The Return Read online

  The rows of bird-Cars stretched away from the fence that divided the dogs from the pavement field. Far down one row, Shep saw a building with a curved roof, like half of a giant tube. It was surrounded by bright white lights and what looked like stacks of crates. A strong scent of dog wafted from that direction.

  Shep had to get to the tube building.

  The fence protecting the field of pavement was tall and made of metal rings. The gate near the street was closed and held fast with thick chains and a lock.

  Rufus poked the metal fence, rattling the rings. “The one thing we need to have been broken by the storm, and it’s solid as stone,” he grumbled.

  “We can wait until the humans open the gate,” woofed Boji, tail waving.

  Daisy flopped into a sit. “You really think they’re going to just — snort — let a bunch of strays wander into their fenced-in field?” she yapped.

  “Smushed-snout correct,” hissed Fuzz. “Truck stop at gate last sun, and human in small box on side of road check truck before let inside.” Fuzz whipped his tail at the flimsy little building positioned alongside the road in front of the gate. “Dogs no get in this way.”

  “Then we’ll have to find another way,” Shep barked.

  Shep waved his snout, and the dogs loped after him along the edge of the fence. Following the course of the fence led them away from the cold winds, then toward sunset, the fence curving to avoid a wide street. There were no other gates in the metal links, no weaknesses for the pack to exploit. Shep was losing all hope of finding a secret way into the field when they came across a toppled tree.

  They were far from the gate now, and the sun shone above the steaming rooftops. Every dog was panting.

  The tree had broken the top pole that held the metal fence up. The wall of rings was bent down nearly to the ground. Several sleeping winged Cars stood a few stretches from the fence, and beyond them, Shep could smell the dogs.

  “Should we wait for night?” woofed Ginny, a hopeful look on her muzzle.

  “No,” Shep barked. “We need to check this building out now. But not all of us need to go. I’ll scout the place out, then report back here with what I find.”

  “What should we do while you’re gone?” woofed Dover.

  “Stay hidden,” Shep woofed. “I’ll be back before midsun.”

  Shep hopped onto the tree trunk and crept along its length. The tree bounced on the metal of the fence, creaking loudly. Shep scrambled faster along the bark, then sprang over the fence and onto the pavement. Fuzz landed silently beside him.

  “Fuzz keep Shep out of trouble,” the cat meowed.

  Shep waved his tail. “I didn’t think you’d stay behind,” he yipped. “Even if I nailed your tail to the street, I’d soon find you slinking in my shadow.”

  The cat closed his eyes and purred. “Perhaps it only Fuzz who see how lost dog-pack be without cat.”

  Shep panted. “It’s not only you who sees that,” he woofed.

  “Watch out!”

  Oscar plummeted from the tree and onto the cat’s back with a crash. Fuzz let off an awful meow, then hissed something snarly in cat-speak.

  “I thought I said I’d check things out while the rest of the pack stayed,” Shep barked, annoyed. The last thing he needed was to have to keep track of the pup while sniffing out a dangerous nest of dog catchers.

  “I won’t get in your way,” Oscar yipped. “And I found the place. I should get to check it out, too.” He stood tall, his little chest puffed out.

  Shep glanced at the others on the opposite side of the fence. Dover cocked his head and waved his tail, as if to say, Why fight the pup? Shep knew he would have to drag Oscar by the scruff back over the fence if he wanted him to stay put.

  “Fine,” Shep grumbled. “But keep right on my tail. I don’t want to lose you in addition to every dog else.”

  The pup wagged his tail. “Don’t you worry a hair about me,” Oscar yapped. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Shep decided that they should approach the dog-smell building from the nearest row of winged Cars, so the three dashed across the pavement until they reached the belly of one of the massive metal birds. They crept from shadow to shadow, pressed close to one another, winding their bodies between the Cars’ thin, metal legs. Then the bird-Cars ended.

  About fifteen stretches of open pavement separated Shep from the first cage. In it lay a strange dog, big and brown — and asleep, though it was fully light out. On top of that cage was another, and another small crate rested on top of that. There were two cats in the second cage, a rabbit in the topmost. From this corner, the cages ran toward the cold winds and also toward sunset, farther than Shep could see. The smells of dog and cat and rat and rabbit and bird and Great Wolf knows what else bombarded his nose.

  Oscar slumped beside Shep’s forelegs, jaw slack beneath his jowls. “It’s so big,” he moaned. “How can there be so many dogs?”

  Shep sat, unsure what else to do. This was too much, this kennel. How could they search all these cages? It would take a lifetime to sniff each one, to find all his packmates … to find Blaze … to find Callie.

  “Fuzz look closer,” the cat barked and burst from beneath the bird-Car. He stopped alongside the corner cage, then sprang onto the top of the first, then the second, and finally onto the roof of the third. The rabbit squealed and scrabbled around its little crate.

  Fuzz raced along the tops of the cages and disappeared. Shep began to dig through his brain for how they could possibly invade this maze of crates, how best to find and free his friends.

  “Down!” Oscar cried.

  A small bus rumbled toward them along the space of pavement between the winged Car and the cages. Shep ducked deeper into the shadow, hiding himself. The bus drove halfway down the row of cages toward the building, then stopped. A door on its side slid open, and several humans in loose, colorful clothes stumbled out onto the pavement. This bus was followed by others — Cars (open backed and regular types) and all sorts of machines roared past, dropping off humans and a few dogs and other animals.

  “This place is crawling with people,” Shep mumbled to himself.

  “But not at night,” Oscar woofed. He squinted at the cages as if peering into the depths of the maze. “Everything is quieter at night. We could come back then and free all the dogs.”

  “Oscar, even if we worked from the heartbeat the sun set to when the first tails of dawn wagged, we couldn’t open more than a snoutful of cages.”

  The pup glanced up at Shep. “A snoutful is better than none.”

  The sun baked the pavement. Heat rose in steamy waves from the stone. The dog in the corner cage finally woke and lapped up some water. Shep and Oscar stared at his bowl every time he slurped up a snoutful, their mouths dry as sand.

  “Could you spare a drop?” Oscar barked to the strange dog. His tiny tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, distorting his woof.

  The dog glanced at him, then at the bowl. “Sorry,” he yipped. “The human only comes by once a sun, and I only have enough water for me.”

  “Can you tell us anything about this place?” Shep woofed. “How many humans are here? How many dogs?”

  The dog sniffed the air, then sat. “So many that I never see the same human twice, and more dogs than I’ve ever smelled. They brought me here in this cage, and I’ve been in it ever since. Every afternoon, they take me for a walk by the edge of the fence, but other than that, what you see is what I see. Sometimes, strange humans walk by to peer into my cage, but not my girl. Not my family.” Suddenly, the dog’s ears pricked. He stood and waved his tail. “Have you seen my family out there?”

  Shep sighed. “Sorry,” he woofed. “I wouldn’t know them even if I had seen them.”

  “But I’m sure they’ll be here soon,” Oscar added with a cheerful yip.

  The dog’s tail drooped. He lay down and rested his snout on his paws. “Yeah,” he groaned. “Soon.”

  It was nearing midsun when Fuzz drop
ped down from the piles of cages and raced across the pavement to where Oscar and Shep lay panting in the shade.

  “Took you long enough,” Shep sighed. “We have to find some water.”

  “Fuzz find Callie-dog!” the cat meowed. “Callie-dog in building. Have tube in leg.”

  Shep sprang to his paws. “I’m going in,” he woofed.

  “Don’t be a fuzz head,” Oscar barked. “You’d be captured in a heartbeat.” He bit Shep’s foreleg for extra measure. “We have to find some water, meet back with the others, and come up with some plan that doesn’t involve getting caught the heartbeat we set paw in the kennel.”

  Shep shook his fur, knowing Oscar was right but not liking a woof out of his snout. Callie was here! Callie was in trouble! He had to save her!

  “Small-snout right.” Fuzz flicked Shep in the nose with his tail. “Shep-dog wait. No help to Callie-dog with fur-for-brain.”

  They made their way as fast as their paws could manage back to the fence. As they walked, Fuzz explained what he’d seen in the complex.

  “Cages in rows, piles of cages. Rodent on cat on dog on dog.” His disgust at the arrangement was evident in the tone of his hiss. “But in building, less cages and less dogs. More people. Callie there.”

  Shep pressed Fuzz for better details of the space, but the cat had little to offer.

  “Fuzz no have time to scratch out plan of whole space,” he meow-barked. “If Shep-dog want explain better, he go sniff out building himself.”

  “Then that’s what I’ll have to do,” Shep grumbled.

  The others were waiting on the other side of the fence around the toppled tree trunk. It looked like in all those heartbeats, they hadn’t moved a paw.

  “What did you — snort — find?” barked Daisy.

  “Yeah-Shep-did-you-find-Callie-and-can-we-go-home-yet-huh?” Snoop leapt against the metal rings of the fence and sent the whole wall shivering.

  Rufus nipped Snoop in the hind leg. “Get down before you set the whole mess of humans on us!” he snapped.

  Shep smelled that the pack was feeling equal parts anxious and excited. “Did something happen while I was gone?”

  “Humans,” woofed Dover. “A few drove by in one of those open-backed Cars. They marked the tree.” He waved his nose, and Shep saw an orange X painted on the trunk.

  Daisy pawed closer to Shep, chest out like she was trying to appear taller. “I ordered the pack to jump into a bush,” she grunted. “We stayed hidden.”

  Daisy was all that was left of Shep’s defense team, and apparently she thought this meant that she was in charge when he was away. If the others didn’t raise their hackles over the arrangement, Shep wasn’t going to make anything of it.

  He wasn’t sure why the humans painted a mark on the tree, but it couldn’t be for anything good. Shep had to get his trapped packmates out of this place and fast.

  “We found Callie, so the others can’t be far,” barked Shep. “Our pack will be back together by sunrise.”

  The dogs moved away from the fence for the rest of the afternoon, not wanting to attract any more attention to their entry-tree. They began searching the gully alongside the wide street for water and food, and found a few slurps and bites to swallow down.

  Daisy strutted to Shep’s side. “What’s the rescue plan?” she yapped.

  “Fuzz found Callie in the tube building,” Shep woofed. “We start there, and then open as many cages as we can on our way out.”

  Daisy gave Shep a snaggletoothed head tilt. “Not to smell insubordinate, but that’s all you’ve got for a plan?”

  “I didn’t sniff out the place; Fuzz did.” Shep turned over a moldering box and found only more trash. “When we go back in tonight, I’ll get a scent for how the whole kennel is set up and think of something better.”

  Daisy snorted and kicked back in the dust. “Blaze was better at this than you are,” she barked. “Callie, too.”

  “Thanks, Daisy,” Shep growled.

  “And Virgil.”

  “I said thanks.”

  Shep spent the rest of the afternoon digging around his brain for a better plan, something to shove Daisy’s snout in, but nothing came to him. He was the kind of dog who worked best in the heartbeat — he was a doer, not a thinker. But he didn’t have Callie to think for him now. He had to think for both of them, to save her.

  It would be silly to bring every dog in with him to investigate the building — better for only him to get caught than the whole pack. He could sniff things out with Fuzz as lookout, and probably Oscar, since the pup was such a stubborn tick in the fur. The rest could wait by the fence until he had a plan in place. Something even better than what Blaze would have come up with. Probably not as good as what Callie would have thought up, but something.

  As the sun began to fall, Shep barked that they should head back to the fence.

  “Wait!” howled Ginny. “I’ve found a den!”

  She stood in front of a huge tube, a stretch across at least. It was similar to the tunnel Shep had played in at the Park. The tube seemed to run under the wide street, though Shep could barely see through to its end in the dying light.

  “We’d better sniff this out,” he woofed.

  The dogs were wary of setting paw in the tube — it was dark, and it smelled terrible. A trickle of grimy water ran along its bottom and the metal under the water was coated in a thick layer of slime. Shep longed for Callie to appear beside him, to see her run headlong into the tube out of sheer curiosity. Soon, he told himself. She’ll be back with me soon.

  “Last dog through is a soggy kibble,” Shep woofed and raced into the dark.

  The tunnel led into a wooded area, and the trickle of water opened into a wide, shallow stream. The dogs followed the stream through the trees. The water grew deeper, and Shep saw at its end an open expanse of water surrounded by fields.

  “It’s a Park,” he barked. His tail began to wave in wide circles. “Perfect!”

  Dover sniffed at a wallow of mud. “Water lizard,” he yipped. “And something else. Both were here not too long ago.” He pricked his ears. “We’re not alone in this Park.”

  “We don’t have to be alone,” Shep said, tail still in full swing. “I’m the alpha of any water lizard or nasty rodent we find. The real nugget is that there aren’t any dog catchers in this Park. It’s separate from the fenced pavement field. We can free the dogs and then meet back here.”

  “So how exactly do we free the others?” yapped Rufus. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I can open any cages with my paws or my teeth.”

  The other dogs looked at Shep with raised ears, eager to hear what he’d woof. Daisy gave him her usual head tilt, this time with a distinct snarl of disapproval.

  Shep snorted and pawed the ground. “Well,” he began, “first, I’m going to go in and check the place out. Then I’ll come up with the plan. And then we’ll execute the plan.”

  “All in one night?” woofed Boji. She waved her tail, but the look on her muzzle betrayed her doubts.

  “Yes,” Shep barked as assuredly as he could. “They’ll all be free by next sun.”

  Fuzz leapt down from the tree branch he’d been perched upon. “Enough barking. Dogs need to move tail if finish before sun time.”

  The sun burned low on the horizon, setting the clouds on fire against the pale blue of the fading sky. Already, a lone flame of the Great Wolf’s coat flickered in the dark. The pack agreed to wait by the tree until Shep returned with his rescue plan. As Shep had anticipated, Oscar refused to stay behind, so the pup and the cat followed Shep to the maze of cages.

  The humans had lit tall, blinding white lights near the curved-roof building as the sky grew dark; however, their light didn’t penetrate all the way to the outer cages. The three invaders were able to hide in the shadows all the way to the opening in the maze where they’d seen people dropped off that morning. As they crept along, Shep sniffed each of the cages, but nothing smelled familiar. N
ot that I’d recognize the scent of most of my pack, he reminded himself. By the time the catchers had come to the boat, the pack had grown so large that Shep hadn’t known every dog.

  Shep peeked around the edge of the last cage and got his first look inside the maze. His jaw dropped. There were more cages, endless cages — row after row, piled on top of one another, some with one dog, others with as many as three.

  Oscar whined, “How will we ever find our pack in this place?”

  “Dogs, focus,” Fuzz hissed. “This way to Callie-dog.” He flicked his tail and slunk through the shadows toward the building.

  Shep and Oscar followed, pressed to the side of the row of cages. Every once in a while, a captured dog would snap at them from inside the crate, but for the most part, the strangers merely sniffed them, tails wagging. Some asked about their families, whether they’d seen a certain girl with red pigtails like floppy ears or a man with curly brown hair. Shep tried to block out their questions; every woof pulled at him like a thorny branch. He wanted to help them, but that’s not why he was there, not now. Now he needed to save Callie.

  Fuzz hissed for them to stop several stretches away from the building. The lights scared away every shadow. The three had nowhere to hide.

  “Shep-dog get good enough scent of place?” Fuzz meowed. “Time to move tail out of maze.” The cat stared at Shep, but his ears flicked nervously, catching every sound.

  “Hey, dog!” a human voice called.

  Shep froze. He glanced around him, twitching his ears to catch where the voice came from.

  “Here, boy,” the voice said, closer.

  Shep saw the person — a young man in pale blue body coverings — two rows over, kneeling in front of a cage. He dragged behind him a bag of kibble, the scent of which set Shep’s mouth slobbering.

  “Quick,” Shep snuffled. “Pad backward until we hit shadow, then bolt for the opening in the maze.”

  They made it out onto the open pavement and under one of the winged Cars without getting caught, but this did not make Shep any more relaxed.