Alice's Arc

Chapter 4 of 20

The morning after the rescue, Alice walked down to the cedar lodge with Biscuit at heel. She wanted to be there before the ranger arrived, so the family could speak for her in person. The porch lanterns were still lit against the pine shade. The hiker's daughter met her at the steps and waved her inside. The ranger came just after nine. She was a short woman in a green coat with a leather field bag over one shoulder. She listened to the family for ten minutes, then turned to Alice. Alice laid her map on the table. She showed the snare locations, the stone marker, the two notes, and the date on each. The ranger read every line without speaking. Then she looked at Biscuit, who was sitting square by Alice's boot. "Your dog held a live search yesterday," the ranger said. "The family told me. Clean work." She tapped the map. "I'll walk the snare line today. I want the dog with me." Alice felt her stomach tighten. "He tracks off my signal. He isn't trained on human scent." "Then train him," the ranger said. "I lose two hikers a season on this ridge. A dog that reads a trail the way yours does is worth more than my radio. If he learns scent, I call you first, every time." Alice looked down at Biscuit. His ears were up. He was watching the ranger the way he watched a squirrel he had decided not to chase. She thought about what the ranger was really offering. A standing call meant the trapper would hear about it. It also meant Biscuit would belong to the ridge, not only to her. Every rescue would pull him further from her practice ground and closer to someone else's emergency. She thought of the friend who had stopped coming, and what she had agreed was true. A small bird with a red head and blue wings landed on the porch rail outside the window. It held still and watched the room. Alice took a breath. "I'll train him," she said. "Give me four weeks. I'll bring him back and show you what he can do. If he passes, you can call us." The ranger wrote a number on the back of Alice's map and stood up. "Four weeks. Friday morning, here." Outside, Alice knelt and rubbed Biscuit's ears until he leaned into her hand. She had bought the ranger's ear and traded away part of the dog's future in the same hour. The snare map was signed for now. The trapper would hear a ranger was walking his line. And somewhere between today and four Fridays out, she had to teach a retriever to follow a stranger's scent through country neither of them had mapped.