Primal Force

by D. D. Ayres

  Law shook his head. “I know search-and-rescue dogs. Sam’s not the type.”

  “Yes, she is. She will find another human to help. That’s what she’s been trained to do. Even if her owner can’t send her for help, she knows to go and seek it.”

  Jori scrambled back on her knees, making space. “Lie down, Law. And close your eyes.”

  He watched her for two seconds then went prone.

  Jori turned to Sam. “Look, Sam. Law is hurt. We need help.” She nudged Law. “Now your turn.”

  Law opened his eyes and looked at Sam and said in a sharp voice. “Sam. Find help!” He gave the hand signal for help Jori had taught Sam.

  Sam jumped to her feet, turned and sniffed Law’s prone body, stopping at his hip, his left shoulder, and sniffing both wrists. Whatever she read coming off him was enough to convince her to act. She licked his face twice then turned and jumped past Jori to get out.

  Jori crawled out of the tiny cramped cabin after Sam into a swirl of ice and tiny flakes.

  She stood up and watched Sam orient herself.

  The dog stood for a moment, nose up, ears lifted. Jori wasn’t at all certain of what Sam was listening for and sniffing out. But she trusted that training and instinct were working together.

  Sam barked a couple of times and started off in the direction they had come. But then something—a sound perhaps?—made her stop. She lifted her nose again, ears pricked forward, and turned slowly in a circle until again something caused her to pause. After alerting with rising tail, she ran off in the opposite direction, down the slope.

  Jori watched the rusty-red dog, a bright moving blot against the creep of white over the gray landscape until she disappeared below the slope.

  “It’s a hell of a day to send her out into.” Jori had shimmied back through the cab’s window.

  “We didn’t have a choice.” Law’s tone was grim.

  Jori nodded and bit her lip, wondering if she had just sent a wonderful dog on a suicide mission. The weather was brutal. The ice would damage her paws. If she didn’t find someone quickly she might not have the stamina to lead them back when she did find help.

  “Now you will help me.” Becker was pointing his hand with a gun in it at Jori.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Find Help.

  Sam knew those were very important words. It was a game she had played most of the two and a half years of her life with her trainers. Find Help was the toughest game. It meant Alpha was down. Alpha was sick. Alpha was in trouble.

  It meant locate and bring back a human, sometimes a stranger, to where Alpha was.

  “Find help. Sam.”

  Sam looked back. The trainer woman was watching her. She would give good treats for the completion of her job.

  But treats weren’t the only motive in Sam’s eagerness. There was a stronger force pushing her. The innate instinct to defend the pack.

  Alpha was down.

  She could smell anger and fear on Alpha even before she’d found him in the truck. Only it wasn’t just from him. A flurry of odors created by injuries blanketed the truck as she’d neared it. Some were from the man with Alpha who had tried to take Alpha away.

  Alpha did not like the man. Sam did not like the man.

  Sam lowered her head, approaching the driver’s side of the truck. She ignored the woman’s calls and stuck her head in through the broken window to sniff the man.

  Yes, bad man.

  He had attacked Alpha.

  An attack on Alpha was an attack on the pack.

  Alpha down.

  Sam would act to defend the pack.

  Find Help.

  Sam circled the truck several times and then ran back the way she had come. But the odors died that way.

  She paused and pushed her nose into the cold air. Surprise. The cold wet wind was now spitting ice.

  She did not know what it was. But it worried her. Like a horsefly that once stung her nose and eyes and ears.

  She stopped to snap at the white stings before she again put her nose into that cold wind.

  She turned back from the woods. There were so many new smells on that stinging airstream. Cows and goats and chickens were known. A feral cat family burrowed in an outcropping of rock nearby. Rabbits, beavers, raccoons, squirrels, and deer. All known. But there were spoor of things she’d never even seen.

  The cold seem to be crystallizing them before her. She licked at the air. The cold stings landed on her tongue. She tasted plowed fields and wheat chaff and a scrap of corn husk. Things not known.

  This new frigid wind bathed her nose in the giant perfume bottle of the earth.

  She danced in a circle, breathing in delight. But she soon pulled out of the overwhelming need to catalog every new and old scent.

  Find Help. That meant human scents.

  Humans had odors different from cows and chickens. So many chicken scents in the wind today.

  Sam paused and sneezed twice to clear her scent palate. Then she licked her nose and pricked her ears. Humans made sounds, too. It took several seconds to catch the sound’s orientation. Yes. There it was. That faint wail of a police siren, followed by several short whoops. It sounded like Alpha’s cruiser. He’d turned it on only once. But it was enough.

  Sam wheeled and headed out in the opposite direction from the one she and the woman trainer had come.

  Find Help was this way.

  The white air pelted her, becoming more and more annoying. That and the ground. It was cold, getting harder to sink her claws in for traction. She could not run long.

  The white air stung her insides, too. Made white stuff come out of her mouth.

  Sam crossed a field and then a ravine, stopping only for the scent of human and the sound of the Alpha cruiser. The ravine was not wet. It was smooth like glass and crusty in places. In one place it gave way, plunging her up to her underbody in a current of liquid chill.

  Sam scrambled out and made it to the other side. There she paused and shook herself, trying to make the cold leave her. She licked at her paws, trying to dry them and make the sting of cold go away. But they didn’t feel right. And her tongue dragged across hard pads.

  Find Help.

  She shook herself again and lifted her nose. This time human scent. But not in the same direction as the siren. Siren was closer. Human unknown.

  Sam did not make a decision so much as follow the instinct bred in her dozens of generations ago.

  Find Help. Help is what you identify with.

  Alpha was siren.

  Go to siren.

  Sam took off toward a line of telephone poles. The decision made in a fraction of a moment.

  A minute later she found a road. Veering left toward the direction where she’d last heard a siren, she picked up speed.

  * * *

  “You sure they’ll try to get away in this storm?”

  The detective nodded at the trooper as they stood at the roadblock intersecting two rural roads. “They’ll definitely try it. Less traffic on the roadways. Easier to slip through. Our tip said they’ll use the state roads in this weather.”

  “Yeah. Remind me how good a capture is going to look on my record, Detective.”

  “Makes it worth the blue balls, Trooper.”

  “I’m already afraid to sit down.” Another of the task force operatives cradled his weapon to his chest. “My ass is frozen solid. Might crack right off if I apply pressure.”

  The detective shared the laugh, though he envied the SWAT team member his tactical high-visibility parka. As a detective, he wore his own clothing, but he’d been caught flat-footed by the sudden winter storm and had to borrow a goose-down vest and knit cap. The suit sleeves weren’t holding up their end against the sleet.

  “No one’s been through here in the past twenty minutes. I think I’ll duck into my car to check in with the other details to see if they’ve made a capture.”

  The state law enforcement officers nodded but exchanged glances that said t
hey knew the fed needed a moment out of the cold. They were made of hardier stuff, drinking scalding coffee from thermoses held in waterproof gloves.

  No one noticed the dark red speck coming up the road until they heard a bark.

  “Damn. Is that a dog?”

  All members of the roadblock turned to look. One trooper pulled high-resolution binoculars from his pocket. “It surely is. And booking it toward us.”

  “Probably hoping for a cozy lap to curl up in.”

  “Or a piece of your sandwich.”

  “I don’t think so.” The trooper adjusted his binoculars. “She’s wearing a service dog vest.”

  At about fifteen yards out, the dog suddenly stopped and began barking like crazy.

  “Something’s got her riled.”

  “Who’s in charge of something like this?”

  The SWAT guy kicked his head toward the detective’s auto.

  A trooper knocked on the glass and explained the situation.

  The fed stepped out of his car. He stared for a second at the rusty-red dog in a service vest. Fine icicles hung from the fur around her eyes, ears, mouth and beard, and the curly fur on her legs. She was still barking but now running a few feet away and then looking back over her shoulder, as if to signal the need to follow.

  “I know that dog.” One of the troopers who’d been checking in joined the group. “She belongs to Trooper Lauray Battise.”

  “That’s right.” The detective nodded. “I’ve seen her with him, too. Sam, right?”

  The younger trooper started jogged toward her, calling, “Here, Sam. Here, girl.”

  Sam began barking frantically, backing away as she did so. She stopped and executed a couple of bouncy turns, her barking thinning out from the cold. Then, when the trooper got close, she turned and shot away back down the road she’d come up.

  The other men turned to the detective for advice.

  He nodded. “One of you better follow her in a car. Service dogs are trained to get help when there’s trouble.”

  * * *

  “Jori, back out.”

  Becker held the gun closer to his chest to steady it. “If she moves I’ll shoot her.”

  “If you shoot her, Pecker, I won’t just kill you. I’ll let you bleed out. Slow.” Nothing in Law’s expression said he could be moved from this position. “This is between you and me. Jori just made it possible for me to save your life.” He tapped the K-9 first-aid kit. “You’re bleeding pretty good. There’s a tourniquet in here. She goes free. Then we deal.”

  Becker was sweating even though his every breath was frigid. Finally his gaze shifted to Jori. “Get out.”

  “But—”

  “Jori. Get out. Now. Take cover and wait until I call you. Now.” He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to.

  Jori sent one wild pleading look Becker’s way and began sliding backward out of the truck’s cabin.

  Law reached for the tool kit.

  Becker jerked away. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “About to cut you down, you bastard. Unless you’d just rather die.”

  “Why would you help me?”

  “Because so far, you’re just an extortionist asshole. Do you intend to up the ante? If not, put the goddamn gun down.”

  The two men eyed each other for a long moment.

  Becker swallowed. “I’ve got grandkids.”

  “Sounds like you’re not ready to die.”

  Law held out his hand.

  “It’s my leg. I think it’s crushed.”

  “Not a problem. I’m an expert at being a gimp. Teach you all the ropes.”

  Becker let go of the gun.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “Ahhh. Ahhh. It hurts like a—”

  “No sympathy here, Becker. You threatened to shoot me.” Law had loosened the tourniquet a bit to make certain blood was still flowing.

  Satisfied, he retightened the strips of cloth. “I don’t think Jori is feeling very friendly toward you, either.”

  Law winked at Jori, who was huddled with them under the truck bed while he worked on Becker.

  She didn’t smile but he couldn’t blame her. It was snowing now, soft flakes that turned the world into a winter wonderland. Gorgeous, but dangerously cold for three people who were not prepared for the exposure.

  With Jori’s assistance, he’d cut Becker loose. Not having his prosthesis meant he’d had to ask her to help him shift a few things around when he would have preferred she stay dry and huddled out of the wind. But once he’d gotten Becker on the ground, he’d dragged himself and the trooper under the shelter of the truck bed where he could work on him. Jori assisted him with the things he needed from the first-aid kit. But he’d rather she’d taken shelter in the cab. There wasn’t enough room for all three of them in there but she refused to leave him.

  The tourniquet was tight enough to stop most of the bleeding. To do more without knowing the extent of the injury might cost The Pecker his leg.

  Once he’d gotten the man’s bleeding under control, he’d butt-scooted back over to the cab and torn out the seats. With Jori’s assistance he erected a wall around them. The fortress didn’t stop all the wind, but every little bit helped.

  Help, Law thought grimly. They needed help to come. Soon. For Jori.

  “How far do you think Sam had to go for help?” Jori was looking at him, her lips pale as she huddled in the blanket he’d found behind one of the seats when he tore it out.

  “Not far.”

  “Maybe she gave up and took shelter.”

  Her voice wobbled. It twisted his gut. But he couldn’t let himself dwell on any of the things he’d been thinking about for a long time, until they got out of this mess. He hardened his heart.

  “I can’t believe I said to send her out in this storm.” Jori was genuinely worried.

  “Not your choice. Hers. Either way, she’ll be fine.” His voice was steeled with certainty, but he didn’t glance at her again.

  For a police officer, lying to get the needed response to keep a gnarly situation under control was practically mandatory. But he wasn’t certain he could keep the truth out of his eyes. They were in a significant amount of trouble. And Sam, bless her, wasn’t likely to be their salvation.

  “You’re right. Sam’s smart. She will be fine.”

  Poor Sam. Law felt a beat of guilt about the way he’d treated that curly-haired rust bucket today. She was a faithful dog. A good companion. A help when he didn’t know he needed her. But she was a lover, not a fighter. He hoped she was holed up somewhere warm. Unlike Jori, he wasn’t at all confident of that, either.

  * * *

  Law adjusted the tourniquet he’d applied to Becker’s leg again. The accident had gouged a hole in his right calf and probably nicked an artery. The ground behind them had grown slick with blood before he’d been able to get the tourniquet from the K-9 first-aid kit in place.

  Law glanced up from the wound he was watching to his own empty pant leg. The bastard had choked him out and taken his leg before he could regain consciousness.

  But he was an officer of the law. Had taken a vow to protect and defend. That meant saving a life. Becker was a shithead but he was a human, and he didn’t want that life on his conscience.

  “Do you hear a siren?” Jori was suddenly alert.

  Law listened. “Yes.” But that didn’t necessarily mean anything. As a trooper he knew law enforcement was out in full force, prepared to take care of many accidents and other problems associated with the winter storm.

  But the siren was coming their way.

  “Stay put.”

  Law scooted to the edge of the overturned truck, grabbed the edge, and pulled himself to his foot with a biceps flex.

  “I’m coming, too.”

  He made eye contact with Jori, worried about the smile blooming on her face as she scrambled toward him. “No. This may be nothing. Either way, I want you safe. Don’t move until someone comes to you.
Got it?”

  She looked at him then slowly nodded.

  Law hopped away from the truck toward the sound. The siren was echoing around the valley but the Doppler effect told him it was coming toward him. About two hundred yards out, a state trooper cruiser appeared on a rise in an unseen road. If he’d had his prosthesis he would have made a run for it, hoping the sight of a man in motion would catch the trooper’s attention.

  Instead, Law looked around for something to flag them down with, in case they sped by without noticing the wreckage. But then something caught his eye.

  A rusty-red speck was bounding across the open ground ahead and at an angle to the cruiser.

  Law smiled. The doodle had done it!

  He saw the cruiser slow to a stop and a trooper popped out, megaphone in hand. “Trooper Battise?”

  Law waved both arms back and forth over his head, balancing on one leg.

  “Sit tight. I’ve got backup coming.”

  Law nodded but he really wasn’t listening. He was watching Sam, now about fifty yards out, slow down, wobble around in the snow, and then collapse.

  * * *

  “I’m not getting a pulse.” Jori looked at Law, who was kneeling in the snow holding Sam in his arms.

  He didn’t look up. “Get a thermal blanket from the trooper. Get it here fast.”

  He saw her wheel away from him. She’d helped him get to Sam, acting as his crutch, but this was his dog, his responsibility. It tore him up that he had to ask for help when he should be the one helping others.

  Jori was headed for the cruiser while the trooper was calling for an ambulance after checking out Becker’s condition. Everyone was doing their share.

  He glanced down at Sam. She was lying lifeless in his arms. Ice crusted her muzzle and face. He ran a hand gently over her head to dislodge icicles. She was suffering from hypothermia. He needed to get her warm.

  Unable to carry her, he sat in snow and tucked as much of her body inside his jacket as he could manage. He knew about K-9 care. As Jori and the trooper came running back, he went over the treatment in his head to keep from going crazy with worry.

  He had time. Minutes. Even if she wasn’t breathing.