Glasgow attempted to crawl from the water but her bloody, exhausted paws just scratched at the icy rocks. Her chin dropped back into the water and her radio collar banged softly on a boulder.
With one flick of his massive distorted head the rogue snatched the smaller wolf by the neck and snapped it. He dropped her lifeless body into the snow and walked towards the river, followed by the other rogue who was still laughing in lunatic, snorting fits.
They walked past the torn bodies of Glasgow’s Alpha, her sister and brother, and all of the pack’s young.
As they approached, Glasgow dropped her head into the frigid waters and let her feet go. Her body slid over the slick rocks and into the flow of the current. She dipped below the waves as the blood from her wounds swirled around her and she let the river take her.
The rogues wadded into the icy churn and dragged her wet body out of the river and onto the shore. They stood over her as she coughed out water.
Chapter 46
“So,” Hamish said, “Out with it boy.”
Ben stared at the leather sled dog boots and the thumb drive. He looked at Spot and Smudge, and they both nodded up at him in sync.
“We were going to tell you,” Ben said, “Today, in fact. We just needed to be sure.”
“Be sure?” Christa said, “As in be sure you could trust us? We don’t do that here, Ben...And what do you mean, we?”
Ben could see there was far more hurt on her face than confusion. He hated seeing that look and his eyes dropped to the table.
“Aye,” Hamish said, “we certainly don’t do that here. I’m disappointed, but at the same time I think I know what’s going on.”
“You do?” Ben asked, looking up.
“Aye, I do,” Hamish said, “Your pups are odd wee things. I knew it when I first saw them, with their strange looks and crazy thick paws. Exactly how odd took some time to figure out and I thought I had it, but seeing them go out for a stroll through the woods of Quebec last night, and seeing Rook and Vuur become super cops in one day, I wasn’t so sure anymore. Hell, even that dotty old cunt Sholto’s got some new spring in her step. I suspect there’s more afoot here than I understand.”
“Yeah Unc,” Ben said as he looked at the pups, “there sure is.”
Spot put his front paws in Ben’s lap so his head and shoulders were above the table. Smudge did the same in the chair next to them as Ben patted both of their heads.
“And then there’s this wee thing,” Hamish said, holding up the USB stick, “I’ve been working with dogs for a half century and there’s things on here even I don’t understand.”
“Wait,” Christa said as she looked around the table, “I’m a little confused. I thought we were mad that he stole dog boots and went out at night without telling us?”
“Ben,” Hamish said as he handed over the USB drive, “show her.”
Ben took the little stick and tossed it into the air.
As it came down Smudge reached out, and in one fluid motion she split open her paw and snatched it before it hit the table.
Both pups looked at Christa and wagged in sync.
“Fuck me,” Christa said with her mouth hanging open.
Spot raised an eyebrow at her, and then he raised a paw.
He signed and Ben said, “Christa, language.”
Spot and Smudge sat in their own chairs next to Ben as he patted them, and described their incredible first nine months of life to a riveted Hamish and Christa. He told them about their mother’s escape from the kennels, Smudge’s parvo, the goat pen fire and the surgery, and about their recruitment of the local coyote pack and Max. He told them about the pups studying everything they got their paws on. He also told them about the pups helping with their homework, and how far ahead he and Kelcy were in school.
He told them about the family agreeing to keep the pups’ gifts a secret.
Spot and Smudge helped him to answer any questions they had. Hamish and Christa watched mesmerized as Ben and the pups held full conversations in sign language.
Ben stopped short of telling them about the Dorschsteins, or the demise of Dr. D the vet, or Liko, or Aaron, or the other bad guys the pups had taken care of.
At one point it appeared the conversation between the pups and Ben got a little heated. Ben wanted to tell them about the smell the pups were currently chasing and what they’d found so far but Spot convinced him to hold off.
Ben, wait just a sec and look at them, Spot signed, I think we’ve given them enough to gnaw on for now.
Hamish and Christa inspected each of the dogs’ paws, and laughed when Smudge reached over the table and gave them a very firm handshake.
“So,” Christa said slowly after a long pause, “You adopted these orphaned pups and they turn out to be super smart. They surround themselves with a team of local woodland allies so they can secure their environment, and create hands so they can more proactively interact within it, is that about right?”
Spot and Ben both nodded.
“I must say,” Christa said, “Everything else aside, that’s pretty fuc…freakin’ cool.” She got up and went around the table to sit between the pups, and said, “And keeping it a secret makes sense. Apology accepted, and I guess that explains the sign language. Does your whole family sign with them?”
“Yeah,” Ben said, “But they’re a little slower at it.”
Christa laughed as she was examining the pups. As she poked and prodded their paws she looked up at Hamish and said, “The first of their kind…think of the possibilities...and the responsibility.”
“You should talk to my sister,” Ben said, “She’s seriously geeking out on that subject. She’s studying to be a vet so she can help the pups figure out what makes them tick.”
“Help the pups?” Hamish asked. He let that thought run around in his head for a minute as he rolled the USB stick in his hands. He said, “Ben, exactly how smart are they?”
“Ask them,” Ben said.
Hamish asked, and Spot answered using Ben almost like a straight translator. Hamish noted there was virtually no delay from the dog’s signing to his grandnephew speaking it out loud. They talked non-stop for another hour and Hamish quickly ceased referring to the pups as ‘them’, and started calling Spot ‘you’.
They moved quickly through language, math, and the sciences. Hamish noticed Spot had begun to pause their conversation from time to time to have a blindingly fast exchange with Ben. When Ben looked up from his nodding and noticed Hamish’s quizzical look he said, “You guys are into stuff I don’t understand so Spot’s giving me enough background so you don’t think I’m an idiot…and he’s phonetically spelling the longer words for me so I pronounce them correctly.”
Hamish and Christa exchanged a look, and a long, slow head shake.
By the time they got through advanced animal physiology and communication, and strayed into humanities and philosophy Hamish had refilled his glass, twice.
Spot even told them his favorite joke about Scot’s wearing kilts because sheep can hear zippers. He added that he really wanted to share it the other night as he thought Tavish would have appreciated it.
At that point Christa needed a break. She got up to start dinner, and while she was still laughing said, “I’ll admit I’m more than a little freaked out, but look at that big lunk. We may need to start calling Hamish Indiana Jones. Look at his face. I’ve known him since I was six minutes old and I must say I’ve never seen that look before. It’s like he’s looking at the Ark of the Covenant.”
Spot looked up at Christa and signed, and Ben said in a deep voice, “You’re meddling with powers you can’t possibly comprehend.”
“Yes!” Christa said as she laughed out loud. She pointed at Spot and said, “Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes?”
Spot wagged his tail and through Ben said, “We named the dog Indiana.”
Christa said, “Jones, I always knew someday you’d come walking back through my door.”
Spot sai
d, “We have top men working on it right now.”
Christa narrowed her eyes and said, “Who?”
Spot wagged harder and narrowed his eyes back at her. Through Ben he said, “Top…men.”
Christa laughed and she said, “Bad dates,” at the same time Spot was signing it.
Not wanting to be left out, Smudge signed and Ben said, “This was no boating accident.”
Spot and Christa looked at Smudge, and then at each other, and shook their heads.
They continued on quoting movie lines as Hamish rubbed his beard and leaned back in his chair. When Spot and Christa’s back and forth finally devolved into giggling and tail thumping she said to Hamish, “You alright over there, partner?”
Hamish looked at Spot and said, “Aye. I was just thinking I’m looking at a dog that knows more about dogs than anyone walking the planet. Alf Wight’s spinin’ in his grave tonight.”
“Yeah, a canine Doctor Doolittle,” Christa said from the kitchen, “So which of you is smarter?”
Smudge nodded towards Spot as she answered through Ben, “He’s way smarter, but I’m way stronger.”
Hamish and Christa laughed. She grabbed her backside and said, “Us girls having a little extra padding doesn’t necessarily make us way stronger. I wish it worked that way, sweetie.”
Ben knew what was coming and moved Hamish’s empty whisky glass from the table to the island.
Smudge gave him a look.
“Sure,” Ben said to the wagging dog, “Just make sure you tell Sholto and the super cops what you’re up to first so they don’t try to pounce on you.”
Hamish didn’t have time to ask Ben what the hell he was talking about.
Ten seconds later Smudge let Hamish up from the floor of the kitchen. She shook her coat and returned to normal size as the big Scot got up and slowly put his tam back on.
“Cu Sith,” Hamish whispered, not able to take his eyes off the deflated Smudge who was looking up at him, and wagging.
“Mimi calls her that too!” Ben said. To a puzzled Christa’s questioning look he said, “Scottish hell hound. Delivers the dead, has a big bark.”
“Fucking fitting,” Christa said, and flipped off Spot before he could comment on her language.
Hamish slowly tipped his chair back upright and said, “Alright then, is that the lot?”
“Well…,” Ben said, and Christa dropped the salad bowl as a pair of all white, medium-sized dogs were sitting where the black Spot and Smudge had been a moment earlier.
Hamish pounded the table and said, “I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, you two rounded the barn and just disappeared. I was sure it was the bloody snow and my old peepers. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
Hamish called Smudge to him and she put her front paws in his lap. He took out his reading glasses and carefully inspected her coat as she licked his beard, closed her eyes, and changed back to black.
Christa said, “The army may want to have a chat with you two,” as she picked up bits of lettuce and tomato from the floor.
Hamish said, “And thus the secrecy. Dear God, the implications.” He held Smudge by the jowls and looked at her face as she looked away for just an instant and went back to white.
“Unc, Christa, I have a proposition for you guys,” Ben said, “You saw how the pups were with Rook and Vuur? Well that was nothing. They were trying to play it cool when they were helping them.” He shot Smudge a dirty look and the dog buried her face in Hamish’s chest. Ben continued, “But you should see what they’ve been able to get that scrappy pack of coyotes and a half-stupid German shepherd back home to accomplish.”
Hamish and Spot exchanged a long look. The black dog nodded and Hamish thought he knew where this was going. “We’re listening lad,” he said.
“Well,” Ben said, “you’re having issues with the Elkies, right? And our conference call is in four days. Let Spot and Smudge work with you. They’d love to jump in with all four paws and I’m sure they could help fix whatever it is, and like super quick.”
Both pups nodded enthusiastically.
Christa asked, “And in return?”
Hamish answered for Ben, “In return we teach these smart curs and my cheeky wee grandnephew here everything we know about top notch service dogs and how to partner with them. Every technique, trick, strategy, the works. Is that about right?”
“Yep,” Ben said, “Except I was going to add that I would promise not to breathe a word to Mimi about going to a bar and almost getting killed and dancing with a slut and blowing crap up at the shooting range and getting growled at by a potentially psychotic alpha wolf.”
Christa said, “I can see where Spot gets it from.”
“Or maybe it’s the other way around,” Hamish said. He looked around the table at the bright, anxious, intelligent faces beaming back at him. As he said, “Deal,” he thought, Damn you Jean, what have you signed me up for?
Spot wagged, and extended his paw.
As Hamish shook it Christa asked, “So exactly what did happen at The Grub?”
Chapter 47
Spot and Smudge were looking down on the ore mine. They were at the top of a huge, reddish-brown and white bowl with a wide spiral road that wound down its sides and ended in a small lake at the bottom. They could see an identical bowl with a narrow slip of land and a row of big buildings between them. The bowls were more than a kilometer across and the buildings looked like tiny sheds from the lip of the mine. Around the perimeters of the bowls were a network of snowy gravel roads spider-webbing away into the thick pine forest slopes above the mine.
The mine buildings were dark except for a few lights strung along the conveyors that connected a large center building to smaller ones. The conveyors ran above several large rock trucks parked in front of a long, three story metal garage.
They picked their way down the slope towards the massive garage building, cutting across the wide snow covered gravel ring road and hopping down its steep walls. They scooted along the building’s perimeter, changing their coats from white to almost full black patches as the snow turned to frozen gravel. At the large sliding garage door Spot stood on Smudge’s shoulders, balancing on the back of his sister’s padded camo vest as he flipped open the sliding door’s latch.
Jero’s Rotty-wolf went nuts and charged the door, slamming into it with his paws and head.
Relax! Spot barked as Smudge pulled the door open a crack, It’s just us, you half-breed idiot.
The pups slid into the dark of the garage and pushed the door shut behind them. The wolves watched them from behind their cages as they paced back and forth.
Smudge went to the first cage and the largest of the wolves stopped pacing. He brought his face right up to the bars of the door, an inch from Smudge’s snout. She reached her paw into the cage and ran her split pads over the wolf’s muzzle and up to his scar, tracing the jagged line that ran across his forehead.
Okay mister wolf, Smudge said, holding the huge dark gray animal’s chin tenderly, If I let you outta here you gonna play nice this time? If you can’t get along with the rest of the group my kinda wolfy buddy over there and I are going to shove you right back in here and you won’t be able to hang with the pack.
The big wolf looked at Smudge for a minute, and then at the Rotty-wolf who was about as tall but thicker in the head and neck. Sure, the scarred wolf intoned, I’ll do my best to be good.
Spot and Smudge opened all of the cages and spent the next three hours with the wolves. They started out with just some play time while feeding them snacks from their vest pockets. Before long the four wolves were following basic commands. Their natural pack hierarchy and hunting instincts came roaring back quickly and Spot was able to get them to work together to flush out Smudge from hiding places in the huge dark maintenance garage, or set traps to ambush her.
Rotty just chased after them and pounced on the victim once they were caught. He didn’t really understand the hunting game, but he was having a good time.
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The pups were also having fun, and they enjoyed the wolves’ accents. The Pembury coyote’s non-verbal and vocalized communication had always seemed to the pups to be peppered with a bit of urban twang and attitude. Conversation with these wolves felt more refined but also sassy in almost a French way. Spot wondered if that was coincidence or just projection on their part. Either way it tickled Smudge to no end.
They had to reestablish dominance only once. The four male wolves were cunning animals, and strong, but they had been physically and mentally traumatized. They were skittish and had strange quirks that the pups needed to be mindful of. They didn’t like anyone walking behind them and they ran back into their cages if corrected too sternly. Once the pups worked through those issues the wolves were a joy to be around. They were funny in their own way and set traps and feigned attacks the same way the coyotes did when they played, but Spot was starting to get the sense these wolves were much smarter than the coyotes. Where the coyotes tended to react to situations reflexively the wolves were more deliberate and pensive.
Listening to the wolves’ fascinating stories about their lives before they were captured, the pups came to better understand the extreme nature of their environment. They appreciated the formidable prey the wolves hunted, and the extreme weather and landscapes they dealt with. They also faced competing predators equally as dangerous as they were. It was clear only a smart wolf would survive for long in that world, and they only really thrived when they were part of a dedicated pack. Coyotes had it easy by comparison. These wild dogs were very tough, but they were also complex and had a strong sense of self and their place in the range they felt they owned.
Unfortunately, the stories of their lives after their capture was far less satisfying, and Smudge had to walk away in the middle of it. Spot feared what his sister would do if they ever ran into Vic or Ty again. When Smudge smelled the four wolves for the first time she had told Spot they smelled just like Vic’s fur coat…and she wasn’t talking about the bad smell. His coat was made out of wolf pelts, and it was the same color as these wolves.
The Glasgow Gray: Spot and Smudge - Book 2 Page 23
