The hill was steeper than Garam had expected.
The stone steps, slick with rain, were slippery in places, and rainwater trickled in thin streams beneath the old walls.
Chichi climbed about three steps ahead before turning around.
“Hurry up!”
Garam caught his breath.
“You have four legs.”
“You have two.”
“By that logic, you have more.”
Chichi thought about it for a moment.
“Huh. You’re right.”
Then she took off again.
The child walking beside Garam looked a little tense as they gazed up at the hill.
In one hand was Bori’s empty leash.
In the other was the small name tag they had found in the alley.
Their fingers kept brushing the edge of the tag.
Garam glanced at them and asked, “Are you tired?”
The child immediately shook their head.
“I’m okay.”
“We can take it slow.”
“Bori came up here yesterday, too.”
Garam paused.
“Yeah.”
The child looked ahead again.
“Then I can do it, too.”
Garam didn’t try to stop them.
Boss was quietly making his way up along the edge of the steps.
He didn’t move in a hurry.
Instead, whenever the alley split, he stopped and looked around.
Paths wide enough for cars.
Directions people passed through often.
Eaves where they could avoid the rain.
High walls and low walls.
He even seemed to be considering how the sound might have echoed when the thunder struck last night.
Garam asked, “See anything?”
“Not yet.”
Boss’s answer was brief.
“That gray cat said the big brown dog kept running.”
“Yeah.”
“I think we’re on the right track this far.”
“What about after that?”
Boss looked toward the top of the hill.
“I don’t know.”
Garam nodded.
That made him more trustworthy, if anything.
Boss didn’t pretend to know things.
If there weren’t enough clues, he said there weren’t enough clues.
Then Chichi shouted from the steps, “There’s a cat here!”
Garam looked up.
A cat with white and gray fur was sitting on top of a low wall.
When Chichi approached, the cat raised itself slightly, wary.
“Did you see a big dog yesterday?”
Chichi asked first.
The gray cat stared at her for a long while, then let out a short meow.
Garam understood the words directly, too.
“At night?”
“Yeah.”
“Brown?”
“Yeah.”
The cat thought for a moment, then looked toward the left side of the alley.
“He went that way.”
The child looked at Garam.
“What did it say?”
“It says he went left.”
The child’s face brightened a little.
Chichi was about to dash straight into the alley on the left.
“Wait,” Boss said.
Chichi stopped.
“Why?”
Boss looked up at the cat on the wall.
“Around what time?”
Garam asked in his place.
The cat looked uncertain.
“Night.”
“Before the thunder? After?”
“When it was loud.”
Garam looked at Boss.
“The timing isn’t exact.”
“Yeah.”
Still, the sighting itself was useful enough.
Garam thanked the cat and headed into the alley on the left.
The left alley split in two almost immediately.
One side ran between old row houses.
The other sloped down beside a small vacant lot.
Chichi looked back and forth between the two paths.
“Which way do we go?”
Garam looked at Boss, too.
Boss headed toward the vacant lot first.
A little mud remained on the ground from the rain the day before.
Garam crouched down.
“Paw prints?”
Chichi leaned over them from beside him.
Several kinds of tracks were mixed together in the mud.
Human shoes.
Small cat paws.
And slightly larger four-legged tracks.
The child swallowed.
“Are they Bori’s?”
Garam didn’t answer right away.
“They look about the right size.”
“Then…”
“But there could be other dogs in the neighborhood, too.”
The child’s expression fell a little.
Garam added gently, “They’re still worth following up on.”
Boss followed the paw prints for several steps.
All the way to the end of the vacant lot.
That was where the tracks disappeared.
The ground changed back to asphalt.
Boss raised his head.
“That way.”
“Why?”
“Dead end.”
Garam looked over. The far end of the lot was blocked by a small wall and several storage sheds.
“Then Bori might have gone in and come back out.”
Boss nodded.
“Yeah.”
Chichi quickly ran toward the sheds.
“I’ll check!”
Garam called after her, “Don’t go too far!”
“Okay!”
Watching Chichi’s back, the child asked, “Chichi is really fast.”
“Yeah.”
“Is she always like that?”
Garam thought for a moment.
“Yeah.”
“She’s fast even when she doesn’t need to be,” Boss said.
Garam laughed.
“That’s true, too.”
A little while later, Chichi came back.
“Nothing!”
“You check everywhere?”
“Yep.”
“Anything strange?”
Chichi thought for a moment.
“A little ball.”
“Besides that.”
“A wet sock.”
“Besides that.”
“A black bag.”
“Chichi.”
“Bori isn’t there.”
Garam let out a laugh mixed with a sigh.
The child smiled a little, too.
The tension that had stiffened their face since morning eased for a moment.
When they entered the alley between the row houses, they encountered two more cats.
The first said it hadn’t seen Bori.
The second said it had.
The problem was the direction.
“He went down.”
Garam asked again, “Down?”
“Yeah.”
The cat pointed downhill.
Chichi tilted her head.
“But the last cat said he came up.”
Boss went still, too.
Anxiety returned to the child’s face.
“Did he go back down?”
Garam didn’t immediately say yes.
“He might have.”
“Then where should we go?”
Garam looked at Boss.
Boss surveyed the alley for a moment.
Then he said quietly, “I think he kept changing direction.”
“Why?”
“Because he was scared.”
Garam narrowed his eyes slightly.
Boss looked up and down the hill in turn.
“When the thunder struck, he ran.”
“Yeah.”
“When a car passed, he dodged again.”
“Yeah.”
“When people came out, he changed direction again.”
Garam slowly nodded.
If Bori hadn’t been running toward a specific destination—
If he had only been trying to get away from the frightening sounds—
Then there was no reason for his path to be straight.
The child asked carefully, “What did he say?”
Garam explained, “He thinks Bori wasn’t running toward somewhere in particular. He was scared and kept taking whichever direction was quieter at the time.”
The child looked down at the empty leash.
“Then won’t he be even harder to find?”
“A little.”
Garam answered honestly.
“But he probably didn’t just go absolutely anywhere.”
“Why not?”
“Because we know what Bori is afraid of.”
Cars.
Loud noises.
Strangers.
And rain.
Garam looked around.
“Thinking about it the other way, he probably preferred places that were quiet, sheltered from the rain, and low on people.”
Boss nodded.
“Yeah.”
The child’s expression shifted a little, too.
“So we just have to find somewhere like that?”
“Yeah.”
Garam checked the map of the neighborhood on his phone.
Nearby were a small park, a laundromat that had gone out of business, and a parking lot.
Behind the hill stood several old factory warehouses.
“Here.”
Garam zoomed in on the screen.
“What about the warehouses?”
Boss checked the direction.
“Probably quiet.”
“And there probably won’t be many people around.”
The child said immediately, “Let’s go.”
Garam nodded.
The path toward the warehouses was even narrower.
A succession of alleys barely wide enough for one person and low walls stretched ahead.
As he walked, Garam checked his phone.
There was no way for Gramps to contact them directly.
Instead, the neighborhood cats had been told to pass along any information they heard to the cats conducting the search.
Chichi suddenly lifted her head.
“Huh?”
Garam looked at her immediately.
“What is it?”
“A sound.”
“What kind of sound?”
Chichi’s ears twitched.
Garam couldn’t hear anything.
Boss pricked up his ears, too.
A moment later, a small cry reached them.
Meow.
It came from beyond the wall.
Chichi sprang onto the top of the wall.
A small cat with black stripes was sitting there.
The two cats exchanged a few brief words.
Garam approached, too.
“A big brown dog?”
The cat said, “I saw him.”
The child grabbed Garam’s arm.
“You saw him?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
Garam asked again, “When did you see him?”
“At night.”
“Where?”
The cat pointed toward the warehouses.
“He went that way.”
Garam’s eyes sharpened.
“You saw him going inside?”
“Up to the area around them.”
“Did you see him come out?”
“No.”
Boss immediately looked toward the warehouses.
Garam nodded, too.
“Let’s go.”
Chichi hopped down from the wall.
“It’s close!”
Garam said at once, “We don’t know if he’s still there.”
Chichi nodded.
“But we saw him.”
“Yeah.”
The child began walking a little faster, too.
There were three warehouse buildings.
Old metal doors.
Rusty shutters.
Stacks of scrap wood and plastic barrels sat beside them.
It didn’t look like a place people visited often.
Garam stopped and surveyed the area.
“Bori!”
The child called first.
“Bori!”
There was no answer.
The child called again.
“Bori!”
Not a sound.
Garam saw the child’s shoulders droop a little.
“Let’s look a little longer.”
Boss circled the first warehouse.
Chichi ran around the opposite side.
Garam and the child checked the front of the second warehouse.
The door was locked.
The gap beside it was too narrow, too.
When they reached the third warehouse, Boss suddenly stopped.
“Here.”
Garam approached.
There was a little mud on the bottom of the shutter.
And beside it, a single red thread caught on the metal corner.
The child’s face went rigid.
“His leash?”
Garam examined it carefully.
He couldn’t be certain.
But Bori’s leash was red.
“It’s possible.”
Boss looked at the narrow gap beside the shutter.
It would be difficult for a person to get through.
A cat could manage it.
Chichi saw that, too.
“I’ll go in!”
Garam looked into the gap.
It was dark and narrow.
“Wait.”
Chichi was already putting her front paw into the opening.
“You’re noisy,” Boss said.
Chichi stopped.
“I can be quiet.”
Boss looked at Chichi.
Chichi looked back at Boss.
And then, at the same time—
A low voice came from behind them.
“I’ll go.”
Garam turned around.
A black cat was sitting on top of the pile of scrap wood.
His eyes were golden.
“Goro?”
Chichi’s eyes widened, too.
“When did you get here?”
“Just now.”
Garam asked, “Did Gramps send you?”
“Yeah.”
“What did he say?”
“A lot of cats have reported seeing a dog around here.”
Garam looked toward the warehouse.
“Can you check inside?”
Goro looked at the gap.
“I can.”
Chichi said, “I can go, too.”
Goro replied, “You can get inside.”
“Exactly.”
“You can’t get inside quietly.”
Chichi closed her mouth.
Boss added from beside them, “He’s right.”
“Even you, Boss?”
Garam patted Chichi’s head once.
“Let’s leave this one to Goro.”
Chichi looked dissatisfied but stepped aside.
Goro lowered himself and slipped through the gap beside the shutter.
His black body disappeared as if melting into the darkness.
The child’s eyes widened.
“He really went in.”
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t he scared?”
“Goro’s good at this sort of thing.”
The inside remained quiet.
A few seconds.
Ten seconds.
Twenty seconds.
The child gripped the leash tighter and tighter.
Garam stared at the gap in the shutter, too.
Chichi couldn’t stand it and pricked her ears forward.
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Wait,” Boss said.
A little more time passed.
And then—
Goro’s voice came from inside.
“Garam.”
Garam crouched down.
“Yeah?”
A brief silence.
Goro said, “The dog isn’t here.”
The child’s face went rigid.
But Goro wasn’t finished.
“There are signs he was here.”
Garam’s eyes sharpened.
“What?”
“Wet paw prints.”
“Again?”
A pause.
“Fur.”
The child swallowed.
“Bori’s fur?”
Garam didn’t answer yet.
Goro moved a little farther inside.
Then he said, “There are signs he went out through the back, too.”
Garam looked beside the shutter.
“The back?”
“There’s another door.”
Boss immediately moved toward the alley beside the warehouse.
“Let’s go.”
Garam told the child, “Let’s go around back.”
They went around the warehouse and emerged into a narrow path.
A small metal gate stood half open at the back.
Mud tracks remained on the ground.
Slightly larger paw prints.
More than one or two.
The child’s hand trembled.
“Could they have been Bori’s?”
Garam looked in the direction of the tracks.
Beyond the old wall was a narrow slope leading farther downhill.
At the bottom was a small stream.
“He went out this way,” Boss said.
Garam nodded.
“Yeah.”
The child asked, “So he went down again?”
“Probably.”
This time, Garam answered with a little more certainty.
The trail continued.
Bori had made it all the way up the hill.
He had gone inside the warehouse to escape the rain and the noise.
Then, at some point, he had come back out.
They still didn’t know why.
Garam looked toward the stream.
Then Chichi suddenly lifted her head.
“Garam.”
“What is it?”
Chichi was looking down the slope.
“She says it smells like a dog over there.”
Garam blinked.
“Who does?”
Chichi pointed to the top of the wall.
The small striped cat that had been following them sat there.
The cat flicked its tail once and said, “I saw him earlier.”
Garam asked immediately, “When?”
“A little while ago.”
“A big brown dog?”
“Yeah.”
“Where did he go?”
The cat looked down toward the stream.
“Where there’s water.”
The child’s face turned white.
“The stream?”
Garam immediately looked at the child.
“Don’t panic.”
“But—”
“It didn’t say he went into the water.”
Garam confirmed with the cat, “You saw him heading toward the stream?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you see him go into the water?”
“No.”
Garam relayed the answer exactly to the child.
The tension eased from the child’s face a little, but they still looked anxious.
Boss was already looking down the slope.
“Let’s go.”
This time, Garam nodded immediately, too.
“Yeah.”
Chichi shifted her front paws eagerly.
“Should I go first?”
Garam said, “Just don’t get too far ahead.”
Chichi’s ears shot up.
“Okay!”
Her orange tail quickly disappeared down the slope.
Goro had joined them from behind the warehouse without anyone noticing.
Boss followed after him.
Garam and the child hurried down, too.
Bori still wasn’t in sight.
But this time, the trail was much closer.
Someone had seen a big brown dog in this area only a little while ago.
As Garam descended the wet path, he thought:
He couldn’t have gone far.
At least…
This time, that was something they could afford to believe.
Episode 7: A Scared Dog Doesn't Run in a Straight Line — End.