Page 73 of Chasing Creed

“Is it one of the dogs?”

“No, no. All that’s good. You go ahead and finish your breakfast. I can come back.”

“Would you like some breakfast? Hannah made enough to feed a half-dozen people.”

Sully patted his lean midsection. “I think her delicious generosity has already helped me pack on ten pounds.”

Creed smiled. The man could use a lot more calories to make up for Sully’s campfire diet of rice and red beans. Creed picked up his fork and pointed to the chair. “Do you mind sitting for a few minutes. I’m almost finished.”

“Sure, sure.” He padded across the room and sat down.

Creed met Sully last fall. He and his little dog were living in the woods back behind the Waffle House off Avalon Boulevard. His utensils and worldly belongings could fit into a duffel bag. He joked that he preferred to call it “extreme camping.”

Too proud to take any help or handout, Creed had finally talked Sully into coming to help Hannah and him at their K9 facility. Besides their scent dog services, they also contracted and trained working dogs for other organizations. Their kennel normally housed a couple dozen dogs. Then just before the holidays, Creed agreed to help rescue and take in a large group of working and military dogs. They were the dogs left behind in Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul.

Sully was good with dogs. Despite his suspicions, he could see immediately that Creed and his team did need help. Some of the dogs were injured. Many of them were traumatized. All of them needed to be quarantined before they could be reunited with their military handlers or new owners. There was so much to do, and they needed an extra person who could be available 24/7.

When Creed presented Sully and his dog Gunner with their own trailer to live in, the old man started to refuse. Creed had even tucked it into the trees, back away for more privacy but close enough to walk to the clinic and kennels.

“Jason has his own trailer, too,” Creed explained at the time. “We can work out the hours. I promise we won’t work you to death.”

When Sully still appeared to hesitate, Creed added, “It’s either this, or I’ll provide you with a vehicle, but it’ll be a lot of driving back and forth. It’d really help us out if you could be here on site. We’ll still pay you a salary. You’d have to work that out with Hannah.”

It took Sully a few minutes to realize Creed was offering him a real job, not a made-up one as a handout. A job he believed and expected Sully could do.

“For the dogs,” Sully had finally told him as he accepted the housing.

Creed wasn’t surprised some nights when he noticed a fire outside the trailer with a sleeping bag next to it.

“What happened to your arm?” Sully asked now as he sipped coffee and waited for Creed to finish.

Creed repeated what he’d told Hannah. Sully’s brow furrowed. He became agitated, his knee bouncing. Finally, he set his coffee cup on the table and said, “I need to show you something.”

“Okay.”

“Can we go now?”

Creed followed Sully through the woods. The old man was much shorter and ducked under branches that required Creed to bend down or walk around.

“Where exactly are you taking me?” Creed called out from behind.

“Patience, Jarhead,” he said over his shoulder but didn’t slow down.

They’d left their dogs behind: Grace with Hannah and Gunner with Dr. Avelyn. Without having to keep an eye on Gunner, Sully was quick and appeared more limber. He also seemed oddly familiar with this path through the dense forest, even though he’d only lived out here for a couple of months. He did have an unnatural sense of direction that maybe came from living in the woods.

“I hope you don’t think we can move your trailer all the way out here,” Creed joked when they kept trekking on.

“No, no. I think it’s perfect right where it is. We’re close.”

Then he veered off the path and began a slow climb through the brush. Finally, Sully stopped beside a huge live oak tree that sprawled out, its branches butted up against magnolias and longleaf pines. The scrub grass looked trampled down all around the trunk. When Sully pointed to the ground, Creed immediately saw cigarette butts on top of pine needles. Someone had spent some time standing here.

“Unfortunately, the property spreads close to the park,” he told Sully. “It’s hard to stop trespassers.”

He knew that even when Sully had been homeless, he was still careful where he set up “camp.” He stayed within borders deemed either public land or uninhabitable. Creed wasn’t surprised that the possibility of someone trespassing on his property might bother the man.

“It’s not that.” He gestured for Creed to step up onto the incline behind the tree. It was a tight squeeze, but Creed didn’t have to go far to see what Sully wanted him to see. This spot looked out over an open meadow down below.

“Do you recognize that?”