Amber faded to the gray of Echo’s first winter.
The vet bill had been split at Brooks’ insistence. Mark kept the substantial receipt as a reminder of the work that lay ahead.
Tiffany was now a constant fixture in Echo’s life. Word had spread quickly after the vet burst into the waiting room, shoving Mark out the door with the words, “It’s not Echo’s blood… you need to get that other dog here, STAT!”
Some dogs cuddle, others may bite, and in rare instances… some will kill.
Echo had just proved she was a loaded gun.
After the fight, Mark never trained her unarmed. People became accustomed to seeing the black dog alongside her staff-wielding Gandalf and would find a reason to be elsewhere.
“Would you quit it,” Mark groused, forgetting for the umpteenth time that dogs only speaks dog.
Echo continued excavating sand at a frantic pace, intent on jumping someone’s claim, finding Atlantis, or just acting crazy … and when the first hole was no longer interesting, because… whatever… she began digging another with the same fervor.
A squall had swept in, bringing a stinging rain. Frustrated, white-knuckled, and soaked, Mark used his staff to pry Echo out of the hole, commanding, “Heel!” Echo didn’t, but Tiffany’s rule was clear: never repeat a command.
His throat already raw from mimicking her correction sound, Mark tried something new, slamming the end of his quarterstaff down with a jarring, “You shall not pass!”
Echo came out of the hole like a snake had bit her. She darted into the nearby driftwood and - smash and clatter - came out at a dead run, with a very unfortunate vole barely winning the race.
With no regard for physics, Echo plowed into the next pile, trying to fit where something a fraction of her size had gone to ground. Sand and branches flew in massive disarray, as the vole made a break for it. You would think Echo hadn’t eaten in a week. She dove, inverted, and swam through a confusion of sharp sticks.
“Stop it, you big dope!” Mark cried, scrambling onto the pile and grabbing her tail, “You’re hurting yourself.”
“HELP, OR GO AWAY!” Echo shouted from under the pile, but Mark remained illiterate and lassoed the leash around her hindquarters, and hauled on the dog like she was the mainyard.
Up she came and they squared off, glaring at one another.
There they stood, steaming with blood and sweat. Echo’s patience had run out. She trotted to the pile of drift, reared like a horse, and came down with her forelegs locked.
Then she walked backed and repeated the motion in front of Mark, all while voicing her immense disappointment that a hairless dog with a magic stick and vine could not hunt.
“Okay bigshot… Let’s see you do this…” Mark muttered, and slowly lifted the log.
Echo and the vole looked at each other, both blinked, the spell broke, the cannon fired, and the black ball was again destroying everything in its path.
They hunted like that for hours, learning from each other. Echo was stronger and far more tenacious than Mark would have guessed, and even in the rain, she never lost a scent. She would burrow under the logs he couldn’t lift, then stand back as he used the butt end of the staff to flush out game from the opposite side.
“This is dinner,” the man reminded his dog, as Echo shredded another rat. “You’re going to get fat… again.”
They had worked their way back to the truck when the rain became a downpour.
“Leave it, Echo, that one’s too heavy. Let’s go. Load up!”
Echo claws scrabbled where two logs twined together. She had found a protruding branch and made a show of trying to drag the tree aside.
Nudging the tree with his quarterstaff for effect, Mark repeated, “It’s too heavy, let’s go!” Echo chose that moment to play tug-of-war with the wrong branch, but the man surprised her: instead of pulling, he came forward, bringing the staff in to his waist as he spun, using his core as the fulcrum.
Echo should have let go.
With his opposite hand bearing down on the improvised lever, Mark’s leg shot out, sweeping Echo’s legs from under her as he spun.
It was the first time anything had been torn from her jaws. Echo got up, approached him cautiously, and as he bent down. she whined, licking his chin in submission.
It was the first time.
“Sorry Gecko,” he said gently, “but you can’t bite this… not ever.”
They stood in the downpour for a moment longer, then Little John relented, “Okay, one more,” planted his feet, and shoved the end of the quarterstaff under the massive log.
Robin Hood backed onto a clear patch of sand and reared up, doing the forepaw circle dance that Huskies are famous for, whining and bobbing her head.
“You ‘bout ready?” Little John growled.
Robin crouched.
“NOW!”