The Incredible Journey

Peter had taken a short cut up the steep rock-bound side of the hill. He sat on a log, staring into space, and he too remembered this time last year—when he had tried to train Bodger as a gun dog by throwing a stuffed leather glove into the bush after firing a BB gun: the willing co-operation and eager retrieves the first day; then, increasingly limp-tailed boredom and sulky ears, followed by deepening deafness, limping paws, and an unbearable air of martyrdom; and terminated two days running so subtly, by Bodger’s appearance out of the bush with a diligent, puzzled expression—but no leather glove. The corners of Peter’s mouth lifted when he remembered the scene that followed—the third day’s throw and shot; then his quiet stalk after his White Hope into the depths of the bush—and the wily Bodger furiously digging a third glove grave.…

He sighed now—in his sudden loneliness rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand—and picked up his camera, for he could hear his family coming.

They sat for a long time on the flat rocks of the Lookout Hill, where long ago the Indians had built their warning signal fires, looking across the endless chains of lakes and tree-covered hills to the distant blur that was the great Lake Superior. It was very peaceful and quiet: a chickadee sang his poignant little piece for them, and the inevitable whisky-jack arrived on soundless wings to pick up cooky crumbs from within a few feet. Everyone was silent and pre-occupied.

Suddenly Elizabeth stood up.

“Listen!” she said. “Listen, Daddy—I can hear a dog barking!”

Complete and utter silence fell as everyone strained their ears in the direction of the hills behind. No one heard anything.

“You’re imagining things,” said her mother. “Or perhaps it was a fox. Come along, we must start back.”

“Wait, wait! Just one minute—you’ll be able to hear it in a minute, too,” whispered Elizabeth, and her mother, remembering the child’s hearing was still young and acute enough to hear the squeaking noise of bats and other noises lost forever to adults—and now even to Peter—remained silent.

Elizabeth’s tense, listening expression changed to a slowly dawning smile. “It’s Luath!” she announced matter-of-factly. “I know his bark!”

“Don’t do this to us, Liz,” said her father gently, disbelieving. “It’s …”

Now Peter thought he heard something too: “Shhh …”

There was silence again, everyone straining to hear in an agony of suspense. Nothing was heard. But Elizabeth had been so convinced, the knowledge written so plainly on her face, that now Jim Hunter experienced a queer, urgent expectancy, every nerve in his body tingling with certain awareness that something was going to happen. He rose and hurried down the narrow path to where it joined the broader track leading around the hill. “Whistle, Dad!” said Peter breathlessly, behind him.

The sound rang out piercingly shrill and sweet, and almost before the echo rebounded a joyous, answering bark rang around the surrounding hills.

They stood there in the quiet afternoon, their taut bodies awaiting the relief of suspense; they stood at the road’s end, waiting to welcome a weary traveler who had journeyed so far, with such faith, along it. They had not long to wait.

Hurtling through the bushes on the high hillside of the trail a small, black-tipped wheaten body leaped the last six feet down with careless grace and landed softly at their feet. The unearthly, discordant wail of a welcoming Siamese rent the air.

Elizabeth’s face was radiant with joy. She kneeled, and picked up the ecstatic, purring cat. “Oh, Tao!” she said softly, and as she gathered him into her arms he wound his black needle-tipped paws lovingly around her neck. “Tao!” she whispered, burying her nose in his soft, thyme-scented fur, and Tao tightened his grip in such an ecstasy of love that Elizabeth nearly choked.

Longridge had never thought of himself as being a particularly emotional man, but when the Labrador appeared an instant later, a gaunt, stare-coated shadow of the beautiful dog he had last seen, running as fast as his legs would carry him towards his master, all his soul shining out of sunken eyes, he felt a lump in his throat, and at the strange, inarticulate half-strangled noises that issued from the dog when he leaped at his master, and the expression of his friend’s face, he had to turn away and pretend to loosen Tao’s too loving paws.

Minutes passed; everyone had burst out talking and chattering excitedly, gathered around the dog to stroke and pat and reassure, until he too threw every vestige of restraint to the winds, and barked as if he would never stop, shivering violently, his eyes alight and alive once more and never leaving his master’s face. The cat, on Elizabeth’s shoulder, joined in with raucous howls; everyone laughed, talked or cried at once, and for a while there was pandemonium in the quiet wood.