The Travels of Zoe, the Wonder Dog
By Carrie Jacobson
Chapter 15
The story so far: Zoe and Kaja have made their way from the Pike County Humane Society shelter, across a rickety bridge to Barryville, and then south along the Delaware. The two dogs are trying to find Zoe’s owner, who had to abandon her when times got too tough. Zoe is a mostly blind, 12-year-old lhasa apso; Kaja is a big, strong red dog, a chow/German shepherd mix. The two dogs spent a night in the home of Ashton and Samantha Morrone, but their dad kicked the dogs out in the morning. Later, he relented, but it was too late. Zoe and Kaja had gone. They holed up that night in a little cave at the edge of the Delaware.
When the dogs awake, it’s raining. They leave the cave long enough to find some McDonald’s food that someone has thrown from their car. By the time they’ve eaten, they’re so wet and cold, they go back to the cave.
They sleep for the whole day, curled around each other for warmth.
And while they sleep, the rain keeps falling.
It falls harder and harder. It falls in huge, wind-driven drops. It falls in sheets of rain that blow against the mouth of the cave and drive the dogs to the very back.
The rain falls with a fury, and as Zoe and Kaja sleep, the river rises around them.
The light is going from the sky when Kaja feels the water. She’s curled up with her back to the river. Zoe is nestled between Kaja’s chest and the cave wall. And the water is touching Kaja’s back.
She jumps up, waking Zoe. The water rises. In a moment, it’s covering the floor of the cave. In another moment, it’s covering the dogs’ feet.
The rain is still falling, but it’s slackened enough that Kaja can hear the river, running high and fast. The water is halfway up her legs now, but it’s all the way up to Zoe’s belly, and it’s picking the little blind dog up.
They have to get out of there. They have to get out of the cave.
Kaja grabs Zoe by the back of the neck, and drags her toward the mouth of the cave. The little dog fights. She can hear the river. She can hear the roaring. She can’t see anything, she can only feel the cold water all around her, and she knows the big dog is dragging her toward the current.
She fights and squirms, and at the very mouth of the cave, she wrests herself free of Kaja’s grip.
The water takes her, just like that. It grabs her and shoots her downstream. Her head goes under, and she gulps water, and then her head is above the wave, and she’s floundering, paws and legs churning. She bangs against a rock and goes under again. The world is a swirl of noise and cold and water and speed, and the little dog has never been so scared, never felt her heart beat so fast. She bangs into another rock, and this time, it knocks the wind out of her, and she goes under again and comes up gasping air and water, and she hits another rock, but this time, it holds her fast.
Her feet scrape something. Sand. Slippery rocks. The water beats against her, coming in waves, pounding her face and her nose, but she feels this sand, and it’s going up. It must be the bank of the river, and she lunges up the slope, kicking and scrabbling until she’s out of the water –
And on an island. She’s not on the bank at all, but on a tiny spit of land and rocks and sand five yards from the shore. There are limbs and rocks and branches and driftwood on the island, and above the roaring of the storm and the rain and the river, Zoe can hear Kaja baying, and she barks back, barks as loud as she can, and when she stops, she hears the rain and the river and Kaja – and something else.
A cat.
Carrie can be reached at carrie@zestoforange.com
Tags: Carrie Jacobson
