The pointer looked from Gabe and Olivia to the truck, whined, and turned his attention to them again. Gabe was debating what to do next when, in the darkness, he was just able to discern that the gangly pointer was cautiously wagging his docked tail.

Moving slowly and deliberately, Gabe set the bowl down on the ground and glanced at Olivia. “Let’s finish this conversation when we’ve got nothing but time to do it justice. For now, how about you fill that bowl with kibble, because I think we’re just a step or two from making a new friend.”

Chapter 8

The dog recognized the man by his scent. In the still night air, it blended with the woman’s and the sharp metallic odor of the object she carried. His stomach cramped and his mouth watered at the sound of the kibble clanking inside it.

Weakened from the swim as the dog was, his legs would hardly heed his command. Instead, they shook underneath him, threatening to collapse without warning. So much time had passed since the dog had munched kibble between his tongue and the roof of his mouth. Now that he was safe from the rush of the river that had swept into his pen, threatening to swallow him up, the thick fog that had been clouding the dog’s thoughts returned.

He watched the man dump a mound of mouthwatering kibble into a bowl at his feet and listened as the man beckoned him with clicks of the tongue and motioned with his hand. This same man had lifted him up out of the water, kept him from sinking until the river had tried to swallow them both at the same time.

He was pleased to know the man had been spit out the same way he had. Terror had kept the dog moving when he’d reached the water’s edge. He’d run and run until he was certain the river was too far away to catch him.

As the fear abated, the dog had felt the pull of his master’s whistle, even though he’d not heard it on the wind—he’d not heard his master’s whistle for some time now—and he’d returned home on legs so weak they were hardly under his command.

Upon return, the dog had discovered that the only home he’d known—the quiet pen behind his master’s home—had been swallowed up and swept away. The dog had been dozing up here where his master had stayed, hoping for his return and dreaming in fear of the river swallowing up the house just as it had his pen. The people returned and woke him, and the smell of food drifted across his nose.