There was, I came to feel, something broken inside Jakob. I didn’t know what it was, but I could sense something drawing energy from his emotions, a dark bitterness that seemed to me very similar to what I felt inside Ethan when he first came home after the fire. Whatever it was, it kept Jakob’s feelings toward me in check—whenever he and I did something together, I could feel him evaluating me with cool eyes.
“Let’s go to work,” Jakob would say, and he would load me in the truck and off we’d go to a park for games. I learned “Drop,” which meant to lie down, and I learned that to Jakob “Stay” really meant “stay” and I was expected to remain in the same spot until he told me, “Come.”
The training helped me keep my mind off Ethan. At night, though, I often fell asleep thinking of the boy. I thought of his hands in my fur, the smell of him as he slept, his laugh and his voice. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, I hoped he was happy. I knew I would never see him again.
Georgia started coming over less often as I got older, but I found that I didn’t miss her, as I became more and more immersed in our work. One day we went to some woods and met a man named Wally, who petted me and then ran away. “What’s he doing, Ellie? Where’s he going?” Jakob asked me. I watched Wally, who was looking over his shoulder at me, waving excitedly.
“Find him! Find!” Jakob told me.
Uncertainly I started trotting off after Wally. What was this? Wally saw me coming after him and dropped to his knees, clapping, and when I caught up to him he showed me a stick and we played with it for a few minutes. Then Wally stood up. “Look, Ellie! What’s he doing? Find him!” Wally said.
Jakob was strolling off, and I ran after him. “Good dog!” Jakob praised.
As intelligent games go, I’d probably put it right up there with chasing the flip, but Wally and Jakob seemed to enjoy it, so I went along with it, especially since afterward we got to play Tug-On-a-Stick, which in my mind beat Find Wally hands down.
It was around the time I started learning Find that a strange sensation gripped me, a restless anxiousness accompanied by an embarrassing odor from my rear end. Mom and Grandma used to complain any time I released fragrant gasses from under my tail, so when I started discharging this smell I knew I was a bad dog. (Grandpa was so offended by bad odors that he’d say, “Oh, Bailey!” even when the smell came from him.)
Jakob didn’t notice the odor, but he did register alarm at all the dogs lifting their legs on the bushes around the apartment, dogs I knew instinctively were milling around because of me.
Jacob’s reaction was most curious: he put me into a pair of shorts like the ones he wore under his pants, my tail sticking out of a hole in the back. I’d always felt sorry for dogs who wore sweaters and other clothes, and here I was, playing dress up in front of all those male dogs. It was more than a little embarrassing, especially given that there was something compelling about the attention I was being shown by the motley pack of males who were so busy wetting the shrubbery outside my home.
Jakob said, “Time to see the vet,” and took me for a car ride to a place that was very familiar, a cool room with bright lights and a metal table. I feel asleep and, predictably, was wearing a stupid cone-shaped collar when I awoke back home.
As soon as the cone came off, Jakob and I were back at the park almost every day for the next several months. The days grew shorter, though it never got cold or came close to snowing, and finding Wally became harder and harder because they kept changing the rules on me. Sometimes Wally wouldn’t even be there when we arrived and I’d have to go find him where he’d wandered off to. He’d be lying around like Grandpa doing chores, and I learned another command, “Show Me!” which meant leading Jakob back to where I’d come across Wally’s lazy body sprawled under a tree. Somehow, Jakob could tell when I had Found something, even when it was just one of Wally’s socks left on the ground—the man was a disaster, always dropping his clothing for us to Find and pick up. Jakob would read my look when I came running back to him. “Show me!” he’d say, but only when I had something to Show.
We did other work, too. Jakob taught me how to climb up a slide and to ease myself down the ladder on the other side, making me do it a step at a time instead of just jumping from the top as I preferred. He taught me to crawl into tight tubes and to leap up on a stack of logs, and one day he had me sit while he removed the gun from his side and shot off some explosions that made me flinch the first couple of times.
“Good girl, Ellie. This is a gun. See? No reason to be afraid. It makes a loud noise, but you’re not afraid, are you, girl?”
I sniffed at it when he held it out to me and was very glad when he didn’t try to make me fetch it. The thing smelled bad and looked like it would fly worse than the flip.
Sometimes Jakob would sit at an outside table with other people with guns and drink from bottles. It was at times like these that his internal turmoil was most evident to me: the people at the table would laugh, and sometimes Jakob would join in, and other times he’d turn inward, dark and sad and alone.
“Isn’t that right, Jakob,” one of the men said one time. I heard the name, but Jakob was staring off into space, not paying attention. I sat up and nuzzled his hand, but when he petted me I sensed he didn’t really register that I was there.
“I said isn’t that right, Jakob.”
Jakob turned and looked at everyone watching him, and I sensed he felt embarrassed. “What?”
“If Y2K is as bad as they say it’s going to be, we’re going to need every K-9 unit we can get. Be like Rodney King all over again.”
“Ellie’s not that kind of dog,” Jakob said coldly. I straightened at the sound of my name, conscious as I did so that all the men at the table were looking at me. I felt uneasy for some reason, just as some of the men seemed uncomfortable with Jakob’s stare. When they started talking again, it was to each other, ignoring Jakob. I nuzzled his hand once more, and this time he responded by scratching my ears.
“Good dog, Ellie,” he said.
Find Wally evolved into just Find. Jakob and I would go somewhere and sometimes I’d be given something to sniff, an old coat or a shoe or a glove, and I’d have to Find the person who belonged to the item. Other times there’d be nothing to sniff and I’d course back and forth over a huge area, alerting any time I picked up the scent of something interesting. I Found a lot of people who weren’t Wally, and sometimes they were obviously not informed of the game and would call, “Here, boy!” or otherwise react to me when they saw me. I’d always Show Jakob these people, and he always praised me, even if the people I’d Found weren’t bright enough to know what was going on. The point, I realized, was to Find people and to take Jakob to them and let Jakob decide if they were the right people or not. That was my job.
I had been with Jakob for about a year when he started taking me to his work every day. A lot of people dressed like Jakob milled around and were mostly friendly to me, though they drew back respectfully when Jakob told me to heel. He took me to a kennel in back with two other dogs, Cammie and Gypsy. Cammie was jet-black, and Gypsy was brown.
Despite the fact that we were all caged together, my relationship with Cammie and Gypsy was different than I’d ever had with other canines. We were working dogs and didn’t feel free to play much because we always needed to be ready to serve our masters—most of the time we just alertly sat at the fence.
Gypsy worked with a policeman named Paul and was gone a lot, and sometimes I watched Paul and Gypsy work in the yard. They did it all wrong: Gypsy would just smell in between boxes and piles of clothing and would alert for no reason, though Paul always praised her anyway, pulling out a package from the items and telling Gypsy she was a good dog.
Cammie was older and didn’t bother to watch Gypsy, probably feeling embarrassed for the poor dog. Cammie worked with a policewoman named Amy and didn’t go out much. When he did, though, he went out fast—Amy would come get him and they’d leave at a run. I never knew what Cammie’s
work was, but I suspected it wasn’t as important as Find.
“Where you working this week?” Amy asked Paul once.
“Back out at the airport until Garcia comes off sick leave,” Paul told her. “How’s life on the bomb squad?”
“Quiet. I’m worried about Cammie, though. His scores have been a little off; I’m wondering if his nose is going.”
At the sound of his name Cammie raised his head, and I looked over at him.
“He’s what, ten years old, now?” Paul asked.
“About that,” Amy said.
I stood up and shook myself off because I could sense Jakob coming, and a few seconds later he walked around the corner. He and his friends stood and talked while we dogs watched them, wondering why they didn’t let us out in the yard to be with them.
Suddenly I felt some excitement off Jakob. He spoke to his shoulder. “10-4, unit Eight-Kilo-Six responding,” he said while Amy ran over to the gate. Cammie jumped up. “Ellie!” Amy commanded. “Come!”
We were out of the yard and I was up in the truck in just moments. I found myself panting, picking up on Jakob’s excitement.
Something told me that whatever was happening, it was far more important than Find Wally.
{ NINETEEN }
Jakob drove us to a large flat building, where several people were gathered in a circle. I could feel the tension in them as we pulled up. Jakob came around and petted me but left me in the truck. “Good dog, Ellie,” he said absently.
I sat and watched him anxiously as he approached the group of people. Several of them spoke at once.
“We didn’t notice her missing until lunch, but we don’t have any idea how long she’s been gone.”
“Marilyn’s an Alzheimer’s patient.”
“I don’t understand how she got away with no one seeing.”
While I sat there, a squirrel climbed down the trunk of a tree and busied itself foraging for food in the grass. I stared at it, astounded at its audacious disregard for the fact that I, a vicious predator, was a mere ten feet away!
Jakob came to the cage and opened the door. “Heel!” he commanded, giving me no chance to catch the squirrel. I snapped to it: time to work. Jakob led me away from the people, to a corner of the front yard of the building. He held out two shirts that smelled reminiscent of Grandma, a little. I stuck my nose into the soft cloth, inhaling deeply. “Ellie. Find!”
I took off, running past the knot of people. “She wouldn’t have gone that way,” someone said.
“Let Ellie work,” Jakob replied.
Work. I carried the sense memory of the clothing in my mind as I held my nose up to the air, coursing back and forth as I’d been trained. There were a lot of people smells, dog smells, car smells, but I couldn’t Find. Frustrated, I turned back to Jakob.
He read my disappointment. “That’s okay, Ellie. Find.” He began walking down the street, and I leaped ahead, cruising up and down the yards. I turned the corner and slowed down: there it was, tantalizing, coming to me. . . . I zeroed in on it and raced ahead. Forty feet in front of me, lying at the base of some bushes, her scent was clear. I turned and ran back to Jakob, who had been joined by several police officers.
“Show me, Ellie!”
I took him back to the bushes. He bent, poking at something with a stick.
“What is it?” one of the officers asked, coming up behind Jakob.
“A tissue. Good dog, Ellie, good dog!” He grabbed me and wrestled with me briefly, but I sensed there was more work.
“How do we know that’s hers? It could have been dropped by anybody,” one of the policemen objected.
Jakob bent down, ignoring the men behind him. “Okay, Ellie. Find!”
I could follow her scent, now, faint but traceable. It went ahead two blocks, then turned right, getting stronger. At a driveway it made an abrupt right, and I tracked her through an open gate, to where she was sitting on a swing set, moving gently. There was a real sense of happiness flowing from her, and she seemed glad to see me.
“Hello, doggy,” she said.
I ran back to Jakob, and I could tell from his excitement that he knew I’d found her before I got up to him, though he waited for me to reach him before he reacted. “Okay, Show me!” he urged.
I took him to the lady on the swing set. I felt Jakob’s relief when he saw the woman. “Are you Marilyn?” he asked gently.
She cocked her head at him. “Are you Warner?” she replied.
Jakob spoke into the microphone on his shoulder, and soon we were joined by the other policemen. Jakob took me aside. “Good dog, Ellie!” He pulled out a rubber ring and sent it bouncing across the lawn, and I jumped on it and brought it back, holding it out for him to grip and tug on. We played for about five minutes, my tail whipping the air.
As Jakob shut me in the cage on the back of the truck, I could feel the pride coming off of him. “Good dog, Ellie. You are such a good dog.”
It was, I reflected, as close as Jakob could come to the unrestrained adoration I once felt from Ethan, and from it I realized that today I truly understood my purpose as Ellie: not just to Find people but to save them. The worry that poured off the knot of people in front of the building could not have been more clear, just as their relief when we returned was clear. The lady had been in some sort of danger, and by Finding her Jakob and I saved her from the danger. That is what we did together, that was our work, and that’s what he cared most about. It was like the game I played with Ethan: Rescue.
The next day Jakob took me to a store and purchased some fragrant flowers, which he left in the truck while we did some work. (Wally was hiding on top of a strong-smelling trash Dumpster, but he couldn’t fool me.) Then Jakob and I went for a long car ride—so long that I became tired of holding my nose up to the side of the cage and lay down on the floor.
When Jakob came to let me out, there was a heaviness in him—whatever was always hurting him inside seemed stronger than ever. We were in a big yard filled with stones. Subdued, not sure what we were doing, I stayed next to Jakob as he walked a few dozen yards, carrying his flowers. He knelt and put the flowers down next to one of the stones, the pain twisting in him so deeply that tears fell silently down his cheeks. I nuzzled his hand, concerned.
“It’s okay, Ellie. Good dog. Sit.”
I sat, grieving with Jakob.
He cleared his throat. “I miss you so much, honey. I just . . . sometimes I don’t think I can get through the day, knowing you’re not going to be there when I get home,” he whispered hoarsely.
I lifted my ears at the word “home.” Yes, I thought, let’s go home, let’s leave this sad place.
“I’m on K-9 patrol right now, search and rescue. They don’t want me on regular patrol because I’m still taking anti-depressants. I’ve got a dog, her name is Ellie, a one-year-old German shepherd.”
I wagged my tail.
“We just got certified, so we’ll be going out, now. I’ll be glad to get off the desk; I’ve gained about ten pounds from all the sitting.” Jakob laughed and the sound of it was so peculiar, such a sad, tortured laugh, with no happiness in it at all.
We remained there, nearly motionless, for about ten minutes, and gradually the feeling from Jakob shifted, became less raw pain and more like what I felt when Ethan and Hannah would say good-bye at the end of the summer—something similar to fear. “I love you,” Jakob whispered. Then he turned and walked away.
From that day forward, we spent a lot more time away from the kennel. Sometimes we would ride on airplanes or helicopters, both of which vibrated so much they made me sleepy despite the noise. “You’re a chopper dog, Ellie!” Jakob told me whenever we rode on the helicopters. One day we even went to the biggest pond I’d ever seen, a huge expanse of water full of exotic smells, and I tracked a little girl down the sand to a playground full of children who all called to me when I approached.
“Want to play in the ocean, Ellie?” Jakob asked me after I Showed him the little girl, a
nd a mother and father took her away for a car ride. We went to the pond and I splashed and ran in the water, which was very salty when the spray came up into my nose. “This is the ocean, Ellie, the ocean!” Jakob laughed. Playing in the ocean, I felt the thing that had such a tight clench on his heart loosen just a little.
Running through the shallow water reminded me of chasing Ethan on his sled—I had to lunge upward to make any progress, exactly the same gait I’d used in the snow. It made me realize that though the sun’s cycles suggested a couple of years had passed, there was never any snow here. It didn’t bother the children, though—they had sleds they rode on the waves. I stood and watched them play, knowing Jakob would not want me to chase them. One boy looked something like Ethan when he was younger, and I marveled that I could remember my boy when he was little and also when he was a man. An ache overtook me then, a sharp stab of sadness that didn’t go away until Jakob whistled me back to his side.
When I did go to the kennel, Cammie was often there, but Gypsy almost never was. On one such day I was trying to interest Cammie in a glorious game of I’ve Got the Ball when Jakob came out to get me. “Ellie!” he called.
I’d never heard such urgency in his voice.
We drove very fast, the tires making screeches as we turned corners that I could hear above the wail of the siren. I lay down on the floor of my cage to keep from sliding around.
As usual, when we arrived at the place to work, there were a lot of people standing around. One of them, a woman, was so afraid she couldn’t stand up, and two people were holding her. The anxiety rippling off Jakob as he ran past me to talk to these people was so strong it made the fur on my back stand up.
A Dog's Purpose Page 15
