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Turning back to the dogs, she called
out to them by their street names, “Titan! Cain!” which she used when they were
out at night to help intimidate strangers. Rufus wriggled in delight and Ben
waved his powerful thin tail. They knew they were going into the city for the
evening.
Jo scowled at them and said, “Hey. Toughen up!”
Titan’s lip curled into a smile, exposing his long white
canine teeth, and Cain burst into an explosive series of barks.
“Okay, that’s a little better,” she conceded, though the
tails still beat the air, “Let’s go.”
The three started out into the night. Inspired by exercises
from the Sumo training manual, Jo had developed her own loping stride. She did
not run or jog, fearing a lean and thin runner’s build would result. Instead,
she moved in a rolling rapid gait, bending her knees ever so slightly with a
movement somewhere between a chimp on two feet and a Native American Ute
hunter. She’d never yet hit her limit on how long or far she could go at this
pace.
It took two hours for Jo to travel the ten-mile stretch from
Newton to one of Boston’s grimier neighborhoods, arriving there after just
after midnight. Ben was the tracker, without formal training, but with a strong
natural instinct to sniff and find. Jo had shaped the behavior using verbal
praise, with Ben ready to work to exhaustion to attain a rare expression of her
pleasure. The huge hound was indiscriminate, able to search and rescue any
living creature, whether it was a rat in need, a cat, a dog, or even a city
pigeon with a broken wing. Most of his finds were lost or deserted pets of all
sorts, including reptiles, ferrets, bunnies, and the occasional gerbil. Ben
kept his nose to the ground in one continuous sniff. Rufus held his head high,
skipping along beside Ben, tail swishing back and forth. Ben’s tail waved the
air as he walked, until finally, often behind a large green dumpster, he would
tense his shoulder muscles, freeze, and stare intently.
Ben was always the first to find a creature, having both the
superior nose and concentration over the adolescent Rufus. Jo was never sure
what species they’d encounter. She came armed with rolled oats, meat, an apple,
baby food, and lactose-free milk for the animals. She carried packets of
vanilla energy paste, too, which she consumed herself every forty-five minutes
for concentrated calories, protein, and potassium. These she would sometimes
share with severely emaciated carnivores.
She’d been picking animals up off the roadside for as long
as she could remember. Jo found it ironic that this passion was initially
ignited by her mother, of all people. It was nearly impossible for Jo to think
about her mother as the person she once was. In fact, she thought of the woman
in that memory as a different person all together, one long dead and gone.
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