"My father didn't fail!" Luther snapped, and his blue eyes glinted with anger. "The flaw was within the species, not with my father! The same thing happened to the lobox as is happening now with the cheetah! Their gene pool became too limited! The DNA of each lobox is virtually the same! You have birth defects! They are largely …"
His voice trailed off, but I finished for him. "Sterile," I said. "Maybe that's why they became extinct."
"The problem can be corrected, with enough time. I must produce more hybrids in order to-"
"It's over, Luther. You've run out of time. Garth and Harper are gone, and the story is out. Even if you do kill me, you'll never make it out of the country. Although it may not look like it at the moment, I'm in a position to help you. Let's talk about how we can get you and your stock to people who will protect you. How about it?"
Luther took the Magnum from his holster. "Get down, Frederickson."
I glanced over at the lobox. "Thanks, but I'd prefer to stay where I am."
Luther raised the Magnum and pointed it at me. "I think you'd better come down anyway. I don't believe your brother and Miss Rhys-Whitney left you. They're somewhere in the silos, and the loboxes will eventually get to them. Nobody is coming to help you, but my sponsors will again agree to help me when they find out I still have the means to develop what they're looking for."
"If I come down, your pet will tear me apart."
"If you don't come down, I will shoot you."
"I wonder. It seems important for you to keep up appearances. If you wanted to shoot me, I'd be on the ground right now with a bullet in my head. You'd like the police to keep speculating about 'werewolf killings,' and if I'm found with a bullet in me, people may start to wonder why a werewolf would carry a Magnum. If that's what you've got in mind, forget it. It's all unraveled, Luther, and there's no way you're going to weave it together again. If you're going to shoot me, shoot me; nearness just doesn't count anymore."
Luther reholstered the Magnum, gripped the Smith amp; Wesson with both hands, swung the barrel around. "I would hate to kill Mabel, Frederickson, but I certainly will if that's what it takes to get you down on the ground. You'll have to decide whether it's worth sacrificing this magnificent animal's life just so that you may enjoy, at most, a few more seconds of your own."
Crunch time.
Luther, of course, had no way of knowing what had been going on between his last, presumably virile male lobox and me-but then, I had no way of knowing if the lobox's previous submission to me was going to make any difference now that his master, with his Magnum, was back in the picture. Now seemed as good a time as any to find out just what the creature would do.
I reached behind me for the nunchaku sticks lying on Mabel's back, draped them by their chain around my neck, abruptly stood up. Luther said nothing about them; if he knew what nunchaku sticks were, he obviously didn't consider them a threat. Considering his perception of the situation, which might very well be the correct one, I couldn't fault him.
Mabel, sensing that I wanted to get off, obediently curled her trunk upward. I stepped into the cradle of muscle and leathery hide, and Mabel slowly lowered me to the ground. I stepped off the trunk, then slowly turned and positioned myself so that Luther was on my left and the lobox on the right; man and beast were about twenty yards away from me, in opposite directions.
It wasn't taking Luther long to catch on to the fact that something was wrong, for he was staring with intense curiosity at the lobox, which had raised its head but had not gotten to its feet. It was certainly not the reaction the animal trainer had expected.
Luther bent down and laid the Smith amp; Wesson on the ground-very slowly, obviously wary, keeping his eyes on the lobox. Then he straightened up, drew the Magnum from his holster, cocked it. The sound of the hammer clicking back seemed to me almost as loud as a gunshot.
"Kill!" he commanded.
Now the lobox sprang to its feet and stood stiff-legged, its hide quivering. But its ruff did not expand, and it did not move. It looked at me, lowered its head, and began to shake. This was one conflicted lobox.
I took the nunchaku sticks from around my neck, clicked them together.
Luther went pale, and his jaw dropped open slightly. He stared for a few moments at the reluctant lobox, then pulled the trigger of his gun, firing a bullet into the ground. Dirt kicked up at his feet, and the sound of the gunshot echoed in the surrounding forest of grain silos.
"Kill, damn you! Kill!"
The lobox's reaction was to spin around and race full bore around behind the silo.
There wasn't any moss growing on that lobox, I thought. In attempting to resolve its dilemma of choosing between dying from a bullet-and I no longer doubted that it could conceive of its own death-and killing, or at least attacking, its new "leader," the lobox had opted to simply depart the premises, at least for a while. I considered it an excellent choice, and I wished I could join it. Since I couldn't, I instead took advantage of Luther's momentary distraction to dart around behind the formidable shield of Mabel's left front leg. I doubted he was ready yet to kill Mabel; he would do that only as a last resort, or if she attacked him. First, I hoped, he would try to angle around to try to get a clear shot at me.
If he did that, and if he wandered too close to the silo, I would have the opportunity of seeing how much moss was growing on Garth.
However, Luther didn't seem to be in any hurry-for the moment, at least-to flush me out. He still seemed stunned by the lobox's behavior. For almost a minute he simply stood and stared at the corner of the silo where the creature had disappeared. Then he slowly turned toward where I was peering out from behind Mabel's leg.
"This is somehow your doing, Frederickson," he said in a low, tense voice, his Swiss-German accent suddenly more pronounced, giving his tone a guttural sound. "I can't conceive of how you managed it. You are a most remarkable man."
What I did next was dangerous, but I considered it worth the risk. Discovering that Luther had brought along two fresh loboxes primed for Garth and Harper had been a nasty surprise, but the unpleasantness had been tempered considerably by the fact that they had, of course, immediately run into a cul-de-sac in pursuit of their prey. I wanted to make sure they stayed put, and I took advantage of Luther's continuing dyspepsia and distraction to back up, and then move quickly over the five yards or so to the silo. I closed the double doors, secured them with the chain I had left hanging on one of the inside pegs, then scurried back behind my elephant barricade.
Luther hadn't moved. He didn't appear to have even noticed that I had temporarily exposed myself to his gun-or he didn't care.
"Flattery will get you nowhere, Luther. Are you ready to surrender?"
"How did you do it, Frederickson? How is it possible?"
"Throw your guns over here and back away, and I'll tell you all about it. Obviously, I know things about loboxes you don't. Give it up."
"I can't, Frederickson," he said in an odd-almost plaintive- tone of voice. "I couldn't. . survive in prison. I'm only happy when I'm with animals. To spend the rest of my life caged like a beast myself. . no. I would much prefer to die."
I believed him, but it didn't answer the question of why he hadn't yet made any attempt to move on me. I was resigned to the fact that he would eventually shoot Mabel, thinking that would be the end of it for me too; but if he did, he would soon find out just how formidable an obstacle the corpse of an African elephant can be. He was going to have to stalk a dwarf over and around a mountain of tons of dead flesh. I had no doubt that I was quicker than he was; if he made just one mistake, and he would, he was going to find out how quick I was and how deadly a pair of nunchaku sticks can be.
"Hey, Luther," I said quietly. "Was I right before, about most of the loboxes being sterile? Is that lobox that ran off the last male you have?"
At first I didn't think he was going to respond. Then, after some time, he slowly nodded. "The only one that is so close to a full-blooded lobox-the act
ual, separate breed. It would take many breeding generations to produce another like him."
"Too bad. I guess that one animal is even more valuable than I thought."
Luther apparently didn't feel like chatting any longer, for he abruptly wheeled around and stalked back to the semi. I didn't like the feel of the the situation, and I liked it even less when he stopped next to the tractor-trailer, yanked a second set of double doors open, and quickly stepped back.
Even before the grayish-brown shape shot from the opening, hit the ground, and came sprinting toward me, I guessed why Luther had been in no hurry to play hide-and-seek with me between and around Mabel's massive legs. He'd hedged his bets with me, as well as with Garth and Harper, and before setting out had primed another lobox to kill me.
The small female was covering the ground between us in great bounds, and I had only milliseconds to make a decision: try to keep dodging around behind Mabel's leg, where freedom to swing my nunchakus was severely limited and I could only poke at it, or move away and try to kill it with a lucky hit before it opened my arteries with its teeth or claws.
As Mabel lifted her trunk and trumpeted, I sprang away from her great bulk, crouched down in the lobox's path, and began to swing the sticks.
I knew I was in trouble. With the male, as big as it was, I'd had time to work on its mind, to hurt it, to at least make it hesitate in its dealings with me. The female coming at me, although smaller, was even more deadly. To her, I was just a piece of meat to be torn apart, and nothing short of a crippling blow to break one of her legs, or a killing blow to her head, was going to stop her; she might be able to make any number of passes at me, but if I failed just once to steer clear of her fangs and claws, I was dead.
I was awash in an ocean of sound as Mabel continued to trumpet her distress, stomp her feet, and move her great bulk dangerously close to me. The lobox was still fifteen yards away when it suddenly screamed and prepared to spring. I whipped my sticks around and was just about to jump to my left when an enormous, tawny shape flew past my head, so close to my right ear that I could feel the wind of its passing against my cheek.
The male collided with the female in midair, virtually in front of my face. The male's weight straightened the female up, knocked her backward. When they landed, he was on top of her, growling, his fangs poised over her throat, one hind leg raised, extended claws hovering over her exposed belly.
The female's reaction was instantaneous. She immediately arched her head back, exposing her throat, and all four of her legs were raised, stiff, in the air.
Submission.
It was all over in a matter of seconds. The male accepted the female's submission, backed off her as it growled and bared its fangs. I turned around and ran back to Mabel, who had quieted down somewhat, and again took up my refuge behind her left front leg. When I looked back, I was alarmed to see Luther taking aim with his Smith amp; Wesson at the male lobox. The male cringed, flattening its ears against its head, and turned away-but stood its ground, certainly knowing that it now faced its own death.
"Shoot it and the lobox becomes extinct again!" I shouted, wondering why I seemed to care so much. "That's your last fertile male! Kill it, and everything you and your father have done will be for nothing!"
Luther hesitated, then swung the 30–06 in my direction. His face had gone white. "You interfering little bastard! You've ruined everything! I'll see you dead!"
He set the rifle on the ground, drew the Magnum. Holding it with both hands, he moved toward Mabel, who moved back a step, almost knocking me off balance. Luther then began to circle to his right in an effort to get a shot at me. It was precisely what I'd been hoping for, because his route took him close to the silo. Garth and Harper were ready. As Luther moved beneath the vent, they cast the rope and burlap net we had constructed to trap the lobox. The net floated down through the air, fell over Luther's head and shoulders.
Luther clawed at the net with the barrel of the Magnum and his free hand, but I was already sprinting toward him, nunchaku sticks swinging.
The female lobox beat me to him. Primed to kill, her bloodlust fanned by her failure to kill me, frustrated by the male's dominance, she now sensed her master's helplessness, and her instinct told her to kill. Unrestrained now by the male, she leaped at the hapless figure struggling in the netting; her jaws were open, her hind legs curled up beneath her, claws extended to disembowel. Luther's scream was cut off, abbreviated by death, as the creature's jaws closed over his throat and the claws tore into him, opening him up, spilling the contents of his stomach onto the ground.
Above me, Harper screamed at the sight of the female lobox shoving her maw into Luther's body, tearing at his flesh. I certainly no longer cared to go in that direction, and I came to a screeching halt. The Magnum had fallen next to Luther's body, and I wasn't going to contest the lobox for it; I retreated, slung the nunchaku sticks around my neck, stooped down and picked up the Smith amp; Wesson off the ground. I smacked the clip to make sure it was in place, then swung the rifle around and leveled it on the female. My finger tightened on the trigger, but I didn't fire.
Although I was clearly aiming at the female, who had stopped chomping on Luther and was now standing stiff-legged and staring at me, the male lobox was also reacting strongly to the sight of me with a gun in my hands. There was a look in its eyes that was almost-accusatory. In fact, I didn't really want to kill the female-and I wondered what would happen to my relationship with the male if I did.
Animals aren't people, I reminded myself. Indeed, people were probably the lobox's natural prey, which made it the most dangerous creature-next to people-on the face of the planet.
The female was primed to kill me, and I couldn't afford to play games with her. And yet. .
"Shoot them, Robby!" Harper called in a high-pitched voice laced with tension and fear. "Shoot them both while you can! Don't take any chances!"
What the hell, I thought as I slowly lowered the heavy rifle and backed away, keeping my gaze on the female, my main concern. In for a penny, in for a pound. Killing things was easy. Although the female was a hybrid, there was no telling how many generations of wolf-kuvasz breeding she represented. She too was a precious thing on a world that was exterminating species of living things at the rate of hundreds a year.
I kept backing away, moving toward the truck. When I was fifty yards away, I rested the rifle in the crook of my left arm, took my nunchaku sticks from around my neck.
The female started to move toward me, but the male immediately blocked her way, bared its fangs, and growled.
"That's good," I said evenly, talking directly to the male, struggling to keep my voice steady. I slowly bent down, laid aside the Smith amp; Wesson. "If you want your girlfriend to live, you're going to need all your smarts, and then some. It's up to you."
"Hey, Mongo!" Garth called. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Stop farting around! Pick up the fucking gun and shoot them!"
I clicked the nunchaku sticks together, and the male's ears pricked up. I signaled with the sticks, pointing them toward the open doors at the rear of the truck.
"Here," I continued, rapping the side of one of the open doors with a stick. "Pay attention. If you want her to live, put her in here."
I rapped the door again, harder, then moved away from the truck.
It wasn't until I was better than ten yards away that I realized I had neglected to bring the rifle along with me. This did not escape the female's attention. She had no reason whatsoever to fear me or the nunchaku sticks, and she abruptly leaped forward to attack. I crouched and readied my sticks, but it wasn't necessary. The male surged forward, easily overtook her, headed her off. She veered off and spun around, snarled, and he bit her hard on the left flank. She screamed in pain, her bloodlust instantly dampened, then immediately tried to stand on her head before rolling over and adopting the now-familiar posture of a submitting lobox. The male nudged her from behind, got her to her feet, and started moving her forwar
d, gently nipping her from behind-heading her toward the truck, almost as if he had understood my every word. She veered away; he again headed her off, turned her around, headed her toward the truck.
I draped my sticks around my neck and watched in amazement as the male, working the female as if he were a champion sheepdog, kept herding her toward the semi. He kept at it, nipping her first on one flank and then the other, moving her closer and closer. One last good nip on the hindquarters sent her hurtling through the air, through the open doors, into her cage in the truck.
I sprinted to the truck, virtually shoving the huge male out of my way, and slammed the doors shut, locked them in place. Gasping for breath, winded as much from tension as from physical exertion, I scowled at the creature whose face was now only inches from mine. "Sit."
It sat. Then, without really giving a lot of thought to what I was doing, I reached out and patted it on the head, then began to scratch it under its chin.
"Good b-"
The lobox's reaction was instantaneous. It uttered a sound from somewhere deep in its chest, something between a bark and a growl, then abruptly surged forward, butting me in the chest with its head and knocking me down onto my back. It was instantly on me, its huge forelegs straddling my shoulders, its barrel chest bearing down on my chest and pinning me helplessly to the ground. Its golden eyes stared into mine, and I tensed, waiting for the surge of a clawed hind foot that would tear away the lower half of my body, or the snap of jaws that would remove my face and throat.
It made a soft growling sound, then proceeded to lick my face with a long, red washcloth of a tongue that was at once slimy and rough, like a cow's.
I had offered it a sign of affection, and now the damn thing wanted to play.
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