The Last of the Dogteam

by William W. Johnstone

  Ferret was thoughtful for a moment, then slowly tore the re-up papers in half, dropping them in the wastebasket. "No," he sighed, "I won't do that. You've got to find out for yourself just who you are; just how different you are from other men—just as I had to find out. We enjoy the high of combat, Terry. The seeking out of danger. And, whether we'll admit it or not, we enjoy killing those who would destroy a way of life we believe in." He

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  smiled. "Notice I did not use the term democratic way of life. What will you do, Terry?"

  "Get out of Bishop for one thing, and more than likely never come back—at least not to stay."

  "Yes," Ferret's smile was sad, "I did that, too. I want you to stay in touch with me, Terry. You have the number where I can be reached, day or night. When you get in trouble with the civilian law—and you will—call me." He hesitated, then said, "You have a talent, Terry. Whether it's good or bad is a moot point—it's there. I'd hate to see you wind up in the bucket."

  "I have no intention of going to prison, Colonel."

  Ferret held out his hand. "Goodbye, Terry." The two men shook hands.

  Ferret sat for a long time, far beyond the point where the sound of Terry's car had faded into traffic. "You'll be back. Just as I came back. Just as men like us always do. Maybe, Terry, maybe when you're forty years old, and the wildness in you is tamed, maybe then-you can live a semi-normal life—alone. But you'll be back."

  "I got some money stashed away," Poppa Kovak said, "Some money your Momma don't know about. It's yours if you want it."

  Terry shook his head, embarrassed by the offer. "I have money, Poppa. I'm 'way ahead of my car payments and I don't owe anyone in

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  Bishop, so I'm in pretty good shape." He had said his goodbyes to his mother and sister, and could hear them crying in the kitchen.

  "Where will you go, son?"

  "Well, I don't want to go to Atlanta, so I think I'll try Memphis. I'll be in touch."

  Poppa Kovak shook hands with his son, then embraced him. "Good luck, boy."

  "Yes, sir."

  Just outside of Bishop, Terry parked his car and stood for a long time looking at the city limit sign. He knew then he was cutting all ties, for he felt nothing at his leaving the town where he had been born and reared.

  "Goodbye, Bishop," Terry said. "I wish I could say it had been fun."

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  PAULA

  She was drawn to the young man the moment he walked into her office at the shoe factory in Memphis. His eyes fascinated her: cold as ice even when he smiled. Something about him brought a touch of fear to her, but she was still drawn to him. He looked twenty-five and Paula was startled when she read on his application form he was only nineteen. She did some quick arithmetic. She was five years older than Terrance Kovak, but she suspected he was much older than she in many, many ways. Miss Paula Asians, Assistant to the Personnel Director of the shoe factory, hired the young man.

  "Can you start on Monday?" she asked. "It won't be much, and you'll be working in the stock room to start." She told him the starting salary.

  I made four times that much in one minute, Terry thought. Putting a hole in a man's head.

  "Okay, Monday will be fine."

  "Where are you staying?" That was none of her business, but the question popped out of her mouth. Paula felt her face flush hot under his gaze. She got the impression he might be mentally undressing her.

  Which he was,

  "I don't know, yet. I just got in town a few hours ago. Haven't had a chance to look around."

  "There is a small garage apartment behind the apartment complex where I live." His eyes held hers. "Why don't you try there?" She put her hand on the phone. "I know the lady who owns it. Would you like me to call her for you?"

  "Sure, if you want to. Yes, that would be nice."

  It took four trips to the car before Terry got all his gear unloaded. His mother had packed him to the top with towels and sheets and pots and pans and knives and forks and spoons and curtains and dishes. He stood in the center of the apartment living room, looking around, waiting for some kind of excitement to hit him. Nothing. His only sensation was a dead feeling in his stomach.

  This is not what I want, Terry thought. Not at all. But . . . what do I want? Where do I belong? And who in the hell wants to work in a goddamned shoe factory.

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  He thought of his brutal training, and the excitement of it all. The months of hand to hand combat; learning to kill with every conceivable type of weapon.

  No, he thought: I've got to give this a try.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.

  Terry sighed. "Come in, Paula. It's open."

  The Assistant Personnel Director of the shoe factory opened the screen door and viewed him with cautious and somewhat surprised eyes. "How did you know it was me?"

  She carried a flat box in her hands. "I thought you might like a pizza. ... I mean, share one with me."

  And away we go, Terry thought. "Yeah, that would be nice. I am kinda hungry."

  Terry wondered if perhaps this would be the woman with whom he could experience love? And how would he know when and if that elusive sensation struck him?

  But the flame was not to explode. They ate the pizza, licked their fingers, smiled at each other, and later drove to a small bar in South Memphis and drank dark beer out of heavy frosted mugs, Paula told Terry the story of her life—not that he was particularly interested in hearing it. But he listened patiently, nodding in all the right places.

  Later in the evening, as he knew would happen, he made love to her in his newly acquired apartment. She moaned and cried and shuddered as she experienced climax after rip-

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  ping climax, marking his back with long fingernails.

  "Damn!" he said. "Any more of this and I'll be eligible for combat pay. Why don't you cut those fingernails?"

  She laughed as she met his stroking with upward moves of her hips. "If you want to stop what you're doing, I'll cut them."

  Afterward, they shared a cigarette and a cold bottle of beer as they lay in bed, amid the sweaty, tangled sheets, her flesh warm against him.

  But Terry felt nothing for her.

  "You're the first man in months for me, Terry."

  "Why me?" he asked drowsily. "You just met me about eight hours ago."

  "I ... feel something for you. Something I haven't felt for a long time."

  "What?"

  "I think . . . pity, perhaps."

  "Pity?" he rose up on one elbow. "Why would you feel pity for me?"

  "I don't know, really. Or really if that is the right word. But I sense . . . something about you/'

  "What?"

  But she would not answer. She rolled over and went to sleep.

  That night, Terry's sleep was punctuated by dreams of his mother and father, alone in (he big house in Bishop, worrying about their youngest son.

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  Saturday, the shoe factory closed for the weekend, and Paula showed him Memphis: the ducks in front of the Main Street hotel; the Zoo (Terry remembered the seal in Kansas and wondered if Pete had found another friend to feed him fish); Sun Studios where Elvis cut his first record for his mother (so the story went), launching him in his star-bound career.

  Terry was not overly impressed with any of it. But then, he remembered, I haven't been overly impressed with anything in my life, and I don't understand why. I'm young; I should be full of piss and vinegar, happy to be alive in my youth. Why am I not?

  He turned off the sights and sounds of Memphis, and the searching of his mind, to concentrate on Paula.

  A tall young woman, five-seven, with a truly magnificent figure. Dark brown hair, green eyes, a tiny sprinkling of freckles across her nose that seemed just right for her. High, full breasts Terry remembered quite well from the night before. A Mississippi girl who grew up on a farm in the Delta. A degree in Business. Several thoroughly
rotten love affairs (she hadn't dated in months) left her with the impression that most men were beasts.

  They walked along the main drag, window shopping and she asked Terry if he owned a suit.

  "No, just a couple of coats, that's all. Got my Army suit, but I left that in Bishop."

  An hour later he had bought a suit from

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  Goldsmiths, a white shirt, button down collar, and a tie. Terry wondered if perhaps this wasn't all a dream? Maybe he was back in Bishop and he would soon awaken.

  Paula took him to dinner that evening, shocking him by giving him thirty dollars to pay for the meal.

  "Goddamnit, I've got money! I've never taken money from a woman before and I don't want to start now." He tried to return the three tens.

  She waved away his protests. "So, when you go on to a better job you can pay me back. Let me do this, Terry; you're the first man I've really wanted to be with in a long time. Let's have fun for as long as this lasts." Her eyes were very dark and serious as they rode up the elevator, alone, to the rooftop restaurant.

  "You act like I'm leaving tomorrow," Terry was puzzled. "Hell, I just got in town."

  "You won't be here for long," she informed him, as if she were a mystic, peering into a glowing ball. "You're looking for something you'll never find in Memphis. And for someone. That someone isn't me, Terry."

  "How do you know that?" he questioned, but he sensed she was right.

  She laughed softly as the elevator bumped to a stop. Smiling at his puzzled expression, she said, "I took a lot of psychology in college."

  "Wonderful," he said.

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  The work at the factory was not difficult, and it certainly wasn't mentally stimulating. Terry tired of it in a month, wondering if he was sorry he left Ferret and the Dog Teams. A part of him said yes. The men he worked with—most of them his age or just a bit older—were total bores. Their conversations were limited to pussy and sports—in that order. None of them professed any desire to willingly serve their country. They were also afraid of being drafted.

  Terry had a recurring dream, a curious dream: a mixture of graves, yawning open at him, of blood, and of Hell. After awakening from these nightmares, he would feel drained and sweaty, somewhat apprehensive of the twists and turns life might hold for him. He found he missed the camaraderie of the military. And, he finally admitted, he missed the action of Dog Teams.

  He awakened one morning, several minutes ahead of the alarm clock, with Paula asleep and warm beside him. He looked at his hands and for the first time realized he could loll as easily with those hands as most men could pick up a pen and write a check.

  What if he got into a fight while he was a civilian and killed someone? Who would protect him? Nobody I the chilling realization fell on him. His mind locked in that thought.

  They've got me boxed in tight, he thought. Colonel Ferret knew it; that's why he let me go without a fight. He knows exactly what I

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  am. He recognized the quirk in my make-up that allows me to loll without much—if any—remorse. I've got to fight it ... keep it under control.

  Yeah, Ferret, I'll probably be back, but I've got to try it my way for a time. Stay out of trouble for as long as I can.

  He stroked the warm flesh of Paula and she stirred in her sleep, responding to his hands, turning, moving against him.

  A few months later, on a Friday, two things happened that would forever change Terry's life.

  "Well, I guess we get married," Terry told her. "That's the right thing to do."

  "No!" Paula shook her head; "No, Terry, we don't get married. That's not really what you want and you know it."

  "It's my child you're carrying. He . . . she . . . whatever, has got to have a name." A child might settle me down. Yes, I believe that might do it. He thought of returning to Bishop with a wife; his mother and father would be so pleased. But would he be pleased?

  Paula slashed his fantasy to bits. "It would be a marriage without love," she said. "A name without love. It would not be fair to us or to the baby."

  "Are you going to have an abortion?" That

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  thought sickened Terry.

  "No. Absolutely notl I have money saved, so I'm going to work until the time it's . . . obvious, then quit and have our child. After that," she shrugged, "I don't know. But I don't want you worrying about it."

  Terry opened his mouth to speak and Paula shushed him quiet. "I've taken the liberty of packing your things while you were at work this afternoon—after I came home from seeing the doctor. It's probably best if you leave this evening. Terry," she touched his cheek with a cool hand, "you've been wanting to go for some time. I sensed that. There is something restless in you, pushing you on. You're a young man . . . but, then, you're not young. You were a mystery when I met you, you're a mystery as you leave. I think it's best for us to say goodbye. Just as we said hello." There were tears in her eyes.

  "You're sure this is the way you want it?"

  She kissed him. "I'm going to visit my folks in Mississippi this weekend, Terry. Please be gone when I get back. Don't make it harder on either of us. It's for the best, believe me." She turned and walked away. Terry made no, move to stop her.

  As he watched her walk away from him, a sense of loss hit him in the pit of his stomach. He could not understand the sensation. Why should he feel anything? He did not love her. He knew that, she knew that, so what's the big deal? She's giving you a way out, so take it.

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  He stood in the doorway of the apartment and watched her walk down the steps to her car. She backed out into the street. Paula raised her hand in farewell and Terry returned the gesture. Then, she was gone from his sight and his life.

  I'm going to be a father, Terry thought, and I'll probably never know when it happens. I wonder what she'll look like.

  She?

  His car was packed with his belongings, parked outside the bar. Inside, Terry picked up his third beer. Frosty mugs of beer to occupy his hands and attempt to dull his mind. Absentmindedly, he watched a woman walk across the barroom floor to the restroom area. Tight jeans encased her swaying rump, full breasts jiggling under her blouse, and his were not the only eyes on the woman. He watched her until she entered the restroom, then returned his attentions to his mug of beer.

  "Don't get any cute ideas about her," he heard a man say. Terry paid no attention to the voice, the warning, assuming it was not directed at him.

  "I'm talkin* to you, sonny-boy!" the voice came from behind him and to his left. Terry stiffened slightly, then swiveled on the stool as he realized the warning was meant for him. He looked at the man.

  A drunk redneck. A construction worker in

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  dirty jeans and dirtier shirt faced him, fists balled in anger, eyes alive and shining with meanness. Trouble whispered and moved about in the smoky, country music-filled air of the barroom.

  Terry's smile could have chilled a rattlesnake.

  "That's right, blbndie," the man said, pointing a dirty finger at Terry. "Keep those nasty thoughts about my wife out of your mind. I know what you're thinkin," but she ain't that kind of woman."

  Rage swelled up in Terry, running hot and wild. He had done nothing; the man had no right to call him down like this. Terry's words were blunt and very much to the point. "Fuck off, buddy! I haven't done anything."

  The redneck moved closer to Terry, fists swinging at his side. "I seen you in here before," he said, "eyeballin' my old lady, grin-nin* at her. I 'bout had all I'm gonna take offa you."

  Terry wasn't about to back down. He sensed what was coming and was ready for it: wanted the man to come on and take his best shot.

  Terry despised these types of people. His father had repeatedly told his sons: "We're poor, yes, but we're not trash. Your Momma and me, we bring you boys up right. But there are people of low degree out in the world. My boys will not be one of them. White trash is something no Kovak will ever become."<
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  Tve never been in here before in my life," Terry said. "Even if I had, what goddamned business is it of yours? Why don't you go take a bath? Decent people don't want to smell your stink."

  The man trembled with rage. He was big, rough, did hard work, and no one had ever talked to him in such a manner.

  "Decent people do not enter a public place without clothing on their bodies," Poppa Kovak said to his sons. "No one wants to see a man's hairy belly hanging over his belt buckle, shirt open, or worse, no -shirt at all. Wash yourselves, be neat. Trashy people do not care about other people's feelings. I better not ever catch one of my boys acting like trash."

  "You smell like a goat," Terry told the man. "And look like an ape."

  No one made any move to stop the two men. Besides, everybody present knew ole Luther was bad. Be a real short fight; everybody have a good laugh when the kid gets his face busted.

  "Git up, you smart-mouthed punk! I'm gonna kick your teeth in."

  The jukebox changed tunes: Yonder Comes A Sucker.

  Terry slipped off the stool and faced the man, getting set. The redneck swung at him, a looping right. Crabbing the man's arm, one strong hand around his wrist, the other hand clamped just above his elbow, Terry tossed him over his shoulder, over the bar, and into

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  the glasses and mugs, shattering the mirror, sending glass flying about the room.

  He looked at the bartender. "If you want any damages," he jerked his thumb at ole Luther, struggling to get up from behind the bar, thrashing and cussing in the broken glass, "get it from that bastardl He started it."

  Terry picked up his change from the bar, then walked out the door and into the warm Tennessee night.

  He was almost to his car when he heard the construction worker pounding the gravel behind him, lumbering and huffing up to him in the night.

  "MOTHER FUCKER!" the man screamed, and Terry spun to face him.

  All Terry's training, still fresh in his mind, activated in his brain, roaring at him in a silent tongue: SURVIVAL KILL.

  The world about Terry froze in time and space. There were only two people left in the world: himself and the redneck. Terry saw, heard, remembered nothing but his training. His eyes locked upon his assailant and held him close to death's door, with a gaze as cold as the grave.