Strange Outfit: An Avery Barks Dog Mystery (Avery Barks Dog Mysteries Book 2) Read Free Page A

out of place, so I climbed up the makeshift ladder into the tree stand.  I took a look around and it looked more like a kid’s tree house than a hunting stand.  There was a comfortable chair and a broken footstool.  Scattered across the floor were some flashlights, water bottles, bags of trail mix snacks, a small notebook, and a magazine about bird watching. 
    Chevy whined and paced at the bottom of the tree.  I wondered if he was afraid I would fall or if he was jealous that he couldn’t climb into the tree stand with me.  Probably both.
    I looked over the edge of the floor.  “It’s Okay, Chevy.”
    He pawed at the tree.
    I sat back in the chair and looked around.  This tree stand was a bit higher up the tree than the typical hunting stand.  From that height on the top of the hill, I saw a great view of the land below.  I looked down on Ben’s property and two other neighboring properties. 
    I chuckled as I watched one of his neighbors from afar.  A big guy gave a tiny lady a piggy back ride across their yard to his big black truck.  After a couple kisses, they climbed in and took off down the road.  I took another minute to take in the beauty of this land and enjoy the cool breeze and the sounds of birds chirping.
    Maybe the guy that fell was a bird watcher after all.
    I reached for the small notebook and flipped through the pages.  There were some terrible drawings of a few birds.  At least it looked like birds.  It wasn’t the best art I’d ever seen, that’s for sure.  The inside of the front cover was filled with scribbly notes.  It looked like some kind of a poem, but it was tough to read. The handwriting was as bad as the artwork.
    “Wwwwwee Wwweee,” Chevy’s whining went into full effect. 
    “Okay Chevy, I’m coming down.”
    I shoved the notebook in my back pocket and climbed back down the wooden ladder.  When I reached the bottom rung, Chevy acted like I had been gone for two years.  He jumped on me as I sat on the ground beside him. I gave him a big hug and got lots of wet dog kisses in return. I always loved that about Chevy, he was always so happy to see me.
    Now that I had climbed back down from the tree and out of harm’s way, Chevy returned to exploration.  I sat and took in the scene, when I realized my dog had disappeared out of sight.  I followed the jingle of his dog tags and found him upside down digging a hole behind some brush, about thirty yards from the tree stand. 
    “Chevy, they’ve got enough holes around here, I don’t think they need you to dig them more.”
    Chevy kept on with doggy determination.  He dug about eight inches when I heard his toenails scratching on wood.   I brushed aside some of the dirt and revealed the top of a homemade box. I opened the lid, leaving the rest of the box in the hole.  To my surprise, Chevy had dug up somebody’s food cache! 
    Just like Chevy to find food.
    It was pretty cool. I had never seen a buried food cache before.  This technically would have to be classified as a ‘wanna-be’ cache though, since my dog was able to find it and dig it up.  I knelt down and looked into this little treasure chest.  Most everything was in stored in waterproof containers placed inside the four foot square box.  The construction was solid, made with 2x4’s and treated ply wood.
    The bottom of the cache was packed tightly with water containers and dehydrated meals.  There were some folded blue tarps and shelter making materials too. Lying on top were newspapers bunched up in a ball, a pair of powerful binoculars, jerky, a bunch of trail mix, energy drinks and a camera.  I picked up the wad of newspaper and a wallet fell out and onto my lap. 
    The picture on the I.D. inside the wallet looked a lot like the fellow who fell out of the tree the day before.  The driver’s license listed his name as Ivan Monitor from the state of Rhode Island. I put the I.D. in my pocket and packed everything back into the cache.  At least