Sheepdogs: Keeping the Wolves at Bay

by Gordon Carroll

  Golden sparks flashed behind his eyes like exploding suns and everything grew dark at the edges of his vision, funneling in like a tornado preparing to touch down. The rough grumble and roar of the truck’s engine droned down to a monotonous hum that echoed hollowly in his ears as though from far away.

  He tried once more to pull his legs free and a memory of pain staggered up his nerves to his graying brain. His un-swollen eye rolled up under the lid and the last thing he heard was the laughing of the men in the truck.

  It was almost dark when he woke for the second time. Hours had passed. The swollen eye’s lid was so crusted that it hurt to even try to open it.

  His body was a mass of pain. His legs were stiff from being tied so long and his paws felt like inflated chunks of cold meat. The tears in his flesh and the deep bruises throbbed in unison with his heartbeat. His breathing still had that scary crackling that made him feel as if he were suffocating a little more with each breath.

  The muzzle, tacky and filled with a horrible smelling mixture of bile and blood, scrapped roughly against the soft skin of his snout.

  Max had lost control of his bowels while unconscious and the cage stunk of that as well. His stomach, back legs, and tail were smeared in waste.

  The cage sat at the edge of a clearing, away from the warmth and light offered by the small campfire the men sat around; eating from cans and metal plates. The wind blew, moving the branches of the trees and swirling eddies of snow and ice crystals into mini-blizzards that were there and gone in an instant.

  Some of Max’s fur had frozen to the bars of the cage so that when he moved, clumps were pulled from his tender coat.

  He raised his head by shear force of will, the action dragging a whine from him that made him ashamed.

  One of the men, the one he had bitten the fingers and thumb from, jumped and turned toward him, his face going white with fear. He masked it quickly, the look turning hard. He reached into the fire and pulled out a long, slender branch, burning at the tip. He brought it over to the cage. The other men turned to watch, laughing and throwing jibes.

  The Huge Man said, “Best to leave sleeping dogs lie.”

  Two Fingers held up his ruined left hand, the bandages were crude and had soaked through staining them brown.

  “See what you did?” he screamed in German. “Do you see, demon? Do you see?”

  Without hesitation Max lunged, dragging his whole body to the side of the cage in a single thrust, smashing his muzzle into the bars. His teeth slapped together harmlessly behind the mask, making a brittle “clack”, sound.

  The man jumped back, tripped over a branch and landed on his bottom in the snow. He held the burning stick up, protecting its flame, but used his bad hand to break his fall. He screamed and dropped the stick, cradling his injured hand as though it were some fragile infant. Tears streamed down his dirty face and he yelled and shouted his pain for several minutes, while the other men laughed.

  He pointed a finger at Max. “Demon!” He grabbed up the extinguished stick and stumbled over to the fire, jamming it into the heart of the coals, the gray ash giving way to a cherry-red inner-core. The end of the stick flamed quickly. A change of wind brought the smoke odor to Max. It was a good smell, clean somehow, like the snow, as though the fire could purge the stench of filth that covered him.

  Two Fingers stood in front of the cage and jabbed the stick through the bars, hitting him in the chest. Max surged forward again, but this time the man did not back away, instead he dug the stick in deeper and a small patch of Max’s fur began to smoke. Instinctively, Max swung down with the muzzle, snapping the stick, but the fire had already caught and licked up toward his shoulder where the tiny flames branched off like the jagged arcs of racing lightening.

  The man jumped up and down in the snow, still cradling his hand, and cackled madly. “Burn, demon! Burn!”

  A tongue of flame leapt up Max’s throat, searing in to the underside of his jaw, while another burned across his shoulder, a fist sized patch spreading like opening fingers. Another stitched down to his belly, the pain wicked. Max smashed his face into the bars a finale time, wanting nothing more than to rip the throat out of the howling lunatic.

  Max rebounded from the cold iron and rolled, burying the growing flames in the snow beneath him. The smell of burnt hair and flesh erased any thought of fire’s beneficial purging aspects.

  The Huge Man Max bit on the bicep came up behind Two Fingers and slapped him on the back of the head. “Leave him be. This one is worth more money than the farmer’s reward for getting rid of him.”

  He stepped closer to the cage, eyeing Max with calculating eyes. “Far more.”

  15

  Gil

  The second he stepped from the limo, I knew he was trouble. He had the look of a professional killer; worse, a government trained, professional killer. I’ve seen a few throughout my career, most during my time in the military, but a few since. And they all have the look. He stood about six four, lean, with the lithe muscular build of a tight end. He wore the same black suit and sunglasses as his men, and there was no doubt that they were his men. He was darkly tanned, thin lipped, and sported jet black hair slicked straight back like an old time gangster. But none of this was what set him apart. It was the way he moved. The bladed angle of his body. The set of his feet. The cant of his head. The careful positioning of his hands. It was something that can’t be exactly described but only seen by other predators, who spend a lifetime modeling the same characteristics as a matter of survival.

  I felt that chill go down my spine again. I hate that feeling.

  Over his shoulder I could see the girls still talking on their phones.

  He walked through the small throng of men, toward me. They shrank from him as though he had pointed a pistol at their faces. Taking off his sunglasses, he looked at Mr. Mustache. I had the distinct feeling he might whip out a gun like an old west quick-draw artist and shoot me dead. I switched my hold, snaking my arm around Mustache’s throat in a perfectly snug carotid choke hold that would have made Royce Gracie proud. A little pressure and he would be out in about three seconds. I pointed my gun at the new guy.

  He didn’t even glance at me. “You okay?”

  Mustache choked out a strangled answer. “Yesh-shir. I’m shorry-shir.”

  “We’ll talk about it later.” He raised his eyes to mine and they were as dark as his hair. Piercing. Like Dracula’s scary uncle.

  “If you want to have any chance to live through this,” he said to me, “you will let him go now.” His voice was completely calm; a steady monotone, devoid of emotion. I couldn’t help but think of Mr. Spock from Star Trek. Only he didn’t have pointy ears. This was not a man to mess with. I would have shot him through the heart without hesitation, but I needed to know about Shane.

  “Where is Shane Franklin?”

  Mr. Spock gave the barest hint of a smile. “That’s not the question you should be asking right now, Mr. Mason. The question you should be asking is where are Tom Franklin, and his little two year old daughter Amber?”

  That hit me like a rock-in-a-sock upside the head. I just saw Tom Franklin a few hours ago at his house. Lisa Franklin had said her children were with her sister in Denver. Was he bluffing? No. His kind never bluff. “What do you want?”

  “What Shane Franklin stole from us.”

  “And what is that?”

  “You don’t have it?”

  “No. I don’t even know what it is.”

  He stared into my eyes as if he could dig through my brain for the truth. Dracula plying the tricks of the undead, or Spock trying the Vulcan mind-meld. If he knew me better he wouldn’t waste his time. I’m not that deep.

  He pursed his lips. “I believe you.” He looked down at the man almost strangulated in the crook of my arm. “Let him go. I won’t kill you… yet.”

  I let him go and he sagged to his knees, then he fell flat on his back, looking up at the sky, his eyes dinging back and forth as t
hough he was watching the world’s fastest game of ping-pong.

  The reason I let him go was because my arm was tired, that and the fact I was fairly certain Mr. Spock would have shot through his own man to get to me. I dropped my hands to my sides, the gun riding the seam of my right thigh.

  Mr. Spock helped his man to his feet and handed him off to the others. I noticed a white scar cutting through his left eyebrow. Behind him traffic rushed along in the afternoon sunshine, but dark clouds were building in the west and a light breeze heralded cooler temperatures for the evening. Facing me he looked down at the gun in my hand.

  “You might as well put that away.”

  I did.

  “Here is what you are going to do,” he said. “You are going to find what Shane Franklin stole and give it back to me. When you do that, I will return Tom and Amber to you.”

  “What about Shane?”

  Mr. Spock cocked his head to the side as though listening for something. In a dog it’s a sign of confusion, but with him it was an answer. Shane was dead. I thought of poor Lisa Franklin, twisting her ring, crying over her son. For the second time I considered shooting him through the heart. There were six of them and my chances of taking out even three before they killed me were slim to none. Still, it was a hard thing for me not to try. What stopped me was the realization that Mr. Spock wasn’t the boss here. He was a professional, hired by someone else to do his dirty work. I pegged him for ex-military, Special Forces, maybe even a former governmental agency. Not CIA or FBI They were too soft for someone like him. No, more likely DEA, an out of country operative, the ones that do drug raids in Columbia and Nicaragua. I’d worked with some of them years ago, and they’re the real thing, men who had to be able to kill in a heartbeat, and could stand the reality of collateral damage without self-destructing.

  So, yeah, I thought of Lisa, sad and crying at the death of her son, but at the same time I thought how much worse it would be for her to lose her husband and baby girl too.

  My Smith and Wesson stayed in its holster.

  “You have five days,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a new kind of flash drive called a thumb dot.”

  “A thumb dot,” I echoed dumbly.

  “Named for its size and shape.” He held up a circular disc inside a clear plastic case about the size of a pinky-nail.

  “What’s so special about it?”

  He just looked at me with that irritating emotionless look.

  “Ok, so what’s on this drive?”

  For a second I thought he wasn’t going to answer, just keep staring with those flat eyes. But then he did, in a way.

  “It’s better, for you, if you don’t know. That way, when this is all over, you get to live.”

  “Five days isn’t long to find something when I don’t even know it’s purpose.”

  “I’m willing to take this gamble on you because you’ve been checked out, Mr. Mason. You’re good at what you do. So do it. Be the hero and save the man and his daughter.”

  “You’re not the real boss here,” I said. “Who’re you working for? What’s this all about?”

  “As I said before, it’s better for you not to know. All you do need to know is that the people I work for are very dangerous and resourceful and that their power stretches far enough to reach you wherever you might try to hide should you fail. Understand?”

  “You know,” I said, still facing that cold, emotionless face, “I only just met you and already I’ve had to stop myself from killing you twice.” He didn’t even blink, just stared right into me. “I won’t deny myself the pleasure a third time.”

  “Five days,” was all he said.

  I held up a hand like I was back in school. “Does today count as one of the five? Because it’s getting pretty late?”

  Mr. Spock didn’t smile. He put his sunglasses back on. “Starting tomorrow.”

  He turned and all of them walked to the limo and drove away. I had no idea who these guys were or who they were working for, but I had a license plate number and a good vehicle description. Besides, this was Colorado not Hollywood, so how many black limos could there be?

  The two girls, standing outside the store, were still on their phones. There had been a fight, guns drawn, threats made; discussion of a double kidnapping, ransom and murder, all within twenty yards of them and they hadn’t noticed a thing.

  Kids.

  16

  Max

  Two days later Max developed pneumonia, the aspirated vomit having infected his lungs. His temperature raged at a hundred and seven and his breathing came in short, quick pants that robbed him of energy and did little to oxygenate his cells.

  He had fought and killed two dogs this morning. His captors had taken him to an old, broken down barn where humans set him in a ring facing another dog. It was live or die and Max was not ready to die.

  He rested now, while the wind howled and beat at the bars of his cage. Another storm threatened to move in, but that did nothing to stop the humans from driving up to the barn with their dogs and their money.

  The swollen eye had gone down enough for Max to see, but he had several new wounds to make up for it. The last dog had been tough. A thick bodied Rottweiler with a mangy coat and knotted muscles rippling along its shoulders and haunches. Scores of white scars spoke of years of battles fought, and the chilling look of its flat, black eyes attested to the animal’s absolute confidence and determination.

  The beast came in low and fast, butting Max in the chest with its blunt, club-like head and flipping him onto his back before he could dodge. The rotty tore a flap along Max’s side as he scrambled to his feet. Max slashed back so fast that his bottom left canine caught the dog at the corner of its right eye and cut a four inch gash up its skull.

  They both circled warily, looking for an opening. Gone was the crowd, the yelling, the people cheering and passing money back and forth. All that mattered was the animal in front of him. It was kill or be killed and Max refused to lie down, even though his eyes burned in their sockets and his head felt dull and dizzy, his lungs on fire.

  The black dog feinted high and went low again, but this time Max was ready for the trick and clamped down on the back of the rotty's neck. The Rottweiler dove ahead, snapping at the soft, inner thigh of Max’s back leg. Max launched forward, feeling flesh tear and blood run as the move ripped his leg from the dog’s jaws and vaulted Max into a somersault, the kinetic energy flipping the bigger dog with him. Max never released his grip, having learned this maneuver during his encounter with the bear. Instead he crushed down and allowed the twisting flip to do what he himself no longer had the energy to accomplish. There was an audible snap that could be heard even above the crowd, and the big, black dog went limp beneath him.

  That had been hours ago, before the storm started to blow. The big man Max bit on the bicep threw him a few hunks of raw meat that still sat in the corner of his cage. Max was too sick to eat. He tried to lap up a little of the water in the dented and rusted metal bowl that sat on the far side of the cage. But it smelled putrid and Max threw up what little he had been able to take in. He dropped to his stomach then flopped over to his side, the new wounds between his crotch and inner thigh moaning dully. The fever blazed and throbbed deep in his head making his skull feel bloated and tender.

  The bitter, German wind and spatters of snow did nothing to ease the fever; instead they sent his body into convulsive chills.

  Max curled into a ball and tried to sleep.

  As he closed his eyes, he saw a man wrapped in a thick fur coat and hood, step around the corner. The man stood so still Max wondered if he had been frozen by the storm. An errant shift of wind blew the man’s scent to the dog.

  It was the man who killed the bear.

  A noise sounded from behind Max and he turned that way. Two Fingers and The Huge Man were walking toward him. Looking back Max saw that the man who killed the bear was gone. Maybe he had been a dream. The fever
made him dream many strange things.

  Two Fingers poked a long, thick stick with a forked end through the bars, jamming Max’s neck to the icy ground and trapping him. Max was too tired and sick to resist. The Huge Man opened the cage and strapped the muzzle into place. He jerked Max to his feet by a leash he snapped onto the chain they put around his neck. They dragged him back into the barn. The din was deafening. There were more than a hundred people crammed into the rotting structure.

  Max saw the circle of the ring and the animal that would be his opponent. It was a monster of a dog; part mastiff, part husky, with a little wolf thrown into the mix. It weighed at least two hundred pounds with large dense bones covered by slabs of meaty muscle and jaws that could crush boulders.

  Max could barely breathe.

  Two Fingers kicked Max in the ribs and shoved him into the start chute. The chute was basically an open ended cage that slanted down into the recessed bowl of the ring. From above, the handler could pull off the muzzle and release the leash with little danger of the dog being able to come back on him. The Huge Man grabbed the strap of the muzzle and pulled it free. Across the ring, Max saw the enormous bulk of the other dog charge out of the chute. Until that moment Max felt powerless, but at the sight of the challenge his fighting spirit burned. He ripped through the chute, sprinting at the enemy. The monster came straight at him, long teeth bared.

  Before they could meet a commotion rippled through the crowed. A smell of smoke and the word “fire”, screamed and repeated, fear riding the word and spreading through the packed throng of gamblers. Black clouds poured into the barn from the south end, sweeping to the high rafters before rolling back down on the heads and shoulders of the panicking people.

  The mastiff mix ignored the crowd and angled straight into Max, but Max learned from the Rottweiler and dove down and under, feeling jaws snap harmlessly just above his spine. He swooped up, his razor sharp canines slicing deep lines across the dog’s exposed hamstring. Max let his body swing to the opposite side and took out the other leg, the momentum carrying him behind the big animal who went on for three more steps before falling as his legs gave out.