by Helen Moss
I wagged my tail, even though it hurt. “We did a good job today, pack!” I said proudly. “Baxter, Newton, awesome rescue work. And Maia, too. You fetched the humans just in time.”
Maia looked down. “But I didn’t,” she mumbled. “I shouted at them like crazy. But only Sacagawea followed me to the river. The men just hollered at me to be quiet.”
“Can’t say I blame them.” Titch had appeared out of nowhere, a buffalo leg bone held in her jaws. “No offense, Princess Fluffybutt, but you do have an annoying, yappy little bark.”
I should have been used to Titch and her bad attitude by now, but this was too much. “What is it with you, Titch?” I snarled. “I know you’re not an official pack member. But you could help out once in a while! We could all have drowned. And where were you? Looking After Number One as usual.”
Maia gently cuffed my nose with her paw. “But Titch did help out this time.”
I gaped at her in surprise.
“That’s right.” Titch looked up from gnawing on the bone. “You tell Captain Hero. It was me who fetched the men.”
Baxter laughed. “Well, you do have a very loud bark.”
“I didn’t just bark at them, buddy. I used the old Swipe and Run trick.”
“The Swipe and Run trick?” I couldn’t help asking.
Titch grinned. “You run off with one of the humans’ favorite toys. Gets their attention every time. I usually go for those phone things they all love, but they don’t have them here. So I swiped York’s gun. You should have seen him sprint after me. All the way to the riverbank. He saw you goofballs in the water, and the woman with the baby standing on the willow trunk. He called the other men…” Titch paused, crunching the bone in half. “They got there just as the snag broke.”
I suddenly remembered the splash and the human cry. “The baby! He fell in the water!”
Newton nodded. “You won’t believe this! Titch rescued him, too.”
Titch shrugged. “No big deal. I was standing in the shallows watching all the drama, when the human pup just about landed on top of me. I picked it up and dropped it on the bank. Wriggly, squeaky little thing it is, too!”
There was a low groan. Seaman was opening his eyes. “Thank you,” he murmured sleepily. “All of you.” He lifted his head. “Trevor, I’m sorry I chewed you out before about charging at the bear. I’m glad you rushed in like a harebrained maniac this time. You saved my life.”
Seaman was wrong, of course. I hadn’t rushed in. I had wanted to. I was about to leap straight into the river. But I had listened to Newton’s advice. I hung tight on the rock until Seaman and Baxter and the beaver were right below me. “I didn’t exactly rush in,” I said. “Thanks to Newton, I waited for the right moment. Just like you told me.”
Seaman nodded seriously. “Well, I guess there are times to rush in, and times to hold back. The hard part is knowing which is which.”
“Wise words, Duckzilla,” said Titch. “And there are times not to show off by racing antelope too close to a beaver dam.”
Seaman laughed. “That’s the best advice I’ve heard in a long time.” Then he winced in pain. “I thought I had lost this leg. Doggone beaver just about bit right through it. But Captain Lewis used his magic medicine, and he sewed it right up.”
I was drifting off to sleep again. We would leave at first light, I decided. Head back to the van … and home …
But Seaman’s next words jolted me awake. “How would you pups feel about staying to help take care of my humans while my leg heals?”
12
TALL TALES
Newton, Baxter, and Maia were not keen on staying. Newton has a big human family with a new baby to look after. Baxter has his girl, Lucy, and all of Happy Paws Farm to protect. Maia’s human lady, Ayesha, can’t manage without her.
I felt the same way. Old Jim’s mate, Brenda, died last year, and he needs me more than ever. But Seaman had asked for our help. It was our pack duty to do what we could. “How about two days?” I said. “Three, max.”
“I’ll hang around as long as you like,” said Titch. “Buffalo meat is awesome.”
Seaman looked up at me. “Thank you. I reckon three days will be time enough to rest my leg. Then you can return to your Fly-Ing-Van people.”
“It’s a deal,” I said.
* * *
Next morning, after an early breakfast, Captain Lewis gave orders for the men to pack up camp. Then we set off. Some of the humans rode in the boats, while others hiked along the riverbank.
We soon settled into our new jobs. Maia kept watch over Sacagawea and the baby. Newton worked with Captain Clark, scouting out the trail ahead. Baxter took Seaman’s place alongside Captain Lewis, happily diving into the river to fetch the ducks and geese that he shot. I teamed up with York, who also loved to hunt. We tracked down everything from prairie dogs to porcupines. I was having so much fun as Hero I almost forgot my old life as Trevor.
Titch didn’t help out at all, of course. “Humans are seriously overrated,” she said. Instead, she rode in one of the canoes, with Seaman. To my surprise, they quickly became firm friends. They called themselves the Three-Legged Club and spent all day swapping stories. Before he met Captain Lewis, Seaman was a ship’s dog. Titch had also been to sea—as a stowaway on a cruise ship. Now and then, I listened in to their tall tales. Seaman, it seemed, had fought off pirates and ferocious sea monsters. Titch had chased mermaids and been half eaten by a giant shark.
The rest of us had no time for stories. We were too busy trying to keep the humans alive.
There was danger everywhere. The very next night a startled buffalo charged toward the camp. It would have crushed the men who were sleeping outside by the fire, if I hadn’t raised the alarm. We barked and growled at that buffalo until, at the last moment, it changed direction and galloped away into the night.
Then there was the wildcat. A huge, ferocious beast with a spotted coat and tufted ears. It leaped from a tree and landed on York, savagely clawing his back. I soon scared it off by biting its tail. There were narrow escapes from coyotes, wolves, and rattlesnakes, too.
Wild animals were not the only hazards. There were grass fires on the plains and mudslides on the cliffs. There were hailstones the size of coconuts. Late on the second day, a strong wind began to blow, whipping the river into foaming waves. The men put up sails and the canoes raced along on the breeze. All of a sudden, a gust of wind caught the boat that Titch and Seaman were riding in and spun it around.
The boat hit a wave side-on. It lurched and swayed and almost flipped right over.
Somehow the boat stayed upright.
But it was filling with water and sinking fast.
13
THE MAGIC NOSE
Hearing the commotion, York and I ran to the riverbank.
The two brave sea dogs of the Three-Legged Club were clinging to the sinking canoe, howling for help. Seaman couldn’t swim with his bandaged leg, and I suspect that Titch—for all her tales of chasing mermaids and fighting sharks—could not swim at all.
Some of the men on the boat began bailing out the water with pots and pans. Others rowed frantically for the shore. Newton and Maia were on board, too, along with Sacagawea. Maia helped her grab the boxes of supplies that were being washed away, while Newton kept a tight hold on the baby.
Baxter and Captain Lewis hurried along the cliff top to join us. “The compass!” cried Lewis. “Save the compass!”
I didn’t understand the human words, but Lewis was pointing at a small flat wooden box in the water below. Maia balanced on the bow of the boat and reached down to scoop it up, but a wave snatched it out of her mouth. Up and up it flew. Down it dropped, toward the bottom of the cliff.
If the little box landed on the rocks, it would surely smash to pieces.
But instead of a smash, we heard a soft thud and a startled honk.
The box had fallen into the nest of a very angry goose.
Captain Lewis began to climb down
the cliff.
“Come back!” Baxter barked at him in alarm. “The cliff’s not safe. It’s crumbling.”
But it was too late. Lewis was already slipping. He slid to a stop on a narrow ledge, stones tumbling down all around him. One wrong move and he would plummet onto the rocks below. York took a coil of rope from his belt and began to lower it down the cliff.
Meanwhile, the goose had pushed the little box out of the nest and was nudging it toward the water with his beak. I scrambled down the cliff and onto the rocks. “Hand over the box!” I barked. “It belongs to my humans.”
The furious goose honked rude words at me. He also flapped his wings and stabbed at me with his beak. Titch had named Seaman Duckzilla, but this was Goosezilla. Dodging the deadly beak, I snatched up the box in my teeth and ran for my life.
I sped back up the cliff, just in time to see York and Baxter pull Captain Lewis up over the edge. Lewis flopped onto the grass. “The compass!” he groaned, thumping his head in frustration.
I dropped the wooden box onto his chest. Captain Lewis grabbed it, flipped the top open, and looked inside. He tapped it a few times and then laughed.
I could tell the man was happy, so I wagged my tail. York knelt and stroked my ears. “Goodboy, Hero!”
I wagged my tail even more.
* * *
Later, when the boat was safely on dry land and we were all sitting by the fire, I asked Seaman why that little wooden box was so important to the humans.
“It contains the Magic Nose,” he said.
“Magic Nose?” I repeated in surprise. I was learning that Seaman saw magic just about everywhere.
Seaman nodded. “That’s right. You know how humans can’t smell? When they want to figure out which way to go, they can’t just pick up a scent the way we do. Well, Captain Lewis uses the Magic Nose to sniff the air and find scents for him. He checks it just about every time we set off.”
“Oh, I get it. It’s a compass!” Newton laughed. “My humans use one when we go for hikes.” He shook his head at Seaman. “It’s not really magic. It’s a kind of human invention.”
Baxter’s ears suddenly drooped. I could tell that the word invention had reminded him of his girl, Lucy, and her grandma. He was missing them.
I was missing home, too. I loved being Hero, out hunting all day with York. But I needed a rest. I was ready to be Trevor again, snoozing with Old Jim in our favorite armchair. I nudged Baxter’s nose with mine. “Seaman’s leg is healing fast. We’ll go home soon.”
Newton wagged his tail. “Good. This place is too dangerous. It’s life or death every other moment. I’m a nervous wreck!”
“Protecting these humans is a full-time job,” said Maia. “I’m ready to go home to Ayesha.” She scratched at a bead in her fur. “And I miss my coconut shampoo. These braids are starting to itch.”
We didn’t know that the biggest danger still lay ahead.
And it came from the humans themselves.
14
NOTHING BUT TROUBLE
The next day, some miles upriver from the Magic Nose Rescue, a small group of men on horseback came galloping up behind us, followed by a ragtag pack of skinny dogs. The men slid down from their horses and walked along the bank to talk to our humans, who were tying up the boats for the night.
While Seaman stuck to Captain Lewis’s side, I hurried over to the new dogs to carry out a security check. They were already scarfing down a pile of fish guts our men had dumped in the shallow water. “State your names and your business here,” I barked, raising my tail high to show them I was in charge.
Their leader was an old mud-brown female with even more bits missing than Titch. “Back off!” she snarled, crouching over the fish guts, her hackles flicking up like knives. Her teeth were as thin and jagged as those of an eel.
I yelped. In pain, not in fear. Baxter was hiding behind me and had started chewing nervously on my tail.
Another dog pushed forward. “Hey! They’re just a bunch of puppies playing at being tough guys!” They all laughed, fish blood spraying from their long, pointed muzzles.
“I’m Fang, if you must know,” said the leader. “We’re not here to make trouble, kid. Seems to me you have more than enough food to go around.” She aimed a look at Baxter. He’d eaten a large elk steak for lunch, and his belly was as round as a barrel.
Titch growled. “Just keep your gnashers off the buffalo meat. That’s ours!”
“What about your humans?” Maia chipped in, before Titch could start a fight. “Are they good men?”
“Good? How should I know? We’re wild dogs, not pets.” Fang sneered at Maia’s beads and feathers and her pink collar. “We’re just tagging along with them awhile for the free food.” She glanced at the new pack of men. “That tall one with the beard is their boss, Larocque. From what we can pick up from the horses, they’ve been trading in all the villages along the river. For beaver furs, mainly. They’re heading home, way over the plains to the north.”
“North?” said Newton hopefully. “Not Alaska, by any chance?”
Fang shrugged. “Never heard of it.”
“All clear! The humans have made friends,” said Seaman, strolling over to join us. “Captain Lewis has invited them to stay the night in our camp.” He looked down at Fang. “We’re on a mission to find the Pacific Ocean,” he barked importantly.
“Whatever!” Fang buried her nose in the fish guts again. “We’re on a mission to eat this lot before the rats show up.”
* * *
That evening the humans threw a party. They built a big fire and sat around eating mountains of buffalo meat, which smelled delicious, and drinking whiskey, which did not. They talked and laughed and played cards. Some took out fiddles and made the screechy noises humans seem to like so much.
We settled down to the never-ending task of removing grass seeds from our fur. I invited Fang and her pack to join us by the fire. Although it was summer, the night air was crisp and cold. But the wild dogs refused to set paw inside the camp. “You shouldn’t get too cozy with humans, kid,” warned Fang. “They are nothing but trouble.”
Looking back, maybe she had a point.
But it wasn’t the visitors who started it. It was men from our own pack. Reed and Newman had been helping themselves to extra rations from the whiskey barrel. Seaman groaned. “Uh-oh! I’ve seen what happens when they drink too much whiskey. They barge about, complaining and picking fights.”
Sounds just like Titch, I thought. But I didn’t say it, even though she was scratching fleas out of her ears and flicking them all over my tail.
Reed staggered through the camp and began hollering at Captain Lewis. Newman shoved Captain Clark so hard he almost fell in the fire.
“Don’t let those young pups challenge your authority!” I barked at Lewis. “You’re pack leader, by jiminy! Show them who’s boss.”
Lewis seemed to get the message and ordered the troublemakers out of the camp. But just when the situation seemed to be under control, two of Larocque’s men stormed up to their leader, pushing Reed and Newman ahead of them. “Just caught these scoundrels red-handed,” one of them shouted. He was waving a bundle of furs and a pouch of coins.
It was clear those troublemakers had been caught stealing.
All of a sudden, Reed lunged forward and punched Captain Lewis. York jumped up and pulled him to the ground. One of Larocque’s men took a swipe at Newman. He missed and hit his friend on the nose. Suddenly all the men in both packs were on their feet. Some threw punches. Others threw cups or plates or rocks. The stink of rage swirled in the air with the whiskey fumes. It made my fur prickle. Seaman flew to Lewis’s side and growled fiercely at Reed. I ran to join York. I couldn’t make sense of this fight, but York was my human now. It was my duty to protect him. I snarled at anyone who came too close.
“Stop!” Maia hissed at Seaman. “You’re making it worse. You should take your own advice, mister. The part about knowing when to hold back.” She cuffed
my ear with her paw. “You too, Trevor! You can’t solve every problem by rushing in and biting things.”
I heard Titch’s voice behind me. “Biting things usually works for me, Princess Fluffybutt. Although, I must admit, biting humans never ends well. Believe me, I’ve been there.”
“Maia’s right,” Newton shouted over the clamor. “We should be using our brains, not our teeth.”
I wasn’t so sure. Some of the men were reaching for their guns and knives.
How were brains going to stop bullets and blades?
15
SHADOWS ON THE WALL
“We need to make the humans forget about fighting,” said Newton. “We need a distraction.”
“My point exactly,” said Maia. “One distraction coming right up.” She flipped up onto her back legs and began to skip and twirl. The beads and shells and feathers that Sacagawea had braided into her fur jangled and fluttered as she moved. A few of the men stopped to watch. One or two picked up their fiddles and began to play again. But others were still brawling.
“Come on!” Maia called to us. “Join in!”
Titch snorted. “Do I look like a dancer?”
Maia did another leaping twirl. “You don’t have to dance. Just lie down in a row.”
We all did as we were told. Even Baxter, who was quivering like a rattlesnake tail.
Maia jumped over us. Once, twice, then again, backward. “Now, on your backs with your paws in the air,” she said. She hopped from one to the next, using us as stepping-stones. When she got to Seaman’s big webbed paws, she did a backflip.
The distraction was working. The fiddle players struck up another tune. Most of the men had begun to laugh and clap along. But a few of the younger ones were still brandishing their guns and knives. We needed a showstopper …
