Page 66 of Sheltering Instinct

The ice that dumped through his system was the closest thing to terror Levi experienced outside of a combat zone.

Chapter Twenty-One

Levi

The structure that the soldiers set up was pretty slick. Under a dome of branches, there were two long boxes at different levels. His was on the ground, and Tess’s was high enough up that he lifted her into place.

They lay silently on the folded blankets, which were meant to cushion their bodies from the hard floor. Tucked into the corner, extra water bottles were within easy reach.

While the ceiling and floor of their crawl spaces were solid wood, the sides were constructed of randomly placed sticks that had been nailed into place. This camouflaged the person inside and removed any sense of claustrophobia. The sticks weren’t solid sides like the plank boards he’d imagined; if need be, one could kick themselves free.

Not quite cage-like, this design gave Levi a fairly clear view of the search team moving toward the tent.

Mojo was working off-lead, nose to the ground, legs splayed wide, chuffing loudly as he moved along. This tested Mojo’s ability to track a subject-specific scent, ignoring all others.

While Levi’s trail was fresh, there was a significant wind rustling the trees around them. When a dog air-scented, they usually searched for a generalized human scent rather than a specific person's scent. Whether that human scent lingered around for detection was weather and time dependent.

Colder was better; it held the scent toward the ground.

Heat, like yesterday, meant the sent would rise faster.

If it rained, things got difficult fast.

Today, neither the temperature nor precipitation should cause Mojo issues.

But there were two confounding elements. First, the wind had really picked up. The scent would spread in a cone shape. The wider the cone, the harder it was to track back to the source. And second, no one was going to signal Mojo that he should be searching for a second subject.

Now that Levi thought about it, when Tess made her gathering motion, it seemed like the movement came from the same place as a K9’s scenting the wind. She would draw something through her sense of touch that other humans couldn’t, just as K9s sniffed the air, finding the essence of something discernable to them, while Levi had no sense of the situation at all.

Right now, Mojo had tracked Levi all the way to the tent and, squatting low, had thrust his nose under the zippered tent door. Without a command, he wiggled his body inside.

Levi was excited to look at the video when the team got back to the vineyard that evening. Reaper and Goose were monitoring both drone footage and footage from Mojo’s collar camera.

From Mojo’s collar cam, the team would know exactly what Mojo was up to in that tent.

Levi was particularly interested in that information because when he squatted outside the tent to leave his scent by the door, Levi saw a Kong, some tennis balls, and a tug toy. All were poised as temptations to distract Mojo from his task.

The first test tracked Levi’s scent from his last known location to the tent.

The second test was coming back out of the tent and back on the trail without further commands.

Levi was holding his breath.

Out Mojo came, nose to the ground, he circled the tent, then came right over to Levi and peered through the twigs.

Levi said nothing.

Mojo’s nose twitched, and he rounded to where Tess lay still and quiet. He lifted on to his hind legs, put his paws on the structure, and looked in. He sent off two sharp barks.

Tess said nothing.

Mojo traced back to Levi, caught his gaze, and barked with a stomp of his foot before turning of his head toward Tess.

Levi said nothing.

Two barks, two stomps, and an extra-long glance toward Tess, Mojo was clearly angry that Levi wasn’t helping her. When he didn’t get what he wanted, Mojo ran back to Kimba, who was now lying on the ground. “Mojo, help.”

Mojo came back to yell at Levi. And at this point, Levi felt it was okay to say, “Help.” So Mojo understood he was also in trouble.

---