"Yes, I know, it's one of your most appealing features," you say, and finish washing his cheeks. "There, you're magnificent once again. You can do me now." You flip your tail up a little wickedly, though you know he won't go for it, and also like hell are you standing up.
The innuendo flies right past you. His adorable face is dirty and needs fluffing; the task deserves focus. You give his scars extra attention because the winter air is dry and they probably itch. Then you move on to grooming his shoulders, because he's all stickers again. "I've discovered a downside to the prairie," you point out after the third time you have to wipe tiny burrs off your tongue with your paw pads.
You dutifully de-sticker him, return to his face for a while just for affection's sake, and then snuggle up for a nap. "I like winter," you decide, "winter is cuddle season."
This is the best life, stripped down to the most pure joys: traveling, eating, sleeping. You're so glad to have Bel along for it, in your world now, rather than making the constant stressful concessions necessary to navigate human civilization. You hope it lasts. You rest your nose on his neck and doze happily off.
You are eventually forced to wake up due to the cruel and unfair event of not being sleepy any more. You get to your feet, shake off the thick blanket of snow, and make an enormous, sulky production out of stretching. Then you bite Bel's tail and pull. "I'm bored now," you say.
After a huge yawn and stretch of your own, you bowl him over and frisk out of the way of his retaliation, just to get your blood pumping. "Let's see where this road goes. It may lead to sandwiches. Coneflower! You still around?"
You prick your ears up and cast around, but Coneflower has left the area. She did a damn thorough job on skeletonizing the deer, too. You sadly lick some frozen blood off the road. "We can come back for her later," you suggest, when Bel looks to be considering a search party. "Now that we know where her territory is."
You fight it out in your head for a few more seconds -- you really wanted her to meet helen! -- but she's a free woman and she's got lots of winter stores thanks to that truck driver. She'll be okay. You shake snow out of your mane in a canine shrug. "All right. I'm in the mood to eat fries out of a McDonalds dumpster for some reason. Let's find civilization." The road makes for easy travel. The plowed, salted, sun-warmed asphalt is easier on your feet than snow, and you can easily hear the rare vehicle in time to get out of the way. After a while, you see a sign for 'Lake City' and decide that's where you want to go, if only because the name reminds you of home. A few dozen more miles and a few more signs, and the human side of your brain is slowly warming up to the task of orienting you. "No wonder the landscape was so open and natural," you point out, "we were crossing a reservation. We'll probably hit more farms and ranches now."
"Oh, that's--" you squint thoughtfully. "--That's a conservation area for humans, isn't it? I always thought that was ridiculous, there's billions of you. Er, them."
"Oh, come on. You know damn well people aren't all the same, and borders aren't just imaginary lines on a map." Hearing the defensiveness in your own voice, you check yourself, and sigh. "I'm a patriot but I'm not an idiot. I know my country's pulled some real dick moves. Reservations are one of them. But what it means to us in the moment is we're moving into white men's territory now, and white men like fences."
"White men can eat my fat, fluffy ass," you contribute, and make a grand point of leaping over the first chain-link fence you find. Then you're a bit stuck, as it's lower and slushier on the other side, and scrambling back to Bel's side is much less graceful an operation.
After laughing at him a little bit, you join him, because what else are you going to do? There's a smell of machinery in the air, and after following it for a while, you discover that you've entered some kind of digging area -- a gravel pit, maybe. There are some mining machines parked near an uneven basin half a mile across. Everything's dusted with snow -- today might be a weekend, you can't recall really, but probably it's just shut down for the season. Except that when you pause, you can hear a diesel engine idling in the distance. The human side of your brain connects it with the recent snow and lights up. "How would you like to hitch a ride into town on a sand truck?"
"Not at all, but I expect you can sell me on the idea," you say, and trot curiously after him. The machines are enormous and smelly and dangerous, but you're sure he's clever enough to get everything sorted.
Cautiously, you keep to the cover of snowbanks and piles of equipment, a spare snowplow blade or stack of tires, until you're close enough to see the situation clearly. The truck is idling near a little shack, beside which two men are drinking coffee and smoking. It looks like the truck is already filled. They're waiting on dispatch or just killing some time. You find a decent hiding spot beside the driveway and hunker down. "Okay, see how there's a bit of a gap between the side of the truck and the hopper?" "There's plenty of room for us to hide in there. The driver's got a huge blind spot directly behind the vehicle. So when he drives past here, we can just hop up and scootch in. If he's sanding the highway, bad luck, we just end up back here. If he's sanding residential streets, we've shaved at least a day off our trip. You game?" It's not that you ever thought of yourself as some kind of superspy, but it feels good to be using the skills you trained for.
You wag uncertainly and hunker down right next to him. "This is very adventurous," you say nervously. You've hitched rides on cargo ships before, but trucks seem more... personally intimidating. "Oh! Look, they're done drinking! What do we do?"
He's nervous. That's adorable. You lick his nearer ear reassuringly. "Just wait. It'll go right past us here." One of the men gets in the truck, and the other drops his cigarette butt in the snow and goes inside the shack. Good. If he stayed outside to smoke another and watch the truck leave, he'd have had a chance of spotting your shenanigans. The sound of the truck changes as the driver puts it in gear. The wheels make the snow squeak and groan, and the truck begins to move. "Okay, wait for it -- do what I do --" You crouch on your elbows, ready for a sprinting start.
When Bel takes off running you're close behind, and for an insane moment you actually think you're going to run down and hamstring an entire truck. Then Bel leaps up and scrambles into the gap between truck parts, and you jump up after him. It's a close fit. Bel is now wearing you like a doggie sweater. "Did we do it?" you ask, doubtfully.
"We sure did!" You're wagging joyfully even though it makes your tail thwap the side of the hopper with a 'donk' sound every time. Hopefully the driver can't hear it over the engine. "Now we just relax and enjoy the ride."
"Alright," you say doubtfully. It's a lot louder and windier and more rattly than riding in Bel's car. Still, you put a gam face on, wriggle around until you've both got most of your paws on the floor, and settle in to wait. The first time the truck stops you get to your feet eagerly. "Are we there yet?"
