He was found in a box down by the great river.
The local neighborhood kids were playing by the river’s bank and noticed the cardboard box hidden in the reeds and mud. “Look over there!” one of the boys yelled as they ran over to look at it. A little girl pushed through the group and carefully opened the cardboard flaps and found a scared, shivering little brown puppy inside. She held the whimpering dog in her arms and made this promise: “I’ll make sure you have a good life little guy. And I’m going to name you Moses.” So that’s how Moses the terrier got his name. And this is his story.
The little girl took Moses home to her parents. Both looked at her and the puppy with crossed arms and stern looks and said, “We can’t afford a dog!” The mother loaded Moses into the family van and they headed downtown to the City Animal Shelter. Moses quickly learned about the pain of broken promises.
The City Animal Shelter was the most frightening place that Moses had ever seen. Mournful howling of dogs and cats masked the mechanical sound of gates slamming. It was a dark, dank and depressing place. The little girl was crying when the mother handed Moses over to the tall man behind the desk. The car door slammed and Moses watched the taillights disappear into the distance. He looked around and realized his life was about to seriously change.
The guard carried Moses down the rows of cages. Big cages. Little cages. Medium cages. All filled with every shape and size of dog and cat. The big cage had a Great Dane named Bleu. Bleu boomed out, “Dead dog walking.” Moses shivered at the words. He noticed the room at the end of the hall: The sign on the door said, “Incinerator.” Moses began to howl as he was put into his cage.
Weeks passed and Moses fell into a routine. And life genuinely got better. His tail-wagging friendly way helped him make several friends. And one of those friends was the warden. Warden Ramsey was a stern man with a scar on his face. “He got that from a beagle,” said Bleu. “What happened to the beagle?” Moses asked in reply. Bleu just looked down the hall at the door with “incinerator” on the sign. Unless you were adopted by the rare family who came in, the door with the “incinerator” on the sign was the only way out.
But Warden Ramsey took a liking to Moses and let him out of his cage every afternoon. They played ball. He scratched him behind his ears. It was a good life, all things considered. But Moses knew that he had to find a way out. He had to lead his people to freedom.
That opportunity came a cold night in December. The night guard had finished walking through the cages. Moses had been plotting this night for months. It was as Elvis said, now or never.
All the dogs had been in communication with their fleas. When the guard opened the door to the waiting room, all the fleas jumped off the dogs at once and onto the guard. “ARRGH!” the man screamed as he was being bitten thousands of fleas. Moses whistled with his paws and the cats (always sneaky creatures) broke out of their cages and walked down the row of dogs. The fat, striped tabby cat opened Bleu’s cage. “I’d eat you, but…” The cat smiled and said, “You owe me one.”
All the animals quietly slinked past the security camera. The other guard, sitting next to the monitor, was asleep. Moses walked into the lobby and jumped up on the chair and then onto the counter. He pressed the red button and the door to the outside unlocked.
The cold air told them they had reached freedom.
But they weren’t safe yet. The guard with thousands of itchy, red welts woke up the sleeping guard. “CALL THE WARDEN! They’re escaping!” Moses and the other animals were running as fast as they could away from the shelter to the river.
Since it was December, the river was frozen. The ice was solid, but thin. Moses pressed it with his paw. Crackling noises made him hesitate. But the moving flashlights off in the distance and the muffled yelling meant they had to move. And move now.
“I’m afraid of water, ” the Tabby said. Bleu looked down at his new friend, knelt down and said, “Climb on. It’s payback time” And with that eight cats climbed on the back of the giant Great Dane. Moses and the animals slowly made their way across the ice. Moses turned around and saw the guards and the Warden at the river bank. The flea-bitten guard ran out on the ice. And fell through. The other two men rescued him.
Moses and the animals were free.
Now came the hard part — Finding a home. The pack of 20 animals roamed through the streets of the city looking for scraps of food. “I’m hungry,” Bleu moaned. The Tabby got away from him just in case. No sense being a cat appetizer for a hungry Great Dane. Moses was very frustrated and shook his paw at the sky.
One morning, the pack of animals came to a farm. Moses looked at the sign on the gate. “Animal sanctuary. No-kill shelter.” He asked the siamese cat to read the sign to the others an all the animals started to howling with joy. Moses jumped on Bleu’s back and rang the bell on the gate. A lady came out in her housecoat and petted each and everyone of them, “I read about you in the paper. Welcome home.”
Moses smiled but he realized he could not enter the promised land. While everyone else was being taken inside, he quietly walked away. Bleu turned around and saw his friend on the horizon and howled. That was the last time they saw each other.
Moses walked into the park and saw kids playing and mothers talking. He knew it would be a good source of handouts, so he went over to a group of toddlers. “Showtime, ” he thought as he did his cute little brown dog routine. Yes, he was proud. But he was also hungry.
Just then he heard a little girl yell, “MOSES!” Moses, who was eating from a bag of chips, quickly turned to see the little girl who had rescued him out of the box. “MOSES! MOSES! MOSES!” She ran across the park screaming his name. He ran at her barking.
This time the mother couldn’t argue. “If he escaped the pound and found you again, it’s meant to be.”
That night, bathed and fed, Moses slept at the foot of his new little girl’s bed. He rolled over, started to snore and dreamed the most pleasant dreams.
© 2011 Marshall Ramsey
