Pepper

By Lynn Ritthaler

This is a true story of a dog and family, taking it through good times and bad times taken from the Diary of the Author and his memories of a special dog that he loved. A dog that suffered greatly, thinking she had been left behind in a place she didnt know, while the family suffered with the fear that they would never find the dog they had loved and cherished for so long.

The Author, Lynn Ritthaler can only write about the things that he has lived through and is sentimental to him.

He is also the Author of a true story titled THRICE SHE DIED that he was a part of.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477280119

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2012 by Lynn Ritthaler. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/11/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-8010-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-8009-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-8011-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012919470

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

CHAPTER 1

It was a hot summer in Broomfield Colorado, and our feed store was next to a game room that wasn’t supervised. There was always a large group of teenagers hanging around day and night until the owners would come close it up whenever they felt like it. The game room was filled with slot machines and all of the games that kids like to play. Sometimes they would have somebody there during the busiest hours to make change, but for the most part they had change machines so that the owners wouldn’t have to pay a salary for some one to be there night and day.

More than just a place for the kids to go have some fun, it was fast becoming a meeting place. Some kids could care less about playing the machines since they could meet some new cute boy or pretty girl.

The game room was also becoming a place for the drug pushers to peddle whatever they could. They would always have a trunk full of cold beer for those not yet into drugs. They would give the beer out free to the new comers hoping to show them a good time so they would come the next night looking for something a little stronger until they hooked onto something that would surely keep them coming back.

The game room was only a nuisance at first. The kids that came during the day were usually there to play the machines and were relatively quiet. The feed store was closed at night so we weren’t really bothered too much by the crowds at night, except having to pick up beer cans and broken bottles the next morning and sweeping the cigarette butts off the sidewalk in front of our store.

As the game room became more and more crowded and more drugs were sold, the police started cruising the area more often to break up fights and to keep the noise from loud mufflers and loud music down to a low roar. This was to no avail however. One Monday morning when we opened up we found that our dock door in the alley had a big hold kicked in it. We called the police and started looking to see what, if anything, was missing. We never left any money in the store but we noticed that our silver ornaments were missing that we sold to horse show people to decorate show saddles and bridles or even the toes of cowboy boots.

The policeman was very nice and said We will investigate, but you will probably never see that silver again. We were just a small store so we didn’t carry any insurance for theft. My cousin Wanda had been helping out in the store whenever she could for little or no pay. She said, I suppose this means I have to work another month for nothing!" She was just kidding but the meaning was there nonetheless.

I yelled to my fourteen year old son, Come on Dan, let’s go see what we can find around the farm to patch this door with. We came up with some old paneling and 1 X 4’s to nail over the hole.

Things went along as usual that next week without mishap until Saturday night. My pretty wife Denise or Den as I liked to call her and myself drove by the feed store on our way to church Sunday morning. I had a hunch that all was not alright. I should have followed my hunch before getting ready for church. As we drove down the alley, Lo and Behold, there was the dock door with the patched kicked out that Dan and I had spent such a long time to make as pretty as possible. I stopped the car, walked around to the hole in the door and peered in to see if anyone was in there. I didn’t see anyone so I unlocked the door and went in to call the police. Den followed me in, looking around every stack of feed in the store and behind every door. This time we had a very expensive lawn mower missing. Dan had ridden the church bus to Sunday School with his two sisters so I didn’t have him to help me patch the hole again. He was only fourteen but was already showing many signs of being mechanically minded, and besides I was getting used to telling him to go get me the hammer and nails and the saw and another board if you see one, while I stood there figuring out how to go about fixing the hole.

I told Den, Church will have to wait today. You stay here and watch the store and I will go home, change clothes, pick up the things that I need and be right back. She very strongly said, I’m not staying here with a hole in the door. Maybe they will come back. I didn’t blame her for not wanting to stay by her-self. I told her, The police will be here any minute so you don’t have to worry. That helped a little, but she still was reluctant to stay by her-self. We only lived a couple miles down the road and I knew what I need to fix the door, so I changed clothes in a hurry, throwing my suit across the bed, pulling on a pair of levis and a western shirt and my old work boots’ ran to the garage for the tools and headed back to the store. I know I couldn’t have been gone for more than fifteen minutes, but Den said, Where have you been? I am sure it must have seemed a lot longer than that to her. The police had gotten there just a little before me. They hadn’t put a rush on it, because I told them when I called that I was reporting a burglary. The dispatcher had asked, Is the burglary in progress?

I told them no. He said, Sunday mornings are slow. We only have one policeman available at this time, but we will get him over there as soon as possible.

This was a different policeman than we had before. He looked older and wiser but gave us the same story that the first one had given us. We would most likely never see the lawnmower again.

CHAPTER 2

Trouble

It became habit after that. Our feed store was broken into every Saturday night. We would be missing a saddle, more silver or a lawn mower or a roto-tiller but nothing more than one or two items at a time. It was almost more of a headache to keep fixing that dang door. I had started leaving the door fixings at thje store after the second burglary.

One Saturday night after a horse show, Den and I was going to get a pizza with another couple, Fred and Ruth. Acting on a hunch, we drove past the feed store. We turned out our lights and slowly drove down the alley. Sure enough, one fellow that was inside (but that was supposed to be on lookout,) looked out the hole they had kicked out, seen us coming down the alley, yelled something to his buddies, jumped out the hole and started running like a scared rabbit. I sped up so that we could catch anyone else jumping out the hole, but no one else came out. Fred gingerly poked his head through the hole to look around but didn’t see anything. I said, You watch the hole, I’m going around front to turn on the lights and to call the police. While I was going around front, fred heard whispering in a small room off to the side. The door to the room was closed, and he thought, if he could slip in quietly, he could block it and capture the burglars until the police came. Fred quietly slipped through the hole in the door and started inching his way over toward the small room. Not knowing what was going on in the back room, I unlocked the front door, reached in and turned on the lights up front. It was still mostly dark in the back room but my noise spooked the burglars into coming out before Fred could block the door and they tried to make a run for it. I heard a lot of commotion and then I heard Fred yell, Freeze or I’ll blow your brains out! I thought, where did Fred get a gun? Fred then said, lay on your belly’s like snakes and put your hands over your head. The adrenaline had been pumping before, but it was really pumping now. I cautiously headed toward the back room. When I came into vision of Fred, he motioned to a pitch fork hanging on the wall and said watch them! I grabbed the pitch fork hanging on the wall and stood over the guy closest to me daring him to move. I don’t know where Den got up the courage, but she had followed me around front, (in the dark) and yelled, Lynn, are you alright? I said, Yeah, call the cops. I was wondering how we were going to call the police and hold these two guys on the floor at the same time. I could see now that Fred didn’t have a gun. He had been bluffing and it worked. He later told me that when the first guy came running out of the small room, he punched him as hard as he could and knocked him down. He then used the confusion to order them to Freeze or I’ll blow your brains out! Drop to the floor on your bellies like snakes! Hoping that they would do so before they could see that he didn’t have a gun! The police must have been close by, because they were there in no time. This time two cars showed up because it was a burglary in progress. The cops came in with their guns drawn until they could see the situation. One of them said, John, you again! He bent over to put handcuffs on him, while the other policeman put cuffs on the other one. They locked the guys in the back seat of a patrol car and the one that had called the guy, John came back in to get our story. He told us that John was a junky and had been booked so often it was ridiculous, but they could never get enough on him to put him away fo very long at a time. He laughed when he heard how Fred had bluffed them into thinking he had a gun, but told us how dangerous it was.

After we checked to see if anything was missing for their report, the cops left. While we were talking to the police, Fred went out to the car to see if Ruth was alright. She had sat in the car by herself the whole time, scared to move, not knowing what was happening inside. All she could hear was a bunch of yelling, which made her that much more scared. By the time Fred and I got the hole in the door patched again, none of us was hungry, besides the Pizza Hut had already closed. We all went home to try and relax so we could get some sleep. When we got home, all three kids were still up watching a late movie. We had to tell them all of the details and get them excited so they didn’t want to go to bed. Den made some hot chocolate and we sat around for an hour or so talking until we got tired enough to go to sleep. Monday, Debbie, our oldest girl who was sixteen, was watching the store, when two guys came around jeering at her from across the street. She called me and said, Dad, I’m scared to death. I think the two guys you caught Saturday night is out front yelling at me. I said, What kind of stuff are they yelling? She said, Oh stuff like, yaa, yaa, yaa, and you can’t keep a good guy down, stuff like that. I said, I will call the police, you keep your eye on them. If they come close, lock the door until the police get there. The policeman that I talked to, told me, Both guys have posted bond and are back on the street. I said, How can you let them go before going to trial? He said, The only thing that we could charge them with was breaking and entering since neither of them had stolen anything yet. I said, Well they are back out in front of our store taunting and harassing my daughter, can’t you arrest them for that or chase them off. He said, "No, as long as they remain on public property