Page 48 of Road Refugees

Chapter Sixteen

Town

“Psst.” Slappy said.

“What?” I whispered, annoyed. I mean, fuck it. We were on our stomachs low crawling in this fucked grass full of burrs and foxtails. Heaven wore jeans, but it was still an uncomfortable op. It was a still day where every knee in the weeds crackled loudly.

We had left our dogs with Crybaby. Wolf had made it to Bogotá and was palling around with the cocaine smugglers. A video was making the rounds. Wolf had recently gotten his testicle—I kid you not—stuck in a padlock. The key didn’t work. The video depicted all these rough and tumble broke dicks pointing at him laughing. It must’ve been some kind of dare, or the type of thing those pendejos did on the regular. There were all the expected cracks, like “he’s got the balls to do this” and “we’ve got him by the short hairs.” I wasn’t sure if this was impressing or mortifying the Bare Bones.

Slappy said, “There’s this poor dog tied to that barn. Leonberger. Got only one eye.”

“Oh, good God!” cried Heaven, probably too loud. So far, we hadn’t seen anyone else. We were making our way to the most likely mill barn where we heard rustling and creaking, sort of like bones against wire. Heaven clasped my arm. “Town! We’ve got to bring that poor dog back home.”

I sighed. How could I resist the woman I loved? Would she want to take the entire barn of poor creatures with her?

“Okay,” I whispered back. “On our way out. Let Slappy map this place.”

Slappy had brought along a small notepad. With his field glasses strapped around his neck, his thumbs sashayed across the screen marking, tapping at various points of interest. Twenty minutes ago, we had ambled past handmade wooden signs hammered to a post. “Boxers, Beagles, Leonbergers.” Good God in an evil world, as Heaven muttered. No responsible breeder would just mix and match breeds like that, especially not the giants with the mediums and smalls. I’d learned that from Doll Strikeleather.

We’d talked on the phone. “If enough people ignore the pet stores and only buy from shelters, rescues, or responsible breeders, mills would stop being practical, moneymaking operations and the suffering would end,” Doll said. About our dogs found in the creek, she said, “Saves them a bullet.” Her description of mills she’d known—and helped to take down—steeled me for what we’d see.

“Come on,” urged Heaven, crawling ahead of me toward the roped dog.

“Fuck,” I muttered, inching after her. In the military, we’d learned how to go over a wall like this without getting shot.

Heaven got to the poor chained Leonberger before I did. She got up on her knees and reached out tentatively, probably unsure if it’d bite. Why was he chained there? Was he supposed to be a watchdog? Luckily he wasn’t a very good watchdog, and he lowered his head obediently to let her fondle him.

When she looked to me, her eyes brimmed with tears. Her voice trembled. “He’s never known any human kindness.”

I couldn’t handle seeing this dog on an eight-foot chain. Heaven’s Mickey Finn had been improving by leaps and bounds. She slept on a bed at the foot of Heaven’s mattress. Heaven said every morning she lifted the blanket and knew she’d seen nirvana when they looked into each other’s eyes. Mickey never let her former abuse get her down, capering about with Linus and Beetle. Heaven taught Mickey a nice high five, and the dog’s ears puffed with pride. Her courage made us brave. Brave enough to tackle this op.

On all fours, I crawled through the open barn door. Fortunately the wind was wafting away from me, but the stench of pee and poo stung my eyes. Some cages were stacked next to a large glassless window, so I could plainly see the Jack Russells stacked higher than your head in cages too small to turn around in. A few beagles noticed me and whined, but some Leonbergers barked.

“Ssh!” I hissed, uselessly. It wasn’t my mission to save anyone today, just to gather intel to turn over to the Bare Bones. The flood of odors, the hopeless whines, the ragged breathing—I didn’t need to be transported back to a hovel of death like this, and I certainly didn’t want Heaven to be. The new law was supposed to force millers to stop stacking cages with wire floors, buy them of a decent size. But like Heaven had said, with not nearly enough inspectors, it would be easy to get around these new laws.

“I’ll be back,” I whispered, and crawled back out the door.

Heaven was busy trying to undo the gatekeeper’s knot, but Slappy had crawled up to the plate with his Bowie knife. He silently went to work freeing the poor bony thing.

He really looked on his last legs and I said, “I don’t know if he’s going to make it, Heaven.”

She stuck out her lower lip. “I’ll carry him then.”

“I’ll do it,” offered Slappy. “I’m done with mapping.”

I said, “Then let’s get the fuck out of here. We got enough.”

Slappy took the risk of standing to take the dog in his arms. Heaven and I stood but ducked low until we were behind the big dog barn, out of sight of the main house.

I said quietly, “We should haul ass back to our rides. Slappy, can you take the dog in your truck? I have towels in my sidecar. I just don’t think it’d be as smooth of a ride as your truck.”

“Roger that,” said Slappy. “I’m on it.”

I frowned. “Stop sounding like Wolf Glaser.”

“Let’s go,” said Heaven.

But no sooner had she touched my arm than some guy stepped out from behind the barn. We all gasped with surprise but relaxed a bit when we saw it wasn’t Riddlesberger or Stomach. Just some skinny weedy guy with slicked-back greasy grey hair topped by one of those embarrassing tweed driving caps.