Chapter 7
Unknown to the six sitting around the back table in the Spearfish Lake Cafe, Tiffany was a concerned girl at that moment. Not worried, and not panicked; Tiffany had been through enough hassles with the dogs over the years to know that when things go to hell, panic rarely adds to the solution. Even though the fire was getting closer, she was closer yet to the lake, and she had a plan of action. If it got too close, she'd just drive the dogs into the lake. But it was moving fast through the
dry grass, and she figured that she'd better get even closer to the lake while she still could.
Even though she'd known for days that they'd be losing Bullet and a couple of the pups soon, it was still important to keep up the puppy training; they still planned on keeping a couple of Bullet's pups, and Boxcar and Sidetrack needed the training, too. It still wasn't serious training at this point; mostly just fun, but earlier in the week, she'd decided that it was time to introduce the dogs to running in a team. This was the third time she'd harnessed up Crosstie and George in a double lead,
mostly because they could be counted on to keep the speed down. Bullet was in wheel, mostly to keep the line tight, and to let the puppies know she was there. The puppies were just on necklines, scampering along, continually getting tangled, but they were starting to get the idea that they were supposed to keep on their own side of the gangline. The whole thing wasn't very fast; with the three adult dogs towing Tiffany on her mountain bike, she still had to stop frequently and untangle puppy lines.
One of the important things was to keep taking the puppies to different places, she knew, and they'd gotten a couple miles from home. Her plan had been to reward the dogs with a swim in the lake, as they'd done the past couple of days, so all she had on was her red and white striped bikini and some running shoes. But, they were farther from home than she'd wanted to get, and the fire was getting closer; engrossed with the puppies, she hadn't noticed it until she was already too far
from the state road, the other possible escape.
She turned and looked at the fire again. The flames were huge, and getting closer, coming in at an angle. She figured she'd better get right down to the lake.
The puppies were so slow, and frustrating, though. They smelled the smoke being driven toward them, and that made them even more excited, and caused the lines to tangle more, and Tiffany had to stop every minute or so to untangle another one. Boxcar and Sidetrack were doing a little better than the young pups. She knew that if she really had to, she could take some of the young pups off of the gangline and leave them behind, but that would only be a last resort. Not only did
those dogs represent the future, they were her dogs. Well, and Josh's, too, but she was responsible for them. She'd protect them, if she could.
If they'd let her.
She thought about taking a couple of the pups off of their necklines, and hooking them to the bike, but decided in an instant, she'd better not; they could get under the wheels, and it wouldn't make things any better. She could scoop up a couple and carry them in one arm, riding the bike with the other, but then she wouldn't have hands free to straighten out further tangles
Thank God, she had George and Crosstie with her. And Bullet. The three calmest dogs they owned. They kept things moving, and with those two in lead and Bullet in wheel, they wouldn't run away. She hurried the leaders along as fast as she dared, as fast as the pups could keep up, and that helped as much as anything to keep the puppy team in order.
It was an anxious ten minutes before they were down at the lakeshore. There was a line of brush along the lakeshore, and, of course, a couple of pups got tangled going through it and out to the narrow beach, so that slowed her down more. The flames were getting close; they'd been in the rolling smoke for several minutes, but now she could feel the heat, as well. The bike wouldn't float, of course, and she thought about taking it off the gangline there, but decided in an instant to
keep it on for a minute; the dogs were getting nervous as the flames grew closer, and the brake held them a little. She could unsnap it out in the lake, before it got over her head; maybe she could find it and fish it out later.
It was at that instant she realized she wasn't alone; a small boy, not much older than Susan, crashed out of the brush behind her, tears rolling down his face, shaking with fear. "Help me," he yelled. Tiffany looked up; the flames were getting close, now.
"Where's your mom?" Tiffany asked.
"I don't know," the boy sobbed. "I lost her."
"Come on," Tiffany said. "We're going to have to go into the water to get away from the fire."
"I'm scared," he sobbed, coming out to the water's edge, but not going in.
Tiffany was in no mood for nonsense, or psychology; she could feel the heat, and so could the dogs. Even George and Crosstie were barely holding themselves. "Come on," she said again, grabbing the boy under his arms, and picked him up. "We don't want to burn up. I'll be with you. We'll be all right." She set him on the crossbar of the bike and yelled, "Crosstie! George! Hike! Gee! Hike!"
The water dropped off rapidly; in only a few yards, the handlebars of the bike were awash, and all the dogs were swimming. "Whoa!" she yelled to the team, and reached ahead as best she could to unsnap the gangline. It was still too close to the fire.
"Ok, we're going to have to swim, now," she told the boy. "Can you swim?"
"N-n-n-n-o-o-o-o." he sobbed again. "I'm afraid."
"Well, hang on to me," she said. "You'll be OK." She hoped she was right. She was a northern girl; although she could dogpaddle a little, she wasn't much of a swimmer; the lakes were almost always too cold. Maybe they wouldn't have to go so far that they wouldn't have to go over her head, and, with the boy riding on her hip, that might be enough.
She didn't bother to order the leaders ahead; they were already slowly swimming out into the lake, out of nervousness. In a few yards, though, Tiffany could see that it wasn't going to work. The water was up over her chest, the boy was mostly floating, and it was getting deeper quickly. And, it was still too close to the fire. Actually, if they didn't have the dogs with them, it would have been good enough, she thought; they could have ducked down in the water, splashed water on
them, and probably would be all right. The row of brush they'd crashed through was catching fire, now, and it was clearly going to get worse.
She didn't want to let the dogs go. Crosstie and George may have been the best leaders she and Josh had, but they were clearly nervous about the flames, too; it'd be best to get them farther away.
"All right," she told the sobbing boy. "We're really going to have to swim now, but it'll be all right. I'll be right with you." He was frantic, trying to climb up on top of her, pushing her under. This was not going to work. Standing on her tiptoes, she hauled on the gangline for all she was worth, bringing Bullet a little closer. With a couple of dogpaddle strokes as best she could, Bullet was alongside. "Whoa!" she yelled to the team. "OK, this is Bullet," she told the boy. "She's a good dog,
and she's going to have to help be your life preserver. Grab ahold of her harness. Can you do that?"
The boy was too frantic to listen, so she took one hand, and put it on Bullet's harness. "She'll keep you up," she told the boy. "Just don't try to climb up on top of her, and we'll be all right. Hang onto me with your other hand."
It looked like it would work. "OK, Hike," she called to the lead dogs.
It went pretty well for a few minutes. The puppies, of course, weren't providing much to their progress, but the lead dogs and Bullet pulled them slowly out into the lake, away from the flames. By now, the smoke was rolling out over the water, and the puppies were getting frantic; it was hard to breathe, so there was no point in stopping soon. But, it was a long, slow struggle, and trying to keep the boy from being so frantic was the toughest part of it.
Well, she could talk to him, try to keep his attention. Maybe if she could keep his mind off of his fears a little, things might go smoother. "Just hang on and let Bullet pull you along," she said in a reassuring voice. "She's a good dog, she'll take care of you. We're going to be all right. Just hang on, stay calm . . ."
A hundred yards out it was better. They could breathe now, and they were far enough away from the flames that the heat couldn't be felt. But to turn back and look at the flames shooting up along the shoreline was still scary. "We're going to be all right, here," she told the boy. "All we have to do is just stay here for a while, and we'll be fine."
She talked to the dogs, too, the adult dogs and the puppies, trying to keep them calm. Bullet was the calmest of all, but then, she was right next to them, and Crosstie and George were doing all right. But by now, the puppies were still pretty excited, and their lines were starting to tangle as they jilled around. The polypropolene gangline was floating, and that helped a little, but as the little dogs got their necklines tangled, it wasn't helping. In only a few minutes, she could see that she
was going to have to straighten things out, or she was going to have some drowned dogs.
She tried to get close, while still hanging onto the boy and Bullet, but it was cumbersome, and she could hardly make any progress in straightening things out., but when she let go of the boy for only an instant, he tried to climb up on Bullet, pushing her under. She got him loose, and back under control, talking at him all the while. She had to keep his attention somehow.
Then Skosh swam up. Somehow, he'd managed to keep from getting tangled, and unaware of the problems with his littermates, he wanted to play. Grasping at straws, she grabbed the puppy, and pulled him up to them. "This is Skosh," she told the boy. "He's a good little puppy, but he needs you to tell him that things are going to be all right." She shoved the little dog in his face; he was playful enough, maybe he could divert the boy for a second.
In a few seconds, it seemed to be working. The boy let go of her with his free hand, and tried to keep Skosh from licking his face. "Just tell him that things are going to be all right," Tiffany urged. "He's scared, too. But he's a dog, and we're people, and people are smarter than dogs, aren't they?"
"Be all right, Skosh," the boy whimpered.
"I've got to go talk to the other puppies for a minute," Tiffany said. "They're scared, too. Just tell Skosh that everything's going to be fine. I'll be right here." She swam away to the nearest knot of dogs, which fortunately, was the one in worst shape. Talking to the boy all the while, and hoping to soothe the dogs, too, she untangled the lines.
She glanced back at the boy and Skosh. It was working! The boy still had a death grip on Bullet's harness, but Skosh was keeping him occupied! "You're a good little dog, Skosh," she said from a few feet away.
"Good little dog," the boy said.
"Can you pet him?" Tiffany called as she worked on the tangled necklines. "He likes to be petted."
"Good little dog," the boy said.
"Tell him everything's going to be all right."
"Be all right," he said, a little calmer now.
It was going so well that she risked swimming a few feet farther away, to untangle the other knot of puppies. Talking all the while, she managed to get them straightened out without too much difficulty. She swam the few strokes back to Bullet and the boy. By now, he'd gotten the idea. He was holding onto Skosh -- not tight, just petting him and talking to him. He seemed a lot calmer, now.
On the shore the flames were shooting up, but through the smoke and the flames, she could occasionally see the flashing red light of a fire truck. "Look, she told the boy. "The fire department's here. Look at the firemen putting water on the fire. We won't have to be here much longer." Actually, she figured it would be a while, since it would take time to get the flames along the shore down, but it would be something else to look at.
The dogs were getting calmer now, too. George and Crosstie were keeping the gangline tight, dragging Bullet and Tiffany and the boy, and keeping things under power a little kept the pups from tangling so much. The smoke was getting thinner, too.
The big lake was still cold from the spring thaw, and Tiffany was getting a little cold. The boy was, too, but there wasn't much they could do about it. She'd been colder than this, taking the dogs to school, but she hoped that they wouldn't have to be in the water too much longer. Perhaps they could ease a little closer to shore, now. "Haw!" she called to the leaders, without urging them to speed up. Things seemed to go better when they had the team under power.
Slowly, in a wide circle, the leaders turned the team around, and pointed it toward shore. They could see better now, and the fire trucks could be seen a lot better. "I wonder if they see us," Tiffany thought to herself.
Ben Turpin was driving the grass rig, while a couple of firemen in the back hosed away at the flames. One damn grass fire after another this spring; he'd gotten tired of fighting them. They'd managed to pinch this one down toward the lake, and they were knocking out the hot spots. There'd been several calls on the radio asking about the missing boy, but no one had seen him. That made it worse. The fire itself was no big deal, but to lose a child in it -- well, that was hard. Over the nearly twenty years he'd been chasing fire sirens, Turpin had seen a few lost, and he never could get over it.
"What the hell is that?" one of the firemen yelled from the back of the truck. "Out there in the lake."
It was hard to see through the smoke and the flames, but Turpin could see the flotilla of heads out there, off shore a ways. A lot of the heads were dog heads, but there were a couple people heads there, too. His heart felt a load come off when he picked up the microphone and said, "Lakeshore Road Command from Spearfish Lake Seven. I think we found the missing boy. He looks OK from here, but we're going to need a pumper to get to him to be sure."
"Albany River Two, get down by the lake, assist Spearfish Lake Seven," Fire Chief Harry Masterfield's voice responded on the radio. The big pumper from the next town had just gotten to the scene, and soon was down by the grass rig. The 1500 gallons of water it carried was enough to knock down the flames along the shoreline enough to drop a feed line into the lake, and four big hoses were enough to push back the now-dying flames along the shore. Masterfield wasn't far
behind in his jeep, the still-hysteric mother riding along.
Tiffany and the boy saw the big red fire engine pull up behind the wall of flames, and soon there was a clear spot along the shore. The smoke and the flames were a lot lower, and as the firemen pushed the flames back, she let the leaders pull them slowly into shore. It felt wonderful to put her feet down and have a bottom to stand on. Mucky, weedy, but enough to stand there. She could stand there and wait all day, now. She got the boy on her hip again, actually holding him up a little. "It's going to be fine," she said. "It's not over my head any more. I'll keep you up." The boy didn't release his hold on Bullet's harness, but he scooped Skosh up in his free hand and pulled him tight.
He was still holding Bullet and Skosh tight a few minutes later, now in water shallow enough that he could stand up, too, when a fireman told them it was all right to come on up to shore. "Easy," Tiffany ordered the leaders, and they walked up on shore, wet now from the hoses. Once they were up on shore, the dogs all did what dogs do when they come out of the water: shake hard to get rid of some of it. Of course, the huskies had a lot of water built up in their fur, and they set off quite a spray, even the little dogs. That didn't stop the boy's mother, who ran up, dropped to her knees, and threw her arms around him -- and Skosh, still clutched tightly in his. "Good little pup," he said. "It'll be all right, now."
Most of the firemen were still knocking down the flames, but Masterfield stood by long enough to find out what had happened. "That was good thinking," he told Tiffany. "You and your dogs saved his life, and yours, too."
"I didn't have a lot of choice," Tiffany said. "I just did what had to be done."
"I don't know how to thank you," the mother said, with tears running down her face. "I was so scared."
"That's all right," she said. "I was there, too."
After a minute or two, Masterfield said, "I think we'd better get you away from here."
Several
"I'll be all right," Tiffany said. "I can take the dogs home."
"I'll see that you get a ride," Masterfield offered.
"Could I go back and see if I can find my bike?" she asked, suddenly glad she wouldn't have to walk back with the team. "I left it in the lake so it wouldn't get burned."
They weren't far from where they'd taken the team into the water, and it was only a matter of a couple minutes to find the bike. Masterfield and the mother and the boy -- and Skosh, still in his arms -- took up the front seat, while Tiffany, the three adult dogs, and the six pups more than filled the back seat; the bike had to be thrown over the hood. Masterfield drove the whole conglomeration back up to the command post on Lakeshore Drive. "I can't leave here," Masterfield said. "I'll find someone to drive."
A minute or so later, another fireman got into the jeep. "Why, hello Tiffany," the fireman said. "Are those the pups that Josh was talking about?"
Tiffany looked again; it was Mr. Linder. She didn't recognize him in his fireman's turnout gear. "Yes," she said. "The one over here is Bullet, the mother."
"They're brave little pups," Linder said. "I think they'll be fine. You want to go up to Mark's place, right?"
A few minutes later, they were in back of Mark's shop, unloading dogs and the bike. "Jimmy," the mother said. "I think you have to give him back, now."
"No!" he protested. "Skosh is a good little dog."
"Let him keep Skosh for a while," Tiffany offered."Your boy was so hysterical out there, I was afraid he was going to drown us, but Skosh kept his mind occupied and calmed him down, and probably saved all of us."
"All right," the mother said. "We'll bring Skosh back after a while." hours later, Josh and Mark were remounting the bush hog on the Farmall, while Tiffany was throwing frisbees for a couple of dogs. It was a lot cooler, now, past the heat of the day.
Tiffany looked up, to see a car pull into the driveway. Jimmy's mother got out, along with a man, obviously his father. Jimmy got out too, still carrying Skosh. "Look, I want to thank you for what you did," the father told Tiffany. "Jimmy's our only child, and, well, we care about him."
"I just did what I had to do," Tiffany said. "I mean, I was there too."
"Look, we've got a problem," the father said. "He's become real attached to the dog. He's a cute little puppy, and a lot of fun. I know he's supposed to be a racing dog, and he's valuable to you, but, well, I'd like to buy him from you. Whatever you've got to have."
"If he's an only child, he needs a dog to play with," she said. "I was an only child at his age, and it was awful lonely." She bent over to talk to Jimmy. "You want to keep him?"
"Yes," the boy said, with a tear; he was obviously scared he would have to give him back.
"Will you promise to take good care of him, not be too rough with him, and treat him right?"
"Uh-huh," Jimmy agreed.
"Then he's your dog," Tiffany said. "Treat him well, and he'll be the best friend you'll ever have."
"Mommy, she says I can keep him," the boy gleamed. Mark and Josh had wandered up by now, but kept out of the conversation.
Tiffany stood up. "Feed him right. He's still on puppy chow, and will have to be for six months or so. Don't let him overfeed, especially while he's young. He's a smart dog, but you wanted to get started on housebreaking early. Once you're past that, he's probably good for learning other commands. He's a playful dog, and should make a fine pet. Work on getting him to come to you. He has a lot of husky, and the big problem with huskies is that they like to roam. If you have any questions, please call me, and I'll help."
"I didn't really want to do it," the mother said. "I'm afraid he's going to get dog hair all over the house. But we owe him a lot. He and Jimmy want to spend every minute together."
"Let them," Tiffany said. "And, don't worry about dog hair. Like I said, he's a mixed breed, and he's got the only short hair in the litter, which is why he won't make a racing dog. He'll probably shed a little in the spring, but it shouldn't be bad." She smiled. "I kind of envy you. We've got dogs all over the place, but a special dog, well, it's special, and this is the best time. Like I said, call me if you need help."
The woman looked around. There were a LOT of dogs out there behind Mark's shop. "These are all your dogs? How do you do it?"
"This is actually four separate teams," Tiffany said, looking around. "If you love the dogs, you find a way to do it. Come out this winter, and we'll take you for a dogsled ride, and maybe you can see why we go to the effort."
"Look, we can't thank you enough, both for Jimmy, and for Skosh," the father said. "Maybe we'll take you up on that. If we run into any problems, we'll give you a call."
They got in their car, and drove off, a father, a mother, a little dog, and a very happy, and alive, boy. "I kind of hate to see him go," Tiffany said. "He was starting to turn into another pet. But, I think he's got a good home."
"I think so, too," Josh said. then laughed. "But, I thought I was working hard to trade off dogs, but you'll do anything, won't you?"
Tiffany looked for something to hit him with, but broke out laughing instead.