A Bloodhound to Die for (13 page)

“She dresses herself,” he said proudly, “most times.” He was trying to be completely truthful.

I mentally complimented Miz Beulah once again on her excellent choice of a lifetime companion. I knew that God must still make these sturdy, dependable, and dedicated men, and I felt sorry that so many of us womenfolk just didn’t know how to find one.

Jasmine and I slipped the shoes into Ziploc baggies without touching them, as we hadn’t put on our gloves.

At the truck, we donned our rescue suits and backpacks and unhooked the dogs and let them find a perfect bush to piddle on. The afternoon sun was hot and humid. With the air cut off, we were already sweating.

“When we pick up a scent, Gulliver and I’ll leave first,” I told Jasmine. “When we’re out of sight, I’ll do
a radio check. Wait ten minutes and start Ramona. If we have any divergent trails, check in and we can see if we’re both on the same track.”

We both lowered our front zippers and untied the bandannas that we had placed around our waists when we’d dressed at home, placed them in a baggie, and exchanged them. This was a precaution that we used when we ran two different trails. We never used ourselves for scent work at the kennels, and now had a scent item of each other’s so that if one of us got lost or hurt, the other would have a way of tracking.

When you placed bloodhounds on a scent, it sometimes confused them when you had to change scent articles and begin to look for another trail. Bloodhounds were each individually trained and, just like people, had their own eccentricities and behavior patterns. At any given point in one outing, they could be clownish, showing a well-defined sense of humor, solemn, dedicated, and uninterested. The important part of training a bloodhound was understanding his or her actions or moods. This was not always easy.

Gulliver was an excellent man trailer but could also be a handful if he wasn’t in a good mood. He was intelligent, but you had to keep his attention undivided. I was afraid that if I started Jasmine and Ramona directly behind him, he might take umbrage. He and I had a language problem and I wasn’t a good mind reader.

I squatted in front of him and placed two pieces of dried deer jerky in the palm of my glove. This was to
alert him that we were now working, and it did wonders getting his attention. He inhaled them and watched my hand intently. I unzipped the baggie and placed the opening under his nose. He took a deep sniff and stood, resolute, staring at my gloved hand.

“Seek, Gulliver. Find your man, find your man!” I spoke quickly, with animation, and sounded upbeat and excited. Without a flicker of interest, he still stood, resolute, and continued to stare at my gloved hand.

I took a deep breath. This might be a long, long afternoon. I repeated the process, giving him a bright chirpy order to “seek.” No reaction. It occurred to me that he might be holding out for additional jerky. I stared at him and shoved the bag under his nose for another sniff. He still didn’t move.

I sighed under my breath and tried to slip out the second handful of jerky for him without Jasmine spotting my actions. She doesn’t believe in breaking routine because a dog is being stubborn. I’m the biggest sucker who trains in the kennel. Most know that they can con me with little effort. My back was to Jasmine and she was standing several yards away from us.

At the delivery of the second serving, the ham began the jiggle dance, wriggling his body in excitement and placing his big nostrils and elongated ears near the ground and getting down to business. I had been conned.

In the ten minutes I had been encased in the airless Kevlar Day-Glo rescue suit, the perspiration was trickling
down inside, dampening my T-shirt and jeans. It was eighty-six degrees and should peak at over ninety about five P.M., unless the predicted sixty percent chance of rain appeared. I eyed the small cirrus cloud smears floating lazily in the brilliant azure sky, from east to west, and hoped it would hold off until we could find Miz Beulah and return.

The family and Hank all stood on the front porch watching Gulliver traverse an eight-foot area back and forth with me trailing behind. He was trying to pick up the one scent that he had been trained to search for and identify, and separate it from the thousand others that were in the air and on the ground.

Even after seeing this for several years on hundreds of trails, I was still amazed by the awesome ability that had been bred into this noble bloodhound breed, and their enduring trait of following where their noses led them until they dropped. Owners and trainers fed them, cared for them, gave them rules of conduct. Then we could only follow along behind and let them do the work and perform their magic.

We went around the shrubbery close to the house and turned west, going toward the rear of the house, turned again, and stopped at the small screened porch at the rear. Gulliver traveled up two steps as I held the screen door open for his passage. He inspected the back door, the floor, and smelled the wooden rockers before he turned and indicated he wanted to go back outside.

He headed toward the listing shed that housed the ancient truck and circled the old shelves of tools stored in the center of the small building. Back out in the open under the hot sun, he headed east and followed the bushes planted near the house, going back to the low, open front porch where our former audience could now see us and our progress.

He was so intent on his search that he didn’t detour over to greet Ramona, who was stretched out taking a nap under a small live oak shade tree, and Jasmine, who was leaning patiently against its trunk. I was proud of him. Some man-trailers will lose their concentration and occasionally stop and smell the roses or any other interesting scent that appears.

Gulliver headed up the front porch, and everyone scattered as he ignored them and sniffed the screen door and inspected the porch swing where Mr. Hiram was now sitting. I saw the old man starting to move his hand to pat Gulliver and then reluctantly stop the motion when he remembered that he might break the dog’s concentration.

Last year when Ashley and I had slowly guided back a bewildered Miz Beulah from her impromptu trip to the creek, Hiram had hugged his wife and then dropped to his knees and also hugged Ashley, tears in his eyes. I sincerely hoped that Gulliver would be able to earn his hug this afternoon if we could safely return with Miz Beulah.

I had mentioned at the time of the previous search that I hadn’t seen a yard dog and that our local SPCA had several appropriate candidates on hand. Being on the board, I was always seeking good homes for our unfortunate detainees and heard the longing in his reluctant refusal. I knew it was either the cost of upkeep or thinking he could not spend any time away from the care of his wife, so I didn’t question it.

Mrs. Phelps, the daughter, gave a quick squeak of alarm when Gulliver smelled her shoes, and danced back mumbling her discontent.

“The animal is wasting time! He acts like he doesn’t know what he’s doing!”

I gave her an angry glance and kept my mouth shut. I knew she was upset, but she wasn’t worthy of any explanation about Gulliver’s methods. I’d let Hank cure her ignorance about the search if he so desired. Gulliver went back down the steps and we started around the house for the second time, on the same path we had taken earlier.

I knew the day was slipping away in the afternoon sunshine, but you can’t rush a bloodhound’s nose. I followed Gulliver as he was heading again for the backyard and lifted my gaze to the edge of the clearing. There was a narrow path there that led to the creek where we had found her last year.

Gulliver stopped so suddenly, just when I had taken my eyes off him, and turned so quickly, he almost ran into me in reversing his forward motion. I danced out
of his way as he hurried by, hesitated for a heartbeat, and took a new direction that headed directly toward the creek path. His tail was high and rigid. His body stance became taller and his pace increased. I trotted behind him with quickening breaths of tentative optimism. He seemed to be locked onto a viable man-trailing scent.

When Gulliver was fully committed to the creek path, and we were several yards into the swamp and out of the line of sight, I pulled him off the scent on a temporary halt for a radio check.

“Rescue One to base. Rescue One to base. Do you read me? Over.”

Hank answered. “Base to Rescue One. I read you loud and clear. Over.”

“Rescue One to base. Gulliver has chosen the creek path on the east side of the house and seems to be on a good trail. I’ll call Rescue Two and give instructions. If I can’t reach her, call me back. Over and out.”

“Rescue One to Rescue Two. Do you read me? Over.”

“Rescue Two to Rescue One. I read you loud and clear. Over.” Jasmine’s transmission was also clear.

“Rescue One to Rescue Two, take the creek path on the east side. If I cross a path and turn, I will call it in. If you make a choice without hearing from me, keep track and call it in. Give me a ten-minute start. Over.”

“Rescue Two to Rescue One. Read you five by five. Over and out.”

Well, we were off to a promising start. All the radios worked so far. Communications were sometimes iffy here in the dense old growth of thick, towering trees, low areas of boggy sloughs, and the high banks on the Sewanee River and its many fingers of creeks that meandered throughout the entire swamp area. I checked the time and it was now almost four P.M. I knew we would find the creek soon, and didn’t need to dig out Gulliver’s water dish, but I unhooked a canteen and took a deep drink of clear town water. The creek water wouldn’t hurt me but I shied away from the tea-colored water that sometimes had diminutive additives that I couldn’t identify.

I started Gulliver back on his trail with the command, “Find your man, find your man.” We feminists only used correct sex titles when it wouldn’t confuse the bloodhounds. More men got lost out here than women, and the bloodhounds didn’t seem to recognize human gender, only their own breed’s sex when they were feeling randy or in love.

  
15
“Shit Happens”

T
he narrow trail’s surface was a mixture of peat and clay and mud, much of it covered with pine needles, pine cones, oak and bay leaves, and windblown moss. The moist morass made a slippery surface for walking. I noticed that in the year past, since I had last walked this way on the first rescue, the path had narrowed and was being closed with new growth pushing through the ground. Young pine saplings, along with oak and blackthorn shoots, were struggling to establish roots.

Mr. Hiram’s heirs obviously didn’t come this way to the creek to fish and swim too often, and I imagined that his walks with a fishing pole and Miz Beulah had been sadly curtailed. This path would be lost in another couple of years without being hacked back and cleared.

Gulliver was steadily forging ahead and had to wait, acting impatient when I had to apply my machete to a clinging, intruding vine blocking my way. The path had an almost solid canopy of thick boughs of pine and oak as low as two or three feet above my head and received very little sunlight. No breeze could penetrate the trees and heavy brush and the air was clammy and difficult to breathe.

The narrow passage led in a long, gradual curve to the left, and I knew this would lead me closer to the creek very soon. I couldn’t remember how many other trails might cross the one I was now traveling. I estimated that Miz Beulah had been alone now for five hours or more. I felt the need for haste but had to proceed prudently. I didn’t need a twisted ankle or a bad gash on my face from thorns.

We approached our first intersection, a narrow Y that didn’t noticeably slow Gulliver’s progress. He went left, which I knew was the correct way to the creek. I had to halt him to inform Jasmine.

“Rescue One to Rescue Two. Rescue One to Rescue Two. Do you read? Over.”

It took two more tries before I heard Jasmine’s intermittent raspy response.

“… Two to Rescue … Repeat. Over.”

My heart sank. We couldn’t be more than three or four hundred yards apart and already we were experiencing transmitting problems? I cursed the thick humidity, heavy growth, low areas, gremlins, or whatever.
I finally got through on the third effort and explained the direction we’d taken.

My voice had risen considerably and my mouth was dry. I couldn’t remember how much farther it was to water and Gulliver was panting. I removed my pack and dug out his water dish and emptied the balance of my first canteen. I had another full one on my belt and two emergency quarts in my pack. He lapped it up noisily and waited for more.

“That will last you because we’ve got creek water coming up for you soon, big guy, but I have to conserve mine. You shouldn’t have cadged that second handful of jerky. It makes you thirsty.”

I put him back on the trail, unconsciously blowing the small puffs of air from my lips that kept the gnats away from my mouth and nostrils. When I’d first entered the path, I had tied a bandanna around my head to protect my ears from the dive-bombing sand flies. I now only had to wipe my face with an additional bandanna every thirty seconds to keep the rivulets of sweat from burning my eyes. Thank God we only had another two weeks or so of gnats and then they would be history until next May. This would leave only mosquitoes, horseflies, yellow flies, sand flies, honeybees, wasps, dirt daubers, and a few more varieties of insects that I have had the misfortune of meeting but never identifying. After crushing them, all I would have left to inspect would be a wet black smear.