AP03 - Hyde and Seek Read online

  Three hours later, the father and young boy were not there. The mother and older boy doubled back and searched, found nothing, returned to the car.

  Storms rolled in. Black clouds and ice, beating wind driving southward to be replaced by bitter rain. The sun set. That’s when real fear starts, Oliver had told her. When people begin to panic. Especially with kids involved.

  Terrified now, with no idea where to turn, mother and son drove back to Coniston. There, the pub manager at The Yewdale Hotel rung Mountain Rescue.

  Catherine was preparing for bed when she picked up her chirping mobile.

  “Now’s when real training starts. Ready?” Oliver asked.

  Catherine and Hyde were in the car in ten minutes. Still Oliver, who lived in Ambleside, and several other team members, including Drummer, Bracken, and Lady were already in Coniston by the time she arrived. Though some of the other human members were new recruits as well, Hyde was the only trainee dog called out to shadow.

  As the rescue team neared the lot at the foot of the fells where the family had parked to walk earlier in the day, they discovered the father coming down the road toward the village. Hypothermic and panicky, he told them his nine-year-old son was still out there. He’d left the boy waiting for him on the footpath while he climbed a peak for pictures, then got turned around and not gotten back to the spot for an hour. By that time, the boy had gone. The man searched and called for hours before spending more hours trying to make his way back to the parking lot for help.

  At least one was safe. But that also meant a child out there. In the dark and storm. Alone.

  Beside Catherine, Hyde struggled up the rocks and slipped back in mud. Never daunted, he continued to heave himself up and on, tailing Oliver’s heavy boots. She would have liked to let Hyde go, off-leash like the eagerly searching Drummer. But Hyde wasn’t supposed to be loose on this mission. This was just to help them both learn the drill.

  Hyde loved training through that summer and autumn. Spending hours out on the open fells, finding people pretending to be lost in the bracken and rocks, among sheep fields and slate quarries. He caught on fast to the idea that they were out to find someone. What he hadn’t been able to do so far was really put his nose to work and find them. He looked, wagging and checking every which way, but he had a lot to learn about following a scent trail. They both did.

  In this quagmire of mud and driving rain and wind that ripped down from the peaks like blasts of lightning, Catherine could not imagine anything being able to follow a trail of any kind, scent or sight or neon signs. She could barely keep Oliver in her sights at two yards ahead.

  Through the wind, someone came on his radio and Oliver paused to speak.

  Catherine caught her breath, resting her gloved hand on Hyde’s soaking neck.

  “Anything?” she called through the wind as she saw him pocket the radio in the light of her headlamp.

  “Nothing yet. C Team is nearing our position, but a good mile away.”

  How could he know so well where he was? That was something else she needed to learn.

  She knew they were west of Coniston, with Goat’s Water now south, behind them, and Dow Crag dangerously nearby. But how near and how far west and where the other teams were, she could not say.

  They had split into four once the last dog and her handler arrived. Four teams, each with one qualified dog and a minimum of two humans. They provided the dogs, including Hyde, with scent articles from the missing person, then started out as near as possible to the last known location before splitting into a giant semicircle. Multiple dogs already had leads, a problem common when someone wandered for hours.

  Far ahead, Drummer barked.

  Oliver hurried forward, headlamp cast down to the ground while he maneuvered rocks. “Where is he, Drummer?”

  Catherine turned from the uncertain path she had been treading in order to follow Oliver, now twenty yards ahead, up the slope. As she did, Hyde cut in front of her, bounding from right to left, nearly knocking her down.

  “Hyde!” She staggered, grabbing his shoulders.

  He ignored her, lunging off to her left while Oliver kept climbing ahead, after his dog.

  Hyde pressed into rain, tugging so hard at the leash, Catherine wrapped both hands around it, hardly clinging onto her torch.

  “Stop it, Hyde. No.” She tugged, climbing after Oliver.

  Hyde pulled her back. What was wrong with him? He might act like this over a rabbit, but no rabbit was out on the fell on a night like this.

  Catherine gripped his collar and squinted. A solid sheet of rain reflected her light back in her eyes.

  This was ridiculous. Once more, she started to follow Oliver. Hyde bowed his head, planted his huge paws, and faced into the wind.

  “Oliver!” Catherine shouted through the storm. “Wait, Oliver! I think Hyde has something back here.”

  As she looked up the rocky ledge after Oliver and Drummer, Catherine again saw only reflecting rainwater and a black, rocky fell beyond. Her throat tightened. They were never supposed to split up. Now he had gone for Drummer, assuming she was with him. And he was gone.

  Catherine pulled her radio from her coat pocket.

  Hyde threw himself against his leash, leaping on his hind legs, whining.

  Both torch and radio were knocked from Catherine’s hands in the tangle of leash. The torch dropped into mud at her feet. She heard the radio crash into a rock, then bounce away, down the slope.

  Muttering at her dog, she recovered the muddy, still working, torch as Hyde continued to throw himself against the leash, nearly bowling her over.

  He barked: a sharp, frustrated, frantic note she had only ever heard when he was closed off and could not reach her—desperate to get what he wanted. This time, he wanted something, or someone, else.

  Start after Oliver to meet up with him and Drummer, or wait for them to return to find herself and Hyde. Those were the options. The only two options.

  Hyde barked again.

  Catherine bit her lip, tasting icy rain. She closed her eyes.

  Hyde whimpered. She looked at him. He turned, staring at her, eyes wide and eager despite the rain, he barked.

  Catherine took a deep breath. This isn’t Lassie. He doesn’t know, she reminded herself. He’s in training. But there’s a little boy out here. Life and death. That’s what we’re here for. No, we’re here for training. Follow or wait for them to return. Never wander off a different way.

  The tear-streaked, grubby face in Hyde Park so long ago: Promise you’ll be good to him?

  The little boy out here, now. Alone.

  Two options.

  Catherine held her breath, reached down, and unclipped Hyde’s leash. “Seek!”

  He bounded away, tail waving, racing through rain and darkness along a narrow path between rocks while Catherine jogged after, sloshing through mud as she watched the ground closely to avoid tripping.

  Fifty yards on and Catherine feared she had lost her dog. Another twenty and she found Hyde standing still, gazing ahead through darkness. Only when Catherine drew level with him could her headlamp reveal pale shapes ahead. A dozen, thirty, maybe more, sheep stood there, huddled together, watching them.

  “Hello!” Catherine called as loud as she could. “Is anyone out there?”

  Only pounding wind and baleful sheep.

  She reached for Hyde’s collar. His ears leapt as if someone called his name. The next second, he was off, rushing into that mass of sheep.

  Horrified, Catherine screamed at him. Hyde ignored her, bounding beyond the path and up the hill, ears back now and tail low as he crashed through the woolly menace.

  The flock scattered, bolting in all directions—including toward Catherine.

  She waved her arms, making herself big and obvious with the lights. They narrowly avoided her, tearing away in rain and darkness.

  Hyde bounded up the slope, out of sight, Catherine shouting for him. Heart in her throat, she slipped and stumbled her wa
y up. What if she couldn’t find him? What if she couldn’t find her way back? What if they couldn’t find her?

  She looked up. Hyde stood not fifteen feet ahead, wagging his soaked tail and looking back at her as a boy, cowering and shaking against the lee of a massive boulder, reached out to pet him.

  A light flashed above Catherine, far to the right. As she turned, her own headlamp caught the reflectors on a dog’s vest. Drummer ran toward them, down the slope. And that light—that must be Oliver.

  He would have a few choice words for them, Catherine had no doubt. But she didn’t mind. They were safe, all of them. And, as Catherine hurried forward to the sobbing child, she knew her Hyde Park Puppy and herself would make it at search and rescue.

  They still had a lot to learn, but they would—one day—make the team.

  A Note on Lake District Search and Rescue

  Although the groups, people, and dogs in this story are fictitious, canine search and rescue in England’s beautiful Lake District is a very real matter of life and death. For more information about these true-life heroes, visit the Lake District Mountain Rescue Searchdogs at www.lakes-searchdogs.org. You’ll also find updates and photos on their Facebook page.

  Table of Contents

  Hyde and Seek

  Table of Contents

  Hyde and Seek