Mike Dillingham - Alaska Dogs and Iditarod Mushers - The Adventures of Balto, Back of the Pack, Honor Bound, Rivers

He vaulted the hill looking about. Sun was lightening the sky, bringing back the pink and orange that highlighted the crisp blue. In the distance he could still make out headlights coming his way.

Robby had overslept.

He saw the car and the little pickup. They were twisted about each other. It was a wicked sight. Man and their machines, when would they learn. He smelled blood and the stillness of death. Something inside Robby grew cold and a fear gripped him, making him want to race away. He looked at the headlights down the road. They were not far now. He could do nothing more for them.

“Man and their machines,” he muttered, turning silently away continuing south.

All day he walked in a daze thinking about the car crash as horns blared and engines snarled around him. He thought about the twisted metal and the stillness of death. The gray sidewalk under his feet seemed endless. He stared at the cracks and breaks on its surface as he plodded along.

It just went on and on.

It kept his mind from his belly, and his aches and pains. His body felt broken, as though it would fall apart like a stuffed animal that had lost a thread and was unraveling at the seams. He shook himself, glancing up at the sky. He hadn’t noticed it was getting chilly, and he huffed in annoyance.

All summer he had roasted in the sun wishing for rain, now it came. The sun had lost its strength in the past week. Had it been almost a week? He coughed surprised by the time he had spent marching south. He suddenly felt the need to hurry. Soon the nights were going to freeze.

A delicious smell drew him to a quick stop. It was a restaurant like the one Nana used to take him to not far from their old home. She had taught him how to sit patiently and respectfully by the back door near a chipped old plate. The garbage was off limits; it was rude to dig in it like a stray.

Then a skinny, cheerful girl with her hair pulled into a pony tail would look out the door with a smile. Nana wagged her tail and raised her battered front leg, the one she broke so long ago, as if to wave like people did. Nana said they took pity on her crooked leg; humans had a weakness for pitiful dogs.

The girl would bring a bucket of hash browns, toast, eggs, bacon, cheese burgers, a lot of fries, and much more all heaped in together. She dumped it all on the plate smiled and left. In the summer they stopped by once a week about mid-day. In the winter it was daily at the same time.

The people that ran the restaurant back home were friends of the Miss’s pa. They fed the birds, dogs, and the occasional cat that wondered in. The Miss said if they didn’t hand out the scraps they would just toss them out in the garbage. The dogs didn’t eat dog food much when they lived at the old house.

The next stop with Nana in the lead was always a truck yard. They waited until a truck would come in and then they would greet the truck driver with wagging tails. The Miss’s pa worked on the trucks, so everyone knew Nana and Robby.

The trucks shipped ice cream a lot. If an ice cream container was dented, they would have to throw it away. All Nana did was follow them around until they gave in and left a whole gallon of sweet vanilla ice cream by the dumpster. Nana could never pick it up until it was half gone. Then Nana would grab the handle and walk through the woods to home and share with the Miss’s pa’s little dog Sweetie and the Miss’s little tiny dog Jose.

It was a sweet, sugary feast worth the gassy gut. In the winter it was a nice occasional treat that lasted forever, never melting in the freezing cold.

The old memories made Robby’s belly growl. He glanced at it suddenly wondering if his growl was that scary as his belly‘s growl. Glancing around he trotted off around the restaurant to the back where the dumpster was hidden. It was empty save a few ravens that were very mad that he was there and the vehicles of the employees that worked at the restaurants. He sniffed the air; all the scrapings of food from the last few days were in the dumpster. He felt ashamed, looking around the empty lot. He could easily jump into the dumpster, but that was a bad idea if the lid were to close and trap him inside.

Besides, he had been chained up in the back yard all day once after he got in the garbage. No one even looked at him and all they would say to him was how bad he was. He was too afraid of getting into trouble to even try. “But right now was it okay?” he wondered with a sad whine. He was starving; he didn’t think he could find food that easily, not here in this big frightening city. “Should I wait until dusk?” he asked himself, glancing at the angry ravens. He decided to wait until the people were gone; he could use the extra rest anyway.

The cars and trucks parked in the back were perfect cover from the wind and drizzle that came soon after he made up his mind to wait. He had paced around the back parking area finding a piece of garlic bread that was as hard as a rock, and an oily puddle quenched his thirst but left him with an ache in his belly that he hoped didn‘t get any worse.

He was glad after he thought about it a moment that water was so plentiful on his journey, dirty as it was. It would have been a long hard trek without it to keep his muscles from cramping up. He looked up, thanking the rain that fell from the angry black-grey sky.

Robby noticed a cat lazily walking around the dump-ster. “Nasty wretched thing,” Robby grunted as he thought about eating it. Cats were gross and made his gut sour. They tasted like stinky soap and old soda bottles. Plus their claws, and all that fur. Just plain gross!

On top of all that, he would have to chase it and he just didn’t have the energy right now. He didn’t understand why the coyotes and eagles even bothered with them as he eyed the sky watching the ravens bicker on the edge of the roof top.

“But then coyotes eat each other.” he growled dryly. They must like old stinky soap and soda bottles, too. He barked, sending the cat off screaming.

“Stupid cat,” he huffed irritated.

The first of the employees started to filter out of the restaurant. It was dusk as the last ones left with cheerful farewells. Robby found it to be odd gazing up at the sun that had been hidden away behind big buildings. This time of year the sun was awake until the wee hours of the morning, but here there were too many of man’s things blotting it out.

He stood by the willows planted by men earlier that summer; he smelled the fertilizer in the soil. Robby licked his scabbed shoulder. Tasting the contaminates in the dirt, he cleared it away from his wound. He was surveying the area when he heard something behind him. Whipping around, he saw a man walking slowly toward him. The man hadn’t seen Robby yet; he was looking down at his feet humming to himself, bundled up in an oversized coat. He looked up startled when Robby shifted his feet, eyeing the man with a warning stare.

“Hey there, mister,” the man said, stopping not far from Robby. “You hungry, too?” the man smiled as Robby wagged his tail, hearing the genuine goodness in his voice. Robby looked the man up and down; he sniffed the air. He was dirty and smelled bad like unwashed human, but he had no bad smell like the smell of mean, ill spirited people.

Humans all had a strange smell, but they really reeked when they were dirty, especially the males. Robby supposed he smelled strange to humans, as well. He knew he was dirty and smelly. If the Miss had caught wind of him, she’d scrub him in the bathtub with bubbly soap that tickled his nose. Robby wagged his tail watching the man slowly walk by with a chipper step but Robby knew the man was just as tired as he was.