by Dale Mayer
“Why? What are you doing with a gun in here?” he asked, raising his voice, as if scared.
The guy sneered. “Why do you want to know?” he asked. “I told you to get lost.”
“Or else what?”
The guy stared at him. “Or else I might just use this in your direction.”
“What are you planning to shoot?” Kurt continued to play dumb to get more out of the gunman.
“I can hunt mad dog all I want,” he said with a sneer.
And that confirmed what Kurt had been afraid of. “You’re the one who’s been attacking that dog around here?” he said, letting his supposed fear ease down again.
The guy stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“I heard somebody was out here, abusing a lost dog.”
The guy straightened up. “I’m not doing any such thing. That dog is bad news. It needs to be put down.”
“Yeah, I can see right now how the dog is attacking you,” Kurt said with a smirk. “So you just make up shit to kill dogs?” Kurt said, as if too stupid to understand when he was in trouble. In the meantime, he stared at the guy’s stance and realized that the gunman was all bravado, not showing any training.
The guy took several steps toward Kurt, waving the gun at him. “I told you to get the hell away,” he snapped. “It’s not my fault if you can’t learn the lesson.”
And he raised his gun, as if to shoot, and immediately Kurt put up his hands, as if to ward off a bullet. “Hey, man, I don’t mean any harm.”
“Really?” He shook his head. “That’s not what I see from my side,” he said. “Looks to me like you’re up to no good. Now why don’t you get the hell away from here.”
“I’m going,” Kurt said, slowly backing up, “but I can’t stand to see anybody hurt a dog.”
“Stick around much longer, and you’ll see it all right,” he said, “because this dog deserves a bullet.”
“Why? What she did to you?”
“She hurt one of my associates,” he said. “Just a young man who didn’t know any better and thought the dog was harmless.”
“You mean, one of those five young punks who have been terrorizing the neighborhood?”
At that, the guy cocked his gun and raised it higher. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, but it better not be about my kids.”
And that was enough for Kurt. “Ah, so you’re their mentor, their leader. Are you the one who blackmails them into being assholes?”
“No blackmailing required,” he said casually, studying Kurt, as if not quite sure if he was a threat or not.
“Well, some of them are definitely bad news,” he said, “but not all teenagers are bad.”
“They’re all bad news,” the stranger snapped. “I make sure that they stay that way. No room in this world for wussies.”
“Ya think?” Kurt said with a sneer, as he shifted position, waiting for the other man to make a move. The problem was, the stranger would likely react with that gun. Kurt didn’t have any K9 training himself to gain Sabine’s assistance through standard military orders. But, since finding out what he would be heading into, needing more intel about the dog he was trying to coerce back to a decent life, Kurt wondered if he knew enough to get her to attack or, better yet, to find the enemy, to seek them out, and to take them down. He looked at the old man and said, “What’s the matter, old man? You ain’t got nothing left in you, so you got to use a weapon?”
At that, he swore. “Don’t call me an old man, you piece of shit. You don’t even know what it’s like to fight,” he said. “You’re nothing but an ignorant prick.”
Kurt smiled at him and said, “So do your worst. Come on. Put that gun down, and show me what you’re made of. Everybody seems to think they’re a big man when they have a weapon in their hand,” Kurt said, taunting his opponent, “but take away that weapon, and they’re nothing but a piece of lily-livered fear-struck rubber-necked chicken.”
At that, the old man’s eyes glittered with hate—and that was the right word for it. There was something so deranged about this character that all the stranger could see through his own fury was the man in front of him and his growing need to punch Kurt’s face to the ground.
It was an odd feeling to know that somebody could hate that deeply with so little provocation. Kurt could handle a street fight with this guy, unless the madman got a good shot in, whether with his fists or his gun. Kurt just had to make sure this guy didn’t drop Kurt because he knew that there would be no tomorrow for Sabine if that were the case. This kind of guy killed indiscriminately, just like the dog he was hoping to shoot. As far as this old man was concerned, he was law, and whoever crossed him would pay the price.
He smiled a mouthful of rotten teeth and said, “What I’m not is stupid. You’re younger, maybe stronger. But you don’t have any brains. No way in hell I’m letting go of this gun. I can pop you from here, so you’ll never see tomorrow. Why the hell would I put my gun down?”
“I just thought you might like your hands free,” he said, watching as Sabine came up behind the stranger, crouching slowly, her teeth bared, not a sound coming from her. And, with the appearance of Sabine, Kurt gave the one solid hand motion he had learned to give a War Dog, and that was to attack. She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t question the order. She jumped from a standstill, up into a solid six-foot lunge, and grabbed the guy in the shoulder of his gun arm.
He screamed, his jerky trigger finger firing off the gun. One, two, and by the third shot, Sabine had pulled him down and backward. Kurt was on the gunman in a second. He punched him to knock him out, flipped him over, and pulled his hands behind his back. The bigger struggle was to get the dog to release the gunman’s shoulder. But, with the old guy unconscious, Kurt talked Sabine down and finally got her to relax enough to release.
Finally the dog settled down, whining. Kurt dug into his pockets, found some treats, and tossed her one. She immediately gave a thankful woof.
“Feels good to get back a little control, doesn’t it?” he murmured to Sabine. “The whole world isn’t full of assholes, sweetheart, just a large portion of them.”
She inhaled the treat.
He added, “We’ll work hard to make sure you don’t have to come across them again.”
And he carefully held out his hand and dropped a few more treats, close by, in front of him. She crouched on her belly to get a little closer to them. And then he held out a couple in his hand, while he held the asshole on the ground. She leaned forward delicately, and his heart damn-near broke when she nibbled the treat off his palm. He smiled, feeling something inside swell with sheer joy. Trust was something earned, and it was hard to come by, but when you got it? Man, oh man, it was a dream come true.
She stepped a little bit closer, and he continued to offer a couple more treats, hoping that the supply in his pocket didn’t run out anytime soon. He’d left the leash and the collar in his truck. Groaning and hating to, he pulled out his phone and contacted the same damn detective. When Amos answered, Kurt explained, “So I don’t know what you want me to do with this guy, but he was trying to shoot my War Dog.”
“And you killed him?” the detective asked with a snarl.
“No, he’s here unconscious,” he said. “He’s the one mentoring your gang members.”
“You got Slippery Simon?” His voice rose in shock.
“I don’t know,” Kurt said. “I’ll send you a pic.” He ended the call and rolled over the gunman. Even that act caused Sabine to growl. Kurt looked over at her. “He’s still out cold. It’s okay, sweetie.” He quickly took a pic, rolled the asshole back over again, and sent it to Amos.
The cop called him a few minutes later. “Don’t move,” he said. “I’m on my way.”
“Is it him?”
“Yeah, that’s Slippery Simon. We’ve been after him for a long time.”
“Well, you better get here fast,” Kurt said and hung up.
He sat down on the guy’s back,
as close as he could to Sabine. “It’s been a tough go, hasn’t it, baby?”
She whimpered a little bit and snuggled a bit closer. He desperately wanted to reach out and touch her. She wanted that connection, that human contact too. But she was so afraid, and so was he because he didn’t want to break that tenuous bond. He didn’t want to break that little bit of trust growing between them.
She was too special to lose into this chaos again, but what the hell would he do with her now that the detective was coming? The last thing Kurt wanted was for her to attack the detective, although Kurt certainly understood the sentiment. He needed to make sure that she was safe when Amos appeared. Because, sure enough, the cops would be here soon and then what?
“I don’t suppose you’d come with me, would you?” he whispered. He didn’t have anything on him that he could use to wrap around her neck as a leash. Everything was in the truck. Yet he couldn’t leave asshole here unattended. Kurt would have to wait until the detective came and went before Kurt could deal with Sabine. Just then he heard sirens in the distance. She backed up, staring in fear in the direction of the noise.
“It’s all right. I’ll be here when they’re gone,” he said. “Go hide.”
Something about the term hide had Sabine swinging her head hard to him, and then she disappeared into the trees and melted into the background, but he could feel her gaze staring out the entire time.
Sabine was something special, but also her training was something damn creepy. She was very good at what she did. He wondered if he could keep her working, just in the civilian sector now, because she obviously had spent so much time and energy in her military career that it seemed a waste to not use it now. He didn’t know if any work was around for somebody like him and her. He also didn’t know if he had any right to even keep her. She wasn’t free to be donated to somebody like him. But then what did he know? He’d gotten further than he had expected because he found her, after all these weeks where she had been lost.
At that thought, he sent Badger a message and a photo of the Slippery Simon dude. When that was done, Kurt heard the cops calling out. He yelled back, and they headed in his direction. He kept talking to them so they could find his location. When they neared the clearing and saw him sitting there, still atop Slippery Simon, the detective walked over and asked, “What the hell is with the gun?” He pointed to the weapon on the ground, not far from the unconscious man.
“It’s not mine. It’s his,” Kurt said.
“And you just left it there?”
“Why not? Just the two of us were out here,” he said. “I don’t really care to use one, and I certainly didn’t need it.”
“So how does that work?” Amos asked. “He had a gun, and he came after you, and then what?”
Kurt decided that honesty would be best here. “I was working on gaining the War Dog’s trust, so that I could get her under my control. I have spent a lot of time today with her back and forth. When this guy showed up, trying to shoot her, Simon was pissed that I had interrupted him, so he turned the gun on me, and Sabine attacked Simon.” Kurt pointed to Simon’s shoulder. “As a trained military dog, she attacked the shoulder of the hand holding the gun and brought Simon down.”
The detective stared in surprise. “So you found her?”
“Yes,” he said. “I found her, and, if you guys can get this asshole out of here, I might get her to trust me enough to get a rope on her and get her back to my place.”
“But she bit him, that makes her dangerous.”
“No, she attacked upon my orders,” he said, “because, once again, I was under attack, and I was forced to defend myself.”
“Says you.”
“Yep, says me,” Kurt said, taking a long slow breath. “Are you now doubting this story too?” Kurt looked over at the other cops who had arrived. He didn’t recognize most of them, but he could tell from their attitude that a lot of news about Kurt had been shared between them.
The cops looked at Kurt curiously and then back at the man on the ground.
As if realizing he was making another spectacle and causing even more talk, the detective glared. “You don’t have to make life difficult all the time for me,” he said.
“Believe me. I’ve made enough trouble elsewhere too.”
“You were a pain in the ass back then,” he said, walking forward, as Kurt stood and rolled the guy over and added, “Why the hell should I think you’re anything different now?”
“You don’t want to see that I’m different,” Kurt said quietly. “That’s the problem. I’m obviously different. I have a very different set of friends and have earned their respect through the work I’ve done. It wasn’t easy, but I did it. You just don’t want to cut me any slack and see that I’ve changed.”
“A leopard doesn’t change its spots.”
“A leopard doesn’t have to,” he snapped back, “because a leopard is, and always will be, a leopard. I may have been misguided and arrogant back then, but I’m certainly not that person now. The military made me a better man.”
The detective looked at him, but there was no give in his clear gaze.
“Are you dealing with this guy or not?”
“Well, we’ll take him to the station and see what he says.”
“And here I thought this old man was the guy you were after,” Kurt said in surprise, studying the detective. “Unless of course you’re in in cahoots with Simon.”
At that, the detective glared. “What the hell does that mean?”
“While on the phone, you talked about Slippery Simon being a guy you’ve been after for a long time, and yet, here you are, acting as if he may or may not be who you want and to hell with it. It might just be too much work for you to write this up.”
“It is Slippery Simon,” one of the other cops said. “And this is a huge collar, so we thank you.”
“Don’t fucking thank him,” the detective said. “This asshole is probably running with him.”
“I haven’t been in town for the last thirteen years, but you have. So I’m not running with this local guy, Simon,” he said, “but you might be, since you’ve been here the whole time since I was in the military. It would explain some of the lovely attitude I’ve been getting from you.”
“I don’t owe you anything,” the detective said.
“No,” Kurt said, “but I owe you a thanks.”
Amos, the detective, stared at him in surprise. “Why is that?”
“Because somehow between us, during all those years where I was an asshole,” he said, “I stayed out of jail. If I had gotten a record, I wouldn’t have made it so easily into the navy. So thank you for being completely incompetent at your job back then. I managed to get out of this cycle of abuse in foster care to avoid the gangs and managed to make it into the navy, where I excelled.”
The other guys looked at Kurt and then looked at the detective, who was steaming mad. “You made it into the navy? That’s good for you,” one of the cops said. “I heard that’s not a terribly easy life.”
Kurt looked toward the other cops and smiled. “It’s not,” he said, “but I knew I needed to get out before I ended up in a wooden box,” he said. “I made it and made it pretty high up too. Put in a lot of years of service for this country until a really bad accident sidelined me,” he said, “and now I’m on the other side, wondering what comes next.”
“Yeah, you’ll probably just slide back into the same damn habits,” the detective guessed.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I know what it’s like to be a hero. I’m not too keen on getting back to the abused child I was.”
“You were in foster care?” another cop asked.
“Yep, sure was. Taken away from my father when I was thirteen. He was a drunk, used to chain me up outside for fun,” he said. “When he remembered that I was still alive, he’d go out and unchain me. By the time somebody finally gave me a fighting chance and turned him in, I hit foster care, but I already had an attitude
big-time. I wouldn’t be chained by anybody anymore.”
“I’m surprised you went to the navy,” the other cop said.
“I knew I needed something,” he said in a flat voice. “I’d lost all respect for humanity. There’s only one woman I ever loved, and the rest of the people, as far as I was concerned, were like my father—assholes. I had to find another way to live. Otherwise I wouldn’t have,” he said, looking down at the still unconscious Slippery Simon. “And then after all those years I became a Navy SEAL, and now I’m not sure what I’ll do. I’m working for Titanium Corp out of Santa Fe, looking for War Dogs that slipped through the system.”
“Wow,” one of the cops said respectfully, “you became a Navy SEAL.”
“You can’t believe that bullshit,” the detective scoffed. “Guys like this, they lie all the time.”
“Yeah, sure some do. When they’re desperate for a meal, when they’re desperate for anything to make them feel good enough to get through the day,” Kurt said, “but I never lied.” He looked over at the cop who asked and nodded. “Yeah, I was an active Navy SEAL for twelve years, then sidelined for one year.”
“Holy shit.”
“It was time to change careers when I was injured,” he said. “Most SEALs don’t last beyond that.”
“I heard it’s pretty tough.”
“It is, but there’s also nothing quite like knowing that you’ve achieved the best of the best and that you’ve hit that pinnacle of your career. You’re doing what you want to do to save the country,” he said. “So I have absolutely no complaints about my life from the time I left this town.”
“Weren’t some US Navy SEALs involved when the governor’s sister and brother were kidnapped in some godforsaken Iranian country? Those US scientists?” He nudged the others. “Remember that? The SEALs went in and rescued them.”
At that, Kurt’s lips twitched. “They did, indeed,” he said. “I was one of them.”
“Holy shit,” the cop said, and he looked over the detective. “If the governor ever finds out that you’re bad-mouthing and blackballing this guy,” he said, “your career is over.”