The Dog Stars

by Peter Heller

  In the early days I took it out, Mike’s RV-8, and wasted gas. Left Jasper sitting anxious and alone by the gas pumps and climbed straight into the sun and kept pulling the stick until the sky rolled down beneath me and the horizon came down over my head like the visor of a helmet. Big, slow, sickening backward loops and fast barrel rolls. I did it because I didn’t know what else to do.

  Then I’d buzz the runway at ten feet and see Jasper rooted on his haunches following me with his eyes, and even at that speed I knew he was worried, and grieving that I might leave him like everything else had done, so I stopped.

  The wind sock midfield swings northward, puffing without urgency, so we turn south onto the taxiway, and I jam the throttle and we take off. One thing about everybody dying is that you don’t have to use the designated runway.

  Nothing is designated anymore. If it weren’t for Bangley I’d forget my name.

  I figure we’ll fly the big circle then stop for a Coke. Scout the meadows below Nederland, below the peaks of the Divide, fly the spiral inward, check the roads and the two trails while there’s good light, make sure Bangley is clear of visitors at least a day in the three directions, then land at the soda fountain and bring back a couple cases. Only eight minutes out to the northeast toward Greeley. A peace offering. Of bloated cans and plastic bottles. There’s a stack of Dr. Pepper I can see with the headlamp in back of the semi, maybe now’s the time to spring it on him like Christmas. Bangley seems like a Dr. Pepper man. One of Sprite for the families, land there one time, it’s been a few weeks. As we bank left, north, the lowering sun spills through the glass like something molten.

  Look straight down, the tract development north of the airport patterns itself in the head to toe lollipops of feeder and cul de sac, and if I squint, to blur the ones burned, I can imagine a normal late spring evening.

  Continue the climbing bank west and level out at eight hundred feet and begin my scan.

  Nothing. Nothing the whole way. Roads empty. Blessedly. Usually are. Had there been wanderers it would have fucked up everything, delayed our hunt. Then I would have swooped, cut the engine, played the tape. I have four songs on the CD rigged to the amp and the speakers: they are titled

  Turn Back North or Die

  Turn Back South or Die

  Turn Back East or Die

  Turn Back West or Die

  The words are easy to remember: just the title over and over. Followed by the exhortative: We know you are here. You will become dog food like many before you.

  Bangley made me add that.

  Fuck no, I said. That’s unnecessary and disgusting.

  Bangley just stared at me, his grin half formed.

  It’s true ain’t it? Ain’t it Hig?

  Hit me like a punch.

  Add it, he said. This isn’t some debutante ball.

  Mostly it works. Enough unknowns, enough survived that visitors can’t be sure there isn’t some phalanx of Mongols at the airport waiting to tear them apart. Which I guess we are. A phalanx of two. No, three. And they must think: These guys have an air force, a loudspeaker, a recording, what else have they got? We have Bangley, I think. You have no idea what that means. You better fucking turn back.

  If they need more convincing I’ve gotten pretty good at shooting Bangley’s Uzi machine pistol out my window on a left bank. I try not to hit anybody but sometimes I do.

  I have been shot at fourteen times. Three went through the fuselage. Most people don’t know how to shoot at airplanes. They never lead us enough.

  Nobody now. Highway 7 is clear, 287, the interstate. Our trail west. Sun is pouring down Boulder Canyon brushing the tops of the Flatirons. Used to be our favorite day hike, the trail along the base of the slabs, when the when. To the north Mount Evans flushes with blood snow. Misjudged the time, no time to scout the hills if I am going on a beverage run. In truth I don’t need to scout them anyway. I do it because it’s beautiful to fly low over the foothills but we know where the deer are. If we are going to cut elk sign it will be on the ground. I bank east and beeline straight for the power plant on the St. Vrain SW of Greeley. It’s a jackknifed double trailer semi half off the county road, half into a long farm driveway. I can see it five miles out. The dirty red and white sides catch the sun like a billboard. Hijacked for the potable water, I guess, the bottled water inside and all the pop. First time I saw the truck it probably wouldn’t have occurred to me to land, but for the five bodies strewn around it. And one doubled out the driver’s window. Tableaux of gunplay made me throttle back and circle.

  I am not as quick as I once was, I am sure. Sometimes it is fog and shaggy horses. But the bodies spoke from the ground and the truck blazoned. Think, Hig. A gun battle around a Coke truck.

  Which led to our monthly treat.

  That first time, the farm pond east of the semi was slicked black in a crescent along the north bank, and wrinkled over the rest so I circled and landed on the yellow dotted line to the north, into the wind. I climbed down and turned for Jasper who waited bunched and excited on my seat, and I carried him to the ground. I dragged the men off into the grassy ditch by their boots so Jasper could—Discovered early on that it is easier that way than by the arms.

  The doors of the rear trailer were padlocked, a simple brass U lock. I walked to the farmhouse and across a muddy yard and found the bolt cutters in the tractor shed.

  Didn’t occur to me til some months later that I could fly Bangley out there and he could drive the truck right to the airport. By then I enjoyed bringing back a few cases at a time. By then I figured to make it last the years of our lives. Little enough in our lives to celebrate.

  Didn’t occur to me either until much later that by then, by then if it were years, the cans might be utterly ruined by freeze and thaw. No matter. It was a good system now.

  That first time I loaded three cases into the Beast and closed and latched the doors. I had the key turned in the mags to start the plane when I climbed out again and tied the strip of a man’s red shirt to a mile marker for a wind indicator. Mile 4. I remember.

  Riddled with three .22 bullet holes in a three inch group. Pretty good. Probably the farm boy practicing for prairie dogs.

  Today it is again from the north. The wind. Shifted one eighty in less than an hour which is typical this time of year. This time of year I have seen the wind socks at either end of the runway at Erie facing in opposite directions, which makes for an interesting landing.

  A line of telephone poles runs along the east edge of the road. Doesn’t matter, they were set back far enough. The small reflector poles and mile markers easily pass under the wings. My first instructor told me that in an emergency landing a paved road was almost always wide enough if you landed dead center, almost always enough setback on any kind of pole or sign. What got dicey was a nice wide looking dirt road. The signpost you don’t see could be the one that grabs a wing and cartwheels you.

  Still, I bank left for a final approach into the wind, very high, and float down on full flaps, down the middle of the left lane sighting a spot on the road just short of a tall cottonwood, then at the horizon ahead, the road rising to meet me, floating downward, and then I smoothly pull the yoke, back back back to my chest and flare and settle one light bump while the stall horn blares. Still, after all these years, the thrill of a good landing. Have done it many times before from this direction and know I don’t even need to lean on the brakes, just hold the nose up and let the plane roll out to the driveway and the truck.

  One tap of the brakes, Jasper sitting his seat on his haunches on the thick quilt in copilot position, jerked forward just a little, resetting his front feet. Pull the red mixture knob and cut the engine. A prolonged sputter, the whirring prop becoming visible, slowing then silence.

  Wind shudders the windscreen, shakes the plane. Windier than I thought. Gusty. Flattening the short grass in the field, intermittent like a breeze through a crew cut. Purple asters in the ditch nodding. The side window is open, I rest my e
lbow. Smell of damp earth rich with rot and newness. Heady with memory as only smell can be. Still a tang of ancient manure from the mud feedlot back of the sheds. Everything unstable this time of year.

  Turn to Jasper.

  Welcome to Old Coke City. Another On Time Arrival and perfect landing brought to you by the flight crew at Mongrel Air. Please remain seated until the aircraft has come to a complete stop. Careful opening the overhead bin.

  Jasper deigns one glance, disapproving, and continues staring straight ahead through the windshield, brow furrowed like any good copilot. He doesn’t appreciate joking while on the job. He knows we’re going to the truck so he watches the truck twenty yards ahead.

  Then he growls. Short. A low huff that puffs the loose skin over his upper teeth.

  Okay we are at a complete stop. There is no overhead bin. Don’t be a stickler. Jeez.

  His growl lower now, continuous. Hackles standing, hair on the rough behind smoothed flat over tight skin. Eyes fixed on the back of the Coke trailer. My hair, the small hairs on the back of my own neck, prickle and stand. Follow his eyes. The white painted latch back of the trailer angles out from the faded red door. A strip of black shadow between the two. Doors. The right one ajar. Barely. The smell coming north to south down the road. To us.

  Without taking eyes off the truck I reach across for the AR. It’s racked vertically, muzzle upwards in a bracket fixed to the front left side of Jasper’s seat. Next to it the machine pistol. Thumb the latch of the chrome strapping and lift out the rifle. Courtesy of Bangley.

  Okay, boy. Good one.

  Whispering now, no reason.

  Okay, c’mon.

  No use to tell him to stay in the plane. He never will. Not in these gigs. Don’t want him to sprain something jumping out. I unlatch my door. Two steps, wing strut to ground, half turn and gather him in one arm, the right, and lower him to the tarmac, his claws scrabbling for pavement.

  Okay. Heel.

  He knows. Has been through this before. Too many times.

  We are sixty feet maybe fifty five. I fly with the rifle racked because it is too difficult to do in the air. Pull out the collapsable stock Bangley made me. Thumb the safety. Push the lever over, full auto to semi. The wind is light for a minute, warm in our faces, and rounded a little to the west carrying complex scents, earth, flower, even maybe salt. Of the sea. How far? Nine hundred miles at least. I listen. Just breeze catching in the whorl of my left ear. Jasper’s growl has not ceased. I step. Wait. Step again. A kestrel flies over right to left, not high, a stooping, cantered flight. Step again. We cover half the distance and stop. Crouch and then go to one knee. Low as possible without going prone. Prone is best but prone is hard to move fast. Like this, if they fire out of the trailer, I am confident they will shoot high.

  Bark of my own voice startles me.

  You are dead men.

  Wind.

  You are dead men. You try to shoot your way out you are definitely dead men.

  Jasper’s growl. Sun warm on my left brow and cheek.

  You are fish in a barrel. You hear me! You try to fight and this is your last minute on earth. Throw out your weapons come out. COME OUT! Hands where I can see them. If you do, do what I say I will not harm you. My word.

  Wind. Sun. Bird. I am thinking, Do I mean that? No harm. I am not even sure. Whatever happens here I plan to live.

  Three two one—OKAY YOU DIE!

  I sight the iron sights. I know the last cases in the back are stacked to the roof. A third of the trailer emptied. Gives me enough angle not to shoot up the bottles and cans, probably. Two shots high—

  No wait. A clank of steel, a scrape. Hand holding a crowbar snakes through the gap.

  Steel bar, hand, forearm.

  Drop it! Drop it! Drop it!

  It drops. Hits the road with a clang.

  STEP OUT, hands where I can see them.

  They are big hands. Hair on the back dirty. Stuck through the gap they look like a thug trying to do a hand puppet show. Forearms in a blue ski jacket too short for his arms, greasy but new. Door pushed wider. Mallet head, wide blonde dreds, camo bush hat. Tangled beard. A huge man stepping down off the bumper, unwilling to turn his back.

  There are two more.

  Hoarse shout, the voice rolling through a half ton of gravel. Blinking back the sun.

  A plane that runs. Where’d you get a plane that runs? Goddamn.

  Shut the fuck up. Tell them. The same. Hands first.

  Baseball bat, hands, arms in an oiled Australian duster, another Mongo stepping down. Long hair in a thick braid, eyes jittery: my face, the gun, the dog, the ditch. Wants to bolt. Jasper’s growl a step lower.

  You ain’t got no bullets in that thing. World ran out of fucking bullets. Hear that Curtis? Calling back. Edging west. One step two.

  Captain Pilot thinks he’s gonna shoot us. Eyes skittered: the gun to the ditch.

  Woulda done it already. Yes he would. Likes to talk this one.

  Me thinking: So far he’s been doing all the talking.

  C’mon out Curtis. This is copasetic. Man’s kneeling at thirty feet, got a gun but no bullets.

  Him the closest one now three feet from the partly open door. I sight with both eyes open. Always have. Advantages. I can see the door. I can feel the evening pulling taut like a twisting wire. Dreds calling my coordinates like a mortar man. Heat. The heat of pure anger climbing into my neck, pure and clean like a white gas. My finger on the smooth cold curve of the trigger.

  Door swings. Open. A shadow. Edge pulling back like a curtain, light following, lighting, lit the man in motion, swinging the bow across and down. I fire. Twice. Arrow like a hole torn in air, angry thwip of a vacuum high and wide, the man blown back, bow clattering, the front wall of Cokes toppling and spilling. Silence. One Dr. Pepper rolls out hits the road.

  The two on the road half crouched and frozen, arms in reflex covering their heads. Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.

  The can of Dr. Pepper has rolled over, rested against Pony Tail’s boot. A string of blood drips from trailer edge to the pavement where the can fell.

  Look what you did. I am yelling. You fucking bonehead scum. Ruined it. Probably twenty cases of pop.

  My chest, breath, vibrate with adrenalin and fury.

  Killed your buddy too. Nice fucking try.

  The men frozen, arms covering, crouched. This the last pathetic gesture before death. Fully expecting now to die. The gun already sighted on Dreds, finger already pressed on the trigger. Breathing hard. I hold there breathe. I will kill them.

  Fuckers tried to kill me. For Coke. Well. For a not quite daily Coke. Twenty four in a case, once a month, I bring it back. The week going without—a contrived measure of want to make the next run a treat. For me and. To up my value with Bangley. Face it. Landing at the families’ place with the Sprite like a god.

  One is whimpering, the blonde one. Not bothering to beg.

  Have to kill them. Leave them and they will empty the truck, hide it all in the ditches, windbreaks, no more monthly treat. These few things. Few enough things to look forward to. Plus they tried to kill me.

  Dreds kneels, covers his eyes with his huge hands just like a kid playing peekaboo and crying. Pony Tail squeezing his head with forearms watching me in naked terror, half wincing, quivers, bracing for the shot.

  Get up.

  Get it over with! Dreds screams.

  Get up. I’m not going to kill you.

  The words like liquid nitrogen. A moment of complete freeze.

  What you’re gonna do is drag your buddy to the ditch and not say a word, not one fucking word while my dog has dinner.

  The images colliding, conflicting in their terror shorn minds. Their own lives, the relief not even digested or believed, the horror of the feeding dog. Creates a vortex, a crosscurrent like the two flags at the airport facing each other in contrary winds. They both start to tremble. Hard.

  I mean it. Not gonna shoot you. Like you said I would hav
e already. Certainly would.

  Hands down watching me. Kill them for a Coke. Not a staple, a luxury. The way before we killed for diamonds, for oil. Not. Not today.

  You’re gonna drag your buddy to the ditch and then you’re gonna load twenty cases, fifteen of Coke, five of Sprite, and oh yeah two extra of Dr. Pepper, you’re gonna load them in the back of the plane nice and neat and then I’m gonna climb in and fly away. And you can have the rest. Because I can’t prevent it. Once I take off. Unless I kill you. Which I won’t. Done too much of that. Go on.

  The kestrel is over the field. The wind is in the short grass, the sun is almost on the Divide. He will hover and hunt until past dusk. Hover and swoop, hover and swoop. In his little helmet, hovering tireless, treading air. Hunting mice and voles.

  I feel sick. Want to throw up on the road but won’t. Sick of defending whatever it is I’m supposed to defend.

  They loaded the cans. They dragged their compa to the ditch and I whistled once, turned my back. They carried four cases stacked at once, it went fast. I told them to load in the bow and quiver. Pony Tail swung a long necklace of shriveled leather pieces when he bent over. Both of them smelled like death.

  You’re a dead man anyway, Pony Tail grumbled, passing me with a load.

  What’d you say?

  Nothin. Grunting the cases through the jump door.

  What the fuck did you say?

  He turned, passed. I stopped him with the barrel of the AR.

  What was that about being a dead man?

  Shoved the barrel into his ribs hard. His grunt.

  The A-rabs. You can kill us but the A-rabs will kill you.

  What d’you mean the A-rabs?

  We heard it. In Pueblo. Ham radio. The A-rabs. They’re here. Or coming. Kill us all.

  He spat. Inches from my boot.