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The Dog Who Spoke with Gods

St. Martin's Press

You ask of my companions. Hills, sir, and the sundown, and a dog as large as myself ...

— EMILY DICKINSON

TWO MONTHS EARLIER

Viktor Hoffman set aside his binoculars with a grimace and a sigh. After hours holding still in a blind, his back was killing him. He wanted more than anything to reach over his head and have a giant stretch, but that would be seen by the dog.

The object of his attention was a brindle pit bulldog across the ravine. The young adult dog looked very much out of place in the thick woods; his short cropped ears and fine coat of fur marked him as a domestic, not wild, animal. The dog was resting easily, however, as if very much at home in the evergreen forest. The very fact that the dog was a domestic animal in this wild setting was what made it of interest to the scientist.

Hoffman sighed again. Dark, very dark, clouds were gathering to the south.

Carefully, so as not to let the dog see his movement, he backed down from his tree blind and struck off on a fairly well-marked game trail. Reaching an opening in the timber, Hoffman paused to watch the towering black thunderclouds drop their loads of moisture on the peaks across the valley. Moments and sights like this kept the professor coming out to do fieldwork far better left to his undergraduates. At sixty-two, even though he was trim and fit, living in a tent for weeks at a time each summer and fall involved larger and larger doses of ibuprofen.

By the time he reached his camp, his mind had one plan of action.

Coffee.

He stepped into his tarp-covered "kitchen" and took up the water container. Eyeing the darkening sky he figured he had just enough time to make it to the river and back before all hell broke loose. As he walked, he noticed how quiet it had become. The entire forest was holding its breath in anticipation of the coming deluge. Rain was nothing unusual in the western half of Washington state, but here in the coastal mountains it often came in epic proportions.

In defiance of the growing darkness the sun broke through one last time, shooting low rays through the firs, cedars and hemlocks lining the river. The golden light looked almost solid as it hung before him in bars between the tree trunks. He reached his "beach," a bar of sand barely two feet wide tucked into the slick black rocks along the river's edge. A dozen feet away on the opposite shore there were several yards of sand and gravel between the water and the tree line, but on this side the bank dropped away quickly, and the water ran swift and deep. This served his purpose well though, enabling him to drop the can straight down, filling it rapidly without getting any bottom sand in it. As the container filled, Hoffman glanced downstream at the opposite shore.

The dog was standing hock-deep in the water a hundred yards away, staring back at him. The sun was slanting in from behind, backlighting the animal, forming a bright halo around its fur. Hoffman drew in a quick breath — he had not wanted the dog to see him. Having left it sleeping beside the fallen and rotting tree trunk it appeared to call home, he had not expected to see it by the river. The water container, now full, began to sink, pulling Hoffman's hand into the icy water. He straightened up quickly and watched with a grimace as the dog moved hastily out of the river and into the heavy woods.

Viktor Hoffman was a research biologist with a particular interest in the impact of domestic animals on the natural environment. His current area of study focused on the life span of "feral" dogs; domestic dogs living without dependence on humans for food, shelter or social bonds. Unlike cats, which return with relative ease to an independent life in the wild, very few dogs survive without direct or indirect human intervention. While it was an intense struggle to find subject dogs living with no trace of human assistance, it was Viktor Hoffman's forte, and his unique papers, while often criticized by peers for their weak numerical basis, had found sufficient audience to make him an authority in the field.

His current research focused on solitary dogs living in remote locations and thereby unable to participate in group hunting or scavenging techniques. A decade spent carefully cultivating relationships with loggers and park rangers across the western United States had paid off; repeated inquiries had produced two very lucky finds so far this year.

Hoffman had arrived two days earlier to take the first critical step in the project; determining the animal's status. Far too often, dogs reported as "feral" turned out to be either free-ranging owned animals, or abandoned pets. Obviously, with cropped ears, this young dog had not been born in the wild, but had been lost or abandoned at some point in its youth. Over the next few days Hoffman would carefully determine the animal's true status. Should this dog prove out to be living independent of human care, the biologist's study would pose the question: could a domestic dog survive in the wilderness with neither direct nor indirect human intervention and care? If it could, how could it? If it could not, what would be the nature of its failure? Radio collar tracking telemetry and visual observations would reveal this particular animal's fate. This year's previous subject dog had succumbed to starvation relatively quickly.

The ranger who had brought this particular dog to Hoffman's attention assured him the animal was feral. The pit bull resisted all efforts to be lured into camps and somewhere along the way it had learned, like all wild animals, to fear humans, but for Hoffman that suited his needs perfectly. If the dog hung around their base camp and begged for food then it was not really feral, and it could not be included in the study.

The next morning, as he brewed his coffee, Hoffman noticed the pit bull standing fifty feet away, observing him from amongst the huckleberry and salal bushes. Only the end of its nose moved, as it tested the air for clues about the intruder. The scientist frowned, carefully watching to see what the dog's reaction to his presence would be. He needn't have worried, for when the dog noticed him looking back, it jumped quickly into the brush and disappeared.

Hoffman arranged the base camp to suit himself and then sat back to drink his coffee and enjoy the solitude. In a week or so, if the animal checked out, his students would arrive, and then the real work would begin. The dog would have to be trapped, measured, weighed, examined and collared. Then the monitoring would begin, ten readings a day, plus once every seven days the dog would be monitored every fifteen minutes for twenty-four hours. The animal's home range would need to be mathematically determined, his fecal material analyzed, his activity and temporal patterns charted.

Draining his third cup Hoffman leaned back, a thoughtful expression on his narrow, rather austere face, as he looked straight up into the firs and cedars which towered over him. He drew the chill air deep into his lungs, and the scent of the evergreen trees brought a flash of memory, followed unmercifully by another: Christmas Eve, holding hands with Helen as they leaned up against the couch in front of the fire, listening to carols and watching the tree's little lights twinkle — and Christmas Eve alone, his wife buried two months, sitting on the couch looking at the dead fireplace, just him and the tree there, both of them trying to be brave.

If the truth be told, his insistence that he be the one to go ahead and establish the dog's status was a thinly veiled excuse for getting some time alone in the wilderness. As much as he enjoyed the company of his students, this beautiful solitude was something the biologist needed. Alone, he could remember Helen as she had been when they were newly married. Without the distraction of the students, he could remember the early field trips, look out upon his present campsite and see her bending over the campfire, laughing as she blew on a fire which struggled with the persistent rain, and recollect how they had finally retreated to the tent. Several times that trip, if he remembered correctly. How many years ago was that? Thirty-eight? With her image fresh in his mind, it seemed no more than five or six.

With a huge sigh and a small smile to himself, Hoffman rose and started his workday. Setting out to collect hard data on the dog, he was unable to locate the animal all day. He returned to camp in the late afternoon when his coffee thermos ran dry. That evening the dog was back, the bright, disembodied glowing of its eyes the only sign of its presence. Sitting at his campfire, Hoffman mused that it really caused no harm — this approach behavior — so long as he was careful never to leave any food uncovered when he left camp. That the dog should be drawn to his campfire and his presence did not surprise him. It was a dog, after all, not a true wild animal. Even a feral dog would be curious about this stranger in its territory. The parameters of the project were strict, however: they must not impact the dog any more than possible.

As the evening wore on Hoffman sat on a tiny camp stool, his coffee beside him and his after-dinner pipe in readiness on his lap. Propping his feet up near the flames, he watched the eyes creep ever closer, slowly, until they stopped forty feet away. After a time the eyes dropped low to the ground, and Hoffman could imagine the dog's broad head resting on its outstretched front paws, as it watched him at the fire.

The wind switched to the north in the night, and the next day dawned clear and cold. Every object outside the tent was coated with a fine dusting of ice, and frozen water in the dirt below his feet caused the ground to crackle when he stepped on it. Hoffman emerged from his tent shivering and resolved once again to stick to summer fieldwork. One look at the day, though, and his resolve wilted.

Today he would continue collecting evidence of the dog's status, look for additional blind sites, and try to locate a high spot from which his phone would work. After breakfast and coffee he packed a lunch and set off.

What little hair he had left might be gray, Hoffman thought as he broke through the heavy brush, but he was still in damn fine shape for a man his age. After three hours of tramping steadily around the study area, he was pleased to note his breathing still came evenly. Hoffman knew that without the radio collar they would have no chance of tracking the dog's movements, and he continued searching for elevated locations where visual and radio transmissions would be unobstructed. He moved up the side of the hill he was on, breaking out of the trees and onto a steep slide of boulders which rose above him.

He started up the rock slide, and when he neared the top he stopped to rest on a large, flat rock. He unpacked his lunch and thermos of coffee. Overhead, the sky was the peculiar shade of dark blue found at mountain elevations. The ancient rock slide he had just scaled stretched below him seventy-five yards until it ended at the tree line.

A movement caught his eye and his composure shied like a young horse. A glance of tawny gold moving below and to his left reminded him that cougars were common here. He smiled in chagrin, glad there was no one to notice him startle, because it was only the dog, which had evidently been following him at a distance. The young animal, distracted from the trail he had been following, was sniffing furiously at a crack between two rocks. In another moment, when he heard the sharp alarm whistle of a marmot, Hoff man knew why. For the next hour he watched with amusement the antics of the young predator and the wise prey. There were several of the large ground squirrels, and they all took turns standing upright, watching the intruder, then diving under the rocks only at the very last moment before the dog reached them. Hoffman could almost imagine their sharp whistles were taunts directed at the pit bull. Then again, the scientist had to admit that the dog, despite not obtaining any food, seemed to be having the time of his life. Tail thrashing madly, he seemed to enjoy each new chase as much as the last. He never appeared to grow frustrated — only more and more excited. He only stopped when he was utterly exhausted, his tongue lolling and his face covered in specks of white saliva. He lay down then, stretching his hind legs out behind him, staring straight ahead, his eyes squinted shut in happy exhaustion. After a while the dog rose and moved back into the trees, while the marmots jeered his retreating form.

Hoffman spent the rest of the afternoon marking trails to likely blind and radio-tracking sites. Pleasantly fatigued and ready for fresh, hot coffee, he turned for camp, some three miles distant. The late-afternoon air was growing chilly and he rolled down his shirtsleeves. At a picture-perfect creek running steeply down a boulder- and fern-strewn course, he stopped and used his thermos cap to fetch up a drink of water. He drank, as always amazed at the sharp chill of mountain streams, and the glory of their flavor. His long-suffering mouth, much abused by a lifetime of scalding coffee and tobacco pipes, savored the clear taste. Stowing the thermos away he moved on, stepping lightly from stone to stone as he crossed the creek. As he reached the far side he slipped suddenly, regained his balance for a moment and then slipped again, his boots unable to get a purchase on the slick, smooth, mossy rocks. His left foot slid down between two boulders and as he fell he twisted, grimacing at the sudden sharp pain. He tried to land on the bank, but didn't. He landed on his back, in the water. It couldn't have been worse; his pack and clothes were soaked.

From where he lay on the ground, Hoffman tried to raise his left leg clear of the rocks but pain prevented him. With cold foreboding, he reached down and lifted the leg free with his hands. The pain was appalling. He moved himself up out of the water and huddled on the ground for several moments, nursing the badly sprained ankle and cursing himself silently and viciously for having been so clumsy. A sprain like this would take time to heal, and make walking in this rough terrain difficult, if not impossible, for the next week. Grimly he recounted in his mind how rare a find this dog was, and he resolved on the spot that this injury would not affect the study. Once he got back to camp, he could deal with a sprain, no matter how severe. He would simply call Tag, his grad student and research assistant, and have him come up early to finish the determination on the dog's status.

Oh no.

It occurred to him to look at the contents of his day pack. He pulled it around to his front without much hope. Everything inside, packed simply for a hike on a day with no rain expected, was soaked. He looked forlornly at the phone, thinking about the cost of its replacement. He set the pack aside and looked himself up and down. Camp was a long way away, and the autumn sun was very near the top of the surrounding peaks. He was not dressed for a night out in the mountains, and now he was wet. He must get back. And he must hurry for he would never be able to find his way in the dark.

With great difficulty and much wincing, he hoisted his pack on and struggled to his feet. He stood on one leg, looking at the stretch of rocky path ahead of him. If the ground were more level, he might be able to use a stick like a crutch, but here on the rocks, and in the thick underbrush, a crutch would be useless. He started forward, hopping on one leg, resting, and hopping again. In fifteen minutes he was, despite his cold dunking, covered in sweat. He stopped and looked at his ankle. It was purple and already swollen grotesquely.

He swung his backpack off and rummaged inside for the phone. Pulling it out, he had to try. You never knew, miracles could happen. He knew in his heart it would never work. He tried anyway, and wasn't surprised at his failure. This is not good, he thought grimly.

He stopped after another fifteen minutes of crawling and hopping and estimated he had covered about one hundred yards from the creek where the accident had occurred.

The sun settled below the peaks across from him, and dusk began in earnest. Hoffman was no stranger to survival techniques, and knew he must keep at it until he reached the camp. At this elevation, and wet, he ran the risk of hypothermia or even freezing to death if he stopped walking.

Hopping and hobbling, he moved toward his distant camp through the growing darkness. In time the underbrush became a dark gray mass all around him and he realized he could no longer see his markers or his way. It was decision time. He could try to build some kind of a shelter here and huddle wet and miserable through the night, but it just seemed too risky. He eased himself to the ground, grimacing in frustration as much as pain. He began to shiver as his body cooled rapidly. He knew then that he would have to walk it out. No matter how uncomfortable it was, it would be better to keep moving, even if he simply floundered through the woods all night. Hoffman was a scientist, and he was not afraid of the dark woods as many others might be in similar circumstances. However, he did find his thoughts turning to a journal article he had recently read concerning bear and cougar population surveys for this area. Quite simply, the woods were full of the big predators. He decided to think about something else.

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Excerpted from The Dog Who Spoke with Gods by Diane Jessup. Copyright © 2001 Diane Jessup. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
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