By Dog Alone: A Kelton Jager Adventure Book 2

by Charles Wendt

  A near “C” would get her put on probation with Mrs. Grant. It might as well be an “F”. Holly expected to be called to her office after classes tomorrow and explain herself. There wasn’t much to explain other than she must be stupider than everyone else in her house. Maybe she was stupid and that’s why no one liked her. They had all seemed to do okay. Kate said they brought in a tutor, but she’d been running laps.

  The worst part about the probation would be not getting to play later in the week. Not that she had a great love of field hockey by any stretch of the imagination. The running was exhausting, and jockeying for the ball more mentally bruising than she was equipped to handle. But forced to fulfill the physical education requirement, and participate in the tedious drills of practice, getting to play the game was the fun part. The only fun part, even if it wasn’t that much fun. She’d still have to be there, of course. Dressed out, do the warmup, attend the whole game. She just wouldn’t get an iota of playing time. Which in some ways wasn’t a whole lot different from now. Holly didn’t get much playing time anyway.

  At least there was the chance of the modeling contract. That was all there was to look forward to. Mr. Grunfeld thought she was pretty even though no one else did. He believed in her and would get her work. Maybe she could work her way up through ads to fashion. Or if becoming a supermodel wasn’t in the cards, she might be able to switch to being an actress. Her family would show up at her Beverly Hills mansion for a visit and she’d make a show in front of the paparazzi cameras at the gate about not being exactly sure who they were.

  It took a night’s sleep, but she’d gotten over the shape of the confection. She’d been grossed out at first, with some strange dreams. Life-size nutcracker toy soldiers marched about with chocolate male organs hanging out trying to corner her to suck while she darted between hiding places in giant mounds of Christmas presents. Eventually her mind finished processing things and came to grips with what she’d done. It was only chocolate, no matter what its shape had been. Even Mr. Grunfeld ate some without batting an eye, and he was a man. Things were okay.

  She was bummed not to have heard anything yet from the candy company because she really wanted to ride, but even as an impatient teen, Holly knew that important business people didn’t work at all on weekends. That was one of the perks to being grownup unlike boarding school where you still had places you were required to be at certain times. But in the meantime, the little bit of sitting-fee money was nice. Maybe she would go off campus and shop before Mrs. Grant put her on a tight leach. No one would miss her here today.

  CHAPTER—10

  Kelton Jager noted the smell of decaying grass along the banks of the stream giving way to that of blowing dust in the desert’s fierce heat. His sand goggles gave him tunnel vision, so he moved his head in a purposeful arc to survey the approaches to the small settlement of stone buildings the platoon was sheltering in. Occasional small bushes, their shallow roots ripped from the loose soil by the fierce wind, rolled down the narrow alleyways while a goat somewhere behind him bleated. He glanced down to Azrael and saw the young shepherd was content to leave on his doggles as he scented the wind with drooping tongue.

  The gusts rose steadily in intensity, sand and grit tearing at the exposed skin of his face. He wrapped his “drive-on rag”, a bandana which hung about his neck to mop away sweat, over his nose and mouth as a makeshift shield. Soon it would be time to seek cover, but for now he was vigilant in case the enemy were using the storm to screen an attack.

  A muffled yell from a window behind him made him turn around to a similarly masked and goggled figure in a tan American uniform cradling a carbine and giving him a thumbs up from a hand sporting a fingerless black leather glove. The commander had given the order for everyone to fall back inside and close the shutters. Technically he outranked the commander, but was present only as an attachment to locate improvised explosive devices, “I.E.D.’s” as they were called in the news, and weapons caches rather than be an infantry leader. Kelton looked outward one last time before rising from the cover of the perimeter wall to follow.

  He saw the group of dots in the distance before he got up, and he paused to stare. There was at least a dozen of them, maybe close to two dozen. They floated from side to side in the mouth of the storm, and grew steadily larger as they rapidly came on. Kelton gripped his carbine, and raised the barrel to rest it on the wall as he continued to stare. The shapes were definitely below the line of the horizon, meaning they were closer than the alternative, but with the landscape and the swirl of the sands the shades of brown all seemed to blend together and then apart again. Azrael raised his head from where he lay and whined.

  Then the figures crossed that imaginary line where Kelton’s eyes could now clearly distinguish the shapes from the shifting backdrop and blowing debris. It was a herd of camels, stampeding before the storm, and coming right for him. He glanced quickly over his shoulder at the narrow passage between the buildings. It was where they would likely be funneled, and if he couldn’t get the guys inside to open the door in time, he’d be trampled to death. He looked to the windows, but the heavy shutters had been closed tight, pinned against the building by the rising wind. And then he was out of time.

  He fell on top of Azrael, covering his dog with his body against the base of the wall, as the pounding of hooves could he heard over the wind’s howl. As he waited for the herd to jump over them clearing the wall, his dog began to bark incessantly.

  Kelton woke up with a start to see a riderless horse thundering toward him with flopping stirrups banging his sides. He jumped to his feet from the poncho he’d spread on the ground as a cover, and staggered as blackness swelled up from the sides of his eyes. Azrael ran to his left side and sat while he swayed with outstretched hands.

  Then the blackness receded and he steadied as the horse dropped down from a canter, to a couple steps of trot and halted in front of him. Instinctively he reached out and grasped a rein on the side of the bridle and the beast relaxed and dropped its head. Kelton’s breathing slowed and he looked around at the grassland of the fixture’s Virginia countryside. Wire fences and the resulting cedar hedges kept various herds of cattle separated, although special low points of wooden fence with a wide base made it easy for horses and riders to jump while still keeping cows contained. But the cedar hedge lines, the rolling ground and some stray scattered trees made it hard for him to see everything in any one direction except for the three hilltops.

  He’d snuck to town in the early hours of the morning last night, returning to the building where he’d seen the girl emerge and the figure in the window. The street had been deserted, without even so much as a bum in an alleyway. The building had been dark, with a quiet and vacant feel to it. Upper windows lacked curtains and there weren’t any cars in the gravel lot behind it. In short, he’d learned nothing and returned to the fixture just before dawn for a rest and to think about Helmut’s plan for the meeting Monday night.

  Kelton recognized the horse. He’d carried the backward boots at the ceremony the previous morning by the garden gate. While he still radiated a healthy glow and looked very well cared for, even a non-horse guy like him could pick up on a sense of dishevelment. There seemed to be a very fresh layer of grime on both horse and tack. One rein was missing from the right side of the bit and the left had a torn end where the buckle used to be. The poor creature’s eyes were wide and excited, even as he stood docile in relief of having finally found someone to look after him.

  Azrael gave a soft whine and Kelton heard more pounding hooves and a girl’s shout before he saw them. Bursting out from behind the same group of trees this horse had come were four mounted girls he quickly recognized as his geometry tutoring group.

  “Kelton!” greeted Abriella excitedly. “You’ve got him!”

  Her red pony tail danced from shoulder to shoulder with each of Indy’s pounding strides. And guiltily he noted the gentle bounce of her breasts.

  The four of them swarme
d about him in a big semicircle and Azrael beat his tail heavily against the ground while looking from side to side. He’d seen lots of goats during the war, but to be surrounded by big horses was new and apparently exciting. Kelton briefly worried his dog would break the sit.

  “What happened?” he asked as his mind continued to catch up to his sudden awakening.

  “We were out riding and I saw the horse with a saddle but nobody riding it,” began Kate.

  Vicky piped in, “And I knew it was Ollie because my dad lets me participate in the youth hunts they hold a few times every year and I’d see Master Bartholomew riding him most weekends around the fixture.”

  “So we tried to grab him before going to look for the master,” finished Elizabeth towering above him on Marder. She let go of one rein to scratch her hooked nose.

  “Okay, so as far as we know Mister Bartholomew is out there somewhere.”

  Vicky nodded, “Master Bartholomew.”

  Kelton looked at the dark dots all over the saddle.

  “When we were at the service yesterday, this tack was absolutely flawless clean.”

  Abriella spoke up, “That’s what happens when you get water on a leather saddle. The oils and such make it bead up, and then it leaves a small stain as the bead evaporates. It polishes out easily enough with some leather cleaner though.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes lit up, “Which means this saddle got wet. There’s been no rain today, so that makes it from the dew. Which means Ollie has been out here all night and the master might be badly hurt.”

  “Or he walked back and went home after he couldn’t find Ollie,” speculated Kate out loud.

  Abriella shook her head, “If anyone knew a horse was missing in the fixture, Helmut would have turned the entire barn out this morning and hunt member trailers would have been everywhere searching.”

  “Do you know if he was married?” asked Kelton. “Or if there was someone who would have called if he didn’t come home?”

  Vicky shook her head, “No, he was a widower. My dad is a breast cancer surgeon and his wife was a patient of his who passed last year.” Dripping sweat pooled her heavy makeup under her eyes, making the blond girl look like a raccoon.

  “Okay,” said Kelton. “Here’s what we should do. Two of you take Ollie back to Helmut and let him know what has happened. He’ll know how to contact the Hunt and get some help out here. Two of you come with me and I’ll ask Azrael to track Ollie’s trail. If we find Master Bartholomew, we may need to send word to Helmut to call off the alarm or meet emergency people at the parking lot and lead them to the spot.

  Both jobs are important. Some of you may be better at some things than others that I don’t know about so I’ll let you tell me who goes where.”

  “Vicky knows the territory the best if you need to lead rescue people back in here,” declared Elizabeth, “and Ginger is by far the fastest and can run all day if you need to send word quickly. She’s also had a lot if first aid classes. Cell service way out here is really bad on our networks. Indy is also really reliable if you need to send Abriella off with a message. Kate and I will take Ollie back.”

  “I want to go with on the tracking,” complained Kate.

  Abriella explained, “Chumpy is a calm old steady that you can ride while leading Ollie back. The rest of them may try and kick him.”

  Kate crossed her arms in protest, and only relented when Kelton approached holding out Ollie’s remaining rein.

  “Should I gallop back by myself? To get word to Helmut quicker?” asked Elizabeth.

  Kelton shook his head, “We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet and you may be back anyway by the time we do. I’d hate for you or Kate to be alone and risk something happening to gain fifteen minutes that likely won’t matter. I need a good scent article from Ollie, though, before you go.”

  On Ollie’s legs were a set of galloping boots, leather with an inner neoprene rubber liner that protected his ankles and lower legs from errant hooves when running. Kelton took a knee and unbuckled the three narrow straps which held one in place.

  Elizabeth declared, “Alright. We’ve a plan then. Come on, Kate!”

  Kelton, Abriella, and Vicky watched them quickly move out leading the loose horse and then, after he packed his gear, turned toward the business of pursuing the reverse trail.

  He leaned over with the boot in front of Azrael and let the dog take a good sniff. Kelton didn’t know how it would go. It was a great scent article, worn repeatedly and continuously by the horse in question they wanted to track. But could the dog tell the difference between one horse and another? Azrael certainly could with people. But then he had trained and practiced on people. Azrael hadn’t been around horses before and Kelton wasn’t certain he’d readily be able to discriminate. Sure, he’d found the escaped horse the other day. But finding a live creature running about with a “high prey drive dog” was a bit different than backtracking the trail of a specific one who’d been pursued by four others to muddle the scent and where cross trails would be common.

  “Such!” he told his dog. It sounded like “Zook”.

  “Why do you speak to him in a foreign language?” asked Abriella.

  “You don’t get that many words with dogs, and they sometimes have trouble telling when you say something if you really mean it or the word just came out in a sentence as you were talking. So we just use words German words, that never come up in conversation. That way he doesn’t have as much chance of being confused.”

  “Helmut is fond of saying all horses speak German as he screams words at them sometimes when they do something wrong. I don’t think it’s quite the same thing though,” confessed Vicky. “I looked a few of them up one time on an internet translator and they were quite naughty.”

  Azrael ran ahead, making several serpentine loops across the trail, and after a few such crosses of the track settled to the line with his nose on the ground. Kelton followed, the girls riding respectfully behind him until he heard a series of indistinguishable harsh whispers. He turned around.

  “You’ve got a gun!” exclaimed Vicky.

  “I do. But I’m a good guy so it’s okay. Most people don’t notice, if you can believe it.”

  “Have you shot many people?” asked Abriella.

  He nodded, “Yes, but they all deserved it.”

  That bought him a little quiet as they considered that, and their heads bent to the side as they weighed how something they thought of as bad, killing people, could exist in someone they thought of as good. Azrael paused, raised a paw, and then turned onto a narrow trail in a wood line. Kelton followed, Abriella on Indy came next, with Vicky and Ginger forming the rear guard. The day was getting warmer, and he sucked water from the hose of his Camelbak.

  “Did you learn tracking with a dog in the army?” asked Abriella.

  “That’s right. We’d try and find wounded soldiers, track down bad guys, find explosives, stuff like that.”

  “If you liked it, why did you leave?”

  “Well, to advance as an officer you must take on new jobs with more and more responsibility and leadership. But I was good at the dogs, so the General left me there to help the war effort. Did it for four years. When my mom died and I came back from the war, I couldn’t get a job with the stateside army because the only thing I’d ever done was lead a scout dog platoon. So I had to leave.”

  “But why? It wasn’t your fault. That doesn’t seem fair,” she judged.

  Kelton laughed, but never took his eyes off Azrael working the trail. Then he sighed and spoke in a reflective mournful tone.

  “Life is not about fair, and most times it doesn’t matter whose fault something was. You just wind up suffering, and that’s the way it is. At the end of the day, the medals they gave you for all the great things you did is in the past. That doesn’t mean you are someone they need for the future. If you are damaged goods, like I was, you must move on.”

  Azrael lay down, and then looked back at Kelton. The trail h
ad since opened up into a meadow of tall grass.

  “Where are we?” asked Abriella.

  Vicky piped up and gestured with her arm, “The clubhouse and kennels are right over there. Less than the length of the hockey field.”

  Abriella theorized, “Is your dog tired? Is that why he’s laying down?”

  Kelton shook his head, “No. He’s alerting us to something ahead that’s unusual. Let me go see.”

  He kneeled at his dog’s side and petted him to reassure him that he’d done well and looked about. The grass and brambles were trampled pretty good. But if the kennels were nearby and with all the trail riding that took place, Kelton didn’t think that fact was significant. He rose and strode forward, leaving Azrael and the girls behind him. Kelton found Master Bartholomew in a few steps.

  The old gentleman was sprawled on his back, eyes and mouth opened. The chin strap of his riding helmet was still clasped, but it was rocked back on his head. His skin was pink and dry. Flies gathered around his lips. He was dressed in casual riding clothes, a khaki collared safari shirt and tan riding breeches with half chaps and paddock boots.

  The tight riding breaches, with suede patches on the inside of the knee for long rough wearing, conformed to the contours of his leg. Which is to say, the terrible swelling midway up each thigh ballooning to nearly twice the proper diameter, was plainly visible. Kelton saw the man’s eyes flicker and the twitch of the lip that sent gathered insects to flight.

  “Master Bartholomew, I’m Kelton Jager and am going to help you,” he turned toward the girls over his shoulder, “Vicky, call 911. If you can’t get a signal gallop back until you can or get to a phone. Tell them he’s been out here all night and both femurs are broken.”