Ruff Way to Go by Leslie O'Kane Page B

already too focused on
catching sight of the dog again to feel as grateful, or as contrite, as I
probably should have.
    “I thought I
saw Shogun. The dog that’s missing.”
    “Way out
here in Longmont?”
    “This isn’t
too far for a dog to have gotten on foot in several hours. He could have come
looking for Trevor, his owner.”
    I strained
my eyes and made a constant sweep of vision as we slowly drove ahead. It was
getting hard to see in the rapidly darkening evening. There was no sign of the
dog and our search was probably futile.
    Just then I
saw the dog darting around the corner ahead of us. “There he goes! Down that
alley!”
    “It’s
one-way the other direction,” Russell pointed out as he drove past the alley. I
craned my neck to get a better look at the dog and was certain it was some
breed of long-haired terrier.
    “I’ve got to
get him. Even if it’s not Shogun, he could get hit by a car. Let me out of the
car.”
    Russell
signaled and pulled out of traffic. “I can’t park here. I’ll go find a space
and come help,” he said while I scrambled out of the car.
    I ran down
the alley. Though it was, thankfully, reasonably well lit by the outdoor lights
on the back of the buildings, the dog was already out of sight once again.
    I’d gotten
halfway down the narrow alley when someone suddenly stepped out from behind a
dumpster. I gasped and automatically jumped back.
    The man
grabbed my wrist.

Chapter 4
    I choked
back a scream.
    The man who
grabbed my arm was not much taller than Russell—roughly five-foot-six.
Unlike Russell, this man had been looking up at life from the bottom of the
drain for quite a while now. His clothes were filthy and in tatters, his dark
hair matted, and his leathery skin smeared with dirt.
    “Hey, little
girly,” he said, leering at my chest. “You got any money?”
    I twisted my
arm around so fast that I wrenched it free from his grasp. “No, and I don’t
have time for this right now,” I said with deliberate attitude. If there was
anything I’d learned from being a petite woman who often works with large,
aggressive dogs, it was that you can’t gain dominance by letting yourself show
fear. “I’m trying to find a dog I saw run this direction.”
    I took a
step deeper into the alley, but he stepped sideways, blocking my path. This
time, at least, he didn’t touch me. “You mean the little mutt? Charlie?”
    As he spoke,
I got a disgusting whiff of alcohol on the man’s breath. I had to get out of
here. The dog was probably not Shogun in the first place.
    Feigning a
casualness I didn’t feel, I asked, “You know the dog I’m talking about?”
    The man
tried to muster some dignity and self-confidence by squaring his shoulders and
meeting my eyes. His were bloodshot and red-rimmed. “Yeah. The one that jus’
run by me, right? He’s just a stray, but I got to callin’ him Charlie.”
    “I doubt we’re
talking about the same dog. This one looked to me to be a full bred terrier.”
In truth, I hadn’t been close enough to conclude any such thing, but had gotten
the impression that this dog was too healthy to have been a stray.
    “Naw. He’s
jus’ a mutt. Tell ya what, though. Seein’ as you want him so bad, how’s ‘bout I
sell him to you for twenty bucks?” He took a step in that direction and had a
glint in his eye that worried me.
    “Um, okay. I’ll
go get some money.”
    “Meet you
back here in jus’ a minute, then,” the man said, then took off down the alley.
    I turned and
headed the other direction. I wasn’t about to wait around and find out what his
intentions were. Bravura’s one thing, but out-and-out stupidity is quite
another. For all I knew, he’d come back with another man or two.
    Russell met
me before I’d gotten all the way out of the alley. I breathed a little easier
at the sight of him.
    In a tribute
to his superior planning skills, he’d brought a flashlight. “Couldn’t find the
dog?” he asked.
    “No, and
what’s