Tweeter’s lineage was far older and more illustrious than her trainer could conceive. Her ancestors danced in the royal courts of Egypt, inspiring timeless murals that survive in fragments today. They hunted with King David and served as the inspiration for Proverbs 30:31. Even before civilization emerged, her bloodlines kept early man company,  adopting him as a companion, hunting and standing guard, protecting him and his family.

In the last few hundred years, a paltry length of time as Tweeter measured it, man had formalized and ritualized the contests that had grown up over the eons.

Racetracks replaced the flat, sandy plains her ancestors had run on and parimutual betting slips were the gems and jewels wagered on the outcomes. 

Like most of her ancient breed, Tweeter had a different understanding of time than people did. Her ancestors were written deep in her bones, their memories more real than the future and no more distant than her own last race. Crated in a kennel with fifty other greyhounds, chasing the mechanical bunny around the track every third day, Tweeter dreamed of other times and other ways.

Tweeter was five years old, and for the last three years had been winning races at dog tracks around the country. This marked her first racing season at Greyland Track.  For decades Greyland had been the premier track in the nation, the track on which champions ran. 

On non-racing days, Tweeter’s world was divided into neat segments by her turnouts and meals. First turnout, usually around six of the morning, was followed by breakfast. Turnouts again mid-morning and afternoon, dinner, and final turnout and lights out around ten at night. The rest of the day was comprised of naps, sorting out the scents in her world and reliving history. Country western music wailed in the background most of the day and there was a constant stream of trainers and handlers and their kids in and out of the kennel.

On racing days – well, there hadn’t been many of those in the last month. Not since she’d broken her leg. Tweeter risked a tiny lick on the cast, making sure Trainer was not watching. If she got caught, it was back in that hideous thing they called an Elizabethan collar. Tweeter’s ancestors had been part of the Virgin Queen’s court and she was quite certain that Elizabeth had never worn anything so hideous. Although, to be fair, some of the Queen Elizabeth’s ruffed collars had been rather ghastly.

There was only one positive thing about the cast on her leg, a small luxury that certainly didn’t measure up to her ancestor’s royal quarters but was appreciated nonetheless. Tweeter, weighing in at seventy-two pounds, was a big girl. The racing crate that she normally lived in provided plenty of stretch-out room for her smaller colleagues but was just the tiniest bit cramped for a girl her size. Her cast had landed her one of the large medical-recovery crates located at ground level. Not only was it larger but the air was slightly cooler down here than in the top crate she normally inhabited.

But she would have given up the roomy crate for the chance to get back on the track. In a heartbeat. No question. And maybe, someday soon – as I’ve said, Tweeter had little understanding of how linear and measured time was for people and most particularly did not understand what ‘tomorrow you get your cast off’ meant – she’d be back on the track.

Tweeter was still dreaming of the desert when she smelled someone new approaching the kennel. Human, female, one with an oddly familiar scent though Tweeter was quite certain they’d never been properly introduced. She riffled through her extensive catalogue of individual human scents just to make sure. No, she was not one of the handlers or trainers or someone from the puppy farm or training school, nor was it any veterinarian Tweeter had ever met.

The humans had no idea how much information they were constantly transmitting. Tweeter’s nose was on the order of a thousand times more sensitive than theirs were. Every person she’d ever met, every dog and every place was stored in her brain. The section of her brain dealing with scents was twice the size of a humans and her nostrils, with 150,000 scent receptors as opposed to the human’s 20,000, unraveled the complex symphony of scents around her automatically.

If she’d been so inclined, Tweeter could have explained that every being had a scent as unique as a fingerprint. Unlike a fingerprint, the unique scent contained a symphony of information broken down into three major categories: bloodlines, character and status.  Bloodline information was as detailed as any taxonomic system ever conceived. Tweeter knew immediately whether another dog had any greyhound blood, and if so, how closely they were related.  Bloodline information also told her whether the owner of the scent was friend (to be appropriately greeted) or could be safely eaten. (Admittedly, mistakes were made when a greyhound’s prey drive kicked into full gear, but that hardly counted.) The character components of the scent told her how dominant another greyhound’s character was, among other things.  Greyhounds were pack animals and knowing whether or not another dog was an alpha was critical to surviving.  The status grace notes were the most variable of the scent profile, indicating health, emotional state and hunger.

This woman, this new but somehow familiar scent – who was she? Was she related to someone Tweeter knew? Scent strains often ran in human families much as they did in greyhound bloodlines. Was she someone Tweeter’s ancestors knew, a person with such a distinctive scent that the echo still rang in Tweeter’s bones? Some of her most ancient scent files were a bit stale and hard to understand, so Tweeter couldn’t quite place the memory, but the red was quite certain there was a connection somewhere.

Tweeter cocked one ear toward the door and listened carefully, tracking the sound of the stranger’s footsteps. All around her, the other greyhounds were doing the same. The kennel fell silent as fifty greyhounds simultaneously held their breaths, listening.

The door opened. The woman’s scent flooded the kennel. Tweeter finally opened her eyes. (There’d been nothing to see before that and there was no point ruining a perfectly good dream.) The greyhounds exploded into joyous barking, howling and wagging, begging for a pat, a biskie, dinner, anything else that they could think of.

Tweeter joined in, hoping that finally someone would let her out to run, run, RUN! It was a possibility, wasn’t it? She’d already spotted the leashes in the woman’s hand, four of them. They were old friends somewhere back, the woman’s ancestors and hers, and if that counted for anything, the woman would take Tweeter’s muzzle off the rack, Tweeter would know that it was time to run!

Nancy Catherine Brubaeker stepped into the kennel and let the greyhounds’ joy wash over her. Was there any other breed of dog that could put that much energy intro greeting a new person?

The head trainer, Jack Dowd, lingered in the doorway and grinned at the look on her face. It was always like this with Nancy Catherine. You had to give her a few minutes just to bond with the dogs before you could talk any sense to her. It would have made him impatient if he hadn’t felt the same way himself.

Whenever Jack stood next to Nancy Catherine, he was always faintly surprised to realize that she only came up to his shoulder. Somehow she gave the impression of being a lot taller than she was. She had dark brown hair that she wore down to her shoulders, the sun-bleached tips of it shoved carelessly behind her ears. Her face was tanned and startlingly blue eyes, large and guileless, regarded the world with a look of anticipation.  She had an innocent, open air about her that often led people to underestimate her, a dangerous mistake when any of the precious greyhounds were involved. Nancy Catherine had a core of steel that ran through her gentle soul and she did not hesitate when she felt a greyhound was in danger. He’d seen her in action as head of the Greyhound Rescue group and she wasn’t someone he’d want to cross.

Finally, when he figured he’d given her enough time, he cleared his throat. Nancy Catherine turned to face him, her face glowing. The sheer naked joy on her face always made him feel slightly embarrassed, as though he’d intruded on a private moment, and that often made him far gruffer with her than he intended.
“Well, this is the lot,” Jack said. “You can take four, you say?”

“Yep, four now and probably another four next week. It’s been a good month for adoptions. Sixteen last month alone, and eight of those went to new greyhound homes.”

Jack chuckled. “Single dogs for now. How long do you think it will take.’

Nancy Catherine smiled, her eyes crinkling nicely. “Oh, a few months at the most, then most of them will chip. They’re like potato chips, you know.”

“Yep. Betcha can’t adopt just one. How many are you up to yourself?”

“Just four.”

“’Just’.”

She shrugged, smiling still. “Down from six last month. My foster got adopted and Corby — .” Nancy Catherine stopped, tears welling up in her eyes.

Corby had been dumped on the streets.  Twelve years old, emaciated, his teeth rotting, foraging in the garbage to eat, he’d been one of Nancy Catherine’s first true rescues.  She’d nursed him back to health and had two precious years with him before he’d gone to the Rainbow Bridge.

“I know. I was real sorry to hear about Corby. He was always one of my favorites.”

“Thanks. Corby was special.”

Greyhounds are sighthounds. Though they rely on their sense of smell for in-depth background information, their eyesight is their early warning system. Tweeter, who was especially adept at reading facial expression and tone of voice, watched Nancy’s face.  Once, early on in her career, she hadn’t placed in a race.  Her trainer then had looked at her with the same expression the woman now wore.  Granted, the woman wasn’t looking directly at Tweeter, and that counted for something, but those lines on the top of the woman’s snout and that funny way she held her mouth reminded Tweeter too much of the day she hadn’t won.

“”Well,” Jack said, “Maybe you’ll fall in love with one of the current group.”
“You know me, Jack. I fall in love with all of them.”

“How about these three?” Jack said, leading her to the back row of kennels. “Hattie, Kyri and Jasper – all cat safe, all healthy and ready to go.” Best get them out of here before —.” Jack stopped abruptly.

“Before what?” When no answer was immediately forthcoming, she continued, “Jack, what is it?

He sighed. “The word will be out next week. Until then, you didn’t hear it from me. The track – it’s closing. This is the last season. And from what I hear, we’re not the only ones.”

“Closing?” Nancy Catherine shut her eyes for a moment. Closing – finally! She sent up a silent prayer of thanksgiving. “They decided because?”

“You name it. Indian gaming. Simulcasts. The economy. Attendance and revenues are down. And after Alabama – .”

There was no need for him to finish the sentence: “Alabama” was enough. Everyone in the greyhound community knew what had happened there. The mass grave for more than three thousand greyhounds, transported to Alabama from kennels in Florida for execution.

“It’s too bad,” Jack continued, not looking at her. “I know how you feel about racing – I’d be a fool if I didn’t. But all these people that making a living off of it – what are they supposed to do? And that simulcasting stuff – okay, so you see the races and can bet. But it’s nothing like being here, watching a pup you bred and raised and trained. The smell, the crowds – heck, even the lousy food. I’ll just miss it all.”

“The dogs.” Nancy Catherine started down the rows of cages, each one filled with a bright-eyed wagging greyhound just begging to be petted. Here at Greylands, there were fourteen other kennels, some of them a bit smaller, most much larger.

“Those, especially.” Finally, he looked back at her, his face grave.

Two thousand dogs, at least. Maybe three thousand. All at once – how are we supposed to get them out of here and to other adoption groups, much less find homes for them all. And at the worst time in the year, when all the other seasonal kennels are shutting down.

For a moment, the enormity of the crisis they were about to face overwhelmed her. In a good year, Greyhound Rescue moved six hundred dogs out of this particular track. Each dog was taken into the adoption kennel and had a complete medical checkup, was neutered or spayed, given shots and heartworm tests, and then sent on a truck to another adoption group outside the area. The cost per dog was around $100 for the vet expenses and another $60 or so for transportation, and a darned sight more than the $10 the fellow in Alabama had charged to…

Execute them. That’s what he did. Those poor little snugglers – and no one even called us.

While all the data was still not in, it appeared that the owners and trainers who’d sent their dogs to their deaths had made no attempts to work with an adoption group. Even now, there were trainers who would not speak to her, assuming that she took the usual militant stance against their livelihood.

Nancy Catherine was militant – just not in public. What mattered was the greys, getting them to safety and into homes. If she voiced her personal opposition to racing, her chances of getting the dogs out of the kennels and into the system decreased to nothing.

That didn’t mean it was easy for her. Sometimes she was frustrated by her own hypocrisy.

“I think they’ll start talking about moving the dogs out in September. Maybe before. And Nancy Catherine, you know what’s coming – once the track shuts down, every owner and trainer is going to want the dogs gone. The next day.”

“It’s like that every year.”

“But it’ll be worse this time,’ Jack answered. “Singing Hills may be shutting down, too.”

“You’re kidding!” Singing Hills was a large, sprawling track to the south. Many of the Greyland hounds went there after the Greyland season ended, as did dogs who were just too slow to make the grade at Greyland.

“So, if I were to make a prediction, I’d say that every last one of the dogs at this track are going to be available.”

Nancy Catherine nodded, barely hearing him, her mind already racing through possibilities. If the track were closing, maybe they could take some of the cages. Maybe the racing commission would put up some money for the vetting and medical work.

Tweeter wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but she didn’t like the sound or smell of it. Both humans now had a faintly acrid scent to them, exuding it with every breath, emitting it from their pores. Their movements were jerky, their voices slightly higher.

In addition to the scent of the human, Tweeter was automatically keeping track of the individual scent of each of the other forty-nine dogs in the kennel. Abe, for instance, the big black greyhound boy two cages down from her, reeked of good health and the extra vitamin pill he’d had in his breakfast. She could also tell that he was annoyed right now at the bitch in the cage just above him, though, and everyone in the kennel knew why. Sure, you could forgive an occasional accident while caged, but every day? The humans cleaned it up with the harsh pine stuff that gave them all headaches, but did nothing to completely eradicate the smell.
The bitch above him, PrimaDawnie – now she was a piece of work. She was a smallish brindle girl, tiger stripped with a black mask, and faster than almost any other bitch in the kennel.

Almost. She had not yet faced Tweeter on the track. Tweeter ran Grade A, the most competitive category at Greyland. PrimaDawnie was younger, had broken her maidens only last month and just raced through Grade D and C in the last two weeks.

At two and a half years old, PrimaDawnie’s muzzle was dark without a trace of white on it. Tweeter, who was almost five, had a frosting of white around her snout and in her eyebrows, perfectly symmetrical and of exactly the right shade to complement her brilliant red coat.

PrimaDawnie was a great-granddaughter of Dutch Bahama, a greyhound who’d won more than any other grey in history. The people knew that his line showed his dark, soulful eyes and white coat with red patches and that his genes tended to produce spooks.

Tweeter never noticed the eyes or the coats, but she had noted that his base note scent carried over in his descendants, a strong musky base note with a hint of something like crackers and geraniums. The spooks, she’d noticed, tended to have more of the geranium smell than the others.

PrimaDawnie had the geranium smell stronger than most, and even before she’d been on turnout with her, Tweeter had known she’d be trouble. PrimaDawnie had fidgeted in her cage, tried to bolt out the door of the kennel and had immediately raced down to the far corner of the run and staked it out as her own.

Bad manner, in Tweeter’s opinion. The runs were a decent enough size, fifty feet long and twenty feet wide, entirely adequate if everyone shared. There was room to run up and down on the concrete, buckets of cool water, people waiting to skritch backs and scrunch ears. The twenty minutes they had four times a day was sufficient to let them all stretch the kinks out of their legs, get a drink, socialize a bit and catch up on scents and take care of other business not appropriate to the cage.

But that worked only if they all cooperated. Trying to claim one corner of the run or taking up all the human’s attention simply made it unpleasant for everyone. Abe wasn’t the only one who had to put up with her, although Tweeter sympathized enormously with his predicament. As a top-crater herself, she would never be so rude as to pee in her cage. Her bottom crate buddy was a large, laid-back silver brindle, born to run and slow to anger, but she suspected even his good nature would be stretched to its limits if she dripped in his cage.

For perhaps the millionth time, she wondered where the people kept their crates. She had never, not even in her memories, seen one crated in the kennel. Once in a while, one spent the night when someone was sick, but they stretched out on a temporary thing on the floor.

They had to have crates somewhere, didn’t they? Of course they did. Throughout history greyhound and man had always shared accomodations, and Tweeter had to assume that Jack and Nancy Catherine lived just as she did, the female in the top crate (unless injured, of course) and the male in the bottom one (they were such poor jumpers.) Well, wherever their crates were, judging by the tone of their voices right now, they needed to spend some time in them to calm down.

“It’s going to be a massive headache, moving all these dogs,” Jack said, looking away from her again. “Ain’t going to be cheap.”  He pulled out a card from his pocket and scribbled a number on it.  “Things are going to get crazy when we start moving them.  You know how it is -- trucks break down, dogs get loose.  If you ever need anything, call me.  Here’s my number at home.”

“Thanks.  I appreciate it.”  Nancy Catherine glanced down at the number.  “You must live out near me if you’ve got a 579 number.”

“Out in Neubert Springs.”

“Then we’re  neighbors.  Hardin Creek is about five miles south of you..” Nancy Catherine tucked the card into her fanny pack.

“I mean it. If you need anything, just call.”

“Thanks, I will.  And we’ll handle it somehow,” Nancy Catherine said. “It always works out.”

“Maybe.” Jack looked around the kennel, surveying his pack. Tweeter smiled as his gaze lit upon her. “But we’ve got some hard luck cases here, Nancy Catherine. Like Tweeter over there.”

“Tweeter?” Nancy Catherine frowned for a moment, trying to place the dog.
“Yeah. You don’t know her because she’s been running Grade A for a year now. She wasn’t even close to ending up on one of your couches.”

Now the second person was looking at her, too, and Tweeter basked in the attention. She let out a happy little bark to let them know she saw them.
“Oh, my,” Nancy Catherine breathed, and Tweeter sniffed with interest as her scent picked up an additional grace note. More distress, but this time more specific than before, growing stronger the longer she looked at Tweeter.

Tweeter stopped smiling. Bad, definitely bad. She let out a low whine and tucked her tail between her legs in an instinctive protective move.

“There, there,” Nancy Catherine said, walking over to the cage, her voice low and comforting. “Broken leg, eh?”

“Both bones. And an ACL repair,” Jack confirmed. “Track vet did the surgery and the bones are healed now.  She gets her cast off today. I thought there was a chance she’d come back, but now … .” He let his voice trail off. “Listen, this is one sweet dog, but she’s going to need a lot of time. And surgery, if this doesn’t start healing. Nancy Catherine, there’s going to be a ton of dogs that need to move. Lots of choices for the adopters. Lots of healthy dogs.”

“She’s been racing for three years.”

“Yes.”

“Made a fair amount of money for her owners, right?”

“And now that she broke her leg?”

Now Jack looked distinctly uneasy. “I thought they would want her for breeding.”
“But they don’t, right? Not with the track shutting down. And they don’t want to spend money on a dog that’s not going to make money in the future, no matter how she’s done for them up until now.”

Jack didn’t answer.

Nancy Catherine stared at the stunning red in the cage, now looking away from her, the smallest possible whine low in her throat. The red shot a look at her, then looked away again. “What’s her name?”

“Officially, Autumn’s Light, but she goes by Tweeter.”

“Why Tweeter?”

“Eh.” Jack looked uncomfortable. “Long story.”

“You in a hurry to get rid of me?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that – oh, shoot. Okay. You’re not going to believe me – well, you might, but nobody else will. I call her Tweeter because that’s what she said her name was.”

The red greyhound nodded.  After all the centuries their bloodlines had known each other, it was only common courtesy.

“She told you?”

He nodded. “I was rubbing her down after a race a few years back, telling her what a good girl she was. Her kennel name back then was just Autumn. She looks up at me and she smiles, and – I swear, I’m not making this up – I hear this little high-pitched voice say, ‘Tweeter’. It wasn’t like just something I thought – I actually heard it. I look down at her and she’s smiling at me again. Then I heard it again. ‘Tweeter’, this time a lot louder. So I said, ‘Is your name Tweeter?’ and I hear that same voice saying, Tweeter, Tweeter, over and over again, and she sounded so happy —.”

Jack was having a hard time finishing sentences today, for some reason.
“And you think she was telling you what her real name was.” Nancy Catherine was not asking a question.

“No, of course not. Dogs don’t talk. And they wouldn’t have names that were words. They would have a sound and a scent, maybe. But not English words.”
“Ah. But you started calling her Tweeter, didn’t you? And I bet she answered up from the very first time.”

Tweeter, Tweeter, the red thought, pleased to hear the woman saying her name. All these old friends, all those memories they shared. Surely the woman would let her out to run, if only because of that.

“The owner wants me to put her down,” Jack finished, unhappiness in his face.
“Take her home, then,” Nancy Catherine said.

“I can’t. I’ve got four at home, too, and once the track shuts down, I’m out of a job.” Jack took a deep breath then said, all in a rush, “That’s why I thought maybe you could.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Because you took Corby when nobody else would give him a chance. When everyone who looked at him just saw a scruffy old fellow tottering around on his last legs.”

“That was a special case.”

“Why? Because he was living on the street after some jerk threw him out of a car? Because he looked pitiful? Because he was old?”

“Because he was Corby,” Nancy Catherine said after a long silence, her voice slightly unsteady.

“And this is Tweeter and she’s special. Even if she’s done racing,” Jack answered, as though by repeating the name often enough he could make her see something. “She’s Tweeter!”

I am, Tweeter thought. I am indeed. And you’re special too, my old friend.
Nancy Catherine stared at the red a moment longer. A beautiful bitch, one who’d more than earned a place on a couch.  But Jack was right.  With so many healthy dogs to choose from, Tweeter might get overlooked in favor of a dog with no gray on the muzzle and no broken bones.  Those eyes, the way she held her head -- Jack was right.  There was something special about Tweeter.