The little dog came out from beneath a hedge while Warren Ellis was trying to pry the lid off his coffee.
He noticed the movement before he made out the animal: a pale paw, a dark muzzle, one ear standing while the other folded sideways. Then a German shepherd puppy stepped over the curb and stopped beside the rear tire of his patrol car.
Warren set the untouched coffee on the roof.
“Traffic’s not your friend, kid.”
The puppy watched his mouth. His sides moved fast beneath a dusty coat, and a strip of faded blue cloth hung loosely around his neck. He looked young enough that somebody ought to be standing a few feet away, calling him back.
Nobody was.
Across the street, porch lights were going off along the older houses at the edge of Wexley. A delivery truck rattled toward the business district. Here in northwestern Arkansas, a cool October morning could make people linger indoors, but Warren still expected a door to open or an apologetic owner to come running.
He checked the yard behind the hedge, then the sidewalk in both directions.
“Anybody lose a dog?”
A crow answered from a utility pole.
Twelve years in uniform had taught Warren to notice the person who didn’t fit, the door standing open, the car that had gone past twice. This morning, the thing that held his attention was a puppy sitting squarely in front of his boots.
He bent his knees and held out the back of his hand.
The puppy came close enough to sniff him. Before Warren could touch his head, he backed away several steps and looked toward the corner.
“All right. We’ll do this slowly.”
Warren advanced a little. The puppy moved, too. When Warren stopped, the puppy stopped and stared up at him.
There was no collar buckle beneath the cloth that he could see. No hanging tag. He’d need somebody to check for a microchip, but first he wanted the dog out of the street.
He turned toward the driver’s door.
The sound behind him was so sharp that his hand stopped above the handle.
The puppy was scrambling after him. He nearly lost his footing at the curb, caught himself, and hurried into the narrow space between Warren and the car. A tremor ran through his back legs.
“Hey. I’m still here.”
Warren crouched again. This time the puppy didn’t retreat. He stood close enough for his whiskers to brush Warren’s trousers, looking up with his mouth slightly open.
A loose dog would sometimes attach itself to anyone who offered attention. Warren had seen that happen. He’d also seen frightened animals bolt when a hand came near them.
This one seemed unable to decide whether he needed Warren to stay put or come along.
The convenience store at the corner had just opened. Warren could ask there, and perhaps the clerk would know which yard the puppy belonged in. He started down the sidewalk.
Small claws ticked along behind him.
After half a block, he glanced back. The puppy halted so abruptly that his rear end swayed. Warren took two more steps, slightly faster, and the little dog broke into an untidy run to keep up.
Warren slowed at once.
“Okay. You’ve made your point.”
He hadn’t meant to tire him. Up close, the puppy looked thinner than he had beside the car. Dust had settled into the dark fur above his paws, and one shoulder carried an odd, flattened patch.
At the store, Warren pulled the door open and stepped inside.
“Morning. You haven’t had anybody asking about a—”
A cry cut across his question.
Through the glass, he saw the puppy rising against the door, front feet slipping down the metal kick plate. He tried again, claws skittering, then began nosing at the gap beneath it.
The clerk leaned around a display of snack bags.
“That your trainee?”
“Never met him before today.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
Warren was already reaching for the door. The clerk’s smile faded as the puppy gave another thin cry.
Outside, Warren had to turn sideways to keep from stepping on him. The dog pushed against his boot, then wedged his head between Warren’s ankles as though the few seconds of separation had been far too long.
Warren lowered a hand along his ribs.
“No more doors. Got it.”
The puppy licked the cuff of his trousers. His tail moved twice, but the trembling didn’t stop.
Nobody at the store recognized him. Warren returned to the patrol car with the dog so close behind that he had to shorten his stride. When he opened the passenger door to get a towel, the puppy launched himself at the sill.
He didn’t come close to making it.
Warren caught him under the chest before he fell backward. The puppy caught a fold of uniform between his paws and clung to it.
“For someone with short legs, you’ve got plans.”
He tucked the towel around the dog and held him against his jacket. Beneath the dirt and the cool fur, the little body felt alarmingly slight.
The main block was waking up now. If he asked a few more people, perhaps he could avoid hauling somebody’s pet away just as they came out looking for him. He carried the puppy toward the storefronts, then set him down where the sidewalk widened beside the bakery.
The dog stayed against his left boot.
Three teenagers on their way to school spotted them first. One slowed, grinning.
“Do they issue those with the cars now?”
“Only if you lose the paperwork,” Warren said.
The boy laughed. Another pointed to the puppy, who had followed Warren’s half-step toward the curb without taking his eyes off him.
“Mine won’t even come when there’s food.”
“He’s not mine,” Warren said. “Any of you recognize him?”
They shook their heads, their joking voices quieting when they noticed the scrapes on his feet.
A woman came out of the bakery carrying an empty flour sack to the trash. She paused beside Warren, studying the dog over the tops of her glasses.
“Somebody ought to be ashamed. Look at his little sides.”
“I’m trying to find out where he came from.”
“Well, he’s picked his person for the morning.”
Warren reached down and rubbed the loose fold of towel between his fingers. He never knew what to do when strangers assigned kindness to him simply because he wore a uniform and had stopped.
The woman smiled at him anyway.
A girl approaching with her mother pulled gently at the woman’s hand. She couldn’t have been more than six.
“May I touch the dog?”
The puppy saw her free hand lifting and ducked behind Warren’s calf. His nails scraped across the concrete as he tried to make himself smaller.
The mother stopped her daughter before she came any closer.
“He’s scared, honey.” Then, to Warren, “Sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Warren shifted so the child could see the puppy without reaching him. “He needs a little room today.”
The girl nodded solemnly. “I hope he feels better.”
The morning traffic carried everyone onward: the teenagers toward school, the mother and child toward the crossing, the baker back through her side door. Warren waited until the space around them emptied.
Then he knelt.
The puppy moved out from behind his leg and put his forehead into Warren’s waiting palm.
For several seconds, Warren let him stand that way.
When he gently raised the dog’s chin, he found that the blue fabric had been tied with a loose knot, not fastened like a collar. One end was badly frayed. There was no identification tucked beneath it.
He worked his fingers through the fur, checking for anything he hadn’t been able to see while standing. At the left shoulder, the puppy flinched and gave a small, involuntary sound.
Warren stopped pressing. Parting the hair revealed bruised skin beneath the matted patch.
“All right. I won’t touch that again.”
The pads of his feet were abraded. One nail had chipped. His ribs were easier to feel than Warren liked, although he couldn’t tell how long he’d been poorly fed. Whatever had brought him out here hadn’t helped.
Warren was considering whether to carry him straight to a veterinary office when the puppy stepped away from his hand.
He made a quick circle, came back, and caught Warren’s trouser cuff in his teeth.
“Careful with those.”
The puppy pulled, released the fabric, and trotted toward the end of the block. Then he stopped and looked back.
Warren stayed on one knee.
The dog returned immediately. This time he pulled hard enough to draw the cloth taut against Warren’s shin.
“Is that what you’ve been trying to do?”
He rose. The puppy hurried a few feet, checked for him, and kept going. At the corner, he turned away from the shops toward a gap between two long hedges. Beyond them, a dirt cut-through ran past an abandoned mill parking lot and into the trees.
Warren looked from the path to the puppy’s battered paws.
The dog stood at the entrance, shaking, waiting for him to take the next step.
“All right,” Warren said, and left the sidewalk…
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