in the yard to be with them.
Suddenly I felt some excitement off Jakob. He spoke to his shoulder. “10-4, unit Eight-Kilo-Six responding,” he said while Amy ran over to the gate. Cammie jumped up. “Ellie!” Amy commanded. “Come!”
We were out of the yard and I was up in the truck in just moments. I found myself panting, picking up on Jakob’s excitement.
Something told me that whatever was happening, it was far more important than Find Wally.
{ NINETEEN }
Jakob drove us to a large flat building, where several people were gathered in a circle. I could feel the tension in them as we pulled up. Jakob came around and petted me but left me in the truck. “Good dog, Ellie,” he said absently.
I sat and watched him anxiously as he approached the group of people. Several of them spoke at once.
“We didn’t notice her missing until lunch, but we don’t have any idea how long she’s been gone.”
“Marilyn’s an Alzheimer’s patient.”
“I don’t understand how she got away with no one seeing.”
While I sat there, a squirrel climbed down the trunk of a tree and busied itself foraging for food in the grass. I stared at it, astounded at its audacious disregard for the fact that I, a vicious predator, was a mere ten feet away!
Jakob came to the cage and opened the door. “Heel!” he commanded, giving me no chance to catch the squirrel. I snapped to it: time to work. Jakob led me away from the people, to a corner of the front yard of the building. He held out two shirts that smelled reminiscent of Grandma, a little. I stuck my nose into the soft cloth, inhaling deeply. “Ellie. Find!”
I took off, running past the knot of people. “She wouldn’t have gone that way,” someone said.
“Let Ellie work,” Jakob replied.
Work. I carried the sense memory of the clothing in my mind as I held my nose up to the air, coursing back and forth as I’d been trained. There were a lot of people smells, dog smells, car smells, but I couldn’t Find. Frustrated, I turned back to Jakob.
He read my disappointment. “That’s okay, Ellie. Find.” He began walking down the street, and I leaped ahead, cruising up and down the yards. I turned the corner and slowed down: there it was, tantalizing, coming to me. . . . I zeroed in on it and raced ahead. Forty feet in front of me, lying at the base of some bushes, her scent was clear. I turned and ran back to Jakob, who had been joined by several police officers.
“Show me, Ellie!”
I took him back to the bushes. He bent, poking at something with a stick.
“What is it?” one of the officers asked, coming up behind Jakob.
“A tissue. Good dog, Ellie, good dog!” He grabbed me and wrestled with me briefly, but I sensed there was more work.
“How do we know that’s hers? It could have been dropped by anybody,” one of the policemen objected.
Jakob bent down, ignoring the men behind him. “Okay, Ellie. Find!”
I could follow her scent, now, faint but traceable. It went ahead two blocks, then turned right, getting stronger. At a driveway it made an abrupt right, and I tracked her through an open gate, to where she was sitting on a swing set, moving gently. There was a real sense of happiness flowing from her, and she seemed glad to see me.
“Hello, doggy,” she said.
I ran back to Jakob, and I could tell from his excitement that he knew I’d found her before I got up to him, though he waited for me to reach him before he reacted. “Okay, Show me!” he urged.
I took him to the lady on the swing set. I felt Jakob’s relief when he saw the woman. “Are you Marilyn?” he asked gently.
She cocked her head at him. “Are you Warner?” she replied.
Jakob spoke into the microphone on his shoulder, and soon we were joined by the other policemen. Jakob took me aside. “Good dog, Ellie!” He pulled out a rubber ring and sent it bouncing across the lawn, and I jumped on it and brought it back, holding it out for him to grip and tug on. We played for about five minutes, my tail whipping the air.
As Jakob shut me in the cage on the back of the truck, I could feel the pride coming off of him. “Good dog, Ellie. You are such a good dog.”
It was, I reflected, as close as Jakob could come to the unrestrained adoration I once felt from Ethan, and from it I realized that today I truly understood my purpose as Ellie: not just to Find people but to save them. The worry that poured off the knot of people in front of the building could not have been more clear, just as their relief when we returned was clear. The lady had been in some sort of danger, and by Finding her Jakob and I saved her from the danger. That is what we did together, that was our work, and that’s what he cared most about. It was like the game I played with Ethan: Rescue.
The next day Jakob took me to a store and purchased some fragrant flowers, which he left in the truck while we did some work. (Wally was hiding on top of a strong-smelling trash Dumpster, but he couldn’t fool me.) Then Jakob and I went for a long car ride—so long that I became tired of holding my nose up to the side of the cage and lay down on the floor.
When Jakob came to let me out, there was a heaviness in him—whatever was always hurting him inside seemed stronger than ever. We were in a big yard filled with stones. Subdued, not sure what we were doing, I stayed next to Jakob as he walked a few dozen yards, carrying his flowers. He knelt and put the flowers down next
