Two strong women fought the Chinese invaders to for years in a seemingly hopeless war, until the Chinese blinked, and went home.
Puss & Boots survived that war, but only to find another enemy. Their own government…
Excerpt
The two women were near the crest of the ridge when Puss grabbed Boots’ wrist.
She signaled with finger taps, “Smart dog. 3 o’clock.”
“It starts now,” Boots whispered as she turned slowly to their right, “Get hard girl!” The only other sound was the wind sighing in the treetops of the forest.
Boots inched a tranquilizer dart from her belt pouch and peered around through the gloom of the forest until she spotted a shadow under a laurel bush twenty meters away. She loaded her gas gun and fired all in one smooth motion.
“Looks like I still can still hit the easy ones anyway,” she whispered as the dog slumped on the ground with a rustle of the dried leaves.
The two women walked with silent steps across the pine needles on the floor of the forest to the laurel bush. Boots pushed its branches aside and looked down at the mongrel dog sprawled on the ground. It wore a thick plastic collar with control dials, and it sprouted a stub antenna.
Puss dropped to her knees and peered at the collar for a moment then nodded to Boots. Her eyes grew bleak as she bent her face close to the dog’s head again and grimaced, then she mimicked the dying squeal of a chipmunk and the growls of a dog eating.
“You’ve looked like that every time we’ve met one of these damm things. I don’t think you like dogs much,” Boots whispered as she squatted next to Puss and drew her belt knife, and cut the sedated dog’s head off with three precise strokes.
Puss ignored her friend’s comment as she grabbed the collar when the dog’s head flopped free, and shook away the spatters of blood on it. She slipped her arm through its loop and clamped its body-heat and pulse sensors in the warmth of her armpit. The two women stood and faced each other.
“Pay dirt!” Boots signed to her friend, “Mark is near here! His bounty will lift our mortgage big!”
“Another dog is dead anyway,” Puss signed with a shrug. “But I will not count my sheep before they hatch! We collect this mark, sell him and get our credits before I lift the skirt on my mortgage!”
Puss grinned then, and gave Boots a play punch on her arm, “Good shot for an old girl though!” she signed, “But we must dump this collar quick.”
“Yes,” Boots signed back with a smile, “If no vitals or sound are transmitted from it soon, mark will know something happened to his smart dog.
Copyright 2008 Jack McClure. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
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