A quote: “Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.” ~~ Robert A. Heinlein
I’ll start with a story …
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“MAMAW!”
I was on the farside of the house tending the kitchen garden and Bethie’s high-pitched screech still made me wince.
Bethie rounded the corner, breathless, “Dusty’s gone! He doesn’t come when I call.”
“Calm down, girl. He might be off moping. Poor pup does that every time Jimmy’s out with Patrol.”
I remember when Jimmy first came home with Dusty … the tiny puppy curled inside Jimmy’s jacket. A little, lame runt rejected by his mom.
The two had that in common.
And just as when his dad brought him home here with us, Dusty thrived with Jimmy’s love and attention.
“Come on, Bethie,” I waved at her to follow and we walked down to the river, “I know you promised your cousin you’d watch over Dusty. So you gotta know his favorite place.”
The path wound through summer grasses into the cool shade of wetland trees. An old wood boat tied up to a small, makeshift dock. Countless hours Jimmy would go off fishing with Dusty sitting in the bow.
I made a sharp whistle and a furry head popped up, eyes expectant, looking for Jimmy.
I felt my heart thump. “You and me, pup. You and me.”
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license.
Cameron says: I liked my isolation, OK? Multiple deployments pretty much made me useless in cities. I took the inheritance from my grandparents, bought a cabin, fixed it up and took it off grid. I have enough food to last me, the nearest town is far enough away for me and I am doing all right.
The dog showed up from out of nowhere. She had been abandoned but took to me pretty quickly. I grumbled at having to go to town for dog food. The girl behind the counter got excited and asked what kind of dog I had. I ended up having to bring her with me the next day just to get the questions to stop.
When I went on the boat to fish, she went with me. When I cooked dinner, she was laying the living room and waiting patiently. When the nightmares came, she broke the rule about being on the bed and comforted me.
She was the topic of conversation in town. I stayed to talk and folks welcomed me. When I came home, she greeted me with boundless energy.
It’s been two years and I can say she’s better than the shrinks at the VA.
Sheila Garrett says: We just stopped by the dog park for a few minutes. Our dogs had to have a run before our flight.
But although it was barely dawn we weren’t alone. The big man paced impatiently while a crop-eared pit bull examined the trees. I had to turn my face away and tell the twins not to stare. The pittie was rough, a roadmap of scars, and he looked like he’d been the loser last night.
Our pack of Malinois stayed busy, fetching, heeling, doing a few herding commands for five minutes before I heard the big man say “Get ’em”. I looked around to see him pointing the pit bull like a gun at Hondo as he went out after a thrown toy on command.
It hurt to see how slowly the dog moved as he tried to obey. He could barely trot and sank gratefully to the ground as I faced him and said “No, down.”
The big man looked furious as I blocked his route to his dog. But he got quiet when I pulled out my wallet, peeled off ten one hundred dollar bills, and told him he could take the money or I could see how well my four Malinois pups’ bite training was going. As he left I asked him the dog’s name.
Shaker. Not a bad name. They were a peaceful people I’d always heard.
Cameron says: Nice bit of work if slightly depressing because there are people like that in the world.
Sheila Garrett says: Thanks
I found the Carrol place almost by accident. I was out on patrol, this time with a couple of pieces of equipment the Kitties had given me to detect Tchiador technology before I put myself or anyone else in danger. In my mind’s eye, I still saw Sadie in her final moments, twisting in convulsions after she picked up the bright shiny ball she thought was part of a game of fetch.
So far I hadn’t been getting any pings, and my horse needed a rest. So when I saw the creek, I heeled him over to have a drink while I dismounted and stretched.
That was when I saw the boat hauled up on the bank, and the dog sitting in it. If his fur hadn’t been golden instead of black, I would’ve thought Sadie had come back to me.
The dog must’ve either seen or scented me, because his ears perked up and he let out one sharp bark. Moments later a young woman stepped out of the brush, a knife in one hand and a bag in the other.
“What’re you doing here?” She didn’t even bother to disguise the hostility in her voice.
I could’ve pulled out my badge and snapped that I was deputized as a Patrol officer for this region, that I had the power to arrest her and call the Kitties to collect her. But I could hear the fear under the anger, so I chose a different approach.
“Watching for enemy incursions. About three weeks ago, I lost my dog to a Tchiador probe.”
I was about to add a mention of being deputized, but the mention of Sadie’s death made her go pale. Bag and knife dropped from her hands and she ran over to me, her dog jumping out of the boat to join her. “Oh my god. You too. Was it a silver ball, about the size of a baseball?”
At my affirmative, she told me about how her dad had found one like it — except he didn’t even get time to touch it before being scanned by what looked like a pale reddish light. “It was like that thing just sort of sucked the life out of him. And then it glowed so bright I couldn’t even look at it. I turned tail and ran until my legs started cramping. It was scary because I had these spots in my vision, and I was scared I’d damaged my eyes looking at it. By the time those cleared up and I went back out there, all I could find was a huge black circle, like something had burned everything right down to the soil. There wasn’t even anything left to bury, so all I could do was try to go on as best I could.”
I knew I needed to let the Kitties know right away, but first I had to comfort this bereaved young woman.
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