A Dog's Way Home by Bobbie Pyron Read Free Book Online

in the log as he could.
    The bear huffed and grunted. She reached one black paw into the log. Claws like curved daggers felt blindly for the dog. Tam yelped when one claw bit his forepaw. Making himself as small as he possibly could, he pushed himself against the back of the log.
    The bear withdrew her paw.
    Silence.
    Tam’s nose searched for the scent of the creature. He still smelled her, but the sound of her was gone. Tam relaxed.
    Suddenly the log began to rock back and forth. Tam scrambled to keep from being thrown from his hiding place. Sick fear flooded every inch of his body. In his three years of life, he had never known fear. He had never known hunger. He had only known what every well-loved dog knows: comfort and security. This new life of constant danger was beyond his experience.
    But deep within every dog is a bit of the wolf from which he descended. And that wolf gives the dog keeninstinct. As the bear rocked the log harder and harder, Tam shot from the old tree like a cannonball between the bear’s legs. The bear whirled and roared in frustration.
    Tam raced farther into the forest and into a thick tangle of blackberry bushes. The sweet berries were long gone, but the wicked thorns remained. Tam was a small sheltie. He easily avoided the worst of the thorns by following the faint path left by foxes and skunks.
    The bear reached one long arm and swiped at the wall of thorny brambles. The thorns bit deep into her skin. She jerked her furry arm back. The curved little daggers left bloody welts. The bear bawled like a baby cow. She licked at the bloody tracks on her arm. With a snort and a huff, she turned and ambled away. This creature was altogether too much trouble for her.
    Tam waited and listened. He quivered both inside and out from exhaustion. He searched the breeze for the scent of the bear. The dark, evil smell was fading. Finally, he lowered his head between his paws and watched the sun move across the forest floor.
    His eyes closed.
    A twig snapped.
    His eyes flew open. A deer.
    Finally, the sun dimmed and the air cooled. Tam left the thicket and made his way back to the stream to drink. Then he retreated to the safety of the hollow tree and slept.
    As Tam slept and the moon rose, a coyote hunted thedry grass in the meadow. The smell of bear still lingered there, rank and disturbing. The coyote may have been just a few months beyond being a pup, but she knew well enough to stay away from a bear.
    But there was another smell in the meadow, one the coyote could not quite read. It was not a rabbit. It was not a deer. It was certainly not a skunk or raccoon. The smell reminded her a little of the red fox who lived down in the laurel grove. And it reminded her of the warmth of the den she had shared with her mother and brothers. But not quite.
    The coyote cocked her head to one side. She listened with keen concentration to faint rustling below the grass. She pounced, snatching one mouse and then another. She ate them with great satisfaction.
    The coyote sat beneath the moonlight and searched the night wind for that smell she did not understand. She threw back her head and howled her questions to the moon and the mountains, then followed the thread of the unknown scent into the forest.
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    Tam woke stiff the next morning. With a groan, he uncurled himself and crawled out of the hollow tree. As he yawned and stretched his back legs, he sniffed the air to smell what the morning would bring. Just as he was about to shake the dirt and cobwebs from his coat, he stopped. There was a smell he had not met before. It was not deeror rabbit, nor skunk or raccoon. It was not the thick, dark smell of the bear. It was a smell somehow familiar and somehow not.
    The coyote woke. She rose and stretched elaborately, first one back leg and then the other. At six months, she was all long, gangly legs and comically huge ears. She shook the night’s sleep from her tan and white coat and looked around the forest. Her