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Authors: Loreth Anne White
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carried the dirty, stinking, flea-ridden pile to her truck. Shoving the half-empty vodka bottle off the seat, she’d used her jacket to make a bed on the passenger side where she could rest her hand on the dog as she drove. Then she’d turned her truck around and steered back toward civilization in search of a vet.
Ace had been the U-turn in her life. He’d forced her to act outside of herself, given her a simple purpose.
The vet figured the dog was about four years old but said it was hard to tell given his malnutrition. He’d been chained probably most of his life, a rope still partially embedded in flesh around his neck. That had slayed her. She knew what that felt like. And from that moment she’d known she could never let this dog down.
Ace had saved her. Ace gave her unconditional love. And she gave it back in buckets. Loving had started to mend the dead things inside her.
She’d been forced to secure a motel room in that tiny northern town where she could wait for Ace to heal enough, where the vet could follow through on treatment. It was in the town’s only diner that she’d found a newspaper on the table declaring that Sebastian George—the Watt Lake Killer — had been found hanged in his cell. She’d sat stunned until the waitress asked if she was okay.
It was then that she’d decided Ace was her charm. Her guardian angel. Because in that same newspaper was Myron’s employment ad, seeking a fishing guide at Broken Bar Ranch, something for which she was uniquely qualified. The job came with a cabin right on the lake. It was seasonal with an option for long-term, year-round employment if the right applicant was willing to take on additional winter responsibilities with the horses. It was the perfect place for Ace to run free.
For her to start over, yet again, this time with the knowledge he was gone. Dead and burned to ash in some prison crematorium.
She’d bundled Ace into her truck, driven south, and found Myron, who had looked beyond the obvious mess she must have been, and hired her. She’d discovered a measure of peace and friendship on Broken Bar. She’d found a home.
Ace, the ranch, and Myron had formed the skeleton, the backbone, from which she’d been able to flesh out a new life. Now she was losing Myron, and in all likelihood her home, too. Even Ace was fading slowly. She wondered if she’d crumple into a formless puddle without those bones to prop her up.
She led Ace out the door and down toward the lake where she’d stamped out a scent pad for the start of his track. He pulled energetically against the line.
The vet in Clinton said he’d probably go fully blind within the year. And while he was proficient in air-scenting search games, where he worked off-lead looking for human scent, with his failing sight she was worried he might run himself blindly over a cliff or into some other kind of physical danger, so she’d started him on on-line tracking, where he needed to slow down and drop his nose in order to work meticulously from footprint to footprint. Mostly this was just for fun. Their bonding time. And it jibed with a passion Olivia had always had for tracking both game and man.
She opened a large plastic ziplock bag containing a sweatshirt she’d worn earlier, and held it down for Ace to smell.
“This, Ace, find this .”
He nosed into the bag, cataloguing the scent he was being asked to follow, then sniffed the ground looking for a match, circulating air loudly through his nasal passages. As he hit the scent pad she’d stomped out, he muscled into his harness and was off, nose low to the ground, zigzagging from footprint to footprint in the frosty grass.
She held the line and trotted behind him, her own breath crystallizing into white mist. They moved first along the lakeshore, and then up into a field where she’d laid a box track, and then a ladder track. He handled the corners on the box expertly, and Olivia watched for the negative in her dog—the moment he
Ace had been the U-turn in her life. He’d forced her to act outside of herself, given her a simple purpose.
The vet figured the dog was about four years old but said it was hard to tell given his malnutrition. He’d been chained probably most of his life, a rope still partially embedded in flesh around his neck. That had slayed her. She knew what that felt like. And from that moment she’d known she could never let this dog down.
Ace had saved her. Ace gave her unconditional love. And she gave it back in buckets. Loving had started to mend the dead things inside her.
She’d been forced to secure a motel room in that tiny northern town where she could wait for Ace to heal enough, where the vet could follow through on treatment. It was in the town’s only diner that she’d found a newspaper on the table declaring that Sebastian George—the Watt Lake Killer — had been found hanged in his cell. She’d sat stunned until the waitress asked if she was okay.
It was then that she’d decided Ace was her charm. Her guardian angel. Because in that same newspaper was Myron’s employment ad, seeking a fishing guide at Broken Bar Ranch, something for which she was uniquely qualified. The job came with a cabin right on the lake. It was seasonal with an option for long-term, year-round employment if the right applicant was willing to take on additional winter responsibilities with the horses. It was the perfect place for Ace to run free.
For her to start over, yet again, this time with the knowledge he was gone. Dead and burned to ash in some prison crematorium.
She’d bundled Ace into her truck, driven south, and found Myron, who had looked beyond the obvious mess she must have been, and hired her. She’d discovered a measure of peace and friendship on Broken Bar. She’d found a home.
Ace, the ranch, and Myron had formed the skeleton, the backbone, from which she’d been able to flesh out a new life. Now she was losing Myron, and in all likelihood her home, too. Even Ace was fading slowly. She wondered if she’d crumple into a formless puddle without those bones to prop her up.
She led Ace out the door and down toward the lake where she’d stamped out a scent pad for the start of his track. He pulled energetically against the line.
The vet in Clinton said he’d probably go fully blind within the year. And while he was proficient in air-scenting search games, where he worked off-lead looking for human scent, with his failing sight she was worried he might run himself blindly over a cliff or into some other kind of physical danger, so she’d started him on on-line tracking, where he needed to slow down and drop his nose in order to work meticulously from footprint to footprint. Mostly this was just for fun. Their bonding time. And it jibed with a passion Olivia had always had for tracking both game and man.
She opened a large plastic ziplock bag containing a sweatshirt she’d worn earlier, and held it down for Ace to smell.
“This, Ace, find this .”
He nosed into the bag, cataloguing the scent he was being asked to follow, then sniffed the ground looking for a match, circulating air loudly through his nasal passages. As he hit the scent pad she’d stomped out, he muscled into his harness and was off, nose low to the ground, zigzagging from footprint to footprint in the frosty grass.
She held the line and trotted behind him, her own breath crystallizing into white mist. They moved first along the lakeshore, and then up into a field where she’d laid a box track, and then a ladder track. He handled the corners on the box expertly, and Olivia watched for the negative in her dog—the moment he
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