Creed stood and made a call to Iniquus Logistics to apprise them of his search task.
“Copy, Creed, we have you and Rou up on the board. We’re tracking your progress.”
Creed programmed his shirt to track Rou’s GPS collar, then pulled on his wrap-around clear plastic glasses to protect his eyes from the foliage and his leather gloves to deal with briars.
Rou knew exactly what it meant when Creed dressed out like that, and her tail got to thumping.
Creed walked Rou a few steps from the blanket, putting her in a sit-stay in front of him. “Rourou, we’re going on a search.” He bent and removed her leash.
Rou’s tail thumped faster, her mouth opened, and her pink tongue hung out; her eyes were bright with anticipation.
Holding the evidence bag with the child’s sock under Rou’s nose, Creed commanded, “Rougarou, scent. Scent.”
Rou ducked her chin, thrusting her nose into the bag where she chuffed, pulling the scent into her olfactory system. Once she was locked in and memorized the scent, her head popped back out, and she focused on Creed.
“Rougarou, search.” Creed folded the top of the bag and moved it to the cargo pocket on his left thigh to pull out if Rou needed a refresher.
Rou’s nose went up in the air, her nostrils working, then she tipped her nose down to skirt the ground. She circled the family’s picnic blanket then took off running, nose hovering just above the grass, so close that Creed thought she could trip over her velvety ears. She ran this way and that, making big circles and small ones.
People everywhere saw her in her bright orange working-dog vest with no one in close proximity, and they chuckled at her antics. Creed knew what she was doing; she was right on track, following the trail for the entirety of the boy’s time running around the field.
A woman saw Rou stop and sniff a particular spot and reached out to grab her collar.
She thought she was being a good Samaritan, helping to capture a loose dog.
Creed cupped his hands around his mouth and called out. “Working dog, please release her collar, ma’am.”
The woman startled and jerked her hand back, grimacing at Rou, who had been thrown off her task and sat staring at the woman. As Creed jogged over, he made a mental note that they would need to teach Rou what to do if such a thing were to happen on future searches.
“I’m so sorry,” the woman said as Creed pulled out the scent source bag. “I thought I was helping.”
“It came from a good place, I’m sure. Misunderstanding is all,” Creed said as he got Rou back on task.
Soon, Rou was in the woods, and Creed had high confidence they were on target.
Creed predicted that there he wouldn’t find a footprint with paw prints or otherwise. This debris was dry throughout its entire thickness, down to the clay below. On the way in, Creed noticed that a fire hazard warning sign had the needle pressed tothe far extreme of red. Tracking behind Rou, Creed could see the dangers that a nonchalantly flicked cigarette could pose.
Where that impacted his ability to find prints, there were places where the leaf litter was disturbed, and the stride seemed short enough to be a child’s track. And there, it looked like someone had dragged a stick.
This property was situated on a bowl-shaped peninsula with two rivers ribboning around it. That bowl formed the dell, which was a natural place to set up a permanent stage. Folks could sit on the slope and see clearly. The acoustics were good.
Following that slope away from the water and up the hill, there was an opulent mansion from back at the turn of the nineteenth century, when coal lined pockets with enormous wealth. The company used it as a retreat center for their national conventions. The boy might catch a glimpse of that and go to investigate.
If the boy continued in this direction, the rivers would act as a natural barricade. The child couldn’t wander but so far before he was stopped on three sides by the water.
One of the risks of searching for children who were about seven years old was that they knew enough to think they might be able to get themselves out of their mess. They’d try to backtrack, and usually that’s how they got themselves lost.
A tree was a tree was a tree.
If you thought you could find your way because you recognized a tree, you were lost for sure.
Right now, Rou was a red dot on Creed’s map app. She was running faster than a human could catch up, and she wasn’t holding back for anything. She had her scent. She felt the call of her genes to do the job she loved. And off she went.
Of course, she was wearing her collar with the camera and two-way communications. Creed could recall her if necessary.
Right now, Creed was peeking at his phone app because he was still learning to trust his shirt.
Mind-boggling that he could just run along and know where to go because of smart clothes.
