Max offered a thumbs-up signal, and Bertie mouthed, “Be careful!”
Amanda returned the thumbs-up gesture and blew them a kiss.
“Hold up!” Bertie yelled from the kitchen. Max had already prepared two beef patties for the pup and placed them in a paper bag. “You’re going to need this!” She ran to the front door and gave them to Amanda. She pulled the young woman to her in a bear hug and whispered in her ear, “We love you, Princess…you call us at the first sign of trouble!”
Amanda returned the hug and said, “You know I will, Bertie…I love you, too! By the way…Buster is upstairs…please take care of him until I get back…maybe Doug can take him out back to play later!” She waved to Max and was out the door by the time Tyler had finished his phone call.
“Dad will be waiting for us,” he reported while he walked around the truck and opened the passenger door for Amanda.
“Ohhh…” Amanda teased. “My future husband is such the gentleman, isn’t he?” She laughed when the terrier-mix pup rushed onto her lap and pushed his nose toward the greasy bag she held in her hand. Amanda returned his puppy kisses and broke the patties into small pieces for him. “Here you go, Licker…enjoy…”
Tyler returned to the driver’s side, opened the door, and slid inside quietly. He looked over at Amanda and the pup. He didn’t know which comment to address first…the dog’s new name…or the comment about him being Amanda’s future husband. He played it safe and did not say anything for the first half of the trip.
They were half-way to their destination point when Tyler finally said, “Okay, Amanda…we have another forty-five minutes to go, so that should be plenty of time for you to tell me why Sam is so…what did you say…special?”
Amanda looked over at Tyler’s handsome profile and grinned. “We’re going to have some really nice-looking kids, aren’t we?” Licker had snuggled comfortably in her lap and was sound asleep.
Tyler looked sideways to see what he hoped was a teasing expression on her face; instead, he thought that she looked completely serious. For reasons that he could not, and would not even begin to explain, he felt resigned to accept what fate might have in store for them both. The connection he was feeling toward her warmed him from the inside out, and he could only nod his affirmation. “Yeah…yeah, I believe we will…”
Amanda’s comment had served its purpose and she smiled inwardly. She would be able to put off her explanation about Sam for the time being.
_____
The small, one-room concrete house was upwind from the burning pit that the Abbott ranch crew members used to discard dead, or semi-dead, bait dogs. However, the lingering smell of their burned fur and skin still managed to seep through the walls of the house where Tim Breydan and Ross Taylor had been savagely beaten and bound.
Tim was the first to regain consciousness. One eye was swollen completely shut, but when he heard groaning coming from the opposite corner of the room, he was able to open the other one wide enough to make out a crumpled form; and, he had to hope and assume it was Ross. His hands were tied behind him, and the rope extended and connected to his bound ankles. “I guess this is what being hog-tied means…” he thought. He tried to call out Ross’s name, but no sound came out at first. He remembered being choked from behind by one man while another one beat his face to a bloody pulp. He squinted through the darkness again, trying to focus on the crumpled form in the far corner; it was impossible to determine whether or not his friend was still alive.
Tim was not able to get into a sitting position because of the way he and Ross had been tied, so he turned on his side and tried to get a better feel for their surroundings. It was no use; there were no windows, and the room was too dark to make out anything other than what looked like a crumpled form in the far corner. Where were they? He vaguely remembered the older man telling Pete to take them to the cabin at the pit. What pit? Were they still on the Abbott ranch?
The darkness within the room prevented Tim from knowing what time of day or night it might be. He had no idea how long he and Ross had been there. He listened for any sign of movement inside or outside the cabin; he heard absolutely nothing…the eerie quietness of the place worried him more than the men who had beaten and discarded them. He turned his head sharply back toward the crumpled form when he heard a low moaning coming from that direction. He used his knees and shoulders to scoot sideways toward the sound.
“Tim….” The voice was cracked and weak, but Ross Taylor managed to get it out. His voice wasn’t the only thing that was cracked; when he tried to turn toward the dragging sound he heard, he knew immediately that he, most likely, had some broken ribs. The pain was excruciating and it hurt like hell trying to breathe. “Tim…?”
“I’m here, buddy…I’m here…” Tim rasped hoarsely, as he made his way slowly across the room. “You okay?” His throat burned like a furnace, but the words came easier now.
“Yeah…yeah…I’m okay…” Ross groaned back. “We’ve got to get out of here…before they come back...” It was a struggle for Ross to get the words out. “I heard them say something about throwing us in the pit…”
Tim had managed to scoot closer to the corner where Ross’s battered body lay. The closer he got, the more he was able to see the damage that had been inflicted upon his friend. Ross had put up more of a fight, and had been beaten more severely than him. Tim did not think his friend and co-worker looked good at all. He listened to Ross’s raspy and labored breathing, and wondered if his lungs had been bruised or, worse, punctured. “They don’t know who we are,” Tim croaked. “I don’t think they’ll do anything until they find out for sure.” He was quiet for a minute or two. “We’re going to get out of here, Ross…you’ve got to hang on…do you hear me?”
It was another full minute before a sigh of relief escaped Tim’s parched throat…a blessed sigh of relief when he heard Ross’s tortured inhalation of air.
“I hear ya…I hear ya…” Ross answered back with forced determination. He closed his eyes and suppressed a scream that threatened to escape when he attempted to reposition himself. The burning in his rib cage and lungs was beyond any pain he had ever before experienced. He wanted to believe Tim’s words, but he didn’t have Tim’s faith. He wished he knew how to pray because he had a feeling they were going to need all the help they could get in order to get out of the predicament in which they now found themselves.
18. Spartacus Returns
Tyler and Amanda made small talk for the remainder of their trip to meet up with B.B. Foster. They both had so much to confide to the other one, but neither of them felt confident or secure enough to trust the other with all the information they had to share.
Licker, on the other hand, was thoroughly enjoying his first freedom ride. His short life had been lived on the streets as a stray, scrounging food from any place he could find, trying to keep dry from pounding rains, and constantly outguessing the local animal control officers. He had thought he was a pretty smart canine when he hooked up with a pack of stray dogs on the outskirts of Thomasville. Their luck ran out the evening before when a truck from the Abbott ranch pulled up beside the alley in which they were playing and hiding out. There had been seven of them, and only one had escaped the loops that the Abbott crew expertly tossed around their necks. Licker shook his head from side to side. He had not had time to get over the shock of being captured and thrown into a ring with a mass of other dogs when that big, black dog had attacked him and…killed him. Licker looked over at the man driving the truck…the man who had picked him up and held him after that same big, black dog had licked him back to life. He looked over to the pretty woman whose hand was trying to catch the wind outside the truck window…the woman who had fed him those delicious and juicy brown things. He wished he had two more of those now. He slipped onto the woman’s lap and lifted his nose to the wind. It felt good to feel the breeze blowing against his face.
“I think he likes you,” Tyler spoke softly.
Amanda hel
d Licker up so that he could enjoy more of the breeze blowing into his face. She laughed out loud when his little tongue tried to lap and capture the wind. “He’s a sweetie, for sure. I should have brought Buster along for the ride.”
“Buster?”
Amanda looked over at her future husband and grinned. “He’s the main man in my life these days.”
“Oh…” Tyler paused. “I…see…”
Amanda threw back her head and laughed again. “Don’t go getting all jealous on me, Tyler Foster. Buster is my…puppy. I brought him with me. He’s back at the café.”
“Oh…well, yeah…you should have brought him along. What kind of dog is he?”
“He’s a pittie-mix, my favorite kind,” Amanda said. “Someone threw him out of a moving car. He’s lucky to have survived, but he did, and…I adopted him. I knew his chances for adoption would be slim-to-none, I mean…being the breed he is and all.”
“Well, whatever you do, don’t bring him anywhere near the Abbott ranch.” Tyler’s face tensed at the thought of what Buster’s short life would be like if he were unlucky enough to end up as one of the Abbott’s bait or fighter dogs. “Little John especially likes that breed.”
Amanda was quiet for a few moments. “How did you ever get involved with all of this, Tyler? I mean, you live in Brooksville, right? How did you end up working for Little John Abbott?”
“You met my parents, didn’t you?” Tyler asked.
Amanda smiled broadly. “I did, yes…and fell instantly in love with them. You can tell they are huge animal lovers.”
Tyler nodded. “Well, my father has a lot of connections with animal enforcement agencies, as well as most of the rescue organizations throughout the southeast. This bust is part of a larger one that has been in the works for over a year now. Little John’s ring is only one of several that the agencies are working together to bring down. Dad is good friends with one of the investigators I’m supposed to meet tonight…Tim Breydan. Tim and my Dad go way back, but I’ve never met him face-to-face. He works mostly out of Atlanta, Georgia. Anyway, Mr. Breydan told Dad about the Abbott ranch and how they wanted to send in someone to infiltrate the group…someone to feed them information about upcoming fights, the condition of the dogs, you know…”
“And you volunteered to do that, huh?” Amanda’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
Tyler looked over at her and appreciated her simplistic beauty. There was nothing made-up or pretentious about Amanda Turner…from her flawless skin, to her long, thick blond hair, to her upturned nose and infectious grin…yes, he definitely appreciated her outward shell, but he was also beginning to appreciate the gentle genuineness of her soul. “I did volunteer, yes. My parents were against it at first, but…I can’t explain it…something just led me to believe that I needed to be that inside person.”
“So…how is it…working at the ranch, I mean?”
Tyler shook his head. He didn’t want to remember some of the things he had witnessed, but he owed it to all the dogs who had not survived, to tell their story. “It’s horrible, Amanda…it’s horrible. The dogs they bring in every week are either strays, pets that are stolen from someone’s yard, gotten from the free classified ads…you get the picture. They’re caged or put into the ring when they first arrive. That gives the crew a chance to separate the potential fighters from the bait dogs. Those that survive the first few days are taken to the next phase for training, where they are all bound with heavy…and I mean, heavy…chains around their necks. The chains are ten feet long and there’s only about one or two feet separating the dogs from each other. Some of them get food and water…some don’t. The ones that don’t get anything try to survive by attacking the ones that are given food and water. Trouble is, they aren’t close enough to actually get at each other…just close enough to make them mean…and hungrier. It’s not just older dogs that are trained, either…there are pups as young as three months old being chained to these posts.”
Tears were falling down Amanda’s cheeks. “Puppies…”
“The thing is…” Tyler continued, “Late at night…when I go alone to check on these dogs...I can go right up to them, even the fighting dogs, and the first thing they do is wag their tails and lick my hand. They want nothing but to give and receive a little love and kindness, and I’m their only link to that emotion. It takes everything in me not to release them all into the wild and high-tail it out of there.”
“Then why don’t you?” Amanda gulped back a tear. She stroked Licker and kissed the top of his head, thankful that Tyler had saved him from what surely would not have been a peaceful ending, if the Abbott crew had realized he had not died after all.
Tyler shook his head. “I talked to my Dad about that very thing. I wanted to suggest it to the investigators that I’m meeting tonight, but…Dad said they are so close to this coming to an end. He begged me not to do anything like that…told me to remember that those we do save will have a place to come to when it’s all over.”
“Your Dad plans on taking them all in, doesn’t he?”
“Maybe not all of them; this is going to be a multi-state sting,” Tyler smiled. “But, yes…he will be taking in all the ones we rescue from the Abbott ring.” Tyler pointed to a rest area up ahead. “We’re here.”
Amanda wiped her tears away and smiled at Licker. “I want to be a part of this, Tyler. I want to help you stop these people.”
Tyler shook his head. “It’s not safe…it could get dangerous and not end well…I don’t think you should get in the middle of…”
“Let me clarify myself, Tyler Foster. I will be a part of this…I have to be…it’s why I’m here…”
Tyler saw the Foster Farm van parked beneath a huge, shady oak tree and pulled up beside it. “We’ll talk more about this later,” Tyler promised. “Hey…look who’s with Dad!”
Amanda waved back at Tyler’s parents, who stood outside the van. A stunning, shiny-black, broad-shouldered pit sat between the couple and stared straight ahead. Amanda felt a slight tremble in her lap when Licker spotted the huge pit. “That’s…no…it can’t be…is that…Spartacus?”
Tyler was grinning from ear to ear. “Yes, indeed…it is. Will you just look at him! He doesn’t look like the same dog I dropped off here just a few days ago, does he?”
Spartacus recognized Tyler immediately and rose to meet him when Tyler opened his truck door and jumped down. Tyler bent down and allowed Spartacus to sniff his hand. “Hey there, fella? Remember me?”
Spartacus lifted his huge head and stared directly into the eyes of the man who had helped him escape from the brutal life he had endured for two years. “I could never forget you, Tyler…never.” He licked Tyler’s hand and allowed Tyler to embrace him. It seemed like the embrace would never end. “Okay, okay, need a little breathing room here…”
Tyler released Spartacus and jumped up to hug his mother and father. “Man, it’s good to see you two again. I can’t get over how much he’s healed since…what…two…three days? What kind of miracle meds did you give him?”
Jean hugged her son against her, reluctant to release him. “Sorry…wish we could take credit for it, but we can’t really explain it. All we did was to continue the sugar paste for the open wounds. The old scars will always be there, but the latest ones have healed almost completely.”
B.B. Foster waited for his turn for a private hug with his son. “Doc got him started on some antibiotics and inflammatory meds, but other than that, well…the healing process went well beyond anything we could do for him. B.B. lifted his eyes toward the heavens and grinned. “If you know what I mean…”
Spartacus moved slowly toward Amanda, who had stood at a distance, holding Licker in her arms. “Calm down, little fella, I’m not going to eat you. You’re coming to a safe place. I wish I could stay and show you around, but you’ll be safe with these people. They’re going to make sure you end up in a good home.”
Licker barked happily and squirmed in Amanda’s arms. She was
reluctant to release him with Spartacus so near, but one look into the soulful eyes of the huge, black pit told her that her fear was unwarranted. She knew, without a doubt, that Licker would be safe. She bent down and allowed Licker to run toward the pit.
Licker continued to bark and jump excitedly as he circled the larger dog. He nipped playfully at Spartacus’ heels and ears.
“Amanda! I thought that was you!” Jean Foster rushed excitedly to where Amanda stood beside the passenger door of her son’s truck. “It’s so good to see you again!”
“It’s good to see you again, too, Mrs. Foster…” Amanda grinned as she was engulfed in a warm hug from her future mother-in-law, and blushed at this private thought.
“B.B., look who’s with our son…you remember Amanda Turner, don’t you?”
B.B. grinned and walked over to his wife and Amanda. He looked back at Tyler and raised his eyebrows in query.
Tyler shrugged with feigned aloofness.
B.B. embraced Amanda and said, “Well, now…this is a pleasant surprise…it’s really good to see you again, young lady.”
“It’s wonderful to see you again, too, Mr. Foster,” Amanda accepted a bear hug from the gentle giant. “You’re probably both wondering why I happen to be here…with…your son…”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” B.B. grinned when he saw Tyler rubbing the back of neck and looking uncomfortable. “But…that’s not important right now. I just have to assume that you are helping Tyler with what’s going on in Thomasville…is that it?”
“Yes…” Amanda said.
“No!” Tyler chimed in.
Jean and B.B. looked at each other and smiled in silent acknowledgement.
“Well, now that we have that question cleared up…” B.B. cleared his throat. “Let’s take a look at this little fella.” He bent down and clicked his tongue at the small terrier, who was bouncing from one human to another, accepting strokes and hugs.
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