The Glasgow Gray: Spot and Smudge - Book 2

by Robert Udulutch

  Harry tapped on the table and signed to Lissa. She said, “Sorry, Ben, I got carried away. This may be a little heavy for you. Forgive me, we don’t spend much time around kids…and you kinda don’t act like one.”

  “No,” Ben said, “It’s okay. I’ve seen a lot for a kid, believe me.” He laughed, and said, “You know, being in Hamish’s family and all. Please, don’t leave anything out. It’s important to me.”

  The Chogins thought about that for a minute. Harry nodded, and Lissa continued, “Sholto kept hunting around in the dark. She brought back another bottle of water, licked Christa’s face, and scrambled away through the debris again…and then she didn’t come back.”

  Lissa and Ben walked back to the table and sat. The pups were sitting next to Harry, riveted to Lissa’s every word.

  “She left her?” Ben asked.

  “Yep, hours went by and Sholto didn’t return,” Lissa said.

  Ben looked at the pups, who stared right back at him.

  “The next day came,” Lissa said, “A little light filtered down into her hole and it got to be like an oven by noon. She could hear faint voices and vehicles on the street but they weren’t English, and the vehicles weren’t Humvees. She decided not to yell for help. She heard helicopters pass close by several times, even hover for long minutes before they moved away.

  And then night came. Christa had gone numb below the waist and one eye had swollen shut but she had stopped bleeding. Once the dust finally settled she could breathe easier in the cooler air. The next morning came and she heard more faint voices. She had run out of water and it got scorching hot again.

  She told me at that point she did look at the pistol once, for a moment, but then decided to start yelling.

  Just as she began to shout she was drowned out by helicopters, and then the distinct sound of a heavily armored vehicle. A Bradley, which is basically a tank big enough to carry troops. It shook the rubble around her and stopped right in front of what was left of her building. She heard the unmistakable Brooklyn accent of her base’s American colonel shouting.

  A few minutes later Sholto came scrambling down through the hole. She had water bottles, a flashlight, and a radio. As Christa was hugging her she noticed Sholto’s neck and thigh had ben shaved and they were bandaged, and there were holes in her camouflage service vest. Hamish had made that vest, and it was reinforced with layers of Kevlar. Sholto had been shot six times, and the vest had stopped the worst of them.

  Their coalition airbase was seventeen kilometers from the collapsed building. Christa could only imagine what holy hostile hell Sholto must have run through to make it to the base. Taliban fighters had learned to fear and hate our dog soldiers, and they often targeted them.

  After some back and forth on the radio Christa sent Sholto back up to the surface. She came back down through the hole a few minutes later with pain killers, two tourniquets, and a battery powered saw.

  It took Sholto fifteen agonizing minutes to lead Christa through the debris. Mostly she did it by dragging her by a harness they had rigged up. Christa got stuck a few times and she told me if she still had both legs attached she never would have squeezed through.

  When they popped out of the last hole fifty hands pulled her into the back of the waiting Bradley where a medical team pounced on her. Sholto was sitting next to her head when the Colonel climbed in beside them. He patted Sholto, and showed Christa his bandaged hand. The two little blood stains seeping through it were about the same distance apart as Sholto’s canine teeth. The Colonel said to her with a smile, ‘That’s one mean motherfucker of a hero you have there Warrant Officer Boucher.’”

  Chapter 39

  “How do you know you’re staying at a hotel in Glasgow?” Hamish asked loudly, his cheeks flush and his tongue thick.

  Tavish had tears streaming from his eyes and had just stopped pounding the table from the last punchline. “I don’t know Hamish,” he said, “how the hell do you know when you’re in bloody Glasgow?”

  “When you call down to the front desk to say you got a leak in your sink,” Hamish shouted, “And they tell you to go ahead!”

  Christa hadn’t taken a full drink of wine all night. She coughed mid-sip and put the back of her hand to her mouth to prevent another leak. She laughed through tears and shook her head at Ben.

  Ben was holding his stomach and couldn’t remember when he’d laughed so hard.

  Hamish and Tavish had been at it for more than an hour straight. A bartender and a lifelong bachelor, both Scots…they were a veritable encyclopedia of jokes. When the jokes weren’t funny they were told loud enough that no one cared.

  Christa and Ben tossed in a few of their own and it was an evening full of crying, table pounding, and laughter. Spot and Smudge watched from the couch, amused.

  They finished up dinner and Ben volunteered for dish duty as the adults relaxed by the fire. Spot was curled up on the couch next to Hamish and Smudge was on the opposite couch with her chin on Tavish’s lap, enjoying deep head rubs. Sholto and the boerboels were dead on the rug in front of the fireplace.

  Christa plunked down into the big leather chair. Everyone laughed when she put her feet onto the hearth and wiggled them back and forth in front of the fire saying, “Ooooh that feels good.”

  While she was explaining the ranch’s history to Tavish, Hamish got up and joined Ben in the kitchen. He poured himself another drink and watched Tavish and Christa talking.

  “So you had a good day today, lad?” Hamish said after a bit. He clamped down on Ben’s shooting shoulder and Ben fought back a grimace and a wince. His clavicle was indeed black and blue.

  “Yeppers, it was pretty awesome,” Ben said, and told him some of the highlights. Then he asked, “How’s the team doing, Unc?”

  “Ah, my team,” Hamish said, “For the first time in my professional career I may have to admit defeat.”

  “They can’t be that bad,” Ben said, “Can they?”

  Hamish walked over to the kitchen’s glass slider and wagged a finger at Ben to follow. “What do you see down there, Ben?” Hamish asked, putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder again.

  “What do you mean?” Ben said through clenched teeth, “I see the barn, the corral, the dogs and their little igloos around the fire.”

  “Aye,” Hamish said, “And how often have you seen me keep a fire for them this late at night?”

  Ben thought about it, “Never.”

  “Right,” Hamish said, “And why do you think they’d be needing a fire? Those dogs eat frost and piss ice cubes. ‘Snot that cold out.”

  Ben shrugged.

  “To dry them off, lad,” Hamish said, “Because that lot of idgits lost focus again today, while at a full run mind you, and chased a pine marten.”

  Taking the bait, Ben said, “How did they get wet chasing a pine marten?”

  “Because dear boy,” Hamish said, “They chased the wee thing off the bank and into the fucking river below.”

  “With you…” Ben already knew the answer to that one. He said, “Oops.”

  “Oops is bloody right,” Hamish said, “I found a trout in my underwear.” He took a long drink and said, “We’re out of here in two weeks. Next week we have graduation conference calls scheduled. One for Vuur and Rook, which after today we might just have a shot at pulling off. The other is for that lot out there. After a very long and very rewarding and somewhat profitable and soon to be cut short career I may have to push back a delivery date, and that’s assuming I can turn them around at all. I don’t miss commitments, boy. I just don’t.”

  Ben thought for a long moment as Tavish excused himself to use the bathroom and Christa came into the kitchen with their empty wine glasses.

  Ben looked at the pups and then said, “Uncle Hamish, I think I have a way…”

  Hamish’s cell phone rang and he raised a finger to Ben as he pulled it from his pocket and looked at the display before answering it. Into the phone he said, “Hey Blu, how’s your
mammy?”

  Hamish spoke to the police captain for a few minutes, apologizing often before he hung up the phone.

  Christa gave him an inquisitive look, and when he didn’t respond she said, “Well?”

  Hamish said, “Oh, that was Blu, she’s got her knickers twisted over what I did.”

  Christa raised an eyebrow at him.

  Hamish said, “Not about that! No, no complaints there I assure you. She wants to skelp me ‘cause I found a road kill fox that looked a lot like a small dog and I put an old collar and leash on it.”

  Christa and Ben smiled, and waited for Hamish to finish. Christa had a feeling she knew what was coming.

  “And then I tied it to the tow hitch of her cruiser,” he said, “Only she didn’t notice until she pulled up in front of a grade school…where the wee bairns were queued for pickup by their less than pleased mummies and daddies.”

  Chapter 40

  “No,” Ben said, “absolutely not.” He was sitting in bed under the covers, propped up on the pillows working on his tablet.

  We need another night, Spot said, without looking up from his own small tablet, You know we do…and did you finish downloading the research we needed?

  “Yes,” Ben said as he pulled a USB drive out of his tablet and tossed it to Spot, “and my brain still hurts, thank you very little. Everything you’d ever want to know about subcutaneous shunting, vascular plexus…”

  Smudge groaned loudly. She was sitting on the edge of the bed with a small tub of Christa’s foot wax in her lap. She was massaging the thick paste deep into the crevasses between her toes and rolling her eyes back like she did whenever she received deep ear rubs.

  Ben smiled at her and said to both of them, “You’ll have plenty of time to read this tonight.”

  Smudge wiped her paw on a towel and then signed, We gotta go. What part of what we found last night didn’t you understand?”

  “Don’t get cheeky with me little girl,” Ben said, “I remember wiping up your poopy accident from the kitchen floor, and that was only a few months ago.”

  Always with that one? It was one time and I was near death, Smudge signed, looking to her brother for help, Why does he always go to that one? I was four weeks old. When you were four years old you were still wetting your pull-ups.

  Enough you two, Spot signed, C’mon Smudge, let’s go.

  “Wait,” Ben said, “Tavish might still be here, and Sholto may still be up.”

  Spot gave him a disappointed head shake. His little boy Ben was one of the sharpest humans he’d encountered, even at eleven years old, but he still missed the obvious sometimes. Spot signed, Sholto can still hear a mouse fart in the barn, of course she knows what we’re doing and she’s on board. Just like the Elkies, and Rook, and Vuur.

  As Smudge was putting on her rear boots she signed, And Tavish left a half hour ago. He made a valiant play, and Christa was interested but she kicked him out without so much as a smooch on the cheek just the same. Hamish was sawing logs an hour ago. I could hear that man sleeping from Pembury.

  Spot took a long look at Ben’s concerned face. He put his small tablet down and walked up to the top of the bed. He split his paws and pushed Ben back onto the pillows, and then lay down on top of him. Spot cuddled up under his chin, and gave him a lick as Ben put his arms around his dog and held him tight. Smudge jumped up on the bed and joined them.

  Spot signed, I know you worry about us, Ben, and we appreciate it. But we gotta solve this thing. Something very wrong is going on out there at the mine. We have to figure it out before we get anyone else involved. You know what would have happened in Pembury if we’d gone to the police?

  “Nothing,” Ben said.

  Smudge nodded and said, Probably worse than nothing. We’ll be back in a few hours and we promise we’ll play this thing however you want, tomorrow.

  Ben gave them both a big hug, and then got out of bed and opened the slider. He watched his dogs silently pad away in their borrowed snow boots as they went down the back deck to the trail. Ben closed the slider and turned off the bedroom light as Spot and Smudge nodded a quick hello to T’nuc and E’sra when they passed by the barn. They changed color, and disappeared into the night as they sped off toward the mine.

  They didn’t notice the figure hidden in the dark at the far end of the deck watching them leave.

  Chapter 41

  “Oh, so you’re going to turn this into an east-coast west-coast thing?” Jero said, stomping his feet to keep warm and rubbing his hands over his massive biceps. He was wearing his signature white thermal long sleeve tee shirt and no jacket. He rarely wore a jacket, but he hadn’t expected to be standing in the cold for a fucking hour tonight.

  “No, not at all. I’m just saying Fiddy smacks the shit out of Cypress Hill, and everyone I have ever met from Cali is a punk,” Lucy said, turning up the fur collar on his full length leather coat and pulling his knit black cap further down over his bald head. “Fuck man,” he said, “how the hell can you live up here? Weren’t you born someplace a little warmer, ese?”

  Jero laughed and said, “They told me the mines shit gold up here. What they should have told me is the fucking Cree bitches get pregnant if you smile at them. I got two kids my brother, I ain’t going nowhere.”

  Lucy unzipped his coat a little and reached in, moving aside the handle of his forty-four hand cannon to fish out his wallet. He flipped it open and moved under the overhead light at the bottom of the stairs next to Jero.

  Jero’s huge Rotty-wolf dog looked up for a second but then went back to his nap. He was sprawled out on his bed of cardboard on a pallet under the metal stairs that led up to the office.

  Lucy showed Jero a picture and said, “That’s Anna, and the one in pink is Anita.”

  “Sweet,” Jero said, nodding as he pulled his wallet from his back pocket. He slipped a worn picture out of a plastic sleeve and tipped it into the light so they could both see it. “Carlos, and Angelina,” he said, “And that’s Nya behind them.”

  Just then the door to the office at the top of the stairs opened and Ty stepped heavily onto the metal grate landing.

  Jero and Lucy dropped their hands and stepped away from each other.

  Ty stared at them for a second before he said, “Get the fucking truck.”

  As Jero and Lucy put their pictures away the wolves in the large metal cages behind them stirred. One of them fixed a cold stare at Lucy and growled so low he felt it in his balls. The wolf had a series of puckered scars on its neck and head, and a deep one that ran down the center of its forehead. Mixed in with the scars were a few newer, healing wounds. Lucy noticed all of the wolves were similarly marked.

  “Okay, yeah, so those things give me the fucking creeps,” Lucy said as he zipped up his jacket, “How much can you make on one fight? It can’t be worth it.”

  Jero walked to the row of large cages at the far side of the garage bay. His eyes bulged and he made a crazy face at the four wolves. He flexed his muscles and banged on their cage doors. The wolves snapped at his hands as they paced and growled at him.

  The wolves stared at the men, grumbling lowly as Jero turned to Lucy and said, “You get a hundred drunken loggers and miners together, fifty bucks a head, plus the booze and the drugs and the betting…sweet money, homes.” Jero hooked a finger into one of his thick chains and held out the gold cross hanging from it.

  He walked past two cages that were empty and continued to the back wall of the maintenance building where there was a large sliding metal garage door. He flipped aside a latch and slid the big door open before walking out into the snow to get the boss’s truck.

  In the office at the top of the stairs Ty’s heavy clomping rattled the coffee maker as his wet boots squeaked across the floor. He crossed the room to take Vic’s fur coat from a row of hooks on the wall.

  The big mine boss rose from his chair and slid his arms into the waiting coat as he mumbled “Madam, those two abominations of yours had better start to r
eap some rewards or we may need another plan. A more direct plan, sans ambiguite.”

  Jia was warming her hands on the office’s heater and said, “If that skier didn’t have a river to protect her we would have had the incident we needed to proceed. Regardless, it will happen again soon.”

  Vic said, “But no one believed her, mon amie. Those imbeciles won’t believe a wolf attacked someone until they see chunks of gory fur and human flesh together on the same patch of snow. We need something more significant than a little barking and growling. I could have done that with the regular wolves I have.”

  “Victor,” Jia said with a smile as she put her hand on his arm, “It’s not an exact science, but I’ve been assured with that dosage they’ll be raving mad by now and itching to tear open a few tree huggers for you.”

  Vic’s furrowed brow softened and he started to nod, until he realized the sly woman was stroking his pole. “Bullshit,” Vic said, “What’s stopping us from just-“

  “Mr. LeClerc,” the asset interrupted in a voice that cut through the office, “You will get the wolf incident you need soon enough, and thusly we will get what we need. Ne pas se inquieter.” He was standing at the row of windows looking down at Jero and Lucy in the enormous maintenance garage below. Without turning around he said, “It is the perfect cover and our boss was very specific about the need for this situation to be handled quietly, and look like an accident. He also assured us we could count on your full cooperation.”

  The asset turned, but before looking at Vic he looked down at the stack of bills on the desk and noticed Past Due or Second Notice was printed on most of them. He also noticed a dusty framed picture with a round, homely woman standing behind two kids. The vapid looking boy was clearly a smaller version of Vic. His frowning teenage daughter, who sported a nose ring and overly severe black eye makeup, was an equally identical copy with stringy black hair. The asset looked at Vic’s hand, and the slight indent left by the missing wedding band, before he caught the mine boss’s stare.