by Peter Howe
Shortly before daybreak Waggit felt his eyelids getting heavy, and an overwhelming desire to sleep overtook him once more. He got up and moved as quietly as he could toward Gordo’s large slumbering body and nudged him with his nose.
“Whaa…?” mumbled the sleeping dog. “Whassup? Is it breakfast?”
“No,” whispered Waggit, “it’s time for Eyes and Ears.”
“Oh, okay,” Gordo said good-naturedly, and lumbered off to the mouth of the cave.
Waggit was just about to settle down to sleep when there was a yell from the new sentry.
“Waggit!” he shouted. “Longlegs. There’s Longlegs in the grass.”
His cries awakened all the dogs, who ran to the entrance to see what the problem was. Gordo pointed toward the deer with his nose.
“Longlegs,” he repeated, “and where there’s Longlegs, there’s sure to be Uprights.”
“That would be true,” said Waggit, “if they were Longlegs, but they’re not. I can’t remember what Felicia called them, but they’re not Longlegs, and Uprights don’t sit on them, so let’s all go back to sleep.”
“Sorry, Waggit,” said Gordo somewhat shame-facedly. “I just ain’t ever seen nothin’ like that before.”
The deer, while perfectly unconcerned about one dog growling at her, decided that a whole pack was another thing altogether, so she and the fawn skipped hurriedly into the woods. With Gruff complaining about the frequency of false alarms, the dogs returned to their places and tried to get back to sleep before the dawn broke and awoke them all once more.
16
The Curse of Damnation Hill
The next few days the team spent getting to know their new surroundings. Although not as big as the previous park, because of its steepness it was more difficult to get around, which was one of the reasons it wasn’t swarming with people. It was particularly hard for Lowdown, who spent most of his days around the cave or in the meadow, rarely venturing farther away. He seemed quite content to pass the time like this, though.
Although it was extremely rare to see humans where the team lived, it did happen occasionally, and as a result they had to be on their guard at all times. The ones who did venture up their way were usually hardy souls wearing heavy hiking boots and backpacks, often with binoculars around their necks. These were the easiest to avoid, because they spent most of their time staring up in the trees trying to get a glimpse of some birds in the branches.
“I don’t know why they spend so much time looking at flutters,” Gordo was heard to say one time. “It’s not like they eat them or anything.”
There were sections of the park that were as full of people as any part of the Skyline End. At its farthest point the park became a long promontory bordered by two rivers, the Wide Flowing Water on one side and a smaller one on the other. Where the hill flattened out as it came to the edge of the water, there were ballparks, playgrounds, gardens, a couple of small snack bars, and all the other aspects of human presence that the dogs tried to avoid. However, it was in areas such as these that dogs could scavenge, and although the Tazarians loved having a ready supply of fresh meat, sometimes they just longed for pizza.
On one such scavenging expedition they came into contact with the Terminors for the first time. Gordo, Cal, Raz, and Waggit were searching for tasty human food in the trash cans near one of the ballparks. Their noses had indicated that one possibly contained delicious morsels, and even though Gordo had used his considerable weight against it, he was unable to knock the container over because, like many of the others, it was chained to a bench. They were discussing other possible methods of liberating the food when they heard a low growl behind them.
“Hey, you guys,” said the owner of the growl, “I hope you know this is our realm.”
They turned to see a small but fearless-looking dog fiercely staring them in the eyes. He was part Chihuahua, part who-knows-what, and one of those little dogs who use aggression to make up for their lack of size. Waggit stared him down.
“And which realm would that be?” he asked.
“The realm of the Terminors, thank you for asking,” replied the dog with a sneer, “and thank you for leaving.”
“I thought,” said Waggit, “that the Terminors were street dogs, not park dogs.”
“We are,” agreed the other, “and over there is one of our streets.”
He nodded toward a road that led into this part of the park.
“But this,” said Raz, joining the conversation, “is part of the park.”
“I ain’t gonna argue with you, brother,” growled the little dog. “I’m telling you—this is our realm and you’re not welcome here.”
“Welcome or not,” said Gordo, stretching himself up to his full height, “we are here, and if you give us any more trouble, I’ll sit on you.”
Even this dire threat didn’t seem to faze the little guy.
“Listen, fatty, you don’t scare me. You move one paw print closer and I’ll get the rest of my team, and then let’s see you throw your weight around.”
“Slow down a moment,” Waggit cut in. “We were told by Beidel that if we needed help, we should get in touch with your team—you would be there for us. You don’t seem especially helpful at the moment.”
“Beidel?” questioned the Terminor, looking nervous for the first time. “You know Beidel?”
“Sure we do,” said Cal. “The Ductors brought us here.”
“Wait a moment,” said the Terminor. “Are you those crazy dogs living on the hill?”
“We are dogs,” Waggit assured him, “and we do live on the hill, but I don’t think we’re any more crazy than any other dogs.”
“If you live on that hill you are,” said the Terminor. “Either that or ignorant.”
“Ignorant of what?” asked Waggit.
“The Curse,” replied the Terminor, “the Curse of Damnation Hill—your new home. They didn’t tell you about that before bringing you here?”
“No,” said Waggit. “That seems to be something they forgot to mention. Tell us about it.”
“Well, it ain’t a pretty story, let me say that,” said the dog. “My name’s Cabrol, by the way, and I apologize for being a little harsh just then.”
Waggit introduced himself and the other Tazarians, and then Cabrol continued with the tale.
“This all happened many risings ago, before any of us were born, or even those who went before us. The way I heard it is that an old, old Upright used to live on the hill. He had long whiskers, and ate only berries and tree roots and stuff like that and never went anywhere. Then one day a team of Wild Yellows came to the hill.”
“Wild Yellows!” exclaimed Waggit, who had never heard of coyotes being in the city. “How did they get here?”
“Who knows,” said Cabrol. “Like I said, this was many risings ago, maybe even before the Uprights built their dens around here. Perhaps they swam over from the Far Distant Territories; with Wild Yellows you never know, but for sure they was here. Anyway, they came across the ancient Upright, and they scared him, and he started to throw rocks and stuff at them. So they attacked, which of course you would if someone’s throwing things at you. But being Wild Yellows, they got to howlin’ and nipping and torturing the old one. There’s something comes over them that they can’t control—it’s like a blood lust, and once that’s up, they don’t know how to stop it. So they killed him, and he died a hard death. But just before he passed on, he cursed them and their species forever. Now, whether you like it or not, we are the same kind, and the Curse lives on to this day.”
The Tazarians were silent as they tried to take in this alarming information.
“What happened to the Wild Yellows?” Waggit finally asked.
“Nobody knows,” replied Cabrol. “But what we do know is that any dog who’s tried to live there since then—well, let’s just say strange things have happened to them.”
“Strange things like what?” asked Cal nervously.
“They
got sick,” said Cabrol, “or trees fell on them or rocks came crashing down the cliff and hit them. Some just disappeared and were never seen again. No dogs have ever lived there longer than one Change. If they came during the Chill, they left before the Long Cold.”
“Waggit, this is terrible,” cried Gordo.
“It’s only terrible if it’s true,” Waggit reassured him.
“Hey,” Cabrol said, “I wouldn’t lie to you. Why would I do that?”
“I’m not saying you’re lying,” replied Waggit. “All I’m saying is that when stories get told, sometimes they get changed in the telling, and what you end up with isn’t exactly the same as what happened.”
“These wasn’t all stories, Waggit,” said Cabrol solemnly. “I knew some of them personally.”
There was really nothing they could think of to say after that, and so the Tazarians left Cabrol and started back up the path toward the hill they now knew was called Damnation Hill. They were so disturbed by what the Terminor had said that they even forgot to get the food out of the trash can. By now it was quite dark, and as they struggled up the narrow track that led to the meadow, Waggit stopped and turned to the other three.
“What we heard just now,” he warned, “I don’t think we should tell the rest of the team. For one thing, it may not be true, and for another, if it is true, there’s nothing we can do about it right now.”
The other dogs all agreed this was the sensible thing to do, even though Waggit knew there was little chance that Cal or Raz would keep the information to themselves and practically no possibility that Gordo would.
Their worries about the stories Cabrol told soon took second place to an event that was far more important than the legend of the hill, something that eclipsed all others. Like many of life’s important occasions, it happened on a very ordinary day. Cal, Raz, Little One, and Little Two had all volunteered to go out hunting, which usually meant they would chase a few squirrels for the fun of it and come back saying they hadn’t seen anything worth going after. Magica had decided to clean out the cave. She had removed all the old ferns, most of which had gone brown with age while Alona pulled up new ones to replace them. Gordo, who was at his happiest when he was doing something for Magica, was sweeping out the areas she had cleaned up. Holding a branch with a few leaves on one end in his mouth, he moved his head from side to side so that the leaves could brush the sandy floor of the cave. Whether or not this made their home cleaner was hard to say. What was certain was that it irritated both Gruff and Alicia. Gruff had been struck several times by Gordo with his enthusiastic but poorly aimed whisks of the branch, and Alicia was in the middle of a sneezing fit brought on by the clouds of dust that Gordo’s “broom” created.
Lowdown and Waggit were lying in the sun idly talking about this and that when Waggit suddenly pricked his ears and stood up. The first thing he saw was the top of the broken skateboard, and then, as she slowly climbed up the steep track that led to the meadow, more and more of Felicia was revealed. The skateboard was jammed into her backpack, and she was wearing a new hat with a wide brim and a fold of material that hung down the back, covering her neck. Her face was red with exertion and she was puffing loudly, but she had a broad smile on her face.
“You couldn’t find anywhere more difficult to locate or to get to?” she asked, climbing up the last few feet.
She sat down on a fallen tree trunk at the edge of the meadow, wiping the sweat off her forehead with a large green handkerchief. As she did, the dogs ran over to her yelping with joy, even Gruff and Alicia. The commotion they made filled the woods, and their sounds were carried to where the so-called hunters were playing. Soon they joined the crowd of dogs, so that the entire team was milling around Felicia. They peppered her with questions that came so fast, she could barely answer one before she got hit with another.
“Where have you been?”
“What have you been doing?”
“How did you find us?”
“Where’s Tazar?”
It was Waggit who asked the last question, and the team went silent, because they knew that the answer would be crucial to all of them. Felicia answered it by rising to her full height and looking back down the trail that she had been on.
“Unless I’m very much mistaken,” she said, “there’s a dog coming up this way who looks remarkably like him. Excuse me,” she called down the trail, “but are you Tazar?”
“Always have been, my lady,” came a familiar voice, “and with a bit of luck I hope I always will be.”
17
Restored
Not only was the team pleased to see Tazar, but also they were relieved. While there wasn’t a dog among them who would have told you that Waggit had been anything less than an exemplary leader in the black dog’s absence, nevertheless something had been missing, and they were overjoyed to be reunited with Tazar. Dogs like things to stay the same, to have a structure that they recognize, and however good a substitute Waggit had been, he was still just that—a replacement leader, not the leader. Waggit himself would have been the first to agree with this.
But when they saw Tazar coming up the steep track, they realized that even with his return things would never be quite the same. The once-agile dog now limped on one back leg, and moved slowly and with difficulty. Waggit suspected that the skateboard had done as much service for Tazar as it ever had for Lowdown. But even though the shock of his disability sent a collective shudder through the team, the delight they all felt at his survival soon overcame it. Now it was Tazar’s turn to be peppered with questions. He clearly enjoyed being the center of attention once again. But as he told his story, he needed considerable help from Felicia to fill in the blanks.
“After the big roller hit me, Felicia took me to this…what was the place called?”
“Veterinary hospital,” said Felicia.
“Whatever.” Tazar shrugged. “Anyway, this place where they fix up dogs who are sick or hit by rollers like I was. So I’m lying on this platform and an Upright comes over to me, and he’s an Upright and I’m a free dog, so I growl at him—I mean, any dog would, wouldn’t he?”
There was a general murmur of agreement that this was the appropriate way to deal with an approaching Upright.
“As it turns out, he doesn’t want to fight, but instead he jabs me with this sharp thing and suddenly I don’t want to fight him either, because I feel pretty good.”
The audience now murmured with surprise.
“Then the next thing you know, I’m gone again, just like I was after the roller hit me, and when I wake up I hurt really badly, and I can’t move one leg, and I’ve got this bad pain underneath my body. Well, it turns out I had a—what was it again?”
“Emergency surgery,” said Felicia.
“The Upright had to do the…whatever it was she just said, because it turns out I was—what was I, Felicia?”
“Bleeding internally,” Felicia informed him.
“Now when that happens,” Tazar continued with the assurance of an expert, “it’s very serious, and in fact you could die if it’s not dealt with quickly, and the only way you can stop it is to be cut with a Silver Claw, not to kill you, but to make you better. Also my leg was all banged up and they had to make it stiff so that I wouldn’t move it. So I couldn’t walk properly, and of course that makes hunting difficult, and anyway I’m in an Upright den, and the only prey was a few scrawny-looking cats that I couldn’t get at. So they fed me this stuff out of a cylinder. They just open up the cylinder and out it pops, and it’s delicious. Best food I ever had.”
Waggit had to smile, because he knew exactly what Tazar was talking about. He had eaten the same kind of food when he had lived with the woman who had saved him from the Great Unknown, and he remembered it being very tasty.
“Anyway,” Tazar went on, “this Upright does this for the Petulants of other Uprights who don’t have much—what’s that stuff called again, Felicia?”
“Money,” answered Felicia.
/> “Yeah, that stuff. And he assumed that Felicia was a Skurdie, so he let her sleep near me. She stayed there for what seemed like many risings, and gradually the pain went away, and the leg got easier to walk on, though it’s not back to the way it used to be yet.”
“But how did you both escape?” asked Cal.
“We didn’t. They just let us go when they thought I was ready,” replied Tazar.
“They let you go?” exclaimed Raz with amazement. “You mean this Upright never called the Ruzelas to have you taken to the Great Unknown?”
“No, he just stroked me under the chin, said something to Felicia in his Upright language, and then opened the door and let us out.”
“What did he say?” the astonished Raz asked Felicia.
“He said that Tazar was a remarkable dog and that I was very lucky to have him,” she replied.
“Yeah,” said Tazar. “He was a very decent Upright. His name was Alan.”
Of the many gasp-inducing things that Tazar had told the team, nothing beat this last statement. In all the years the dogs had been together, the words “decent” and “Upright” had never left Tazar’s mouth in the same sentence.
“But—but—but—you always said there was no such thing as a good Upright,” said Little One.
“No,” said Tazar, in the tone of voice that a teacher uses with a particularly slow student. “What I said was most Uprights are bad. I never said they all are. Look at Felicia here. Nobody could call her a bad Upright, now could they?”
Although none of the team members would have disputed that statement under any circumstances, the complete reversal of Tazar’s long-held beliefs about humans so stunned the dogs that none of them could speak anyway.
Waggit, who had been listening to all this in amused silence, now turned to Felicia.
“Thank you, Felicia, for saving Tazar’s life and bringing him back to us,” he said.
“I didn’t do much, really,” said Felicia. “We were lucky I found this veterinarian, and even more lucky that he doesn’t charge a lot of money, as Tazar said. I’m afraid I’m a bit short at the moment.”
