What’s worst? A gal that walks ungainly and unsteady on prosthetic legs, or a dog that can’t track reliably? Hard to answer. As I lean down to get a sense of whether my dog, Shady, stands ready to take on her assignment, the undercover police officers behind me are wondering, too.

“Are we good?” one of them asks with an edge of hesitation, like he half expects the answer to come back as one fat “No.”

I nod. The 4 AM chill cuts through me. I nod again, more to myself than to the humans behind me. For her part, Shady stands straight and alert. Of the four of us, she strikes me as the one with least doubt.

“I aim to send her,” I say.

“OK, let’s do it.”

“Revier,” I whisper-hiss.

Shady sets off. She slink-steps her way, tracing a line along the brick fence, rounds a corner, and soon becomes one more shadow. I lose her among the trucks and SUVs, all shiny, most of them sporting chromed rims that shimmer with the scant street lights.

“She’s going right for it,” the same cop says, trading his hesitation for hope.

I say nothing. Instead I squint, trying to make out her shape. For a moment I allow myself to imagine her as Shadow, the large shepherd I left in Afghanistan. If he were in there right now, I would know one hundred percent that he’ll strike the mark. Not like Shady, who’s failed to hone in twice in a row. He could fend for himself a heck of a lot better, too, if one of them gangsters decided to come out for a smoke…

A door clanks open. From the building, an auto body shop of sorts, two voices sound out in the night.

“Shady,” I whisper, if only to myself.

I spy her at that very moment, silhouetted against the shop’s inner lighting. She’s sitting, like she’s supposed to, no more than six feet from the truck. Her snout aims right at that trailer’s back gate, confirming suspicions of a gun and ammo stash.

The voices from the body shop get louder. Do they see her?

“Call her back,” the other cop whispers.

Shady stands still. For a moment, I allow myself to look on with pride. Regardless of the commotion and the threat she no doubt senses, she’s holding still. Steady. For once.

“Hey, that’s a dog!” one of the gangsters yells.

That snaps me to attention. I pull out my dog whistle. Will it work? I haven’t trained Shady much with it lately. She responds well—mostly—to voice commands. But this?

I give it three short blows. She looks right at me. I follow up with another three short blows. She scampers off.

“Calling it in,” the first cop says.

At the moment when yelling from the body shop intensifies, seconds before I fear they will start shooting at Shady, flashing blue/red lights come at us from two directions. Thankfully, no bullets fly.

Shady makes it to me. I let myself collapse to the ground and wrap my arms around her. As she whimpers at my side, I realize I’m shaking, quivering like an IED just went off. She lets me hold her like that, the two of us trembling in sync.

The next two hours pass in a blur. At the station, I settle down to help the officer complete the report by supplying him the technical explanation. I sign off a couple of forms and a part of the report, seeing as to how my dog’s track provided probable cause for the search and all. That takes a good piece of the early morning.

I’d go home after that, but the chief wants to call on the local reporters and show them the big catch. He wants me there, too, and I reluctantly oblige.

By the time we’re done with all the to-do, it’s 9:30 AM. I come out of it thinking I need me some jeans, so I might look more presentable on camera next time. The local mall opens not long thereafter, so I grab me some coffee and head for it. That’ll be something if I can manage it without going into a panic attack. A job and some shopping, all on the same day. Almost like a normal person, if I can pull it off. A bit of progress to brag about to my therapist, I tell myself.

It happens often, and it happens now. Someone opens the door for me. A short gal this time. Her short fiery orange hair screams red flag. My problem? I got cripple written all over me, and her gesture amounts to nothing but a bunch of pity.

Yeah, here I go again, taking out my bitterness on the innocent. But are they? Really innocent? Or did they do this to me? Hmm. OK, so I did this for them. I signed up for it, big hero that I am. Or so the story goes.

I try to smile. “Thank you.”

Shady, striding next to me, does her own bit of sniff-and-lick thanking.

“Ooh, friendly, isn’t she?” the redhead gal says.

I do my best to keep smiling. “When she wants to be.” I step through the store’s door and wait for the canine-human encounter to get done.

“What’s her name?”

“Shady.” I pull back on her leash.

“Interesting name.” The gal stops to smile-grin at me. “Because Shadow isn’t a good name for a girl, if I recall correctly?”

Ah, so she’s one of them. She’s seen me on TV, thinks she knows all about me.

“That’s about right.”

She steps up and squats down to get at eye level with Shady. “Well, Shady. My name is Allison. Nice to meet you. I’ve read an awful lot about all you do for your…”

Allison pauses to look up at me. On the one hand I like she gave Shady first right of introduction. On the other, it does cast our encounter in an awkward light.

“Handler,” I say. “I don’t own her. I train and handle her. And the handling part, well, barely.”

Allison stands and extends her hand. “Nice to meet you, Major McMurtry.”

“Jane’s fine,” I reply as we shake hands.

“Listen. I don’t know how busy you are…” She checks her watch, like she really needs to. “It’s almost lunch time. Maybe after you’re done shopping we can, you know, catch lunch over at the food quad? Or grab some coffee if an early lunch isn’t to your liking.”

The thought shakes me. It’s all I can do to come to this mall. I came with only a pair of jeans on my agenda. In and out, I promised myself. Come before the lunch crowd, get out before they descend on the mall. On the food quad.

“I understand if you’re not—”

“No, that’s fine. Haven’t eaten there for a while.” I swallow. “Had an early morning, too, with not much of a breakfast.”

That and I need to get over my panic attacks. This ain’t Bagdad, or Kandahar. Dang it, I fought to keep this place free, lost two legs on the way here. Time to start acting and living like I’m not still back there.

“OK, great,” Allison says.

For all my self-pep-talk, it feels neither OK nor great.

Are you OK?

More than opening of doors, or the furtive looks, that question annoys me to no end. To her credit, though I see it written all over her face, Allison doesn’t ask it.

Are you OK?

I still hear it, though. My tense demeanor is making her uncomfortable.

Shady stuffs her head in my lap, and I run my fingernails through her hair. It settles me some, especially when she returns to guard duty. Oh, I haven’t commanded her to, but she still does it on my account.

“She’s good for you,” Allison says after she finishes chewing a French fry.

“Yeah.”

Allison takes a sip from her soda. Her lips draw a thin smile after they release the straw. “Have you seen that reality TV show? About dogs and vets?”

“The ones about dogs that help vets with PTSD?” There, it’s on the table.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Only seen a couple of commercials.”

“You know what it’s about, though.”

I nod. “Dogs doing what she’s doing now. Soothing me some.”

Allison takes another sip from her soda, like she needs the fizz to temper what she’ll say next. “There was this one scene where they did a really good job with the camera angle.” She makes a swooping motion with both her hands put together in the form of a cylinder—or a lens, I suppose. “Came in low, at the dog’s viewpoint. Showed how the dog keeps watch, next to the vet. And the vet no longer needed to be… what do they call it?”

“Hyper-vigilant.”

“Yes.” She points at me like I’ve scored a clever point on a quiz show. “And you could see the vet relax a little, you know? Just let his dog take care of it.”

Like I’m doing now. Or trying to, she doesn’t add. But I reckon she tells it true, so I nod. I have to break eye contact, though. Grabbing for what’s left of my burger, I take a big bite and chew it slow, so as to give me a minute during which it ain’t polite for me to talk.

Allison mimics me, and we eat in silence for a few minutes. I’ve seen guys do this, hang together without feeling they have to fill the void with idle talk—or even talk that means something. But this ain’t my experience when spending time with other gals. Lately, all the ones I meet gab and gab and gab, especially when I go quiet. I’m liking this about Allison, how she don’t fall into that pattern.

“You said a minute ago you were a Veterinarian?” I ask after I swallow the last of my bite.

She nods while she finishes hers. “Yeah. Just getting started with my practice.” She points at Shady. “I do house calls, if she prefers that over office visits.”

“That might suit me, especially after—” I halt. Something’s caught in my throat, and it ain’t a piece of burger.

Allison smiles. “Yeah, I hear you might soon have another dog in the pack.”

I nod.

“It’s taking some time, huh?”

I nod some more. “He’s gotta serve his time.”

“Shadow-7, right?”

“You been readin’.”

“Yeah. That article on the local paper. That’s something, huh? How dogs are soldiers, too.”

“Better than most, but with few of the retirement benefits.”

She smiles again. “So how much longer do you think it’ll be before he comes home?”

“He’s gotta serve his time. Two more years before he hits his retirement age.”

“I think it’s a shame. With all you two went through together, four tours and all. I think they should’ve let him come home with you.”

“I filed all the right paperwork,” I say, forcing a smile that on my face feels like a grimace.

She smiles. “Yeah, that government paperwork’s something, isn’t it?”

I nod. “The red tape’s got me all tangled now. For all the tracking I’ve done in my life, tracking Shadow’s the toughest job I’ve taken on.”

I pause, not wanting to say it, but doing so anyway. “Might turn out to be the one that undoes me for good.”

This week I sampled a short prologue from Tracking Shadow, the novel length book that combines Waiting for Shadow and Shadow-7, now available in print form.