Under the Dog Star: A Rachel Goddard Mystery #4 (Rachel Goddard Mysteries)

by Parshall, Sandra

  “Looks like it. They went straight for it. They could hole up here during the day and nobody would ever bother them.”

  “Well,” Joe said, “we need to bother them now. Y’all got any ideas about how to get them out of there?”

  Tom shook his head. “Joe, a dogcatcher’s supposed to know these things.”

  “Well, heck, I never had to get a whole pack of dogs out of a cave before. Cut me some slack, will you?”

  “I think we’re all about to have a learning experience,” Rachel said. “How deep is the cave?”

  “About thirty feet,” Tom said, “if I remember right. It’s low all the way, high enough for a bear to walk in, but not for a man to stand upright.”

  “Obviously we’re not going in after them,” Rachel said. “We have to make them come out.”

  “Any chance we could get some more of your men to help?” Joe asked.

  “No. Most of them are still searching the woods at the dogfighting site, and the rest are following up tips about Hall’s murder.”

  “We can do this by ourselves,” Rachel said, “but we have to get them out of the cave.” She looked at Joe. “Don’t you carry food to use as a lure for strays?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got some real stinky stuff dogs always go for when they’re hungry,” Joe said. “And I’ve got two big traps we can set up. We can bait the traps and put them at the mouth of the cave. Unless they all try to get at the food at once, we could trap a couple at a time and move them to cages.”

  “You don’t have enough cages for all of them, though,” Rachel pointed out. “We’ll have to tie some of them up in the van for transport.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Tom said. “I think you ought to plan on coming out here more than once.”

  “No,” Rachel said. “I’m not leaving a single dog out here to get shot. My goal is to get them all, and damn it, that’s what we’re going to do. I don’t want to hear any more talk about giving up, okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Whatever you say, ma’am.”

  “And don’t make fun of me.”

  “No, ma’am. Wouldn’t think of it, ma’am.”

  Rachel gave him a grudging grin. “Just watch your attitude, pal, or you’ll pay a price at home.”

  Tom laughed. “All right,” he said, “let’s do this thing.”

  They moved their vehicles out of sight down the road. Tom and Joe unfolded the wire traps while Rachel emptied canned food into two bowls.

  “Whew,” Tom said. “That stuff smells like a dead skunk.”

  “The worse it stinks, the more they like it,” Joe said.

  “No more talking,” Rachel said. She placed the food inside the cages. “Let them think we’re gone.”

  Moving silently, Joe and Rachel placed the traps in the opening of the cave. The three of them withdrew, hid behind trees across the road, and waited for the sound of the spring-loaded traps to snap shut. Twenty minutes passed. Thirty minutes.

  Rachel was beginning to lose hope when she heard the first clank, followed immediately by the second. She shot a look at Joe, who grinned back at her. Yes.

  Stepping out from behind her tree, she saw two dogs the size of beagles circling inside the traps, pawing at the steel mesh.

  Tom and Joe ran across the road, snatched up the traps, and raced back to Joe’s van. They lifted the traps with the dogs into the back, clambered in after them, and swung the doors shut. A couple of minutes later the doors opened and Tom and Joe jumped out with the empty traps. While Rachel climbed into the van, Joe baited the traps again. He and Tom carried them back to the cave mouth.

  Rachel stayed in the van with the two scared dogs. Both of them shrank away from her, but when she poured bottled water through the wire screen into the bowls attached to the inside, the dogs eagerly lapped it up. She refilled the dishes and they drank again. She knew they were hungry, but they were also agitated, and she didn’t want to offer them food until they were in pens at the sanctuary and wouldn’t have to be moved again.

  Forty-five minutes passed before Tom and Joe returned with two more dogs. Now the van’s cages were full.

  The next two dogs were captured more quickly, and left in the traps. They had to shift gears now.

  “We’ll have to dart the last four,” Rachel said. She sat with her legs hanging out the back of the van.

  “You sure you don’t want to take these in and come back another time?” Tom asked. “We’ve been out here a long time.”

  “No,” Rachel said. “Even if nobody shoots them, they might move somewhere else. It could take us forever to find them again.”

  “Okay, then,” Joe said, “let’s get ready for some excitement.”

  They didn’t have any more food bowls, and Rachel didn’t want to risk reaching into the traps to retrieve the ones they’d used for bait. She improvised, tearing off pieces of a fold-up state map she found in the van. When Joe protested, she said, “I’ll buy you a new one, for heaven’s sake.”

  She placed the first scrap of paper inside the opening of the cave, with a spoonful of the smelly canned food on it. She spaced out the rest of the paper, moving farther from the cave and spreading them wide, a dollop of food on each, to give Joe a clear shot with the dart gun.

  “You really think this is gonna work?” Joe whispered when they retreated to the woods across the road.

  Rachel shrugged. She’d trapped wild animals, but she’d never caught feral dogs before. This was the only way she could think of to get them out in the open.

  The dogs in the van remained quiet. They’d all taken water, and as the afternoon had worn on and they calmed down Rachel had given them hard dog biscuits to gnaw on.

  She and Tom and Joe settled in to wait, hidden among the trees. Rachel peeked out from behind her tree every few minutes, checking for activity at the cave opening. Fifteen minutes passed, thirty, forty. Then she spotted movement at the mouth of the cave. A dog poked his head out, looked one way, then the other. His tongue swiped his lips. He’d eaten the first bit of food.

  A second dog appeared beside the first.

  Rachel held her breath.

  The first dog ventured farther out, hesitant, pausing again and again to scan his surroundings. The second dog hung back. Behind it, in the shadows, Rachel saw the remaining two.

  “Come on, come on,” Rachel whispered. “Come and get it.”

  With its tail tucked between its hind legs, the first dog slunk toward a scrap of paper with food on it. With one more look around, he gulped the food, then jumped back.

  Joe raised the dart gun, but Rachel shook her head and held up a hand to stop him. If he darted one dog now, the three timid ones might never emerge. She wanted all four of them out in the open.

  Gradually the other three crept from the cave, alert and scared but drawn by the odor of the food. Rachel gave Joe a hand signal.

  The first dog was eating when the dart hit him. He jerked at the sting but made no sound, and the other dogs seemed unaware of what had happened.

  Joe reloaded quickly.

  The second dog yelped when the dart went in and spun around, trying to get at the object dangling from his flank.

  The other two shied away, searching for a threat, but they didn’t run back into the cave.

  The first two dogs wobbled and sank to the ground.

  The third dog let out a piercing yowl when the dart hit him. The little black and white mutt with him took off, straight back into the cave.

  “Oh, no,” Rachel groaned. They waited a couple of minutes, but the fourth dog didn’t reappear. They didn’t have much time to get the tranquilized animals into the van, muzzled and tied up, before they started coming around. “All right,” she said. “Let’s get them.”

  The dogs in cages looked on silently while they lifted the three unconscious animals into the van. Joe fastened collars and tethers to them and Rachel muzzled them.

  “What do you want to do about the little runt that’s left?” Joe aske
d.

  “I’m going to get him,” Rachel said. “I’m not leaving him out here by himself.”

  “You know, we could leave him some food and water—”

  “No. You can take these dogs to the sanctuary, but I’m staying. I don’t want to lose sight of him.”

  “Rachel,” Tom said, leaning into the van, “it’s one dog. We’ve got the rest. We did good. Let’s all go—”

  “I said no. He’ll die one way or another if we don’t take him in. I’m not leaving without that dog.”

  Tom sighed. “Okay. Joe, you go on to Holly’s place. Rachel and I will stay here.”

  She felt like kissing him. When she hopped out of the van, she did.

  “You are the most willful woman I’ve ever known,” Tom said, but he was smiling. “I’ll keep the dart gun. We can put him in the back seat of my car once he goes under. We just have to wait for him to come out again so I can get a shot.”

  “I’m not sure he will,” Rachel said. “He’s terrified. All the other dogs disappearing, one by one. He’s probably as far back in the cave as he can get.”

  Rachel placed more food on paper a couple of feet outside the cave entrance, and they waited. As time passed, she began to worry about nightfall. Could they do this in the dark? She glanced at the sky. Overcast, and more clouds rolling in from the west. They wouldn’t have the light of the moon tonight.

  “I’m going in after him,” she told Tom.

  “What? Have you lost your mind?”

  “I’ll take the dart gun. I know how to use it.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about,” Tom said. “I’m not letting you crawl into a cave with a wild dog.”

  “It’s not wild. It’s a discarded pet that’s scared to death.”

  “Which makes him dangerous. You know that as well as I do.”

  She did. But the dog was small, and there was a good chance that a combination of fear and need would make him submissive. “I’m going in there, with or without the dart gun. At least let me borrow your flashlight.”

  “Oh, for god’s sake.” Tom raked a hand through his hair. “Rachel—”

  “We’re wasting time,” she said. “Let’s get this done.”

  Tom thought about it, his face working with indecision, irritation. Rachel waited, barely controlling her impatience.

  “I’ve been in that cave,” he said at last. “Once you’re inside, it’s wide enough for two people side by side, but we’ll have to crawl. It’s not high enough to stand up. You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”

  She smiled. “Let’s get the flashlight.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Tom crawled into the cave first. Rachel followed, wincing as her knees came down on hard little pebbles in the dirt. Tom’s flashlight lit the way ahead, but Rachel had to feel along the ground with her hands to avoid protruding rocks. She’d expected the cave to be cold, but it felt no cooler than the outside.

  The place reeked of wet dog, unwashed dog, musky male dog.

  As they approached the end of the cave, Rachel heard a faint whining. Tom turned the light full on the little dog. The whine turned into a long, mournful cry. The animal pressed against the wall of the cave, its whole body shaking violently.

  Rachel came up beside Tom. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she whispered to the dog. “Tom, he can’t see us with the light in his eyes.”

  Tom swiveled the light between the dog and Rachel. “Be careful,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Let me dart him.”

  “No. We don’t need to.”

  Murmuring to the terrified dog, she crawled forward slowly. A few feet from him, she shifted and sat with her legs crossed. “It’s okay,” she said. “I won’t hurt you. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

  He cried out again, then lapsed into a loud whine.

  “You’re all right now,” she said. “It’s all right.”

  Rachel talked quietly to the dog for five minutes, afraid all the time that Tom would become impatient and interrupt. But he held the light and didn’t interfere.

  The dog’s whine subsided to a whimper, then he fell silent, his big eyes riveted on Rachel.

  Moving slowly, she pulled two dog biscuits from her jeans pocket and held one out to him. She could hear him sniffing. He whimpered and inched closer, staring at the treat. “Come on,” she whispered. “You can have it. You must be so hungry. Come on.”

  The dog looked up at her, back at the biscuit. Rachel murmured to him. He went down on his belly and crawled toward her, whining. He snatched the biscuit from her fingers. After he’d devoured it, she opened her palm to show him the second biscuit. He crawled closer and took it.

  When Rachel touched his head he flinched, but he stayed where he was. She stroked his head and talked to him quietly until his tail thumped a couple of times. “Let’s go,” she said. “Let’s go someplace better and have a good dinner. How does that sound?”

  He thumped his tail again.

  Tom stayed out of the way, and the dog didn’t seem to mind his presence. The animal was fixated on Rachel, and she kept his attention by talking to him continuously in a soothing voice. She turned around, and he stayed in front of her, between her arms, as she crawled out of the cave. Outside, he smelled the leftover food and went straight for it, downing it in one gulp.

  He didn’t resist when Rachel scooped him up and carried him to Tom’s car. The size of a Jack Russell, he had curly hair, black except for dirty white on his throat and muzzle. He was starvation thin and felt like an insubstantial ball of fluff in Rachel’s arms.

  He lay on Rachel’s lap in the back seat during the ride to the sanctuary. Stroking and scratching him, she hated the thought of locking him in a pen by himself.

  As if sensing her thoughts, Tom said, “Rachel, we can’t take this dog in. We’ve got Billy Bob and Frank and Cicero—”

  “Holly might like him.”

  “They’ve already got dogs in the house, and they just took in another one.”

  “Well, like Mrs. Turner said, it’s a big house.”

  ***

  “Good god,” Tom said, powering down his window as the guard let them through the sanctuary gate. “Listen to that.”

  The howls and yelps carried all the way from the pens behind the house.

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” Rachel said from the back seat. “I’m sure the alpha dog got them started.”

  The dog on her lap had begun whining, and when Tom looked around he saw the animal sitting up, eyes wide and ears cocked. Tom closed the window, but when they approached the pens the racket was too loud to be shut out. The dog Rachel held got more worked up by the second. Instead of driving all the way back to the pens, Tom stopped next to the house. “I guess you don’t want to add that one to the mix,” he said.

  “No,” Rachel said. “He’s scared out of his wits. I’ll stay in the car with him. Tell Holly I need to see her, and tell Joe to get the alpha dog out of here right now, or the others will be impossible to handle.”

  Taking the tranquilizer rifle with him, Tom got out and walked around behind the house. He found Holly and her grandmother going from one pen to another, trying to quiet the barking, howling dogs with treats. The animals ignored the women, paced their enclosures, responded with yelps and howls every time the pack leader barked. Tom pulled Holly aside and sent her to Rachel.

  Joe Dolan stood before the alpha dog’s pen, watching the animal lunge at the fencing over and over. When he saw Tom, he yelled over the uproar, “It’s about time! I needed that an hour ago.”

  Tom handed over the gun, already loaded with a dart.

  “This is gonna take more than one,” Joe said. “I’ll be right back.” He ran toward his van nearby.

  The snarling, growling dog turned his attention on Tom. Although Tom knew he was safe, the wild ferocity of the animal as it backed up and hurled itself at the fence stirred a primitive fear in him. The rest of the feral dogs had probably been pets from birth and might be sa
ved, but this brute seemed beyond redemption. The dog had suffered at the hands of people, had likely never known any kindness, and it could be too late to turn him around now. Rachel would be disappointed, but Tom hoped sentiment wouldn’t blind her to the truth.

  When Joe returned, he thrust the end of the tranquilizer rifle through an opening in the chain link. The dog leapt at it, snapping, and Joe jerked it back just in time to keep him from grabbing it. “Good Lord almighty. Distract him for me, will you?”

  Tom walked a few feet away, and the dog followed, snarling at him. Tom crouched, closer to the fence than felt comfortable. If no barrier separated them, he wouldn’t dare make eye contact with a hostile animal, but in this case it was the best way to keep its attention. He stared into the dog’s eyes, and its fury rose, building to full-blown mania. The dog lunged, pawed at the fence, growled and barked.

  The other dogs responded with a chorus of howls.

  When the first dart struck home, the alpha dog didn’t even notice the prick. And as several minutes passed, he showed only a mild reaction to the tranquilizer, wobbling a little but keeping up the intensity of his attack on Tom.

  The second dart got a reaction, a whine that sounded especially pathetic to Tom, coming from an animal whose viciousness was its only defense against a cruel world.

  Within a couple of minutes, the dog quieted, swayed, and slowly folded onto his belly in the dirt.

  Rachel ran up then. “Is he ready to go? Oh, God, Joe, you had to dart him twice? He’s had a lot of that stuff in less than twenty-four hours. We’re going to kill him at this rate.”

  That might be the kindest thing to do, Tom thought, but he kept silent.

  Joe muzzled the tranquilized dog and Tom helped him carry the animal to the van and place him in a cage. Rachel checked his heart rate and respiration, pronounced them normal, and locked him in.

  She stood with Tom, her face bleak, as they watched Joe drive off to the pound. The other dogs had already begun to calm down. Only a few whines and soft barks broke the quiet.

  Tom laid a hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “What did you do with the little guy?”