of the little dogs spent most of the time in my girl’s lap. “Oh, puppy, just because you are missing a foot doesn’t mean you should live in a junkyard on a chain. You deserve a much better life,” she whispered.

  Dad and Nick came to see me playing with the little dogs. “Time for bed, Maggie Rose.”

  “Mr. Cooper,” Maggie Rose said, “I know that up here all the dogs have to work, but my mom runs an animal shelter, and we can find this little puppy a home with people who will love him. Could we take him back with us? Please?”

  Nick looked at Dad. Dad looked at Nick. They both looked at Maggie Rose.

  “How can I say no?” Nick replied.

  * * *

  The next morning we returned to the big parking lot. We all climbed back into the strange car where nobody opened windows. I could still smell the foxes.

  I wasn’t the only dog in the car. The puppy who ran a little oddly was joining us! We immediately started to do Wrestle, which was the right thing to do. An older dog like me is supposed to teach a younger dog how to behave.

/>   When the car roared and the squishy, heavy feeling settled over me, I could tell the little puppy was scared, so I didn’t howl. I lay down next to him and offered comfort. Soon the heavy feeling went away, and we started playing again.

  I have been around a lot of puppies, so I wasn’t surprised when suddenly he sprawled out on the floor and fell asleep. That’s just how they behave at that age. I took a nap myself, but we both woke up when Mr. Martin came back to visit us.

  Mr. Martin scooped the puppy up and grinned at him. He held the puppy close and let him lick his face.

  I saw Maggie Rose smile.

  On that car ride, Mr. Martin spent a lot of time playing with the puppy—even more than I did. When the puppy became tired, he curled up in Mr. Martin’s lap and closed his eyes, relaxed and happy.

  Mr. Martin was this puppy’s person, I realized. Just like Bryan was Brewster’s person and Maggie Rose was mine. A dog can always tell.

  “Cute little guy,” Mr. Martin said.

  “That he is,” Dad agreed.

  “We’ll find him a good home,” Maggie Rose chimed in.

  Mr. Martin gazed down at the puppy in his lap, a thoughtful look on his face.

  “Of course, it’s always hard to find a home for a three-legged dog,” Dad observed carefully.

  Maggie Rose nodded. “That’s right. Most people think it will be too much trouble. You need to know what you’re getting into.”

  “This little guy gets along just fine,” Mr. Martin said.

  “Sure does,” Dad agreed.

  “He’ll be happy in Colorado, too,” Maggie Rose said. “He’s a husky, so his fur will be thick to protect against the snow.”

  “And huskies grow to be pretty big, even wolf-like,” Dad added. “So he wouldn’t be happy to be a city dog. He needs lots of room to run.”

  “Good thing we live so close to the mountains!” Maggie Rose declared.

  Mr. Martin raised his eyes, but he still had the soft smile he’d been wearing as he gazed at the puppy sleeping in his lap. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you two were hinting at something.”