by D. L. Keur
Landon looked toward the voice to see Kins jogging toward them. “Kins,” he said to Jessie, who’d started. She glanced up the mountain, again. “No!”
Landon turned to look. The dogs were hurtling down the hill, a human—Jessica’s father—bounding after them, but lagging farther and farther behind.
“RUHIG!” Jessie yelled. Then some other words in a stream that was complete gibberish to his ears.
Kins stopped dead, seeing the dogs flying down toward them.
Jessica squatted down, holding her arms out toward the coming dogs. She turned her head toward him. “Raise your hands above your head like you’re surrendering and turn your back to them. Have Kins do it, too. Now. …Just to be safe. Do not draw your weapons. Don’t look them in the eye.”
He heard the urgency. He did as told, yelling at Kins to mimic him and not go for his gun. “Stay that way until Jessie says different,” he called.
“Yes, sir. Done, sir,” Kins called back, and Landon saw that the younger man already had.
The muscles in Landon’s neck tickled. He felt completely vulnerable, and, worse, terrified.
***
36 – Defense Drive
Their hackles were up. Even Queenie’s and Oso’s. Jessie kept up a steady stream of ‘doglish’—her mix of English and German. She kept repeating herself, calling for calm, telling them everything was okay. She had to keep her mind calm, her spirit positive, not let her fear for them manifest itself.
Acer, the rest of the shepherds, and Milo flew past her, Mitch with them. Only Queenie came to her. Oso followed the others, stopped, then, deciding, came back to her, too. She rubbed and petted, called the others by name, asking them to come to her, that everything was okay. They were in full defense drive, though. As a pack. They were defending the pack, including her. She recognized that. She also saw her father. Ignore it. Forget him.
“Hier, Acer, Britta, Sumi. Come, Milo. Komm’, Mitch.”
Acer sniffed around and up and down the sheriff, circling him, watching him. “Acer, hier. Ruhig,” Jessie kept calling, quashing her terror for the dog. Acer dropped his head and turned his eyes to her. His hackles dropped to half. Then, he came.
Then, Milo came, too, Mitch with him.
Relief flooded her. She quelled it. These were the easy ones. They knew the sheriff, had trusted him as safe, already. They didn’t know the deputy, though. He was still in danger, so the dogs were in danger—her fault.
She kept calling, but her hands touched Acer, Milo, Mitch—each in turn as they came, rubbing, stroking, their noses touching her face and her responding. And she kept calling for Britta and Sumi. Kept praying.
Britta was watching the man the sheriff called Kins. So was Sumi. Both dogs were intent on something. “What’s in your hand, Kins?” Jessica called.
“Mace,” came the answer.
“If you drop it, will it go off? Is it like a grenade or bear bomb?”
“No.”
Relief. “Okay. Don’t move, don’t shift positions, don’t move your arms. Just slowly open your fingers and drop it,” Jessie called, keeping her voice as mellow-sounding as possible, her hands continually stroking the dogs moving in and around her.
Her dogs were still on edge. And they were under stress—confused. They felt a trust betrayed because she’d left them, abandoning them to her father, a man they knew, but who wasn’t part of ‘their pack’.
She saw the small canister Kins had been holding drop to the ground. She saw Britta nose it, the dog keeping her eyes on the young man as she did it. “Sumi, Britta, kommen sie,” Jessica called.
With one backward glance, Britta dropped her head and obeyed. She came trotting toward Jessica, her head level, not in obeyance, but attentive.
Sumi didn’t obey, though. Instead, she sat, staring up at her mark. But her hackles were dropping, now. She was guarding her capture, instead of intent on taking it down.
Britta approached, stared at Jessica, then, finally, dropped her guard and touched faces with her. “Thank you, Britta. Guter Hund. Feines Mädchen,” Jessica crooned, rubbing her head, her ruff, her back. The dog licked her face. “Such a good, good girl, Britta.”
Acer touched Britta’s nose with his, and Britta gave voice to him, tucking her head into his neck.
Standing up, Jessie walked toward Kins, her dogs coming with her, but under her guidance now. She asked them to fuss, urging them, then, to stay back, and they did, even Acer.
As she reached the deputy, gently she reached out to Sumi, her dead friend’s police dog. “Hier,” she said. The dog dipped her muzzle, pointing toward the grounded canister. “Okay.” Jessie reached and picked it up. “Safe, now,” she said to Sumi. Only then did the dog relax her vigilance, downing right there at Jessica’s feet. “Guter Hund, brave Hunde. Ganz feine Hunde,” she said, first to Sumi, then including them all, but squatting down to touch her Sumi.
The dog gave her head to her, and Jessie rubbed hers on the dog, forehead to forehead. Then she stood up. “You can lower your arms, now, Deputy. And, thank you. It’s my fault this happened. I abandoned them. Then they saw you coming at me, didn’t know you, and they went into full protection, full attack mode.”
Kins rolled his eyes at her. “That was scary.”
You have no idea how scary, she thought.
“Can I let my arms down, now, too?” Sheriff Reid called.
Jessie turned, grinned, and said, “No. You have to stay that way the rest of the day,” surprised at herself that she could sum up even that bit of humor.
He eyeballed her.
“Of course, you can,” she said, and he dropped his arms.
Her dad, who’d been standing off, holstered his pistol, and walked up. “You brought them down, Jessie,” he said softly. “I thought I was going to have to shoot them. You knew that, didn’t you?”
She nodded. “I knew.” And she saw realization dawn on the sheriff’s face. He dropped his head, then uncharacteristically sank to sit his butt on the tailgate of her rig. Kins came up cautiously and joined Sheriff Reid. Reid said something to him, then eyed her, the dogs, her dad.
Her dad explained it for them. “Packs, once in defense drive, especially when protecting the pack, are all but impossible to stop, except maybe, and that’s a big maybe, by the pack leader—Jessica—and, in this case, because Jessie had left the pack, that authority went to Acer.”
“The big male,” Reid said.
“Yes. …But they listened to my daughter. They listened.” Her dad let out a sigh, his eyes flicking to hers. “It’s why we don’t use packs, but rather keep it to one dog, one handler. …But.” And, here, Jessica saw real admiration come into his eyes as he glanced her way. “Jessie’s bunch just proved that, even in full defense drive, her pack will listen to her. Our mistake was separating them from their chosen leader—Jessie.” Then, specifically to her, he said, “Won’t be doing that, again, will we, Jessica!” It was a statement, not a question.
Jessie shook her head. “No, I won’t. Never again.”
***
37 – Drone Master
“How good are you at flying drones?” Jessica asked Kins, once she’d given the dogs some dehydrated beef strips to chew on, then asked Sheriff Reid to properly introduce them.
The young man shrugged. Jessie saw Reid drop his head, an exasperated look on his face.
Jessie understood, then. She eyed the lanky deputy. No bragging, so expert. But probably with a controller, not software. “I use the software to fly them, programming in my search pattern and using the auto-pilot and self-correction capabilities, but there’s also a controller,” she prompted. “How to control two at once with the controllers eludes me, though.”
Flustered, Kins eyes sought anywhere else to be, but kept returning to stare at her drones.
“What are you thinking, Miss Anderson?” Reid asked.
“That, since he’s a deputy and since he at least has an amateur drone license from the FAA, that he can fly them if you’re will
ing to fudge the regulations a little. Then, I can get back to work with my dogs finding remains.” She glanced toward her pack as she said it, and they were all still busy working on the dried strips of beef she’d given them. Acer noticed her look, though, as did Milo and Mitch. They started to rise. The others paused and then began rising, too. “It’s okay. Sie essen.”
They watched her, then, almost simultaneously, all of them relaxed, lay back down, and went on chewing their meat strips.
“Can I try the simulator first?” Kins asked, his voice hushed.
“Sure.”
Logging back into her laptop, which had gone on standby, Jessie brought up the app.
“Can I use the controller?”
Jessie laughed. “They’re still in the cases.” Popping open one of the cases, she pulled one out. It was still in its shipping wrapper. “Here.”
Kins stripped off the packing, stuffing the shredded wad into his pocket.
“Give it here,” Reid said.
Kins grinned sheepishly, pulled it back out and handed it over. Reid slipped it into his pocket, and Jessie just wanted to laugh at their silliness.
Slipping in the battery pack, Kins stood back, watched the screen, and began to play in the simulator. Both Reid and Jessie watched, intrigued as Kins proceeded to run through the beginner level, switched to intermediate, then hopped onto advanced, ripping through the exercises and obstacle tests like they were child’s play. Okay. Definitely expert. “Let’s try it with the drone,” Jessie suggested.
Kins’ eyes shifted to hers, then dropped to the drones. He took a noticeable breath. “Okay,” he said tentatively, and, with an adeptness that Jessie envied, he switched the remote to live.
The lights on the drone on the right blinked on. The little machine made a beep—ready. Then it unfolded, Reid stepping back, his eyes going wide and a frown crossing his brow, as the machine extended its arms and rotors. “Looks like an alien bug,” he muttered, stepping even farther away as the machine lifted and began to hover. “A great big flying cockroach.”
“Cockroaches are brown. These are light blue-gray,” Jessie said, and got rewarded with a snotty glare and a roll-eye.
Getting a drone airborne was one of the tricky things because of ground effect. Kins got the little machine airborne without a problem, though. Then, even with the stiff breeze coming off Long Peak, he hovered the craft, first at about eight feet, then descending to about five. Next, he spun it on its vertical axis. “What are you doing?” Jessica asked.
“Testing my control of it, its aerodynamics and control sensitivity, plus my ability to safely fly it.”
Jessica laughed. “I’d say you’re both getting along just fine. I think it’s a nick,” she said turning to Sheriff Reid.
He let out a big breath as if he’d been holding it. Didn’t respond.
“What’s a ‘nick’,” Kins asked, never taking his eyes off the controller’s little display. He was now flying the drone in a circle just above their heads.
“A very good match,” Jessie answered.
“Oh. …Thanks. This is an awesome unit! Real responsive.”
“Glad you like it. Let’s see if you can handle the software. It’s too obvious you’re a master at flying with the controller.”
The man blushed. “Thanks,” he mumbled.
She turned to the sheriff still standing by watching them. “I think you and Deputy Kins here will be able to run the drones, and I can get back to working my dogs, if that works for you?”
Reid nodded. “If you trust us with those contraptions.”
She grinned. “You break ’em, you buy ’em,” she quipped, and saw him grin.
He touched the brim edge of his hat with two fingers. “Done.”
“Actually, they’re insured,” she said with a smile to let him know he was off the hook.
He shook his head, though. “We’d still compensate you for any damage. You’re not the only one with insurance.”
*
They’d been at it for two hours before, while trading drones, Kins got the idea to run at nearly ground level. “Why would you want to do that?” Landon asked. “Seems dangerous.”
“If I overlay the topographical maps she’s got with the satellite maps, then overlay the drone feed, running each overlay at about a third opacity, I can find the trails, then maybe follow them at about human eye level. May see broken foliage, recent wheel ruts, maybe even garbage. Haven’t seen a red truck from above, that’s for sure, so maybe he covered it in brush to hide it.”
“Okay. You’re the joystick jockey, here. I’m just along for the ride.”
For Landon, watching the drone feeds from above was okay. Watching things zoom by like he was flying in a mini-airplane was dizzying. He’d played video games as a teen …still did sometimes, but this was more like driving way, way too fast through heavy brush. Dave Kins didn’t seem bothered by it, but Reid felt like they were going to crash any second, and that crash would hurt. He kept jerking and flinching. A glint. “What was that?!” he yelped.
“What?”
“Back up, rewind …whatever.”
The view tipped up, the sky appearing, spinning, swirling, then dove back down to swing back to a normal orientation. “Wish you’d quit that. I never signed up for fighter pilot training.”
That comment got a snort of laughter out of Dave. “So what am I looking for?”
“I don’t know. It was a silver glint— There!”
Dave stopped abruptly, and Landon felt like he should feel the momentum, but of course, that was just his brain acting weird. “Okay. Um… maybe ease back a few feet, if that’s possible.
Again a blur, this time like a horizontal spin, and Reid’s stomach felt it. The view steadied, then crept forward.
“I see it!” Dave said, whispering suddenly.
The field of view shifted downward. “What is that?” Reid demanded.
“I don’t know. I’m going to increase magnification.” The on-screen view blurred in and out, adjusting, then cleared. “Oh, good. The AI just figured out what we are targeting and auto-focused,” Dave told him. “Let’s go closer down.”
Descending, then twisting the view around finally brought some sense. It was a jumbled pile of canisters—black caps with a mostly white rectangle with ‘RUST-’ visible.
“Rust-oleum® paint cans—flat black color,” Landon said. “That’s what we’re looking at. He painted the truck black.”
“It would look horrible. Anybody would know it was a hurry-up hand paint job and be suspicious,” Dave said.
“Yeah. But a black truck parked in the shadows would be really hard to spot, especially flat black. That’s why we can’t find it.”
“Are there tire tracks?”
Both Dave and Landon jumped at Jessie’s voice. They hadn’t known she was there. Her father was with her. “You always sneak up on people like that?” Landon asked. “You do know we’re armed, right?”
She smiled. “Jumpy, huh? It’s lunch time. Aren’t you hungry? Dad and I certainly are, and the dogs could use some water and a snack, too,” she said walking off, the creatures mentioned all moving along calmly around her. The contrast between the animals that had all but attacked him and Dave this morning and these was startling.
Landon glanced at his watch. It was half past one. They’d been at it for hours, with nothing much but bad news to show for it. “Let’s make a run to town, Dave,” he said. “I think we could both use a bite.”
Oli Anderson walked up toting a red cooler. He popped it open and handed Jessie a plastic container. “No need. We’ve got extra,” he said handing Dave a thermos and a bottle of water, then offering the same to Reid. “Hot, homemade soup.”
Jessie handed both of them two sandwiches each, and then two small brown bags.
“We always pack extra just in case,” Oli Anderson said. “Eat up. There’s pop in the blue cooler in the bed of my truck, too. Don’t mess with the green one. That’s not jerky. �
�Well, it is, but it’s for the dogs.”
“Cookies!” Dave said, opening the brown bag.
“You eat your real food first, kid,” Oli said. “You’re skin and bones, mostly. Need some meat on you, so you need to eat some.”
Kins’ eyes shifted sideways and his face flushed. He unwrapped a sandwich and took a bite. “Wow. Real roast beef!” and began to chew in earnest.
Jessica smiled, watching him. So did her dad.
***
38 – Tracks
“Did you see any evidence of tire tracks?” Jessie asked between bites of her own sandwich, repeating the question she’d asked earlier. She wanted an answer, and they just weren’t cooperating. Probably because I’m just a woman.
Still, nobody answered.
Pressing on, she said, “It’s been days. I’m guessing they’re long gone off the mountain, and, since they’ve been doing this over a period of at least a couple of years, I’m guessing they’re using the old skid trails and cat cracks for ingress and egress. I would.”
The sheriff nodded, swallowed, then said, “Only hitting this road once the old trails run out up here where it’s never been logged. I was wondering that, too, but there’s nowhere to go that doesn’t wind up on a county road, sooner or later.”
“What about the old trapper cabins?” Oli put in. “Or the remnant buildings of old homesteads? We’ve got two on our property, alone.”
Nobody said anything. There were so many possibilities.
“Wish there was a way to spot tire tracks easy. Like blood evidence that glows in UV,” Dave said.
“There is,” Jessie said. “Broken flora. And most people will use the same path repeatedly once they find connecting trails that work. That’s why I keep asking if you’ve seen evidence of tire tracks.”
“Oh, you mean tire ruts,” Reid said.
Different strokes. Communication breakdown. Jessie groaned. “Yeah. Continuous parallel tracks in the landscape. The undercarriage of a vehicle will break over small trees and bushes, the exhaust system will scorch vegetation, and the tires will crush whatever they roll over.”