by Dale Mayer
“I know. I don’t know what happened to the dog. His coat is pretty thick and rough. Something’s definitely not quite right about it. I’ll have to take a better look when I can get him on my table.”
“If you don’t mind Zane coming over, he can deliver the drugs too,” Holly said as she walked into the vet clinic. “I think I have what you need.”
“Perfect. If you can invoice me for it, I’d appreciate it. I’ve got surgery scheduled this afternoon, and our shipment was supposed to arrive this morning but didn’t. At least not yet.”
“It will probably come tomorrow.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said, fatigue in his voice. “I don’t know about you, but our schedule here is nuts.”
“Yep, same here. I’m booked up all day, every day. It’s both good and bad,” she said with a light laugh.
“Exactly,” he said. “But, right about now, it’d be awfully nice if I were dealing with trimming toenails and checking infected ears versus dealing with vicious dogs that have been shot.”
“Have you had more than one?” Zane asked.
“Third one this week,” he said. “The first one I couldn’t do anything but put it out of its misery. It was almost dead anyway. The second one was shot in the hindquarters. Pretty well glanced off and opened up a nasty wound in the flank. I’m not sure who’s against dogs in this county, but somebody sure as hell is.”
“You think it’s the same person?” she asked in surprise.
“We usually find that it is, don’t we?” he stated. “We often get a run of similar injuries, like car accidents, where they tend to cluster together. But these three shootings, I don’t know. I highly suspect it’s somebody who doesn’t want anything canine close to him.”
“Were these dogs pets?”
“The first one was a family pet, but it had gotten out and was running across the field. The owner saw him go down. He never did see the shooter.”
“The second one?”
“The owner came home and found the dog on the front step. He was still alive, still is now,” he said, “but his back legs are pretty torn up. On top of that, there’s no real way of knowing who did this to him.”
“Is the bullet still in the dog?” Zane asked.
“No,” he said. “The first one has already been cremated, and honestly I didn’t look. I wasn’t too interested in pulling the bullet out. The dog was dead, and the owners didn’t want to cause a fuss, which I also thought was kind of weird.”
“And what about this one? Any bullet?”
“Again I’ll let you know if and when I can get him on my table,” Reggie said, his tone humorous. “He’s not too willing to let me take a look.”
“As soon as we get the medication packed up here,” Zane said into the phone, “I’ll leave. I should be at your place in what, fifteen minutes?” He looked over at Holly.
Holly nodded.
“Appreciated. See you when you get here then.” Reggie hung up.
Holly turned to Mittle and said, “Let’s see what we’ve got for stock. As soon as I hand this over, we need to reorder.”
She left Zane sitting in the waiting room as she went into the back and unlocked the medication cabinet. She easily had enough for Reggie, so she pulled out what he needed, marked it down, told Mittle to invoice him, put it in a bag and walked out, handing it to Zane.
“This is what he needs,” she said. “His clinic is not very far from here. It’s a pretty straight shot.” She gave him the directions, and he nodded with almost a clipped movement that showed some restraint. She could see the tension vibrating inside him. “Are you tense because you think this might be the War Dog, and it’s hurt? Or because of something else?”
He shot her a look and said, “Anytime shooting is involved, I’m not a happy camper. But anytime someone’s shooting animals, I’m definitely not a happy camper. When it’s dogs for no particular reason, especially if they were with their owner in their own yard, I’m even angrier,” he snapped. “And you can bet I’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“It’s not your job,” she warned. “We have law enforcement here.”
“That’s nice,” he said. “You’ll have to call them then, but you can bet this dog doesn’t have anybody who cares one way or another.”
“You don’t know that though,” she urged. “Take it easy and don’t go in there with preconceived ideas.”
Once again came that clipped nod, and he turned, headed to the front door.
“Wait? Are you coming back this afternoon?”
He stopped briefly at the door, thought about it, then shrugged. “No clue. Depends on the dog.”
She stood with her hands on her hips, waiting as he drove away, wondering what the hell had just happened. As always Zane was a bit of a storm, but, right now, he was almost a cyclone. He blew into her life and was about to blow out again. She wanted to remain unscathed, but a part of her needed to touch that energy again to see if she could keep it tethered to her this time.
No doubt he was more injured now than he’d ever been. These injuries were more psychological than physical. He’d always been a force hard to contend with. Now something was broken. No, not quite broken, she mused, as she stared blindly out the window. So maybe bruised, as if still injured where it wasn’t visible. Giving her head a shake, she returned to her office and called back, “I presume the day’s about to begin?”
“Yep, you already got somebody in Treatment Room 1,” Mittle said. “Better get at it before we’re backed up.”
With a heavy sigh Holly headed off to her first patient. All she could hope was that Zane found what he needed, in more ways than one.
Zane pulled into Reggie’s vet clinic, hopped out, locked his truck and walked up to the front doors. When he introduced himself and handed over the medications, the nurse’s face beheld a big smile. She disappeared and came back with an older man, his wispy hair forming a ring around an otherwise bald top.
Reggie reached out a hand and said, “Nice to meet you, Zane. Thanks for the delivery.”
“Not a problem,” Zane said quietly. “Where’s the dog?”
“Come this way.”
Reggie led Zane through a long hallway to the surgery rooms where cages held various animals. And then he stepped through a glass door to a grassy area in back. On the side was a dog pen.
“He’s in here,” Reggie said. He walked alongside the large pen and stopped, looked from one end to the other end, and then frowned. “Or rather he was here,” he snapped. He raced back inside, calling out, “Did anybody let that dog out of the fenced pen?”
Zane could hear no from various people being called back. He walked from one side of the grassy area to the other and saw the fence was only four feet high. Any decent shepherd could jump that in a heartbeat. It did say something to the dog’s mobility, but, as Zane’s sharp gaze caught tufts of fur at the far end of the fence, Zane knew the dog’s mobility was definitely affected.
As soon as Reggie came out again, Zane said, “Do you mind if I go in? It looks like fur and blood are over there.”
Reggie opened the gate, and they both walked in.
“So the dog is mobile, and he made this jump, but he left chunks of him behind,” Zane noted. “Was he wounded along the rear right leg?”
“He was, indeed, but also along the spine. Maybe the dog was already jumping in the air when he took the bullet. I don’t know. But he was hit here.” He motioned with his hand to his own flank, stretching out to his back. “On the other hand, that shot could have been going the opposite direction, from the top of the spine down the flank.”
“That’s possible too,” Zane said. He looked at a second gate, one he presumed led into a treatment room.
“Now he’s gone,” Reggie said. “Part of me is delighted, and another part of me is worried as hell.”
“I’ll follow him,” Zane said. “See if I can track him down.”
“I’m not sure this one is the dog you’
re looking for,” the vet said. “Although the dog was big, the shoulders were smaller, leaner, and the hips were a little narrower. It’s quite possible it was just a larger-size female.”
“Won’t know until I check,” Zane said. “I’m after one from the War Dogs program. And he’s had quite a hard time since he was medically discharged with PTSD.”
“Wow,” the vet said. “I know that happens to dogs all the time, but very few people consider it a condition for animals.”
“It’s definitely a condition for this one, so any loud noises, bullets, guns, that type of thing, will panic him even more and make him hard to deal with. But, when you said there was almost something wrong with him mentally, I would think he was probably still in shock, disoriented and dealing with his own nightmares.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Reggie said quietly. “If I’d known, I would have tried to check him out earlier.” He looked around and raised both hands in frustration. “But the business these days is seriously bad. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I need another pair of hands in here,” he said. “I can’t keep up.”
“It’s hard to expect anybody to keep up with this pace,” Zane said. “The vet business has grown because the local population has grown, bringing in more animals. I used to live in this area, and it’s really incredibly sprawled out now, compared to what it was.”
“And we have a lot more vet offices opening up. It’s just not enough,” he said. “It’s never enough.”
Without saying anything else, Zane hopped over the fence exactly at the spot where the dog had jumped and followed the tracks into a large stretch of field out behind the dog run. The area was flat, heading toward some trees. For the dog, that would have been an unmistakable lure to get away from people who’d obviously hurt him, to get away from noises obviously bothering him and to head out to the far corners as fast as he could go.
Zane picked up a blood trail, frowning as the amount of seepage made the dog’s trail obvious to follow. Both good and bad in this situation, because there were other predators than just the man who’d shot him.
Zane ran toward the tree line, hoping to find the dog unconscious somewhere between where he stood and in the trees. But it wasn’t to be. Once Zane was in the tree line, it was much harder to see the blood. He stopped in the shadows, crouched, looking to pick up the trail. It took him ten minutes to find it, off about ten feet to the right, and then the dog had taken a hard left, going around trees and in a completely different direction.
Zane didn’t know what had spooked him, but he was off and running again. He couldn’t run anywhere near as fast as he had before, yet tracking was always a lot slower. Zane kept at it, doggedly following the blood trail, even though now it fell on dirt, soaking into the ground. With the shadows playing games with his eyesight, it took much longer to get through the woods to the other side.
There he found more green grass, more blood trails, and what looked like hills up ahead. He didn’t remember this area from his childhood, which was too bad because he didn’t know of any particular place where Katch would have gone to ground.
Zane followed the blood for the next half hour, wondering how badly injured the animal could be if he was still going at the pace he was moving. But these War Dogs were well-trained, and, when fear was involved, they could keep going for hours.
A creek was up ahead. Zane stopped, studied it, seeing paw prints heading into the water and coming out on the other side. Crossing the creek, he stopped, leaned against a tree and surveyed the meadow in front of him. A crackle of a branch to his right had him studying the trees closer.
He watched a man, rifle in his hand, up and ready to shoot. He could see nothing in front of the man, even out a good fifty meters. He called over to him, “Hey, don’t shoot.”
The man didn’t appear to notice. Or he was deliberately ignoring Zane. He changed direction and headed toward the shooter. He was about twenty feet from the shooter when the man suddenly heard him and raised his sights to study him.
Zane called out, “Don’t shoot that dog please.”
But instead of lowering the weapon, the shooter trained it on Zane.
“Shit,” Zane whispered. He stopped in his tracks, held up his hands to show he wasn’t armed. “Is this what you do, hunt and shoot dogs?”
The hunter took several cautious steps backward. Good. Zane was hoping he’d turn tail and run, like the coward he was. When he came up against the first tree, the hunter stopped, kept his rifle trained on Zane, and then ducked behind the tree and disappeared into the shadows.
Zane was caught between wanting to run after the shooter and staying with the dog. But he knew the dog was injured already. Taking note of the direction the shooter had disappeared, Zane raced in the direction the shooter had been targeting. Sure enough, lying on his side was a black shepherd-cross dog. Zane approached cautiously, as the dog was still awake, a growl coming from deep in his throat.
Zane crouched and crept along until he was within six feet of the dog. He whispered, “Take it easy, Katch.” He presumed it was the right dog from the photos. Even his mannerisms fit that of a War Dog. “Take it easy, boy.”
His growls didn’t stop though. Zane closed his eyes and willed loving energy toward Katch. Zane had always had a way with animals, but it was important they understood and received the kind of reception he wanted to give them. And it wasn’t easy when animals were already injured and terrified and abused by men.
He sat at Katch’s side, just talking to him calmly, trying desperately to let him know that Zane wasn’t a threat. But how would Katch understand that when the last man who’d followed him back here was a big threat to Katch?
The dog lay here, breathing heavily. Zane studied his injuries and found blood on his chest and flank, running down his leg. “Well, Katch, you’re big, and you’re heavy, and you’ll be a hard load to get back to the clinic. Especially if you don’t go willingly.”
He shuffled a little closer. Katch growled again, staring at him. Zane could see the whites of his eyes, and his panic already started. Katch struggled to rise, then gave a whimper and fell back on his shoulder.
Zane waited, checking to see if the animal would open his eyes again or move. Zane shuffled forward yet again, realizing Katch had lost consciousness with the pain of his injuries.
Knowing Zane would cause Katch more injuries and pain if moved, but, not really having much choice, Zane checked out the dog’s wounds while he was out cold. Zane saw the bullet was still in his flank, and the dog had an open wound showing the white of a rib. The dog was easily 140 pounds, if not 180.
With great difficulty, he got his arms underneath the dog, positioned for a fireman’s carry, and, using his legs, Zane slowly rose. The biggest problem would be if the dog woke up again.
Focusing, blanking out the pain caused by Katch’s weight, Zane walked steadily back the way he’d come. He had no way to phone the vet to let him know to watch for him. But, as he came through the tree line to the meadow and over to the field, he could see the vet standing in the pen, looking in his direction.
Zane let out a whistle. The vet lifted a hand, bolted indoors, out of sight. Zane certainly hoped Reggie was bringing an anesthetic to keep the dog knocked out.
As soon as Zane managed to get Katch to the clinic, Zane still had to walk around to the side, carrying the dead weight of an unconscious Katch, and then in through double doors that Reggie opened for him, while pushing a gurney.
“Lay him on this,” he murmured.
Relieved to have the weight off his shoulders, he gently laid the big animal on top of the gurney. “He’s unconscious. I don’t know how badly injured he is, other than what you initially saw. I stopped a hunter from shooting him. He took off into the woods.”
“Did you recognize him?” Reggie asked.
“No, I didn’t,” he said, “but then I don’t know anybody around here. What I do know is, when I told him to stop, he turned that rifle on me. He then
backed out and took off, but I definitely got the impression he wouldn’t have cared less if he shot me or not, except for the fact we were too close to civilization, and he probably would have been caught.”
Reggie shook his head. “What the hell has the world come to?” He pushed the gurney inside. “Now that the dog’s out cold, I’ll run through some tests and see what we’ve got.”
“You need a hand? He’s a lot to move around.”
“We’re set up for him,” he said. “If you want to take a seat in the front room, I’ll see what I can find out.”
And that was as good as it would get. Zane sat down and waited. He should have taken some photos to compare it to the pictures in his truck. Thinking about that, he walked out to his pickup and found the folder. Just then he got a message from Badger, asking for an update.
Instead of texting, Zane called and said, “I may have found him. I think I have at least. I’ll get the vet to check for a chip and tattoo when he’s done with the initial checkup.”
“Wow, that’s fast work,” Badger said. “Is he okay?”
“No. I’ve just brought him back after a hunter tried to shoot him. Again. Katch has already got one bullet burn up the side of the shoulder and a bullet in the flank. A nasty side injury as well. He was at the vet’s earlier today but bolted. I’m not sure what’s going on or who’s been shooting him, but somebody’s a shitty shot, and they should learn to put an animal out of its misery, if that was the case. I’m not sure it was though. For all I know, somebody was just tormenting Katch.”
“Bastards,” Badger said with heat. “It’s a tough-enough world out there as it is, but to have an animal that’s done so much for our country to come home and to be treated like that …”
“I know,” Zane said. “I’m sitting in the vet’s office right now, while he runs through a bunch of tests. Not exactly sure what else could be wrong until Reggie comes back out.”
“Good enough,” Badger said. “Make sure you let me know as soon as you hear something.” He hesitated, then asked, “Is Maine as bad as you thought it would be?”