Kitabı oku: «Finding Gobi: The true story of one little dog’s big journey»

ey, check out the dog!” a man shouted from somewhere in the crowd. “Maybe it’s here for the race!”

“Is that right, girl?” another man asked, bending down to scratch her behind the ears. “Are you here to run with us?”

The dog didn’t know what to make of all this. There were a lot of people, more than she would have expected out here away from town and right on the edge of the desert. Most of them were dressed funny, but they were nice. Many of the runners stopped to pet her, and more than a few gave her scraps of food.

She was hungry. She was always hungry. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been hungry. These people seemed to like her, and when she danced around them they fed her. So she danced. And got fed. And everyone was happy.

Then she saw him. He wasn’t feeding her. He wasn’t laughing or shouting. He wasn’t even standing with most of the other people. He was off to the side, shifting back and forth on his big feet. He was tall and skinny, and dressed all in bright yellow. He looked funny, but he wasn’t smiling.

The dog didn’t know what to make of this tall man. But she decided that she wanted to find out more about him.

“Well, hello there,” Dion Leonard muttered, glancing down at the small bundle of sandy-coloured fur bounding around his feet. “Where did you come from?”

She wasn’t a very big dog, he noticed. She was small and compact, and she had big dark eyes and tufts of fur around her mouth that made it look like she had a moustache and beard. He’d seen her with a bunch of the other runners earlier, doing tricks for food. But for some reason she’d singled him out.

It was probably his gear. Dion’s running clothes and even his shoes were all bright yellow. He knew he probably looked like a neon light.

He reached down and patted the dog, but he didn’t have time to give her too much attention. Today’s portion of the race was about to start, and he needed to be ready.

This six-stage ultra race would stretch over seven days and cover almost 155 miles. Dion had never been to China before, but he had done other multi-stage races like this. He used to be good at them. Then he’d hurt his leg. It had been a while since he’d entered a race, and he was worried. This was his last chance, he figured. If he didn’t do well in this race, he might as well just quit completely.

He didn’t want to quit though. He wanted to compete well – not necessarily to come in first, he wasn’t expecting that, but to make it into the top handful, at least. Even placing fourth would be enough to show that he could still do this.

Yesterday had been the first day and he had come in third, so that was an excellent start. But in order to stay in that top handful, he needed to concentrate. And that meant not spending any more time with somebody’s dog, no matter how cute she was.

“Better get back to your owner now,” he murmured, leaning over to pet her one last time. She looked up at him with those big eyes, almost like she understood him, and barked once. But she didn’t go away.

“Take your positions!” one of the race organisers shouted. Everyone tensed and moved to the starting line, completing final stretches. Dion was already done with all of that. He just made sure his shoes were tied tight and his backpack was securely on, and concentrated on the path up ahead. Little pink flags marked the way.

The starting gun sounded, and they were off! Dion didn’t try to push past people. This wasn’t that kind of race. You had to keep up a good pace, but it was more about endurance than bursts of speed. He knew enough to pace himself. The racers who sprinted out in front now would be worn out later. He had plenty of time.

He concentrated on his footing and his pace but was startled when a small blur appeared by his feet. It was the dog! She hadn’t gone away, and now she was running alongside him! Her little legs moved fast, but she was keeping pace.

Despite himself, Dion laughed. “All right,” he told her. “If you want to come with me, you can. As long as you can keep up.”

The dog barked in response. And kept right on running.

This is fun! the little dog thought. The bright yellow man was nice after all – he’d pet her and he’d talked to her, and he’d laughed when she started running with him. She liked to run. It was nice to feel the fresh air and watch the ground speeding by beneath her feet. He seemed to like it too. So she settled in and ran with him. They ran together.

A lot of runners listened to music when they ran. Dion didn’t most of the time – he preferred to keep his eyes and ears open. But he did get lost in his thoughts. A part of his brain concentrated on his footing, and the path, and the sun overhead, and the other runners. But a lot of him just tuned out. He thought about his wife Lucja back in Edinburgh, his job, his friends, his family. It helped the time pass quickly.

He wasn’t too surprised when he glanced down at one point and didn’t see any sign of the dog. She must have got bored or tired or distracted and decided to quit. That was fine. It had been nice having someone to run with, but Dion wasn’t here to make friends, even with a dog.

He was here to compete at his best. And now that he didn’t have to worry about tripping over the dog, he picked up his pace even more.

Time to get serious about this race.

Dion wasn’t sure how much time had passed – maybe an hour, maybe two – when he noticed a shadow near his feet again. The dog was back! He hadn’t heard her return, but she fell back into step beside him like she’d never been away.

“Welcome back,” he told her, and she barked once. She didn’t seem to mind the new pace either. For such a little dog, she was fast! And she had stamina too. They’d already been out here for hours, and it was hot, with no shade around for miles. Dion didn’t mind, and apparently the dog didn’t either. That was fine. “Let’s keep moving,” he told her, and she just wagged her tail in response.

The dog stayed with him for a while after that. Then the trail led across a small creek. It was about three feet wide, and Dion jumped across without even slowing down. The dog didn’t follow though. Her legs were much too short to jump that distance. And the water that ran through the creek was much too fast for her to wade across. Instead she sat down and barked at him, like she was calling for him to stop. Then she whimpered a bit too. She sounded so sad!

Dion didn’t stop, though. He couldn’t. He had a race to run, and she wasn’t even his dog! Instead he just put her out of his mind and concentrated on running.

Dion had only covered a few feet when the barking and whimpering stopped. Then, not ten minutes later, he saw a flash of brown and the dog was back by his side again. She must have jumped the creek after all, he thought. Or somehow gone around.

Dion laughed. “Determined little thing, aren’t you?” he asked. She barked in reply.

When he reached the next checkpoint, people cheered him on. But they cheered the dog even more! “There’s that dog again!” they shouted.

The dog wagged her tail and barked happily at the people. They were excited to see her, and she was happy to see them too. Someone gave her some food, and someone else gave her some water.

But she never let the man in yellow out of her sight. There was something about him, something she really liked. He was special.

He sat for a few minutes, talking to some of the other people. But when he rose to his feet and headed out of the tent, she followed. And when he started to run again, she was right beside him.

Dion had to admire the little dog. She didn’t know when to quit! Well, neither did he. The path led up into the mountains, which was tough. Then back down, which was even tougher because he had to worry more about keeping his balance and not falling. He could feel himself getting tired, but he refused to stop or slow down. One of the other runners, Tommy Chen from Taiwan, was out in front. He was really popular, and everyone figured he’d win. He’d come in first yesterday. Another guy, Julian from Romania, had come in second. Dion had been third. Not bad for the first day and his first race back. But Tommy, Julian, and another runner, Zeng from China, were all ahead of him already. Still, Dion managed to come in a close fourth. He was happy with that. It meant he was still in third place overall.

The dog had been right beside him when he crossed the day’s finish line. Even Tommy had noticed. “That dog, man!” he told Dion. “It’s been following you all day!”

“Has it had any water?” one of the volunteers asked.

Dion frowned. “I have no idea,” he admitted. “Maybe it drank at some of the streams on the way.” Someone set out a small bucket of water, and the dog practically attacked it. Dion felt a little bad about that. Still, it wasn’t like she was his dog.

When he started to move away, the dog looked up from the water. Then she trotted over to him. And that was that. She followed him to the tent he’d been assigned for the race and went inside with him. He’d brought an inflatable mattress with him – normally he wouldn’t have, because you had to carry all of your own gear, but he hadn’t wanted to risk hurting his leg again. Now the dog watched as he blew it up, then hopped up onto it as soon as Dion sat down.

Shaking his head, Dion pulled out a packet of nuts and dried meat. You had to carry your own food too. He was about to pop a piece of meat in his mouth when he stopped.

She was watching him intently. But she wasn’t begging. She hadn’t whimpered once, other than back at the creek. And as far as he knew, she hadn’t eaten anything all day.

“Here you go,” he said, tossing the meat in front of her. She wolfed it down and wagged her tail. Then she turned around a few times and settled down. Within seconds she was snoring, fast asleep.

“Great,” Dion muttered. “Just what I need, another roommate.” He was sharing the tent with several other runners, and three of them had stayed up all last night talking. Now he had the dog to deal with too. And she snored!

But he couldn’t bring himself to shoo her away. She’d run hard the whole day, after all. He couldn’t blame her for being tired. And if some soft snores were the worst she did all night, well, he could live with that.

he next morning, Dion smiled down at the little dog prancing around his feet. “You ready?” he asked. She barked in reply.

She’d been curled up beside him when he woke up this morning. “You know what you’ve got to do now, don’t you?” Richard, one of the other runners, asked him.

“What?” Dion replied.

Richard had smiled. “You’ve got to give her a name.”

Dion had groaned at that. She wasn’t his dog! But she did seem to have attached herself to him. And he couldn’t just keep thinking of her as “dog”. Richard was right. She needed a name. But what name?

It should be short, he thought; long names just got shortened anyway. It should be fun and playful but not silly. It should suit her. And it should have something to do with the race, maybe.

Then he had it. Part of this race led through the Gobi Desert. And that was the perfect name for her. Gobi.

Gobi was excited. Now she had a name! And the man had given it to her! And he’d fed her and let her curl up beside him to sleep. This was so great!

And now it was daytime again, the sun was out, and it was nice and warm, and they were about to run some more! She couldn’t wait!

She was so excited she actually wandered away for a little bit. There were lots of other runners, and many of them said hi to her and petted her. Some even fed her or gave her water. It was really nice.

But once the race got underway, Gobi went looking for one runner in particular. A tall one all in yellow. She found him after a little bit, and he smiled when he saw her.

Then they started running together again.

Dion was surprised at how happy he was to see Gobi return. He’d thought she’d got tired of him or found her owner, or something else. But here she was, running alongside him like she’d never left.

Today’s race led through a bunch of boulders. The footing was tricky because the rocks shifted around beneath your feet. You had to be careful if you didn’t want to get hurt.

Dion slowed a little as he reached the boulders. Gobi didn’t. She was light enough that she could leap from rock to rock without a problem.

Julien was the same way. Dion had seen him leap from rock to rock the day before. Today Dion had made sure to be in front before they got to the boulders, because he knew he’d lose some time once they reached that section. Sure enough, he soon heard Julien coming up behind him.

But when Dion got to the top of the pile, he stopped. He could see for miles from up here. There was the next checkpoint, way ahead, just past a small village. There was the starting line, way behind them. There was the path from here to the village – it was nice and flat and straight, and they’d been running on that until the markers had led them up here.

And there was one runner, flying down another path.

It was Tommy.

“Whoa,” Julien said from beside Dion. “Not right.”

When Dion reached the checkpoint, he stopped and found one of the race organisers. “Tommy somehow skipped that whole rocky section back there. I don’t know if he did it deliberately or not, but it’s not fair.”

The woman raised her eyebrows. “We’ll look into it,” she said.

Dion still wasn’t sure the organizer believed them, but he’d done all he could do. Time to get back in the race.

Tommy was way ahead, but the race path curved a bit. At one point, he and Dion were maybe half a mile apart.

Dion assumed Tommy had seen him and would slow down but Tommy continued running fast ahead and didn’t stop for Dion so that they could run together as they had before Tommy had gone another way.

Dion tried to catch Tommy. The gap was too big, though. All that happened was that Dion wore himself out, and Julien shot past him.

Dion was mad at himself. He’d had this problem before. He got angry, and then he got careless. During his first ultra race he’d got so angry he’d actually quit the race partway through. He was starting to feel that same way now. Usually his wife was there to help him get over his anger, but she was back in Scotland. Dion was all alone.

Then he glanced down at Gobi, still running beside him. He smiled. No, he wasn’t alone. And having that little dog there was enough to take his mind off chasing Tommy down – and everything else. Just having Gobi with him was enough to keep Dion going.

This race wasn’t over yet.

obi was happy. The sky was clear, the weather was warm, the ground was firm beneath her feet, and she and the man were running together. From time to time he would look over at her and smile. The warmth of that smile was even brighter than the sun beating down on them, but in a good way. It filled Gobi up.

Then she heard a strange rushing sound up ahead. What was that? Whatever it was, it was getting closer!

Dion heard it before he saw it. It was the rapid beat of running water. He could tell from the noise that this wasn’t another creek. No, this was something a whole lot bigger and faster. Sure enough, as he topped the next rise, he spotted a broad expanse ahead. It was a river! Dion had no idea how deep it was, but the race markers led right across, so he had to assume he’d be able to make it across as well.

With a sigh, he shifted his bag higher on to his back. All of his food was in there – if that got wet, he’d be in real trouble. Fortunately his clothes were made to dry quickly, and he had covers over his shoes that kept out pebbles and things, and also made them reasonably waterproof. That was all he could do.

Drawing a deep breath, he took a careful step into the water. It was surprisingly cold considering how warm the day was, and he sank down up to his waist, but that was it. At least the riverbed seemed solid. He could make his way across, he just had to go slowly. One wrong step and he’d get completely wet. Plus he could hurt himself since he couldn’t see where he was putting his feet. This was going to take a while.

Gobi watched as the man plunged into the water. She wagged her tail, but he didn’t look her way. He was clearly busy concentrating. She sat down just beside the water and watched. Surely he would turn around and notice that she wasn’t with him. But several minutes passed, and he got further and further away. Finally Gobi couldn’t take it any longer. She began anxiously running up and down the river bank. Was the man going to leave her?

At the sound of her bark, Dion stopped. He always made a point of facing forward, always forward, during a race. There was no point in looking behind you, after all. It was just about what lay ahead. But this time he did glance back. Gobi was sitting at the river’s edge, barking and whining, anxious that Dion was going to leave her. It was the same thing she’d done at the creek the day before. She made it across that somehow, Dion told himself. She can do the same here.

Except this wasn’t the same. The creek had been only a few feet wide, and not much deeper than his ankles. This was at least a hundred feet across and waist-deep on him. There was no way the little dog could cross that on her own, not unless she knew how to swim. And if she could swim, wouldn’t she already be doing that?

Not my problem, Dion told himself. He was here for the race. That was it. He hadn’t asked for Gobi to follow him. That was on her.

But he’d fed her. And given her water. And named her. And he had to admit, he liked having her with him. She lifted his spirits.

And right now, listening to her whimper and whine as he left her behind nearly broke his heart.

“Oh, fine!” Dion declared at last. Turning carefully, he started to make his way back. The second she saw him turn around, Gobi was on her feet, tail wagging furiously, her whimpers changing to happy barks.

He was coming back! Gobi was ecstatic! She barked with joy and even pranced in circles as she waited for the man to reach her.

When he was close enough, Dion reached out one long arm and scooped Gobi up off the ground. Then he hugged her to his chest. The little dog lifted her head and licked his cheek, which tickled. Dion laughed.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re welcome,” he told her. “Now let’s get going, okay? Just try not to squirm too much. This is going to be tough as it is.”

And it was. Before, Dion had kept his arms out for balance. Now one of them was clutching Gobi instead. That meant he only had one arm free. He had to go even more slowly and more carefully than before. And he still slipped a few times, though never enough to go completely underwater.

Through it all, Gobi was amazingly good. She didn’t struggle at all. She didn’t bark. She didn’t whimper. She just snuggled up against his chest and watched as they slowly inched their way across the river.

Once they’d reached the other side, Dion set her down. She quickly circled him, barking and wagging her tail. Then she nipped at his shoes.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re going,” he agreed. He was tired from the river crossing, but he knew he couldn’t stop now. Especially not with Tommy already so far ahead.

Remembering what Tommy had done earlier was enough to make Dion mad all over again. But this time, instead of frustrating him, that anger gave him strength.

“Let’s go,” he told Gobi. “Let’s see what we can do to cut down his lead.”

She barked once, and when he set off she settled in beside him, matching his pace perfectly. Dion shook his head. He didn’t know where she’d come from, but this little dog sure could run!

The day was winding down, and Dion guessed that the finish line would be visible from the top of the next hill. He and Gobi had kept up a steady pace since the river, and he was pleased with their progress. Once or twice he’d caught a few glimpses of two other runners up ahead. That had to be Tommy and Julien, because no one else had passed him. But the path had twisted enough that Dion hadn’t been able to tell how far ahead they were.

Now, as he reached the top of the hill, he looked – and stared. What? he thought. There, past a series of small hills, was the finish line, and the tents beyond it. And there were Tommy and Julien, still only halfway there! How was that even possible? Dion had been sure the other two would have finished already.

But they hadn’t. In fact, they seemed to be walking. They must have used up too much energy getting across the river.

Which gave him an idea.

“Come on, Gobi,” he told her. He hurried down the hill, then raced up the next one. But he slowed just before he reached the top and moved as carefully and quietly as he could. He was tall and thin and dressed all in yellow – if Tommy and Julien looked back, they’d definitely see him. So he sprinted when he was out of sight, and moved quietly when he was visible at the top. And the other two runners didn’t look back.

The distance between them started to shrink. Dion ran down each hill and back up as fast as he could, then moved quietly across the top. Gobi somehow understood his intent, because she didn’t bark or yip at all. She was as silent as a ghost, though her tail wagged furiously. It was clear she thought this was the best game ever. Together they ran, and Tommy and Julien got closer and closer. But so did the finish line.

Finally, Dion crested the last hill. He was no more than a few hundred feet behind the other two. This time he crept down the hill as well, and together he and Gobi snuck up on the two runners, moving as fast as they dared.

Amazingly, Tommy and Julien didn’t look back. Were they that tired? Dion had had a lot of practice running in the heat – he was from Australia originally, so he knew all about hot days. Maybe Tommy and Julien weren’t as comfortable in the high temperatures. Whatever the reason, the gap between them kept shrinking. A hundred feet. Eighty feet. Sixty feet. Forty. Twenty.

Dion’s foot must have scuffed a rock, or maybe it was his shadow suddenly appearing near them, because Julien finally glanced back and saw him. Dion grinned. Too late!

He put on a burst of speed. Gobi barked and sped up to match him. Together they sprinted past Julien. Then past Tommy.

Dion saw Tommy’s eyes widen as they raced by. Tommy struggled to catch up, but staying out in front had worn him out. He just didn’t have enough strength left to match Dion’s sudden surge forward.

Dion charged past. He crossed the finish line first, with Gobi right beside him. The race volunteers all clapped and cheered. “That was amazing,” one of them told him. “You’re having a super race!”

Dion smiled and nodded. It was true. He’d come in third the first day and fourth the second, but today he’d come in first. That put him in really good shape. “I owe a lot of it to my little good luck charm here,” he said, kneeling down to ruffle Gobi’s fur. She barked and licked his face. “Isn’t that right, Gobi?”

When he straightened back up, though, Dion was all business. “Can I come by and talk to you later about what happened before the first checkpoint?” he asked the organiser. “I need to clear my head first.”

“Sure,” she agreed.

The organisers did take Dion seriously this time. It helped that other runners also confirmed what had happened. In the end, they adjusted Tommy’s time by five minutes. Dion thought it should have been more, but at least it was something.

Besides, he had finished first today. That was something too.

Dion wondered if tomorrow Tommy would go for the win from the start of the race to make up for not winning today.

Gobi didn’t seem to mind any of it. She was just happy to eat some of his food, drink some water, and then curl up beside him and go to sleep.

And Dion had to admit, he was getting used to having her there.