by Wendy Qualls
Lito stuck his phone back in his pocket and sat down to wait. Then pulled it back out to look up images of poison ivy, just in case. Good to be prepared, right? He was halfway through an informative—and slightly terrifying—“how to not die in the woods” web tutorial when he heard the unmistakable sound of a body crashing through the underbrush. Zeus homed in on him with eerie accuracy: the collie was trotting along happily, then froze and stood stock-still with his nose in the air. The moment he got a good solid sniff downwind, he was crashing through the brush again, straight for Lito. It really was impressive how Zeus narrowed in so easily—the time between that long pause and Zeus practically bowling Lito over was maybe twenty seconds tops.
Lito held perfectly still like Dave had told him. Zeus came close enough to snuffle his neck a few times, nuzzle the bright orange chew toy, then dash back off with an excited bark. He could hear Dave and Janet picking their way through the woods a ways off. Zeus barked twice more, sounding thoroughly proud of himself, then commenced doing laps between Lito and Janet until she and Dave had covered the rest of the distance. At Dave’s nod, Lito passed Janet the toy and she threw it a few times. Zeus wagged his tail so hard he looked one accidental thump away from spraining it.
“A solid find,” Dave pronounced. “Watch his ears for his tell—that first time he looked up he was distracted by something else, but when he turned off the trail back there he was smack dab in the middle of the scent cone and his ears were what showed the difference. Good job on letting him work it out himself.”
Janet nodded, still tugging on the rope end of the toy. Zeus wriggled his whole body in excitement trying to pull on the other. “Your name’s Lito, did I remember that right?” she asked. “Did Zeus come all the way in, or just stare at you and run off? We’re still working on that.”
Lito cleared his throat. “Came and sniffed me, nosed at the toy, then took off.” Mind-blowing, really, when he really thought about the physics that accuracy must have involved. “I’ve got to say,” he added, “Y’all and your dogs may do this all the time, but it was pretty impressive to see it up close.”
Dave and Janet both preened a bit at that. “Want to see how Spot does?” Dave asked. “Let’s head back and see how she’s getting on with the other pups, then swap her out with Zeus and see if we can’t get her to show off.”
Zeus settled down immediately once Janet clipped his leash on. Lito was glad Dave knew his way around the woods, because after sitting out there for so long he wasn’t a hundred percent sure he’d have found the parking lot on his own. Not without having to look up a map of the park, anyway, and even then the map probably wouldn’t have been much help unless he stumbled back over the trail.
“How’d it go?” Rick asked once they got back in speaking range. He’d transferred from his wheelchair to the picnic table and was half-reclined on the bench. Lito noticed with a little jolt of surprise that Rick had left his shoes on the footrest of his chair—and that the shoes had apparently just been for show, because his new position made it apparent the man was missing his feet. Crap. Don’t stare. Lito quickly refocused his attention on Spot. The six dogs not already training had all been put on long lead lines so they could play while still being nominally under control. Lito guessed it meant Rick probably spent half his time untangling them.
“Our fluffy boy done good,” Dave proclaimed. “Janet too.” He motioned for her to clip Zeus’s leash to one of the spare lines. Spot looked up at Lito from where she was lying between a chocolate lab and a German Shepherd, totally at ease, and wagged her tail. “I see Spot’s settling in, at least. Lito, go ahead and put her back on her regular leash for this. We’ll use the other side of the picnic area so she’s not distracted by her new friends.”
Spot certainly did look like she’d been enjoying herself. “Stands to reason she’d make friends sooner than I did,” Lito joked. Half-joked. “It’s amazing how the dogs all get along so well, though. Do you ever have to deal with them fighting?”
“Eh.” Rick waggled his hand in a ‘little of this, little of that’ gesture. “It’s not automatic, if that’s what you mean. It took my Scratch—he’s the mangy-looking mutt over there—a good six months before he quit trying to challenge Dave’s two. Woozy’s the matriarch of the pack, though, and she’s pretty laid back about enforcing the pecking order as long as everyone’s behaving. She seems to have taken to Spot well.”
“Spot likes her too.” Lito gave his pup a good scratch behind the ears, which got her panting up at him in adoration. “Then again, Spot gets along with everyone. She’d make a terrible burglar alarm.”
“Does she like hot dogs?” Dave asked. He pulled a plastic baggie of hot dog chunks out of his jacket pocket. “If she’s not food-motivated we can work our way through some other options, but these are usually a good starting point.”
All the dogs immediately stopped what they were doing and sat at attention, looking hopeful.
Dave gave them each a treat and a pat on the head, then led Lito and Spot across the parking lot so their view of Rick and the other dogs was blocked by the team’s cars. He pulled out a handful of hot dog pieces and handed the rest of the bag to Lito.
“You ready?” he asked. “This is just a first step, so don’t expect too much from her yet. We’re going to do a nice and easy back-and-forth. I’ll take her collar, you crouch down, and I’ll give her a ‘find’ command. You call her name and give her a piece of hot dog when she gets to you. Soon as she eats it, you tell her ‘go find!’ and I’ll take over calling her. The idea is to help her associate the command with the reward. High energy, lots of excitement, lots of encouragement. Don’t be afraid to make an idiot of yourself. The more enthusiastic you are, the more she’ll feel she pleased you.”
Oh, wonderful. Lito knew he should have figured that Spot’s training would start like this, but looking like an idiot in front of Dave hadn’t exactly been on his agenda. Smelling like an idiot too—the bag of hot dog chunks was slightly warm from having been in Dave’s pocket and if Lito could identify the smell already, they had to be the olfactory equivalent of a flashlight in the face to Spot. Hopefully there was somewhere with running water in the park so he could wash his hands before having to drive home.
Aloud, though, Lito just said, “got it.” He’d spent a ridiculous amount of time training Spot to come when called when he first got her—a necessary thing, when Atlanta’s sparse dog parks were the only place she’d been able to really stretch her legs—so it wasn’t entirely surprising that Spot figured out the drill by the second lap. Getting to gorge herself on hot dogs every thirty seconds probably didn’t hurt, either. Eventually Dave started taking careful steps backward in between Spot’s back-and-forth trips, increasing the distance and moving off to one side or the other so she had to actually go to him and not just the place she last got a treat. Lito was reminded of an old math problem he’d hated: two cars moving at X speed Y distance apart have a dog going back and forth between them, so how far did the dog run?
“Step behind that bush there,” Dave called out. “Don’t say her name this time but don’t try to hide all that well either. See if she can extrapolate. Spot, go find!”
Either she extrapolated brilliantly or she really could smell Lito’s hot dog hands, because the bag was almost empty. By the time they were done, Spot had sprinted full-out for twenty minutes straight and had eaten the equivalent of what was probably two whole hot dogs. She was still prancing around Dave’s feet when he beckoned Lito over and clipped her back into her leash.
“That’s what I’d call a good first day,” Dave pronounced. Hearing such blunt praise from Dave (for his dog, even, not actually for him!) might have made Lito walk a bit taller. When they got back to Rick, the rest of the team had already reassembled.
“Started without you,” Rick declared without looking up. “You already know the old business part since you did half of it and I’m as
suming Lito doesn’t care yet.”
Lito didn’t, really, but if he was going to give the whole search and rescue thing a shot—and going by how much fun Spot had been having, he’d be an idiot not to—it was worth paying attention to even the boring parts. He took a seat on the bench next to Rick and folded his hands together neatly on the table. “I’m listening.”
“Excellent.” Rick passed a clipboard to Dave. “On to the treasurer’s report?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Dave took the clipboard and put it down without even glancing at the papers on it. “Long story short, that boat Janet’s friend offered to sell us for cheap ended up having some major mechanical issues. Getting them fixed would have bumped the price up well above what the boat was worth. Sharon’s sourcing out some more possibilities, trying to see if anyone will give us a discount for being a non-profit, but we’re still talking several thousand bucks. We’ve got fourteen hundred thirty-two dollars and seventy-six cents in the account, with”—he did look down at the papers now—“last month bringing in a fifty-dollar donation and expenses of seventy-two dollars even. So if y’all know of a business that might like to sponsor us a boat, a trailer, or anything like that, let me now. Thus endeth the treasurer’s portion of the evening, unless there are any questions.”
“That’s it for the whole meeting, actually,” Rick said. “We’ve got no new business, so it was a short one today. See y’all Thursday!”
“The K9 search team needs a boat?” Lito asked Dave quietly as the rest of the team started packing up.
“We need a flat-bottomed one with low sides for water searches,” Dave answered, matching Lito’s volume. “Once you and Spot have mastered air scent and cadaver search, we’ll start you on those. It’s a lot less work for you both—the dogs lean over the side of the boat and bite at the water and can tell by the taste and smell whether there’s anything underneath. Then it’s up to a lot of math with currents and temperatures and whatnot to figure out where the source of the scent is. Most non-K9 rescue groups we work with, if they have a boat at all, don’t have one with a low enough bow. For a long time we used…someone else’s…but now we need a replacement. Haven’t been able to do water search training for almost two years now and it’s starting to be a problem since nobody else around here can, either.”
“Ah.”
“We’re all volunteers, we don’t charge money for searches, and we don’t charge for educational talks to schools or other organizations.” Dave rattled it off like he was reciting something he’d repeated a million times before. “NALSAR subsists on donations from the community to cover as much of our equipment as we can and our team members self-fund their individual gear. Sometimes we do fundraisers, or groups give us a donation as a thank you for us coming to speak, but that’s all strictly voluntary.” He heaved a deep breath and blinked a few times. “Sorry; that whole speech has kind of melded together by now. Took a while to get it right so I didn’t keep floundering every time I was asked something.”
“What he’s not saying,” Rick cut in, “is that he tends to go on autopilot anytime he has to ask for money on behalf of the team because he really, really hates it. But the rest of us are worse and Dave knows practically everyone in Black Lake, so…”
“Gee, thanks.” Dave turned his attention to Spot, pointedly ignoring Rick. “You have fun today, pup?” he asked in a goofy, sing-song-y voice. “Want to come back Thursday and do it again? Tire out Lumpy and Woozy a bit more? You do? You do? Yeah, I thought so.” He scratched behind her ears in the exact spot she liked it—must have been able to read her mind somehow—and she thumped her tail furiously against the leg of the picnic table. “You can come too, of course,” he directed toward Lito with a bit of a smirk.
Mooning around after Dave was the only thing in Black Lake that Lito had yet found he looked forward to. Spot enjoying practice was a bonus. “Yeah, if I’m invited,” he drawled, teasing back. Was Dave flirting? It felt like flirting. “Seems Spot has a crew now. She might not even notice if I just dropped her off.”
“Oh, she definitely would.” Dave’s eyes sparkled. “You’re the bearer of the hot dogs.”
Chapter 3
“You were right, you bastard.” Rick downed the last of his beer and held the empty bottle up to Dave in a mock toast. “Lord knows where you keep finding them, but that new dog yesterday played beautifully with the rest of the pack. Friendly and not at all put off by Scratch being a little shit to her at first. She’s got to have some Golden in her, you think? She looks mostly lab but it’s mixed with something else.”
Dave shrugged. “No clue. Lito said when we first met that he’d tell me why he named a plain yellow dog ‘Spot,’ but I never did get the story. You’re probably right, though—too much fur for a lab. She’s got the persistence, though.”
The VFW was nearly empty, result of it being a Wednesday and still early yet, but Isaiah the bartender (and janitor, and event coordinator, and all-around decent guy) was glued to the tiny television at the other end of the room so Dave got Rick another bottle himself. Isaiah saw him stand, looked up, and waved.
“Guess we’ll just have to hope Lito comes back so you can ask,” Rick said, tossing a five on the counter. “You think he’ll stick?”
God, Dave hoped so. There really was no way to tell, unfortunately. Not this early. “Maybe?”
Rick huffed. “That last girl you found wouldn’t have been a good fit anyway. Her heart was never in it. I know we do need more bodies—”
“Going a bit beyond need at this point.”
“Still.”
He wasn’t wrong, Dave had to admit. Debbie had been a sophomore at the community college and living with her parents, but her six-month-old puppy had been an absolute dream to work with. Energetic, focused, starved for attention, and ridiculously eager to please. The lady at the shelter where she’d adopted him had recommended NALSAR as a way she could encourage him to burn off some energy. The two of them had lasted for about six weeks before Debbie decided the dog team interfered too much with her social life and called it quits. Dave fervently hoped her pup was getting some alternate source of exercise, wherever they were now.
“One more pair would work. If they were able to do regular call-outs.” That was the main issue. “We’re treading water right now, but only having four available dogs means we can’t afford for anyone to have a work conflict or be too sick to search when we get asked.”
“Five dogs,” Rick corrected. “Sharon can run both of ours, in a pinch.”
Doesn’t matter. “Five, then. Still four handlers. Lumpy and Woozy do fine for school visits, but they’re not getting any younger and we’ve been hurting for two years now. Even one more team member would help a lot.”
“It’s not going to replace Jessica, you know.” Rick drummed his fingertips on the bar, suddenly more interested in the scarred wood than in looking Dave’s way. “Whoever we find to join us, whether it’s Lito and Spot or someone else, it won’t be the same. Jessica’s gone and even though Steve is dealing with it okay, we’ve got to start being proactive in how we patch the team back up again.”
Dave didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to even think about Jessica, actually, but Rick was right. “Would be a hell of a lot easier to get back on our feet with more people on our side,” he grumbled, exaggerating the petulance in his voice purely to hear Rick snort. “For all that Jessica and Steve pissed each other off at every possible opportunity, she and Copper were a good team. And I think it was the first decent father-daughter bonding time that those two ever really had.”
“That’s on Steve, though.” Rick toyed with the label on his bottle, picking at one corner. It was a pretty strong indication he was trying to work himself up to broaching some topic he didn’t really want to discuss. That makes two of us. “Look,” he finally said. “I’m not saying I’m not enjoying what we do, but…maybe it’s time to let the te
am become a little more casual? Cut back on the practices, keep running the dogs we have, but not kill ourselves trying to respond to every call-out in a three-state radius? It’s just—it feels like we’re spread too thin. We can’t keep everything going like it was five or ten years ago. You can’t keep everything going like it was. Eventually something’s gotta give.”
“I can start looking for a new dog,” Dave blurted out. It was something he’d considered, and rejected, many times over. “I know I said I’m not ready for a third pup right now, but it would get me back out there on the ground—”
“Dave. Shut up.” Rick pinned him with a we both know you didn’t mean that look. “Not six months ago you were sitting in this exact spot and telling me you couldn’t afford the time and the money to take on another puppy. You said you were more help to NALSAR in a non-handler capacity, and that hasn’t changed. Lumpy and Woozy are tolerant as hell but that doesn’t mean they need you splitting your attention.”
Damn. “I hate when you’re right.” Between Woozy’s arthritis and Lumpy’s one-two punch of cataracts and canine diabetes, Dave’s pet budget was already stretched beyond what most people would consider reasonable. Adding another dog would require all three mammals in the Schmidt household to approve, and—despite his pups’ laissez faire personalities—the chances of finding the right new dog were fairly low even if he could justify it.
Rick chuckled half-heartedly. “I know you don’t want to think about it,” he said, “but sometimes you’ve already done all you can do. Someday when you’re old and lonely, I’ll help you find the smartest puppy ever and you can get back out there as a dog and handler team. For right now, though, we need to take things one step at a time.” He glanced down at his wheelchair and grimaced. “So to speak.”
Fifteen years of friendship had rendered Rick’s missing feet—among other completely inappropriate topics—an old joke between them. The IED responsible had also taken Dave’s explosives detection dog, who had really been the one doing the work anyway. Whom Dave was steadfastly not going to let himself think about.