The Cutthroat Cannibals

by Craig Sargent

  The entire pack, in no particular order, more a ragged crowd, shot after the departing leaders, jockeying for place in the hierarchy of the band, trying to get further up in the stampede, closer to the Three, as proximity to them conferred status. Within minutes, they were gone, even the last struggling little poodle with a missing leg that skittered along on just three, falling down every five or six steps like a broken wind-up toy.

  “What do you think?” Stone asked as he listened on the wind, and heard not a bark nor a howl.

  “Trap,” Cracking Elk sneered back. “No question about it. You see what those top three are like. They’re smart. Never seen no dogs like that. Probably went to plan something. But over? No way. You know it, Stone Man, as much as I.”

  “Then let’s make our move now,” Stone said. “I don’t want to die up here, puffing up like rotting fruit from lack of water. It ain’t the way a man should go. I say we make a dash for the fucking river. It looks a little less flooded. We might have a chance. I know we don’t up here.”

  The Indian paused reflectively to consider what Stone had said and then nodded. “You’re on, white man.” Stone could see just the vaguest hint of friendship glimmer for a moment behind the dark, savage eyes. After all, when men share imminent death together, it makes for feelings of closeness. The guy standing next to him might well be the last bastard he’d ever see on the face of this earth. But just as quickly the light was out in the brave’s eyes and the pupils returned to mirrors, as impenetrable as the slate clouds that moved past overhead. Hearts pounding like jackhammers, the three of them scrambled down the side of the cliff. Then moving like a racing relay team of the insane, they stumbled, lurched, ran, and fell as they desperately tried to reach the river before an army of teeth reached them.

  CHAPTER

  Seventeen

  OF course it was a trap. They had gotten only halfway to the river when the whole raging pack, raising up a dust storm like Attila the Hun, came charging in from their left flank. Fortunately for the fleeing trio, the dogs had pulled back a little too far, underestimating how fast terrified humans can run. But it was close. As fast as Stone flew along the rocks and sand, he could feel them coming in from the side, like missiles bearing down. He didn’t dare look, knowing that if he faltered for even one second it was all over.

  Then the river was just yards away, and as he rushed toward it he felt the crutch he had been scrambling along with suddenly catch in a gopher hole, and he started to topple over and down. But instead of letting the stick do him in, Stone used the momentum of the branch to launch himself forward and up so that he literally flew over the last eight feet of shore. Two dogs flew right by his air currents, their jaws snapping tight. As Stone hit the water, with still fairly slow currents along the banks, he saw Cracking Elk about ten yards ahead starting to float downriver. And splashing around about thirty feet out, also just sort of spinning around in the slower waters, was Excaliber, his head bobbing up and down like a brown-and-white cork.

  A few of the dogs tumbled in after them, but the majority stopped at the shoreline barking up a storm, again infuriated at having been so close and yet so far away from satisfying their craving for human flesh.

  Those who followed quickly gave up their pursuit as they found themselves tossed around like twigs in the currents. It was impossible for anything without flippers and tail to control its motion in the crazy quilt of currents. Suddenly the pursuers, far from pursuing, were just trying to hang on as they headed back to shore paddling madly. Stone saw two of them disappear under a large wave. The dog pack had already started following them along the shoreline, barking and snapping from about seventy-five feet away. They ran fast, jumping from rock to rock, then running hard along the stretches of clear sand as the river started pulling their would-be dinners faster and faster downstream.

  But Stone wasn’t paying attention to the dogs. He had his own problem to worry about—like not drowning. As much as he had wanted to get to water just minutes before, now that he was in it and had satisfied his physical thirst many times over, Stone wished he could take a raincheck back to the mountain ledge. For he could hardly keep afloat. He reached down and ripped the splints free from his leg. It might rebreak the damn thing, but with the leg all stiff and useless he had no chance at all. There was no sense in trying to swim, the currents were running the show here. And he couldn’t go back to shore, as the pack was keeping pretty much of a pace with them.

  But not for long. Within minutes as the three of them were whipped around a sharp bend in the river, Stone could see that it was bad in the boiling stretch that rushed ahead for about two miles. Suddenly he was in a world of bubbles, everywhere white reaching for him, grabbing him, taking him down into its depths with liquid arms wrapped tight around his chest and waist. It was only his physical strength that enabled him to resist the inevitable forces of nature, the watery jaws that grabbed at him again and again.

  He couldn’t even see the rest of the world now, not the pursuing dogs on shore or his own comrades. Just white caps of foam that kept smashing at him. The hardest part was keeping aware which way was what, so that when he paddled hard after each little whirlpool swept him down, or a wave flapped him straight up in the air like a pancake and he dropped down deep on the return, he didn’t swim in the wrong direction. Because, as pilots experience when flying through clouds, you quickly lose the sense of which way is up. Stone found himself spun around, upside down, all over the fucking place. He tried not to puke, though why it even mattered out in the middle of this great toilet bowl, he couldn’t imagine.

  Suddenly he saw rocks straight ahead. He was being rushed toward them at what felt like the speed a fastball approaches a bat. Stone threw his arms straight out in front of him. They might break, but rather them than his skull. But with the capriciousness of all rivers, a swirling wave suddenly grabbed hold of him and pulled him to an abrupt stop so that he just lightly banged against the rocks. Then he was off again sharply to the left moving through the water as if a shark was dragging him along in its jaws. Suddenly he was just deposited into the slower-moving waters along the shoreline, thrown back like a catch the river had investigated and no longer wanted.

  Stone caught his breath as he managed to tread water in the quieter currents that tongued along the shore. There were no dogs, at least none that he could see. But there was a figure, Cracking Elk it looked like, lying in the dirt as if asleep. With his heart pounding hard from fear of what he would find, Stone managed to kick and paddle his way the fifty or so feet to the bank. Then he dragged himself ashore, moving along like a wounded animal, as without his crutch that’s pretty much what he was. He reached the rocky shore and looked both ways. This could be a trap too, though the river had been sweeping them along so quickly he didn’t see how any of the dog pack could have gotten here ahead of them. No, the dogs had to be miles behind.

  Stone reached down and grabbed a stick, much smaller than his previous one, and used it like a cane to move along. He moved forward, his face growing paler and paler. For the body lying there was Cracking Elk, and there was a pool of blood gathering beneath his face, which was buried in the mud. Stone reached the body quickly and kneeled down next to it, turning it over fast. He almost gagged. It was the brave, and his throat had been torn right out of his neck, as if a grizzly had just taken a big bite. Arteries, nerves, all kinds of stuff just sort of hung out of the Indian’s throat.

  But as Stone stared, he was even more horrified to see that the man’s eyes opened to half mast and looked up at Stone with that same stoic look that he had had when Stone first laid eyes on him. The Happy Hunting Ground was about to get one cool customer. The mouth of the dying Indian tried to say something, but only bloody bubbles spurted out from between the lips. Then Stone felt the brave’s right hand clutch his with a fevered jerking motion. He felt something pressed against it and looked down. A lighter, a windproof Zippo, pressed into his palm. So that’s how the bastard had been lighting the fi
res. So much for secret Indian fire magic.

  Stone looked down at the bloody mess of a man and gave him a razor grin. And he swore that through the blood, and what had to be incredible pain, the brave grinned back. Then his lips spoke one final time. And Stone heard the single word, spat out in blood-soaked breath. “Friend.”

  “Yeah,” Stone answered softly, taking the lighter and gripping it tightly in his hand. “I am your friend, pal.” But the Indian was dead before he had finished speaking. A stream of blood came out of the opened mouth as if it had one more word to say, but never would. Stone, still gripping the dead brave’s hand, placed it back on his chest. Then he closed the staring eyes. Whatever he was seeing now, he didn’t need these to see it.

  CHAPTER

  Eighteen

  THEN Martin Stone saw that the whole damned thing had been a setup from start to finish. He had been led or pushed like a rat through a maze. For the Three, the trio that ruled the whole bloody show, were standing there, waiting for him. They had run on ahead before the whole circus started, guiding Stone into the water to be pursued by the rest of the dogs, knowing that the waters grew deep and slow here, that the fugitives would come ashore one by one. And the Three would finish them off as they had done the Indian. He had put up a good fight. The Labrador was bleeding from a deep gash along its chest where the brave had been able to wound it with his machete before the Pit Bull had come in behind him and ripped out the whole side of his neck like a piece of cotton candy.

  And now the second one with the wounded leg: they would take him next. Ah, the amusement was over too fast. The Three who ruled had been bored lately. They ruled their little kingdom, twenty miles of the river shoreline, like a harvesting ground for anything that was unlucky enough to stumble along. But the animals hadn’t had a challenge, something to get their juices flowing, in a long time. They had thought perhaps Stone was the one. But as he sat there on one leg, hardly able to run as they closed in for the kill, they could see that that was not the case at all.

  Stone searched frantically around for the brave’s machete and saw it lying there on the other side of his twitching body. He started for it, crawling over his fallen traveling companion, but not fast enough. The Doberman shot forward, launching itself from a good twenty feet away like a screaming artillery shell of foaming teeth ready to take his heart out.

  Suddenly from the right, moving with equal if not greater speed and certainly more ferocity as his lips were pulled back and a horrible high-pitched sound was erupting from his throat, shot Excaliber. The pit bull slammed into the Doberman’s chest at a ninety-degree angle, snapping his teeth around the cords of muscle, the bone, whatever was waiting to be bitten. Both dogs tumbled from the air like two geese who had forgotten how to fly, and rolled around on the ground in a snarling blur of teeth and flying fur.

  Stone took the extra second the pit bull had bought him to crawl toward the blade. Just hefting it in his hands gave him a shot of adrenaline. Between him and the pit bull they might just be able to wreak a little havoc. The Labrador took his shot at Stone, taking a running start and shooting up off the ground with legs the size of a rhino’s. The sucker was big, maybe 250 pounds heading up to 300. It looked more like a bear or something, but the shape of the face and body structure was pure Lab.

  Not that Stone was planning any detailed anatomical charts of the descending canine. He ripped the two-foot blade up, straight at the hurtling shape, at the same instant pulling his body to the side. The animal took a deep cut along its flank and a six-inch-wide streak of red coated the animal’s thick black fur. The dog landed past Stone and turned on a dime. If it was hurt it didn’t seem to know it. With blood soaking right down to its feet, the Labrador let loose with a most intimidating snarl, spreading its jaws to gargantuan proportions. Stone looked over at Excaliber, trying to face off both the Doberman and the Pit Bull as they circled around in front of him, trying to confuse him.

  Stone suddenly had his own ass to watch out for. The Labrador shot forward, coming toward him like a lion at a wildebeest. He tightened his grip around the machete and set himself on one knee, waiting for the animal to come to him. He knew that standing up, with just one leg, he was a dead duck. But at least down here he was centered, could perhaps get a good thrust in with the blade. Of course he couldn’t get out of there for shit. But he’d worry about that later. The dog came charging at him like a bull, the great jaws inside the black-furred face open like a steam shovel trying to take out a whole fucking skyscraper at once. Stone half closed his eyes and thrust forward with all his might. The blade was ripped from his hands and he threw his face to the ground, covering his head as he rolled to the side, so if the thing started biting on him he’d at least protect his eyes.

  But when he dared look after rolling three times to the side Stone saw the dog lurching backward away from him, with the long Indian knife sticking clear through its throat and coming out the back. The dog looked peculiar because the blade had entered so cleanly and poked out at just the right angle, so that it looked for a moment silhouetted in the moonlight, like a horn that had grown a little low. But though the animal stumbled around making all kinds of howls, the damned thing still wouldn’t die. Stone knew it would be only seconds before the crazed carnivore would come at him again. Only this time he didn’t even have a blade to defend himself with.

  Excaliber had his own paws full just ten feet to the left. The attacking Pit Bull circled around him one complete time and then shot in for the kill. It was as if Excaliber was looking at himself, a mirror image coming right at him. Yet the pit bull knew that his opposite number was just as deadly as he was. He wondered if the animal would use the same tactics as well. And as he dove down toward the killer’s legs he saw that the other dog did the same thing. They met jaw to jaw, their chins scraping along the rocky ground. The pit bull had finally met his match—a dog that moved and thought exactly as he did.

  Excaliber knew he had to be careful with this dude. The slightest miscalculation, the slightest misstep and it would be all over. He pulled back sharply so the attacking bull terrior snapped wildly at the air for several seconds, its eyes closed like a shark, not even realizing that the would-be victim was gone. Excaliber lunged toward the Pit Bull in the second or two it took the animal to get its bearings. He didn’t want both the Pit Bull and the Doberman on him at once. It was going to have to be fight and move, fight and move. Because if they both got him at the same time, both sunk their jaws into his body at the same instant, it would be instant death. The pit bull, as tough as he was, was also a realist. And he knew his only chance was to stay on the offensive and keep attacking them before they could do the same.

  Suddenly he hit like a striking fist and snapped down hard on the Pit Bull’s right leg before the animal could do anything. Bite and move, bite and move, he fought like a pro boxer, using the tricks, the feints, everything that his breed had in their repertoire. Again the Pit Bull closed in, coming in fast. Excaliber waited until the last possible second, then dove down under the animal’s chest. He stood up suddenly, helping the attacker to get airborne, so it slammed into a tree about eight feet behind him, cracking its head into the hard wood with a resounding bang. But pit bulls are not known as the iron-headed dogs for nothing. The animal merely picked itself up, snarled a few times just to remind itself what it was, and then came charging back again at Excaliber.

  Stone watched from the side, with a respite of a few seconds while the Labrador turned for yet another attack, the machete buried through its throat. He knew that he and Excaliber couldn’t go on like this for very long. Something would have to give, and what would give would have to be them. Even if they could hold off this crew the rest of the pack would be here pronto. And then they wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in a microwave of getting out of there.

  Suddenly he felt the lighter in his hand. He was still holding it tightly in his left hand—hadn’t let go since Cracking Elk’s death grip deposited it there. Stone ha
d a sudden crazy idea. It had only a chance in a. thousand of working. But then he didn’t have a hell of a lot to lose. He swept his eyes across the Three. They were all off to one side with the mountain wall at their backs about thirty feet behind them. All around their feet were low, dried bushes. Yes, it could work. There was only one fucking way to find out. Stone waited another second or two as he saw Excaliber charge toward the two snarling attackers who were crouched down readying themselves. The pit bull’s feint pushed the two back, and Stone saw that at least for an instant they were all together near the mountainside.

  “Excaliber,” Stone screamed at the top of his lungs as he flicked the lighter and held it to the brittle brown grass about knee length all around him. The lighter caught the first time and the dry brush caught in a flash. He moved ahead a yard keeping the lighter going and touched off another mini blaze, then another. Within ten seconds there was a whole wall of fire sweeping straight toward the mountain wall.

  “Excaliber, jump, you bastard, jump!” Stone screamed, seeing that his plan was working only too well as all four dogs were trapped behind the rapidly moving curtain of orange and yellow. The pit bull stopped his battle growling and mouth snapping as he saw the Three staring over his head. He turned, and seeing the wall of flames and Chow Boy on the other side calling his name, did what any good pit bull would do—he dove right into the wall of fire. With his eyes shut the animal emerged on the other side and Stone grabbed him, throwing the animal down in the sand, rolling and half kicking the dog around to put out a few sparking places on its fur where its hide was on fire. But within seconds they were extinguished, and Stone turned to see what his scheme had wrought.