In three days Hoffman returned, his four students strung out behind him on the trail, their large packs and themselves draped with plastic ponchos. It was typical Olympic Peninsula weather,
a perfectly diffuse gray, with a fine, soft rain that barely penetrated the heavy overgrowth. It was late in the season for field work.

The first order of business after Tag, Seth, Susan and Devon had set up their own tents and stowed the sensitive research equipment away from the weather, was to assemble and set the
wire dog trap. The animal would have to be captured, tranquilized, weighed, measured and outfitted with a radio collar and blaze orange markers to facilitate tracking its movements in the dense brush. Hoffman proposed setting the trap up near camp, as it was clear the dog would not hesitate to approach, and it would be easier to tend. It was quite usual for the traps to be tripped by non-target animals such as raccoons and skunks, and a location close to camp would discourage these animals.

The camp established, firewood collected, the trap assembled and set, now began for Viktor Hoffman one of the greatest pleasures of field work. Sitting with his still tender ankle propped up
before him at the campfire, he smoked his pipe and listened to the enthusiastic and earnest discussions of his students and aide. Around the shifting light of the campfire, debates raged
about contour delineating options on home range software, who was going to be the one stuck with determining habitat type distribution within the study area, and the statistical significance of crepuscular activity in relation to lunar cycles. The professor rarely interjected; his enjoyment came from being the catalyst for their expanding abilities and simply being party to their enthusiasm - that was something that was harder to maintain as one got older. Hoffman's happy marriage had, sadly for them both, produced no children, so now he found it strangely reassuring to know that these kids were building valuable, productive and rewarding careers as a result, in part, of his gentle guidance. These serious, polite, good natured kids were his children. He thought Helen would have liked them.

The dog appeared late, about ten o'clock. The flashing of his reflective eyes was first noticed by Tag, Hoffman's teaching assistant and most promising student. He was an intense, dominant young man disliked by the other students for his monopolizing and overprotective attitude toward the professor. As always, he was seated close beside the older man, and he reached out now, touching his arm. He nodded in the direction of the animal.

"Oh yes," Hoffman said quietly. "There he is."

Having more sense than to speak out loud in the presence of the wary animal, Susan couldn't help but remark, low, "Wow, it is a pit bull," and Hoffman nodded. It was not a breed any of them
would have expected to survive in the forest.

Tag and Devon had set the trap seventy-five feet from the camp, baited with a handful of raw hamburger. The trap was a long and narrow wire cage with one end propped open. When the dog
entered, its front feet would step on a metal trip plate approximately three quarter's of the way to the back. Once triggered, the door would slam down behind the dog, trapping it.

Damien neared the strange object with curiosity and none of the usual fearfulness of a wild animal. He approached from behind, coming up to the back of the trap. He sniffed the hamburger and then hungrily pawed at the wire. With a sharp metallic snap the sensitive hook holding the door in place was jarred loose, and the door slammed shut. Obviously hungry, Damien returned to the trap and dug at it vigorously until he succeeded in moving the trap several inches and exposing the hamburger, which had fallen through the bottom wire. Having licked up every piece, the bulldog looked questioningly toward the camp before trotting off.

For a moment no one spoke, then Devon said, "At least he's not afraid of the thing."

"No, he's not," Hoffman laughed. "Go tie a plastic sack over the back, so he won't be able to see the bait from behind. Let's try again."

Devon secured a black plastic sack to the back of the cage, then reloaded and reset the trap. The plastic worked, and the dog circled the trap looking for the food he could smell. Finding the opening, he entered cautiously. They could see him stretching his short, powerful neck, trying to reach the food without stepping in any farther than necessary. One step, two steps. They saw him glance down, most likely looking at the metal trip plate which stuck up at an angle across the cage bottom. He inched forward, then, by craning his neck, was able to reach over and lick up the meat without stepping forward any farther. When the food was gone he backed out carefully and sat looking at the researchers, as if waiting for further developments.

"Hey Devon, he's not going to leave you a tip if you keep him waiting," Susan joked.

The young man snorted. "He's good, you have to admit, he is good."

Devon wore a peculiar leather hat that lacked only a long pheasant feather stuck in the band to be a ringer for Robin Hood's. He pushed that hat back so far in a resolute gesture that now the others around the campfire wondered how it stayed put. He went out again, this time with Tag's beef jerky, and he secured it tightly to the back of the trap with twist ties.

"We know what the animal is subsisting on tonight, don't we?" Hoffman joked with his students when Devon returned to camp. It was only minutes until Damien reentered the circle of light and
approached the trap. Stepping carefully over the metal trip plate, he thoughtfully chewed the jerky loose and then backed cautiously out again.

"Too bad this study doesn't require the establishment of feeding stations, because we've done a pretty fair job of setting one up." Everyone laughed. Devon was sent out again with more beef
jerky and instructions to lay fern fronds and fir boughs over the trip plate. While the young man was on his hands and knees inside the trap he saw the flash of the dog's eyes again, thirty
feet away, and knew that the animal was watching him.

"Room service," he said. "I'll be out of your way in a moment, sir."

Devon backed out and reset the trap, making sure the release mechanism was hair trigger.

They watched - Devon holding his breath - as the dog sauntered up to the trap and stuck his head inside. He scented the meat and stepped in, jerking back when his foot touched a fir bough.
His shoulder hit the side of the trap and the door slammed down hitting on his head and neck as he scrambled backwards. In succession Damien looked at the trap, at the researchers, back
at the trap, then walked around to the back of the trap and tore at the plastic until he was able to pull out the jerky from behind. The scientists in the camp watched in silence, feeling without a word being spoken that the dog had earned the jerky.

Without a word, Devon stood up, resettled his hat - this time pushing it so far forward he had to tip his head backward to see - took the last of the beef jerky from Tag's hand and walked out toward the trap.

"Why don't you just hand it to him?" Tag called. "Save yourself some trouble."

As the young man approached the trap the dog stood up, then backed away a few yards.

"We are smarter than you - I want you to know that. It just doesn't look that way right now."

The dog suddenly whirled and disappeared into the dark, and he did not return again that night. The professor concluded that the animal had gone off to digest his considerable meal.

Though the dog kept away from the trap the following day, the students and their professor had plenty of opportunity to observe his behaviors. The drizzle was replaced by brassy, late autumn sunlight that had no effect on the air's chill, and the day was glorious but sharp. From their makeshift blind overlooking a fallen log the dog appeared to call home, they watched Damien enjoy the day. Or, as Tag put it, they "recorded his behaviors". Damien had been resting curled up against the log's side when a wind gust blew a dried maple leaf across his line of vision. His head jerked up, then he sat up. The leaf paused, twirled in place, then moved on rapidly. The dog
pounced, grabbing at the leaf and missing by several inches, overshooting it, turning back and pouncing again. He appeared to be intentionally missing it, allowing it to continue on, but striking at it with his paws and jaws.

"He acts like a kitten," commented Susan, to no one in particular. "Playing with a ball of string."

Without apparent cause, the game ended with the dog breaking into a spectacular running fit. With one last grab at the leaf, the dog erupted into an irregular figure-eight pattern at full gallop. The leaf was forgotten in the wild rush. Lips pulled back in a crazy grin, hind end tucked low in his intensity, the pit bull appeared to be avoiding an unseen companion as it zigzagged about the field. The wild rush stopped as suddenly as it had started, when the dog sat down to scratch behind its ear.

For the humans who followed the dog's activities while trying to remain hidden from his view, the day passed slowly, but for the young dog it was a long, glorious day spent playing, hunting,
sleeping stretched out in the thin sunlight against his log, and hunting again. He spent an ecstatic hour digging up four voles, his primary diet, then ate copious amounts of deer droppings, had a glorious roll on the remains of a dead hawk and late in the afternoon patrolled the river bank for anything edible.

That evening Damien wandered far from the research team, just following his nose. He found the carcass of a deer left by hunters, gorged himself, then slowly made his way back toward his home base. It was in this way he had survived, a young dog alone in the wilderness, against all odds. The fate of dogs lost or dropped in the forest is almost always death by starvation, but the young pit bull, having stumbled upon the lucky remains of poached deer, had held off starvation long enough to learn to find and eat voles. Late in the night, he returned to the area of the human's camp, and once again he approached the trap. He wasn't hungry but he entered the trap anyway, because food was to be taken whenever it could be found.

The trap door slammed down behind him, and he jumped, startled by the noise. He didn't panic - it was not in his pit bull nature - but when he found he was trapped he had a moment of consternation. He turned about and nosed at the trap for several minutes, then, unsure what to do, lay down with a sigh of resignation to await developments.

After a long, cold dawn, the first rays of sun angled through the trees, spilling across the camp site. Damien sat up at the sound of stirrings from within the tents. In time people emerged. When they looked his way they pointed, and called to each other, and he knew their tone to be excited. The human Damien identified as the group's alpha came out of his tent, and after a while, they all started through the underbrush toward him.

Damien felt very strange. Strong, conflicting emotions swept over him as the humans approached. The Voice, The Ancient Voice of his genetic makeup and bulldog heritage, reassured him that
these approaching creatures were good; that in some strange way he belonged with them. Something really deep within him had been aching, aching like a hurt, to go to them and feel their hands upon his body, to hear their voices commanding him, praising him. The Voice told him he belonged with them, not apart from them. In their service, It whispered, he would find contentment.

But the voice of experience spoke differently, louder, and with a shrill insistence. It reminded him of what he had learned from hard experience; humans were to be avoided because they caused
fear, and sometimes pain. The researchers were coming and he could not escape, so he circled anxiously inside the trap, remembering other encounters, all with people who had been intimidated by his wide jaw and powerful appearance. People who had shied rocks at him, shouted at him, shot at him. His every approach had been rebuffed. So he watched the approaching humans, bombarded by the conflicting emotions of learned fear and instinctual longing.

The humans surrounded the trap and he stood, facing them. His bulldog heart would not allow him to snarl or growl in fearful aggression. He was frightened, but he would not harm a human to save himself for he was bred down from an ancient breed which had always served man. He pressed into a corner of the trap and awaited their will.

In a few moments, the girl assembled a syringe pole and began to try and inject him in the thigh with tranquilizer. Each time she tried, Damien would twist about, and the needle on the end of
the pole would bend. The sharp pricks hurt, and the dog became very confused and frightened by their actions. Stamped indelibly now in that part of his mind where future decisions would be
made, was the understanding that human hands would hurt him. He threw himself against the end of the trap in an attempt to force his way out. All he wanted now was to get away, and to take care in the future to stay out of the reach of human hands.

Frustrated with her efforts, Susan handed the syringe pole to Hoffman. The professor's calm voice did nothing to allay Damien's fears as he watched the man thread the hurtful stick through the bars at him. It came as a surprise to the dog that this man would hurt him, but in Damien's mind was now recorded the fact that Viktor Hoffman could not be trusted. With one swift movement Hoffman drove the syringe into the dog's thigh, injecting the sedative. Damien whirled about and bit at the pole, but the needle had found its mark.

Once the tranquilizer took effect, the young men gingerly drew the powerful dog out of the trap. His limp body was placed on a tarp and hoisted up on a small fishing scale attached to a
branch held on the shoulders of Seth and Devon.

"Sixty-two pounds," Susan recorded.

Back on the ground Damien was measured and examined exhaustively. Seth walked back to the camp and returned with the electronic tracking collar that would make it possible to monitor the dog's every movement. The brindle pit bull's short, powerful neck was barely long enough to accommodate the width of the collar and large long term battery pack. While Seth secured
the collar, Tag sprayed the dog's sides with fluorescent orange paint to facilitate sighting him in the dense brush.

"OK, pack up the snack bar," ordered Hoffman, "and we'll let this dog get on with his life."

Later that evening, as the sun dropped below the dark shapes of the surrounding mountains, Damien sat hunched at the river's edge, thinking. The humans observing him from their blind would argue that it was not possible for him to reflect upon past events in a way which could rightly be called `thinking', but he was, nonetheless, thoughtful. The scientists did not know dogs
nearly so well as they imagined.

Damien was staying away from the human's camp. He was a pit bulldog, born of a proud race of dogs exalted for courage, but today's events had shaken him to the core. When the drugs had
rendered him conscious but unable to move, he had experienced profound panic during the moments the humans had laughed and talked over him as they handled his body. The drug induced disorientation had only heightened his terror. So now, awake again and away from the human's hands, he reflected pensively on what he had learned today.

He would stay away from humans.

The decision left him feeling empty. He bent his head to lap at the river's edge, and found that he could not reach it. The awful, chafing collar they had put around his neck precluded it. He had to stand up, and then lower his shoulders to reach his muzzle to the water. Earlier he had spent hours trying to rub the collar off, but had succeeded only in wearing sores in the fine fur under it. He was resigned to it now, though not yet used to the restrictions it put upon his movements.

When he finished drinking he stood a while longer in the growing dusk, gazing across the blue-green water rushing past. He really couldn't remember it clearly anymore, but there lingered a
distant memory from his puppyhood, of a pleasant feeling experienced while following at a human's heels. But with that memory came another; the sharp, cold, unbelievable moment of
horror when he had realized he could not find his humans. Now, standing by the cold river sliding by, Damien's stomach jerked imperceptibly as he voiced his aching loneliness in a series of
silent whimpers. He could not understand why the thing he longed for was the thing he now had to avoid.

* * *

Sleeping was bothersome and hunting became nearly impossible. He could still dig up the voles and mice which made up a large portion of his diet, but now for the most part the rodents could
avoid his jaws. Lunges which had been lightning fast were now awkward. He survived the first week by returning to the deer carcass and becoming one of many creatures subsisting on the
decaying flesh. In time, nothing remained but scattered bones and he began to go hungry, really hungry, for the first time since the day he had found himself alone in the forest. After each weary day of nonproductive hunting, he would attempt to curl up in a ball and sleep, but the collar forced his neck out at an awkward angle and he lay blinking in annoyance.

When his hunger grew, Damien's resolve to stay away from the humans weakened. As frightening and unpredictable as they were, they had been a source of food. He was starving. Fifteen days
after the placement of the tracking collar, he had lost eight pounds. His gaunt, silent form became a fixture as he sat a dozen yards from the kitchen area, salivating at the scent when food was cooked, his eyes burning with his need.

Then desperation made him bolder. On a night of torrential rain, when the noise of the downpour hitting the tents and tarps drowned out all other sounds, he came into camp while the professor and students slept. He went straight to the kitchen area and gnawed through Seth's carelessly stored food stash, gulping down bars of butter and several eggs. He chewed open plastic containers, licking up the granola and dried foods which spilled out. He left when he could find nothing more to eat, and slept that night under his fallen log, licking his lips contentedly.

As the team of behaviorists watched Damien's decline with interest, they were unaware that their tracking collar was the source of the dog's distress. Tag, at least, should have known; before coming to work with Professor Hoffman he had spent a year studying a population of wild geese on the Great Lakes. He and his fellow researchers had tagged a dozen geese with neck tubes
made of PVC pipe marked with large numbers. When a harsh winter storm had spread the first ice across the marshes, ten of the geese had died, the plastic pipes frozen tightly to the ice.
When the researchers returned they found the dead geese surrounded by faithful mates and comrades, unwilling to desert their fallen companions. There had been a stink about it in the
local paper, and it was an unpleasant memory for Tag. But as Hoffman and his students carefully noted the dog's declining physical condition, they all assumed what they were witnessing was the normal termination of a feral dog's life cycle. They spoke in appropriately regretful tones when discussing the upcoming end of the subject and their project. They were not immune to the emotion of the dog's suffering, but they were scientists, they all understood the importance of observation, and the consequence of their interference or any emotionalism over the "natural" course of things. So they carefully locked their food away inside their tents and continued with their observations.

Days passed; chill, cold rain, often mixed with snow began to fall in earnest, and Damien subsisted primarily on deer droppings and grass. He was fifty pounds now, his skin sliding over prominent back and hip bones, his head narrow and skull-like. He tired easily and spent most of the day sitting on the perimeter of the camp, watching the humans. When the hunger pangs became too much to endure, he would wander off in desperate search of deer droppings.

The time came when Damien, as some domestic, and even the occasional undomestic animals do, sensed that he must go to humans. Damien did not understand the concept of a word like
`intervention', but he understood that he was miserable, and that he felt somehow the humans could make it better. The Voice spoke clearly, though with no explanation. He knew the people in
the camp could, if they wanted, provide food and warmth. And, The Voice prompted, they could provide something more. Something intangible that Damien did not as of yet understand.

The Voice said: Your place is with the people.

So he went. Wary, uncertain of his reception and yet with a dignity found only in some few dogs of character, he stepped carefully out of the dark forest into the light of the dying fire. Hoffman was up, attended as always by Tag, everyone else having gone to their tents. Both men saw the dog and watched its strange behavior unfolding. By the light of the fire Damien could see their features, the older man gaunt almost, with a high forehead and a thin, straight nose, the younger man chunky, with a round face and flaxen hair. It was the older man the dog watched. The dog came step by wary step, closer to the men. Though his manner of moving was furtive, his eyes were not. His gaze was direct - holding Hoffman's eyes.

He was telling Hoffman that he was hurting, starving, dying. It was up to the man now, what would become of him - and somehow, to Damien, that seemed right.

The dog came within five feet of the professor, then sat, his steady brown eyes upraised to the man's. Hoffman gazed back, seeing again the Primordial Dog, and seeing also Damien's form
coming in and out of the darkness, the night of his injury.

Tag watched them both, his eyes moving between the dog and the man. He decided, in his usual overprotective manner, that it was up to him to protect Hoffman from any misgivings the professor
might be experiencing about the termination of this project. He watched the growing hint of a frown on Hoffman's face as the man studied the dog before him. The three of them sat like that, a
frozen tableau, while the fire gently hissed and cracked, and the soft misty rain whispered as it fell upon the great, gray trees that ringed them. Then Tag acted. He stood up suddenly, making a harsh "Haaah!" sound meant to frighten the dog away. His hands waved at the dog, and he stepped toward the animal in a threatening manner. Damien turned and fled, disappearing quickly into the wet, cold dark.

Tag felt the need to say something rather quickly. "We're going to have to really keep an eye on our food supplies."

The older man's frown had deepened when Tag acted, but now his face composed itself and Hoffman sighed very quietly. "You're right," was all he said. They sat, in silence, another fifteen minutes, and then Hoffman, knowing Tag would not leave him alone by the fire tonight, went to his tent.

Damien awoke to a clear, sharp, late autumn morning. Something odd; some strange sensation had awakened him. There was nothing unusual to be seen, heard or scented, but his skin tingled with an anxious feeling, and he got to his feet. As was usual now, his thoughts turned immediately to food. The crisp air brought him the scent of the human's camp fire, coffee and cooking mush. He shuffled off wearily in that direction.

A surprise awaited him as he sat in his accustomed place dully watching the movements of the researchers. The people were taking the camp down. In an hour they were done and, with
almost all of the equipment stowed under tarps tucked protectively under some fallen trees, they simply left. Damien, too weak to follow, watched them go. He had seen hikers break camp before, and he knew what to do. As soon as the last student disappeared into the brush, he went forward and inspected every inch of the camp. He was looking for food, but found nothing but a pile of coffee grounds which he sniffed critically but licked up nonetheless. He sat down in the middle of the empty camp and heaved a large sigh.

He sat still for quite a while, until he became aware again of the strange sensation. There was a certain heaviness of the air, as if the sky was pushing down on him. The feeling made him uneasy, and he stood up, uncertain what to do. It was a beautiful clear day, but he felt the need to seek shelter. The warning was vague, however, and not nearly so loud as the insistent demand of his hunger. He must find food today.

Radio reports of the impending severe weather that Damien was sensing had sent Hoffman and his group scurrying for cover. Extreme winds were predicted - rare for this part of the state -
and the forest would be far too dangerous a place for the researchers to stay. Tents were simply not safe among the trees in high winds. The Professor made the decision to withdraw until the danger was over. They would restock their stolen supplies and pick up where they had left off when it was safe to return.

By late afternoon Damien reached the rock slide where Hoffman had watched his playful hunting of the marmots. The wind was blowing hard now, straight and cold down the side of the mountain. The marmots whistled and jeered but the dog stood staring dully at them for several moments. Then, with an obvious effort, he roused himself and went forward.

Cramming his head down between the rocks where one marmot had just disappeared, he inhaled the intoxicating scent of the big rodent. If he could just reach down a little farther between the rocks, he might reach one. His breathing quickened at the thought of the warm blood spilling over his tongue and the soft, broken body being crushed between his jaws. He must catch one. He drove his head inward, twisting his shoulders, the collar's box making sharp grating sounds on the granite rock. Perhaps in here he would find the animal cowering, helpless. Its scent was everywhere, taunting him, driving him to madness in his desire for food. He felt himself slip forward a couple inches, and his body corkscrewed wildly in an effort to get his muzzle just a few more inches into the space between the rocks. But it was no use, his shoulders blocked the way and he wearily began to back out, hunching up his spine, his hind paws scrabbling on the slick rock for a purchase. He went nowhere; he was stuck. He had forced the bulky collar through an opening in the rocks while his head and neck had been sideways, now, upright, the collar was wedged effectively behind the small opening.

Damien felt no panic but continued to struggle, sure that at any moment he would be free. For several minutes, the dog struggled but the collar was firmly stuck behind the crevice. Exhausted,
the dog collapsed upon the rock, panting hard. He lay patiently, waiting for his strength to return so he could begin again to try and loose himself.

Six days later Hoffman and his students were regrouped and back on the trail headed toward their abandoned base camp. The storm had been severe, with gusts in excess of 100 mph on the nearby coast, and the hikers' progress was seriously impeded by the destruction dealt to the forest by the storm. Tag and Devon labored in the point position, hacking and pushing a way through the windfalls while the Professor, still a little sore from his sprain, brought up the rear. It took them the entire day to get from their vehicles to the camp, and they arrived shortly before
nightfall. They set up their tents again, cooked a quick dinner and fell into their sleeping bags too exhausted to even think about locating the dog.

The next morning Seth woke first and crawled from his tent, his equipment under his arm. After a quick trip to the "beach" to dunk his close cropped, dark hair in the river and splash ice cold water on his face, he fired up the equipment and located a faint signal north-northwest of camp. As the others joined him around the rock ringed campfire where the coffee and tea pots boiled, they discussed the feasibility of following the signal through the downed brush.

"It's possible he's died," said Devon. "That would explain the stationary reading."

Hoffman nodded. "I think we have to consider it a possibility. Depending on how far out he is, we may or may not reach him today. We can get a good start though. Let's get to it."

After three hours of throwing limbs aside and climbing over tree trunks, the group retreated to camp for the evening. The faint signal had remained stationary all day, and there was no longer
any doubt in the researcher's minds that their subject had perished.

By noon the next day, they broke out of the woods onto the rock-covered hillside Hoffman recognized.

"The signal is strong here. He's close," Seth said.

Hoffman was silent, scanning the rocky hillside. The dull gray sky above blended with the dull gray of the rocks, and there was no movement anywhere. Even the marmots were absent. Then he saw the body.

"There," he said, pointing. "There he is."

The students looked where he was pointing and saw the gold and black striped shape, the head out of sight among the rocks. Even from this distance it was obvious the dog had died of starvation.

"He pegged out a while ago by the look of it," Tag said. They all began climbing up toward where the body lay.

"We'll be home for Thanksgiving," Devon said flatly.

"What a collar!" Seth said as they climbed. "Look how his head is stuck in those rocks, but we still got the signal, clear back at camp. That's intense."

"Wow," Susan exclaimed as they got close, "look at that - his head is stuck in those rocks. That's insane; the collar must have jammed."

They ganged around the dog's body, staring. "That's what happened," Susan continued, pulling her blond ponytail back and resetting the rubberband. "He got it stuck and didn't have the strength to pull free. God, I've never seen anything that thin.

"He tried. Look at the blood around his shoulders. He really tore at it - but when I put a collar on, it stays on."

"Yeah, your mother must be proud, Seth - why don't you see if you can get its head out, otherwise we're going to have to cut the collar off," Tag said.

Seth knelt beside the body and craned his neck to see into the rock crevice. Reaching in, he grasped the scrawny neck, determined to twist it around and ease the collar back through
the hole. At his touch the body jerked convulsively, and a hind leg drew slowly up toward the belly.

"Oh my God!" Susan breathed, her face jutting forward in disbelief. "He's alive!"

Seth jerked back with an oath and stood up. His olive skin was pale. "No way, man. No way."

Hoffman knelt down, grasping the dog's chest at the narrow point between it's elbows. "There's a pulse," he said, his eyebrows raising, "but I shouldn't expect him to live much longer." There was silence. It was an awkward moment and they all avoided each others' eyes. The professor stood up and they stared down at the cold, starved body at their feet.

"Well," Devon said, "what do we do?"

"Should I take the collar off, anyway?" Seth trailed off.

"Well at least pull his head out of there," Devon said. "It can't make much difference to the study at this point."

Seth looked at Hoffman and the professor slowly nodded.

Seth returned to his knees beside the dog and reached into the crevice again, much more gently this time, and eased the head around until he forced the collar back through the opening. He
grimaced and wiped his hands on his pants after he laid the dogs head down on the rock slab.

"Yuck, look at that."

The dog's vain struggles had worn the skin away under the collar, and blood and pus coated the collar strap. Lying on the rock in the cold mountain air, the dog's body was too weak even
to shiver. It merely twitched spasmodically from time to time. It was a mere skeleton, its head a ghastly skull in which two brown eyes rolled weakly upward to the faces of the scientists.
The pathetic form before them searched their faces, and then, the effort being too much, its eyes closed once again.

"Huh," said Susan uncomfortably.

"I wish we could put it out of its misery," Devon said quietly, picking up his hat and running his hand through his hair before he resettled it.

Hoffman sighed deeply. "No, let's just let nature take her course. We're simply here to observe - it's not for us to interfere. We'll come back tomorrow and record the end of the study. Let's go back to camp."

They filed away, silently, not a word spoken until they arrived back at camp. They ate dinner and sat around the campfire glumly. They had all experienced project terminations with their
resulting loss of subject animals before - it was a quite common for this type of work and not normally a cause for emotion. But somehow, sitting around the warm fire in their down jackets,
thinking of the emaciated dog lying alone upon its rock on the open hillside, stilled them all.

"He's probably dead by now," Devon, slumped under his hat, said into the silence.

"Oh, I would think so," Hoffman answered. "He won't make it through the night."

At first light Hoffman, Seth and Tag set off to retrieve the collar and record the end of the dog and the project. Susan and Devon stayed behind to pack up camp so they could leave when the men returned. Having packed up, and finding themselves with nothing else to do, Devon dug out the last of his stash and rolled a small joint which he and Susan shared, sitting, by force of habit, on the stumps around the dead camp fire. Hearing the faint sounds of the returning men they looked up to see Hoffman and Tag, followed by Seth, breaking out of the woods. The professor had a sheepish grin on his face and Seth carried the brindle dog over his shoulders.

OK guys! Gotta wait till June to read the rest. Sorry!

© Copyright 2000 THE DOG WHO SPOKE WITH GODS All Rights Reserved.
No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Reprinted by arrangement with St. Martin's Press, LLC, New York, N.Y.