Wake the Dawn Read online

  Three doors down from Ben’s he passed Beth and Ansel’s place. Last July the town council thought they should take down that gorgeous oak in Ansel’s front yard. Pregnant Beth threatened to chain herself to the tree and Ansel filed an intent to sue if they touched it, and they reversed themselves. That kind of grassroots politics couldn’t happen in a city. Chief was glad he lived here.

  He rolled down his window. The town smelled clean and damp and autumny. A dog barked. A cat appeared out of nowhere, flowed swiftly across the street from gloom into gloom. His left wheels bounced into and out of a pothole just beyond Third and Taylor. He’d call Glenn in the morning and get the street crew to fill it. That was something else you couldn’t do in the city.

  He pulled into his driveway, pushed the garage door button, listened to the opener groan as it dragged the garage door up. Probably need replacing soon. He parked the car and strolled out into cool darkness.

  He glanced up. The cloud cover was black and much thicker than he would’ve expected. No faint sunset glow, no light smudge to betray the moon.

  What if Hank’s multimillion-dollar weather service was wrong and Herb’s joints were right?

  Chapter Two

  Bo! Shut up!”

  His black shepherd paced beside the bed, stuck his cold wet nose into Ben’s hand dangling over the side. He barked again, a short sharp demand.

  “I already let you out!” Ben fought to open bleary eyes. A jackhammer at full speed pounded without ceasing. He realized the phone was ringing. His landline, not his cell. Who in bloody blazes would be calling now? The dog barked again, splitting Ben’s head wide open. The taste in his mouth made him gag, or was it the headache? Or the booze he needed like a transfusion to be able to sleep at night.

  He fumbled for the phone, trying to ignore the glint of light off the bottle sitting on his nightstand. Perhaps a slug of that would stop the jackhammer. He shoved the handset into the general area of his ear.

  “Good morning to you, too, Ben.” The bright cheery voice of Jenny the dispatcher glued his eyes shut. “Ben! Don’t you dare hang up on me!”

  Bo barked again and paced the length of the queen-size bed, bypassing the dirty clothes of who-knew-how-many days littering the floor.

  Jenny’s voice took on a hard edge. “Good thing that dog helps get through to you. Chief wants you heading north up 270 in thirty minutes, and if he doesn’t see you drive by, he will personally come haul your sorry rear in and confine you to desk duty. Are you sober enough to drive?”

  “I’m sober.” Ben groped for the bottle.

  “Don’t you dare touch that bottle, either!”

  What, did the woman have a camera on him? “Yes, Mother Teresa.” Fortunately he swallowed and nearly choked on the words he would have preferred to say. Jenny did not tolerate the kind of language that had taken over his mouth—and soul, too, for that matter. He started to put down the phone but realized she was still speaking. She didn’t handle being hung up on, either. He’d learned that lesson the hard way. She might sound sweet but only when and if she wanted to.

  “Ben, you have to get help.”

  “Thanks. I need a shower first and some coffee.” He rubbed his face with one hand and glared at his dog sitting before him, Bo’s lolling pink tongue the only spot of color.

  “And give Bo a treat. I know he heard the phone first.”

  “Yah.” Now he could hang up without getting his neck stretched. Get help. Sure. Such a simple thing to say and humanly impossible. The only help would be to bring Allie back. He had help enough; his only help to sleep, to wake, to live was found in that bottle.

  He turned the shower on cold and stepped in, letting out a yell that made his head shriek. Call a cold shower penance of a sort. Wearing only a waist-wrapped towel, he searched for clean clothes, found one set of underwear in the laundry basket, and pulled on the cleanest uniform he could find. Good thing tomorrow was Saturday. Wait. No, Friday. He thumbed his phone to see the day. Monday. This week was going to be a year long! He could drop his uniforms off at the cleaners and pick them up Saturday, thanks to Ellie at Ace Cleaners, who laundered them personally rather than sending them out with the regular cleaning.

  How would he get through this day?

  He thrust a mug of day-old coffee in the microwave and checked the fridge for cream. He sniffed the carton and tossed it in the overflowing trash. Bo paced beside him, as if not trusting him not to go back to bed. He had been known to.

  The microwave pinged. He slapped his chest to make sure he had his badge; if Chief caught him badgeless again he’d rip off another piece of his anatomy. The coffee burned his tongue.

  Had he fed the dog? Bo would be nosing his dish if he hadn’t been fed. Together they exited to the garage. He groaned. He’d not closed the garage door again. What new wildlife had taken up residence overnight? The skunk had been a real mess to dispose of.

  Bo jumped in as soon as he opened the car door and settled on the passenger side.

  Ben returned to the kitchen, tossed back two aspirin, and returned to his vehicle, mentally checking to make sure he had everything. The coffee and the aspirin hit his stomach with equal vengeance. He hadn’t grabbed a food bar, probably because there were none.

  He smacked the horn twice as he drove by headquarters. Thumbing a couple of clicks on his hand mike, he waited for Jenny to pick up.

  No sweet voice. No greeting. Just, “Did you eat anything?”

  “Now you sound like my mother.”

  “I’ll call your order in; they should have it bagged by the time you get there.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He finally noticed the waving trees. “You heard the weather?” Jenny always kept track of the weather. That was part of her job.

  “Not looking good, but not too bad, either. Hank Oldman says the main storm will pass east of us, but we’ll get some edge effect. NOAA weather says winds gusting ten to fifteen, half an inch to an inch of rain.” She paused. “If you’d been at the meeting, you’d have been briefed.”

  “Thanks.” Sarcasm dripped from the single word.

  Jenny’s voice softened. “Ben, I know what day this is, and I…”

  Ben hit the OFF button and gritted his teeth. He picked up his breakfast burrito and fries to go, stuffed some money through the drive-through window, and headed out of town. He hated breakfast burritos.

  In the Southwest, guides who escorted illegal immigrants across the border were called coyotes. Around here mostly Asians were coming across, and their escorts were snakeheads. And why was he pondering this imponderable factoid, anyway? He fiddled around with the radio awhile, pushing buttons, but nothing appealed. He turned it off.

  Straight as a bullet, Route 270 took him north out of town through some low hills and off across the muskegs all studded with heather and clumps of scrawny trees. The wind was picking up, the pointy spires on the firs lashing back and forth.

  Having been warned by his favorite stoolie that there was a possible sneak going down, Ben drove more slowly than usual and turned onto the dirt road he usually turned onto, part of his patrol zone but one with almost no traffic. He slowed down more. Tamarack and lodgepole pine dotted islands of solid ground surrounded by cattails and marsh grasses. The welter of bogs seemed impenetrable, but illegals passed through all the time. Those guiding must know this land even better than he did. Hard to believe.

  Maybe they only knew certain routes, because almost always, they passed through right here. A bloody highway, the way they stuck to it.

  A deer burst out and bounded across in front of him. Oh, Allie, if you’d only done what I tried to teach you to do, not swerve for a deer. That had been her last decision. She had swerved and lost control. Two years ago today. He ignored the tears until they clouded his vision, then pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket to wipe his eyes.

  He parked on his favorite copse, a low, wooded rise where his vehicle was concealed but he could see all around. It was his favorite lookout because i
t was productive; from here he apprehended smugglers every month or two, just by sitting and watching. So he waited. And waited and watched. As accustomed to waiting as he was, Bo curled up and snoozed.

  He was hungry. Had he thought to bring along anything for lunch? Of course not. Did he have a spare candy bar in his glove box? Once upon a time, but not now.

  Past two o’clock he gave it up. People on foot who’d crossed the border during darkness would have passed this way by now. His stomach growled. He drove down off the copse and continued along the dirt road for another couple of miles, watching for heads bobbing out there, seeing nothing. The wind was picking up. You could hear it whistle.

  Bo popped to a sitting position and whined, dancing with his front feet.

  “Not now. There’s no shoulder here. Just hold it until the next turnout.”

  The dog exploded. He lunged at the door, the windshield, his barking filling the SUV, instantly elevating Ben’s headache back into full jackhammer mode.

  “Bo, shut up! Down, Bo, down!” Ben pointed at the floor, but the dog ignored him, lunging at the window. He spun and barked at Ben, demanding. Ordering. Pleading.

  His dog never acted like this. What had he picked up on that Ben missed? He stopped and, leaning way over, opened the door. Bo shoved through and tore off, back the way they had come. Before Ben could get out of the truck and cradle his gun, the dog angled south into a stand of pine and birch.

  Concern switched to fury. Cursing the dog, the day, the wind, the terrain, he punched his handheld to notify headquarters.

  “Want backup?” Ada’s crisp voice.

  “To help me find my fool dog? I don’t think so.”

  “What if he’s on to something?”

  “He better be. Every time I call his name he barks, but he quit obeying orders when he went nuts in the truck.”

  “Keep us posted.”

  He signed off. “Bo!”

  The response was closer. If there were any illegals in this area, they’d sure as hell been warned. He held his gun at ready, trying not to step into holes. Was he wearing his flak jacket? No, that required forethought. The wind screamed through the trees now, breaking off branch tips and spinning them ahead. The storm Jenny thought would hit Michigan seemed to have made a wrong turn. He hated wind. Plenty of mess, no upside.

  He blew his dog whistle. Bo yipped. Close, but where? At least they seemed to be on an island of hard ground in the bog. The moss was squishy, but the ground under it didn’t give.

  Another yip; he angled to the left toward the sound. Some partner this blasted dog had become. Whatever had possessed the mutt to go tearing off like this? He puffed the whistle. A whine this time. He stepped around a clump of fir to see Bo curled under a heath.

  Gun ready, Ben moved closer. Was it a body? Bo was trained to find live people, not corpses. “Bo, leave it!”

  The dog didn’t move. Other than one lip that curled slightly. His dog, his partner, was acting almost menacing.

  What in thunder…?

  As if on cue, thunder grumbled off to the southwest. The wind was from the southwest, so it would soon be followed by rain—with Ben’s luck, a deluge; he’d left his slicker home.

  A voice from his radio: “Ben, come in. Ben.” Sounded more like Jenny than Ada.

  He ignored the voice. Keeping all his attention on the dog, he took a deep, cleansing breath to calm down. Why couldn’t he respond correctly to a simple incident, the way he was trained to do? What was going so haywire with his judgment that even his dog, equally trained, was picking up on it? Maybe Bo was reacting to his rage. He lowered his voice. “What is it, boy? What have you found?”

  The black tail quivered, black eyes drilled into his.

  Something white or once white lay within the dog’s protection. It wasn’t big enough to be a person. But this dog was one of the best sniffers in the business. Other departments often borrowed the two of them in emergencies.

  “Easy, Bo, let me see. I’m okay now.” Ben eased forward, keeping his movements firm and slow. A blanket?

  A bundle wrapped in a blanket. A bundle of what? Bait in a booby trap? He stood up quickly, looked around. If anyone else was in the area, Bo would know, hear, or smell. Ben knelt beside the bundle.

  A baby.

  Bo had just found a baby. Was it still alive?

  Bo wagged his tail and whimpered again. “Good boy. Good job, good boy.” When he reached out with his hand to touch the bundle, Bo licked his fingers. “Good boy, I’ll take it from here.”

  “Ben, where are you? Are you all right? Ben! Respond!” Definitely Jenny.

  He touched the baby’s face. Still warm. He laid his hand on the chest. Still breathing. He thumbed his handheld and barked, “It’s clear. I’ll file the report later.”

  “Good. Chief says get back here, pronto. We need you.”

  No matter what you’re doing, someone wants you to be doing something else. He was getting pretty tired of it. “Jenny? Where’s Ada?”

  “Had to go home. Hurry in, Ben.”

  He scooped the baby up and rose to his feet. “Come on, Bo, let’s get out of here.”

  With Bo leading, Ben clutched the baby to his chest and staggered back toward the road. If the baby was bait in a trap, he was toast; he couldn’t keep his sidearm ready and carry the baby and keep his balance. Bog-wise, Bo bounded from firm spot to firm spot and was soon out of sight. Ben was just as bog-wise but not nearly as agile. He stumbled, splashed through puddles, hit a grass clump wrong and his foot slid down into mire. He stepped out into the open and a gust slammed him backward.

  The rain struck in an instant downpour. No polite starting sprinkle, no lightning.

  He didn’t dare stop to check the baby he carried; the wind knifed through his wet shirt, reminding him how soaked the bundle was. At last he reached solid roadbed and scrambled up onto it. Bo barked off to the right, and there waited his truck a hundred yards away.

  He grabbed an emergency blanket out of the box in the backseat and let the wind slam the back door closed while he wrestled one-handed with the driver’s door. He held it open with his back while he snapped the blanket open and laid the baby on it. These goofy space-age blankets. Aluminum foil made out of plastic, for pete’s sake; didn’t deserve the name blanket. But apparently they worked, because every emergency kit had one, so thank God for space-age technology. He wrapped the baby up and belted it into the passenger seat.

  The wind slapped the door against his hip and the backs of his legs. “In, Bo.”

  The dog leaped to the driver’s seat and down to the floor to sit facing the passenger seat. Ben climbed in and the wind instantly slammed the door closed for him. It was getting just plain nasty out there.

  For the first time since he’d scooped up the baby, he allowed himself to pause a moment and close his eyes. God, help this baby.

  The irony of him now praying to the God he swore to ignore was lost in long-ago habits that came thundering back. He keyed his radio with one hand and rammed the key into the ignition with the other.

  “Jenny?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Call Esther and tell her a baby’s en route. A tiny one. Alive but unresponsive.” He roared off in the wrong direction, grabbed the hand brake, and did a perfectly executed moonshiner’s turn—180 at forty miles an hour. He felt momentarily smug; it’d been years since he did that, and he still had the touch. On the other hand, if his tires had hooked up, they would have spit him into the ditch, and this was not the time to need a tow. He headed toward town code three. His lights flashed red off the wet trees; the blaring siren giving him hope he was actually doing something constructive.

  “Bo, guard the baby. Take care of him, Bo.”

  The flailing wipers couldn’t begin to keep the windshield clear. Like driving into a car wash. When he swung south onto 270, conditions seemed to let up a bit. Until a blast broadsided him, shoving him across into the northbound lane.

  The baby shifted; Bo nosed it back into a
safer position.

  Ben swore at the storm, at the fear riding him like a sumo wrestler on a Shetland pony. He straightened back into his own lane, his arms and shoulders already tight from battling the bucking vehicle. Eight miles to go. He sped up, but now he was driving beyond his headlights. It appeared he was the only one on the road. Still…

  “Where are you?” The radio crackled a little.

  “Just passed Owens Road.”

  “Esther’s ready.”

  He grunted and glanced in the rearview mirror to see a pine crash across the road, not a small one. While he knew the roar it should be making, between the siren and the rain drumming on his roof, the tree fell soundlessly.

  “Trees are falling,” the radio informed him helpfully.

  “So I hear. Route 270 is fully blocked at the eight-mile marker.”

  Two miles farther.

  He stood on the brake; a tree lay dead ahead. He shoved his rig into four-wheel drive, grateful that four-wheelers no longer had to get out and lock Warren hubs by hand. He shifted into low and pressed the deer guard through the branches, eased down on the gas pedal. The wheels threw branches behind him, but the tree moved. He cleared one lane, backed off, drove through the passage.

  Less than half a mile farther, a tree had fallen across the power line to the Hostettlers’ place. The wire danced, throwing sparks. He swung wide. And he finally let in the thought that he mightn’t make it into town.

  He roared into the outskirts. A power line hung on a broken pole, but it hadn’t parted. A truck ahead moved to the side at the sight of his flashing lights.

  Emergency lights approached northbound. An ambulance flashed headlights at him and kept on going.

  He keyed his mike. “Did you tell that ambulance that the road is closed?”

  “They aren’t going that far. Just Hostettlers’. ETA?”

  “Five minutes.”

  The one stoplight in town hung black overhead. He slowed in case of other traffic and finally wheeled into the clinic. He hit the brakes and had his door open almost before the vehicle stopped. Reaching across the seat, he unsnapped the seat belt and grabbed the bundle.