The Rescue

24

This is nothing like playing with Teddy, Joe thought, nothing like training with Wade.

Aaron was strong with the leash and his voice commands were angry and loud. He was quick to yank, quick to curse. The way he said the word fuck made Joe flinch, though he had no idea what it meant. He’d been on the job for the last hour here — a crowded strip mall in Yuma, Arizona — and he hadn’t gotten one kibble treat, even though he’s finding Drugs.

But Aaron seemed more angry than happy. Work faster. Bigger drugs! The other DEA men and women didn’t speak to him or pet him. The other DEA dogs — big German shepherds and surly Malinois — either snarled at Joe or ignored him completely. Joe wasn’t quite sure what DEA meant, but the letters were emblazoned on his mind early this morning, when Aaron pulled his gun and yelled DEA, hands up! at a Man coming out of a bus station. Joe quickly guessed that DEA meant either angry, or stop, or both. The sound of the letters had raked across his nerves like the stiff steel brush that Aaron used to get the foxtails off him.

Joe had never felt so hesitant, but more eager to please.

The strip mall shops were small and crowded with smells: spicy food like Teddy’s mom cooked, sharp hair- and nail-salon chemicals, swimming pool chlorine, new clothes and shoes, pizza.

In the back room of the pool supply store, he went from one nose-quivering carton of plastic jugs to another, as Aaron snapped the lead and tried to force Joe to the holy smells. Joe wanted to follow his nose instead, but when he found a scent cone, Aaron cursed and pulled back. Joe heard voices in the front of the store, commands for another search Dog.

He heard Aaron and the Man talking, though most of their words were lost on Joe:

“There are no drugs here, señor. And our small amount of money is in the cash register.”

“That right? Let’s see what my dog says.”

“The chemicals might damage his nose.”

“Damage that nose, and I’ll kick the living shit out of you, amigo. He’s got the best nose of all time. It’s the only reason he’s here.”

“There are no drugs.”

“Find the drugs, Joe! Find the money!”

Even though his nostrils were stinging, Joe pressed on into the storage room, investigating the boxes of new pool sweeps and skimmers, the floating toys and air mattresses, the water thermometers, the basketball and volleyball playsets. Nose up and down, short four-beat sniffs, receptors bristling.

He soon caught the scent of Drugs, just a trickle of scent at first.

But the scent got stronger and the cone narrowed into a cluttered corner of broken-down boxes and empty plastic containers, recycle bins and garbage cans filled with rubbish.

Joe’s tail was wagging big by then, and he stood still in that river of smells, nose to the floor, nose to the air, then to the floor again, across which the smell of Drugs drew him, like a fish to an irresistible lure.

The drugs brought Joe to the deepest part of the corner, where the stained white walls met the concrete floor and a rodent bait-station waited, bolted to the concrete to keep the rats from spilling the bait.

“The poison will kill him,” said the man.

“Joe, down!”

His belly on the cool floor and his ears cocked upright and out, Joe wagged his long saber tail, happily fixed on the big, black bait station. Drugs, he knew: Drugs.

“Unbolt that thing and set it on those boxes.”

“The poison is strong. I need my gloves.”

“Get your goddamned gloves, Enrique.”

Joe listened to Enrique walking away but he didn’t take his eyes off the Drugs.

Aaron knelt and called Joe over, gave him a stern down, and a milder Good Dog.

Which sent a jolt of love through Joe, panting happily, still staring at his find.

Enrique came back, escorted by another DEA agent and his German shepherd. Enrique knelt by the bait trap with his gloves on, unbolted it, and set it on the boxes.

Joe sat up but stayed in place as the other dog growled at him. The other agent gave Joe a hard look but did nothing to silence the shepherd.

Aaron opened the black plastic box, froze for a long moment as he looked down at it, then lifted three locking plastic bags, each half-full of pills that looked gray to Joe but were in fact gray-green.

“Fent, amigo,” he said to Enrique.

“I have never seen it. I do not deal in narcotics. The cartel has put it there.”

“You’re under arrest anyway. Your memory might improve in prison.”

Aaron stepped quickly toward Enrique with the plastic cuffs. The other DEA agent aimed his pistol at Enrique with both hands, his dog growling with intent to kill. Joe knew from training that this was a very serious moment, and he was ready to bite the man and tear away at whatever he got hold of. Joe didn’t like the bite command, because the padded men tasted bad and usually threw him down, hard. Joe growled at Enrique too.

Then two more DEA men came in without dogs and took Enrique by both arms and led him out.

“Shut that fucking dog up,” said Aaron to the other agent.

Inwardly, Joe cringed at the sound of the word.

The agent ordered him down and quiet, and the shepherd obeyed with a baleful stare at Joe.

“You did okay, Joe,” Aaron said, “but I need more out of you.”

That night Joe lay in his Crate in Aaron’s Chula Vista living room, while his handler lifted weights. The big screen was on, flashing the usual uninteresting pictures and the mostly incomprehensible words and music. Every once in a while, a Dog would appear and bark, and Joe would perk up. Most of his nights here had been like this — Aaron grunting and talking to the TV, Joe curled in his Crate and waiting for Aaron to move it into the bedroom for sleeping. Joe slept in his locked Crate. He had not yet slept in the Aaron’s bed. It was not a Team Bed.

But that night, Joe’s neck was sore from Aaron’s muscular leash-work, and Joe’s heart was heavy with his failure to please Aaron. Joe was beginning to see that Aaron was almost never happy. He was all work. He was no play. He was alone. No visitors, no family, no Woman. Teddy and Wade had friends and family. They smiled and touched him and gave him kibble treats all the time. Sometimes he didn’t know why. They threw the Ball and the flying disk and wrestled Joe on the grass, on the carpet inside, anyplace where wrestling seemed like a good idea. Aaron only touched him to brush out his thin undercoat and to leash and unleash him, which was more of a tug on his collar than a real touch.

Tonight, for the third time in two weeks, Aaron fell asleep lying on the couch while the TV played.

Joe went over and looked at him, then smelled his hand, his face, feet, knees, crotch, his face again. Little four-count breaths. Touched him with a whisker, just once. Coming from his nose, Aaron’s breath was sharp with the smell of the liquid he poured from a large gray bottle that said BOMBAY on the label, if Joe only knew how to read.

So he thought of Teddy’s Dad, who had bottles like that and seemed unhappy a lot of the time. And he thought of Teddy, his wonderful Boy, after Art and Nancy had taken him away from his Mom and Dad, which made him sad, strongly sad, like he had been taken away too. Back then Joe knew that there were things that would make Teddy happy again, but he didn’t know what they were. He tried. Teddy was always very good giving him commands so things were clear and Joe had no doubt what was wanted of him. He smelled Aaron’s breath again. There was so much hardness to his face and voice, so much hurry. There was no way Joe could see or hear through the hardness to understand what Aaron wanted. Other than more Drugs. More Money.

So Joe knew that he had to do better. Aaron had even said so, at the strip mall today. At least that’s what Joe had heard.

Joe went through a doggy door in the kitchen into the backyard. It was a small yard with a six-foot chain-link fence and a tall hedge behind it, but plenty of room to poop and pee. He knew he could dig under that fence and get out. Or climb over it. Some inherited confidence told him it would be easy. And some inherited thirst for freedom told him go, dig out or climb that fence, run free in the world, eat what you find, and mate.

Back inside, he curled up in his Crate in the living room, where Aaron was making the loud growl of sleep. Joe dreamed of his mother and siblings warm in the darkness, of her wonderful milk and how she licked him over and over. Dreamed of wrestling Teddy on the grass. And the plastic pool he splashed in. Dreamed of the metal paper he’d chewed to bits and how Teddy was mad at him for that. Dreamed of the kibble he’d found in the inner tube, how pleased Teddy was when Joe smelled the wart on his foot that hadn’t appeared yet. He dreamed of hashish and mothballs hidden in a plastic container, a rock of methamphetamine hidden under a floor, heroin in a hat, fentanyl hidden in a stick of chewing gum — all things that Aaron had taught him and were now his target smells. Very important. The most important smells in his world.

Dreamed more of Teddy, always Teddy, his first Boy.

Woke up an hour later, checked on Aaron, went into the backyard again, and climbed the fence.

An instinct and some inherited urge told Joe that his last home with Teddy — the one high up with the ocean below, and Art and Nancy — was right this way.

Food. Water. Mate.

Find Teddy.