With our gear packed and Bo Diddley ready to work, Tony and I backtracked along the trail a little bit to where I knew Scout had last worked like she had the scent. I attached Bo Diddley’s lead to a ring on my duty belt.

"Why do you hook them to you like that?" Tony asked me quietly.

"Bo Diddley trails like his ass is on fire. I don’t want to lose him when I drop the lead should I trip or fall. Also, he’s so damn strong I can barely hold onto him when we’re trailing. By hooking him to my waist, I can lean back into the lead and belt and use leverage to slow him down safely, instead of wearing out my shoulders and back. He outweighs me by 15 pounds, so you know that’s a whole lot of dog."

"He’s that strong?"

"Honey, I’ll let you try an easy trail with him when this trip is over with. Then you’ll know first hand why I feel so damn old and sore all the time." I replied with a grin on my face.

With his NV goggles on, I knew that he could see the dare I was placing with that last comment. I also knew that he’d take me up on that dare and I was going to have the last laugh when Bo Diddley pulled Tony’s arms out of their sockets.

"Hey," He asked me, "Out of curiosity, how do you know if he’s on the right trail?"

I looked at him and shared the secret of handling a Bloodhound. I told him the three most important words a Bloodhound handler will ever need to know: "Trust your dog."

Tony opened the baggie and I scented Bo Diddley on the contents. My dog cast around for a few seconds until he found the hottest trail to work and then we were off to the races, literally. I flew through the air and felt Tony’s hand slip from my shoulder as he uttered a curse. After starting at a flat out run, I slowly brought Bo Diddley back to a comfortable pace for us to work the trail. I felt Tony’s hand grab my shoulder again as he whispered into my ear, "Man! You weren’t kidding!"

With our new NV goggles on, we could work at a much faster pace through the brush. After about 20 minutes, Bo Diddley began to work the trail like it had just been left recently and that started to worry me. I held up my right fist to signal us to come to a stop. I had to use all my strength to reel Bo Diddley back in to me so I could grab a hold of his harness. When all the men were gathered closely, I quietly explained why we had stopped.

"Bo Diddley is telling me that we’re working a very hot part of the trail. We’re either starting to get close, or our man just moved through here recently and then we’re not far behind him. Either way, we’re close. Carl, call in our coordinates. Cielita, get my short lead out of the pack and let’s all grab another couple sips of water. We should be coming up on some of those areas of landmines that I was warned about in the briefing."

"Actually," Santiago interjected, "We’ve been watching out for them all along. My GPS has a sensor in it and I’ve been scanning over your left shoulder the whole time. We passed several landmines already but you skirted around them just fine. I figure that your dog is leading us on the trail where the suspect went and so far we haven’t found his exploded corpse. Therefore, the guy must also know where the mines are."

"You’re doing fine!" He worriedly added.

I guess my blanched face was evident in the green haze of his goggles. I felt my heart pounding and could hear an oddly high pitch in my head. That’s the feeling that I get when I’m getting ready to forcefully vomit. I bent over at the waist and took some deep breaths. I will not puke, I ordered myself. I will not puke! Man, was I spooked. I understood why they hadn’t told me about the landmines before, but wasn’t sure that now was a good time to hear this news either. I also wasn’t so sure about his deductive reasoning. What if the suspect started jumping over where the mines were?

Bo Diddley took that opportunity while I was bent over to lick my face which knocked my NV goggles to the ground in the process. He trampled them several times in his excitement before I forcefully lifted him by his harness off of them. My glasses had been knocked off with the goggles. With my spare hand, I grabbed what was left of my glasses and felt them to assess the damage in the dark. One ear piece was missing, and the right lens was gone. This was bad. Very, very bad. I knew Bo Diddley didn’t mean any harm, but sometimes his puppy exuberance made me want to scream at him. I couldn’t yell here and I didn’t know how to express my rage at losing my glasses. Tony grabbed for the NV Goggles and tried to turn them on. Mercifully, they were operable although filthy. I put what was left of my glasses on my face and realized I might be able to make that one lens work for me.

There are four things that can help in just about any major disaster: vice-grip pliers, a sharp knife, metal coat hangers, and duct tape. With those four items, you can repair most mechanical troubles on a vehicle, perform torture on a suspect to get a confession (ok— So I’d never resort to that, but you can always threaten them), and get yourself out of most jams. I was about to see just how versatile these tools would become.

Feeling like MacGuyver, the hero from an old T.V. show of the same name, I handed Bo Diddley to Carl and grabbed my tool pack from Cielita’s backpack. Using my knife, I freed the remaining lens from my glasses while muttering enough curses under my breath to make the fellows back away a few steps. I sliced off some strips of the duct tape and wrapped the edge of the lens to give it more stability. A quit wad of spit and judicious use of my shirt tail made the lens clean again. With a little more duct tape, I was able to secure the lens to the NV goggles. It wasn’t pretty, but when I looked through just that left lens, I had pretty decent vision. I just had to remember to keep my right eye shut. Again, Tony helped me secure the modified goggles to my head. In less than five minutes, we were ready to keep moving.

We loaded up Santiago’s pack while Carl radioed in our coordinates to the rest of our team. I hooked Bo Diddley’s six foot long leash to his harness and placed the other lead in the backpack with the rest of our supplies. I petted Bo Diddley, but was to careful to avert my face when I apologized to him for getting mad. I have a really hot temper and was still amazed that I hadn’t yelled right out loud.

Bo Diddley was already straining against the lead as I checked my watch. It was 4:30 a.m. and the sky was already beginning to get light to the East. I wouldn’t be able to wear the goggles in the daylight, so now we were under pressure to finish this trail quickly. I would have to trust the others to watch out for the land mines and trip wires. We had to hustle, but somehow keep from getting killed.

This time, Tony was ready for the quick takeoff and never let go of my shoulder. For the next 3 miles, we worked at a rapid pace, staying mostly on well used wildlife trails. It briefly occurred to me to ask what type of wildlife they have in Mexico, but that thought passed rapidly as Bo leaned into his harness. We were getting close, but he wasn’t at full strength yet.

I could hear the others panting for air as hard as I was. Just when I was about to call for a break, Bo Diddley turned up his speed a notch. I allowed Bo Diddley to work at a fast jog for the next eighth of a mile. My legs were killing me, and when I wiped my face I saw blood from where I hadn’t used enough tape to wrap the edge of my lens. I was going to have to stop and take a break, I decided. That’s when Bo Diddley leaned into his harness for all he was worth and began to want to race for what he perceived as a finish line. With some difficulty, I quietly commanded him, "Wait! Wait!". I leaned back into my belt so I was leaning backwards at a 45 degree angle to try and make him stop. He finally stopped as I collapsed to the ground. He outweighs me and has 4 feet for traction. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why I had to lean back like that to stop him.

"He’s ahead. Not far. I’d guess a few hundred yards at the most." I panted. It was time to call in the troops. I grabbed a canteen and drank from it thirstily, offering some to Bo Diddley in between my gulps.

Normally, the dogs and I lead the team very close to the suspect, the trained professionals make the arrest, my dogs ID on a handcuffed suspect, and then we all go back home safely and hopefully in one piece.

I pulled the goggles from my head and used my shirt tail to wipe off my sweat soaked face. Then I pressed it to my cheek to staunch the flow of blood. That abrasion from the lens was going to leave another lovely facial scar, I figured. After unhooking Bo Diddley’s lead from my belt, I limply handed Tony the lead and wished I could strip off my Kevlar vest. I was itching in places that I didn’t even know existed. Carl silently radioed in our position using Morse code while I tried to imagine a silent form of Velcro. If only I could undo this vest without making a sound!

I readjusted myself after wriggling in my vest to try and achieve some relief, drank some more water and gave Bo Diddley a little more while I waited on them to grab my extra gear again. My pack was still laying on the trail, but they looked ready to move out.

"You do know that you’re staying here, right?" Cielita asked me. I was shocked! Were they idiots? Of course I wasn’t staying back and told them so in no uncertain terms.

"That’s why they call us Special Forces. We have specialized training in the use of force. You’re just the Dog Lady. You apparently overlooked that lack of implied training in your name." Cielita whispered to me patronizingly. I hate that tone of voice!

"What are you saying, man? We don’t know where to go from here," Santiago told him.

"Hell, the dog was pointed that way," Cielita said as he pointed to the Southwest. "Any idiot can take it from here."

I swear I don’t remember hauling off and breaking his nose. I couldn’t see a darn thing I was so furious. The next thing I remembered, I was hissing at them, "If you can’t see the guy, you’ll possibly walk right past him. Then he will kill you. Is that what you want? Wipe your nose, Dude. You’re making a freaking mess."

Cielita had both hands held protectively over his bleeding nose, while the startling pain brought tears to his eyes. I’ve broken my nose enough times to know just how much it hurts. I was glad to know he would remember that agony the next time he mouthed off at me.

I grabbed Bo Diddley’s lead away from Tony and was two inches from his face when I hissed at him angrily, "Are you going with me or not?"

"I’m in. Trust your dog, right?" He replied. Tony gripped my shoulder and gave it a good squeeze. That earned a smile from me as he handed over my NV Goggles. I figured that I had less than an hour of eyesight left, and after that, they were on their own whether I liked it or not.

"We’re in too," both Carl and Santiago replied. "Oh, and he’ll be in too, won’t you man?" they asked Cielita. He nodded and glared at me. With a swelling hand, I clipped Bo Diddley’s leash to my belt again. I saw him looking in the same direction however, and decided to try something a little different with him for safety. I gathered the slack of his leash up into my almost unusable right hand, bent over at the waist and held onto the top strap of his harness with my left hand as I told him, "OK boy, where’d he go?" Bo Diddley headed off in the same direction of travel as before. He was easy to control this way because I could control all of his weight upwards to slow him down. We walked slowly along the trail, listening for any unusual noises.

Quietly, we maneuvered our way down the path, then headed into the woods again. Tony walked like me, bent at the waist but with his gun out of it’s holster. Every step we took was made as quietly as possible, but each snap of a twig sent shivers down my spine. My left eye alternated between focusing on Bo Diddley’s body and head, watching for any signs that he might give me, and trying to watch my footing.

We’d gone perhaps another five hundred yards into the woods before his head came away from the ground and he started to airscent. He cast his head around, trying to locate the direction the scent was coming from. I saw him look up, fixated in one direction, and knew we had our man close by.

I stopped, and while still bent, I turned to my right to whisper straight into Tony’s ear, "He's somewhere in the trees. I can’t see up there without letting go of Bo Diddley."

Tony released his death grip on my right shoulder and scanned the trees. The other men received the same message and they scanned the trees with NV binoculars. I felt Tony’s hand insistently press down between my shoulder blades and knew they had the target in sight.

I stepped out of their way as I gave Bo Diddley the 'dead dog' command. It’s better than a 'down' command because he’ll lay on his side completely flat against the ground. As Cielita passed me, I felt his Kevlar helmet press down around my ears. I knew that he was making a mistake, but couldn’t say a word because I knew that protecting me was his first priority.

Instead, I lowered myself flat to the ground and covered Bo Diddley’s body with mine, the helmet sheilding our heads as I pressed my lips to his cheek. Since I had the Kevlar vest on, there was really no other way to protect him other than this method. I tried to get him to tuck his legs against his body so he’d become a smaller target underneath of me, but I couldn't seem to get them all under me.

Santiago called out to the suspect to give himself up. I still didn’t know where he was, just that they must have spotted him. When the first shots rang out, I instinctively covered my head with my hands and clenched my eyes tightly shut. I don’t know why we think our hands will protect our head from bullets, but look at any innocent bystander in a shootout and they’ll be doing the same thing.

I heard so many shots fired that it’s hard to tell which one caught Bo Diddley. I felt his body lurch and he yelped in pain. There was just enough daylight so that when I lifted off of him slightly, I saw his front paw pulled up tightly to his body. I kept my body over his as I pulled off my outer shirt. I never noticed the firepower come to an end ahead of us.

Tony came running back to me to tell me it was over and that we were safe, but found me quickly wrapping my shirt around Bo Diddley’s front leg. "He’s been shot! Get the vehicles here now! I gotta get him to a vet!" I yelled as tears welled up in my eyes. Tony ran back to use the radio, then returned to try and help us. With a flashlight, I could see that most of the carpal joint on his right leg was shredded. Fragments of bloody bone and slivers of ligaments jutted from his gaping wound. I kept repeating an unfinished prayer over and over, "Dear God...Dear God...Dear God..."

Hours later, I sat in the President’s private hospital waiting room with my hand in a cast. They’d given me painkillers while they set my hand, and enough Valium to staunch the flow of tears and keep me partially numb. There weren’t enough drugs to stop the sounds of Bo Diddley yelping in pain that kept running through my mind.

The only satisfaction I felt about this horrible ending was knowing that after Cielita had been killed by a shot to the head, that Carl had managed to kill the assassin with a head shot of his own. Everything else seemed pointless and depressing.

Tony had just brought me some more coffee when Dr. Lowe appeared. The tired look on his face after four hours of surgery was more than I could bear. Dr. Lowe took a deep breath to explain the outcome of Bo Diddley's surgery to us. He rubbed his reddened eyes as he spoke:

"We were able to repair the vascular damage to Bo Diddley’s leg and he’s got good blood flow throughout the leg again. I doubt that there’ll be long term effects from the loss of blood. Unfortunately, this is the only good news that I have. The bad news is that we were unable to save the use of the joint. We saved his leg, but the carpal joint has been fused together permanently. He’ll never be able to walk normally. I'm sorry, but it was the best that we could do."

The tears spilled from my eyes knowing that Bo would never work again. He had just retired. I nodded and hugged him for saving my partner's life. Then, we were allowed to walk back to the recovery area to see Bo Diddley.

For him, they had placed a mattress on the floor in a private room of this human hospital. The IV bags hung from poles standing at his head. Slowly, the IV lines rehydrated him from his ordeal while administering a slow drip of antibiotics to help him heal. He lifted his head and whimpered softly to me, before letting his head sink back to the mattress. I heard the voice of the President of Mexico behind me.

"We have come to see the national hero, Bo Diddley."

I turned to see two young girls with raven hair smiling nevously at me. The youngest daughter was just slightly taller than my own little girl and wore a shining ointment over her burns. The older girl walked with crutches, her right foot in a cast like Bo Diddley's. I invited the girls to come over to us and gently stroke Bo Diddley's flank and soft ears until he seemed to be asleep again, then Tony drove me back to the hotel.

Scout was waiting for me in her crate when I got back to the hotel. I told her what had happened to Bo Diddley and she seemed to understand while she licked the tears from my swollen eyes. I took her for a walk in the lush gardens around the hotel, oblivious to the beautiful colors and scents from the flowers, or even the noonday heat. Later, when I called home to tell them that I’d be returning the following night, my kennel aid assured me that my daughter and critters were all fine. She was as heartbroken as I about Bo Diddley's injuries, but also grateful that his life was spared.

I fell asleep with Scout lying next to me, her soft snoring lulling me into a dreamless sleep. After my morning ritual of walking and feeding Scout, I called the hospital to check on Bo Diddley. He would be allowed to fly home today, but not on a commercial plane. The President had ordered his personal Boeing 737 to deliver us home again so that Bo Diddley and Scout would have all the room they needed.

I opened the door to Bo Diddley’s room at the hospital and bless his heart, he was trying to put a little weight on his cast. He had also shredded his mattress so there was white foam stuffing covering the room in a synthetic snowfall. That destruction meant that Bo Diddley was feeling much better.

After the briefing/ tongue lashing that we’d received in Mexico, I was surprised that they’d opted to fly us back at all. I guess that when the President of Mexico is footing the bill, the U.S.A. doesn’t have the ability to deny a free ride. At the briefing, Ruiz chastised me about punching a Special Forces man. There was little else he knew he could get away with telling me. Hindsight being 20/20, I thought that maybe I agreed with him. Tony was admonished for going along with me, which Ruiz said put us all at risk. This was why he was placing Tony on a two week administrative leave. Again, maybe Ruiz was right. On the other hand, I had taken my remaining Valium before the briefing, so everything that Ruiz said seemed to appear somewhat humorous.

Tony talked to me on the plane. I was surprised to hear him explain the story of his last name. As angry as he’d seemed when we’d first met, he was getting to be almost chatty. His family used to show Bloodhounds in Spain. Their family name was Humberto. When he was still a small boy, his family members were all killed in a train accident. As he was the only surviving member of his family in Spain, he was forced him to come to Mexico to be raised by an aunt and uncle. When he arrived, the immigration people asked him to spell his name on the documents.

Tony smiled at me, "I still don’t know why I did it to this day. Maybe it reminded me of them to call myself a Bloodhound."

When we arrived at the airport, Tony opted to drive us home since I was still on painkillers for my hand. We stopped at a park near the airport to let the dogs relieve themselves. I never asked Tony why he wanted to come to Colorado for his leave, but watching him eyeball my dogs, I had a pretty good idea.

I squeezed his shoulder and told him, "Always trust your Bloodhound."