Spot joined her next to the Rotty-wolf on his cardboard bed while the wolves continued to play in the garage.
We need to turn them loose, Smudge said as she fed Rotty another biscuit from her vest and barely got her paw out of the way in time, I can’t listen to any more, brother. We can’t let them be forced into a dog fighting pit again.
I know sis, Spot said, rubbing her upset face tenderly with his paw, But can’t just let them run loose. They can’t fend for themselves out there and they’d likely just run back here, or worse, run into town. That woman’s crazed wolf story is probably floating around by now and these guys would end up shot. If they did run into the woods and bumped into Glasgow’s pack it could be even worse, for everyone.
So we tell Hamish, Smudge said.
That’s probably what we need to do, Spot said, But not yet.
As Smudge put the wolves to bed and latched them in, Spot checked out the two empty cages again. The bad smell was very strong in them. The cages had been hosed out but the stench still clung to the tiny bits of food, hairs, and scat that remained. The pups still couldn’t explain it. It just didn’t make sense and Spot was gravely concerned about the fate of the two wolves that had been in these cages.
They had plenty of time before sun up and Spot wanted to take a longer route home. From the mine he led Smudge to the high trail path. It took them up and over the ridge at the base of the mountain that separated the mine from Christa’s valley.
A small mirror lake was hidden in the trees of the plateau at the top of the ridge. It was fed at the far end from several rocky streams that flowed down from the mountain range above the tree tops to the north. They followed its outflow to a beaver dam and then to a small waterfall that dropped away over a tall cliff.
They paused at the edge. Even in the moonlight the panoramic view of the valley and the mountains beyond was amazing. They could see the small pool of lights from the town far below in the distance. To the east was the ore mine with its brown rings surrounded by snow covered forest with dozens of white logging roads leading away into the mountains. There was a narrow trail intermittently peeking through the thick woods below them. It ran west from the mine, winding through the forest where it would eventually connect to the open valley behind Christa’s barn.
Okay, Spot said, I can see the appeal.
Yeah brother, Smudge said, it’d be beautiful if it wasn’t for all this white stuff.
She nodded to the distance where the canopy of stars was obscured by a wall of dark clouds creeping down towards them from the mountains. They could feel the pressure dropping, and it appeared the break in the snow they had been enjoying would be short-lived.
According to Hamish, Spot said as he followed her gaze, they don’t have bad weather in Quebec, you just brought the wrong clothes.
Sure, Smudge said, But parts of me that I hope to use someday are uncovered and getting chilly. Let’s head home.
Be thankful you don’t have hangy downy bits, Spot said as they picked their way down the snowy ravine and followed the banks of the sloping waterfall. The pool at the bottom flowed out as a river again and alternated between dropping over several series of rocky falls and flowing through dense woods.
The forest was tight, and dark. The walls were too steep for logging so the Douglas fir and white spruce trees grew in natural tangles around the ravine’s rocks. In a few places the river split and flowed around small islands and under fallen tree trunks.
The river widened and calmed at a clearing, and from the top of another set of steep falls the pups could see the snowy trail below that led from the mine and eventually to the ranch. The trail was a fire access road, just barely wide enough for a truck. The river flowed parallel to it for a bit until crossing under the trail at a large culvert.
They paused at the top of the falls as startled trout splashed away from them in the shallow water. Spot hopped across several large boulders on the edge and stared down at the spray of water falling away over the rocks.
As Smudge drank at the river bank and watched Spot pawing at the leaping fish she smelled an odd scent on the rocks. She sniffed around on the muddy bank and found the source.
It was a very large footprint.
She heard a small branch snap in the woods of the opposite bank. Spot hadn’t reacted and she assumed he couldn’t hear it over the noise of the falls.
She heard another snap, and then more branches crunching. The crashing sounds were getting louder and coming towards them, fast.
Spot finally looked up, and then they both heard the roar.
Two things saved Spot from being torn in half by the charging bear. Not looking behind him to see what was making such a horrendous noise, and jumping the instant his sister barked at him to do so.
He launched himself from the top of the falls as the bear’s dinner-plate sized paw whizzed in the air behind his rump.
The big brown bear blasted from the trees and crossed the clearing in a flash. It hit the river at the top of the falls, driving a wall of water in front of it as it pounded over the icy boulders. The water slowed it just enough to barely miss taking Spot’s backside off when he leapt.
Smudge shook her snout and pumped herself up to full Cu Sith while she tried to come up with a plan. The huge snarling animal was blindingly fast. Trying to out run it through the thick woods and deep snow of its home turf wasn’t an appealing option.
Smudge had seen the wound on the bear’s shoulder as it was swiping at her brother’s bottom. This was certainly the winter bear Greer Nellis had told them about. Smudge didn’t want to consider what woke it up, or what could have possibly taken a chunk out of this huge bear. It also occurred to her that Lissa had been right about winter bears, and brown bears in general, the animal looked less than happy.
While looking around for an escape Smudge saw two little brown furry faces poking out from a rocky cave at the far side of the clearing. Wonderful, she thought, This bear is ornery, hungry, wounded, and protecting her young.
It occurred to Smudge that the bear may not be hungry for long.
As Spot flew away from the top edge of the falls Smudge let out a medium bark, trying for enough volume to get the bear’s attention but not enough to further piss it off, if that was possible. She locked eyes with the angry mother bear long enough to ensure it wasn’t going to follow her brother off the falls.
Smudge tried to make herself look as big as possible by hopping up on her rear paws. She also moved back towards the edge of the ravine’s drop off.
The bear raced across the top of the falls, rising up as it came out of the water. It lunged and spread its paws as it leapt high towards the standing Smudge.
Smudge had never seen an animal this large and she was struck by its amazing proportions. The bear’s head was bigger than Smudge’s whole body. The thick neck flowed into powerful shoulders, and muscles rippled under the mass of moving brown fur. One of its claws were longer than Smudge’s split paws and its jaws seemed to open wide enough to swallow her up without taking a bite.
The bear let out a horrible roar as it closed the gap between them.
An instant before the bear hit Smudge ducked and curled down onto the rocks in a tight ball. As the bear’s weight dropped down on her Smudge suddenly wasn’t so confident about her plan. It didn’t seem possible, but the animal felt a lot heavier than it looked.
Spot had not thought about a landing point when he jumped off the falls. He was flying high over rocks that were falling quickly away below him.
At apogee he started to flail, twisting to avoid a jagged tree limb speeding towards him. He managed to miss being skewered and grabbed the branch but came away with just the broken tip as he spun down into the spray below. He turned to see the bear dropping over his sister like an attacking fur blanket as he hit wet rocks and bounced like a pinball down the falls. Barely on the edge of control, he danced on the slick boulders and tangles of fallen trees scattered throughout the sloping waterfall. He use
d his widened front paws to make corrections at the last instant, pushing off icy rocks and spinning off slippery tree trunks. He had made several successful jumps until another broken branch sent him tumbling into the river.
The massive bear fell upon a curled-up Smudge, and as they rolled forward its huge head tucked and bit down, catching her by the back of the camo vest. The animal’s big paws came in with its claws heading towards Smudge’s body. The bear was clearly intent on ripping her to pieces.
Smudge got her rear feet under her, opened her front paws and unfolded under the immense bear. She closed her eyes, and in a fraction of a second used Spot’s focusing trick to manually activate her sympathetic system and flood her huge muscle’s adrenotropic receptors with a massive dose of adrenaline. Her back and shoulders responded and contracted with incredible force. She flexed open like a leaf spring, popping up under the bear as their momentum carried them forward towards the edge of the ravine.
She found the animal’s rib cage with her split paws and shoved with all her might, lifting the five hundred pound beast and launching it. The bear went airborne and let out a clenched teeth growl that Smudge felt down her spine.
Spot heard the roar from the river below just as he fell into a blender of spinning currents. He was pushed down to the bottom of the freezing river and ground against the sharp, hard rocks. His vest absorbed the blows to his sides and back, but his head was getting pummeled. With his hind feet spread wide to find something to push against, his nether parts slammed into a submerged tree trunk and he groaned bubbles into the cold water as he came to an abrupt stop.
He scrambled up the trunk and popped out of the water, grabbing a branch that allowed him to flip out of the surging river and onto a rocky outcropping.
He heard another horrible pained growl from high up on the ridge as he shook off the cold river water. He darted back up the falls, taking huge leaps and using his split paws to pull himself up and over the almost vertical jumble of tree trunks and rocks.
At the top of the falls the bear started to fly over Smudge. It spun up and away as it flew off the top of the ridge. It still had Smudge’s vest clenched in its teeth. Smudge felt a tug and was yanked off the ground. She and the bear were now flipping through the air together.
The massive creature released Smudge, roaring in disbelief as it rotated out over the ravine at tree top level.
It crashed back down into the brush, with a tumbling Smudge following it down into the snapping tree limbs and explosion of snow.
Smudge caught a passing pine bough and swung around it, landing on her feet on a small ledge as the bear continued down the slope, bouncing off rocks and breaking thick limbs until it came to a hard stop at the base of a tree.
Smudge watched from her vantage point as the angry animal spun and got to its feet. It swatted a huge broken tree limb out the way and stood up. The bear roared up at Smudge, spittle flying as its lips flapped over huge fangs.
Spot had left the river bank and shot across the slope sideways, following the crashing sounds as fast as he could manage. He joined his sister on the overhanging rock as the bear below them let out another bone shaking growl. It echoed off the far ridge wall and faded away as it bounced down the valley.
The bear started to look for foot holds to get back up to the pair of dogs.
Smudge took in a huge rush of air and Spot lowered down to cover his ears with his front paws.
Smudge steadied herself, leaned over the end of the rock and let fly with an enormous bark. Her hind legs came off the snow and Spot thought for a second his sister was going over the edge.
The bark shook snow off the trees and pounded back at them from the other side of the ravine before chasing the bear’s fading growl down the valley walls.
The bear froze. Its huge front paws had found the footing to climb but it just stared up at them and tipped up its massive head.
The pups looked down at the bear.
The bear looked up at the pups.
So, Dr. Doolittle, Smudge said to her wet, shaking, wagging brother, Do we speak bear?
Chapter 48
Hamish watched Spot and Smudge romping behind the corral with the Elkhounds. What had looked like play to him was starting to take on a definite logic. He was far from being able to speak Elkie yet but the basic patterns of communication he’d watched canines exhibit for fifty years were starting to make sense in a way they never had before, and it had only been two hours.
Hamish still had concerns with taking a back seat. Giving up control of his training was harder than he’d expected, especially with their time crunch. He started out wanting Ben’s pups to translate everything they were working on with his dogs but he knew the more pressing matter was to get the sled team whipped into shape in three days. To accomplish that he had to let the pups work at their own speed, which appeared to be pretty bloody fast.
Each of Ben’s pups had taken a sled dog and ran off into the snow fields. They darted over open ground, they ran around the river, they ran over the obstacles setup behind the corral. They alternated between pounding as fast as they could go and just trotting while exchanging little nods and twitches. They came back to drop off the dog, take out another one, and do it all over again.
Smudge spent a lot of time with E’sra. The two dogs had certainly developed a strong connection even before the training started. Smudge always ate alongside the powerful wheel, where Spot tended to move around at feeding time. As her brother worked with the rest of the team Hamish noticed Smudge was having the typically daft E’sra go deep into what he assumed must be the finer points of following the team, picking up cues from the lead dogs, and farting.
Smudge saw the look on Hamish’s face and she left the sturdy Elkie’s side. She nodded for Ben to join her as she crossed the corral and walked up to Hamish. She looked up at him and signed, and Ben translated, “These dogs are good at reading faces, and yours is speaking volumes right now, Hamish. That big dog at the back of your team, the one you’re so quick to dismiss, is actually the second in command and he’s no dummy. T’nuc sets the pace and then relies on E’sra to keep an eye on the team while she navigates. She counts on him more than you know. The team also trusts him, completely, which is more than I can fuc…” Smudge didn’t finish what she was going to say. She just dropped her paw, turned around, and went back to working with E’sra without looking back.
Hamish watched her walk away and then looked down at Ben, who said, “Mimi taught her if she can’t say anything nice…well, you know.”
Christa had been watching from the barn and when Hamish caught her smile he said, “Stow it, Boucher.”
While Smudge had been working with E’sra, Spot and T’nuc were trotting around the snow field with the boerboels and Sholto. Ben told Hamish he wasn’t sure what they were talking about, but T’nuc was doing a lot of positive acknowledgment like he’d seen the coyote’s do when the pups taught them something new.
After another half hour Spot and Smudge circled up with the team and ran them all back to the corral where they asked Hamish to hook them to their positions on the sled. Spot watched every move Hamish made with the harnesses, stopping him a few times to ask questions through Ben. They hooked Smudge up to the rear harness next to E’sra and the big dog showed them the different paces and ways to pull as they trotted around the corral with no driver. They put Spot in K’cuf’s position next to T’nuc and she demonstrated some of the techniques she uses as lead dog to supervise the team.
Hamish’s frustration started to show when they had him undo and redo all of the harnesses and boots three times. The big trainer struggled to see the point of it.
Spot apologized. He explained to Hamish this was new to him and his sister, and how each dog was rigged was important to each dog. He took the time to slowly show Hamish some of the issues the wheels E’sra and R’ekcuf were having with the twisting of their inside rigging when they ran in silent mode.
And that’s when Hamish realized h
e’d just been handled by a dog.
He tossed his head back and laughed a long, loud, howling laugh. He grabbed Spot and pulled him in close for a big hug and a kiss on his noggin. “Okay Spot,” Hamish said, “You fucking smart wee boy. I got it. You’re the boss here. Just tell me to shut it or we’re never going to get through this in time.”
At that point Hamish swore he could tell the Elkhounds were laughing at him.
Ben said, “Yes Unc, they are.”
Spot and Smudge asked Hamish to mount the sled and run the dogs around the snow field behind the barn in a specific pattern, and at varying speeds. They had Christa drive the truck into the field so they could have a high vantage point as the sled ran around them for an hour. They would stop Hamish frequently and trot out to have a quick conversation with the team, or just one dog, and then start again.
At one point Hamish hiked the team at a painfully slow pace as Spot and Smudge walked next to them on either side. Spot signed something to Ben who ran into the barn and came back with Christa. They worked on the dogs’ boots and harnesses, with Christa trotting back and forth to the barn a few times to make adjustments. They shortened the distance between the double team leaders and the swing dogs, put K’naks into a larger pair of boots, and made other subtle changes.
Spot and Smudge returned to their vantage point on the hood of the truck and asked Hamish to lead the team around the corral again, and again, and again.
Another hour passed and Spot waved for Hamish to stop in front of the truck. Smudge hopped down from the hood and climbed into the sled.
Ben translated for Spot, “Do the ten-K loop with them…out to the log bridge and back on the other side of the river…we’ll meet you by the saw mill. Go as fast as you have ever run a sled team before. Don’t stop for anything, don’t slow in the turns and don’t brake down the draw. Drive them hard, Hamish, let them find top speed.”
The Glasgow Gray: Spot and Smudge - Book 2 Page 24
