PART 2
We followed the sound of Juno’s howl into the trees.
Amos, a deputy, two search-and-rescue volunteers, and me. Flashlights bouncing. Snow up to our knees. The other dogs had lost the scent hours ago. Juno never hesitated. She went downhill, away from the trail, through a gully nobody had searched because “a three-year-old would never go that way.”
Every few minutes, she stopped. Sniffed. Howled. Then pulled harder.
“She’s got it,” Amos kept saying. “She’s got it.”
A mile and a half from our campsite, Juno stopped at the base of a huge fallen pine tree.
She started digging at the snow under the trunk.
Then she lay down and pressed her whole body into the hollow.
I heard a tiny whimper.
“Mama?”
Pippa was curled up under the log, in a little cave of pine needles. Her lips were blue. Her pink snowsuit was soaked. But her eyes were open.
Juno was lying on top of her, keeping her warm.
I don’t remember the next part very clearly. The paramedic said I was screaming. Amos said I was laughing. Probably both.
Pippa spent two nights at the hospital in Flagstaff. Mild hypothermia. Frostbite on two toes. Nothing permanent.
The doctor said the dog’s body heat probably saved her life.
“Another hour out there,” he said, “and I don’t think we’d be talking about a happy ending.”
The search-and-rescue team captain shook Amos’s hand for a long time.
“Sergeant Calhoun,” he said. “We wondered what happened to you.”
That’s when I learned Amos’s story.
He’d volunteered with that same rescue team for twelve years after the Army. Then his wife died. Then he lost his job. Then his house. He’d been living in his truck, and then without it.
Juno was the only thing he had left.
The night Juno was hit, he’d been sure she was going to die. I’d given her back to him.
Two months later, she gave me back my daughter.
The local news ran the story. Then the national news.
The owner of my old clinic called me the next morning.
She’d been out of state when I was fired. She hadn’t known. She was horrified.
Gavin was let go that week. She refunded my $780 and offered me his job.
I took it.
My first day as manager, I made one new rule and taped it to the front desk.
“No animal is turned away for money. We’ll figure it out.”
The rescue team brought Amos and Juno back as volunteers. Then the county hired him as a part-time trainer for new search dogs. A veterans’ group helped him get an apartment.
Juno is twelve now. Gray around the muzzle. She limps a little in the cold.
Every Sunday, Amos and Juno come to our house for dinner.
Pippa sets a bowl on the floor next to her chair. She calls Juno her “angel dog.”
And every Sunday, Juno falls asleep with her head on Pippa’s feet.
Like she’s still keeping her warm.
THE END.
