“Stop! Hey!” someone yelled. Startled, I whirled my head to look all the way to the other side of the slope, where there was no ridge but just a rolling mountaintop. The two other men, so far away they appeared very small, had their hands to their mouths.
“Get out of there!” one shouted.
“That’s not safe!” the other one cried.
“Avalanche zone!”
“Stop!”
The men sounded scared and angry. The man high up the hill kept walking, but the dog halted and turned, and I knew he had heard the voices. Then he stared in my direction because he had picked up my presence as well.
Though he was very far away, this canine interaction caused me to wag my tail. I played with Big Kitten every day, but right now I longed to wrestle with a dog.
“Get out of there!” both men off to my side screamed with joined voices.
The dog barked and lunged a few steps downhill toward me. Almost involuntarily, I shoved my way into the thick snow in his direction, wagging even more furiously.
“Dutch!” the man with the dog shouted. “Get back here.”
The dog glanced back at his person, then leapt forward again. The pitch was so steep that he was able to travel a considerable distance in just a few bounds. He was wagging, too. The man lifted his long shoe and stomped it down on the snow. “Dutch! Come here!” he commanded.
“Look out!”
There was an odd, low noise, like when Lucas would toss a pillow at me and it would hit the wall. The curl of snow atop the ridge fragmented and fell. The man below it jerked his head around to stare as a rumble, loud as a truck, shook the air. He fell, tumbling, as the ground slid underneath him, almost like water in a stream. The wave caught the dog and knocked him over and then they were both floundering as they plummeted toward me, moving faster than I’d ever seen anything move, even Big Kitten.
The thunderous roar and the alien sight of the very earth sliding suddenly filled me with terror. I needed to get away. I turned and dashed for the trees, plunging in huge leaps, the booming din from behind me louder and louder and then something slammed me, tossing me into the air. I lost all sense of up and down, I was rolling and falling, I could see nothing and my paws could not find the ground and I had just one thought as something hit my head.
Lucas.
Sixteen
I tumbled, feeling numb, unable to smell or feel or see. The air left me in a gasp. And then, just like that, the noise was gone. I shook my head, clearing it, and tried to make sense of what had just happened, but couldn’t. I was now well into the trees, but did not know how I had gotten there.
My back legs were pinned under snow so heavy it felt as if Lucas were lying across them. If he were here, if Lucas were here, he would know what to do. Panting, I struggled to get free. I remembered him lifting me out of Wayne’s arms over the fence. That was what I needed, my person taking me into his arms, pulling me clear. I whimpered. I could not move the part of me that was buried, so I strained with my forelegs to drag myself forward. There was some give, just a tiny amount. I pulled and I was able to move one leg a little, and then the other. Now I could drive with both rear legs, and with a final attempt to hold me prisoner the snow released me, and I shook myself, exhausted.
While just moments before the air had been filled with a noise so powerful it obliterated everything, even thought, there was now an odd silence. I looked around, trying to make sense of it all.
The dog. He was uphill from me, and he was sobbing, a frantic fear pouring off him. Though we were not a pack, the instinct to help rose within me and without hesitating I ran toward him, the ground beneath me oddly firm now, as if the noise had somehow packed everything down.
The dog was just at the tree line, digging, the snow flying into the air behind him. He was a huge dog, larger than I was, with thick dark fur. He did not even glance at me when I approached, didn’t acknowledge my presence. His cries of distress as he dug were not hard to interpret. Something was very bad. But what? Why was he attacking the snow so frantically?
I do not know why, but a moment later I was digging next to the male dog, my movements just as frenzied. Something was bad and we were burrowing down. I knew nothing more than that.
We had not been at it very long when I smelled humans—the two men who had been so angry.
“There! Over there!” one of them shouted. “See? They’re digging!”
I kept at it, scooping hard, dense ice as best I could. My nose now told me what was buried here—a man, the same man whose scent was painted on the male dog. We were digging to save the man.
Bent on my mission, I only glanced at the two men as they glided up on long shoes. One was taller and had darker skin than the other. They kicked the strange shoes off.
“These must be his dogs!”
The men knelt next to us and now there were two dogs and two people digging. They punched their mittened hands down, their long arms helping them as they shoveled great handfuls of snow.
“Got his shirt!” Both men moved up near where the male dog had been digging, and the male dog moved over but didn’t pause.
“His mouth is caked. God.”
“Is he alive?”
One of the men whipped off his mitten. “Still got a pulse!”
“He’s not breathing!”
The men dug armloads of snow away from the buried man’s face. I could feel their frenzied fear. Soon they had his shoulders exposed. They stood, each holding an arm, heaving back.
“Jesus!”
“Keep pulling!”
The men fell down and the buried man was now somewhat out of the hole. The male dog licked his face, crying.
The taller man held up a phone. “No signal. I’ll go back to the cabin and get help. Can you do mouth-to-mouth? Gavin?”
“Yes!” The shorter man began kissing the male dog’s person.
The other man put his big shoes back on, moving with quick, jerky motions. “I’ll be back as soon as I can!”
The man who was doing the kissing nodded but kept taking deep breaths and putting his mouth on the unconscious man’s. “Still got a pulse!”
The tall man wearing the big shoes picked up poles and shoved off with them, moving quickly through the snow in a gliding gait I had never seen before.
The male dog seemed to notice me for the first time, though he only took a single look at me. His tongue was out and his body was trembling, and his eyes were wide. He did not lift his leg or sniff under my tail—he pressed forward, nearly on top of the half-buried man, still whimpering.
There were no sounds for several deep breaths of the kissing man, and then the one lying in the snow started to moan.
“Oh, thank God, thank God,” the kneeling man said. He turned to look at me. “He’s going to be okay, I think. He’s breathing now on his own.”
The other man did not open his eyes, but he did cough and wheeze, and the male dog licked and licked his face.
* * *
I stayed with the moaning man, the dog, and the other man, who was nice enough to feed both dogs a piece of bread. Eventually I heard loud machines approaching from far down below, but I still stayed—not just because of the bread, but because I felt that I had to be there, the way I had to help Ty and some of my friends who were sometimes sad and needed a dog. It was my job. The bread-man was agitated and distressed, while the moaning man seemed unaware of much of anything.
“Dutch, is that your name?” the bread-man asked, looking at the collar of the male dog. “Hi, Dutch!”
I could tell by the male dog’s reaction that this was what people called him.
Bread-man reached out and touched my collar and I sniffed his hand, smelling Dutch and the bread and not much else. “What’s your name? Why doesn’t your collar have a tag?”
I wagged. Yes, I would have more bread.
When the loud machines arrived they each carried two people on their backs and also dragged along a flat sled. There were three women an
d a man on the machines, and they carefully lifted the male dog’s person onto the sled, strapping him down. The man groaned loudly when they moved him but he still did not wake up.
“Is he going to be okay?” the bread-man asked one of the women.
“Depends on how long his brain went without oxygen. It’s a good sign, though, that his heart never stopped beating. You did the right thing.”
“I’ve never done that. Artificial resuscitation, I mean,” he replied. “Wow.”
“You okay?” she responded kindly.
“Honestly? No. I’m still shaking.”
“You saved a man’s life. You should feel good.”
“I’m going to have a martini, then I’ll feel good.”
The woman laughed. I wagged my tail at the sound, but Dutch was anxiously watching the people strap his person to the sled. I sniffed him, practically able to taste the anxiety pouring off him.
“What about his dogs?” the bread-man wanted to know.
“Oh,” answered the woman.
“Will you send somebody to get them?”
“That’s not—we aren’t really equipped to take care of dogs.”
“Huh.” The man put a mitten down to stroke my head, and I rubbed up against him like Big Kitten greeting me. “Well, they belong to the guy you’re taking to the hospital.”
“That’s really unfortunate. We’re mountain rescue; we’ve never had a situation where a victim has a dog.”
“I see.” He patted my head again and I wagged. “So what is going to happen to them?”
The woman smacked her hands together in a spray of snow, brushing the flakes off her coat. “That’s up to you, I guess.”
* * *
We watched as the people climbed onto their machines, which began making a rumbling roar. Then, with a lurch, they drove off, dragging the man from the snow behind them in the sled. Dutch let out a cry and gave pursuit, his forlorn panic driving him in a stumbling run through the snow. “Dutch! Here, boy!” Bread-man yelled after him. The machines stopped and Bread-man put on his long shoes and glided down to them. Dutch circled the machines anxiously, putting a foot on the sled where his person was lying.
I observed this happening without moving. Bread-man had not called me Bella. He did not know me. But he knew Dutch. Dutch would be fine with him. I inhaled through my nose—though I could not smell Big Kitten, I knew she was out there somewhere. We would find each other. More importantly, I could pick up the scent of home, and could feel the pull of Lucas.
It was time to Go Home.
Bread-man was looking up at me. He lifted his hand to his mouth and whistled, a shrill shriek almost exactly like Lucas could make. I was startled: how did he know how to do that? “Come on, girl!”
I hesitated. Bread-man was slapping his thighs in a gesture I knew meant “Come.” And I recognized “girl,” it was something Lucas said to me often. Should I run to him?
I knew, deep down, that he might be one of those who would keep me from my person, but I could sense his kindness, and it had been so long since I had heard a human voice, had someone tell me I was a good dog, that the urge to run to him was overpowering. I ran to him.
Then Bread-man unslung the sack from his shoulders and I wondered if he had another piece of bread. He did! I sat obediently while he tossed me a morsel, fixated on the remaining treats in his hand. Dutch was still completely occupied with the man on the sled, so I would have all the food to myself.
When Bread-man reached for me again he had something else in his hand. I gobbled the treat from his mitten while he used a bare hand to attach something to my collar. It was, I realized with a sinking feeling, a rope. I was on a leash.
I did not want to be on a leash.
The woman held Dutch’s collar while a second rope came out of the pack. Bread-man tied it to Dutch’s collar, handing over one of my treats, which Dutch swallowed without seeming to care. It was a waste to give food to an apathetic dog when I was right there being attentive.
“Thanks,” Bread-man said.
“Good luck!” the woman called back. And with that, the machines roared away.
Dutch was instantly frantic, his ears back, mouth drooling, eyes showing white rims. He lunged, straining against his rope and Bread-man nearly fell over. “Stop! Hold on! Dutch! Sit! Stay!”
I sat and did Stay because I was a good dog who could smell there were still some bread treats left in the pack.
Dutch whined and twisted and pulled, while Bread-man spoke soothingly. “It’s okay, Dutch. You’re okay, Dutch.”
When Dutch finally looked at Bread-man his eyes were empty of all but despair.
“Okay, come on, girl,” the man said. I could smell the noisy machines even as they turned and disappeared over a rise, their combined thunder fading abruptly on the air.
Bread-man held sticks in each hand that were long enough to touch the ground. He still wore his enormous shoes. He shrugged into the straps on his sack. I looked at Dutch, whose leash was pulled tight to keep him exactly even with me. I did not know what we were doing, and neither did Dutch, who was trying to be a good dog and was quivering with the effort. What he wanted to do, I knew, was run after that sled.
“Okay, let’s try this, but go slowly. You ready? Okay. Let’s go!”
I was startled when, with a tug on my rope and a whispery sound, Bread-man was suddenly gliding past us on his long shoes. Dutch and I both lurched into movement. I tried to stay close enough to the bread-man to keep the leash loose but Dutch bolted, galloping.
“Hey!” Bread-man shouted. He twisted and fell heavily to the snow. I went to him, wagging, thinking that if we were going to stop, it might be time for more bread. Dutch yanked and pulled at the end of his leash. “Dutch! No! Stop!”
After some digging in the snow, Bread-man struggled to his feet. He looked at us. I wagged. Dutch whined. “This is going to be harder than I thought. Just don’t pull so hard, okay? I haven’t been skiing that long. Ready? Let’s go. Go!”
Uncertainly, I started forging ahead. Were we going for a walk? The snow here was still oddly packed, making for good purchase. Dutch took off again. “Dutch! Slow!” the man yelled. Dutch lowered his head and I could see he felt like a bad dog.
“Hey!” Bread-man said after a moment. “This is working!”
When we came to an uphill slope the snow abruptly went back to being deep and heavy, tough going for all three of us. My leash and Dutch’s were yanked as the man used his poles to hit the ground, and he was breathing heavily.
Soon I smelled Bread-man’s friend approaching. “Gavin!” the friend called, hidden by a small hill.
Bread-man raised his head. “Taylor! Over here!”
Bread-man stopped, bent over and panting, and the other man, the tall one, topped the rise and glided down to us. He also was breathing harshly.
“What happened?” Tall-man asked after a moment of just inhaling and exhaling.
“He went down with mountain rescue,” Bread-man answered.
“Is he going to be okay, you think?”
“No idea. He didn’t regain consciousness the whole time. They said it was a good thing his heart didn’t stop. We saved his life, Taylor.”
Tall-man shook his head. “What was he thinking? There were avalanche warnings everywhere!”
“I know. He had to have snowshoed right under the boundary rope.”
“We may have interfered with an important Darwinian process,” Tall-man said speculatively. He smiled. His teeth flashed against his skin, which was very dark. Then he looked down at me. I wagged. “So. I guess I can’t help but notice that you’ve got two enormous dogs with you.”
“Yeah, they said to call animal control.”
“And the reason why they didn’t call animal control is…”
“They had to take the guy down where he can be airlifted to the hospital.” Bread-man shrugged.
“So the part you don’t want to tell me is…”
“I still
have dog food from when Nick came to visit.”
“Huh.” Tall-man nodded. “So we give them some food and then?”
“Come on. We’ll drive them in to Grand Junction with us tomorrow, figure out what to do then.”
“Why does ‘figure out what to do’ sound suspiciously like ‘take care of these dogs in our home’?” Tall-man wanted to know.
“Well, what happens if the guy dies? I don’t want to just drop them off at the shelter until we know they’re going to be okay.”
The tall-man rubbed his face with a mitten. “There’s like two tons of dog here.”
Bread-man laughed.
Tall-man removed his mitten and bent down to pet Dutch, who anxiously licked the proffered hand. “So this one is Bernese mountain dog and what, bear? Grizzly bear?”
“His name is Dutch.”
“Uh-huh.” Tall-man reached for me and I sniffed Dutch’s scent on his fingers, picking up the dog’s distress. I knew what Dutch wanted more than anything was to get off leash and run after his person. It’s what a lost dog needs to do. “And this one is bullmastiff plus, I don’t know, cow. She’s the size of a damn cow, Gavin.”
“Look at her ribs, though. She hasn’t been eating much.”
“Her brother is well-fed. He needs to be on a diet.”
“Okay, that’s what we’ll do then.”
“What we will do,” the tall-man repeated. “We. Will put this dog, who we don’t own, on a diet.”
“Avalanche-dude gives all the food to the brother but not the sister. Here, take the male, you’re a better skier and he pulls like a speedboat.”
Dutch and I soon learned that the bread-man was named Gavin and the tall-man with the dark skin was Taylor. Well, I learned it—Dutch didn’t seem to care about anything but getting back with his person. The two men walked us back to a very small house that had a hole in the wall with a fire burning in it, filling the place with the pungent tang of smoke. Gavin poured dry food into two bowls, which I ate and Dutch didn’t, so I ate his.