Tahoe Payback Page 4

  “Whatever you want,” I said.

  “So I want to get serious about the self-defense training.”

  “Anytime,” I said. “Let’s start now. Right here.”

  “I can’t. I have a phone appointment in half an hour, and I’m still not fully prepared. But maybe this evening would work if you’re free.”

  “I’ll be at the cabin. In fact, I’m overdue for some obedience work with Spot. So maybe we’ll dive into some bite training while we wait for you.”

  “Bite training?” she said. “That sounds ominous.”

  “If the training works, it’s very ominous for anyone on the receiving end.”

  “Okay. I’ll call when I’m ready to come up the mountain.”

  We kissed again, and we got the dogs in from the woods, and Spot and I left.

  FIVE

  S pot and I were beginning his bite training at my cabin when the phone rang. I answered it.

  Street said, “I stopped home at my condo, and I’ll be up the mountain soon. Is there anything I should bring or wear?” She sounded tense.

  “You okay?” I said.

  “Yes. I… It’s just that once again, I got that uncomfortable feeling.”

  “Someone following you in your car?” I asked.

  “No. More like when I got home and parked and got out with Blondie, I had the feeling that someone was watching me from the forest behind my condo building.”

  “But you didn’t see anything specific,” I said.

  “No. I didn’t peer into the woods, either. Of course, I want to know if he’s out there. It would be better if he doesn’t know I’m on my guard. If he comes at me and I surprise him with my preparation, then I’ll have a better chance, right? But if he thinks I’m being very careful, he’ll be less likely to make a mistake. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes. Unless you can lock yourself up in a castle that no one can get into, your best approach is exactly what you say. Be as prepared as possible for any eventuality, but don’t telegraph that. Be casual and let him think it will be easy to attack you. By the time we’re done training, he’ll get the surprise of his life.”

  Street didn’t say anything for a moment. “Should I wear anything in particular? My workout sweats or something?”

  “No. We want you in your everyday clothes and shoes. Any moves you learn to make need to feel familiar and comfortable in your standard clothes, both your lab clothes and your business suits. So choose one approach for this evening, and then you can choose something else for our next session.”

  “Okay. It’ll be a few minutes before I get out of here.”

  “No problem. His Largeness and I are working on a lesson called Grab The Weapon Hand. But, of course, we’ll quit when you get here.”

  “Perfect. See you soon.”

  “Street?”

  “What?”

  “Be very careful. Your sense that someone is watching could just be nerves as you suggest. But he could be in the trees outside your condo as we speak.”

  “Got it.”

  “I love you,” I said.

  “Thanks. I need you to.” She hung up.

  I turned back to Spot.

  “Okay, boy. Ready for a go?”

  He looked at my right front pocket where I had stashed jerky.

  I pulled on the custom dog-bite sleeves with leather-wrapped plastic gauntlet and hand protection extensions and showed them to Spot. He understood that this meant he could chomp down on me, something he did with disturbing enthusiasm. When a 170-pound dog bites hard, it is a bone-crushing force. Only the integrity of the sleeve keeps your arm in one piece.

  I put my hands behind my back, backed up to the kitchen counter, and felt blindly among the weapons I’d assembled. I had two knives, which I’d chosen because they had the dullest edges of any in the rack. I also had an equally dull, 18-inch-long, Civil War bayonet without the rifle, a large scissors with rounded points, a leather-covered sap, a Taser, my old revolver with the broken firing pin, and the miniature baseball bat.

  I got the fingertips of my right hand around the leather sap. Leaving my left hand behind my back, I shouted, “Weapon Hand!” as I swung my right arm around and up.

  Spot reacted in an instant. His head snapped upward, and his jaws clamped shut around the sap. He jerked it out of my hand, and chomped it repeatedly, no doubt enjoying the feel and scent of the old leather.

  “No, boy, you don’t grab the weapon. You grab the arm with the weapon.” I held out my arm and pointed to it.

  Then I reached for the sap. He held tight.

  “C’mon, Largeness. You want a treat, you gotta play by the rules.”

  He glanced at my pocket, munched down on the sap one last time, then tossed it on the floor.

  I picked it up, wiped the saliva off on my jeans, and put it back on the counter.

  I backed up to the table and, once again working by feel behind my back, picked up the same sap again but with my left hand.

  I shouted the command, “Weapon Hand!” My arm came around fast, sap raised high.

  Spot snapped his head up again. This time his jaws clamped around my forearm. He bit down hard. Even through the bite sleeve and padding, I could tell I’d be bruised tomorrow.

  I let go of the sap. It fell to the floor. I reached out with my foot and pulled it back.

  “Okay, Spot, let go of my wrist.” He did, reluctantly enough that he maybe liked biting me. “Good boy!” I pulled out a bit of jerky and tossed it to him. He snapped it out of the air. A string of saliva did back flips on its arc toward the far wall. I flexed my left wrist, hoping it wasn’t damaged. I’d know better after I removed the sleeve and heavy padding.

  “Let’s do it again, Largeness. This time, I’ll pull out both hands at the same time, so you’ll have to notice which hand has the weapon.”

  I knew Spot wouldn’t understand what I meant. But I hoped he’d get the sense that he had to pay attention. Spot was looking at the pocket where I kept the jerky. Like all students, he could appear enthusiastic about learning if the reward was tasty enough. But like most students, he would never get accepted at the doggie equivalent of an Ivy League school. He was more street smart than book smart.

  I put my arms behind my back and moved up against the counter. With my right hand, I picked up the Taser. If it were charged, it could deliver 50,000 volts, enough to paralyze man or animal. If it had a compressed air cartridge, it could shoot two sharp darts deep into flesh and deliver its incapacitating shock. But its battery was discharged, and the cartridge was removed.

  “Weapon hand!” I shouted as I brought both arms out, the Taser held high in my right hand.

  Spot did the head snap, and grabbed my left wrist with what seemed like vengeance. Probably, he was newly motivated by his love of jerky.

  “The other hand, Spot.” I waved the Taser with my right hand. “This hand!”

  Spot was still chomping down on my left arm. He looked, let go of my left hand and lunged for the right, biting down hard on my wrist.

  The padding and plastic protection kept his fangs from piercing my flesh and bones, but the pressure was like I imagined if I got my hand caught in a hydraulic press. I could only imagine what it would be like if he bit down really hard.

  “Good boy! You’ve got the chops, dude.” I threw him another piece of jerky.

  On the next try, I grabbed the old revolver in my left hand.

  “Weapon hand!” I brought my hands out faster than before, trying to make them a blur.

  Spot grabbed my lower left arm with such a violent motion that the gun flew out of my hand. It bounced across the floor and hit the wood stove with the solid clank of metal on metal.

  “Good boy, Spot!”

  I heard a knock at the door.

  Spot never took his eyes off my pocket.

  I gave him a piece, he swallowed, then turned to the door and made a deep woof, his tail wagging.

  The door opened and Blondie rushed in, jumping u
p against Spot’s side, making little squealing sounds, spinning in circles just as she had at Street’s lab a couple of hours before. Spot turned, too, swatting at Blondie, his paw on her back.

  “Outside, Spot.” I pointed at the open door. The dogs raced out.

  “How’s the new training gig going?” Street said as she stared at my arms swaddled in padded bite sleeves. In contrast, she was wearing a sleeveless top despite the cool weather at my cabin’s elevation of 7200 feet. But Street had a superlative metabolism that was sufficient to keep her warm with very little help from clothing.

  I bent down to give her a kiss. “It’s amazing what a hound will do for dried, salted beef.”

  “What’s the training?”

  “I pull my arms out from behind my back. In one of them, I have a surprise weapon. I shout, ‘Weapon Hand!’ and he is supposed to grab the hand with the weapon, causing the attacker to be immobilized or maybe drop it or cry ‘uncle.’”

  “You said ‘supposed to.’ Does that mean that he doesn’t always grab the correct hand?”

  “Right. It depends on how focused he is on the jerky. Too much focus, and his brain turns to mush, and he can’t keep his eyes off my jerky pocket. Too little focus and…” I paused. “Now that I think of it, he never has too little focus on jerky.”

  “If his focus is just right,” Street said, “he grabs the hand with the weapon?”

  “Pretty much. Although sometimes he grabs the weapon instead of the hand.”

  “Do you think you’ll ever be in a situation where you can give him that command?”

  “Probably not. But maybe it comes in handy someday. More likely, it gets him paying attention to what I say.”

  “So he can get some jerky,” Street said.

  “Yeah.”

  Street paused as if thinking.

  “What are you thinking?” I said.

  “It’s just that this training seems static. Like it’s all about someone who is just standing there, and they suddenly pull out a weapon, and Spot just happens to be nearby. So you shout, and he grabs the person’s arm.”

  “You’re thinking that people would normally be moving when all this happens,” I said.

  “Right. The bad guy might be running toward you or running away. He’d pull out a weapon. Spot would be moving, too. So it would all have to happen on the run.”

  “Good point. Okay, we’ll do a test with me running.” I went to the door, put my thumb and forefinger in my mouth and made the whistle that means treats.

  Ten seconds later, the dogs emerged from the forest across the road. Blondie was still out front. Spot closed in. Blondie dodged to the left, then shot to the right and went back into the trees. Spot tried to follow. But like a big truck, he had to make a larger arc, and he was once again far behind.

  “Hey, Largeness.”

  Spot made another turn, this one on track to bring him on a large, fast curve toward us.

  I held a piece of jerky in the air. He charged up to me and made a quick stop. He was panting hard, giant tongue dangling, the tip doing the little flip motion, flicking drops of saliva into the air. I tossed the piece to him. His teeth clicked as he chomped down.

  Blondie watched from a distance as if she understood that the jerky treat was some kind of unspoken communication taking place between the large man and the large dog. Her wariness suggested that she sensed that running into the scene might be dangerous.

  “Okay, Spot, Street thinks that our training should be dramatized by movement.”

  Spot stared at me with focused eyes and ears, trying to divine any hint of where and when the next jerky treat would appear.

  “Street?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “For this exercise, you should come here and hold his collar.”

  “Okay.” She walked over and got a firm grip on it.

  “You’ll hold him in place while I take one of the weapons and run across the road. You should give his chest a shake to get him excited. You’ve seen how I do it.” I turned and looked across the road toward the forest, gauging distances. “When I reach the pavement, drop your hand next to his head as you’ve seen me do.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “You shout out, ‘Find the suspect.’ Then give him a fast pat on his rear. He’ll probably take off running toward me. Because he knows it’s me, he’ll probably be running more for play and jerky than for a suspect takedown. Nevertheless, I’ve still got on my bite sleeves, which he knows are okay to chomp on. I’m thinking that if I time it correctly, I can shout out ‘Weapon hand’ as I lift up the weapon. Perhaps, he’ll understand that this exercise is like before only with me running.”

  “Owen, I’m not sure this is a good idea. Now that I’m visualizing this, it seems like you could get hurt. What if he doesn’t bite on your bite sleeve?”

  “I suppose it’s possible, but so far he’s been very good at understanding the difference between where my body is protected and where it isn’t. Plus, he never bites down very hard. It’s like he understands that this is all an exercise. So I’m not worried.”

  “You’re sure?” Street said.

  “No, I’m never sure. But that’s what I think. And I think your thought that the exercise should include movement is smart.”

  “Okay. But I don’t want to think that my idea led to an injury.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  Street looked skeptical.

  “Okay, Spot,” I said. “You hang with Street and come for me when she gives you the okay.”

  I went inside, got the revolver with the missing firing pin, and brought it outside. “Ready?” I said to Street.

  “Yes, I guess so.”

  “Give him the command when I get to the road.”

  “Got it,” she said.

  “When he sees me run, that will make him excited. But give him the chest shake anyway to get him more primed.”

  Street kept hold of his collar with one hand, then tried to vibrate his chest with her other. “Okay, Spot! You’re going to take the gun from the big bad guy! Are you ready, Spot?!”

  “I’m off,” I said. I sprinted away, across the little front yard of my cabin and toward the road.

  I heard Street shout, “Find the suspect, Spot! Take his weapon!”

  I sensed the sound of paws and claws scraping the dirt as he ran after me. I kept the revolver at my chest so he couldn’t see which hand held it. I ran fast. I knew Spot could run maybe twice as fast as my fastest sprint. It wouldn’t take him more than a few seconds to catch me. I kept my head turned sideways so I could see his approach in my peripheral vision. As I got to the center of the road, I sensed he was almost on me. Holding the revolver in my left hand I swung my left arm out and up. I shouted, “Weapon hand!”

  In an instant, I felt his jaws clamp down on the bite sleeve that covered my left arm. For a tiny moment I was very pleased that Spot had done exactly as I wanted. But in an additional, equally tiny moment, I realized that his high-speed motion had transferred from his jaws into my arm.

  I also realized that Spot was probably going 30 miles per hour when he grabbed onto my arm. By comparison, I was relatively stationary. He’d leaped into the air as he chomped down onto the bite sleeve. His fast motion made him fly past me, the drag of my arm in his mouth spinning him around 180 degrees. When his motion reached the limit of spinning him around, it jerked me forward off my feet and into the air. The fact that I outweigh his 170 pounds by an additional 45 seemed not to matter. The huge difference in our speeds made him the sling and me the projectile being whipsawed around. I was jerked off my feet, lifted up, and thrown forward at high speed. Spot let go as I flew past him on an upward arc, over the far edge of the road.

  My curve crested, then crashed down, and I landed well off the road. My shoulder plowed into a tree, my chest thumped hard enough to knock much of the air out of my lungs, and I came to rest face down in the dirt and pine needles.

  In a moment, I sensed Spot sni
ffing and poking with his nose, full of excitement over this new game.

  “Owen! My God, Owen!” Street called out as she ran toward me. She knelt at my side. “Are you okay? Are you alive?” I felt her touch the back of my head and neck.

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  Street rubbed my back, bent down and kissed my temple. “I never dreamed that would happen!” she said. “I couldn’t believe how fast Spot was going when he locked onto your arm. It was like you were shot out of a catapult.”

  “Yes, it kind of felt like that.”

  “Do you think your bones are broken?”

  “No, I’m fine.” I pushed up from the dirt.

  Spot was excited and happy. Wagging his tail.

  “He wants to do it all over again,” I said.

  Fifteen minutes later, I was sitting in my rocker. I’d pulled off the bite sleeves. Touched enough body parts here and there to establish that I was still in one piece. Street had gotten me a beer. The passage of time made some of my body parts much more sore. The beer made other parts more comfortable.

  The dogs were lying on the floor.

  “After those gymnastics, you gave him more jerky,” Street said, looking at Spot who was quickly moving toward sleep.

  “Reward for a job well done,” I said.

  “His focus on food that’s bad for him reminds me of you.”

  “Ah. But jerky has the all-important salt and preservative nutrients and is chewy as a bonus.”

  “But he doesn’t chew.”

  “Yes, there’s that. Anyway, to Spot, I’m just the food caterer. So I need to focus on which junk food helps most with obedience. I’m pretty sure my dog training wouldn’t be as successful using broccoli as a treat.”

  Street made a dismissive grunt. Despite the sunset hour, she was still not wearing any wrap over her sleeveless shirt. I reached out toward her and touched a fingertip to her bare shoulder and traced the ins and outs of firm, thin muscles.

  “Any more sense of anyone watching you as you came up the mountain road?” I asked.