A Shot of Trouble: A Cassidy Adventure Novel. Kelly Rysten

a pretty good trail.”

      “Where’s Rusty?”

      “At work. He doesn’t know. I thought you could handle Amos better. If you’re busy then I’ll just try for the house but this hurts like crazy.”

      “No, stay put.”

      “Bring two pairs,” I added quickly before he hung up.

      I pinned poor Amos down for nearly an hour before Kelly found us. He saw all the thorns poking out of my jeans and grimaced.

      “Why didn’t you just let go?”

      “It happened too fast and I wasn’t going to lose your dog.”

      “Cassidy…”

      “Give me a pair.”

      He handed me a pair of pliers and I found a spine. I grabbed it and pulled. Amos jumped and yipped. I pinned him down, found another spine, grabbed and yanked. Amos struggled.

      “I’m sorry boy! We have to do it. It’s okay, hush, hush. It’s okay. Down, down. Stay. Amos stay. Good boy, good stay.”

      Grab, yank. Grasp, pull. Kelly and I worked over the dog while he wriggled, squirmed and whined. I lay on top of him, pinning him to the ground and talking into his ear as we searched for more cactus needles, giving him only the simple commands that he understood over and over again. Down, stay, good.

      “What a good boy. No, no, stay down.”

      It got harder and harder to find thorns until finally after rubbing our hands over him we couldn’t feel any more. He whined but didn’t jerk as he had before when we hit something sharp. We brushed all the spines into a pile and released the dog. He paced a bit, whining, then sat and started licking his leg.

      “Okay, my turn,” I said. I grabbed a spine and yanked. Oh man, this was going to hurt. I buckled down and set my determination to maximum.

      “Cassidy… I can’t. I can’t hurt you like that.”

      “Okay, then take Amos back to the house. I’ll do it.”

      “No, let me take you to a doctor.”

      “They’ll just do the same thing I’m doing now. I can do it without having to figure out how to get to town in this condition. Just let me get it over with. Take Amos to the house.”

      “I can’t leave you like this.”

      “Then sit down and make yourself comfortable. This might take a while.”

      I never, ever want to go through something like that ever again. I thought it would never end. Every pull brought a ripping, pulling feeling and a stab of pain. I thought Amos was lucky because he hadn’t been wearing jeans. Each time I pulled a spike out of my jeans the fabric moved and made all the other spikes pull. I had to phase out the pain and just pull them as quickly as possible. After a while Kelly couldn’t stand it anymore and picked up the other pair of pliers. We timed the pulls so there was only one jab of pain for our two yanks. When I couldn’t see past the tears I had to pause.

      “Kelly, stop. I can’t do it anymore. I need a break.”

      I lay on the ground trying not to move. Amos came up, whined, then licked my face but this time I was too sore to be scared. I looked up into his big brown eyes and patted the ground beside me. “Down, Amos, down.” He lay down beside me while Kelly watched in surprise.

      “How did you get him to do that?”

      “Amos knows what down means. He’s a smart dog. He just needs a firm hand.”

      “That wasn’t a firm hand. That was a polite request.”

      “Maybe he’s just in a down sort of mood. I certainly know I am. How many more are there?”

      Kelly looked at my jeans. “Maybe a dozen.”

      “Okay, I think I can handle that. Let’s finish it.”

      When we were through I ran my hands over my legs and found a few smaller spines that had penetrated right through the denim. I had to roll up my jeans to remove them.

      “You ready to go?” I asked Kelly.

      “You’re going to walk home like that?”

      “I don’t have much of a choice. Do you think I should take Amos to the vet?”

      “Nah, he’d just lick off any medicine they told you to put on it.”

      “Are you sure he’ll be okay?”

      “Just don’t let him bleed on the furniture.”

      We all stood and Kelly picked up Amos’ leash. Amos walked to the end and started pulling Kelly home.

      “Kelly stop. Don’t let him do that. Watch.”

      I took the leash and Amos tried to pull me, so I jerked suddenly and firmly on the leash and he stopped. I stood beside Amos and gave him a command. “Amos, heel!” I stepped out with my left foot to give him a visual cue and he started walking calmly beside me. “No rabbits,” I admonished him. “Good heel.” When he pulled ahead I gave a quick correction and a firm command and he fell back. Kelly just shook his head and followed us back to the house.

      “Rhonda would be appalled if she saw that collar.”

      “It’s not as bad as it looks. Put it on your arm and pull the leash. You’ll see it doesn’t hurt him. If he’s willing to pull a hundred pounds behind him at a run you know the collar isn’t hurting him that badly. He is actually doing very well but needs to learn to ignore distractions. You let him chase rabbits, don’t you?”

      “Yeah, I get tired of trying to hold him back so, if we’re alone, I let him go.”

      “Maybe I should have let him go, but I didn’t know how far he’d run or if I’d be able to get him back.”

      “It’s my turn to give you a command,” Kelly said seriously. “Do not let him hurt you. If I hear that you let him hurt you I’ll be right back down here…”

      “Amos didn’t hurt me. He chased a rabbit. That’s all he did. I was the idiot who wouldn’t let go of the leash. That’s not his fault.”

      “I’m still telling you. Don’t let him hurt you.” Then his eyes softened. “I think you’ve come as far as he has. Do you know how close you were to his face while we were pulling out the cactus needles?”

      “Yeah, but it had to be done. Necessity is the mother of bravery.”

      “I thought it was invention.”

      “Necessity is the mother of a lot of things.”

      We arrived at the back door of the house and Amos lunged, eager to do something new. I corrected him. “Amos, sit!” No response. “Amos, SIT.”

      Oh, all right, he seemed to be saying and finally sat down. I calmly removed the leash. “Wait.” I opened the backdoor. “Okay!” He dashed into the house.

      “How did you do that? You’ve only had him a week.”

      “Necessity is also the mother of training. He needed some manners. I needed him to have some manners so we forced some manners onto him. Do you want a sandwich before you go back? I’m going to start soaking my jeans and then I’m going to make one for myself.”

      “Sure, but then I need to get back.”

      I went to the bedroom to quickly change my jeans. I put the bloody pair into a sink to soak in cold water. I washed the puncture wounds,