Yuri had done his best to continue Patience’s training where that troll Hal Liston had left off. And Yuri didn’t charge us, which scored him major points in the Gray family playbook. Never mind that he had a glower that made him look like he wanted to poison you with sarin gas.
And we couldn’t argue with the results. In a part of the world filled with some of the worst smells on earth, Patience could tell the difference between a dead seagull and a dead cormorant. She did not eat either of them, thanks to Yuri, which was nothing short of a miracle.
There was another, worse part of Yuri’s dog training that I didn’t want to think about now.
I was twelve years old the night we got the first call that wasn’t the neighbors saying “Get your beast to stop yowling,” but instead Sheriff Lundquist saying “How good a scent hound is Patience? We’re missing a toddler in the woods around Deception Pass. The parents are hysterical. Can you come?”
I remember being skeptical. There were miles of trails at Deception Pass. And, thanks to our Red Cross courses, we knew the kind of dedication it took to be a search-and-rescue team. It required months of training that Patience and I didn’t have. True, Yuri had tried to plug the gaps, but it wasn’t systematic.
But Mom took the phone away from me and told Sheriff Lundquist we’d be right there. Then, after rousting my brothers, she turned to me and said, “That’s somebody’s baby who’s missing. Those parents are so desperate they’re probably praying. And since no Jesus is coming, you’d better get off your ass and get going.”
Mom was firmly antireligious because of all the people of faith who had gathered around her with casseroles when she was a new mother of quintuplets and promised to help . . . if only she’d repent and admit she’d been a whore to get herself knocked up to begin with.
“Hypocrites, all of them,” she said. “So you be good to people while you’re alive, and when you’re dead, you’ll be compost. Now let’s go help that family find their baby.”
This was before we had a system and had our kits with everything we might need in an emergency; so the five of us just had flashlights, and Frank had his roadside-assistance kit.
It was raining hard when we got to the ranger station at Deception Pass. Sheriff Lundquist briefed us on what had happened. The parents, Mr. and Mrs. Goodman, and their son, Martin, had been day-tripping, and they had let Martin down from his backpack for a minute—just one minute, honestly—and when they turned around, he was gone.
Now the parents were inside the ranger station, hugging each other close. Mrs. Goodman was red and poofy from crying. They were drinking hot chocolate, which Mom thought should’ve been spiked with Jack Daniel’s.
Outside, Sheriff Lundquist handed me a flare gun and a freezer bag with a cloth diaper that had been pooped in. Full of good smells.
“Now comes the test,” Sheriff Lundquist said. “Let’s see if this dog really is useless. When and if you find the kid, send up the flare. We’ll find you.”
I alternated between not optimistic (I had the world’s stupidest beast) and freaked (the kid had been missing more than eight hours—what would I find?). But I knew either way I would never be the same after that night. Either the people in uniforms gathered around me watching my dog sniff poop would remember what a failure I had been and not call me again, or I would find my first body and I’d be on the hook for the next missing hiker.
I opened the freezer bag. I thrust it under Patience’s nose. “Go,” I said.
And she was off.
I wasn’t stupid enough to let her off the leash. Who knew what kind of sniff she’d find if I did? There were just too many distractions. So I held onto her as she plowed through the undergrowth and ran up and down muddy trails, my brothers hurrying after me. Even though I didn’t know it at the time, Dean had the presence of mind to mark the trail by breaking off branches.
Finally, Patience stopped at the top of a slope that had been eroded and went straight down into the churning water. Halfway down, a toddler, too weary to flail, was caught on a branch.
“Aroo, aroo, aroo!” Patience bayed, and pawed at the muddy ground. I pulled her back.
“Harosho,” I said. Which is Russian for good, a term Yuri had taught me. But I had no treats for her. A major oversight. Those would have to come later.
“Martin! Martin Goodman!” Dean called down. He didn’t get a coherent response, but there was a thin mewling coming from the kid. “Pix, send up the flare. He’s too precarious. We’re going to have to move him. Form a chain, and let’s pull him up.”
“Damn it,” Sammy said. I’m sure he wanted to slide all the way down on his butt. “Can I at least be on the end?”