Ten Little Bloodhounds (17 page)

“Not enough to matter. Ready to find your plane?”

“I sure am,” he replied.

I looked him over. He had on fatigues and boots, with the pants tucked in tight. I reached into the van and pulled out a rescue suit, holding it out to him.

“No thanks, it looks hot. I’ll be fine.”

“I wasn’t offering you a choice,” I said. “Put it on. It deflects blackthorn barbs and snake fangs. It’s supposed to be bulletproof, but only for small-caliber rounds. I don’t think it will deflect a forty-ought-six rifle cartridge or a steel arrow, but at least it lets them know you’re not a deer, if they bother to scope your movement before they fire. Personally, I wouldn’t stand in the middle of the Woodpecker Route road, which is forty feet wide, with camouflage markings like you’re
wearing for a million bucks. We
want
them to see us, we don’t want to hide.”

“Hunters wear camouflage,” he protested mildly.

“And get shot with increasing frequency. I’ll make you a deal. You don’t tell me how to conduct a search in the Okefenokee, and I won’t tell you how to fly a plane safely back to your base.”

“Low blow.”

“I thought you were in the Air Force. Don’t they teach you how to follow orders without question?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, adopt the same procedure here. I want to pull a Frank Buck, and ‘Bring ’em back alive!’”

“Yes, ma’am!” He executed a snappy salute.

“That’s better,” I said with satisfaction.

After I pulled out, I started telling him the rules.

“You walk behind me and don’t wander off of the trail. Watch for snakes. They feed at night, and continue until full daylight. They sometimes hang from low limbs and thick brush. Don’t brush against anything if you can avoid it.

“After the dew dries from the foliage they are less of a threat. When you walk in water, drag your feet slowly, and don’t make splashing noises. It attracts alligators.”

“You’re kidding, aren’t you?” He looked uncertain.

“About the snakes?” I was being deliberately obtuse.

“Alligators,” he replied with a grimace. “They wouldn’t attack us, would they?”

“Only if they’re hungry and puppies and piglets aren’t available, and they’re always hungry,” I
answered wryly. “Don’t you view scary swamp movies?”

“Not if I can help it,” he replied.

I laughed.

“Did you bring a scent article?”

“Sure. Have it right in my pocket.” He patted his chest.

“Let’s go over the procedure on how you collected it,” I suggested.

“I put on thin rubber gloves, reached way down into the rag bin, and grabbed a handful of waste that hadn’t been handled. I dabbed it on a small oil spill, and then poured jet fuel on it. I quickly closed it up in a Ziploc storage bag, and sealed it.”

“You did good. This is what I’ll let Stanley sniff, so he will know what smell he is seeking. If you had touched it with your bare hands, he would have smelled your scent and pointed you out, thinking he had done his job. Stanley has a lazy bone or two in his body. He likes to knock off early.”

“I thought bloodhounds were trained to find people by smelling their body odor.”

“That’s true, and I wouldn’t have even attempted to have one of my other mantrailers smell oil or jet fuel to find a plane, but Stanley is different. He was first started as an arson dog. Rosie, a former employee of mine, handled him, and became impatient because he acted lazy, and didn’t pay much attention.

“I switched him to drug work, and he picked it up fast. A while back, I had him on a drug sweep when he alerted on a lunch box, which contained no drugs, but was a homemade bomb. He has a ‘scent memory’ for several
types of fuel. It’s a rare gift. Only one other dog I’ve ever trained has this talent, but his is with human scent.”

“Does Stanley bite?” I saw him glance back and eye Stanley briefly.

“No. Bloodhounds are gentle and are not trained as guard or attack dogs. He would lick a burglar in the face if he were breaking in.”

“Ugh!”

“A little slobber won’t hurt you. Just say to yourself, this is the dog that’s gonna try to find my plane. That should make him look a lot better to you.

“Another thing I forgot to mention. Be careful to watch where you are stepping. Avoid fire ant beds and a leafy path. The ant beds could collapse, and leaves can hide vines and armadillo holes. If you turn an ankle, I’ll have to drag you out on the rescue sled. It wouldn’t be any fun for either of us.”

“I’ve heard that some people who live here eat those animals.”

“Armadillos are big in Texas. They have hunts, and barbecues. Some people like them around here. I had two brothers that cleaned ten for me once. The meat is supposed to taste like rabbit. I cooked the meat for safety. Had it ground, and mixed five pounds of pork shoulder with it, then mixed it with dog food.

“I had this plan that would cut my meat bill in half. Not a single bloodhound ate it, even ground with pork. I’ve been told that no breed of dog will eat it. I decided that any meat that a dog won’t eat would never appear on my menu.”

“Nor on mine,” he agreed.

I was driving down the Woodpecker Route, checking
out the street signs without slowing my speed from thirty miles per hour. It was the best speed to navigate this road. It was forty feet in width and alternated from soft, deep white sand to hard-packed red clay. This is our dry season and the rains would start soon. When dry like it is now, the deep ruts from logging trucks become hills and deep valleys of slippery shifting sand. Meet a deep rut head on and the sand would jerk the wheel and try to slide you sideways into a deep ditch.

I had to slow often to keep the van on the road. This road compared to a wide boulevard in the city. Small three-path roads radiated like spokes from a wheel in every direction. Some were so narrow that you had less than a foot tolerance on each side of the tires, and this slim margin of safety could have deep washed-out gullies. Hit one of those babies wrong, and you usually deposit two wheels in a ditch.

North Florida county roads, now all sporting signs, had been labeled sensibly with numbers. So when you’re far out in the boonies and you chance upon 145th Street NE, you can reasonably assume that the next parallel road would be 144th or 146th, depending on which direction you are driving. Not so with South Georgia. They kept the old names that people called the roads, whatever that might be.

I was passing signs with Big Gator Road, Cow House Lane, Pineland Bluff, and Pokey Spillway. I couldn’t wait to see the road map they would produce. They may get it correct in the next millennium.

Bumping along on a small three-path road named Bees and Bears, I spoke to the captain.

“I could ask you if anything looks familiar, but it would be laughable to think you could recognize where we are. We have almost arrived at our jumping-off place.”

“I haven’t a clue. I couldn’t even find my way back to civilization driving this van. You lost me after nine or so turns. If it weren’t for the sun, I wouldn’t even know which direction we are currently traveling. It sure looks different from down here than it does from up there.”

“Captain, you have said a mouthful quite succinctly.”

“Please call me Evan.”

“Fine, I’m Jo Beth. And Evan, we have arrived.”

I
had pulled just past a turnaround and stopped.

“Evan, are you in shape; do you have a regular routine of exercise?” I asked as we both exited the van.

“I do some isometrics, run a few laps on a cinder track at the base from time to time, nothing elaborate.”

I was glad he wasn’t trying to pass himself off as an athlete. You’d be surprised how many males standing at the start of a search would lie through their teeth about their physical condition.

“I’m afraid you’re gonna think I’m a direct descendant of the Marquis de Sade before we return to the van.”

“I’ve been dreading this since yesterday. At least I’m in better shape to hike than I was two weeks ago, I still have some fading bruises to prove it. I landed in a pine tree and snapped off several limbs on my way to the ground.”

He helped me unload two backpacks, the rifle, two machetes, and four water bottles. I pulled the zipper of my jumpsuit to my waist, pulled up my T-shirt, and untied the large red bandanna I had fastened around my middle. I carefully placed it in a closed Baggie and tucked it under the driver’s seat of the van.

Evan watched my actions with fascination. He had seen the .32 snub-nose in its holster, and was curious about the bandanna. “Why did you do that?”

“It’s a precaution I hope is never needed. If we don’t return in the allotted time, Jasmine, my assistant, rides to the rescue.”

“The bandanna?”

“I’ve worn it since I dressed this morning to place my scent on it. Jasmine lets the bloodhound smell it, and he mantrails right to us.”

“I’d think he knows your scent already.”

“All of them do, but we don’t speak bloodhound and bloodhounds don’t speak English. How else can she tell him she wants him to find me?”

“Makes sense.”

“Bloodhounds are smarter than we think. Sometimes when we ask them to find us, they think we’re pulling a prank and pay us back by racing to find the first available coon.”

Evan laughed.

“When we’re getting the dogs certified in field trials, it’s a bad thing for a bloodhound to anticipate and reason. Some judges lay out a ridiculously easy trail over open ground for beginners. The smart bloodhounds can tell the person they are tracking is moving in a circle, and sometimes they leave the trail, take a short cut, and find their target’s scent by cutting straight across the
field and picking up the scent again. They are immediately disqualified. They don’t get their certificate for being bright, they have to correctly follow the scent to qualify.”

He acted reluctant about mentioning the gun. He took a breath and decided to ask.

“Do you normally carry a handgun with you when you search?”

“Yes. The twenty-two rifle is for snakes, the thirty-two is for snakes-in-the-grass.”

He didn’t look satisfied with my answer. I walked to Stanley’s cage, where he was restlessly whining, wanting to get started. I attached his long lead and wrapped the short lead around my waist.

“Unload.” I patted the floor of his enclosure. He didn’t need any urging. He bailed out, ready to go to work. He cheerfully danced in circles, anticipating action.

“You really enjoy working with them, don’t you?”

“It’s all I’ve wanted to do since I was ten years old.”

I dug the radio out of my backpack to call Jasmine.

“We have fun with our radio call handles. Promise not to laugh.”

“Viper to Mirage. Over.”

Upon hearing the names, Evan’s eyes widened and he started grinning.

“Viper to Mirage. Over,” I repeated.

“Don’t get worried if I can’t make her hear me, these woods out here are spooky on radio transmissions. Sometimes it won’t work here, and will connect a quarter of a mile down the road.”

“Mirage to Viper, you’re breaking up, over.”

Jasmine had heard me, but the words weren’t clear.

“Viper to Mirage, B&B, two-tenths, left hide. I repeat. B&B, two-tenths, left hide. Convey back. Over.”

“Mirage to Viper. B&B, two-tenths, left hide. Over and out.”

“Viper to Mirage. Out.”

She had received and understood our location. It was a load off my mind.

Evan was amused. “Are you French?”

“No, I just know they think their Mirage outclasses your Viper.”

Evan chuckled derisively. “They’re wrong. Why do you use code?”

“We try to keep our transmissions both cryptic and brief. We’ve been hassled enough by hunters who patrol their leases all during the year, but during hunting season they go ballistic when they catch us in their territory. We try to keep our location secret. We don’t wish to have rabid hunters finding the van or us. It isn’t healthy.”

“But why should they care if you’re searching for something out here? They only lease the hunting rights, and you’re not shooting their deer or turkeys, are you?”

“Not hardly. They are very territorial. The lease rent makes them act as if the land has been in their family for five generations. It’s a very large county and we’re virtually isolated from everyone. It would be easy to have a ‘tragic hunting accident’ out here. I told Jasmine we are on Bees and Bears Road, two-tenths of a mile in, and the van is hidden on the left.”

Evan was shocked. “Are you telling me that they
might physically harm you, for just being out here?”

“There have been several incidents in the past.” I was choosing my words carefully. “Why take chances?”

I didn’t tell him about the suspicious shooting last year of a local man, found dead near an unclaimed deer stand. The rumor, couched in Southern lingo, “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” seemed to be true. I didn’t doubt it, and also didn’t expect the shooting to be solved.

“You have to hide the van?”

“It’s either that or a ruined paint job, broken windows and windshield, burned-out shell, or possibly riddled with bullet holes.”

“They can be arrested, and could go to jail! You would prosecute if they did something like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Evan, within a twenty-five mile radius of where we stand, over one hundred shotguns and three hundred powerful rifles are in sweaty palms or a truck’s gun rack. Who would you have me file charges against? Anyone I could ID would have twelve hunting buddies to testify he was fifty miles away, or that he didn’t leave Jacksonville all week.”

Shaking his head, Evan disagreed.

“I can’t believe this area can be so lawless, it allows these things to happen.”

“The DEA, FBI, GBI, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms would disagree with you, and they have the statistics to prove it. Don’t fret, we should be perfectly safe. I’ve been doing this for almost four years now, and I haven’t permanently lost
anyone I’ve brought in here with me.”

“That’s good,” he murmured. He didn’t seem reassured by my statement.