“No!” Possum cried out. “Please, Smoke. You can’t go shooting that little dog! And I don’t like her, either! I can’t stand that stupid dog, but we need her! So don’t go wasting a bullet on her yet!”
“I’m gonna shoot her eventually, ” Smoke said. “Or set her on fire, even better. But not until I’m ready to get that bitch Hammer. I’ll show her for getting me locked up. Her and that fucker Andy Brazil!”
Possum reluctantly retreated to his bedroom, where he was shocked to see a photograph of Popeye in a red coat filling his computer screen. The real Popeye was sleeping on Possum’s bed and noticed the scanned photograph of herself the instant Possum woke her up.
“Shit!” Possum whispered. “We can’t tell Smoke about this!” he warned Popeye as he picked her up and she began to shake with excitement and fear.
Trooper Truth somehow knew that Popeye had been dognapped and was still alive! He was looking for her and encouraging the world to help him out. Of course, Popeye knew very well that Trooper Truth was Andy, because she had overheard many private conversations between Andy and Popeye’s owner when the website was in the planning stages. Then Andy had suddenly disappeared, and next, Popeye had.
“I ain’t gonna hurt ya, little girl,” Possum was whispering in her ear. “But Smoke’s mean. You know how mean he is, and we gotta make sure he don’t know Trooper Truth’s offering a reward for you and got everybody joining some big posse to come find you, just like on Bonanza.”
Popeye didn’t need to be reminded of how mean Smoke was, and she would have traded her favorite stuffed squirrel for a chance to sink her teeth into his ankle. She would be forever traumatized by the memory of that unguarded moment when her owner had let her out the front door and gotten distracted by the stove, which she wasn’t sure she had remembered to turn off. It all happened so fast. Her owner ran back into the kitchen while Popeye was sniffing grass near the sidewalk, and then a black Toyota Land Cruiser suddenly roared up the street and slammed on the brakes and Possum was calling Popeye’s name and holding out a treat.
“Come here, Popeye, you good little girl,” Possum said as if he were the nicest human in the world. “Look what I got for you!”
Next thing Popeye knew, she was snatched up and thrown into the back of the Land Cruiser, which was driven by that vicious monster, Smoke. Popeye was sped away to the Winnebago, where she had been ever since, and every night she dreamed about her owner, who
Smoke said was dead. For a while, Popeye hadn’t believed him, but by now, she had resigned herself to the probability that her owner was gone from this earth, because if she wasn’t, certainly she would have found Popeye by now and sent Smoke to jail for the rest of his rotten life.
Possum held Popeye tightly and carried her back into the living room. Possum had learned to fake many things, including his feelings. He was careful to act as if taking care of their canine hostage was an inconvenience. He never let on that he and Popeye had bonded, and that the dog was perhaps the only warm spot of love in his life, except for the television reruns he watched while the other road dogs slept. Popeye cowered in Possum’s lap and licked his hand.
“I told you not to lick me!” Possum lied to Popeye, who by now understood the ugly act Possum put on when Smoke was around.
“Maybe it’s time we get a message to Hammer that we’ve found her dog,” Smoke said as he handed Unique cash and she silently left. “So she’ll meet us somewhere, and when she does, I blow her fucking head off and Brazil’s, too.”
“Yeah,” Cuda said. “You been saying that for months, Smoke. And I keep saying to you, what if she brings other troopers with her? And what if this Brazil guy gets off the first round? I ‘member you telling us last time you got in a tussle with him, you ended up in jail, so he must be The Man.”