The call comes at dusk, while Emmerich is still washing dishes. A hiker has not returned from the ridge, and the fog has settled so thickly on the hillside that the helicopter cannot fly. By the time he has loaded the car, Kaja is already waiting at the door in her orange vest.
电话在黄昏时打来，埃梅里希还在洗碗。一位徒步者没有从山脊上回来，雾在山坡上积得那么浓，直升机飞不了。等他把东西装上车，卡娅已经穿着橙色背心等在门口了。
He has trained her for two years. They have searched for hidden volunteers in forests, quarries, and abandoned barns, and every time she has found her person within minutes. But those were exercises. Today, someone is actually missing, and his own heartbeat feels louder than the engine.
他训练了她两年。他们在森林、采石场和废弃的谷仓里搜寻过藏起来的志愿者，每次她都能在几分钟内找到她的目标。但那些都只是演练。今天，是真有人失踪了，他自己的心跳声比发动机的声音还响。
At the base camp, a coordinator unfolds a map on the hood of a van. The hiker was last seen near the upper trail, he explains, and the teams will fan out along the path. "Emmerich, you take the north slope," he says. "Stay on the trail, and keep your radio on."
在营地，协调员把一张地图在一辆厢式货车的引擎盖上展开。他解释说，徒步者最后一次被看到是在上段山道附近，各小队会沿着小路散开搜索。“埃梅里希，你负责北坡，”他说，“沿着小路走，对讲机保持开机。”
The fog is like wet cotton. Emmerich's flashlight lights up only a few meters of grass and stone. He lets Kaja off the lead, and she works the air in wide, quiet curves, her nose high, her tail low.
雾像湿棉花一样。埃梅里希的手电筒只能照亮几米的草地和石头。他解开卡娅的牵引绳，她在空气里画着宽大而安静的弧线搜寻，鼻子高高扬起，尾巴低垂。
Fifteen minutes in, she stops. Then, to his surprise, she turns away from the trail and trots downhill, toward a gully full of black bushes and loose rock.
进山十五分钟后，她停下了。然后，出乎他的意料，她转身离开小路，小跑着往山下走，朝一条满是黑色灌木和碎石的沟壑去了。
"Kaja, here," he calls. She hesitates, looks back at him, and then turns again toward the gully.
“卡娅，回来，”他喊道。她迟疑了一下，回头看他，然后又转向那条沟壑。
Everything in him says she is wrong. The hiker was last seen high on the ridge, and nobody sensible would walk down into a ravine in this weather. The coordinator's voice replays in his head: stay on the trail. If he follows the dog and she is mistaken, he will lose time, and time is the one thing the hiker may not have.
他心里的一切都在说她错了。徒步者最后一次被看到是在山脊高处，没有哪个头脑正常的人会在这种天气里走进峡谷。协调员的话在他脑子里一遍遍回响：沿着小路走。要是他跟着狗走而她判断错了，他就会浪费时间，而时间恰恰是那位徒步者可能最缺的东西。
But Emmerich remembers his instructor's favorite sentence, delivered with a shrug in a rainy parking lot. "You are the legs and the radio," she used to say. "The nose belongs to the dog."
可是埃梅里希想起了教官最喜欢的那句话，那是在一个下雨的停车场里，她耸着肩说的。“你是腿和对讲机，”她以前常说，“鼻子是属于狗的。”
He breathes in, lets out his doubt with the breath, and follows.
他深吸一口气，随着呼气把疑虑吐了出去，然后跟了上去。
The ground drops steeply. Twice, his boots slide on wet stones, and he has to grab at a branch. Kaja moves ahead of him, sure and unhurried, and then she stops so abruptly that he nearly walks into her.
地面陡然下降。有两次，他的靴子在湿石头上打滑，不得不伸手去抓树枝。卡娅走在他前面，笃定而不慌不忙，然后她突然停住，他差点撞到她身上。
Her bark is sharp and clear, exactly as she was taught. Beneath an overhang of rock, half hidden by ferns, a figure in a gray jacket lifts a hand into the beam of his light. "I took the wrong path," a hoarse voice says. "I think I twisted my ankle. I was ready to wait until morning."
她的吠叫尖锐而清晰，和训练时教的一模一样。在一块突出的岩石下面，半掩在蕨类植物后面，一个穿灰色夹克的人影举起一只手，伸进他的手电光束里。“我走错了路，”一个沙哑的声音说，“我想我扭伤了脚踝。我本来准备等到天亮的。”
Emmerich kneels, wraps the hiker in a foil blanket, and reaches for the radio with unsteady fingers. "Base, this is Emmerich," he says. "We have her. We're in the gully, south of the trail."
埃梅里希跪下来，用一条锡箔毯把徒步者裹好，又用不太稳的手指去拿对讲机。“营地，我是埃梅里希，”他说，“我们找到她了。我们在沟壑里，小路的南边。”
Behind him, Kaja takes the knotted rope from his vest pocket and shakes it hard.
在他身后，卡娅从他背心口袋里叼出那根打了结的绳子，使劲地甩了起来。
