Cracker!

by Kadohata, Cynthia

  The men were all drenched. Rick knelt to check Cracker. A leech dangled from her belly. Maybe that’s what had caused her to jump up, although he’d heard leeches released anesthetic so you didn’t feel it when they bit you, or even when they hung on for hours.

  Someone tapped his shoulder and nodded toward where the lieutenant, water dripping from his face, was signaling Rick to come forward. Rick and Cracker hurried over. “Take the point, Dog Handler. If those snipers are still alive, let’s fix ’em.”

  The adrenaline had drained from Rick. He was exhausted. He didn’t even care about the leech on his cheek anymore. He still felt bad for Cracker, but he knew he couldn’t take the time to pull off her leeches or his own. “Yes, sir,” he said. He put on Cracker’s harness and tried to sound calm yet urgent. “Search, Cracker. Search.”

  Fourteen

  CRACKER WAS THIRSTY. SHE LOOKED AT RICK AND sent him the thought, but he just repeated, “Search!” Some of the leaves in the jungle were bigger than her. She stopped a moment to sniff a leaf, just because it was strange and big. It was as if she’d shrunk. She had a vague notion that Rick wouldn’t understand why she was sniffing at it, but she had to know: What kind of thing was this huge leaf?

  Rick caught up with her and squatted beside her. “Got something? Whatcha got?”

  Nothing, actually. She lifted her nose to the air and breathed deeply, the way she did when she wanted to know what was going on. This was different from the way she took in air when she was just breathing. All she knew was that the air went someplace different when she was just breathing versus when she was trying to figure out a scent. A huge variety of new smells traveled back through her nose and filled her head. Her head was so filled with these smells that she kind of became them for a moment, just like she sometimes kind of became Rick. She realized he was still waiting for her. She wagged her tail at him, then walked away. He fell back; she knew where he was without even looking at him.

  All of a sudden Cracker heard a noise that sounded like a really loud squirrel. She pulled toward the noise while Rick called, “Stay! Stay!” It was too late—Rafael was running forward, and all the men were holding their guns and aiming toward where Cracker was pointing. Rick spotted a monkey swinging away in the distance.

  Rafael hissed, “What is it?”

  “Monkey. It’s nothing.”

  “You just about gave the whole company a heart attack.” Rick could hear Rafael swearing to himself as he fell back.

  Rick wanted to jerk on Cracker’s harness, but dogs didn’t understand a correction unless it came directly after an infraction. Instead, he knelt in front of her and met her eyes. “This is serious. Okay?”

  Jungle foliage kept pricking at Rick, but he rolled up his sleeves anyway. Some of the guys had taken off their shirts. Scratches already covered their bodies, but it was better than passing out from the heat.

  A trail had already been worn through the forest. Cracker smelled other people on the trail, but not like the people Rick knew. A couple of times one of those black sticky things dropped onto her from the leaves above, and she quickly shook it off.

  Rick didn’t take his eyes off her. He’d heard that leeches sensed soldiers’ heat and movement and would let go of the leaves when you walked through a forest. Every now and then several at once rained down in Rick’s path. He could hear them dropping behind him, too.

  He stopped just once to glance back. He wasn’t supposed to take his eyes off Cracker, but for a minute there, the men moved so quietly that he doubted anybody was following him. It was spooky as hell that 150 guys could move so silently. That meant the enemy could do the same. Rafael trailed him by about seven yards, and behind that the men walked single file down the trail. They never bunched up. When Rick turned back around, Cracker’s ears were flickering.

  Intensity and focus washed through Rick. He felt about a thousand times more focused than he could ever remember feeling during training. Cracker didn’t stop walking after her ears flickered, and Rick decided her alert hadn’t been strong enough to stop the whole company.

  Her ears flickered again, and again Rick debated halting everybody. But Cracker kept walking, so he kept walking. This was so different from training. Now he had to interpret Cracker even more exactly, had to understand precisely what each flick of her ears meant. Otherwise, if he stopped the company too often, they might think he was crying wolf and not take Cracker seriously. And if he didn’t stop the company when there was real danger, men might die. He felt sick to his stomach. When he’d saved that kid’s life a long time ago, he’d had no time to think. Now time seemed endless. The lives of all these men, of himself, and of Cracker depended on how well he understood the meaning of Cracker’s every movement. He knew that if he failed, he would be tormented by guilt for the rest of his life. But the moment passed, and he was concentrating on Cracker again. Every so often one of her ears flicked, but that was probably because of a mosquito or small bug that he couldn’t see.

  They covered only about one hundred yards in twenty minutes, which Rick had heard was pretty standard for a hot area in heavy jungle. Boy, he never would have guessed it would be such hard work just studying his dog. Once in a while she would stop to meet eyes with him. He knew that the entire company was staring at them. Then, after one such meeting of eyes, she abruptly sat, almost as if Rick had commanded her to do so. Rick felt so shocked, he retched. He hurried to her but made sure not to pass her. He knelt down. “Whatcha got, Cracker? Whatcha got?”

  Cracker knew exactly what “wachagah” meant. She turned to look at the ground in front of them, then turned back patiently to Rick.

  Rick stared at the ground. He didn’t see anything but a bunch of dead leaves. Slowly, half an inch at a time, he raised his eyes, searching out a trip wire. He did that twice but didn’t see a wire. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. He even tried sniffing the air, as if that might help. He wondered whether he should turn and signal Rafael to come forward. He knew everybody was watching him and Cracker, waiting for a signal from him.

  What should he do? All right. All right. This time he started out about ten feet in the air, then slowly moved his eyes down searching for the trip wire. He still didn’t see anything. He looked at Cracker. She met his eyes, then turned her nose toward the ground and sniffed lightly without moving her body.

  He stared at the ground. Then he saw it. One leaf—really only one—didn’t quite match the surrounding leaves. He looked around and spotted a bush deeper in the jungle. The leaves of that bush matched the one on the ground. It could mean nothing. It could mean only that a leaf from deeper in the jungle had fallen off and, over time, had migrated to right here. Cracker turned to the ground again and sniffed over it, then turned to him. Rick gestured Rafael forward.

  Rafael walked quickly to them, but Rick kept him from moving past Cracker. Rafael said, “I don’t see anything. What does she got?”

  “I’m not sure. Look at that leaf. It looks out of place.”

  Rafael looked dubious, so Rick said, “She smells something too.”

  Rafael moved back to tell the lieutenant about it.

  Rick petted Cracker and whispered, “Hope you got something, girl, or we’re about to be embarrassed.”

  In a moment a soldier whose name Rick didn’t even know knelt on the ground beside him. “I don’t see anything,” the soldier snapped.

  Rick snapped back, “People see what they want. Dogs see what they see.” That was a line Rick heard Cody use sometimes. Humans saw in wholes, not in pieces. They saw a total picture, colored by what they believed. Dogs used their senses to “see” all the details, uncolored by expectations and beliefs.

  “Fall back, Dog Handler,” the soldier commanded.

  Rick and Cracker walked back and turned to watch as the soldier studied the leaves. In a moment the soldier gingerly cleared away a couple of leaves, then more and more. Rick saw that the leaves were covering a hole in the ground. T
he soldier hurried back to confer with the lieutenant, who sent word to Rick that it was a punji pit. Rick asked for permission to look at it.

  He and Cracker stepped forward and stared into the pit. It was a tiny thing, about a foot deep and two feet square. Sharpened bamboo sticks stuck up from the ground and angled upward from the sides. He’d heard that sometimes guys jumped out of helicopters and landed right in one of these pits. The points of the sticks were brown, probably covered with human feces so that they would not only stab you, but infect you as well.

  Cracker glanced into the pit. It looked like one of the pits she’d seen back in … wherever they’d been before—“Forbenning.” She shook herself, and she could sense something hanging on her belly. And something was stuck in one of her paws. She couldn’t feel it exactly, she just knew something was there. And she was still thirsty. And her stomach felt uneasy. She glanced at Rick. The glance made her forget the thing hanging from her belly, and even her thirst. He was staring right at her. “Good girl,” he said. She pushed her nose under his hand for some petting. He petted her but not enough, so she pushed her nose under his hand again.

  Rick removed Cracker’s leeches while someone destroyed the pit. He used his bug juice rather than a cigarette so that if Cracker moved, she wouldn’t get burned. He fingered bug juice on the black creature on her paw, and it fell right off. Same with the one on her belly and a third he found inside her thigh. He wanted to blast the leeches with his rifle. Instead, he touched the juice to the leech on his cheek, and it, too, fell to the ground, fat with his blood. He watched his blood trickle out of the leech. Then he felt all up and down Cracker to see if there were any more.

  Rick knew Cracker had just earned some respect points. He could see it in the way everybody was looking at him and his dog. He knelt beside her and said softly, “Good girl, good girl.” After Rick gave Cracker some water, he turned to her and said, “Search, Cracker. Search!”

  Cracker turned to the trail and lifted her snout, pulling scents to the back of her nose. She tilted her snout a bit more to catch a particular scent. She pricked her ears slightly. There was the slight suggestion of something, but she couldn’t quite capture it. She waved her nose left and right, trying to find a place where the scent was stronger. But she couldn’t quite get it.

  She took a few steps forward. The scent got stronger, and it seemed to be associated with a sound. She rotated her ears toward the noise. It sounded like—no, it was gone.

  She glanced at Rick and kept walking. She didn’t know how much time passed. She just knew there were many smells, and some of them were very strong, but the one she was focused on wasn’t very strong. The wind gusted, and she stopped. There it was, and now it was strong. She raised the hair on the back of her neck.

  A little more sunshine than before had managed to reach through the canopy. Rick liked that: less creepy. Still, his heart beat hard when he saw the hair on Cracker’s neck rise. But he didn’t feel sick this time, just extra alert. Cracker pointed her nose at some thick bushes about thirty yards away.

  Rick turned to Rafael and nodded three times. They’d decided that would be the signal when Cracker gave a strong human alert. The slack man sent word down the line. Rick saw soldier after soldier whisper to each other, until word reached the lieutenant. Then soldier after soldier sent word back up. Rafael signaled Rick to fall back.

  Rick wanted to be the one who would get to take a prisoner, if there was one, but he knew that wasn’t his job. Then as he watched the soldiers creep toward the bush, he felt a brief worry that maybe somebody innocent was hiding behind the bush.

  Cracker followed Rick back as several other soldiers moved forward. She felt pretty excited. She knew there was somebody behind those bushes. It was exactly like so often before, when she and Rick had been in that other place. She recoiled slightly at something in the air. It was familiar from the other place, but she forgot the word Rick had called it. Her eyes stung a bit. Rick knelt next to her and murmured, “Tear gas.”

  Then it seemed the whole world was shooting and shouting. Bam! Bam! Bam, bam, bam! “Get him!” “Did you get him?” “Got him!” “Watch out!”

  Rick hit the dirt, holding Cracker down. Then, sudden silence, broken when someone from in front shouted, “Medic!”

  Someone else cried out, “Call for the dust-off!” A “dust-off” was a helicopter to take out the wounded. That meant at least one of their guys had gotten hit.

  As the medic rushed forward, Rick overheard someone saying a sniper had been killed. A couple of soldiers had been wounded, one of them badly. In a minute, men rushed by carrying that soldier, blood already seeping through a bandage on his face. Rick didn’t know his name. It was better that way. Another soldier had gotten hit in the arm. He walked by, his arm in a sling. He nodded at Rick and winked at Cracker as he moved past.

  Their mission had been to find ’em and fix ’em, but they’d caught a sniper instead. Still, that was a big success. It was getting late. The lieutenant decided to head back, but he let the men take time to remove their leeches. Rick was surprised to see the men pull down their fatigues. Aw, man. Leeches stuck to guys all over the place. Rick pulled down his pants and saw a big, fat leech right between his legs. AW, MAN! He had to decide: Did he want to apply bug juice or a cigarette to the leech between his legs? He chose bug juice and watched the leech fall to the ground. Cracker growled at it.

  Whenever the other guys happened to make eye contact with Rick, they nodded. Yessir, Rick and Cracker had racked up a lot of respect points today. He didn’t expect any more remarks about being a new guy.

  He saw Rafael take off his boots. One of Rafael’s socks was bright red with blood. A leech must have gotten down his boot, then been squished. Rick had heard that it happened all the time. Those leeches could get anywhere. Insidious little freaks. The medic stopped by with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. He took out another cigarette, lit it, and handed it to Rick.

  “Thanks, Doc,” said Rick.

  Doc nodded, then petted Cracker.

  Cracker felt the man massage her head. “Good girl,” he said. That felt nice-but not nearly as nice as when Rick did it.

  Fifteen

  CRACKER RAN AS FAST AS SHE COULD. HER MUSCLES had gotten stronger every day, and she loved to feel their power as she pushed off the ground to gallop. If she got caught, there would be a lot of trouble. So despite a nearly overwhelming desire, she didn’t stop to eat the steak she had clenched in her jaws, just ran as fast as she could. Tristie raced by her side, and a few other dogs ran behind them. The calls of the men grew farther and farther away. She spotted a row of tall cans in front of her. Smelled like gas cans. Right before she reached the cans, she pushed up on her back legs as hard as she could and felt herself soar into the air. But she never forgot to keep her mouth clamped. She knew she would make it; she cleared the cans by such a small amount that her back paws brushed them as she landed. She stopped for one second and swallowed the steak.

  By the time the other dogs reached her, the steak was gone. She could hear yelling in the background. The noisy man yelled loudest of all. She hung her head low as the noisy man and all the other men ran around the cans. They smelled of sweat. Rick marched up to her. She hung her head even lower and whined. She lifted her eyes lovingly and pawed at Rick. Before Rick could say a word, the noisy man spoke up. “That was your dinner, mister. I’ve told you guys to keep those dogs on a leash.”

  In the short time Cracker had been here, she’d noticed a change in the way Rick treated the noisy man. Rick was a lot more casual with him. Now he said, “Uh-huh, Sergeant,” all the while glaring at Cracker.

  Twenty had managed to procure some steak by trading a pile of choice magazines he’d obtained from somewhere. Who knew where he got the stuff he traded? That was one of his specialties. Twenty had specialties, focuses. No generalist there.

  The men pulled the dogs by their collars into the kennels. Rick pushed Cracker in and said, “Bad girl! I�
��ll see you tomorrow. No supper.” He walked off. Cracker looked around. Every dog was staring at her. She regurgitated the steak and sniffed at it. Mmmm. Smelled good. Very good. Then she swallowed it again and lay in the place where the setting sun slanted over the gated side of her kennel. She watched Rick’s back retreat into the distance. She liked steak. Very, very good. She closed her eyes and let the sun warm her face. Every day was pretty good. Sometimes Rick took her out to work. The days were mostly dry. The temperatures were pleasant in the mornings and evenings, but when she worked in the afternoons, she got hot. Whenever she tried to drink from anyplace except Rick’s steel pot or her bowl, he got mad at her. Right now she lapped up water from her bowl before lying in the sun again to fall asleep.

  The next morning Rick showed up as usual with her breakfast. He fed her sullenly and left. She whimpered, and he turned around. She gave him a love look. “It’s not funny,” he said. “The whole unit got steak for dinner last night, and I got C rats.”

  C rats, mmmm. Good. Rick looked at her sternly, but she just wagged her tail. Then he cracked a smile and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

  They spent the day with some other guys and dogs, jumping over the walls and through tunnels at the obstacle course the men had erected for the dogs to do what Cracker thought of as playacting. It was fun but not as intense as when they went out to work for real. The guys laughed more, and Cracker couldn’t feel much tension, except maybe a certain competitiveness among Rick and his friends. She tried to do everything he said really well. Still, she knew these days were just pretend. Once, she raced ahead of Rick without any command from him and did the whole obstacle course. Then she ran up to him and sat. She waited for his reaction and got what she wanted. A smile. A “good girl.”