Walton (The K9 Files #26)

Chapter 8

C helsea woke the next morning, yawned, and stretched, and then the memories from the night before came flooding back. It was sad to hear Walton talk as if he had nobody. Yet, she supposed, in Walton’s mind, that’s exactly what he did have—nobody. No matter what she felt about him, what he was thinking was muddy as hell.

She got out of bed and knocked on the connecting door to his room, but she got no answer. Frowning, she popped open the internal door and peered in, but his room was empty. “Damn it,” she muttered. She dressed and raced downstairs to find Rick and Julie sitting at the kitchen table, having a serious talk. “Oops, am I interrupting?”

They looked up at her and shook their heads. “Of course not,” Julie said warmly, then hopped up and walked over to the coffee pot. “Of course you’re not interrupting. Come on in.”

Chelsea hesitated because it was obviously a fairly serious discussion. “I was wondering where Walton has gone.”

“He took Brutus outside,” Rick replied, twisting in his chair to look at her. “He wanted us to let you sleep.”

“Of course he did,” she muttered, with a grin. “That man…”

“That man is looking after you,” Julie stated in a jokingly cross tone of voice.

“Of course he is,” Chelsea grumbled, with an eye roll. “He feels bad about ruining what’s going on here.”

“He shouldn’t feel bad about it,” Rick shared, with a casual wave of his hand. “It’s not his fault.”

“No, but I think he feels as if it’s his fault because of the mess that is happening now.”

“It’s got nothing to do with his coming here, and it’s a mess that needed to happen anyway,” Julie stated, with a shrug. “It’s not his fault at all, and we don’t want him feeling that way.”

“That’s good. I’ll tell him that, if and when I ever get a chance to see him again,” she grumbled, with a sigh.

“Yeah, that’s the trouble. When you find a good man, you’ve got to keep him,” Julie teased, now laughing. “They tend to disappear all too quickly.”

“You think he’s a good one?” Chelsea asked.

“Oh, I know he is,” Julie declared. “Anybody who cares for animals like he does is hard to go wrong with.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Chelsea admitted, shooting her sister-in-law a bright grin, as Chelsea headed to the back door, her cup of coffee in hand. “Maybe I’ll see if he’s outside somewhere, and you guys can go back to whatever deep-seated problem you’re dealing with.”

“Maybe it’s a problem that’s your problem,” Rick noted, holding Julie’s hand.

Chelsea knew that protective gesture he made whenever he was feeling defensive. She stopped and studied him carefully. “What does that mean?”

He shrugged. “Apparently you heard it from Julie.”

He was mentioning their pregnancy. “I did,” she confirmed, her face beaming. She grinned at her sister-in-law. “Is it okay if I say something now?” Julie laughed and nodded. Chelsea raced over and gave her brother a great big hug. “I’m so thrilled for you guys.”

He laughed and hugged her back. “I knew that you knew,” he replied, “but did you know that Walton knew?”

“Yeah, he told me last night. Apparently he figured it out the day we arrived. He’s kind of scary that way,” she noted, with a smile. “ Very accurate intuition , or at least that’s how he put it.”

“If he guessed,… that’s pretty crazy,” Julie noted. “I’m not showing.” Then she frowned and glared at Rick. “Or am I?”

“No, you’re not,” he confirmed, patting her hand.

Julie snorted, turned to Chelsea and asked forcefully, “Am I?”

“Nope, not yet,” she declared, “and no need to make a fuss. It is too bad though. Can’t wait until I can see you all pudgy with baby.”

Julie grinned. “Me either,” she added excitedly.

“What? And here I thought if I had told you that you were pudgy or round with baby, you would have torn me to shreds.” Rick frowned. “But she says it, and it’s totally fine?”

“Of course it’s totally fine,” Julie replied. “And it would have been totally fine with you too, if you told the truth, but you didn’t.” She gave him a severe look. “So, yeah, you’re still in the doghouse.”

He raised both hands, shaking his head. “I guess that’s my life for the next few months, with hormones and all.”

“Yeah, it sure is,” Chelsea teased, chuckling as she stepped onto the outside deck. There was a crispness to the air, almost a chill that was stunningly beautiful, yet empty. She glanced around, walking along the perimeter of the veranda that wrapped around the entire front of the house, looking for Walton, but she saw no sign of him.

Frowning, she headed back around to the front of the house to see Rick step out. “No sign of him,” she muttered, with a sinking feeling.

“Oh, he wanted to take the dog out for a nice walk, so I don’t know how long that’ll be.”

“What about Chad and his friends?” she asked.

“They all took off hunting this morning,” Rick shared, “and believe me that we’re not at all unhappy about that.”

She nodded. “Good enough, I think,” she muttered, “but…” Then she frowned. “Why is it that doesn’t feel very good?”

“I have no idea what to say to that. The sooner they’re out of my hair,” Rick muttered, “the sooner life can get back to normal.”

“Right,” she muttered.

As she turned to look once again for Walton, she saw something in the trees move. Frowning, she stared and thought she saw someone tall and slender. She pointed it out to Rick, but he wasn’t looking in that direction. By the time she turned back to whoever it was, they were gone again.

“What am I looking at?” Rick asked.

“Maybe George? I don’t know,” she said suddenly, “but I swear to God somebody was in the bushes over there.”

“Where?”

She pointed off to the left, where a copse of trees stood.

He frowned. “All I see are trees. If somebody was there, it could have been Walton.”

“No. Walton is heavier than whoever I caught a glimpse of,” she muttered. In the distance she heard a gunshot and then a second one. She froze and turned to look at Rick. “Are they hunting this close to the lodge?”

His face grim, he shook his head. “They shouldn’t be.” He swore under his breath. “They sure as hell, sure as shit shouldn’t be. You stay here with Julie.”

And, with that, Rick nudged her inside, grabbed his own hunting rifle and headed out into the early morning air.

Walton kept his distance from the hunting party that had taken off earlier this morning. He knew in which direction they had gone, and they were loudly traipsing around, making enough noise that the wild animals would be completely safe from them. It wasn’t that a ton of skill was required for hunting, but a few basics on being quiet to let the animals come out and eat their morning breakfast or hit the local watering hole were useful. It was generally a good rule to go by, but these guys? As soon as they got out here, they broke down into yelling and arguing.

If they were friends, as in real friends, Walton would be surprised. They were bonded by a tragedy or a crime between them that none of them knew how to get out of. Walton was afraid that the only way anybody would get out of it was the wrong way.

Keeping Brutus close to his side, Walton walked outside, enjoying the early morning weather, giving the dog a chance to exercise and to loosen up his leg for the day, same as for Walton. It was always harder when you had a missing or damaged limb because the other limb had to do extra work to compensate. So, to get them both loosened up for the day required a little bit of intentional work.

Most people didn’t have to think about that. They got out of bed knowing that, within a few minutes, their body would be turned on and ready to go. However, in Walton’s case, turning it on wasn’t quite the same thing.

He called Brutus to him, and they slowly headed back toward the lodge. Hearing something off to the side, he stopped, and Brutus came to attention. “Right? I heard it too. Not sure what’s going on out there, buddy, but it doesn’t feel right, does it?”

Walton slipped into the trees and out of sight, with Brutus tucked up close beside him. The dog didn’t trust those noises but was not worried, yet curious and interested in this new game they were playing. So Brutus wasn’t turned on in terms of war training. He wasn’t sensing danger the way Walton was.

Stilled, he rested behind the tree and waited to see what would flush out of the bushes first. When nothing happened, Brutus shifted uneasily, and Walton placed a hand on his shoulder, reassuring him. They needed to wait. Something was going on, and Walton couldn’t tell exactly what just yet. So no way he would rush it.

After another long moment, he sensed movement off to the left. With that forewarning, he watched as Hawk stepped out from behind the trees, with a gun in his hand. Not a hunting rifle but a small handgun. He didn’t approach them though. He seemed confused as to which way to go. Walton realized that Hawk was turned around and had no clue where the lodge was.

As Walton continued to watch Hawk, he shifted uneasily, more unnerved about being alone out here, with good reason. A hell of a lot of things could go wrong. It was really not smart to get lost or to get too far away from where you were expected to be.

Hearing voices in the distance, Walton remained blended into the background, as the others called out for Hawk.

“Where the hell are you, dude?”

“I’m over here.”

They burst through the brush, laughing and joking when they saw him. “What the hell, man?”

Hawk shrugged. “I have to admit that I lost my bearings out here.”

“You don’t want to fucking do that,” Chad stated, with a headshake. “It’s way too easy to get lost out here. We’ve got to stay together.”

“That might be true,” Hawk conceded, “but I thought I heard something.”

“Like what?” Chad asked.

“Probably that fucking dog of yours.”

“It’s not my dog, apparently,” Chad snapped, with an eye roll.

The other men didn’t say anything about that. They just waited and watched, as if every word had to be measured and weighed. Nobody quite knew which way people would react now, and it was a hell of an uneasy situation for supposed friends to be in.

Walton watched from a distance, his hand on Brutus, when once again an argument broke out among the four guys. This time Walton didn’t hear what started it, but he felt it had to do with the War Dog. Once again, Chad stormed off toward the lodge. At least he seemed to keep his bearings.

“Come on. Let’s go,” Darren said, urging Hawk to pick up the pace. “Last thing we want to do is lose our bearings out there. Chad might be an asshole, but the one thing he can do is navigate.”

Hawk snorted. “He’s the one who told me to come over here.”

The threesome unknowingly traipsed past Walton, heading toward the lodge once again.

Hawk added, “I just want some bloody breakfast, and how about we leave early? I really don’t want to be around here anymore.”

As their voices disappeared in front of him, Walton relaxed ever-so-slightly. Just as he was ready to head toward the lodge himself, he heard a gunshot, followed by a second one. With Brutus at his heels, the two of them ran toward the sounds.

As soon as they broke through the brush and into a clearing, Walton figured he was maybe one-quarter mile away from the lodge. All four hunters were up ahead, except Chad was on the ground, with a head wound bleeding profusely. As Walton burst through the trees, the three men standing just stared at him, then down at their friend. Soon Rick appeared coming from the lodge toward them too.

“We didn’t shoot him,” Darren yelled hysterically. “Honest to God. I swear.… I just arrived, and… we got separated again. Chad took off, ran ahead of us, and then, as we came here, we found him like this.” He turned to the others. “Right? I didn’t shoot him.”

“I didn’t shoot him either,” Hawk said nervously. “Jesus, we were getting lost again, so we came bolting forward.”

“Were you guys all in each other’s sight the entire time?” Walton asked, his gaze going from one to the other.

They all looked at each other and shrugged. Hawk replied, “More or less, but, we were running forward, so I wasn’t looking behind me to see if they were following. We were all running to catch up with Chad,” Hawk explained. “We all went through the trees. It’s dark as hell in that forest.”

“Were you all going at the same speed?” Walton asked.

Hawk frowned at him. “Man, do you really think one of us killed Chad?”

“I don’t know what I think,” Walton admitted, as he knelt down and checked on Chad. “But I heard two shots, and I see both hit Chad’s head, fired at close range.… This was no accident.”

“It could have been an accident,” said George, the one who rarely spoke.

“No,” Walton countered, turning to him. “This was no accident. I don’t know if you’ve got another friend out here, but, if not, I’m betting that one of you three just killed a second one of your friends. What do you want to bet it was the same guy who killed the first one?” At that, they all stared at him, completely dumbstruck, as silence fell all around them. Walton nodded once. “So, nobody is leaving until I get the cops up here.” Walton had his phone out, dialing 9-1-1.

“Cops?… They’ll never come out here,” George declared, “and don’t ask me how I know.”

“You should know,” Hawk stated, frowning at him, “since you were a cop.”

At that news. Walton spun around and asked, “Why aren’t you a cop anymore?”

The other two men snorted. “Because apparently Georgie here is a bad cop. He got kicked off the force because of it, but he still knows his shit.”

George spun on his friends. “Shut the fuck up,” he yelled. “I didn’t have anything to do with shooting Chad, and you don’t get to blame it on me.”

“Maybe we should be blaming Rudy’s death on you,” Hawk suggested menacingly. “Maybe you killed Rudy too.”

“I didn’t fucking kill anybody,” George spat, an expression of disbelief taking over his face. He looked genuinely flushed, but that could be due to anything. “Do you guys even hear yourselves?”

“Yeah, three of us are here now, where there used to be four,” Hawk pointed out, staring at George. “When I came upon this scene, I saw Chad on the ground, and you were kneeling at his side.”

“Yeah, I came upon him first because I was right behind him, remember? I was ahead of you. I didn’t kill him,” George declared, staring at them in shock. “I can’t believe you would even say that.”

“After two of our friends have been killed, of course I would say that,” Hawk stated.

“I didn’t kill him,” George repeated. “The last thing I want is anybody here accusing me of that. If this K9 guy gets the cops in here, you know that they’ll look at all of us all over again. And that’s something not a one of us can handle.”

And, with that, complete silence fell for maybe a full minute, before Rick yelled, “What the hell happened?”

Walton looked up at him. “One of these three just popped another one of their friends.” Then he faced the so-called group of hunters and friends. “With the friends you guys have,” Walton began, unsure of how to handle this mess, “you may want to get new ones.”