Let Loose (18 page)

I put the Jeep in drive and slowly pressed on
the gas. My rig jerked.

I sat there, cursing my luck and considering
my next move, when a flatbed truck, altered to hold trash in the
back, pulled up.

What looked like the guts of an old metal bed
were visible from the side, as was an old fiberglass shower
enclosure. Two men were in the front. The inside of the cab was
dark and both men were wearing caps. I didn’t think I knew either
of them, but it was hard to say for sure. I was hoping I didn’t, as
I liked to keep my embarrassing predicaments to myself whenever I
could.

I watched in my rearview mirror as the driver
got out and grabbed something from beside the road.

One of the trash cans.

He emptied it into the truck, got back in,
and they drove off.

One trash can, but there had been two.

The other, I guessed, had to be hidden under
my rear carriage.

Damn my luck.

Once I was sure they were gone, I got out to
survey the situation. Sure enough, Craig’s second trash can was
clearly visible under my Jeep. I was surprised the two men hadn’t
seen it, or maybe they had. Paid by the trip, I doubted they’d be
fighting me over my kill.

Muttering curses, I got on my back and tried
to kick the thing free. To my relief it budged. To my greater
relief, once I was back in my Jeep I was able to pull ahead and
leave the can behind.

Unfortunately, I left the contents of the can
behind too, strewn all over Craig’s drive.

I admit, for bit, I considered just leaving
it all there. It wasn’t like Craig was a fastidious gardener. Plus,
if I left, odds were good he’d blame the guys in the truck and not
me. But then again, they had seen me. And then there was the guilt
I knew I’d suffer minutes after driving away. I wouldn’t want to
feel it, but I would, and there was no telling what its burden
might cause me to do.

I got out again. This time to flip down my
tailgate and fill the back end of my ride with trash.

At least it wasn’t stinky rotting trash. It
was more of the broken drywall variety. In fact, it was all
drywall, with the exception of one very rusty, very heavy metal
box.

I shook the item in question and it rattled.
Intriguing, as was the fact that I thought I recognized the piece
as a model T toolbox. I’d had one before and it had sold fairly
quickly.

It had been in much better shape than this
one, but still, there might be potential.

Maybe my day hadn’t been a total loss after
all.

o0o

The next day I got up with every intention of
going into the shop. I had been AWOL way too much the past few
days, and while Betty and Phyllis kept things running, if I left
them to their own devices for too long, there was no telling what
kind of a shop I would return to.

Maybe a jazz clothing boutique with a big
rich Texas twang.

Which would not work for me. Way too many
mirrors, probably big ones at that. One thing I didn’t need
oversized was my mirror... or anything I could see when looking in
such a mirror.

While the dogs were out doing their business,
I went about eating my breakfast, showering and getting dressed -
all unwatched. The only noises I heard from outside were those of
bird calls and a truck rumbling by. Relieved that there were no
sounds of howling or of a husky body being slammed against the side
of the house (in a playful scuffle that only dogs could enjoy), I
went about doing a little house-proofing for the upcoming couple of
hours when the dogs would be home with only Fluff for
supervision.

She was good about maintaining pack order,
but not that great with keeping my belongings from being destroyed.
In fact, I suspected she might have done a little destroying
herself. Not that I was going to bring it up to her.

I stowed away all laundry, pillows, and couch
cushions. Washed the fry pan from last night’s dinner so it was
free of any tempting smells, and placed the box that I’d gotten out
of Craig’s trash the day before by the door. I’d tried opening it
last night but had been unsuccessful. I was hoping to find a key at
the shop. I had a glass jar filled with odd keys that I’d collected
over the last few years of antiquing. Hopefully, one would fit.

With all of that done, I went to let the dogs
in.

No one was waiting outside the door. Not that
unusual, although it didn’t bode well for my rock wall or plants
that died back in winter leaving a tempting stick poking out of the
ground. Or... I had to face it, my yard in general.

I called with low hopes. If they were
engrossed in a project, my calls, even those promising whole
chickens, were unlikely to lure them back.

No, they would have to see the whole chicken
for themselves.

Not that I would give them a chicken, of
course. Splintering bones and all that, but I did have two new
untouched packages of the finest... make that cheapest... hot dogs
money could buy.

I cut open both packages and walked
outside.

The area between the shed and original
homestead cabin were empty. I walked to where my yard went from
somewhat flat to a straight vertical climb.

They weren’t up the hill either. They weren’t
in the shed and hadn’t managed to get inside the homestead
cabin.

Shoving down burgeoning panic, I trudged down
the hill to the garage. Maybe I’d left the door open.

I hadn’t, and the dogs weren’t near the road
either.

My acre was a nice size, but unless they were
all laying down taking a snooze at the very top of my property
line, hidden by lodgepole pines or dead grass, there was nowhere
else for them to hide.

They had gotten out.

I should never have been entrusted with
them.

I sucked. My world sucked. I was a complete
failure...

The thoughts whirled through my brain like a
dozen out-of-control tops until I stepped to the side and looked at
my fence.

It had been cut.

I jogged forward as best I could in the snow
and examined the wire. There was no doubt about it, the bottom two
strands of wire had been snipped more surely than Kiska’s boy
parts.

Red’s team had been stolen out of my yard
and, it appeared, Kiska along with them.

I didn’t waste any time worrying over who to
call. I called everyone from George to Peter to Betty, Phyllis and
Rhonda. I even called Ethel. I knew she wasn’t going to be able to
do much to help me, but she had a network of people who might.

George irrationally refused to send out an
alert or code red or anything else that sounded equivalent to the
obvious emergency this was.

“Is it a robbery in process?” he asked.

Sensing this would get me quicker action I
said, “Maybe. It’s just me here... alone. They could have let the
dogs out to leave me vulnerable.” I didn’t have to work to put a
quaver in my voice. I was panicked. Over the dogs, but still...

There was a silence on the other end of the
line that I didn’t really like, as if he was taking my statement
seriously. He didn’t really think...

“Are any of your neighbors home? Maybe you
could wait at their house.”

His concern did not make me feel better. But
I agreed to his advice, even though I had no intention of following
it. Once I was done with my calls, I needed to get out and start
looking for Kiska, Fluff, and the rest.

Peter wasn’t in, and his voice mail on his
phone picked up. I left him a quick message and moved on.

Betty and Phyllis were at the shop and said
they’d take care of calling Rhonda.

Ethel was out too, which was a missed
opportunity, but I didn’t have time to hunt her down. I had to
start looking.

I jogged back to the road and the scene of
the crime.

The fence had most definitely been cut, but
when and how had the thief made off with the dogs? How bold was he
or she to take them with the sun up and the possibility that any
one of my 20 some neighbors might spot them.

Okay, not a huge risk, but still it seemed
brazen.

I stepped outside the fence and looked around
for some other explanation, like signs a helicopter had lowered
itself onto the road or a giant crane had scooped the dogs up.

I saw nothing like that, but I did see
something just as bad. A mangled hot dog wrapper and the obvious
signs of a husky scuffle. Then, leading away from that, tracks -
dog tracks. Dogs, not being stolen, but running with all the joy
that a husky can show when let loose in the snow.

They hadn’t been stolen. They’d been released
and had been running free the entire time that I’d been on the
phone.

Re-enforcements were on the way, but I didn’t
have time to wait, I packed up the hot dogs, got in my Jeep and
followed the tracks down the road, back toward the campground and
town.

o0o

I drove as fast as I could, but since the
dogs hadn’t had the manners to cross to the other side of the road
so their tracks would have been visible from my spot behind the
wheel, I was forced to stop and restart every ten feet or so. This
made for a jerky and slower pace than I would have liked.

I’d completed maybe ten of these checks when
I lost track of the trail. Cursing, I put my rig in reverse for
five feet and checked again.

I was standing in two feet of snow, wondering
exactly how the team of dogs, with their much shorter legs than
mine, had plowed their way through the stuff, and more importantly
how I was going to follow, when Rhonda pulled up in her
Trooper.

I was relieved to see her. I was even more
relieved when Martin got out of the passenger seat and strapped on
a pair of snow shoes. He opened up the back and one of his dogs
jumped out.

“Bait,” he explained. “Huskies are nosy.
They’ll want to know who the newcomer is.”

It sounded reasonable, but I still wasn’t
sure how he planned to get the huskies back to my house or even the
road on his own.

“They’re trained. They’ll come.”

The huskies maybe, although I was skeptical
about that, but Kiska? He was not in any sense of the word trained,
unless it was to do as little as possible for the greatest reward.
Still, with no snowshoes of my own and the inability to fly, I
didn’t have a lot of options besides trusting in Martin.

I handed him a package of hot dogs to up the
malamute motivation, and while Rhonda and I stood by the road, he
jogged off in the same direction as the tracks.

He’d barely disappeared from view when a
police car pulled up, closely followed by Peter in his truck.

I raced to the truck, grabbing ahold of the
door handle before Peter had a chance to open it on his own.

“You okay?” he asked, glancing at me before
scanning the terrain behind me.

“The dogs. They ran off. Someone cut my fence
and lured them out with hot dogs. Martin’s looking for them now,
but I don’t know how he’s going to—”

“Haw!” Martin’s hat-covered head appeared in
the distance. His dog bobbed along beside him for a second before
Martin bent down and undid its lead. He stood, pointed in our
direction and yelled again, “Load up!”

Fluff barreled toward us with her tongue
flapping out of her mouth and her ears slicked back. She passed
Martin’s dog with a bark and kept going.

“Open the doors!” Martin yelled.

Rhonda and I scrambled to my Jeep and flung
open the doors. Fluff barked again, this time, I realized, at the
rest of her team, telling them to hurry, telling them she was
leaving them behind... winning whatever crazy ass husky contest
she’d decided was afoot.

Still two feet from the Jeep she leapt and
skidded across my flattened back seat. Then she barked again and
again with some kind of crazed joy that I could never hope to
experience myself. The rest of the team soon followed and the usual
battle for order ensued.

Rhonda and I slammed the doors shut and,
heaving out breaths as if we’d been the ones to run down the hill,
smiled at each other.

Then I remembered... Kiska was missing
too.

I shoved myself away from the door and waded
back into the snow.

Martin however, godsend from Canada that he
was, waved his arm over his head. “He’s here!” He turned and tugged
on something... the leash that had been attached to his dog. Now,
however, it was attached to mine, who seemed to have very little
interest in doing anything besides staring up at the sky.

Martin held out a hot dog and Kiska’s
interest in the great outdoors evaporated. He plopped his butt down
in the snow and awaited his reward.

When he had finished with that hard-earned
treat, Martin waggled a second hot dog just out of his reach and
took a step toward us. With a grin, Kiska lumbered to his feet and
plowed through the snow next to Martin and the hot dog, until all
three were back on the road. Martin tossed him the treat; Kiska
swallowed it and then dropped his nose to the ground searching for
scraps.

I leaped forward and grabbed my still
snuffling dog around the neck in a bear hug.

I was so busy snuggling my face into his ruff
that I completely missed Peter walking up behind me.

“You’re the musher,” Peter said, his gaze
never leaving Martin’s eyes.

“I am.”

“You helping Lucy?”

“Seemed like she needed it.”

“Probably did.”

I glanced from man to man, something akin to
panic building in my chest. I hadn’t exactly disclosed to Martin
that I had a boyfriend, and while Peter had never seemed
particularly territorial before, the way he was standing now
reminded me all too much of Fluff standing over a bone.

It should have been flattering. Okay, it was
flattering, but unfortunately I was too alarmed by the tension in
Peter’s stance to appreciate it.

I made a move to loop my arm through his, but
Rhonda beat me to it... grabbing Martin in the same way I’d
intended to grab Peter.