That Dog Won't Hunt Read online

  THAT DOG

  WON'T

  HUNT

  THAT DOG

  WON'T

  HUNT

  LOU ALLIN

  Copyright © 2010 Lou Allin

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Allin, Lou, 1945-

  That dog won’t hunt / written by Lou Allin.

  (Rapid reads)

  Issued also in an electronic format.

  ISBN 978-1-55469-339-9

  I. Title. II. Series: Rapid reads

  PS8551.l5564t43 2010 C813’.6 C2010-903657-3

  First published in the United States, 2010

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2010929176

  Summary: A drifter takes a job at a hunting lodge in Northern Ontario, with the expectation of a big payday for the summer’s work. But when the eccentric owner decides to renege on her promises, she ends up dead. (RL 2.8)

  Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Design by Teresa Bubela

  Cover photography by Getty Images

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO Box 5626, Stn. B

  Victoria, BC Canada

  V8R 6S4 ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO Box 468

  Custer, WA USA

  98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  13 12 11 10 • 4 3 2 1

  To all the dogs that have enriched my life:

  Pebbles, Freya, Nikon, Friday, Shogun, Zia…

  and Bucky.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  T

  his mirage was made to order. A cherry-red Mustang Mach 1 sat by the side of the road in the Mojave Desert. Its hood was up. Waves of heat rolled off the asphalt like X-rays.

  My eyes were sore from squinting. One side of my throat was tickling the other. I took the last swig from a plastic gallon of water I’d bought at Twentynine Palms. Scored a three-pointer against a saguaro. The jug rolled like a tumbleweed. I had been hitching on I-10 east from LA. They might be looking for me on the Interstate, so I took this back road through the Sheephole Mountains toward Vegas. Hadn’t seen one damn car in an hour.

  Cowboy boots hate asphalt and sand. Fact is, they’re not big on walking, period. I hoisted my duffel over my shoulder and headed for the car. The sun beat down like honey. Too dry in the desert for sweat to even bead. Thank god it was April, not July.

  “Damn it to hell!” a rough voice yelled. The rear plate read Ontario. My mirage was near perfect. Canucks are helpful, and they’ll swallow hard-luck stories. Then the hood slammed down.

  A wiry woman, barely five feet, with a wide straw hat and sunglasses, puffed on a cigarillo. Female. Three for three. Leading with my “trust me” grin, I approached.

  “Where did you come from, cowboy?” she asked, tapping the ash and smiling with a plump red mouth. My boyish look makes women want to mother me.

  “A lady in distress?” I took a mock bow, sweeping off my hat. It was battered and stained from a beating I’d rather forget.

  Why was she out here alone? Where was she heading? Surely as far as Utah. Canada was way past that.

  “You look like a man who knows horses. How about Mustangs?”

  Smiling, I trailed a finger over the dust on the door. Hand-buffed and detailed. Someone loved it.

  “Let’s take a look.” Raising the matte black hood with that sexy scoop, I fixed the safety rod.

  She took off the hat and fanned herself. The cat’s-eye sunglasses made her look like Cher. Throaty laughter said hard years of liquor and tobacco.

  “It’s fate. Looks like we both took the wrong road. Nothing’s come along but a couple of vultures ready to pick my bones.” She pointed to a circling bird.

  “Shame to waste such pretty bones. Anyways, it’s a red hawk. You can tell by the whistle.” I reached in and turned the key to watch the gauges. “Not outta gas. Oil’s good. Not overheating. What happened to her?”

  She shrugged and flipped the plastic tip of the cigarillo toward the sagebrush. “Got herky-jerky at first. Nearly slowed to a stop.” She wore a white linen skirt and a floral blouse. Silk scarf around her neck. Like she’d come from a business meeting. Not many women could keep their cool alone in the desert.

  I tossed an appreciative glance just to let her know I noticed.

  “One thing’s sure, we gotta get out of here. Start her up.” I moved to the front.

  The engine caught right off. But instead of a purr, she sounded like she had the hiccups. Not in the starter then. No backfiring or pinging either. Dirty fuel line? I signaled to turn off the ignition. Sparkplug connections were good, carburetor flap moved easy. When I removed the distributor cap, I knew what was wrong.

  “More gas. But nice and easy. She’s talking.”

  Give Daddy a paper clip, a screwdriver, duct tape and a hose and he’d get anything with wheels moving. From my jeans pocket, I pulled a penknife with a bone handle. Then I exposed the points and scraped.

  “Try her now.” Listening, I held up a hand, and she read me loud and clear. The engine stopped. I scraped again. “She’s hurting but back in business.”

  The Mustang had enough life to get us to a town. The woman revved the motor.

  “You’re one damn miracle worker. I’d like to shake your hand, kind sir.”

  I took out my last handkerchief and cleaned my fingers. “Glad to help.”

  “I’m Gladys Ryan.” She had a firm grip, like she knew what she was doing. It’s a western thing. I’m all for being equal. Some women I’ve seen could ride and rope circles around me. Credit where credit’s due, and all that. She wore a real strange ring on her third finger, left hand. Like a cigar band, only colored metal.

  “Rick Cooper.”

  “Gary Cooper. Tall, dark and handsome.”

  “No relation, ma’am.” Mama used to like that dude. Another good sign.

  “Looks like we both caught a break. Hop in. You drive,” she said.

  I tossed my duffel into the trunk beside her set of fancy luggage marked YSL. Maybe it was secondhand. Then I eased into the seat and took the leather-wrapped wheel. Daddy always said to keep your hands at ten and two. Looking at the gearshift, I did a double take.

  “What the hell’s that?”

  She gave a little pound to the dash as she laughed. “That’s the future, if you get old enough. A steel hip joint.”

  “I’ve seen custom, but this beats all.” I found first and juiced the gas. I went through all five gears, double-clutching at the top to show off.

  Some fierce stink filled the car. “Oh, Christ. Bucky’s awake.”

  “Huh?” I hadn’t seen a kid. She was a bit old for that.

  “It’s my golden retriever in the backseat. You’d never know
he was there unless he wakes up for a meal. Then he farts up a storm.”

  Turns out Bucky was fifteen, old for the breed and on the deaf side. She and her husband had him from a pup. Retrievers weren’t my thing. Didn’t see the point of them. German shepherds, maybe. Good guard dogs earned their keep.

  Her tiny hand reached out to adjust the air conditioner. Blue veins. Not so young then. Maybe a rough fifty or a prime sixty. That could work in my favor.

  “The gearshift was my late husband George’s. He had a hip replacement and a wicked sense of humor.”

  “Uh-huh.” That explained the weird ring. Must’ve been a cheap bastard.

  “I do admire the car. She’s choice.” Fifty thousand miles on the odometer. Babied big-time for twenty years. “No rust neither. Saw your license. Don’t you have salt on the road up there?”

  “Kept it covered up inside all winter. Too light in the rear for traction. We used it only for special trips. George had a sister in San Diego. We went down once a year.” Her voice took on a sad tone. “I’m… coming back from her funeral.”

  “Sorry for your loss.”

  She shrugged and pooched out her lower lip. “She was eighty. When you gotta go…”

  “It’s not bad to go in California.”

  “You got that right. How’d you know that trick with the engine?” She reached into the backseat.

  “My daddy purely loved Mustangs. The ’65 classic, and then the ’70 like this one: 351 Cleveland V-8 engine. Same color too. Christmas cars, he called ’em. Red, green, gold stripes.” I heard her rummaging around. A metallic clinking. My lips were chapped and I licked them. “Sure would be funny if it was the same one,” I said.

  “In the movies maybe. George bought this new. Five thousand bucks.” She popped the cap off a can of Colt 45 and passed it over.

  “That’ll hit the spot. Lots of snow up north?” I finished the brew in a couple of gulps.

  “We don’t all live in igloos like Yanks think. But we plow and shovel plenty of the white stuff.” Next came a paper cup and a bottle of Smirnoff. She poured herself a generous slug and toasted me.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A

  t a constant ninety mph, we were eating up that desert. At Amboy, we turned east toward Needles. “I’ve heard of Toronto. They have the Blue Jays.”

  “Wimps in the Banana Belt. Now, you take Wawa.”

  “Wa…huh?”

  “It’s a town in Northern Ontario where they have a big goose.”

  “For real?”

  “A tourist attraction statue, silly boy. People make jokes about going up by Wawa. Then back by choo choo.”

  The joke was lame, but I laughed. Maybe she’d spring for dinner. One thing for sure: that car would take a day or two to fix. Getting twenty-year-old parts wouldn’t be easy.

  She gave my arm a friendly punch. “So tell me about yourself, Rick. We’ve got some road to cover. You look like the real thing, not some rhinestone cowboy like the song.”

  The leather seat was cooling off. I breathed deeply and settled back like I owned the world. She listened, not like a lot of girls I’d met.

  I told her how I grew up in a double-wide in Escalante, Utah. Tires on the top to keep the roof on. Daddy was a heavy-equipment mechanic for a local mine until it shut down. Same year Mama died from a snakebite. She had been planting flowers by the house. Just wanted a little color. I was only ten.

  “That must have been hard. A boy needs his mother.” She patted my shoulder. “Go on.”

  I said that a couple of weeks later, Daddy gave me a hug and put the bone-handled knife in my hand. “I called your Uncle Seth in Salt Lake. He’ll come get you. You’re okay, kid, but I’m not cut out to be a father. Maybe you will be. It’s an important job. Never forget that.” I waved as that Mustang headed down the road. Children’s Aid came instead of Uncle Seth. Foster homes. Back of the hand or a leather belt for any smart talk. I quit school at sixteen and went to work on a ranch. But I was always looking for Daddy to come around that curve. Christ, he was probably dead now.

  I found myself opening up like a cactus flower. Something wet touched my eye. I hadn’t never told no one about all this. Thirty years old and I felt like a kid again. Gladys had the bottle half gone. When I crushed the empty can I’d been holding, she passed me another brew.

  “Last one for now. You’re driving. By the way, I’m going to Vegas. That suit you?” Her words were losing their edge.

  No one would be looking for me in a cherry Mustang. Once in Vegas, truckers headed for Salt Lake could take me across to Utah.

  “Perfect.”

  “So what’s a nice country boy like you doing out in the middle of nowhere?” she asked, as the vodka bottle clinked at her feet. “You sound like you’re fresh off the ranch.”

  “Guess you might say I’m seeing the world.” I didn’t add that when my last wrangling job ended, I took a bus to LA with a buddy. Got in deeper than I reckoned, looking for some fast money. The coke shipment I was sent to deliver got stolen on the way. A couple of homeboys with guns left me in a vacant lot with a killer lump on my head. I was pretty sure the guys I was working for wouldn’t appreciate losing forty thousand. But I didn’t wait around to find out.

  She looked over at me and her eyelids fluttered. “I’m a good judge of character. Sort of a sixth sense.”

  We were on Route 40, a mile from Needles. The sooner we were away from cities, the better. In the wide-open spaces, you could see who was coming.

  People were funny about drugs. Especially her age group. I took a silent breath and tried to sound casual. “I’ve worked on a few ranches. Thought California might be my style. The San Joaquin Valley has lots of farms. Fruit and nuts mainly. I was getting good at repairing equipment. Then the economy tanked. Back in Utah I can always get stock work. Doesn’t pay much, but it’s steady.”

  “Leave a woman behind?” she asked.

  “No, but I left a good horse. Nufflo’s running pasture at a friend’s.”

  From the center of Needles, I took Route 95 north.

  The desert flew by as we crossed into Nevada. I held the wheel loose and easy but ready for action. Like the reins on Nufflo. He was my bud. We’d seen some times together out on the range.

  “What’s your dream, Gary? You’re a young man.”

  I didn’t bother to correct her about my name. But what a funny question. No one had ever asked me that. And I had to think a bit before opening my yap.

  “Oh, a few acres between Church Wells and Big Water outside Escalante. Not far from the Arizona border. Nothing special. A cabin and enough room for a horse.” I was through with big plans. Being greedy was plain stupid.

  “Wells and water. Sounds like the desert all right. Bet there’s not a mosquito in miles.”

  “In the canyons around the seeps or the potholes after a gully washer maybe. Watching the sun go down behind the Coxcomb is the prettiest sight in the world. Doesn’t cost nothing.”

  “The Coxcomb. Very romantic names out west. Small dreams can be good dreams.”

  She took off her dark glasses and looked at me, and I nearly drove off the road. Her eyes were like blue ice at the bottom of a glacier. They bore clean into me and out the back. One wheel hit the sand. The rear end twisted, but I held on.

  “Sorry,” I said. Some women would have screamed. She was real calm.

  “You’re looking at my eyes. Everyone does. They’re not contacts. Just Burns eyes.” They ran in her family. Clear back to Finland or somewhere. She was talking slower and slower. Like she was winding down.

  “Mom had a border collie once with one eye blue, the other brown. Like he had two sides to him,” I said.

  “Devil and angel.” We both started to laugh. “I’m a little of both too. And I won’t forget that I owe you.” Her head turned toward the window.

  She was quiet for a few minutes. I didn’t have much else to say, so I drove in silence. Close enough for a signal now. I fiddled with the ra
dio.

  “So what kind of mu…”

  But she was snoring. Her hat had come off. The black hair was a dye job, dark as a raven. Good skin though. Babied like the car. Deep blue eye shadow. Fragile lids. You could see where her makeup ended above her neck. Poor old bat. Where did she get off picking up a guy in the desert? Someone could take her for everything she had. Leave her out there and drive off. What the hell. Soon we’d be in Vegas. Maybe I’d get a meal and a few bucks. Even bus fare. She did say she owed me.

  Phil Collins was singing “Another Day in Paradise.”

  The highway stretched ahead, and the gas gauge was sinking. We weren’t far from Henderson. Watching the moon and reading casino billboards had been keeping me awake. The desert was prettier plain. I saw a rattler making its way across the highway and aimed for it. Looked like a stick, but I knew better. Big sucker. Seven feet at least. In the rear-view mirror, it whipped back and forth. Nobody home but still moving. Dead rattlers bite more people than live ones. I don’t blame them. It’s their nature.

  “Score one for Mama,” I whispered.

  I pulled over at the town limits. Just in time. I was getting sleepy. No sense in us getting into a wreck. Where did she want me to take her? I touched her arm gently. “Hey, wake up, ma’am.” The vodka fumes hit me, and she rolled toward the window. My stomach was emptier than a hollow gourd. About as loud too.

  Her big leather purse was on the floor. I picked it up. Hairbrush. Compact. Woman stuff. A huge wad of bills, wrapped with an elastic, nestled in my hand. A fake roll? Leafing, I saw hundreds winking at me. “Wheew,” I whistled softly. My palm began to itch. Not enough for the ranch though. Why had I told her about it? Somewhere, a siren filled the air.

  They’d pick me off like a lizard on a wall. I was no gambling man, but I’d play this hand straight up. I drove ahead. Neon lights announced motels. More expensive as the road reached the center of town with the big hotels. Gladys was still dead out. I had to make a decision.

  The Wild West Motel was clean but not fancy. After paying with one of the hundreds, I asked for a quiet room at the back. I parked, then collected Gladys. She was light as a yearling. Her face looked trusting, peaceful. I placed her on one of the beds. Took off her shoes and scarf. Pulled a light blanket over her. She’d have a humdinger of a hangover the next morning—or maybe not.