Taking On Lucinda

by Frank Martorana

  Kent helped him to his feet. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  Rodman grabbed Kent’s arm. “Aubrey is here.”

  “No. She’s waiting at her hotel for your phone call. Remember? You need a doctor.”

  “No. She’s not! She’s here. I saw her. I talked to her.” Rodman pushed up on his toes, using his height to search the crowd.

  Kent scanned too. Rodman’s tone sounded too sure to be the disoriented babble of a concussion victim. “Then where is she now?”

  “May-May has her,” Rodman said, still looking. “She had on a disguise. Blond hair, tough-girl clothes. He recognized her and grabbed her. That’s why I had to hit him. The last thing I remember is May-May dragging Aubrey toward that door.” He pointed to an inconspicuous walk-through door. Both men headed for it.

  They pushed through into the dampness and dark outside. Before their eyes could adjust, a beam of light as bright as Kent’s coon-hunting lantern blasted into their faces. Both men bridled back, squinting and shading their eyes with their hands.

  “Stop where you are!” came a command voice. “Put your hands on your head.” For the second time, Kent heard the slide action of a shotgun rack ominously. This time from behind the light.

  “We’re after one of the guys who may have escaped,” Kent said and stepped toward the voice.

  “Don’t move a muscle!” came out of the darkness.

  “We’re with you!” Kent said. He wanted to be looking for Aubrey, not standing with his hands on his head.

  Three men in midnight-blue SWAT team uniforms emerged into view. On their vests, in iridescent block letters, was the word POLICE. They kept their guns pointed at Kent and Rodman.

  Rodman spoke for the first time. Slowly. Controlled. “I’m USAPC undercover agent Dan Rodman. This is Dr. Kent Stephenson, veterinarian assigned to this operation.”

  One officer extended his hand. “Show me some ID.”

  “I just told you, I’m undercover. I don’t have any ID on me.”

  “Well, I do.” Kent brought his hand down toward his wallet pocket but stopped abruptly as the officers ducked. Their guns took a more accurate bead on his chest.

  “I said don’t move!” the officer warned him again.

  Another of the policemen spoke. “Sergeant, sir, that is Dr. Stephenson. I know him. He takes care of my father’s cows.”

  The sergeant hesitated. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Take a good look, and tell me again.”

  The baby-faced policeman stepped to within three feet of Kent. “Yes, sir, that’s Dr. Stephenson.”

  “Put down your weapons, men,” the sergeant said in an apologetic voice. “We had to be sure.”

  “Of course,” Rodman said. “Did you see a big guy, heavyset with a beard, come through here? May have been holding onto a woman.”

  “No, you’re the first ones we’ve seen.”

  “How far out are your perimeter people?”

  “We are the perimeter people. “Our orders were to close in.”

  “May-May slipped through?” Kent asked.

  Rodman gave the sergeant a questioning look.

  “We sure didn’t see him.”

  The sergeant and his men were instantly out of Kent’s mind. He turned to Rodman. “Where is his truck?”

  Rodman pointed toward one area of the parking lot. “Out there.”

  Kent took off in that direction at a dead run, Rodman followed.

  Within minutes they located May-May’s truck, popped the hood, and disabled it by yanking several ignition wires.

  “Okay.” Kent said. “We know he didn’t take his truck, and he isn’t going to take his truck. Where can he be?”

  Rodman turned a 360, peering off into the darkness. “It’s a big reservation.”

  “He’s got Aubrey.”

  “There’s woods in every direction. We don’t have time to search the whole place!”

  Frustrated, Kent jammed his hands into his pockets. One of his fingertips brushed against the metal collar tag with his name on it. He longed to tell Aubrey he loved her, that he was sorry he ever doubted her. He pulled her scarf from his pocket and held it to his face, drawing in her scent. He paused and then inhaled against the cloth again. The next second he was headed toward the hidden police cars at a dead run.

  “Where are you going?” Rodman asked, chasing after him.

  “Lucinda. We need Lucinda!”

  By the time they reached the cruiser, Rodman’s longer stride had brought the two men abreast.

  “I knew there was a reason to bring her along.” Kent waved the scarf for Rodman to see. “This is Aubrey’s. She gave it to me. Lucinda can get her scent from it. She’ll take us to Aubrey, I guarantee.”

  Agent Rodman accepted it as gospel since he could offer nothing better.

  Kent opened the door, and Lucinda sprang out then circled happily around his legs. He thumped his chest with the flat of his hand. Immediately the big coonhound rose on her haunches and placed both front feet squarely on his chest. Kent held the scarf for her to smell. “Where’s Aubrey? Where is she?”

  Lucinda’s eyes sparkled, her tail wagged furiously at her master’s game.

  “Go find Aubrey!”

  Lucinda dropped to all fours and stared directly at Kent as her canine cognizance registered his alarm. She raised her muzzle and began casting in each direction. She drew the breeze across her sensitive olfactory lobes, and then began working her way toward the pole barn.

  “She thinks Aubrey is inside,” Rodman said.

  Kent raised a hand to quiet him. “Let her work.”

  When Lucinda reached the parking area she dropped her nose to the pine-needle-covered ground and froze. For an instant she was a statue. Then like a released spring she shot into the woods singing her trailing bark.

  Kent felt a mix of amazement, admiration, and hope. “She’s got the trail!”

  Both men tore after Lucinda, following her path along the mill creek. Branches, invisible in the darkness, clawed at their faces. Wet leaves on muddy banks forced their feet from under them. Kent cursed the heavy body armor strapped to his torso but struggled after Lucinda with the strength of a man afraid for someone he loved.

  “There’s the sawmill up ahead. I see a light,” Rodman said.

  Kent squinted into the dark and saw a single bare bulb sending pale-yellow rays through a window. He caught movement silhouetted by the light. With renewed strength he charged toward the sawmill.

  “That’s got to be them.”

  He saw the flash of a gun muzzle in the window before its report shattered the night sounds.

  “My God! May-May shot Aubrey!”

  He ran toward the light like a man possessed, screaming as he charged. When he was within a few feet of the door, it opened, and May-May’s dark shadow filled it. Kent dug in his heels, but his momentum carried him forward until he was point blank in front of the same huge pistol May-May had aimed at him back at the farmhouse.

  May-May’s left eye was badly swollen and his nose deviated to the side. Kent remembered what Rodman had said about throwing a punch. There were four nasty, linear gouges running across May-May’s eyes and nose.

  May-May’s voice sounded strangely sad, defeated. “Didn’t I warn you I’d kill you if you got in my way?”

  Kent held up his hands. “May-May, this is me, Kent, your brother.”

  “Half brother. As you and Merrill like to remind everybody.”

  “May-May, don’t make a bad problem worse. If you kill me, you still won’t get away. Put down the gun.”

  “It’s too late. I ain’t gonna go back to jail.”

  May-May raised the gun. The muscles in his forearm rippled when his finger tightened on the trigger. The muzzle flashed. The air we
nt out of Kent’s lungs as if a horse had kicked him in the chest. The impact drove him backward and onto the ground. He wanted desperately to renew the attack, but his limbs would not respond.

  There was another gunshot. It came from behind him. Through blurred eyes, he saw May-May double over, curse, and then fall with a deadened thud. Kent lapsed into a surreal state of half consciousness. He felt strangely detached yet numbingly afraid. He wanted to smile and cry, run and rest. He felt Rodman’s arms sliding under him and carrying him into the mill house. He could hear the man’s bass voice, now pitched with excitement.

  “Hang on, partner. I gotcha.”

  Rodman set him in the light. He heard Aubrey crying—crying for him. Like music, it stirred him back to reality. He lifted his head while Rodman searched him for bullet wounds.

  “My chest,” Kent said through clenched teeth. But his attention was on Aubrey, tied, like Joan of Arc, to a support post in the middle of the room. He reached out for her. Her eyes were rimmed in white. Half cries, half screams poured from her throat, muffled by duct tape across her mouth. She thrashed her shoulders, trying to free her hands.

  “It’s a damn good thing you had that vest on, Kent. You’d be dead for sure,” Rodman said.

  “I told you my chest hurts!”

  “That’s what I’m telling you. It’s bruised. The vest stopped the bullet. See?” Rodman held out a gray lead mushroom picked from Kent’s shirt.

  Aubrey struggled hard again.

  “Untie her.”

  Rodman worked at the ropes. As she shook free, Aubrey ripped the gag from her mouth and pointed.

  “Kent! Lucinda is over there in the corner. May-May shot her!”

  How could he have forgotten Lucinda? That must have been May-May’s first shot, the one he had thought was aimed at Aubrey. He dragged himself toward the blackness of the corner.

  “She saved my life!” Aubrey said. “May-May had a knife right in my face. He said he was going to cut me. Lucinda came through the door and charged him. She knocked him down, but he pulled his gun and shot her!” Aubrey moved her lips as if speaking, but no more words came.

  Kent found Lucinda lying on her side. She didn’t move when he stroked her face. A dark pool of blood enlarged on the floor next to her chest. He could not tell if she was breathing. Frantically, he pulled her into the light. Frothy red bubbles oozed from in front of her shoulder.

  “She’s got an open chest wound! Her lungs are collapsed.” He shoved Aubrey’s scarf at Rodman. “Hold this over the wound. Push hard with the flat of your hand.”

  While Rodman plugged the wound, Aubrey stroked the lifeless hound and whispered words of encouragement.

  Kent felt the dog’s neck. “She’s still got a pulse.” He held her mouth shut and began blowing slow rhythmic breaths into Lucinda’s nose. Each time they watched her chest inflate then deflate. After several breaths, he paused, hoping to see her chest rise on its own.

  “Come on, Lucinda, honey. Breathe!” Aubrey said. “Take a breath.”

  Kent put his hand on Lucinda’s ribs. He could barely feel a heartbeat. He lifted her lip— blue-gray membranes. The same terrifying pallor he’d seen so many times before, when an animal was about to die.

  For several more minutes, he agonized over his best friend, wishing with all his heart that he could give her some of the life he had wasted. At the next pause, there was a minute movement of her diaphragm.

  “That was a breath!” He resuscitated with renewed vigor. Another pause, another breath, until finally she was breathing on her own.

  Aubrey started laughing while tears ran down her face.

  Kent ripped off his coat, bulletproof vest, shirt, and T-shirt. “I’ll make a better bandage with this shirt, and we can carry her to the car.”

  While Kent fashioned a pressure bandage, Aubrey knelt next to Lucinda, leaning over so that her cheek was pressed against Lucinda’s velvet jowl. “How could I ever have been so wrong, girl?” Gently, she kissed her. “You’ve taught me more about animals than I ever thought possible. Stay with us. We need you.”

  Kent glanced up from his task, their eyes met. They did not need to speak.

  Rodman used the jackets to make a stretcher, and within minutes they were racing to the car.

  “What about him?” Aubrey asked as she stepped over May-May’s body in the doorway.

  “We’ll send someone back for him,” Rodman said. He nodded toward Lucinda. “She is more important.”

  By the time they reached the parking lot, the assault team was shoving the last of the dog men into paddy wagons.

  Merrill commandeered an ambulance and helped load Lucinda. Kent called the dispatcher on Merrill’s radio and gave instructions to alert the veterinary college.

  “Have the emergency crew ready to receive a gunshot patient. An approximately ninety-pound coonhound with an open chest wound.”

  Rodman reached to close the ambulance’s rear doors with Kent and Aubrey inside next to Lucinda.

  “You’re welcome to ride along with us,” Kent said.

  “Thanks,” Rodman said, but shook his head.

  “No,” he said, savoring a thought. He rubbed the scar on the side of his face that had become so much a part of him that Kent no longer noticed. “I think I’m going to look up ol’ Lester Ross and have a talk about old times. You know what I mean?”

  Kent gave him a thumbs-up.

  “You look after that dog!” Rodman said as he slammed the doors.

  Chapter 30

  Kent and Sally limited morning appointments to must-sees only so they could get on the road in time for eleven o’clock visiting hours at the veterinary college. The whole crew came along. Kent, Aubrey, Barry, and Nathan took off in the lead car. Merrill tailgated them with Rodman, Stef, and Sally. They all bubbled with the lighthearted camaraderie of those who had endured battle and won.

  Kent rubbed his chest gingerly, daydreamed out the windshield. The bruise on his sternum still hurt right down to the bone. Aubrey had been horrified by the dinner plate–size patch of purple that emerged exactly over his heart. She’d been too put off by it to make love. But desperation breeds ingenuity, and Kent wearing a T-shirt had proved to be the solution.

  Today the bruise felt better, especially after news from the vet college that Lucinda was finally stable. It had been one hell of a week.

  They entered the veterinary college hospital through doublewide glass doors, paraded across a sky-lit expanse of polished terrazzo floor with stylized park benches along the walls. Most of them were occupied by anxious clients. Some guarded pet carriers harboring feline loved ones. Others struggled to control dogs on leashes.

  At a bustling reception desk, Kent gave his name to a young woman who greeted him with a smile, hands poised on a keyboard, ready to take admissions information. When she caught his name, however, her hands withdrew from the keys. Her smile widened as she stood and nodded greetings to their group.

  “You’re here,” she said, skirting her way around to their side of the counter. She let her eyes roll skyward and pointed in the same direction. “The higher-ups told us you’d be coming. I’m supposed to take you right on back. If you’ll all follow me.”

  Kent smiled and nudged Sally, pointing out Merrill’s obviously pleased reaction to VIP service.

  The receptionist guided them into the intensive care unit. It smelled of cleanliness and glistened with state-of-the-art electronics. There was stainless steel everywhere.

  A veterinary student looked up from the patient whose catheter she was adjusting. “Wow! Big group of visitors. You are all here to see Lucinda Stephenson, I take it?”

  “That’s right. I’m Kent Stephenson, her owner.”

  “Dr. Stephenson, right? They told us you are a veterinarian.”

  It was the first time in years that Kent felt proud to be a vete
rinarian. “That’s right. I graduated from here before you were born.” He waved at all of the hi-tech equipment. “Things certainly have changed.”

  “Techniques and equipment have changed, for sure, but that’s all. We’re still here trying to help the animals, just like you guys.” Out of the corner of his eye, Kent saw Barry straighten, square his shoulders.

  The young woman was polite and confident. He focused on her name tag. “You are…Marlene?”

  “Yes. Sorry.” She held out her hand and shook Kent’s with a firm grip. “I’m a senior, on my ICU rotation.” She scanned the group again. “Lucinda must be some special dog.” There was genuine amazement in her voice.

  “Why is that?”

  “First she arrives in an ambulance, sirens blaring, in the middle of the night. The chief of surgery and the head of anesthesiology, not some lowly residents, are ready and waiting to handle her when she arrives. Now they’re breaking the rules for visitors?”

  Kent’s eyebrows went up. “We’re breaking the rules?”

  “Usually it’s a max of two people in ICU. No exceptions. Till now.”

  “I hope it’s not a problem.”

  “Oh, it’s no problem,” Marlene said. “The dean called down a while ago, said you were coming. Some special dog, I’d say.”

  She led them to a strange contraption that looked like an oversized stainless steel cabinet with a glass front door. A green label cautioned OXYGEN. Crystalline tubing snaked from a suspended plastic bag through a port in the top, carrying fluids to the patient within. A perfect chorus of ahhhhs began as everyone recognized Lucinda.

  She was on her side, mostly covered in blankets and bandages. She looked like she had lost twenty pounds. Her skin hung. The luster was gone from her coat.

  They studied her, each entertaining thoughts of how near death she seemed. Then, from nowhere, a twinkle came into the hound’s eyes, and as if to prove them all wrong, she began to wag just the tip of her tail.

  Kent slipped one arm around Aubrey’s waist and the other over Barry’s shoulder.

  “God, I love that dog!” Aubrey said, unabashed at her own revelation.