Silent Creed

9

Wasteland” was the first word that came to Creed’s mind. The gentle slope at the foothills of the slide was once a forest. Now the only indication that trees had ever stood there were the twisted roots that jutted out of the earth.

Creed took careful steps, instructing Bolo to do the same. The toughest part of training a dog for disaster work sometimes included asking the dog to act against his instinct. No running. No jumping. The impact could destabilize the debris and cause the ground the dog was jumping onto to give out beneath him. Thankfully no floodwaters raced across this area, but Creed knew they would likely encounter some and he’d need to keep his water-loving dog from bounding through it.

He expected the mud to suck at his boots and make walking cumbersome. In seconds the soles of his shoes were caked and heavy, rendering the treads worthless. He slid easily, challenging his balance. The ground was saturated and slick. To make matters worse, Creed could see that the floor of the slope was now made up of slick, green logs, stripped of bark, stuck in the mud, side by side, a long stretch of them for as far as Creed could see.

At first he wondered if a lumber company had lost a heap of their product. On closer inspection he realized they weren’t forested logs but tree trunks — upended by the force of the slide — scraped clean of their branches and most of their bark. So this was where the forest — the missing trees — had gone.

Twenty feet in front of him, Bolo was already sniffing and scratching at the ground. He walked in circles over the same spot, his tail straight out. His breathing was already rapid, nose twitching, ears pitched forward. Creed watched as Bolo’s tail slowly curled. Then the dog looked over his shoulder, looking for Creed. When Bolo saw he had Creed’s attention, he scratched once more, then sat down.

This was how the big dog alerted. But was it possible he already had found something? The debris field had to be overwhelmed with scent.

Creed approached slowly, trying not to slip. When he took too long, Bolo stood and turned to watch him. He scratched the surface again, as if saying, It’s here. What’s taking you so long?

This time when Bolo sat, he stared at the zippered pocket of Creed’s rain jacket where he’d seen his rope toy disappear to earlier. But Creed couldn’t reward the dog for a possible false alert.

There was a break in the logs where Bolo sat — no logs for at least a ten-foot stretch. Instead of tree trunks, it looked like a sheet of metal partially buried in mud. It could be part of a building. Maybe a piece of roof. Creed pulled on his gloves and swept one of his hands over the surface. He dug away clots of mud, looking for a seam or an edge. In other places the metal was buried under almost a foot of dirt and chunks of asphalt. Suddenly he jerked back in surprise when he realized what he was looking at.

It was the undercarriage of a vehicle.

He hadn’t been able to recognize it at first because the tires and wheels had been sliced away. He could smell gasoline but it was faint, and from the fracture lines in the metal he guessed the gas tank had been ruptured, the contents leaked and spewed over the hillside as the vehicle tumbled.

“We have an overturned vehicle here,” Creed called out to Vance and his crew, who had respected Creed’s wishes and stayed back while he and Bolo worked.

“Damn it! How’d we miss that?” Vance said.

“I wouldn’t have recognized it either if Bolo hadn’t alerted.”

Vance looked from the vehicle to the dog as though the significance had only just occurred to him. That the dog may have sniffed out victims. He turned back to his men and yelled, “Hurry it up. Get the excavator. We’ve got a vehicle down here.”

To Creed, he said in almost a whisper, “So the dog is telling you that someone is still down there?”

“I told you about scent being spread across the entire slide. I can’t make any promises.” Creed glanced at Bolo patiently sitting and waiting for his reward. “He seems convinced, though.”

“Someone’s alive?”

“Bolo’s a multitask dog.”

Vance stared at Creed, then finally asked, “So what the hell does that mean? I thought he was a search-and-rescue dog.”

“He is. He tracks human scent, but that includes decomp.”

Vance stared again and Creed waited to see the realization come across his face. That’s when he muttered, “Crap! That’s what I was afraid of.”

Just then Bolo stood again. His ears twitched and pitched forward. He lowered his nose to the ground and cocked his head. But he wasn’t sniffing. He was hearing something.

Vance started to speak and Creed put up his hand to stop him. He tried to listen.

Nothing. He couldn’t hear a thing.

He watched Bolo while Vance waved his arms at his crew to stay back. The big dog was no longer scratching for more scent. He cocked his head from side to side, listening to something below that only he could hear.

Was the earth giving way again? Some dogs could sense landslides before they started. Creed scanned the surroundings, rotating his head only and keeping his feet planted while he examined the wall of dirt behind them.

“You think—” Vance started.

Creed cut him off again with a finger to his lips. Now Vance’s eyes darted around, too, but he followed Creed’s lead and kept stock-still.

That’s when Creed heard a muffled dog bark.

He glanced up. Vance had heard it, too.

“Your dog found a dog?”

Creed shook his head. “He knows not to alert to animals.”

Vance’s bushy eyebrows drew together. Again Creed waited. This time when Vance realized what that meant, he yelled out to his men, “Get that equipment over here. Now!”