Gun Shy Page 10

  It took even my foggy brain only a moment to make the connection. Tomorrow we bring in the bulldozers.

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Miles Young,” I muttered. Was this what I had to look forward to all winter?

  The barks quieted down as the last truck whined its way into the distance, and the dogs stood alertly in their crates, anticipating, in the way only dogs can at five forty-five in the morning, another wonderful and exciting day. I checked first on Hero, who, in perfect service dog fashion, had not barked but simply stood, edged toward the back of his crate, awaiting whatever I required of him. He did not seem particularly distressed by either the loud trucks or Cisco’s presence, but he was far from exhibiting the happy insouciance of the Aussies or the grinning, tail-curling stretches of the collie. I let Cisco and the other three dogs out into the yard; then I came back for Hero. Maude was probably right—the disagreement (I couldn’t bring myself to call it a fight) had been a one-time incident that was by now completely forgotten by both dogs. But I did not want to risk another one.

  Though I cursed Miles Young for every lost second of sleep, the advantage of having been awakened before dawn was that I had a head start on the day. I finished feeding and exercising the kennel dogs, cleaned the runs, laundered the dog beds, sterilized the dog dishes and brought the accounts up to date. Since it was still too early to make or return phone calls, I spent some time working with Hero.

  It broke my heart to think that such an incredible dog might never again do the work for which he was trained. And even though I knew, intellectually, that once the temperament of a service dog broke down there was very little that could be done to correct it, I was determined to do what I could to prepare him to shine in the eyes of Wes Richards when he arrived to evaluate him next week.

  I locked Cisco in the office while I worked with Hero in the training room, and I could hear him barking indignantly. When it came to treats, or the possibility of treats, he had extrasensory perception.

  Although nothing about Hero’s demeanor demonstrated enthusiasm for his work, and though he often showed such reluctance to obey as to require an admonishment, it was an unmitigated thrill for me to work with a dog who could perform complex tasks on command. I was amazed to the point of delighted laughter on more than one occasion and felt a brief stab of jealousy for those lucky trainers who actually got to work with dogs of this caliber every day.

  A little after eight, the phone rang. I had brought the portable phone with me to the training room and left it on the sign-in table by the door. I knew from the list that Wes had faxed me that Hero was supposed to be able to take the phone in his mouth and bring it on command, whether or not it was ringing. So I told him, “Phone,” and even though it was cheating, I pointed him toward the place where the portable phone chirruped on the table.

  His response time was so slow that if I hadn’t met him halfway across the room the caller surely would have hung up before Hero brought me the phone. But it was such a wonderful thing to see the Lab cross the room, put his paws up on the table, take the phone in his mouth and start to return to me with it that I called the exercise a success. I offered him a treat as I pushed the TALK button, but Hero simply turned away, crossed the room to an empty crate and lay down inside it.

  “Mornin’, sweetie,” Buck said when he heard my voice.

  “Guess who just answered the phone?” I demanded happily.

  “Ummm, wait, don’t tell me. . . . You?”

  “Wrong. Hero.”

  “The dog?”

  “That’s right.”

  “He didn’t have much to say.”

  “Very funny. He can turn lights on and off and lock and unlock doors too.”

  “Good for him.”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t find that impressive.”

  “Not as much as you do. I can’t say I’ve ever met a service dog groupie before. Now, that’s impressive.”

  “You’re just full of them today, aren’t you? What do you want?”

  “Bad news, looks like. Or maybe good news, depending on how you look at it.”

  “You found the husband?”

  “I’m afraid so. The dogs picked up the trail just before dawn. He was found facedown in the stream about half a mile from the car. Looks like he knocked himself out on a rock and drowned before he regained consciousness. They think he’s been dead a couple of days at least.”

  “Wow,” I said somberly. I didn’t know what else to say. “Drowned.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about the bag full of gold?”

  “As in, what was he doing with it and why would he leave it? No idea. Mickey White’s father is coming in this afternoon to claim her body. Maybe he can shed some light.”

  “This whole thing is just bizarre, if you ask me.”

  “Or me.” His tone changed as he went on, “Anyway, the upshot is that I have the afternoon off. You want to do something?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Take Cisco to the lake or something?”

  I said, “Cisco is not exactly on my A-list today.” And before he could ask why I said, “But I can’t. I promised Dolly I would pick up some folding tables and stuff that Sonny is loaning us and take them downtown so they’ll be ready to set up Saturday morning.”

  “You need any help?”

  “I could use the loan of your truck.”

  He said, “I might as well hang around the office and catch up on some paperwork, then. Tell you what. Why don’t you come on by and pick up the truck whenever you’re ready, and when you get back we’ll go get something to eat.”

  “Sounds good to me. I don’t think I can get away from here before two, though.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  When I returned to the office with gentle Hero on a lead by my side, Cisco was lying in the middle of the floor with his head between his paws, surrounded by shredded papers and the foam stuffing of an eviscerated sofa cushion. He had knocked over a display of leashes and turned over a plastic bin of training clickers, which were now scattered all over the floor. Maude, who had apparently come in moments before I had, stood at the door with folded arms, waiting for me to explode.

  Of course we both knew it was pointless to scold a dog after the fact, and even at the height of temper I was able to remember that. Silently, I handed her Hero’s leash, and I opened the door that led to the kennel yard. “Cisco, let’s go,” I said, and Cisco left the room for the play yard with tail wagging.

  To Maude I said darkly, “Jealous.”

  And Maude replied, “Bored.”

  There is an adage: A dog is only as good as his trainer. And Cisco was making me look very, very bad. Yes, of course he was bored. And of course, anyone who left a two-year-old golden retriever unsupervised in a room full of breakables and shreddables deserved what she got. Nonetheless, Cisco’s chances of going to the lake— ever—had just flown out the window, and I was now seriously reconsidering taking him to the Pet Fair this weekend, despite the fact that he was supposed to be one of the star attractions.

  Cleaning up the damage put me behind schedule, and I forgot to call Sonny until I had already picked up the keys to Buck’s truck and was on my way up the mountain toward her place. I tried my cell phone but couldn’t get a signal. I could only hope that she hadn’t forgotten I was coming.

  Sonny had purchased a beautiful mountaintop spread a little over a year ago with the plan of turning it into a sanctuary for unwanted animals. Bit by bit she was restoring the corrals, stables and sheds that had come with the place in hopes of making them a suitable habitat for domestic and farm animals. So far she had a handful of sheep, a couple of goats with an attitude problem, a lame rooster, a donkey with a missing ear and, at last count, four cats who had apparently heard about the plans for a heated kitty condo and had made their way up the mountain to stake a claim before winter set in. The good thing about the remote location of Sonny’s place was that people weren’t inclined to stop
by after dark and dump off boxes full of unwanted kittens and puppies, as they often did when they heard about a kind-hearted animal lover in the country.

  Naturally, when Dolly heard about Sonny’s altrusistic instincts—not to mention her propensity for doing pro bono work—she pounced on her like, well, a cat on a mouse. The last I heard, Sonny not only had donated cash and goods to the upcoming Pet Fair, but was also dividing her time over the weekend between working the Save the Mountains booth and manning the animal shelter booth.

  And some people worry, when they move to a small mountain community, that they won’t have anything to do.

  The drive up to Sonny’s house was gorgeous, if somewhat treacherous—a steep, twisting, rutted path canopied with golden poplars and bright red sweet gum trees. Sheer drop-offs on either side opened up an endless vista of layered mountains glowing yellow, orange, red and, in the deep distance, brilliant lavender. I had to continually remind myself to keep my eyes on the road—what there was of it.

  I could hear Mystery barking as I got out of the car, and I caught a glimpse of her black-and-white face as she bounced up on the front window, then raced away— presumably to greet me at the door. One of the goats wandered toward the edge of its enclosure to see whether I had brought a carrot or anything else interesting, and the donkey brayed from the stable at the bottom of the hill. All else was quiet. As I climbed the front steps I noticed that the garage door was open, and Sonny’s car was parked there. At least I hadn’t made the trip all the way out here only to miss her.

  I called, “Yoo-hoo!” and tapped on the glass-paned front door. Mystery flung herself against the panes, barking and clawing.

  Usually by the time I reached the door, Sonny had it open, waiting to greet me. After all, there was not much chance of a visitor catching her by surprise with Mystery around. “Hey,” I called over the sound of barking. “It’s me!”

  Mystery flung herself against the door so hard that the glass rattled, and I gave her a sharp, admonishing, “Mystery! Cut that out. Off!”

  I don’t like to correct someone else’s dog, but I was, after all, Mystery’s obedience instructor—one of them, anyway. Most of the time, she made me feel as though I was a pretty good teacher, but today, apparently, was not my day for self-congratulations in the well-behaved-dog department.

  My sharp tone seemed to serve only to increase Mystery’s bad behavior. Her barking had a frantic, almost crazed edge to it, and she wasn’t just jumping at the door; she was charging it, clawing it, as though she were determined to do as much damage as she could. That wasn’t like Mystery. She knew me. By now she should be sitting down and waving her tail along the floor, her eyes fixed upon the pocket where she knew I kept the treats. And why was Sonny allowing this?

  I called again, “Sonny?” I tried the door, and it was unlocked, as I knew it would be. No one locked their doors around here. “It’s Raine. Okay if I come in?”

  I opened the door, fully expecting to be clawed to death by an overly enthusiastic border collie in wild greeting mode. I had even begun the pivot that would show her my back and discourage her from jumping when I realized Mystery was no longer there. She had, in fact, raced away from me, across the stone foyer and into the wide expanse that led to the kitchen and family room. There she stood, barking wildly.

  I said, “Mystery, quiet!” and called out, “Sonny! Are you here?”

  Mystery dashed across the floor, grabbed the leg of my jeans, and tore at it. This was such complete un-Mystery-like behavior that I couldn’t even get out an astonished yelp before she had flown away again, toenails digging for traction into the stone floor as she came to a stop at exactly the same place and started barking again.

  Every Lassie show I had ever seen suddenly flashed through my mind and I rushed across the foyer, calling, “Sonny? Sonny, are you all right?”

  I turned toward the kitchen, but Mystery, circling and barking, herded me to the great room. There, on the floor between the big leather sofa and the hearth, I found my friend, lying in a pool of her own blood.

  Chapter Ten

  “I’m fine, really,” Sonny said, waving away my offer of another pillow to support her back. “Don’t fuss.”

  She was sitting on the sofa with a butterfly bandage closing the cut on her forehead, a cashmere throw over her legs and Mystery curled up contentedly beside her. Her blood-spattered clothes had been changed for clean ones and she was sipping a cup of herbal tea. All in all she looked as though she was doing much better than I was.

  I said, “You should have let the paramedics take you to the hospital.” I sank into the chair next to her, trying not to sound as anxious as I felt. “After all, they came all this way.”

  She made a face. “Thank you very much, but I prefer not to spend the next six hours in an emergency room just so some doctor I’ve never met can prescribe aspirin and rest and tell me to see my own physician in the morning. I have aspirin here and an appointment with Dr. George Shepler at eleven a.m.”

  It had taken the paramedics almost an hour to get here, and by that time Sonny was just as calm and in control as she was now. She added, not for the first time, “It was just a stupid accident. My leg gave out, and I hit my head on the coffee table. Head cuts make such a mess. It looked a lot worse than it was. I’ll wake up black-and-blue in the morning, but not much the worse for wear.”

  I said, seriously, “You need to get the road to the house paved. You saw how long it took the ambulance to get here. In the winter they might not be able to make it at all.”

  She met my eyes, and I saw a flash of anger there, a struggle with defiance she was trying hard not to voice. I knew what her independence meant to her, and living on the top of a mountain at the end of an almost impassable trail was an extra declaration of self-reliance of which she was particularly proud.

  But Sonny was no fool, either. She had remodeled the house to make it wheelchair friendly, and she used the chair without embarrassment or reluctance when she had to. She knew her limitations and was prepared for them.

  She sighed. “You’re right. I should have taken care of that this summer. It’s just that I’ve been feeling so well. It’s silly, I know. This is not a condition that gets better. But for a while there I forgot that. I even started thinking about doing things I never would have considered before—like entering Mystery in some herding trials next spring. Poor thing.” She stroked the border collie’s shapely head. “It hardly seems fair to her.”

  I said sternly, “Don’t be ridiculous. You know perfectly well that the dog does all the work in a herding trial, and there’s nothing in this world stopping you from handling her from a chair. If you want to put her in a trial, I’ll make sure you get the premium as soon as it’s printed.”

  She returned a distant smile. “We’ll see.” She took another sip of her tea, holding the cup with both hands. “It’s just so depressing, knowing it’s all downhill from here. Hard to think about spring.”

  I thought about Mickey White, who had been almost completely confined to a wheelchair, and whose prognosis was much worse than Sonny’s. I said, “Now I know you need to go have that head injury checked out. Self-pity is definitely not like you. There must be something wrong.”

  She made a wry face. “You’re right. I should be ashamed of myself.” She rested her hand on Mystery’s silky neck. “I think I scared her half to death. She tried to help, she just didn’t know what to do.”

  “She did fine,” I assured Sonny. “You should have seen her trying to lead me to you, just like one of those dogs in the movies.”

  I hesitated, but I had to say it. “Sonny . . . have you ever thought about having somebody move in up here? I mean, with it being so far off the beaten track and everything, it might be good to have somebody to, you know, keep an eye on”—I almost said “you” but made a quick substitution—“things. A housekeeper, or a caretaker. Maybe even a couple.”

  Her cool, steady gaze told me that she knew exactly what I was
trying to suggest—that she hire a nurse—and precisely how she felt about that idea.

  With a deliberate change of subject, Sonny said, “I heard about you and Cisco on the radio yesterday. Quite an adventure.”

  Relieved for the opportunity to talk about less sensitive subjects, I brought her up to date on the Mickey White case, including the discovery of the body of Leo White this morning, drowned in the creek.

  “Good heavens,” she said, “this story just keeps getting stranger. How is Hero taking it all?”

  I sighed. “He still seems depressed. And Cisco isn’t helping any.” Briefly, I related the incident between Hero and Cisco that had occurred the night before.

  “Well, you can hardly blame him,” Sonny said. “After all, up until now there’s only been one hero in the family—him. And he did find that Boy Scout yesterday. Maybe you should have made a bigger fuss.”

  I chuckled. “Actually, I think the Boy Scout found us.”

  “Maybe Cisco would like to learn how to do some of the things Hero knows,” suggested Sonny. “At the very least, I think he’d enjoy the extra attention he’d get from the training.”

  “That’s a good idea,” I said, surprised that I hadn’t thought of it myself. “He’d probably be a natural at some of those behaviors. After all, he is a retriever.”

  “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

  I said, “I think I’m going to bring Hero to the Pet Fair Saturday. It’ll be good for him to be around noise and people, and I’d like to do as much socialization as possible with him before he’s taken back for evaluation.”

  We talked in that vein for a while, and I let Sonny guide the conversation toward topics that had nothing to do with her disability or the frightening accident that afternoon. By the time I felt comfortable enough to leave her—in fact, she practically forced me to leave—it was almost dark. I loaded up the supplies I had come for and started down the mountain.