By Dog Alone: A Kelton Jager Adventure Book 2

by Charles Wendt

  He fired at the furthest, the man crumbling forward into an exhausted bleeding heap.

  As the muzzle flipped upward he looked to the third man, the only other carrying a long arm. Kelton bent his knees and pivoted from the hips to align his body to this next target as his gun was in recoil.

  The girl froze, standing dumbfounded and getting in the way as the third man tried to pivot and bring up the carbine. He shoved her with his left hand, the right trying to bring the stock to his shoulder using only the pistol grip. It wasn’t bad technique per say but it caused his body to separate laterally from the girl’s. His head flipped back as the hollow point hit him just above his left eye.

  The middle man lunged to grab the girl about her shoulders.

  “Fass!” he shouted. Azrael came sprinting out of the woods, lips curled above angry fangs.

  Bobby McFife saw the blur in the corner of his eye as he lifted the girl and spun to use her as a shield. Holly wasn’t tall, and while lifting her with tightly wrapped arms denied Azrael purchase at a wrist or an elbow, it left his lower legs wide open. Azrael’s fangs punctured the calf and clamped down hard, not letting go as the dog’s body swung around with his speed to be facing the opposite direction. The dogcatcher collapsed hard onto his back, with the teen girl on top of him.

  As Azrael doubled down on his bite, Holly rolled herself up into a sitting position astride her abductor’s chest. Bobby flailed his legs, trying to gain release from the dog’s powerful jaws. He dug under his hip, trying to get his nightstick. All the while, Holly screamed her anger and beat at his face with her fists.

  Kelton walked forward slowly, his gun held out before him at the low ready position. A quick glance down as he stepped over the nearest man confirmed it was only a corpse. The sharp stench of plasma filled his nostrils. He shifted his eyes past the melee as he approached, noting the far man hadn’t moved from where he’d fallen. The scene was secure.

  Kelton turned his full attention to Officer McFife. Holly’s strength was going, the tiny and ineffective blows slowing down to mere petty slaps. He let her keep going until he could see in her eyes that she was ready to quit, but didn’t quite know how to. Bobby’s screaming and squirming had tapered off to whimpering, and was too exhausted from exertions and arterial blood loss to overcome the combined weight of the teen and the snarling Belgian Malinois.

  When Holly’s frustration fueled adrenaline gave way to exhaustion, the arms came to a stop and she began to cry. Her fingers were sticky with McFife’s blood which flowed from his nose and torn lips, but didn’t know where to wipe them. Kelton holstered his sidearm. Azrael kept us his growl, shaking his prey without letting go.

  “Holly, my name is Kelton. I’m here to rescue you. I’ve been trying to rescue you since Saturday. Come over to me.”

  Her face was blank, the words not registering. Even with the exertion of the beat down, she shivered uncontrollably and her lips looked blue.

  “I’ve brought you some clothes,” he said. He took off the poncho and then his pack. Rolled neatly on top was the small bundle her housemates had given him. Jeans and sweatshirt. A windbreaker. Socks and a pair of tennis shoes. A ball cap. He indicated some trees to go change behind, but her shyness and sense of privacy had been destroyed by the ordeal.

  Holly pulled off her soaked nightshirt without even turning around, naked as she was born in the dawn. Her face was empty, an automation. Kelton blushed and looked away, walking around her toward his dog in a wide arc while she dressed.

  The ground about McFife was bloody, smeared in a sweeping arc from the dying man’s struggles. His pant leg was shredded. Bright arterial blood oozed in bloody pulses from lacerations about his knee and calf. He’d be dead within another couple of minutes.

  “Aus,” Kelton instructed, without much enthusiasm.

  Azrael readily obeyed. Usually the dog was reluctant, the command cutting short his most favorite of things. But after a long hard chase, and a most satisfying conclusion, his prey drive for once was slaked. He sat at Kelton’s side, eyes bright and tongue fluttering in his rapid pants. His muzzle, chest, and front legs were bright red.

  Kelton removed the ear muffs and took a long look around. The fixture land was still, the only sound an occasional distant cow and the gurgling runoff. The dark gray sky made for brilliant green colors in all shades. Three dead men, and the now dressed and rescued girl made him feel triumphant instead of fatigued. Then he saw the four riders above him on the hill.

  He turned toward his backpack, wondering if he had enough time to grab it before fleeing back into the trees when his mind caught up and recognized the study group. They came trotting down the hill, the ground softened from the rain and providing good footing for their horse’s hooves to dig in. Their eyes were wide as they looked from body to body, McFife’s torn form and Azrael splattered in gore brought gasps from the young teens.

  The young ladies rallied quickly, however, gathering about Kelton and Holly in tears of joy and flurries of questions. After a short minute, Kelton raised his hands in a “time-out” gesture.

  Kelton declared, “I’ve got to run. Police will be here soon and if they see me, there will be a lot of questions.”

  “But you’ve done nothing wrong!” protested Elizabeth.

  “It won’t keep me out of jail or save Azrael as they decide. And armchair judges aren’t fond of vigilantes even if they agree. They’ll find something to sentence me over, even if it’s just trespassing at the school.”

  Kate said, “But its barely dawn and they haven’t started out. We’ve been riding all night. We’ve got some time before they catch up.”

  Vicky shook her head, “Kelton’s right. We’ve been weaving about for hours, but we’re only a couple of miles from the clubhouse.”

  Abriella’s eyes welled up, “Where will you go?” She got off Ollie, clutching the reins in both hands like a security blanket.

  Kelton remounted his backpack and poncho, “They’re looking for Holly and maybe you girls. They don’t know I exist yet. Which will allow me to slip through the lines. But they will be here soon. They probably heard the gunshots. I need to go. Get back to school. Holly is suffering from shock and needs a doctor. It may be a few days, but I’ll come by your barn when its safe.”

  He stepped in and touched her on the cheek. Then Kelton headed north with Azrael following. A draw off the hill provided a stream flowing in his direction of travel. He sloshed in it to cover his scent trail for as long as he could. Once in covered ground he might be able to hide until a search line passed over him, and then slip out behind them.

  He was proud to hear Abriella stepping up to take charge as he departed.

  “Holly, climb up on Ollie and I’ll lead him back. Let’s go. Jordan’s really worried about you. And I need to get home and feed Indy!”

  CHAPTER—30

  Johnbull Sesay made his way in the Hunt’s 4x4 Gator up from the kennels into the fixture. A Virginia State Police patrolman had waved his truck to a stop at the turn for Stirrup Cup Road and demanded to know his business in the dark early hours. The officer had tried to turn him away, but Johnbull was insistent. It was club property and the hounds had to be fed and watered. During this heated conversation, he hadn’t noticed his cellphone vibrating on his belt. That wasn’t unusual. The Ford’s big engine generated many vibrations that masked the signal.

  The hounds bayed excitedly for breakfast. Member volunteers would be along for hound walk in a couple of hours, but he always came in early to give them some digestion time. The feed went quick, simple scoops of kibble into metal bowls. He used a cart to save himself some of the bending over. When the weather turned cooler and the hounds were hunting hard, he’d add vegetable oil to their food for extra calories. It was messy, and he was glad not to have to fuss with it during the summer.

  When he didn’t go out with them on walk was when he’d typically use the pressure washer to clean away waste in the concrete floor pens. He had gone to set h
is phone aside to keep it dry while hooking up the hose, and had noted the missed call and message.

  It intrigued him. Johnbull didn’t get many calls, unless from Greg, and he was still in the hospital for a while yet. Any calls he did get would be something with the hounds. But he was with them, and knew it wasn’t that. He paused and played the message, hearing the melodic voice of a teen girl named Vicky.

  The message raised many more questions than gave answers. What had the truck been doing in the fixture in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm? Who was driving it and why? What were Fox Ridge students doing riding in the middle of a school night during a thunderstorm? It made him reflect upon the heavy police presence during his commute without conclusion. The spot wasn’t that far into the fixture though, and there wasn’t much to do until the volunteers took the hounds on walk, so he climbed in the John Deere Gator.

  The gator was no bigger than a golf cart, just with a powerful gasoline engine and four-wheel drive sporting mud tires. He couldn’t get any type of vehicle unstuck. That was a job for a large tractor or a piece of heavy equipment after the ground had a day to dry out. But he could pick up someone stranded and lost. The light-weight Gator was made for terrain and conditions like this.

  He took it easy, not wanting to tear up the pastures or leave ruts. The foxhunting season would be starting soon and the grounds needed to look the part. Johnbull turned perpendicular to the streams of water for the least time on the softest ground to minimize damaging the turf. On the way back he’d pick different crossing points.

  Reaching the first hill, he circumvented to the left since Vicky’s message clearly indicated the west side of the ridge. He jumped out a couple of times to open cattle gates, carefully closing them behind. Greg would never let him hear the end of it if cows got out. The club needed the farmers’ lease money to pay the taxes.

  There were plenty of leaves on the ground from the violent winds. Mother Nature had hosted quite the party last night, and this was the aftermath. He hoped to see a fox in the early morning hours, but no luck.

  Johnbull floored it up the second hill toward the smoking tree, but didn’t get more than a third of the way up before seeing the stuck truck in low ground. He turned toward it. The lights were on and dim, and a sagging cable was runout from the winch. Water slowly flowed all about it. Someone had taken a bad turn in the night. The truck had sunk to its chassis in the water, the engine maybe quitting when the exhaust was blocked by flooding.

  As he got closer, he noted the scene was deceptive. The truck had thirty-five inch tires and a lift kit, suddenly putting the surrounding flooding in a new perspective. The ponding water was deeper than it looked.

  “Anyone here!” he yelled out. But the early morning was quiet.

  Behind the seat were his pair of Wellies, green knee-high rubber boots. He cursed because he knew one leaked. His laundry pile contained many mud-stained socks to prove it. But they were much better than leather work boots so he took a moment to change.

  “Hello!” he called again. Nothing.

  The water looked too deep for his boots to walk directly across, so he hiked upstream to find a shallower crossing point. Johnbull didn’t need to go far. He cursed. Again he felt the trickle of cold water on the ball of his big toe. A dozen sloshing steps and he was back on firm ground on the far side.

  The rear of the truck had clearance above the water, but mud on the suspension made clear the high-water mark that had eventually killed the engine. Johnbull noted a half inch of sludge in the bottom of the driver’s side exhaust pipe. He climbed on the rear bumper and stepped over the tools laying in the bed to peer into the cab. It was empty.

  He stood and looked about, noting a dark lump shape at the base of a scraggly bush downstream. Johnbull climbed back down over the tailgate and made his way along the runoff.

  It was a man. He’d been hard to recognize at first with limbs balled up under his torso, but the mud failed to hide the charcoal fabric of the suit jacket. Johnbull perceived no breathing, and the body seemed unnaturally stiff. Whether he drowned, or washed downstream after a heart attack, Johnbull wasn’t sure. But there was no doubt. He was dead, dead, dead.

  A hound’s woof made him look up to the south and see a line of uniforms stretched east to west and heading his way. Some were in navy blue fatigues, with matching soft hats with “Police” in bright yellow letters. Others were in State Police gray. A couple held the leashes of bloodhounds, but Johnbull could readily see they had no scent. Intervals between them were as close as fifty feet. All of them carried black rifles loaded with curving magazines.

  He stood, watching the advance. They were coming on with energy, the pace more akin to a slow jog than a walk. Some blew whistles to help maintain alignment in close terrain. Then he heard the whistles to the west and realized another skirmish line had departed from Gone Away Lane. Intimate with the hunt’s land, Johnbull knew there were hundreds of sworn officers involved to give the needed coverage for whatever it was they were searching for. Strange days indeed.

  “You there! Get your hands where I can see them,” ordered a younger patrolman.

  Johnbull raised his hands and stayed still, watching a trio break formation and wade across the thigh height flooding. He’d many encounters with police and was well versed in the script.

  “What did you do to that guy?” he said, gesturing with the rifle’s barrel.

  “He that way when I got her, Sir.”

  “I hope you have a registration for that truck,” said another.

  “My truck over there, Sir,” Johnbull said with a nod toward the Gator. He knew better than to make a gesture with his raised hands. A few other men had reached it and were giving it a look over.

  “Do you have any identification?”

  “Yes, Sir,” he said and began reaching toward his wallet in his back pocket.

  The tackle came in sideways, the horizontal rifle bowling him over and knocking him to the ground.

  “We didn’t tell you to move,” reprimanded another patrolman. Johnbull felt a fleshy hand working its way into his back pocket to seize the wallet. He lay perfectly still.

  “I’ll run a check on this guy. Let the command post know what we found,” ordered the tackler.

  Another officer yelled from the Gator, “They found the girl! Supposedly there was a shootout on the east side of this central hill. We’re to keep moving north, looking for suspects.”

  After fiddling with his radio, the one with his wallet yelled back, “Hey, I have a convicted felon here!”

  Johnbull felt the man’s knee hit his lower back, and the clicking of the steel handcuffs on his wrists.

  Arabell and Justin parked behind the Hunt Lodge Hotel and walked in under the green awning holding hands. The lot smelled clean after the summer storms, making the cigarette urn by the gum stained back entrance seem to stink all the more. They passed by the scratched white fire door of the stairwell, and then the brass gilded elevators. The décor improved as the hall opened to the main lobby, in a yesteryear kind of way.

  The tired linoleum transitioned into scarred hardwood, but it was clean and polished. The crimson runner was sun-faded, but vacuumed. A young woman wearing a dark blue blazer smiled at them from behind the front desk. They took a right, passing through the walnut paneled entryway to the hunter green linen table clothes.

  The dining room faced the sidewalk next to Second Street with lace shades in its windows to let in plenty of natural light while deemphasizing the outside urban landscape. It was less formal than the lounge on the other side with its prints of hunt scenes and brass tacked leather chairs, having more of a bright cozy country barn feel. The walls were varnished pine, with many wooden framed photographs of the Westburg Hunt in action over the decades. Given the meticulous details of traditional dress and equipment making the images timeless, the quality of the photo colors themselves was the readiest way to date them. Justin and Arabell paid them no mind as they pulled back the pai
nted wooden chairs. A couple of businessmen at separate tables looked at newspapers while finishing their coffee.

  Arabell herd her phone ding, and pulled it out of her purse pocket.

  “It’s Abriella. She said with no school and the ground all wet she’s being a lazy,” Arabell laughed, “useless teen and sleeping in. And that she heard from Vicky, and the girl who was missing is back safe and sound.”

  “Sounds like good news all around then,” claimed Justin.

  Arabell knew the gun battle would cause him weeks of headaches, but it was his way of ensuring their special getaway ended upbeat. There would be more text messages on his phone by now, from either Fox Ridge or city hall, and he hadn’t pulled it out to share.

  A skinny young man dressed in faded black clothes handed them menus from a matching apron and poured water glasses. The small listing advertised flapjacks and scrapple, gravy biscuits, grits, and corned beef hash. Eggs, bacon, sausage all anyway the customer wanted it cooked. There were no yogurts or granolas. It didn’t take them long to decide. She always slept through breakfast. He watched his weight with high fiber oatmeal. They both enjoyed being decedent for a change.

  The front doors of the hotel opened, admitting sunshine and a heavy damp breeze that felt cool upon her face. Arabell looked over from her menu to see the heavy set man wearing ill-fitting clothes stagger through the lobby toward the front desk. She turned away from him to upturn her coffee cup as their waiter approached with a steaming pot. Justin smiled as she poured enough cream to turn the blackness to tan.

  They placed their order, everything a la carte. Justin was very particular with eggs lightly scrambled, but bacon extra crispy. A man’s shouting, and a woman’s pleading to “please calm down,” turned their heads toward the entryway. They couldn’t see the front desk, but flickering shadow bespoke an animated conversation.

  “Then call your manager! I want my suitcase,” the male’s voice declared angrily. He returned into view, fists clenched at his side with widely planted feet. He looked at the three of them, and cocked his head sideways as all of them dropped their gaze.