By Benjamin GroffMedia© | benandsteve.com | 2025 Truth Endures©
Sunrise sparkled through the trees, casting golden streaks through the ridge of the canyon as a new day began. The dogs had curled up around Benji during the long night after the wildcat screams. Sleep had eluded him, but at least their warmth had kept the cold at bay.
Benji checked his backpack. Two cans of Vienna sausages. Two bottles of water. Not much, but enough if he rationed carefully. He didn’t know how long it would be before he saw civilization again. He jumped to his feet. He kicked dirt over the glowing embers of the fire. Then he spotted an old bucket lying in the grass. He fetched water from the same spot where he’d seen the wildcats drink and thoroughly doused the coals.
He whistled and called out,
“Okay, guys! Let’s find our way out of here!”
The dogs were now rested after the brutal meeting with the hogs the day before. They let out a few excited barks. They circled around him. They were ready.
“Jackie!”
Benji called out, his voice clear and hopeful.
“Let’s get going and take us home, girl!”
It was Jackie’s moment to lead.
She barked once, turned, and began moving with purpose down a faint trail. Her nose worked the ground like a compass, tracing the path with quiet certainty. She paused now and then to sniff, confirming her route, then pressed ahead.
Benji followed without hesitation.
“Good girl, Jackie. Take us home.”
As they retraced their steps, Benji noticed something he’d missed before. The chaos of the hog attack had distracted him from exploring further. Just east of where that meeting occurred, he saw something new. It was something he’d only ever heard described in hushed tones: the Bottomless Pits.
He turned to the dogs.
“Come on, guys. We’re close. I need to see this.”
He approached the edge of a steep cliff. It was seventy-five feet straight down to a deep, green pool below. The surface was fed by water trickling from the mouth of a sand rock ridge. “That’s a natural spring,” Benji murmured to himself, “surrounded by vegetation and carved into the canyon by wind and rain.” The erosion had shaped the space into something mysterious and timeless. There was no telling how far the pit actually went.
He stood there, staring into the depths. He imagined what happened to those who had entered “No Man’s Land” and never returned. No sane person would ever try a descent.
The dogs looked at each other, almost as if wondering whether this was going to turn into their next mission. They seemed relieved when Benji turned back and said, “Okay, Jackie. Take us on home.”
Their return journey was quieter, more deliberate. The woods themselves seemed to exhale—less ominous now, more at peace, as if the danger had passed.
Eventually, the familiar rise of Miller Hill came into view. Beyond it stood the barn, and flickering on the porch was the warm, welcome glow of a light. As they emerged from the tree line, Benji spotted people in the clearing. A search party—his father among them, his mother as well. They had been looking everywhere… except in the place no one dared go.
Benji’s dad stepped ahead quickly, his face a mix of relief and frustration.
“Son,”
he said,
“you knew that area was off-limits. No one goes back there. Why did you?”
Benji, still trembling slightly from nerves and exhaustion, answered quietly,
“I wasn’t looking for anything, really. But now I know what’s back there.”
His father narrowed his eyes.
“What? What did you find? No one ever comes back.”
Benji looked him in the eye.
“Feral hogs. Wildcats bigger than our dogs. And pits that look bottomless. I figure the people who disappeared… they didn’t make it out because they were walking in the dark. They either fell in—or the hogs got to them.”
The searchers stood silently for a moment, absorbing his words. Then came relief, and the reunions began.
Benji made a point to thank everyone who’d come looking for him. One by one. Then, he helped lift each of the dogs into the back of his father’s pickup. This time, he insisted they ride up front.
Oggy, Bruiser, and Jackie settled into the cab like visiting royalty, each peering out the windows with pride and dignity. They had saved Benji, and he knew they deserved far more than a truck ride.
The truck rolled down the familiar dirt road toward home. Benji sat in the open bed under the early morning sun. He leaned back. He opened his last two cans of Vienna sausages. Then, he drank from one of his remaining bottles of water. He was there, alone in the quiet. The wind brushed his face. The trees grew smaller behind him. He finally relaxed.
He had made it out of No Man’s Land.
Benji would never forget what he found there. But even better, he wouldn’t forget how his three pals had worked together to take care of him. And when he got home he would tell his dad about the dogs doing the great things they did. He also wanted to repay his canine friends in some way. In Chapter 5, Benji repays them and that is how the story ends in an unexpected way.
How can this story end in any unexpected way? A boy and his dogs have made it out of No Man’s Land. They are safe, aren’t they? We all are, aren’t we? Or are we? What Chapter five holds will have you asking questions of your own. It looks like the dogs will still be looking for a tree or two come Chapter Five!
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