Hero was not impressed by the governor or her retinue, but he was his polite, reserved self and even sat prettily for a photo with all of them. He looked much better for his fancy photo op. A week or two of high protein canned food, vitamins, popcorn and daily grooming had filled out the hollows of his ribs and hips and brought his thick, longish coat to a high gloss. Over a couple of weeks he had worked out a pleasant daily routine with Craig and Kathy. As Kathy had predicted, Hero had turned into Craig's dog.
Craig would be the first to admit that Hero had adopted him, rather than the other way around. At first Craig got up early in the morning to make sure Hero got his wet food, vitamins, and lightly cooked eggs followed by a short walk. Then Craig made Kathy's breakfast. After she gave both of them a kiss and left for work, Hero and Craig took a nice walk around the neighborhood. The length was determined by the weather and how both of them were feeling. As Hero filled out he got firmer on his feet and enjoyed exploring further every day. The walks were good for Craig as well. Activity kept him from being so stiff with his bad back, and was good for his heart. The old dog was gentle and never dragged at the leash, and was large enough that if Craig got a little dizzy or tired, he could put one hand on Hero's back to help balance himself as they stopped and caught their breath.
Hero was polite to people who wanted to stop and pet him and chat with Craig, and ignored most people who ignored him – or at least appeared to. In fact, he was quite aware of all the people around him at all times. His eyes, ears and nose were busy scanning the environment, even as he kept a constant watch on Craig. Early on Hero realized that Craig was not well. He never walked too fast for his companion, or pulled away or moved abruptly. Sometimes he stopped for a rest before Craig realized he was getting short of breath. Hero could tell.
Cats and other dogs were completely ignored by Hero, although he could never resist a bit of a whuff of breath and ears pricked at the occasional rabbits they spooked up out of the vacant field nearby. He watched horses if they went by, in trailers or being ridden down the street, with a great deal of interest and no fear.
When they got home, Craig took a brush and thoroughly cleaned Hero's coat and then they both laid down for a nice nap. In the afternoon, Craig would put Hero out in one of the large kennels for a little bit so he could "do dog stuff" while Craig did a little housework and prepared dinner. There was plenty of shade from a big tree beside the kennels and room to move around as well as a big doghouse with a soft bed to lay in. Hero pulled the bed out and put it under the shade tree to lay on while he dozed and watched the world go by. Craig laughed and put a new bed in the doghouse. Two or three days a week Craig taught a class or helped people work on their computers at the computer lab in the library. Hero walked downtown with him, and curled up under a desk out of the way while Craig worked on things or answered questions. Hero was so quiet most people didn't even notice him. Yet he was alert to each new person as they entered and unfailingly polite if someone did want to pet him. For the most part, he kept one eye on Craig and was not above standing, stretching, yawning and then giving a whine when he felt it was time for them to go home because Craig was getting tired. Craig soon caught on and would laugh and use the excuse of the dog to politely get out of one last question or one last fix. Kathy was pleased – Craig had been known to get absorbed in a computer problem and work to exhaustion. Craig got snappish if Kathy called and asked when he would be home, but he smiled at Hero's interruption and took the hint. Hero was good for him.
A new dog bed was also bought and placed in the kitchen where Hero could watch Craig as he cooked. Craig soon knew when Kathy was home from work because Hero would get up and go to the door to wait, his thick tail wagging in slow waves. He didn't bark in greeting. In fact, Hero hardly barked at all. He might whine softly if he didn't get something he wanted quite as quickly as he wanted it – especially if he needed to go outside. He didn't bark when someone knocked at the door or walked through the yard – he growled. As soon as Craig touched him on the head to tell him it was okay, he stopped and sat politely – but always keeping a sharp watch on the visitor.
Hero got his own plate at dinnertime. Good high protein food, and perhaps a treat if there was some bit of Craig and Kathy's dinner that was appropriate for a big dog, like a little corner of steak of his very own. In the evenings they all returned to the couch for TV or movies and popcorn. Hero did love his popcorn. He spent nights in his bed in the kitchen, or curled on the rug at the foot of the bed. If Craig got up, Hero walked with him to the bathroom or kitchen and any noise was sure to have him up walking through the house on an inspection.
Two weeks went by. Then a month. Sergeant Morales had taken to dropping by several times a week to eat at Maria's. She claimed she knew good food when she got it. More often than not Officer Dan or Officer Delgado joined her, and one or the other of them was at the café almost every day. Every now and then Kathy joined them. The Staties had quietly begun something that resembled "neighborhood policing" of Columbus, chatting with locals and simply being around almost every day. The Sheriff hung around for a week or so, got bored and left them to it. Deputy Dobermann sensed that the townspeople all knew about his little moment of indigestion (as he preferred to call puking on the crime scene) and suspected they snickered when his back was turned. He found other parts of the county that needed his attention. Places he thought he was respected. Truth is, there wasn't anywhere in the county he wasn't called Deputy Dawg.
It was at one of their informal lunches that Morales told Kathy and Officer Delgado she had spoken to a judge about if and how Hero's testimony could be used in court. The news wasn't good. There were occasions when a police dogs' testimony had been ruled acceptable. However, it was when a professional handler, the K9 Officer in charge of the dog, was able to state and explain the work the dog had done in tracking a person from the scene of a crime. Even then, the testimony could be disputed.
However, Kathy was able to confirm that Hero was, in fact, a trained police dog. The second time she took him back to the vet to have those bad teeth pulled and the rest cleaned Dr. Cordero had a chip reader that he had recently purchased. He scanned Hero and found a chip that led to some very interesting information.
Hero had been a trained police dog, working with a K9 officer in Chicago, of all places. When Hero retired, the officer adopted him and when the officer retired he bought a little place in New Mexico and moved down with Hero. Apparently he had seen all he wanted to of people and kept very much to himself with Hero for companionship. Hero's official name turned out to be Hoss. Although he was not AKC registered, he was a purebred Long Haired German Shepherd Dog from a breeder who specialized in breeding for police, security, and military work, and he was now 14 years old. Kathy was in the process of tracking down the trainer to learn the details of Hero's training. Like, for instance, how to call him off.
Kathy got them all laughing with the story of a friend of hers who had been "dog sitting" another very large German Shepard who was attack trained. She went with the friend, a young man named Joe, walking the dog early one morning. The dog - named Sheba - alerted to a cat, and thinking he was being funny Joe said, "Go get it" and pointed at the cat. Sheba took off at a dead run, yanking Joe off his feet and dragging him at the end of her leash down a gravel alleyway. She was so strong and going so fast that Joe was literally bouncing along behind her, unable to get her to stop or to get to his feet. They disappeared into the distance. Kathy laughed and then walked back to Joe's house.
An hour or two later, he arrived with a very happy Sheba. Sheba was happy and excited, but Joe was disheveled and covered with road rash anywhere he had bare skin. When Sheba's owner called to see how she was doing, Joe told him what had happened. Turns out that "Go get it" was literally her trained attack command, and it was a good thing the cat went up a tree where she could not reach or it would surely have been killed. As it was, Joe felt like he had been about half killed. He made sure he got a list of the corre
ct commands from his friend, before he accidentally sent Sheba to bite someone and couldn't call her off. So Kathy had gotten the point - trained attack dogs were not a joke or a toy to play with. But they are well and highly trained. They will certainly obey any command they are given - but it's best to know what those commands mean. More than one trainer has taught their dogs in a foreign language, or with code words, so that the dog cannot be commanded accidentally or confused by a criminal who might know enough to shout a command.
Which reminded Kathy to teach both State Police Officers that if they were being threatened by a dog that appeared to be a trained watchdog - often a stern "NO" or "Down" or "Off" would cause the dog to stand down, or at least back off in confusion at hearing the command. Even a firm "Sit" might work on a dog not professionally attack trained. Almost any dog with any training was first taught the command to "sit" and will respond by sitting down almost automatically.
In turn, Sgt. Morales and Officer Delgado shared what they knew about the local "usual suspects" as well as information about how to recognize a possible meth lab, or drug house. Because Kathy did Animal Control and Code Enforcement, she could very well observe something while working that she could pass on to the State Police.
And, of course, they always asked if Hero had alerted to anyone again. Anyone Kathy or Craig could be sure of exactly, or even a place he might alert to. Hero continued to alert to anyone with a gun, but that wasn't as uncommon in New Mexico - an open carry state - as you might think. Quite a few of the ranchers and cowboys - yes, real cowboys - carried a gun to shoot rattlesnakes, which were quite common in the area. Otherwise, Hero seemed to have assigned himself to be Craig's guardian and settled into semi-retirement.
And then all hell broke loose - beginning with Hero.
Hell In Columbus
In even the smallest one horse town in New Mexico it is possible to buy powder cocaine, and probably crack cocaine as well. Guns are no problem either. The tiniest of hamlets has gang activity of some sort. Often the local gang is made up of "wannabes" who would be dead within a year if they made it to the urban hub of their dreams and met up with a real gangbanger. Which isn't to say that the big urban gangs don't actively recruit down to the small towns. New Mexico has a lot of open space that almost no one inhabits — some great places to cook meth. And, of course, in Columbus you can almost throw a rock across to Mexico.
In Columbus the local gang called themselves the Talon De La Bota or simply the Talons, because it sounded cool in English or Spanish. The reference was to the boot heel of New Mexico but of course the story went they would grind you to death under their boot heels.
The "gang" actually consisted of a loose group of six teens and was led by their originator — a fifteen-year-old girl known as "V". "V" was a girl who had possibly watched one too many rap videos, or read one too many hip-hop fan magazines. She wore all black, from her Nikes to her bras, and enough black eyeliner to shame Cleopatra.
V's real name was Victoria Garcia — and she was the despair of the family that owned the little bodega on Main Street. Her parents, Tomas and Mia, were good, honest, hard working people. Both of them had begun as migrant workers, and scrimped and saved until they could buy the little bodega. Tomas still picked peppers, or drove trucks, or whatever work he could find while Mia ran the store with the help of their oldest, a son named Mateo. Mateo had been born and schooled entirely in the U.S. — just like his little sister Victoria — and had no greater ambition after his high school graduation than to run the little store. He was a good boy.
He was also the only person Victoria might still listen to, although she told her little gangbanger friends she detested him almost as much as she hated her parents.
V rode a bus to Deming to high school, along with the rest of the Talons. Let me rephrase that, V rode a bus to Deming with her gang — whether or not any of them actually attended high school once they were delivered there was a bit of an iffy thing. On their daily return to Columbus, they got off the bus at the stop on the highway, and walked down Main to the bodega, where they hung out in the parking lot to the side of the building acting real cool and listening to loud rap music until the big bad gang members parents collected them home for dinner.
When Casimiro Po strutted his way down Main Street the day all hell broke loose, the "gang" was hanging out by the bodega. Casimiro had enjoyed a good lunch at the taco truck and was inspecting what he thought of as his territory — one of many. If he had been a pit bull, he would have been pissing on all the wooden posts holding up the roof over the wooden walks. As it was he was casting his sharp, dark eyes over every person on the street. None of them were comfortable under his squinty-eyed glare.
He made note of the two State Police cars parked in front of Maria’s with a sneer. Still looking for the big criminal? he thought, as he strode by with his thick chest thrust out. He gave a snort through his big nose and pulled the brim of his big black cowboy hat lower over his face, even as he jutted his heavy jaw aggressively forward. It was all he could do to keep from laughing. In this pathetic little town with it's little peasants and clueless touristas Casimiro Po would do as he pleased and no one would stand against him. Least of all some fat little chica chatas.
When he got to the bodega he noticed the teens and their loud music in the parking lot on the other side. His black eyes narrowed and the corners of his mouth twitched up. He could almost taste the little girls with their miniskirts and tight jeans. It was easy to see the little kitten who was the leader. She could wear that miniskirt on a street corner in ABQ and make him a pretty penny. With a little sly plot in his mind, Casimiro stepped inside the bodega and bought a case of cheap beer.
A few minutes later, he sat down in the parking area with his back against the wall and opened the case to get himself a beer. He pulled out another and winked at the tough girl shaking her ass to some rap song and trying to look like she wasn't watching to see if he was watching. Casimiro Po looked like exactly what he was. A bad man.
And V wanted a bad man to swoop her up and take her to the Big City where they could be Very Bad Together.
Minutes later, V and her gang were seated around Casimiro Po, drinking his beer, smoking cigarettes which may or may not have contained a bit more than tobacco, and talking and laughing much too loud.
Mia Garcia heard them inside the kitchen. She had the back door open to let the heat out while she made the delicious burritos sold in the bodega. She stuck her head outside and saw the big, ugly man talking to her daughter and her friends. Her eyes widened and she ducked back inside, glad that for once, her man Tomas was home. She called him urgently into the kitchen and pointed outside the door. Tomas peeked outside and slipped quietly back into the kitchen and then out to where Mateo sat at the register.
"Mateo." he said quietly, then went on in the mix of Spanish and English called Spanglish in New Mexico. "Mateo, your sister and her friends are outside. They are speaking with a very, very bad man. See if you can get her inside and get them all to go home without making a big scene. I will watch the store."
"Yes, Papa." was Mateo's reply. It was not such an unusual request. Mateo was the only person Victoria would listen to, now. Her parents got nothing but screaming and insults from her, and a request from them was most likely to be met with the opposite action in defiance. Mateo, at least, sometimes she listened to.
With a sigh, Mateo went out the front door, and then around to the side parking lot. He saw the "gang" gathered around a big, ugly man with a big ugly nose and a black beard and mustache on his heavy jaw. A big black cowboy hat threw the rest of his face in shadow, but Mateo could see the scars on his cheeks. V's big brother sighed — this was not going to be easy. Because this was just the sort of man Victoria would find oh so romantic and sexy — unlike her brother whom she called pretty and weak and mama's boy.
Mateo hesitated as he thought about how he could best extricate Victoria without causing her to lose face in front of her "gang" or g
iving her cause for outright rebellion just to show off that she didn't have to listen to her big brother.
He hesitated a little too long.
Curtis had taken Hero with him down to the library to do a little work on a man's computer. It turned out to be a very minor thing, cleared up in only an hour or two. Soon Curtis and Hero were walking up Main Street on their way home.
A block before they got to the bodega, Curtis became aware that Hero was walking faster, and faster, and soon, growling under his breath. The dog was behaving in a way Curtis had never seen. The ruff from the back of Hero's ears to his back was standing on end and Curtis could feel tension quivering through the leash like an electric current. Although Hero did not pull him, Curtis found himself walking faster and faster to keep up with the big dog.
When they reached the bodega, Curtis and Hero were both at a trot. Hero's growl was a constant rumble, growing louder with every step until suddenly they were at the corner of the building and Hero stopped abruptly, his head swinging to the side. His nose, ears and bright eyes all zeroed in on a big, ugly man sitting against the wall in the middle of a group of teens.
The man — Casimiro Po, of course — snapped his head around to see the growling dog.
Both bared their teeth.
Casimiro Po stood, dropping his beer, which splashed on the miniskirted girl next to him, who squealed indignantly. Po ignored her, his hand reaching under his jacket.
With one last apologetic glance at Curtis, Hero crouched, opened his mouth wide with a series of loud, harsh barks, and threw himself at the man in the black cowboy hat. Curtis had barely enough time to register the glance and drop the leash — he knew there would be no holding Hero back, but he couldn't help but shout, "Hero, NO! Hero, STOP! DOWN! OFF!" Curtis tried every word Kathy had ever told him might stop the big dog if he had been trained to guard, but Hero was not about to listen.
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