sunset was an ugly yellow, wasn’t it, Dusty? I always wonder what’s going to happen when it’s that color. It’s so unusual…” Lieutenant Callie Evans squatted down in front of the cyclone-fenced kennel that housed her golden retriever, a dog specially trained for rescue missions. There were twenty-two such animals in the facility. Overhead, the pale amber glare of a sodium lamp cast deep, running shadows across the enclosed area that housed dogs of various breeds.
The U.S. Marine Corps General Rescue Unit sat a quarter of a mile away from a small lake where marines liked to fish when off-duty. The main building of the unit was on top of a knoll, sitting among rocks, dirt and cactus. The kennel area was at one side of the dark-brown stucco, single-story building. Callie spent three-fourths of her life here, and loved every moment of it. The men and women handlers were like a large, extended family to her.
Even though she was the executive officer of the unit, she considered the enlisted people family, too. In their kind of work, the walls between officers and enlisted personnel dissolved to a great degree, and Callie liked it that way. She might be a Marine Corps officer, but in her book, enlisted Marines deserved every bit as much respect. So often, out at some disaster site, rank distinctions disappeared completely. During those times, they were all just people on a mission to save whoever was trapped or endangered. Finding survivors was the sole focus for both officers and enlisted alike in this rescue unit. Whether she was searching for victims in a skyscraper fire, or after an earthquake, a tidal wave or any other type of trauma that might involve trying to find life in so much death, Callie loved her job with her whole heart and soul.
Dusty whined, his huge, golden-brown eyes looking up at her with unabashed adoration as she stuck her small fingers through the wire to pet his cold nose. Wagging his tail, he whined again plaintively.
Frowning, Callie remained hunched over, one hand on the gate and the other stroking Dusty’s muzzle. For the last three days all the dogs were restless. Some whined. Others barked in a way that usually signalled danger. Danger? What kind? And where was it coming from? She shifted her worried gaze to her five-year-old friend. Giving Dusty a soft smile, she whispered, “Wish I could understand dog language better. I gotta get going, Dust, but I just wanted to stop by one more time before I left to do my rounds of this place. You’ve seemed so upset. What is it, boy? What’s got you and everyone else spooked around here?”
The evening coolness here in the desert always surprised Callie. Camp Reed, a hundred-thousand acre Marine Corps reservation, sat on some of the most expensive real estate in Southern California. It was literally a back door to the Los Angeles basin, about twenty miles to the west. And even though Camp Reed was arid desert, with cactus, and Joshua trees dotting its rocky hills and deep, narrow valleys of ocher-colored soil and sand, it still got cold at night. Because the reservation wasn’t right on the coast, it didn’t benefit from the warm, humid Pacific. Consequently, Camp Reed was either broiling hot, with temperatures soaring to over a hundred degrees in summer, or marine sentries found their teeth chattering as they walked their posts during winter. No snow fell, but it might as well as far as Callie was concerned.
“Of course,” she told Dusty in a conspiratorial tone, “it is late December, and even here in good ole California, it gets close to freezing at night.” She smiled affectionately at her rescue partner and slowly rose to her full five-foot-five-inch height. Pulling her camouflage jacket more tightly around her thin frame, Callie stood on the concrete and looked around.
The dogs were really upset. As she stood there, her hands deep in the pockets of her Marine Corps cammos jacket, the cap drawn down on her head and the bill low enough to stop the glare of the lights overhead from reaching her eyes, she wondered why they were so wound up.
She’d just gotten back from Turkey a week ago. She and Dusty were still recovering from that grueling two weeks of climbing over rubble caused by a devastating earthquake in that country. Pulling her hand out of her pocket, she held up a doggy biscuit, one of Dusty’s favorite treats.
“Hey…look what I got for you.” She leaned down and slipped it between the wires.
Dusty quickly gobbled it up, licked his mouth with his large pink tongue and gave her a beseeching look for another one.
Callie chuckled indulgently. “Don’t look at me like that. You talk with your eyes, guy.” And she grinned and tucked her hands back into her pockets. Looking to the right, she saw that Sergeant Irene Anson had desk duty. The sergeant was thirty years old, married, with a little girl. Callie doted on Annie, who, at age five, just loved to come out to the kennels and pet all her “doggies.” It was a time Callie always looked forward to, for she loved little kids. Irene’s husband, Brad, was a Recon Marine, one of the corps elite.
Camp Reed had its own rescue dog unit, teams of which were utilized around the world in major catastrophes of any kind. Callie had been in many countries during her last two years with the rescue unit. When called to those countries for earthquake duty, it didn’t hurt that she knew Spanish, plus some Turkish and Greek. Callie had taken courses in those languages because many times, earthquakes occurred in countries where those languages were spoken, and she wanted to be able to converse not only with the local authorities, but with survivors they found in the rubble, as well. One of her least-favorite duties was going to South America for the many killer mudslides that occurred during the rainy season. It wasn’t something she looked forward to at all.
Dusty whined, wanting another treat.
“You are a glutton for more goodies,” she told the retriever wryly. “And it isn’t like this hasn’t been a great day for you. We went to the beach today and we played and celebrated New Year’s Eve early. You got to swim in the ocean, go after the sticks I threw, and roll in the sand while I roasted hot dogs over a fire. And then you came back and shook yourself, spraying water all over me and the food. That’s how you got your fair share of the hot dogs. You ain’t no dummy, are you, guy?” Callie laughed under her breath. It had been a good day, one they’d both needed. But she had no one to share this evening with, to welcome in the New Year. Even as Callie held her dog’s worshipful stare, loneliness ate at her.
“Don’t go there,” she told herself in warning. “Don’t do this to yourself, Callie….”
Dusty whined.
“I know, I know,” she said aloud to the golden retriever. “Why do I do this to myself, Dusty? Why can’t I just be fine with how I look? You are. Of course, you’re drop-dead handsome. I mean, what lady dog wouldn’t do a double take, seeing you?” Her mouth curled, but with pain, not humor. Callie hurt inside. She was twenty-five years old and single, and she knew why.
Dusty sat down and thumped his tail eagerly on his concrete slab. Callie had bought a flannel pillow filled with cedar shavings for him to lie on in the kennel. Concrete couldn’t be comfortable in her opinion. Dusty dearly loved his “blankie” and joyfully slept on it every chance he got. Now he tilted his head, his intelligent eyes shining with happiness that she was still there with him.
“Why can’t I just be happy like you over the simple pleasures of life, like your blankie?” Callie asked. She moved back to the kennel, rested her shoulder against it and hung her head. Staring down at her booted feet, she sighed. “Why do I always have to torture myself, Dusty? So I’m plain looking. “Board ugly,” as I heard some jerk of a jarhead say a week ago. Dude, that hurts. You know?”
Dusty whined.
“Darn it all…” Callie whispered achingly. “I wish I wasn’t so softhearted, Dusty. I need a thicker skin. I wish I could let those words roll off me like water off a duck’s back, but I can’t….”
Maybe if she let her short, sandy-blond
