Golden Filly Collection Two (63 page)

Car lights from Patrick’s new half-ton pickup met them back in the drive. He stopped at Trish’s wave.

“Caesar’s missing. Thought I’d check the road just in case.” The thought of her beloved collie lying in a ditch made her want to heave.

“You looked through the barns?”

“Not really. Fed the horses though and everyone’s in.”

“I’ll search down there.”

Half an hour later, Trish turned the truck back into the lane at Runnin’ On Farm. She’d call Rhonda and Brad to ask for their help too.

“This would be so much easier in the daylight.” She banged her fist against the steering wheel. “Where could he be?”

“Wish I knew.” Amy opened her door. “Wish I knew.”

“No one would hurt a dog, would they?” Trish finally voiced the thought that had been flitting around in her head.

“I hope not.”

The answer didn’t sound convincing.

Trish spent the next half hour calling some of the neighbors to ask if they’d seen the dog. The phone rang and rang at Rhonda’s. Brad answered on the second ring.

“Sure I’ll help call,” he said. “Want me to go out with you again?”

“Not right now. How about asking if anyone has a dog in heat? That’s the only thing I can think of that would get him to leave.”

“Sure will. Have you walked down by the creek and way out in the pastures?”

“Not really. He just never answered, so I figured he wasn’t there.”

“I’ll be over after I make these calls. You got a good flashlight?”

Trish hung up and leaned against the counter, staring out into the night without really seeing it. Where could he be?

She walked over to the refrigerator and took out a Diet Coke. “You want something to drink or anything?” The guilties grabbed her. Some kind of hostess she was.

Amy looked up from the notes she was writing. “No thanks—and, Trish, you don’t have to play the good hostess with me. I’m a member of the family, remember? I can help myself.”

Trish nodded. Where could Caesar be? She sipped her drink and went to stand at the sliding glass door. When she flipped on the light switch, her mother’s baskets of pink and purple fuschias sparkled with droplets of mist. Soon they would be put to sleep for the winter before the frost killed them.

Trish shuddered at the thought of being put to sleep. She slid open the door and stepped out on the deck, staying under the overhang of the house to keep dry.

Country silence filled the crisp, damp air. Listening hard, she caught the tinkle of runoff in the downspouts. A breeze sent droplets cascading from the fir trees and plopping on the ground.

Trish held her breath. What had she heard?

“Caesar?” She waited again. Had it been a whine?

She whistled, three tones pleading for an answer. She held her breath, concentrating everything she had on listening.

The sound came again, weak, distant, sad.

Trish flung open the door and grabbed the high-powered battery light from its nest plugged into the wall. “Amy, I think I heard something.” Out the door, down the steps, and around the deck, quartering the ground with the intensive beam, Trish searched each shadow and cranny.

Down on her hands and knees she flashed the light underneath the deck. “Caesar? That you, fella?”

A faint whimper seemed to come from the back corner.

“You hear that?” Trish asked as Amy crouched down beside her. The sound came again.

“Yes. Can we get under there?” Amy leaped to her feet. “I’ve got another flashlight in the car. And a tarp to pull him out on.”

“Go tell Patrick. He might be able to help us.”

As soon as Amy left, Trish concentrated again on the sounds from under the deck. A whimper came in response to her gentle, “Caesar? You under there? What’s happened to you?”

She edged underneath, digging in with her elbows to pull herself forward. When she tried to use her knees, she bumped her butt on the cedar joist above her. “Ouch.” She flashed the light again but still couldn’t see her dog.

Laying her cheek flat on the cold, damp ground, she scanned the beam under the low-lying joists. One red eye reflected back at her. “Good dog, Caesar. I’m coming.” Caesar huddled three joists over.

Trish back-crawled as fast as she could, paying no attention to bumps and muddy spots.

“You found him?” Amy met her as Trish stood upright again.

“Yes, he’s back in the corner.” Trish dropped to her knees again at the right joist. “There’s no room for two to work under there. I’ll go back with the tarp, roll him onto it, and then pull it out, I guess.”

“We’ll use this rope to help pull. You think he’ll let you handle him?”

Trish paused for only a moment. “Of course. He’s my dog.”

“Ye found him then, lass?” Patrick joined them.

“Uh-huh. Pray for us, Patrick.” Trish shoved the tarp under the wooden frame and crawled after it. “I’m coming, old man. Hang on.”

“Here, I can help you from this side.” Amy elbowed into the adjoining crawl space, pushing her light ahead of her, just like Trish. Matching grunts marked their progress as they dug in their elbows and pulled themselves forward. “Ugh, I hate spider webs.”

The smell of wet earth filled Trish’s nostrils and clogged her throat. Her jerking light reflected off the beams above her and glistened on the wet slime covering the bare ground. No eyes reflected back from the dog she knew lay ahead.

“Caesar, fella, you okay?”

Only the panting of her partner broke the stillness. “Can you see him?” Amy’s voice seemed almost in her ear.

“Not yet. Never realized how big this deck really is.”

“Or how hard belly crawling under this decking would be.”

“There he is.” Trish dug and pulled faster, almost crawling over the tarp in her eagerness. The muddy form ahead of her never moved. “Caesar?”

She swallowed the bite of fear stinging her throat and causing tears to blur her vision. “Caesar, please fella, hang in there. We’re coming for you.” She shoved the tarp next to him and inched across it to lay her hand over his ribs.

She clamped her teeth on her bottom lip.
God please.
His matted fur lay still. She pressed harder. There under her fingers a faint heartbeat. “He’s alive—barely.”

“Okay, can you see any blood?”

Trish flashed the light over the inert dog. “No. Just dirt, like he’s crawled a long way.”

With trembling fingers she spread the tarp, accepting the help Amy provided from under the cedar joist. “Ouch.” She only acknowledged the bang on her head with the word while she slid her fingers under Caesar’s shoulders.

“I’ve got his hindquarters. Now on three, we’ll pull him onto the tarp.” Amy reached as far as her shoulders. “This would be a good time to have basketball-player arms.” She clenched the matted fur. “Okay—one, two, three.”

Together they heaved. Trish banged her head against the cedar boards above her and ended up with her nose buried in Caesar’s muddy shoulder. He didn’t move. She scrunched backward. “Okay, you ready? We’ll go again. One, two, three.”

Caesar lay on his side on the tarp. Trish laid her face against his muzzle while she caught her breath. A warm tongue flicked the side of her cheek.

“He’s alive. Come on, Patrick, pull.” Trish scrambled backward as fast as her knees and elbows permitted, trying to keep ahead of the sliding tarp.

“I’ve got your flashlight.” Once out Amy pushed herself into a kneeling position at the same moment as Trish. “How is he?”

“He can’t lift his head but he licked my cheek. We call him the fastest tongue in the West.” Trish grabbed the corners of the tarp. “Come on, let’s get him to the truck.”

“Marge has the van running. She already called the vet.” Patrick hefted along with the two women and together they lugged the heavy body around the house and up to the open back doors of the van.

“Dr. Bradshaw will meet us at the office.” Marge gave Trish a boost so she could follow the dog into the van. “Amy, you coming?”

“I’ll ride back here with Trish.” Amy clambered onto the carpet. Patrick slammed the doors at the same time Marge closed hers, and she immediately set the van in motion.

“Can you feel any broken bones or anything?” Amy joined Trish in probing the dog’s legs and spine.

“No. This doesn’t make sense. He was fine this morning, so unless he was hit on the road…”

Amy smoothed her fingers over the dog’s grimacing lips, revealing teeth in pale gums. “See the way his head is pulled back?”

“Then what could it be?” Trish wiped her drippy nose on her sleeve. “Come on, fella, hang in there.” She grabbed the carpeted wheel well for support as her mother swung around a corner.

“Trish, could he have eaten anything—anything that—”

“Like what? He got into a salmon years ago and nearly died from salmon poisoning—” Trish bit off her sentence. “Poisoning. Do you think he’s been poisoned? Who would poison a dog like Caesar?”

“Could he have gotten into something for coyotes or some such?”

“No one poisons coyotes around here.” She could feel the fear clamping off her wind, raising her voice to a shriek.

“We’re here, Tee. There’s Dr. Bradshaw.”

Trish had the back doors open even before the van came to a complete stop. She and Amy leaped to the ground at the same instant and turned to lift the muddy blue tarp, easing the dog over the bumper.

“Right through here.” Bradshaw held open the door to his surgery.

Trish blinked against the glare when they sidestepped through the doorway and down the hall, the heavy-laden tarp slung between them.

“Up on the table.” He took one corner of the tarp and Marge another. “On three—one, two, three.” Together they laid the limp form on the stainless steel examining table. The overhead light glared down, highlighting each clump of mud-clotted fur. Eyes closed, his breathing so shallow it failed to lift his ribs, Caesar lay unconscious.

Trish gently stroked his muzzle, whispering encouragement. She watched the vet apply the stethoscope to the once snowy chest. He moved it under the front leg.

“He’s still alive, but barely. From the looks of him, I’d say poison. Let’s get an IV started and then I’ll draw some blood. See if we can figure out what they used.”

Trish held the leg as the vet clipped the hair and swabbed a pink patch. While her body did what he requested, her mind bombarded the gates of heaven for her dog.

An hour later Caesar opened his eyes and whimpered deep in his throat. Trish heard him only because she stood crouched over the table by his head. The tip of his tail whisked an inch on the metal surface.

“Easy, old man,” she whispered around the knot in her throat. “You’re gonna make it; you gotta.” She smoothed the short hairs back in front of his ears.

“We’ll put him back in a kennel now,” the vet said while applying the stethoscope again. “He sounds stronger. The next twenty-four hours will tell the tale.”

“Can’t we take him home? I’ll watch him real careful.” Trish kept her eyes on the collie. She knew if she looked up at the vet, she’d cry.

“Trish, you know he’s better off here in case he needs emergency procedures.” Dr. Bradshaw laid a hand on her shoulder. “I promise to take good care of him.”

“I—I know.” She stroked the top of Caesar’s head, doing her best to tell her dog how much she loved him in the language he knew best. “You don’t think someone poisoned him deliberately”—she raised her gaze to meet the doctor’s and swallowed—“do you?”

Chapter
06

D
r. Bradshaw nodded his head. “I’m afraid I do.”

“Maybe he got into some rat poisoning…or…or coyote bait, or…” Trish couldn’t think of anything else.

“But you say he never leaves the farm. Have you put out any such substances?”

Trish shook her head.

“Then I imagine it was doctored meat left where he would find it. He didn’t eat very much or he’d have been dead for sure.”

“But—but why? Why a dog? He never hurt anybody!” Trish tore her gaze from the vet’s and swung around to find Amy studying her, compassion evident in her blue eyes.

“Parks will come by in the morning for a statement. I think—I’m afraid this was a warning.” Amy shook her head. “And maybe this was accidental. As soon as the lab analyzes the bloodwork we’ll know what we’re up against. At this point we have to cover all the possibilities. My job is to keep you safe, Trish.” She turned back to the vet. “Will there be someone here all night?”

The doctor nodded.

“Good then, let’s move him and we’ll head home.”

Together they hoisted the tarp and, with Marge carrying the intravenous bag, transported Caesar back to the kennels. Dr. Bradshaw transferred the dog to the wire cage, laying him on some shredded newspaper. He hung the IV pouch on the door and stepped back so Trish could tell Caesar good-night.

Trish bit her lip to keep the tears from taking over. “You do what he says now, you hear, old boy?” Caesar sighed but didn’t open his eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She dropped a kiss on his muzzle and stepped back so the vet could close the cage.

“You’ll call us if…” She couldn’t say the words. He
had
to get better.

“Of course. But I think we’re on the right track.”

Trish dashed the backs of her fingers across her eyes. “Thanks.”