As Randy drew back his arm to throw the ball, Ben sat waiting for the order to fetch. The moment it came he chased after it, eager to reach it before it stopped rolling. He grabbed the bright yellow ball in his jaws and pounded back the way he’d come. But his master was nowhere to be seen.
Ben looked around, wondering where he could have gone. Then he saw him, getting back into the station-wagon. He raced towards it, ready to scramble up onto the front seat as usual. But before he could do so the door slammed shut. Leaping up, he placed his big, furry paws against the hot metal. His master sat grim-faced, staring straight ahead.
“No!” he shouted angrily, his fingers tight on the wheel. “Bad Ben, get away.”
Ben obediently backed away and as soon as he did so the car sped off, throwing up stones and dirt. Thinking this must be some new game, Ben loped along after it, his pink tongue lolling. But after a while the gap between him and the car grew too great and he stopped running. Puzzled, the big brown dog lay down on the road and waited. Randy was sure to be back soon.
Being out in the open country didn’t worry him. The cawing of crows in a nearby field, the bark of a vixen calling to her young; these were sounds he knew well. Being alone, though, that was strange.
Evening came and the sky darkened to a smoky blue-grey. Ben settled his head on his paws and slept. But his dreams were bad, full of the cries of his master’s wife demanding that he ‘get rid of that dog before it does the same to the baby’. Ben knew she was talking about the wounded sheep Randy had found laying in the field yesterday. But he hadn’t attacked the sheep, it must have been the coyote he’d chased from the farm the day before. If only Ben could tell her.
He was woken by the blaring of a horn. His master was back! But it wasn’t the station-wagon bearing down on him, but a huge silver haulage truck blasting its way through. He bounded to the roadside just in time. A moment later and he’d have been squished beneath its wheels.
It was fully dark now and a chill wind ruffled his shaggy coat. He imagined his master at home eating his supper, a juicy steak maybe, or pork and beans with wedges of thick white bread to mop up the sauce. His mouth watered.
On the brow of a hill stood a farmhouse, with a thin plume of smoke curling lazily from its chimney. He started down the track. But as he drew near he saw another dog in the yard, a scrawny mutt with a scarred white muzzle. The savoury tang of stew wafted from its bowl.
As Ben slunk closer the dog bared its teeth in warning. Still he approached, hungrily sniffing the air. The dog’s hackles rose and it gave a bark, telling Ben to keep away. Ben crawled forward on his belly, inching nearer. Up on the porch, the screen door banged open.
“Who’s there?” called a high, quavering voice.
Ben stood up, wagging his tail to show he was friendly.
But the old man didn’t seem to want to be friends. As a shower of stones rained down around him Ben turned and tore back along the track, leaving a cloud of fine red dust billowing in his wake.
By the time he reached the road his sides were heaving. Now he wasn’t just hungry, he was thirsty too. But with no rain for weeks the ground was dust-bowl dry. Even the wooden horse trough at the side of the road was cracked through. Ben looked around. Way, way off in the distance, he could see lights. Lights meant people.
Five minutes later he arrived at a gas station with two tall pumps. Between them was a bucket for washing windscreens. Water! Ben pushed his muzzle deep inside. But the bucket was empty, not even a drop of moisture remained. Beside him, a camper-van drew up. The door opened and a little girl threw herself out.
“Hey, look, Mom,” she cried, “the world’s biggest dog!”
“Don’t touch him now, Katie,” the mother warned, “he looks mean.”
Ben felt hurt. He might be huge and hairy and have one blue eye and one brown but everyone said he was friendlier than a barrel-load of monkeys.
“Aw, he’s not mean, Mom. He’s cute.”
The girl held out her hand and Ben licked it.
“You’d better go wash your hands now, Katie,” the mother scolded. “A mutt like that, you don’t know where it’s been.”
The girl shrugged and ran off to the washroom. Ben padded after her. As he watched the sparkling water gurgling down the plughole he licked his lips.
“You thirsty, boy?” the girl asked. Cupping her hands beneath the faucet, she lowered them carefully to his mouth. He gratefully lapped his fill. “Better?” She pulled gently on his ear and Ben knew he’d found a friend. Outside, a shout rang out.
“Katie, let’s go.”
Next moment the girl was running back outside. One last wave and she was gone.
Alone again, Ben flopped down on the washroom floor and snoozed.
This time he dreamt of the moment he’d cornered the coyote in the sheep-pen. For several seconds the snarling beast had stood its ground, snapping if he tried to approach, before finally backing down and bolting back through the hole in the fence. They’d been the longest seconds of Ben’s life. His ear twitched as he heard someone calling his name.
“Ben? Ben, boy, are you here?”
Confused, he opened one eye. No one. And yet it had sounded like...
As his owner appeared in the washroom doorway Ben leapt to his feet in joy. Then he remembered those terrible words. No! Bad boy. Get away. He slunk back down.
“It’s okay, lad,” Randy said in a strange, tight voice, “we got that old coyote! He came back for the chickens to find me waiting. I didn’t think you’d really attacked that sheep but Sheila, well, she was worried for the baby, you know?”
Kneeling on the floor, he threw his arms around Ben’s neck and hugged him.
“Soon as I flagged down that camper-van and the girl told me about this funny looking mutt at the gas station, I knew it had to be you. Come on, boy, let’s go home.”
Delightedly, Ben leapt into the station-wagon and took his seat alongside Randy. He was going back to best place in the world. Home.
