by Donna Ball
Maude screwed tight the lid on a thermos of coffee and tucked it into my pack as I headed for the door. “Good luck,” she said. “And for God’s sake, be careful.”
“Routine,” I called back to her, and raced across the yard to join Cisco, who was already waiting in the truck.
What Rick referred to as “Campsite Number Three” was one of the lower campsites in what we called a primitive area—that meant no toilets, no showers, no RV hookups and no tent pads. There were concrete picnic tables and a trash can near the road, and that was where I parked. From there, through the nearly naked branches of trees, I could see the glint of the lake at the bottom of the hill in the distance.
Cisco was trained to track human scent, and when he put on his tracking harness and SAR vest, that was what he did—for the most part. But, being a dog, he would also track whatever scent caught his super-sensitive nose, and was just stubborn enough to follow that scent until he either found the source or lost the trail. Some of his favorite things to track were deer, rabbits and other dogs. Naturally this unfortunate tendency to go off on tangents was something we tried to discourage in tracking class. Today, however, I was counting on it.
Because I didn’t want to confuse him, I didn’t put on his vest or harness. I snapped a light lead on him until we were away from the road, and let him sniff eagerly around the picnic tables. I could tell—I really could—by the way he held his ears and waved his tail that what he was now excited about was another dog, not a person. When he bounded off through the woods, I was positive of it.
The forest floor was damp, but that was good; it would hold the scent better. The cool air, deep in the canopy of the woods, would pool the scent close to the ground as well, hopefully concentrating it into something Cisco could easily recognize and categorize. He worked a zigzag pattern in a happy, springing gait, occasionally looking back at me to see whether I was following. When he saw me close, he would pounce off again as though hardly able to believe his luck. Usually when I followed him on one of his wild goose—or wild deer, dog or rabbit—chases through the woods, I was red-faced and angry, shouting for him to come back to me that very minute. This, for Cisco, was a day out of school.
As we moved downhill toward the lake, we left forest service land and moved into the wildlife management area. “Wildlife management” is not to be confused with “wildlife preserve.” In a wildlife management area, hunting is not only permitted but encouraged. Several dirt roads crossed the wooded area, and on one of them I saw a familiar black Range Rover parked. The vanity plate on the back read YOUNG1. Very cute. Wouldn’t you know that, a dozen miles from nowhere, the one person who would be sharing the woods with me would be a flatlander fool pretending to hunt.
I called Cisco to me and snapped on his lead.
It occurred to me that the road intersected with the lake trail about a hundred yards to the east. It was not entirely out of the question that Sandy might have decided to hike down to the lake . . . especially if she had a lover who had rented a cabin there.
I had not said anything about Leo White’s death to her, only Mickey’s. She might not have known that he was dead. She might have assumed that whatever plan they had made was still on. My mind balked at imagining that pretty, vivacious, dog-loving woman at the center of such a cold-blooded plot. In fact, I simply couldn’t do it. But Cisco had tracked Ringo this far.
Maybe it was a long shot, but I took Cisco down the dirt road until I spied the lake trail, littered with leaves and almost indistinguishable, curving off into the woods. I unleashed my dog.
Cisco galloped down the trail, occasionally sniffing the ground but giving no sign that he was finding anything of particular interest. Accustomed to being on the twenty-foot tracking lead, he rarely got more than fifteen or twenty feet ahead of me, and checked back regularly to make sure I was still there. But he gave absolutely no signs that he was on the trail of anything more fascinating than the occasional squirrel or raccoon who had darted up a tree sometime within the past hour or so.
I was about to call him and start back toward the dirt road when Cisco, perhaps fifteen feet ahead of me, suddenly skidded to a stop, ears and tail forward, and barked. It was a startled bark, as though he had seen or heard something unexpected in the woods, and I stopped still, looking around alertly.
In the sudden silence of a still autumn afternoon I could hear a leaf dislodge itself from a branch and float to the ground, brushing the passing leaves with a crinkling sound. And then I could hear something else—a sudden movement in the brush, sliding leaves and rattling branches, sticks cracking underfoot.
I called out, “Sandy?”
I turned around slowly, shading my eyes against the low-lying sun. “Sandy!”
Suddenly Cisco barked again, his greeting bark, his excited bark, and he dashed forward into the woods.
I cried, “Cisco!” and ran after him, but too late.
There was the crack of a gunshot, the high-pitched yelp of an animal in pain, and my world came to an end.
Chapter Fourteen
I remember screaming, a hoarse, inarticulate, terrified “Noooo!” I remember plunging down the trail, skidding, falling, scrambling up again before I hit the ground, splashing across a ditch, into the woods, falling to my knees beside my dog, who lay on his side, his eyes rolled back in his head, his beautiful golden fur dark and wet with blood.
I tried to stroke him but my hands were shaking convulsively. Strange sounds were coming out of my throat. I tore off my backpack, emptied it on the ground, pawed through it for the first aid kit, tried to think. Breathing, bleeding . . . I couldn’t remember the third “b” of the first aid protocol. I couldn’t remember the right order. I didn’t think he was breathing. I couldn’t get the first aid kit open. All I could do was kneel there with my hands cupping his sweet, still head, shaking and making choking noises that sounded like, “OhGodohGodohGod...”
There was a crashing sound, a man’s voice: “Are you all right? What happened?”
I whirled around, and there was Miles Young, in his ridiculous L.L.Bean canvas hunting pants and plaid jacket, deer rifle slung over his shoulder, stepping high to avoid the ditch as he came toward me. In a blur of fury I flung myself on him, screaming, “You shot my dog, you stupid son of a bitch! You shot Cisco! You shot him!” I was pounding at him with my fists, wasting precious energy, trying to get his face, his eyes, roaring at him inarticulately.
He caught my arms and shoved me away from him, his gaze going over my shoulder first in puzzlement, then swiftly darkening in concern. I tried to wrench away from him and he gave me a little shake. “Is he alive?” he asked in a voice that sounded too cold, too calm.
I gasped, “I don’t know.” And with those words all the fight went out of me, and I had no more time to spare for rage. I pulled away from Miles and went back to my dog.
A fierce calm seized me, a clear level-headedness. I placed my hand on Cisco’s chest and felt his shallow breathing. My hand came away wet and red. I found the roll of gauze in my first aid kit and quickly unrolled a wad, improvising a pressure bandage for the gaping wound I could see in his shoulder. I shook out the silvery space blanket and tried to get it around him, but it was slippery and hard to manage. I knew I couldn’t carry him like that.
I was barely aware of Miles Young standing over me until I said out loud, breathlessly, “It’s okay, boy, hold on, sweetie, I’m going to get you back to town.”
Miles dropped down beside me, holding out his red plaid jacket. “Wrap him in this,” he commanded. “I’ll carry him to my car.”
I hesitated, but for not even a second. Gently I secured Cisco’s muzzle closed with another strip of gauze, because even the sweetest dog will snap when disoriented and in pain, and tucked the heavy jacket under and around him. Cisco didn’t even whimper as Miles Young lifted him in his arms.
I don’t remember the trip down the mountain. I sat in the backseat of Miles’s Range Rover with Cisco’s head in my lap,
mechanically giving directions to Doc Withers’s place, never taking my eyes off my sweet boy. It was close to dusk when we pulled up in front of the clinic, and they were getting ready to close up. But when Ethel saw me tumble out of the strange vehicle, covered in blood, the whole family rushed out to help. Doc was the only one who realized immediately that the blood was not mine, and he brought a veterinary stretcher.
I wanted to go into the surgery with them, but Ethel firmly closed the door against me. I knew she had dealt with hundreds of hysterical clients over the years and she was probably right, but I had never expected to be treated like a hysterical client. I had never expected to be one.
After what seemed like a lifetime, Crystal came out and sat on the hard wooden bench beside me. She said, “Daddy said to tell you he’s giving him oxygen and blood, and X-raying the shoulder, but he doesn’t think the bullet hit an organ. Mama said I was to go up to the house and get you a Coke or something. What do you want?”
I shook my head. My hands were clasped firmly between my knees to keep them from shaking, and I tried not to rock back and forth. That would make me look hysterical. “Nothing, thanks. I’m fine. I think I should be in there with him. Cisco would be calmer if I was there.”
She said, “Daddy’s already put him under for the X-RAY. He wouldn’t even know you.”
She stood up awkwardly. “Well, if you don’t want anything . . .”
Again I shook my head.
She nodded toward Miles Young, who stood beside the door, talking softly on his cell. I hated him. I had never hated anyone so much. “What about your friend?” she asked.
“No.” It was hard to speak through all that hate. “Just let me know what the X-ray shows, okay?”
“Okay.”
As she went back into the inner sanctum, Miles flipped his phone closed and came over to me. “Listen,” he said, “I can have a helicopter here in fifteen minutes to fly you to Clemson or the University of Georgia, two of the best veterinary hospitals in the southeast. You can even take your own vet along to watch him during the flight. Just say the word.”
I stared at him. “You think that makes it okay? Do you really think that makes it okay?” I couldn’t stand to look at him, and I jerked my head away. Then I couldn’t stand not to look at him, and I turned back. My voice was low and tight and much steadier than I would have thought possible. “I knew something like this was going to happen.From the first day I saw you, bumbling around in the woods with your idiot friends playing Big White Hunter, shooting at anything that moves . . . You wouldn’t know a deer if it jumped through your windshield, and you think you can just go out and roam the woods with a deadly weapon . . . He was a therapy dog! He saved lives! He—”
I caught myself suddenly with a broken sob that choked in my throat, and pressed both hands to my lips to prevent it from escaping. I had said was. I had talked about my dog in the past tense.
Miles Young looked down at me gravely. He said quietly, “I’m only going to say this once. I was a marksman in the Gulf War. I’ve been hunting since I was twelve years old. If I sight a deer, I bag a deer. And I did not fire my rifle today.”
I closed my eyes. I whispered, “He was learning how to dance.”
And because I knew if I sat there another minute I would burst into tears, and if I started crying I would never stop, I got up and walked outside. I stayed there, letting the cold wrap itself around me and the blue mountain shadows drape themselves over me, until Crystal opened the door of the clinic and told me her dad was taking Cisco into surgery.
Miles did not leave. I didn’t know why he stayed, but he sat there on one of the two wooden captain’s chairs that, along with the bench upon which I sat, furnished the waiting room, and he drank the coffee that Crystal provided from a paper cup. He didn’t try to talk to me. I gave him credit for that.
Less than an hour later, the door opened, and Buck came in. Miles got to his feet, regarding the uniform Buck wore with interest, but he said nothing. I stayed where I was, staring up at him. “Who called you?”
“Crystal.”
She would.
He said, tight faced, “What happened?”
I tipped my head toward Miles. “Hunting accident. He shot Cisco.”
Miles stepped forward and extended his hand. “Officer,” he said, “I’m Miles Young. And I’m afraid she’s mistaken. I was packing up for the day when I heard the shot.”
Buck looked at his hand but did not shake it. He turned back to me. “How is he?”
“In surgery.”
At that moment the door to the surgery opened and Doc came out. I jumped to my feet, but before I could speak he said, “He’s going to be fine. Bullet lodged in the muscle, not the bone. Nicked an artery, but you did right with the pressure bandage, kept him from losing too much blood. He’ll limp for a while, but I don’t see why he shouldn’t be running through the woods again in no time. He can go home tomorrow, if he does okay tonight.”
He reached into the pocket of his lab coat and brought out a capped vial. “Here’s the bullet.”
Buck took it from him. He looked at Miles. “Do you mind if I have a look at your weapon, sir?”
Miles looked at the vial, and he replied mildly, “Not at all.”
They headed toward the door, and I said to Doc, “I want to see him. I want to sit with him.”
He knew better than to try to stop me that time.
I sat on the concrete floor by the open door of the kennel, my hand resting on the cool fur that covered Cisco’s hip. He looked shrunken, like a stuffed toy, and even his fur didn’t look real—it was dry and lifeless and stuck up in all different directions, like it had been glued on. Above and below the long line of black stitches on his shoulder, the fur had been shaved bare from neck to midriff, and it looked pathetic. He was still deeply unconscious from the anesthesia, but he knew I was there. I was certain of it.
The door at the end of the corridor opened, and I knew from the sound of the footsteps that it was Buck who entered. He squatted down beside me, smelling of cold outdoors and gun oil—two scents I would always associate with Buck. Tonight they brought me no comfort.
I said tightly, without looking at him, “Where’s Wyn?” I knew I should have regretted the words the minute I spoke them, but I did not. I was filled with rage, filled with hate. I had not yet come to realize that the person I hated was myself. I repeated, “Where’s your partner?”
A brief silence, then he said, “Off duty.”
I still didn’t look at him. I stroked Cisco’s dull, lifeless fur, and willed him to know I was there.
Buck said, “You owe Mr. Young an apology. He didn’t shoot Cisco.”
Now I looked at him, sharply. “Of course he did. He’s an idiot. He shouldn’t be allowed to own a gun. He—”
“He was carrying a deer rifle,” Buck interrupted, “and that’s all. The bullet Doc took out of Cisco’s shoulder belonged to a forty-five caliber handgun.”
I stared at him, and Buck said, “Look for yourself.” He opened the vial and tipped the bullet into my hand. I felt an immediate repulsion for the cool metal against my skin, and I quickly returned the bullet to him. But he was right. It had come from a handgun, not a rifle.
My head was fuzzy. It didn’t make sense. “Who hunts with a forty-five? What were they doing out in the woods with a handgun?”
Buck said, “I had some boys go check out the place where it happened. Guess you didn’t realize how close you were to the lake, to the cabin where Mickey White was found.” His steady gaze held mine. “The police tape had been broken. Somebody had been in there. The place was trashed. So why don’t you tell me what you were doing up on the lake trail this afternoon?”
He sounded so officious, so calm and in control and just-this-side-of-TV-cop that I think, at that moment, something snapped inside me. I said, low in my throat, “You don’t get to talk to me like that.” I turned on him. “You’re not my uncle. You’re not even my husband. You�
��re for damn sure not the sheriff, and you don’t get to talk to me like that! Where were you? Why weren’t you there when I needed you? This never would have happened if you’d been there, damn it, Buck, you’re supposed to be there!”
I couldn’t believe it. My nose was running, my face was wet and my throat was filled with mucus. Before I knew it his arm was around me, and I was sobbing against his shoulder. It was painful weeping, the kind that stabbed behind my eyes and robbed my breath and made ugly choking sounds come from my chest. He held me tight against him, with one hand pressing into the back of my skull, until I exhausted myself with the force of it.
As I lay hiccuping against him, he said softly. “Ah, baby. Hell of a week for you, huh? I’m sorry for my part in it.”
I squeezed my eyes tightly closed. “You’re my best friend, Buck. Do you know how bad it feels to hate your best friend? I can’t stand to think about losing you.”
He took my face in both his hands, and he moved me away from him, so that he could look into my eyes. His own eyes were dark and serious. He said, “I’ll always be your friend. I’ll always be here for you. Listen to me, and believe that.” His fingers tightened briefly on my face, as though to press the truth of his words into my brain, and then relaxed.
He pushed back my hair, and his eyes followed the path of his hands, tracing over my face as though memorizing it. He said softly, but steadily, “We have some papers to sign, okay? We’ve got some growing up to do, some things to face. But between us, it’s okay. I’ll always be there for you, Rainey. I’ll always be your friend.”
I tried to draw in a deep breath, hiccuped and nodded. He pulled out a handkerchief. I blew my nose.
He said, “What happened up there?”
So I told him about Sandy Lanier, about Letty Cranston’s phone call and the affair that Leo White had had, and how David Kines had threatened to have Leo killed. I told him how Sandy had reacted when she met Hero and learned of Mickey’s death, and about Ringo showing up, lost and alone, at the campsite. I even told him about my call to David Kines.