Soldier Dogs 3 by Marcus Sutter

Author:Marcus Sutter [Sutter, Marcus]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Bo almost wept at the sight in front of him. This wasn’t home! This wasn’t the American military. This wasn’t anything that could help the thousands of scared, hungry Chamorros being held prisoner in that encampment.

Instead, a couple of mossy boulders loomed behind a ferny patch of hillside. And the dog waited inside the wide, protected space between the rocks. But it wasn’t that wide. Not even wide enough for Bo to stretch his arms. And only five or six feet high.

Still, the dog wriggled aside to give Bo room to enter.

“Dumb dog,” he repeated. “This isn’t home.”

The dog’s ears drooped, and for a second Bo felt bad for calling him dumb. Then the dog started licking at the slash across the top of one leg. Poor guy. That cut looked like it hurt.

Bo crouched and scooted out of the rain. The space between the boulders was deeper than it looked. Drier too. And carpeted with fallen leaves. It was actually a pretty cozy nook, though it stank of wet dog—and swampy boy.

Bo slumped against the rock wall. He couldn’t stop here, not for long. Still, he needed to rest for a few minutes or he’d collapse.

“Okay,” he told the dog. “We’ll stay here until we warm up.”

The dog stopped licking his cut and looked at Bo.

“What’s your name?” Bo asked, setting aside the breadfruit and the pack.

The dog eyed the breadfruit, his wet ears twitching.

“Oh, you want some lemmai?” Bo asked. “Maybe that’s your name? Is your name Lemmai?”

The dog’s tongue lolled from his very toothy mouth.

“Of course I’ll share, Lemmai. After all, you gave me those tropical bars.”

On his fourth try, Bo tore through the tough outer skin of the breadfruit. The fruit was soft and ripe—but nobody ate breadfruit raw. The inside looked gummy and gross. Bo’s mom always baked or roasted it. Still, he figured it was better than nothing.

He gave the dog half the fruit and took a bite of the other half. Yech. Well, maybe the dog had some more of those rations.

Bo dug through the pack and found medical stuff. Safety pins, gauze bandages, scissors, tape, ointment. Iodine swabs. Hmm. He read the directions on the ointment, then looked at the dog’s wounded leg.

“If I clean your cut, are you going to bite me?”

The dog tore into the fruit with wolflike fangs.

“Oh, good,” Bo said. “That’s reassuring.”

Still, he took a breath and scooted closer. The wet-dog stink almost made his eyes water. He touched the dog’s unhurt side, then carefully parted the dog’s fur around the injury.

The dog stopped eating and watched him with alert eyes.

“I’m trying to help you, Lemmai. Okay?” The cut looked more like a burn than a stab, and Bo guessed that a bullet had grazed the dog. “Whoa. You got shot and you kept swimming?”

The dog lowered his head again and chomped on the raw breadfruit.

“Here goes,” Bo said, and applied the ointment to the wound.

The dog flinched, then tensed his muscles. Bo spoke softly to him, trying to keep him calm and coat the entire wound.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.