Conflicted Home (The Survivalist Book 9), A American [top android ebook reader TXT] 📗

as they splashed around. Her loss would certainly be missed by everyone.

As I came to our road, Sarge’s Hummer skidded to a stop. Ted was in the turret with a SAW. Sarge was behind the wheel and looked as though he was ready to kill me.

“Where the fuckin hell have you been!” He screamed as he climbed out of the truck.

I swung the blanket off my shoulder and laid it on the ground. “Getting my dog back.”

Sarge looked at the blanket, then at me. “Come again?”

“The other two dogs came home; and obviously upset, they led me back to where two assholes were cooking her,” I said, pointing at the blanket.

He looked at the blanket again, then back at me. “Shit, Morgan. I’m sorry.” He looked down, shaking his head and asked, “Where are they?”

“Out in the woods,” I replied as I reached down and picked up the blanket again. “Buzzards got to eat too.”

“They shouldn’t have shot your dog,” Sarge replied.

“That’s what I said.”

The old man opened the rear door of the truck, “Lay her in here and I’ll take you home.”

In the truck, Sarge looked over at me. “Don’t ever do that shit again, Morgan. We’ve got plenty of people and enough firepower to take care of any problems we encounter like this. But you wandering off into the woods alone,” he looked around the truck, “and without a damn rifle, will not happen again.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I realized that once I saw them. I was just following the dogs to start with. I thought maybe she was hurt, snake bit, or something. But when I saw her hanging there like that, I lost it.” We were coming up on my bucket of flowers that still sat in the road. I pointed at it and said, “Stop here and let me get that.” Sarge rolled to a stop, and I opened my door, leaned out and grabbed the bucket.

“What the hell is that for?” Sarge asked.

I shrugged, “Something Mel is doing for the wedding.”

He reached over and grabbed my shoulder, “Really sorry about the pup, Morgan.”

I nodded. “Thanks. I need to get her home and get her buried before anyone sees her.”

“We’ll help you,” Ted said from the back seat.

Over my shoulder, I replied, “Thanks, Ted.”

We made it to the house and I told Sarge to pull around to the back, behind the shed. There was a large oak tree back there, on the edge of the woods I wanted to put her under.

“You got shovels?” Ted asked as he stripped his plate carrier off.

I nodded. “Yeah. I’ll be right back.”

I walked back to the shed and grabbed a couple of shovels and headed back. Ted took one immediately and asked for me to point out a spot. I did, and he set to work immediately. I was surprised when I went to set my spade into the dirt by Sarge snatching it from my hands.

“We got this, Morg,” he said.

It didn’t take the two men long to dig a hole large enough to hold her. Ted stepped out of the hole and Sarge asked, “You going to leave her in the blanket?”

As I picked it up, I replied, “Yeah. She’s whole in here and I don’t want to see her again.”

The old man patted my back, saying, “Good call.”

I laid her in the hole and they began shoveling the dirt back in. It didn’t take long before the spot was nothing more than a place of disturbed earth. I studied it for a minute before remarking, “You know, I’m getting kind of tired of digging these holes.”

Sarge took a noisy deep breath and blew it out. “I know what you mean. But we’ll all end up in one.” He looked up at me and said, “None of us gets out of this alive.”

I nodded and looked back at the house. “I need to go in and tell Mel what happened.” I thought for a minute and added, “but I think I’m going to lie to the girls.”

“I was hoping you would,” Sarge replied. “They don’t need to know what happened.”

“Especially Little Bit,” Ted added.

“Agreed,” I said with a nod.

“We’ll leave it to you then, Morg. Holler if you need anything,” Sarge said. As I turned to walk to the house, he grabbed my arm and said, “Don’t ever do any dumb shit like that again or we’ll be digging your hole. And I don’t want to do that.”

When I got into the house, I couldn’t bring myself to tell Mel what happened. When she saw me, she asked, “Did you get them?” Fred was in Mel’s wedding dress, standing on a chair so Mel could pin it up to make some alterations.

“Sure did. Bucket full.”

Fred had her arms up in the air, holding the position Mel needed. “Bucket of what?”

Mel stuck a pin in her teeth and replied, “Don’t you worry about it.”

“Where are the girls?” I asked.

“They’re over at Bobbie’s,” Mel replied without thinking. I saw her flinch when she said it. But she carried on.

“I’ll go check on them in a little bit.” But before I left, I filled several large plastic containers with water and put them in the freezer.

“What’s that for?” Mel asked as she pinned another piece of the dress back.

“No idea. Mikey needs it.”

Once the water was in the freezer, I left the house. Meat Head and Drake were lying on the front porch. They weren’t panting now, but they looked listless and unenthused. I sat down on the bench and both their tails thumped the porch. Rubbing Meat Head’s ears, I said, “I’m sorry old, buddy. I did my best. But she’s home now.” As I spoke, his tail thumped a little faster. There was no way in hell he understood what I was saying. But I suppose in some way, he knew that I was talking about his little sister.

I left them lounging on the porch and headed for Danny’s. The kids were out back playing. It looked like