Chapter 9
"Uhh…what's going on?" Cedar weakly opened his eyes. Thistle was crouched next to him, holding a wad of cobwebs to the fox's bleeding throat.
"Oh thank goodness," Harley sighed with relief. "For a moment I'd thought we'd lost you."
"The other dogs…are they gone?" Cedar croaked.
Harley nodded. "We fought them off."
Cedar looked up at Thistle. "Who are you?" he asked.
"I'm Thistle," the little hound replied. "Don't try to talk, you'll lose more blood." Then he turned to Harley. "So um…are you two friends?"
"Sort of. Our dads knew each other." Thistle gave him a confused look. "It's a long story."
"So, where are you two headed?" Thistle asked, still holding the cobwebs to Cedar's throat with a paw. "I uh, don't have anywhere to go now that I've left the pack…I was wondering with…"
"Of course you can come with us, Thistle," said Harley. He smiled. "After all, you saved me back there."
"Thanks." Thistle looked at the ground, looking a bit embarrassed. "I...I've always been a coward. But now that I'm away from Travis, maybe I can be brave, like you."
"You were pretty damn brave today. Bugler was like, five times your size!" Harley praised.
"Bugler," Thistle sighed. "He was a monster, but…I still can't believe Travis shot him."
"Humans," Cedar hissed. "They're such bastards."
"Well, from now on, we're free from them," Harley declared. "We are wild animals now. We do what we want!"
They stayed put for the night, to let Cedar's wounds heal. In the morning, he'd regained most of his strength, and they set off. Two long, red marks remained on Cedar's throat where he'd been bitten, and they looked like they would scar, but he bounded along, having little trouble keeping up with Harley and Thistle.
Around noon, they reached another stream where Cedar caught a few minnows, which they ate. By late afternoon, they'd reached the edge of the forest. An acrid, smoky smell came to Harley's nostrils, making him cough. Poking his head through a bush, he saw a paved road before him. He jumped back as a big semi-truck whizzed by.
"I've never seen trucks that big before!" he gasped.
Thistle nodded. "I lived in the city when I was a pup, which was full of roads like these. You have to be careful when crossing them or you'll get hit."
He nervously stepped out of the bushes, and glanced left and right, his nose quivering and ears twitching.
"There's another one coming, but if we go now, we can get to the other side."
Harley took a deep breath, and then darted across the path. His injured pad scraped painfully against the pavement; it had healed quite a bit, but still hurt touching such a rough surface. Cedar past him, yelling, "Come on, Harley!" A pickup truck came into view at the end of the road, and Harley limped as quickly as he could to the other side.
"That wasn't so bad," he said, licking his paw. "Come on, let's get moving."
They walked alongside the road for about an hour, not exactly sure where they were going, but Cedar said that the roads lay between the city and the local farms, and beyond the farms, to the east, was the forest they were headed for. A few humans stared at them as they drove by in their vehicles, probably surprised to see two dogs traveling with a fox. Eventually they reached an intersection. Traffic was even busier here. Cedar screwed up his nose and flattened his ears, obviously not used to such loud noises and strange smells.
"Hey, look at that!" Harley spotted something lying at the edge of the road. Getting closer, he saw that it was a dead pigeon. Its wings were crushed and some of its entrails were poking out, indicating it had been hit by a car. But from the way it smelled, it had only been dead for a few hours, and was quite plump.
"Hey guys I found din…" Suddenly, a loop of wire closed around Harley's neck. He'd been so busy investigating the pigeon that he hadn't noticed a white truck pulling up behind him, looking similar to Travis's portable dog kennel.
"Hey, easy there, dog!" The wire loop was attached to the end of a pole, which a man was gripping. Harley wriggled and twisted, but couldn't get free.
"Get out of here!" he yelled as another man walked towards Thistle and Cedar, who took off running.
"Hey, help me with this one!" the man handling Harley called to the other one, who'd gone chasing after the others. Together the two men hoisted the hound into one of the compartments of the truck, and slammed it shut.
"Was that a fox?" Harley heard one of the men exclaim.
"Yeah, it was! You ever seen dogs just chillin' with a fox?"
"Nope! Mighty weird, it was."
Harley slumped miserably against the side of the cage as the truck drove away.
Cedar was right, he thought. Humans suck.
