Sheepdogs: Keeping the Wolves at Bay by Gordon Carroll (tools of titans ebook .TXT) 📗

you get outside the big cities, where there are stretches of grass and dirt, interspersed with cement and asphalt, tracking rules supreme.

I always start off my dogs tracking anyway, because it’s the hardest and most labor intensive for them. And, like people, dogs love to cheat. So if I began with trailing or area searches it would be much more difficult to get them tracking.

With most canines, ritual is everything. There are different commands and hand movements for each task you want them to complete. For tracking, I usually have the dog lay down. Then I’ll kneel beside him and pass my hand in front of his snout, palm side down, and say zoek, the Dutch command for search. I tend to mix up the languages with my commands depending on my personal preference and so bad guys can’t figure out the code. But like I said before, Max isn’t much on process, so I just said, “Zoek.”

Max sniffed around the area, bypassing each of the discs of hotdog at the tips of the triangle (designed to make the dog check all angles of the starting point before determining the direction of the track) and took off to the southeast at an easy trot.

Pilgrim would have stopped and wolfed down every hotdog before continuing on. He’s a chowhound. But Max is driven neither by food nor toys, an unusual trait in his breed, and difficult for training. It took me awhile to understand that Max is driven by the hunt alone and the only time he gets excited is when it’s the real thing.

I jogged along behind him, watching to see that he stayed perfectly on track. I needn’t have bothered. In fact, I could have just stayed at the house and waited for him to show up. He made short work of the track, never missing a step, and came to the small pile of hotdogs at the end and looked up at me as if to say ‘you’ve got to be kidding’.

I said, “Sorry, it’s the best I could do. I’m fresh out of people for you to maul.”

He belched and went over to a bush and lifted his leg. An image of Rodney Dangerfield floated in my mind. I shook my head, took a last whiff of nature’s perfume and went inside.

I showered, shaved and dressed in olive green Dockers, with a black t-shirt and an un-tucked, beige, short sleeve, squared bottom Sebastian shirt. My S&W was in its holster, tucked beneath my shirt just to the right of the middle of my spine-bone, and my backup gun, a five shot Ruger revolver, wrapped around my left ankle. I carry a clip on, spring loaded Tanto knife in my right pocket, and a two-inch belt buckle blade that fits snugly between my middle two fingers when held in my fist.

Other than that, I was unarmed.

First order of business was to find Pimple Face. I’d gone to his house, or rather his mother’s house, last night, but he wasn’t there. I waited till twelve; he was a no-show. I looked at the picture on his license, Kevin Burbank; he was one of the very few individuals who actually look better in their driver’s license picture than they do in real life. A face only a mother could love.

I put together a few sandwiches, some Dr Pepper and six bottles of water. I dropped it all in a cooler, sprinkled in a liberal layer of ice cubes, and carried it to the car. Max hopped in the back of the Escalade, looking bored. I drove to Aurora, parking back a couple of houses and across the street from Pimples. There was a small strip mall on my side of the street with a pawnshop, an ice cream place, a Dollar Store, and a dry cleaners. All of them but the dry cleaners were closed this early in the morning. An Asian couple worked behind the counter, setting the register and bagging shirts and pants and dresses. The woman, who’s age could have been anywhere from thirty to seventy, smiled and waved a hand at me. I waved back.

Traffic was light, just a few cars moving through the side streets on their way to the main arteries that push into rush hour traffic forming the jams that urban Colorado has become famous for.

A group of about six loitered around a covered bus stop, some of them smoking, two guys laughing and making gestures with their hands. I was too far away to hear the conversation.

My watch showed it was nearly eight. I turned the radio on low, and settled in for the long haul. Most crooks don’t get up till late, usually early afternoon, but I couldn’t take the chance, so here I would stay. I looked around for a coffee shop, but there were none in sight. I should have stopped at one on the way. Too late now.

It was too early for soda, so I opted for a bottle of water and ducked down low in the seat in a semi-doze position. David Cook sang about his brother dying; I sang along under my breath. I’m not a bad singer; some have even said I’m pretty good. I’m not up for American Idol, but I can hold a tune.

The house was old, early seventies, with a one-car garage. The grass was fighting a losing battle with the weeds. Three broken down cars were camped in the driveway, the last one spilling over the sidewalk. Another car squatted beside the curb. It was a rusted-out, brown, Mercury with no side mirrors and a gray primer hood and driver’s side door. The house sported a peeling storm door, the glass was broken out and its screen was torn and hanging from the frame. It stuck partially open, doing little to guard the front door; a hollow core wooden job with a hole punched low and left of the handle.

RTD stopped at the bus stop and the group of six got