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