Congrats to AL Kaplan

“Rowdy, find.”

Nose twitching, Rowdy traced back and forth across the meadow. This wasn’t our first wilderness search and rescue, so I knew the moment he caught the scent. We took off like a shot, Rowdy in the lead, me trailing behind on the other end of the twenty-five foot leash.

The overly nervous camp director disappeared from view. Something about that man didn’t seem right. Rowdy didn’t like him either. The sooner we found the missing teens, the better.

I pushed aside my doubts and hurried after Rowdy. We always found our target, even buried under feet of snow or deep in the backcountry. How hard could it be to catch up to a couple of fat-camp escapees?

Rowdy stopped just behind an inkberry bush and barked. His tail swished back and forth. I hurried over, expecting an exhausted pair of hefty teens. What I found was a pile of oversized clothes and a huge mound of foam latex. I stared at the pile and scratched my head for a minute before Rowdy pulled me down a narrow trail. A quarter mile later we found the teens scrubbing off their make-up in a stream.

“I wondered when someone would find us,” said a tall skinny boy. He looked half starved. “We’ve been undercover at that hell hole for a month trying to nail the director. He killed our friend last summer. Now we have the proof to put him away and close that place down for good.”