The Death & Life of an American Dog (Paws & Claws Book 4)

by Ralph Vaughan

  “What makes you think they’ll even contact us?” Sunny asked. “Now that they have Yoda, what makes you think those savages just won’t…” The Golden Retriever choked back a sob. “That they…”

  “Rule Five,” interjected the taciturn Gibbs. “Never lose sight of your real objective.”

  “Yes, they don’t want Yoda, they want Baron,” Levi agreed. “When Yoda happened to come out, Abasi would not have seen him as a target, but as a means to attain the goal of getting Baron. That’s why those dogs came to America, and that’s still what they want. Doing anything to Yoda will not restore their sense of honor.”

  Little Kitty looked up hopefully. “That means Yoda is okay?”

  “Only for the time being,” Levi answered. “Once he becomes more of a hindrance than a help, there’s no telling what…”

  Levi fell silent, listening. The others strained to hear what had attracted Levi’s attention. Gibbs, whose hearing was nearly as keen as the little Pomeranian’s, was the first to hear the faint tinkling sounds of tags upon a collar. Sunny was the first to see the lone dog walking hesitantly down the darkened street, a familiar green collar gripped in his jaws.

  * * *

  Yoda awoke slowly to a darkness relieved only by a glow-stick lying nearby. He started to rise from the mud and concrete on which he lay, but hit a solid barrier. He looked up, then around. He was in an overturned plastic crate. He pushed it, first upward, then to the sides, but it was weighted down and would not budge.

  “You’re awake,” said a gruff, gravelly voice. A dog moved out of the shadows and approached Yoda’s cage. “Don’t make a sound or things will be bad for you, worse than they already are.”

  Yoda studied his captor. If he looked up the word ‘ugly’ in the dictionary, he would not have been surprised to see a picture of this brute next to it. Hardly a handsome example of the canine species to begin with, his face was covered with scars, and his body looked as if had been alternately torn apart and stitched back together by a drunken vet. His coloring was bizarre, being small black ragged splotches against a pale yellowish hide that reminded Yoda of something long dead and left in the burning sun.

  “What are you looking at?” the big dog demanded.

  “Not quite sure,” Yoda said. then decided being snarky while at this dog’s mercy might not be the best idea. “Who are you?”

  “I am Abasi, the stern one,” the dog replied. “I am a soldier of the Dog at the Well.”

  “Oh, one of those,” Yoda quipped, unable to stop himself.

  Abasi rushed at Yoda, slamming his face against the plastic crate. Yoda instinctively retreated, banging into the opposite side, hoping to dislodge whatever weighted it down, but the cage remained in place.

  “What do you know of the Dog at the Well?” Abasi demanded. “You, an ignorant infidel dog in a benighted land?”

  Yoda was prepared to send a zinger flying Abasi’s way, no matter the consequences, when he was distracted by a movement in the shadows. An Afghan Hound stepped into the gloom.

  “Greetings, Anila,” Abasi said, executing a perfunctory bow.

  “I should warn you, little one,” Anila said. “Abasi does not have a sense of humor.”

  “The thought never crossed my mind,” Yoda confided.

  Abasi growled.

  “Do not antagonize Abasi,” Anila advised. “He excels in the art of chastisement, perhaps because he enjoys it so much.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Yoda said.

  “And do not try to escape, as you would not survive it,” Anila continued. “Abasi is a veteran of many fights, and he has never lost a battle.”

  Yoda gazed at the roadmap of scars on the Bully Kutta’s body. “I’d hate to see the other dogs.”

  “The other dogs are…” The Afghan Hound paused and looked at Yoda with keen interest. “I have noticed that American dogs are always laughing, always mocking and jesting with each other. It is a sign of your weakness, as is your need to befriend companions.”

  Remembering their version of the story of the Dog at the Well, Yoda decided not to press the point.

  “You are our prisoner,” she said.

  Yoda nodded.

  “But we did not bring you here for the purpose of killing you,” Anila added. “You are only a means to an end. As long as you do not cry out or try to escape, you have nothing to fear.”

  Abasi moved closed and peered through the plastic slats with a yellowish eye. “Unless you provoke me further.”

  “Our goal is to capture Iblis,” Anila said.

  Yoda glowered. “His name is Baron.”

  “His name is whatever Anila says it is!” Abasi growled.

  “We have no interest in you, per se,” Anila said. “In fact, we will gladly trade you for Iblis.”

  “That will never happen,” Yoda promised.

  “Are you so sure your friends will abandon you?” Anila asked. “Will they value the life of Iblis, the life of a stranger who has come to them out of nowhere, over the life of a dear friend?”

  “They will not abandon me, and they will not betray Baron,” Yoda announced. “The Three Dog Detective Agency never leaves a dog behind or allows a dog to be hurt. They will rescue me and keep Baron out of your paws.”

  “They cannot rescue you when they do not know where you are held,” Anila pointed out. “As for Iblis, they will give him over to us to save you, for they are weak and without morality. If your friends had a true sense of morality, they would kill Iblis themselves and beg for your return as a reward.”

  Yoda glared at the evil-minded Anila. “If that’s what morality means to you, you can keep it! And your stinking Dog at the Well!”

  Abasi lunged at the crate imprisoning Yoda, nearly upsetting it. Again, Yoda did his part to unbalance the plastic box, but whatever was on top, weighing it down, refused to budge.

  “Pray that you remain useful to us, for while you are, you stay under Anila’s protection,” Abasi growled, spittle flying from his rage. “When your usefulness ends, you shall die, and I promise you, that death will not be quick or painless.”

  “Abasi, come with me,” Anila commanded. “Purdil, stand over the prisoner…and do not fail this opportunity to redeem yourself.”

  “I obey,” said a black and white Gull Dong, coming from out of the darkness. “I shall not fail.”

  Abasi followed after Anila, growling at Yoda through the slats and giving Purdil a vicious nip as he passed.

  “Hello, my name is…”

  “And do not speak to the prisoner,” Abasi threw back as he vanished after the Afghan Hound.

  Yoda looked in the direction Abasi and Anila had disappeared. He listened intently, but though he could hear vague murmurs, they were far away and purposely spoke too low for even his sensitive ears. He looked back to the guard left to watch over him.

  “My name is Yoda,” the Pomeranian said as softly as he could.

  The Gull Dong settled by the crate in the Sphinx Position, but did not look at Yoda.

  “Your name is Purdil?” Yoda asked.

  The Gull Dong remained silent and unmoving.

  Yoda sighed and settled down for a long wait. He took a good look around him. The walls and ceiling were of concrete and the floor was littered with mud, sand and debris of all sorts. What little light there was came from a glow-stick near the crate. Away, in the distance, Yoda saw a tiny opening only slightly brighter than the surrounding gloom.

  He realized they were in one of the underground storm drains, but, but it could be anywhere. Chula Vista was a coastal desert city and was not know for heavy rainy seasons, but sudden deluges were common. It had only taken a century, and several disastrous floods, for the city council to figure out that spending thousands on storm drains was better than shelling out millions for damages.

  Though he did not know exactly where he was, Yoda did know that the drainage channels generally ran east to west, though several smaller drains connected with larger ones at angles. Yoda ag
ain looked toward the patch of lesser darkness and figured he was looking east. He could not have been unconscious long, or at least did not feel as if he had been out long.

  “Hey, Purdil, how long have I been here?” Yoda asked.

  The Gull Dong remained silent. He did not so much as glance in Yoda’s direction. He might have been carved from stone.

  “Where did Abasi and Anila go?”

  Again, utter silence.

  “How long till dawn?” Yoda asked. “That glow-stick is getting pretty dim. They have to be shaken from time to time if you don’t want them to go out.” Yoda studied the black and white dog. “You know, that reminds me of a joke. Where was Anubis when the lights went out?”

  It was, Yoda knew, an old joke, ancient even, dating at least back to the beginning of the last century and the dogs of the Gay Nineties. Along with endless bad bark-bark jokes, it was one of the first witticisms learned by pups, told to dams and sires, who would indulgently smile, if only to keep from groaning. No dog escaped puppyhood without hearing that old chestnut at least once, and passing it along far too often. But Yoda was willing to bet Purdil had never been jabbed with it.

  “In the blessed dark,” Yoda finally answered.

  Yoda peered intently at the guard. In the gloom it was hard to tell, but he thought he saw the corner of his mouth twitch.

  “Or, maybe, down in the basement eating sauerkraut.”

  “Stop it!” Purdil hissed softly.

  “Stop what?” Yoda asked.

  “Talking to me,” Purdil replied. “Stop talking to me.”

  “Why?” Yoda queried. “I like to talk. Talking is good. Talking is how dogs get to know each other, that and sniffing of course. What is wrong with talking?”

  “It is forbidden,” Purdil said.

  “We’re talking, and no one is hurt by it,” Yoda pointed out.

  “You heard what Abasi said,” Purdil whispered. “I am not to speak to you. If I do, I will be punished. I am already disgraced by what happened tonight. I cannot afford more trouble. I would not survive a chastisement. Do you want to get me in trouble?”

  “No, Purdil, I don’t want to get you into trouble,” Yoda assured him. “I don’t have to. You already seem to have gotten yourself in enough trouble just running with this pack. What else happened to land you in hot water?”

  “Hot water?” Purdil looked confused.

  “Trouble,” Yoda explained.

  “I refused to carry out a command from Anila.”

  “What did she tell you to do?”

  “To kill Zain.”

  “Zain? Who’s Zain?”

  “He is…” Purdil looked around, desperately making sure they were alone. He inched a little closer to the crate and whispered: “He was my friend.”

  Yoda shook his head in disbelief. “She actually expected you to attack and kill your friend?”

  “Yes, as a traitor,” Purdil said. “For giving information to the black dog, for betraying the pack, and denying the Dog at the Well.”

  Yoda’s ears pricked up. “A black dog?”

  “Black with much white,” Purdil corrected. “And a white face, like a spirit-dog.”

  “What happened to the dog?” Yoda asked, forcing his voice to keep soft and low.

  “I do not know,” Purdil admitted. “Other dogs came. There was a great battle. Much confusion. Anila pulled me into the water and we escaped. Then we encountered Abasi…” He paused. “And you.”

  “So the black dog may be okay?”

  Purdil nodded. “I think so.”

  “So your friend…Zain,” Yoda said. “He’s probably okay too?”

  Purdil hung his head low, could not stop a ragged sigh.

  “When I would not attack Zain, Anila attacked me,” Purdil said after a long moment. “Zain leaped at her, but he was already weak from the chastisement given him by Abasi. She bit him, and he went down, and that was the last I saw of him.”

  “He was a good friend?” Yoda asked.

  “We came from the same village,” Purdil replied, his mouth curving into a wan smile as he recalled better days. “Before Anila called us to serve the Dog at the Well, we ran through the streets and played in the meadows and hills. We would sometimes steal food from the villagers.” He uttered a sad chuckle. “They actually left it for us, but it was much more fun to pretend we were bandit dogs running free.”

  “Sounds like you were better off before you started running with this pack,” Yoda observed.

  “In moments of weakness, I recalled past days,” he admitted. “I thought Zain did as well, but to speak of past lives was not allowed, just as our friendship was forbidden.”

  “Friendship forbidden?”

  “When a dog is called into the service of the Dog at the Well, he is a new creature, and all aspects of his past life are left behind,” Purdil explained. “That includes friends.” He sighed. “We tried our best, and I think it was because we tried our best that the other dogs of the pack did not expel us to the wastes, but our best efforts did not save us from chastisement, and it was that weakness that was our undoing. Zain met his end, I believe, and my final punishment cannot be far away.” Purdil cast a sorrowful look toward Yoda in the fading light of the glow-stick. “You are an infidel, and I have tried to be one of the faithful, but in the end we are equal—we live as long as we are useful.”

  “How can you possibly follow an alpha like Anila?”

  “I have no choice.”

  “That’s silly!” Yoda said. “All dogs have choices.”

  “Yes,” Purdil agreed. “To serve or to die.”

  “Help me to escape,” Yoda urged.

  “That would be the choice of death,” Purdil replied. “Besides, where would you go? There is no escape. They would hunt you.”

  “My friends will help you, protect you,” Yoda offered.

  “They cannot help me any more than they can save you.”

  “Where are we?” Yoda asked.

  Purdil gave the equivalent of a shrug. “I am a stranger in a strange and cursed land.”

  “How long since we came here?”

  “I don’t know, maybe a half-hour, a bit more.” Purdil moved away from the crate. “It does not matter.”

  Yoda tried to engage Purdil in further conversation, but it was no use. He reclined in depressed silence, refusing to look at Yoda, to respond in any way. He even refused to shake the glow-stick and provide renewed light for them. He remained immobile and silent as the light began to fail and shadows rose around them.

  Finally, Yoda gave up trying to get information or assistance from the despondent Gull Dong. In the fading light he surveyed the debris littering the tunnel. He saw shopping carts, plastic bags, bits of this and that, any sort of thing that could fall or get thrown into turbulent water rushing seaward. Scattered about were several crates like the one under which he was trapped. One of them was close enough for him to make out, through mud and deep gouging, the word ‘Bella.’ Several flat boxes were caught between the wall and one of the crates, Yoda smiled as he sniffed. He did not need Levi’s nose to know those boxes had once contained pizza.

  In the growing darkness, Yoda settled back, bowed his head and perked his ears. The tunnels were good conductors of sound, too good in many ways for the concrete walls bounced and mixed sound waves, and it was not only difficult to detangle them but also to determine which came from near, which from far.

  Concentrating with a desperate intensity, Yoda untangled the threads of sound, reweaving them into a sonic tapestry. He heard the faint murmur of a few cars close by, many more farther away, and the trickle of water over rough stones in the direction he decided was west, and the faint whisper of wind through trees. He frowned. Not through leaves, he thought, but which tended to flutter, but pine needles, which hummed.

  Yoda smiled with satisfaction—the crates, the pizza boxes, the sparse murmur of traffic passing closed businesses, water on rough stones, stands of pine trees. He knew where he
was. The difficulty, he realized, was in letting Levi and Sunny know.

  “Shake that light-stick, Purdil, put some light on the prisoner!” Anila snapped. “You were shown how to do it.”

  “Move it, ignorant cur!” Abasi ordered, nipping the dog when he did not immediately respond.

  Purdil hastily took the light-stick in his mouth, and, careful not to bite it through, shook his head rapidly. Immediately, it flared to life and flooded the tunnel with a sickly light.

  “Take off your collar,” Anila told Yoda.

  “My collar?”

  “Take it off!”

  “Why do you want my collar?”

  “Your friends must be convinced you are our prisoner,” Anila explained. “Now, take it off and push it between the slats.”

  “And if I choose not to?” Yoda challenged.

  “Then you would be making a foolish choice,” Anila replied.

  “Please make that choice,” Abasi urged. “I would love to take that collar off for you.”

  “I think it would be better if your friends thought you in good health,” Anila said. “However, a little blood on your collar might make them more desperate to trade Iblis for you. As I said, the choice is yours.”

  “Yours for the next three seconds,” Abasi added.

  “All right, I’ll take it off.” He put his paws on both sides of the green cloth collar and pushed. He stalled as he tried to think of a way to somehow communicate with Levi.

  “Hurry up!”

  “Give me a moment,” Yoda said. “That’s a lot of hair to get it over, and I got a big head anyway.”

  He watched them closely, gauging their moods, and he noticed that Purdil stood away from the other two. It might be deference, but Yoda did not think so. He feared Anila and Abasi, and that was now the only hold they had on him. Often, fear was enough to keep a pack together, but Yoda knew that sometimes it was not.

  “Now!” Anila snapped. “Or Abasi takes it!”

  Just as Abasi surged toward the crate, Yoda popped the collar over the top of his head and let it fall to the ground next to him. The Afghan Hound restrained the Bully Kutta.