Rescue
Inspired by Barry the Saint Bernard

The winter wind tousles my fur, the biting frost always trying to get under my snow-dusted coat. I lift my nose to the sky, the scents covered by white. Nothing. Then a breeze carrying the scent of a young child. I give a sharp bark and charge to the north, all thoughts forgotten except that of the missing boy. I run through the snow, pouncing so I don’t fall in past my legs.

A cliff is up ahead, a cave carved into the bottom, and his scent grows stronger. The cave is coated in ice, stalactites hanging from the ceiling like teeth.

I bound ahead of the men following me and I am the first to see him, curled up, face blue and blank. I’m scared to see how frozen he is, but I will not give up. Not yet. I lick and lick as the men in parkas swarm the cave entrance calling my and the boy’s names. I lick until my tongue feels dead and then some more.

And then finally with a small shudder, the child’s soft brown eyes crack open, and he lets out a raspy breath. Success! My success. This is the best part of any search, when the loved ones hug the newly found and my owner scratches behind my ear, the spot that always itches.

“Good dog,” he says. “You never cease to amaze me.”

I let my tongue loll out. My work is done. This is the job of a Saint Bernard. And I did mine right.