Dusty Read online

  For big heroes in small packages

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  A Note from the Authors

  Teaser for Jet

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  A black-and-white puppy snuffled along the edge of a dark road. The little dog was no bigger than a soda can and had to brace himself to keep from being tumbled in the wind whenever a car zoomed by on the two-lane highway. The headlights from each passing vehicle briefly lit up the dog’s large, upright ears before quickly disappearing down the road into darkness. The pup barely looked up when he heard them approaching … he just locked his short legs and kept his black-and-white speckled nose close to the ground, sniffing through trash, leaves, and dry grasses. He was looking for food.

  Looking for food—and water and shelter—was the little dog’s full-time job, and his only chance for survival. It had been a dry, hot summer, so everything was covered with a layer of dust. He nosed a gritty scrap of paper to get a second, closer sniff. The paper might have had food on it at one time, but the smell had faded. There was nothing to eat there, so he kept walking. The night was moonless and the pup had only his nose to rely on. Luckily smell was the keenest of his sharp senses—his nose rarely let him down. He drew in a breath and paused. This time he was certain he smelled something. It wasn’t much, but something was always better than nothing. He and his pack had gone with nothing for too long.

  The little dog paused to listen for his mother and two sisters. They were just a short distance down the roadway, also looking for food. His stomach rumbled. He froze and lifted a paw. It hurt. All of his paws hurt. His ears twitched, unable to hear his pack rustling through the roadside debris.

  Back the way he’d come, there’d been a stronger food smell, a smell so strong it made his mouth water and the hunger gnawing his insides almost impossible to bear. But the smell had come from the middle of the pavement, and the middle of the pavement was a dangerous place. It was a place for zooming cars and big trucks and buses that smelled like gasoline and metal and oil. It was no place for a dog. He’d ignored the gnawing in his stomach and moved on.

  The dog’s ears twitched again, straining to hear his mama and sisters. They were coming along behind him more slowly than usual. He put his nose to the dirt on the edge of the road. Maybe he could find enough food for all of them.

  The pack had been together since the three puppies were born. It was all the family the black-and-white pup knew, and he always felt safer when his mother and sisters were close by. Even when they were too hot or too cold or too tired or too hungry, they could curl up together and sleep. The sounds of his littermates breathing and his mama’s heartbeat made him feel secure. It reminded him of the first days when they lived under the porch of the little casita behind the big house on the edge of the city, where the mama dog had crawled in to give birth and stayed to raise her puppies. It was nice there … cool and dark. The puppies had milk to drink, and there was a young girl who found them and brought his mama food, filled an old bowl with water, and held the puppy and his sisters. She kept the pup’s little family a secret for as long as she could.

  When the girl’s parents found out what their daughter was up to, they put a stop to it. There was already a dog in the big house, a dog that barked at anyone who approached. They didn’t want a stray and her puppies. They chased the pack away and put fencing around the porch so they couldn’t get back in.

  After they were evicted, the mama and her pups had taken shelter wherever they could: under trees, inside culverts, beneath boxes. Nobody brought them food or water. Nobody held them. Nobody took care of them. There were other dogs living on the streets, too. Lots of them. Some were friendly and some were not. All of them had to look out for themselves.

  The little pup paused on the roadside. He lapped up a few drops of water condensed on the underside of an aluminum can. The puddles had dried up between the brief spells of rain. The drops were not enough to quench his thirst. Still, they moistened his tongue.

  Headlights appeared again in the distance, and a few minutes later a noisy car raced past. The pup braced himself but was blown back. He tumbled away from the road. Standing to shake himself off, he smelled something new—carne! The smell was strong and this time he did not hesitate to alert his pack. Food! Here! Come get it! he barked.

  The sound was swallowed by the rumble of a bus barreling closer, then drowned out entirely by the squeal of brakes. A horn blared and the smell of burned rubber filled the dog’s tiny muzzle. A dark and frightening feeling filled his chest.

  The pup crept back through the dark toward the spot where the bus had stopped on the pavement. The giant machine heaved, like it was letting out its last breath, though its headlights still shone in the darkness. It shuddered and went silent. The doors opened and the driver descended. The pup drew closer. He couldn’t see anything much beyond the hulking bus through the trash and dry weeds on the roadside.

  Suddenly a woman’s voice broke the silence. She was barking angrily. The pup craned his neck and saw the head and shoulders of a young woman with a young man beside her. They’d gotten out of the bus to talk to the driver, who stood silhouetted in the headlights with one hand on his head.

  “Get back on the bus,” the driver shouted at the woman in Spanish. “There’s nothing you can do here. These mongrels shouldn’t be in the road. They’re nothing but trash!” he growled.

  Even in the dark the puppy could tell that the girl didn’t like the man’s words. Or what she saw. She stared in the direction of the lights and held her stomach with one arm. She held her other hand over her mouth. After a moment she took it away to howl a reply to the driver. Her voice sounded wounded. Hurt.

  All three of the people kept their eyes on the road in front of the bus. They seemed frozen. They could not look away.

  The pup snuck closer but stayed in the ditch, in the trash. He knew how to keep out of sight to avoid the kicks and brooms of the people who didn’t want him nearby. He raised his head as high as he could to try and see what the people were looking at. He rose up for a moment, balancing on his back legs, and instantly wished he hadn’t. With his nose high he smelled blood. With his eyes above the trash he saw his mama and sisters lying on the pavement. They were not moving. The woman let out a sharp wail, and the puppy swallowed his own. His pack was gone.

  He was all alone.

  Sylvia wiped an angry tear from her pale face. She turned her head from the awful sight and stepped to the edge of the road, wondering how the bus driver could be so heartless. He had struck and killed a mama dog and her puppies. All three animals were dead and he just seemed … irritated!

  Sylvia’s boyfriend, Xander,
followed her to the side of the road. He didn’t know what to say to make it better. Sylvia seemed sad and mad at once, and also as if she might explode. He reached a hand out toward her long black hair and then stopped, running it through his own short thick hair instead.

  Swallowing more tears, Sylvia attempted to gather herself. She told herself it was an accident. The road was dark. There were no streetlights. The driver simply hadn’t seen the small dogs. It wasn’t as if he’d been trying to hurt them. And it was true that there were a lot more strays in Mexico than she usually saw in California. She’d noticed that when she’d come south to visit her family before. She’d also noticed the groups and shelters working to educate people and neuter the strays—to make the dog population stable and safe. But none of that kept the bus driver’s words from echoing in her head. He’d called the black-and-white Chihuahuas “trash,” as if discarding them to live on the streets was okay. As if they’d chosen to be hungry and alone. Only desperation would make a dog search for food on a highway. Sylvia felt her face go hot. She clenched her teeth together to keep from screaming.

  She’d given the driver a piece of her mind in perfect Spanish, which seemed to surprise him. With her relatively light skin, it was not always obvious her parents were Mexican, and she liked being able to catch people off-guard when they mistook her for a basic gringa. His raised eyebrows and half-open mouth didn’t bring any satisfaction today, though. The situation was too upsetting.

  And now he was telling her to get back on the bus in Spanish instead of English. Most of the passengers were still on board, their faces pressed against the glass, watching.

  Xander put his hand on Sylvia’s arm and tried to tug her gently back on board. “I’m sorry to say it, but he’s right, Sylvia. There’s nothing we can do now. We’re almost to your aunt and uncle’s town … we should just get back on the bus.”

  Sylvia dropped her head and took a shaky breath. She wished she were back in San Luis Obispo, at school. Maybe it was a mistake to try to squeeze in a visit before the semester started. She wished she didn’t get carsick. She wished she hadn’t had to sit at the front of the bus. She wished she had never seen … any of this.

  Staring at the ground in the dim light cast by the bus, Sylvia saw something move. A piece of litter near her feet trembled in the windless night. She leaned closer. The tip of an ear stuck out from under the paper. “What the …” Sylvia bent down and a second ear joined the first, this one missing a small triangle of flesh, the fur-covered skin scarred over. A head two sizes too small for the ears emerged beneath them and a pair of dark, round eyes blinked up at Sylvia.

  “Look at you!” Sylvia whispered. She squatted down quickly and reached out a hand. The black-and-white puppy cowered, stepping back and trembling slightly. But he did not run. “You must be … were you with—” She covered her mouth before she could say it. The puppy on the dusty roadside looked just like the two lying next to their mother on the road … not moving. “Oh. No,” she gasped.

  The small dog locked eyes with the young woman. He tried not to shake. Her eyes glistened. They were as wet as a puddle. When she reached out a hand he stayed as still as he could. She reminded him of the girl from the casita, the one who used to hold him. He trusted young people more than old, probably because of that girl. But deep down he didn’t trust people at all. He had suffered at the hands of humans more often than he’d felt comfort … a lot more often. Still, he stayed where he was.

  “¡Vámonos!” the driver yelled impatiently from the steps of the bus.

  “Are you all right? We have to—” Xander reached out again to try to coax Sylvia up and onto the bus. She was crouched with her back to him. She looked like she might be sick.

  Without thinking, Sylvia reached out and scooped up the big-eared puppy. She acted quickly and the pup did not dart. Maybe he didn’t have time to run from her. Maybe he was in shock. Before she could second-guess her actions, she stuffed the tiny dog under her oversized sweatshirt and looked at Xander like she’d just swallowed a goldfish.

  It took Xander a moment to realize what was happening—that his girlfriend had a dog under her sweatshirt. “What are you doing?” he whispered in alarm. His eyes were as wide as hers. “You can’t take that dog on the bus. You heard what he said. He thinks these strays are trash!”

  “Well, then I guess I’m just picking up trash on the side of the road,” Sylvia retorted, shrugging and trying to look calm. Xander clamped his mouth shut.

  Sylvia gave a quick sweep of the area with her eyes but didn’t see any other signs of puppy life. With her chin high and shoulders squared, she climbed back on the bus with a skinny and trembling Chihuahua mutt clutched tightly to her belly.

  “You just picked him up? On the side of the road?” Sylvia’s aunt Orelia, her mother’s older sister, held the door to the small house open wide to welcome her niece and her boyfriend … and, apparently, a mangy mongrel. As her niece explained why she was holding the tiny mutt wrapped in her sweatshirt, Orelia’s smile grew even wider and finally turned into a laugh. “You are just like Pedro.” She chortled, motioning Xander, Sylvia, and her minuscule bundle through the door. Standing in the front hall, Orelia looked from her niece to her husband, Hector. “Isn’t she just like your brother?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “Pedro is always showing up with some pathetic creature that needs rescuing.”

  “It’s true,” Hector agreed, starting to chuckle himself. “And not just dogs.”

  Sylvia cradled the black-and-white puppy protectively. The little guy was in bad shape and almost completely hidden in the folds of her clothing. And while it was true that she wanted to help him (and admittedly every dog like him), she wasn’t crazy. Nor was she crazy about being laughed at. The look on the dog’s face suggested he wasn’t too happy about it, either.

  “Sylvia, honey, don’t worry! It’s a good thing,” Orelia said when she noticed her niece bristling. “Pedro is amazing. He’s made a career out of rescue dogs.” She put her arm around Sylvia’s shoulder and pulled her into the cozy, colorful kitchen.

  Sylvia smiled and leaned into her aunt. She nodded. She got it. It was a compliment, not a joke. She remembered hearing about her uncle’s brother, Pedro. He lived on a ranch in California that trained handlers and dogs to work together to save people after disasters. He was basically a hero.

  Orelia and Hector welcomed Xander, shaking his hand and inviting him to take a seat at the table. “Would you like some coffee?” Hector asked.

  Xander and Sylvia both accepted the offer, and while Hector poured the steaming dark liquid into mugs, Sylvia slowly unwrapped the bundle causing the commotion.

  “Tía, Tío, this is Dusty,” Sylvia said, introducing the puppy to her aunt and uncle. The scraggly puppy shivered in Sylvia’s lap but held his head high. His ears dwarfed the rest of his body, which made him look even smaller than he was. His large eyes were runny, and his body was dotted with raw-looking bald patches. Still, the mix of Chihuahua and who-knows-what held his head up proudly.

  “Dusty,” Sylvia’s uncle repeated. He shook his head, chuckling as he set the coffee and a carton of milk on the table.

  “Thanks.” Sylvia smiled. The name had been obvious from the moment she plucked him from the dusty, garbage-strewn roadside. She put her face close to the little dog’s ear. “Nobody’s gonna throw you away ever again,” she crooned.

  Xander’s eyebrows went up, and he looked from his girlfriend to her family and back to his girlfriend. He hadn’t been able to say anything to Sylvia on the bus, but now that they’d arrived at her aunt and uncle’s there were some realities he and Sylvia needed to discuss. He hesitated, considering his words, and then spoke. “Sylvia, you know we can’t take a puppy back to the States with us, right?” he said quietly. “I mean, even if we could get him cleared to get on the plane, dogs aren’t allowed in our apartment.”

  Sylvia felt her heart sink at the reality of his words. Xander was right. She didn’t like it, but h
e was right.

  “I’m not sure what you were thinking,” he added gently.

  Orelia pulled teaspoons from a drawer and placed them on the table next to the mugs of coffee, which were growing cold. Normally she would say as much, but she knew better than to interrupt.

  “I wasn’t thinking,” Sylvia admitted. “Or at least I wasn’t thinking things through.” She’d half realized this at the time, but it hadn’t mattered. She’d been faced with a decision—to let the pup die or to help him live, and she’d done what she thought was right. She saved the Chihuahua from living alone next to a highway, from being run over like the rest of his family, from starving. But now, sitting in her aunt’s kitchen, the reality of what she had taken on was hitting her. Hard. By snatching up this puppy and carrying him onto the bus, she had committed herself to finding him a decent life. She couldn’t just put him back down somewhere. She’d made a kind of promise. “But how could I leave him?” she asked softly.

  Using two fingers so she wouldn’t overwhelm his little body, Sylvia gave Dusty a slow pet from the crown of his head to the base of his wispy tail. He warmed to her touch, leaning into it. Orelia, Hector, and Xander all watched, all saw the connection between them. Sylvia had fallen hard for Dusty, and the feeling seemed to be mutual. Sylvia gazed down at the pup, not seeing his inflamed skin, protruding ribs, or scabby paws. She put her head close to his and whispered something the other humans couldn’t hear.

  Xander watched his softhearted, animal-loving girlfriend and bit his bottom lip. “I’m not sure the little guy will survive until we get home, anyway,” he whispered softly. Orelia and Hector nodded in solemn agreement.

  Dusty could not stop shaking, even in Sylvia’s hands. He looked around the small room. It was filled with smells of food and people—four people, and they were all looking right at him. He felt exposed, and his eyes darted here and there, looking for a way out. He thought he should run. He thought he should hide. Then he felt Sylvia’s gentle hand again as she ran her fingers over his head and down his back. All of a sudden he thought he should stay.