Color Blind (Team Red)

by Hammond, T.

  “Bas-hole,” I snipped back under my breath. But he was right, there was something about military time that always had me subtracting numbers in my brain. At least he hadn’t caught me counting on my fingers; I’d never live that down.

  Bas leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to the hair above my temple, “Love you too, Loser,” he offered in consolation, then scooted his chair away from the table and stood up.

  “Excellent,” David confirmed. “I am sending GPS coordinates to your email right this moment.” I stifled a groan, anyone else would have gotten our address and a link to vPike.com, our favored online map site. “I assume you’re at Fairchild Air Force Base, Sir?”

  The Colonel chuckled, “Well, actually, we are downtown at the river. When you phoned, all five of us had been at Riverfront Park. Lieutenant Mercer is a photographer and we were taking snapshots of the Spokane Falls and this old-fashioned carousal. Did you know this thing is over a hundred years old?”

  “Yes Sir. I’ve been there a few times with Teresa. The park is one of our favorite places in town. Red, our German shepherd likes to play with the kids at the red wagon sculpture just east of there.”

  “So, Red’s a dog, huh? This should be an interesting story.”

  Bas started laughing, “Oh Colonel, you have no idea, Sir. You are in for an interesting afternoon.” I could hear Bas’ footsteps heading for the Cave, presumably to get ready for our visitors. I heard him mumble something to Ken as he passed through the kitchen.

  There was an answering chuckle from the speaker phone. “It looks like we’re about twenty or twenty-five minutes away. We’ll see you shortly”

  David disconnected the call and whispered in my ear, “We’ll have to roll around on the sheets later, Lover. I’m afraid it’s down into the bowels of the earth for me now.”

  “Yeah,” I sighed with false sympathy. “I know how much you hate it down there. All that loud technological equipment, whirring computers, and those big scary weights; I’m sure its just torture,” I smiled.

  He bussed a quick kiss to the tip of my nose and drew me into a full frontal hug, and damn, did the man ever have a nice frontal to hug against. I was still barefoot, but my five-ten frame allowed me to snuggle my freshly kissed nose right into the crook of his neck without stretching up too high on my toes. I slid both arms around his back, just enjoying his warm hardness along the length of my body. “You. Are. So. Hot.” He said between damp kisses down the side of my neck. “I am so going to ravish you tonight,” he promised with a sinful chuckle, stroking his palms firmly over my waist to grab my butt and hold me tight against a tautly strained zipper.

  I ran my hands up over his pecs and throat, into the silky smoothness of his hair. After twenty-plus years of Navy life, he felt most comfortable with a short cut, but he was growing it out just a little more on the top, because I liked the texture under my fingers. It was during times like this, that I missed my sight. Janey had described David’s hair and eyes to me, but I wished I could see the chocolate-dark locks against the paleness of my fingers, or stare into his eyes and pick out the green that flecked through the hazel.

  I wanted so badly to see the grin she tells me carries a hint of the devil and a whole lot of love. And Oh. My. Goodness. I wished I could watch him walk. Janey told me he has a loose, lazy saunter that gains him an extra point on the one-to-ten scale (of which she informs me, he’s a thirteen. Score for me!). I know how that lazy roll of his hips translates in the bedroom, and … Gawd I needed to take a quick cool shower to take some of the heat out of my skin before our guests arrived.

  “And just what are you thinking about that’s added a beautiful flush to those cheeks?” David asked with a knowing smugness in his tone.

  Oh, David, David, David – you know better than to be smug with me. I’m pretty sure my grin was pure womanly evil as I ground my hips against his groin. In his ear, I whispered, “Last night? Remember when I ran my fingers and nails over every inch of skin I could reach?”

  “Oh God, yes,” he groaned, hugging me tighter, thrusting those sexy hips forward.

  “Tonight, I’m going to run my tongue over every soft (kiss) and tender (lick) place (another lick) a tongue can touch (lick and kiss combo), and suck…”

  “Vixen!” He pulled away from me abruptly, “I can’t believe you’re giving me a hard-on when we are expecting company,” he laughed.

  “I can’t believe you thought you could get me all hot and bothered and not get any on you,” I countered, as I joined in his laughter. “Get your ass downstairs and get ready for your meeting, you slacker.”

  My face was cupped in two large hands and drawn upward to meet his lips in a warm, ravenous, sucking kiss that melted me into boneless mush. “I love you,” he said brushing another softer kiss over my mouth. He was gone before I could function enough to form a response. I was left standing in the dining room, with my lips half-parted and the taste of David and lust flavoring my mouth. Wow, the man had mad oral skills.

  “Earth to Teresa,” Red said as he brushed a shoulder against my leg. “Geez, the goofy look on your face is embarrassing. Snap out of it already, where’s your pride woman!”

  “Shut up, Red,” I smiled. “In another year, you’ll be begging me to take you out to visit the females at the kennel - then we’ll see who has the goofiest look on their face.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” he brushed off my prediction. He was still young, he didn’t know any better yet. “Ken says you need to get some real clothes on. He laid out some stuff on your bed for you, and told me to tell you the color for today is blue.”

  Ken was letting me know what color sunglasses to grab if I don’t want to wear the black ones. Since dogs are, essentially, color blind, they don’t see the same color spectrum as people; Red was pretty worthless with wardrobe selection. Luckily Ken didn’t mind picking out my clothes, even though he was becoming more of a househusband for David and me, rather than the personal assistant he had been hired as.

  Ken had had braille tags sewn into my clothes before I met David, but it was a waste of time and effort. We have despaired of me ever learning braille, my fingers just don’t want to cooperate. Stupid fingers. It was so much easier to simply ask someone, and since I don’t care what I wear, I defer to Ken who has better taste in fashion than I ever had.

  “Step,” Red told me when we approached the first of eight stairs on the split-level rise to the sleeping area and faux office. My dog waited until we reached the top step before he said, “What kind of test would you like to do for the Colonel this afternoon?”

  “We’ll probably need something personal about Colonel Spencer or one of his people. If we did a demonstration identifying objects in the room people may believe Bas or David are giving you clues. The stuff the guys do in the basement is very important and serious, so I don’t want to do anything that may reflect negatively on their credibility. If you see or smell anything that might prove what we can do, then let me know, okay? After all these weeks of working with Mike and Gil at the police department, you have a pretty good idea of what you can do that surprises humans.”

  “I am simply amazing, aren’t I,” he said tongue-in-cheek. “I’m so glad you picked me, Teresa.” In an overly sentimental tone he said, “You complete me,”

  I rolled my eyes, “No more sappy TV shows for you. That has got to be the most over used line that ever came out of the movies,” I complained.

  “No,” Red argued, “The most overused phrase is ‘Show me the money’.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t agree, but I was not going to get into an argument with my dog regarding lines from movies.

  Knowing I had complete privacy on the upper floors, I stripped off my sweats and tugged David’s t-shirt over my head- I had pulled it on before going downstairs earlier. I loved wearing his clothes, especially if they retained a faint trace of his scent; I held the shirt to my nose and inhaled the fragrance that clung to the cloth: sandalwood, cedar, lime, and a touch of swea
t and deodorant. My nipples started to bead as I replayed last night in my mind… Sigh, sometimes I hated to snap back to reality, it would be so nice just to enjoy a little daydreaming about my man and the intimacies of the night before.

  “You’re wearing that goofy smile again. Hop to it, Beautiful. Company will be here soon.” Just for emphasis, I got head-butted from my canine companion. “Better take a shower too, you smell like David.”

  Chapter Four

  While I showered, Ken made a quick dash to the grocery store to pick up a couple extra packets chicken as well as some snacks and sodas. I contributed by tearing up lettuce and chopping any vegetables Ken handed to me. I think he found me more of a hindrance than a help, but he was good natured about letting me do small tasks such as salad making to keep myself busy. While I made myself indispensable in the kitchen (yeah, blind woman with a knife, it’s like an insert in a bad cartoon panel, right?), Ken got the table set and put groceries away in the pantry.

  I was walking along the border where our property meets the conservation area with Red when the Colonel and his entourage arrived. David and I agreed that he would make introductions after the group was finished downstairs in the Cave. Yes, we were avoiding Colonel Spencer’s questions regarding Red; we decided it was more important that the Colonel’s group focus on the demonstration than be distracted by the implications of a talking dog

  David told me to expect at least two hours for the meeting- in a manner that implied it would probably be closer to three. Bas explained that having the meeting on our turf means it would possibly go a lot faster as they had all their hard data and computer equipment available if there was a question. But on the flip side of that statement, since they were meeting in the Cave, they could be easily side-tracked by other ongoing projects, many of which overlapped the program they were demonstrating today. My money was on a longer meeting. I mean, come on, seven techno-geeks and all that hardware? It’s like having a flock of magpies in a room full of shiny, glitter-encrusted objects!

  I wasn’t sure if they would be doing any mini-drone tests outside, but I had Red checking the property to make sure we had no unexpected visitors. We may have a sophisticated security system, but, as was demonstrated earlier today, security is only as good as the people watching the read-outs. I’d place my money on Red’s nose any day.

  Over the past few months, Red had proven his worth as a tracking dog. He and I enjoyed the few jobs we had been able to do with the police department. I stressed that we were not trained investigators and did not want media scrutiny, so we never wanted or expected to be asked to a crime scene. It was understood we would only work behind closed doors, to assist with examining forensic evidence. I emphasized that Red and I would always be accompanied by another Team Red member, Bas or David, who would monitor our exposure to curious eyes.

  To broaden Red’s knowledge of specific smells, Detective Gil Westfield, who we teasingly referred to as The Narc, tested his ability to identify cocaine, meth, and different types of marijuana, but this was not Red’s favorite pastime- the chemicals made him sneeze, or just irritated his nose. Red’s love was tracking.

  In one of the tests we had done for the police department, Gil put Red head-to-head with an experienced tracking K-9, Bruno. For most of the tests it was pretty even, Bruno even did better on many of the speed tests due to his experience, and Red’s tendency to get sidetracked by his inexhaustible curiosity (Why are they using deer scent instead of rabbit or cow? Why should I scent track when I can follow Gil’s big-ass, size fourteen shoe prints?). But, there were some tests in which Bruno could not complete, and those were the ones where Red showed remarkable superiority. Unlike other dogs, Red had the intelligence to make leaps of deduction beyond a normal dog’s thought process.

  One of my favorite tests was a simple tracking pattern that Gil crossed with skunk scent to throw the dogs off. When Bruno tried the pattern, he hit the stronger decoy scent and was unable to finish following the original trail because his nose was overwhelmed from inhaling the strong odor. When Red walked the same pattern, he stopped well back from the distracting skunk odor. After a few minutes he asked me, “What is that smell? It’s interesting, but very potent.” I had to smile, who else had a one year old that could use a word like potent in a sentence?

  “Its skunk,” I explained, “the odor David and I suggested you avoid or you will be spending quality time in the kennel until we get the smell out of your coat.”

  “I’ll remember it,” Red assured me; he proceeded to make a wide circle around the stronger concentration of skunk scent picking up the original trail about fifteen feet beyond the decoy line.

  Red also had the ability to distinguish specific scents and relay the pertinent details. One example was just last week when we were able to confirm the police should be looking for a female suspect in a robbery crime. There was no detectable DNA present, but Red could tell the canvas bag we were shown had a female’s scent. A regular K9 would also have known it was female, but it would not have thought that fact important, let alone had a way to convey the observations to the handler. This type of higher reasoning convinced Gil that Red (and I, by association) would be a good addition to some of the Spokane police task force’s trickier investigations.

  We have the most fun when people tried to hide from Red. He could and would track what a regular K9 might be distracted away from (yeah, kinda contradicts what I said about his being sidetracked on speed tests). One policeman, Officer Janice Marks, playing the target, says that Red was the only dog she’d tested that looked up and examined the trees when he followed her trail to the river. Sure enough, Officer Marks was up in the boughs, dressed in camouflage gear. She had leapt up to a lower limb then climbed about fifteen feet high, hoping the dogs would give up or try to pick up the trail along the river’s edge. When asked later why he looked up Red explained there was a freshly broken branch, on the ground, by the tree that had the officer’s scent on it. That significance of that clue had not been understood by the other dogs.

  Red and I completed our circuitous route that included a side trip down to the fish hatchery and along the boat launch area. In the summer, dozens of people would start a lazy boat float down the Little Spokane River, pulling out an hour and a half later at the Painted Rocks site, or continuing for another hour or two until the Little Spokane poured into the Spokane River. It was a wonderful, relaxing way to spend a hot day.

  When I had my eyesight, I used to spend mornings at the end of the float, fishing in the Spokane River. Fishing was one of the activities I really missed, as I used to spend hours on the river banks or at the lakes, casting with the hope of enticing trout or bass to bite.

  I had no idea how long Red and I were gone on our walk. Experience with the circuit we completed told me we had probably been hiking for close to two hours. Red has no concept of time, so he’s pretty worthless as a four-legged timepiece. I knew we were close to home when I could hear the faint buzzing of drones in the distance. Well, there was also that steep hill approximately ten minutes from the house; I swear it’s at least a thigh-burning, twenty percent grade.

  Red was in the habit of talking to me about our surroundings when we went on walks, so I had a play-by-play of every animal, vehicle, and person that came into sight. I was still latching the back gate behind us when Red returned, after making a quick dash through the trees. “Everything looks good, Teresa,” he said. “There is increased drone activity near the far edge of the property. David and Bas are probably running a test for our guests.”

  “Probably,” I agreed. “Having the Colonel and his entourage come here gives the guys a chance to pitch some ideas and show examples of other projects that overlap the mapping program. I bet they’re showing off that 3-D program Bas has been working on. The guys tell me it’s so detailed they can see pine beetles on the trees.”

  Red laughingly bragged, “As soon as I approached the grid, the drones moved about six feet higher. Where is the trust? I kn
ow where the DMZ is.”

  Red had no concept of distance, any more than he had a grasp on time- it’s a numbers thing. Red can’t count above four or five, but he can make associations. He knows that Bas and David are both over six-foot tall, so I have found Red uses their height as a guesstimate when we refer to height or distance.

  I laid a hand on the head resting against my thigh and scratched an ear. “This contract is very important for the military; Bas and David just want to make sure temptation is out of reach.”

  An image flashed through my mind of Red launching himself off some fallen stumps to pluck a mini-drone out of the air. The image was black and white, but very clear. The drone zipped through the pines as I watched Red lope towards a fallen tree, spring up, then soar. I could see his light-colored paws outstretched and his body arced in the air, muscles straining- his coat black and glossy in the sunlight. Sharp white teeth snapped closed around a small drone before the image ended abruptly.

  “What’s wrong?” Red asked, ever aware of my moods.

  “It’s the strangest thing, Red. I just imagined you jumping up to catch a drone. It was so real and distinct in my mind.”