Waggit's Tale (6 page)

And so they went on, each dog's story one of sadness and abandonment. Even Alicia could make you feel sorry for her when she told of being tied up to a tree with a rope that she had to chew through to get free. She spoiled the emotion of the moment, however, by shrieking, “I don't get it. I mean it's not like I'm made of spare parts or anything. I'm a purebred. Why would anyone want to abandon me?”

As each of the animals spoke Waggit felt as if layers of ice were forming around his heart. He became numb with sorrow, but the worst moment for him was when Cal told how he became a Tazarian.

“I was living with two Uprights in one of those big
buildings where lots of them live. Our part of it was small, but I prefer it that way. It's more cozy and friendly. Anyway, things were going along just swell until the little Upright came along. I actually liked him. He made a lot of noise, which I always wanted to do but wasn't allowed to. He also smelled great. I loved his scent. It was clean and nice. One day I was next to him and I licked him to find out if he tasted as good as he smelled, and the man went crazy. He smacked me across the nose and shouted at me and locked me in one of the small rooms. The next day I thought he'd forgotten all about it, and sure enough he seemed okay and took me for a walk here in the park. He even threw sticks for me, which was great because he didn't do it that often. He threw one that went a long way. It fell in bushes, and it took me some time to find. When I got it I went back to where the man had been, but he'd gone. I kept thinking he'd come back for me, but he never did.”

Waggit couldn't believe his ears. What had happened to Cal was almost exactly what had happened to him. His owners had gotten a baby Upright, and although he hadn't ever licked it, the woman kept on shouting at him whenever he got near it. This went on
for several days and it was clear that his master was distressed by what was happening. Waggit assumed that his master had taken him to the park, something that he'd never done before, to get him out of the house and let the woman calm down. Before that day he'd never thrown a ball for Waggit either. He'd thrown a ball a long way down a hill, and by the time Waggit had returned with it he had disappeared. Could it be that he had really been abandoned like all the others? Was it possible that his owner would never come back, and that he would live the rest of his life with the Tazarians? He liked the team, but then he liked his master, too, and life with him seemed a lot easier than life in the park. He stood up, feeling a little wobbly on his legs.

“I'm just going for a little walk,” he said to nobody in particular.

Lowdown began to struggle to his feet to go with his young friend, but Tazar blocked his way.

“The boy needs to be alone,” he growled softly. “Let him go. He'll be all right.” And they both watched as Waggit disappeared into the black night.

B
y the time the dogs were getting ready to sleep, Waggit still hadn't returned. Lowdown was worried about him. The dog's stories had obviously upset him a lot, even though they'd achieved Tazar's intention of making him face up to the fact that he had been abandoned. Lowdown knew that in his present state of mind Waggit would be less alert to the dangers of the night, whether it was the Stoners or Tashi's team or even traffic.

“Boss,” he asked Tazar, “do you think we should go
and look for Waggit?”

Cal and Raz overheard him.

“We could go,” Cal volunteered. “We're good searchers, honest. Please let us go.”

But Tazar was firm. “No,” he said, “he needs time to come to terms with all that he's heard tonight. There's a risk that some harm could befall him, but it's a risk we'll have to take. Until he accepts his past he will never be comfortable with his future.”

There were times when you could persuade Tazar to change his mind, and there were times when he was immovable, and the dogs recognized that there was no point pressing him on this any further. They sighed and settled down for the night as best they could. Lowdown found it difficult to sleep. He tossed and turned, scratched and snorted, and worried about Waggit until tiredness finally got the better of him and he drifted off into a sleep that was disturbed by dreams of terrifying monsters attacking puppies, and Stoners and Ruzelas, and storms with terrible thunder and lightning.

He awoke with a start several hours later as the dawn was breaking on a clear and much colder day. His alarm clock turned out to be Cal, gently nipping at his leg.

“Look who's here, Lowdown, and see what he's got.”

The old dog blinked, yawned, and struggled to his feet. There at the entrance to the tunnel was Waggit, covered in mud and leaves. In his mouth he had a large, dead rabbit.

Tazar's instincts had been right once again. Knowing that his “owner” had discarded him like so much trash had a profound effect on Waggit. Now he knew that there would be no rescue, no cans of food. He hadn't wanted to kill the rabbit, but in doing so he was obeying the oldest law of the planet, that of survival.

Now he dropped the dead animal and entered the shelter that was his only home. He began to shake uncontrollably. Cal and Raz came to either side of him and pressed their bodies against his quivering form.

“It's okay,” said Raz. “You get used to it. You get used to everything.”

 

The change in Waggit was clear to everyone. He was more serious and focused, more suspicious, and less willing to take everything he was told at face value. Even his body language changed. He walked closer to
the ground, never making eye contact with strangers, moving surreptitiously through the park, especially when he had to cross open terrain. He also lived up to Tazar's expectations of his abilities as a hunter, providing more food for the team than any other dog. When he went out on a hunt it was as if he shut down his emotions; he couldn't afford to feel sympathy for his prey, not anymore.

He was no longer an innocent puppy, but he was still a young dog, and he loved to do the things that young dogs do. This mostly meant wrestling with Cal and Raz, and occasionally with Lady Magica. If Lowdown was his soul mate, these three were his playmates. They would snarl and growl and roughhouse one another to the ground, teeth gnashing and lips curled. To the onlooker it was fearsome, but to the dogs it was harmless fun. When they regained enough breath they would move on to the next game. Sometimes they would play tug-of-war, with a dog on each end of a fallen branch, or chase stones down a hill, and they frequently ended up swimming in one of the more secluded parts of the Deepwater.

Lowdown and Gordo were content to watch these antics. The older dog couldn't participate because of
his aches and pains; and, anyway, wrestling him to the ground would have been no challenge because he was so close to it to begin with. Pinning Gordo down, on the other hand, would have been a challenge for the combined efforts of the entire team. How he remained so enormous was one of the enduring mysteries of the park. At first the team suspected that he had a secret food source, but he didn't. It was just how he was built, and he stayed the same in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.

Gordo refused to participate in the games for two reasons. The first was that he was afraid that he'd hurt someone by accident. The second, and to him the more important reason, was the pleasure that he got from watching the love of his life, Magica, play-fight with the boys and give as good as she got. If for some reason she wasn't part of the free-for-all he would generally nod off to sleep, his second favorite activity.

Another park mystery, along with Gordo's weight, was what Tazar did during the day. Sometimes he would hang out with the rest of the team, but it was more usual for him to leave by himself in the morning and return shortly before the meal in the evening, unless there was an emergency that he had to deal
with. Lowdown told Waggit that he thought Tazar spent his days gathering intelligence about what was happening in the park. Indeed there was nothing that occurred within its boundaries that he didn't know about. He had a favorite saying—“There's no such thing as a pleasant surprise”—and to him, knowledge was control.

Tazar's obsession with knowledge saved two of the team members some days later. The pleasant, unusually warm weather had ended, and a brisk cold spell had taken its place, cold enough to make people take lunch where they worked, or in restaurants outside of the park. It was also chilly enough for the small animals that lived in the woods to stay in their warm holes beneath the earth. There was very little food and the dogs were hungry. Cal and Raz expended more energy than most of their teammates, and therefore needed more calories. They were on a foraging expedition that took them close to those places most frequented by humans, in the vague hope that some of the hardier ones would still be taking a quick lunch on a bench. Cal's nose suddenly quivered.

He turned to Raz and said, “Do you smell what I smell, brother?”

Cal lifted his snout and took several sharp intakes of breath. “I do indeed, brother—meat, and not too far away by the smell of it.”

The two of them moved forward in silence, their nostrils flared and twitching. Suddenly they came upon a strange wire structure, in the middle of which was a slab of red, delicious, fragrant meat.

“Oh my,” said Cal.

“Indeed,” said Raz.

Then they saw that no more than twenty feet away was a similar enclosure with an equally attractive meal lying inside. Cal's stomach growled in appreciation.

“You take this one,” he said to Raz, nodding to the closer of the two, “and I'll take the other.” Just as they were going to snap up their finds they heard a familiar bark behind them. They whirled around to see Tazar imperiously perched on a rock.

“I would think twice before doing that if I were either one of you,” he said.

“But why, boss?” asked Cal, with just the hint of a whine in his voice. “It smells like good meat.”

“I'm sure it's the best the Ruzelas could find,” Tazar agreed.

“But why would the Ruzelas leave meat in the
woods?” asked Raz, genuinely confused.

“Well, first of all, let me say this,” said Tazar. “Whenever you find something that seems strange, be very, very suspicious. Have you ever seen these wire dens before?”

“Well, no,” the other two agreed.

“Now let me answer your question with action rather than words.”

Tazar looked around until he found a long, straight, dead branch, one end of which he grasped in his mouth. Then he ran with it toward the meat in the cage. When the far end struck the food, a spring-loaded door came crashing down, sealing off the entrance, and therefore the exit, for any animal trapped inside. Cal and Raz both gasped.

Tazar dropped the branch.

“I saw the Ruzelas setting up these devices earlier this morning. Get caught in one of these little beauties and you end up in the Great Unknown.”

“However…” Tazar chuckled, a wicked smile upon his face. “It
is
nice of the Ruzelas to leave out food for us, especially in these lean times. Cal, get ready,” he commanded.

Cal got ready, for what he had no idea. But he was
prepared for anything that Tazar wanted him to do. The branch was still stuck in the mouth of the cage. Because the branch was curved, there was a gap between the door and the ground. Tazar maneuvered his powerful body into this space and began to push upward with all his might to force open the door. But it wouldn't budge.

“Get over here and help me,” he panted to Raz. The dog ran over and put his weight underneath the door as well, and between them they managed to force it open no more than six inches. For Cal, however, this was more than enough space to crawl through and retrieve the meat with a howl of triumph.

“Let's do the other one, too,” he said excitedly.

The two dogs scurried into the woods and soon came back with another branch of a similar shape and length.

“Give it to me,” Tazar ordered. “We'll do this one a little differently.”

He put the branch in his mouth, but instead of springing the trap by touching the meat, he very carefully placed the tip of the branch in the far corner of the cage. Using only his teeth, he forced the branch against the top part of the hole where the trapdoor
slid down. Seeing that the door was now jammed, Cal enthusiastically ran in to get the meat.

There was a crack, followed by a clang as the branch snapped in two and the door slammed into place. Cal stood, with the meat in his mouth, inside the cage, with no apparent way of getting out.

“Oh no, Cal,” said Raz. “Don't get trapped; don't let the Ruzelas get you. Please!”

Cal just stood there, still holding on to the meat, bewildered.

“Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I was so stupid,” said Tazar, the anger clear in his voice. “We should have quit when we were ahead. What are we going to do about this?”

He thought for a moment.

“I need rocks, lots of rocks of all different sizes,” he said.

Both he and Raz went about getting an assortment and bringing them to the front of the cage. The smaller ones they carried in their mouths, but the larger ones had to be rolled forward with their noses. When they had acquired what the leader considered to be enough he turned to Raz.

“What we are going to do is this,” he said. “I'm going
to grab hold of the bottom of the trapdoor with my teeth and try and pull it up a little way. When I do, you push one of the small rocks underneath to stop it from going back down again. Then I'll try and pull it up a bit farther, and you push in a bigger rock, and so on until we make an opening big enough for Cal to crawl out.”

“Okay, Tazar, let's do it,” said Raz, desperate to get his friend free. Tazar hooked his big, curved bottom teeth around the wire of the door. He pulled as hard as he could. He felt the pressure in his mouth, but nothing moved. He uncoupled himself from the cage and looked at it, and then he spotted the problem. At the bottom there was a small latch that fell into position when the door came down. Very carefully he hooked a claw around the latch and pulled. A sharp stab of pain went up his leg as the pressure on his claw increased, but the latch clicked open.

“Okay,” he said. “Let's try again.”

This time both Tazar from the outside and Cal from the inside hooked their teeth through the wire. Raz counted to three, and the two dogs pulled with all their might. The spring was very strong, but the door moved up slightly. As it rose Raz quickly nudged a stone under it to prevent it from coming back down.
The other two released their grip, rested for a second, and then they all repeated the process, only this time Raz used a larger stone. They did this until he had put the largest stone, actually a good-size rock, under the door, which made a space just big enough for Cal to crawl through.

Cal started to position himself for his escape, then stopped and went back for the meat.

“Leave the meat,” ordered Tazar. “You're more important than any meat.”

“With all due respect, Tazar,” said Cal, “I'm not going through all this to come out empty-mouthed.”

He grabbed the meat and, keeping close to the ground, very slowly crawled to freedom. The three dogs were joyfully reunited. They ran back to the tunnel, prizes proudly held in their mouths.

That night the team feasted on good, fresh meat, and listened in awe to Cal's stories of how he had escaped certain death at the hands of the Ruzelas. The rest of the team said how brave he was, while Tazar and Raz, who had seen his frightened face and therefore knew otherwise, kept quiet.