by Mark Stevens
Trudy risked a slow breath, tried to find a place back on the dial toward cool and calm. She flashed on Allison—what would she do? And then Jerry—where was he? And then realized these two walking up the road to her house might have had to go through Jerry to get here and she realized, suddenly, that Jerry might be hurt.
Or worse.
She cocked the gun.
The sound, in this setting, was like a car crash.
“What the—”
The words gave away the distance—close.
Silence.
Trudy aimed high and to the left, pulled the trigger. Her body jerked, the recoil rippled every muscle in her arm and shoulder. Her ears ignited with a high-pitched whine.
She counted to four, aimed high and pulled the trigger again.
This time she was up and at her door, heading inside as the echo faded.
She flashed the light on and Alfredo was already up, eyes ready to kill if needed.
Trudy pointed at his boots as if she had always pointed at everything with the barrel of a gun. He scooped up his boots and she flipped the overhead light back off, her breath coming now in inefficient bursts. She yanked on his wrist with her free hand. They ran through the house in the dark, headed to the back door by the greenhouse.
Twenty yards of clearing separated the house from the woods. She ran expecting a tackle. Her eyes screamed for a scrap of light. She reached the first line of trees, her hand gripping Alfredo’s wrist.
She squatted, pulled him down alongside.
“Your boots,” she whispered. “Los botas.”
They waited.
The shots weren’t enough. Trudy knew it.
Two shapes. Two presences. Right there. Closer to the house, but there. Trudy heard a step. Two. Three-four. One bumped into something, a metallic ring. The pole for her clothes line.
“Fuck me.” Like a growl.
The ping hung in the air.
The back door opened and they were both inside.
She hoped.
Trudy jerked Alfredo again by the wrist and started up around to the front, staying clear of the house. A light flashed on in the corner of her view. Alfredo stayed close.
She hoped there wasn’t a third who had stayed with the car.
It was possible they faced a long night. It wouldn’t take her visitors long to figure out she wasn’t in the house and she could have gone one of 360 directions, all pretty good cover in the night. It was her turf, her advantage.
Their vehicle was a presence, a hint of a shape.
She slowed, eyes straining, free hand up. She let Alfredo go, but he hovered close.
Her hand found the car—SUV.
If there was a third inside, she and Alfredo were dead meat.
Trudy took a breath.
The sound behind the house was an angry slam of the door, ten times the needed force. No words could be plucked from the general guttural wrath.
Time was fleeting, but that depended on whether her visitors thought their prey sought refuge in the woods.
More low grumbles and curses, but they were from the far side of the house.
Trudy turned the gun around in her hand, held it by the barrel, found the smooth plastic casing of the tail light and gave it a firm whack.
Another.
Her finger felt the jagged sharp plastic where she had hammered.
“Vámonos,” she whispered.
She flipped aside the scrap of plastic.
She led the way up the slope on the far side of the pickup from the house. Trudy climbed for two long minutes and stopped, her chest tight from panic and exertion. Alfredo sat next to her, put an arm around her shoulders.
Alfredo was already Zen-like frozen, a cool customer. Waiting roadside at night and wondering about the intentions of strangers wasn’t a new experience.
The driver side door on the SUV snapped open and the light caught the driver’s general size—large—and a flash of dark shirt. The cab of the vehicle obscured his face. The driver climbed in and the light snapped off for a second before the passenger’s side opened.
This guy was in no rush. He stood looking back across the truck at the house. He was heavy set too, or at least bulky. He looked to be shorter than the driver.
“Fucking, fuckin’ A,” he said. “They’ve gotta come back.”
Trudy couldn’t hear the response, but the passenger wasn’t in charge. The light caught his thick neck and nearly chinless profile. If it came down to a foot race, Trudy wasn’t worried. But now that she had put bullets between them, she doubted it would come down to speed or stamina.
“You know—”
The car door slammed with an odd sound like the frame was bent. The motor came to life and the truck started a three-point turn until the headlights pointed back the way they had come.
“Now,” said Trudy.
She led the race back to the house.
Keys. Handbag.
They hadn’t tossed the place. They weren’t after stuff. They were only after Alfredo. The cats were stirred up, but okay.
Back outside, the SUV’s tail lights were far ahead, climbing a low rise. Trudy would close the gap between them when they got closer to Dotsero and once they were on the highway. In a half-hour or so, she’d be right on their tail, the busted light leading the way.
“I know,” said Trudy to Alfredo. She kept her eyes on the dimly lit road. “Oldest trick in the book.”
thirty-seven:
thursday morning
The howls were part of her dream. They triggered a line from college days or an old boyfriend. The words surfaced in the gray fog of morning thought.
“The grief you cry out from draws you toward union…” Rumi. Love Dogs. “Listen to the moan of a dog for its master. That whining is the connection.”
Was the howl real?
Or it was her dream turned three-dimensional, bridging the journey from subconscious to reality.
Allison blinked, confirmed to herself she was awake.
The sound was way off, on the distant fringe of what was audible.
She listened, concentrated.
Nothing. As much as the arrogant pricks around that camp gave her all sorts of creepy vibes, the dogs had made her blood boil. They had no place. Ptarmigan hunters? Dusky grouse hunters? Their look was too savage.
And now the howls again. And now she was awake. Fully awake.
The sound was like a train passing through town in the next county, the noise carried on a lazy breeze.
But there it was.
And it wasn’t going away.
Allison popped an eye open. She was tucked down completely inside her sleeping bag, one of Colin’s gifts upon his return. She saw only darkness but turtled her head out to find a one-ray touch of dawn. Their camp was in a clearing from an old burn. Blackened tree stumps, fresh grasses, a pond with a surface so inactive every fish, bird and bug must be sleeping, too.
Colin’s eyes were open, but barely.
“You hear it, too,” he said.
“Yeah,” she whispered. She didn’t want to make any noise that would prevent her from hearing the next round.
“The hell,” said Colin. A whisper.
“Exactly,” said Allison.
It took five minutes to pack, sleeping bags jammed into stuff bags, blankets rolled. Another five to saddle the horses. All speed work.
Juniper was an imposing filly, a blue roan with an all-business demeanor who never balked at a hard day. She was a feisty girl with teenage kicks. Her added inch or two of height didn’t seem like much but Allison felt it in the climb up and the view, an unmistakable sense of more control. The emotional alteration made no sense in a practical way, but it worked every time. Riding Juniper was like pulling on a new pair of all-business boots.
; “She took no convincing,” said Colin.
“How’s Sunny Boy?”
“Sleeping it off,” said Colin. “He’s fine. Not like I was there for more than a few minutes. Jesse was still up. He’ll get her treats.”
“He’ll never forgive me,” said Allison.
The howls again. Dogs were allowed in the Flat Tops, but hunting dogs were only needed to follow mountain lions and the only time to pick up a cat’s trail was after a fresh snowfall. The howls offered up a touch of the English countryside in Western Colorado, as alien as crumpets.
Colin led the way back through the narrow strip of forest that separated their camp from the main valley floor. Allison banished all thoughts of a much-needed coffee injection.
Morning light brushed the sky slate gray. Grasses chirped happily with their morning feeding, a fresh splash of morning dew.
Now in the open, Allison slowed Juniper.
If the gap here in the forest was shaped like a weirdly elongated melting watch dreamed up by Salvador Dali, the dogs were at eleven o’clock and they were at five. The gap in the forest widened in the middle and tapered down to a narrow funnel at each end. To the east, the gap rose in elevation back over a high ridge. To the west, the land dropped slowly away. The south side of the long meadow was guarded by a long, high ridge that climbed abruptly, its long top so intently and perfectly horizontal that you had to wonder if the glaciers had gone to carpentry school.
Binoculars up, she saw nothing.
Mist. Dampness. Greens. Stillness.
“No elk, either,” said Allison.
“Not too surprised,” said Colin. “Given the dogs.”
“A girl can dream, can’t she?” said Allison.
“No law against it,” said Colin. “At least, not up here.”
Still, the howls.
Fainter.
They stepped their horses across the meadow, cutting where there was no trail and wary for loose stones and chuck holes. They picked up the trail straight up the spine of the valley while dark gray skies turned light gray and then the sun slashed its way through the mist.
Allison kept Juniper on the quick side of first gear. She fought off that growing unease in her stomach. If her guts were responsible for logic as well as such intangible traits as determination and certainty, she would no doubt be making a beeline or horse-line for home and let everything sort itself out on its own. But the howls were foreign. They didn’t belong. Even in mountain lion season, relying on a dog’s powerful abilities to track didn’t seem fair, though where they placed on the “fair hunting” scale alongside rifles and scopes that made it possible to drop an elk from 800 or 1,000 yards, Allison wouldn’t want to say.
Fifteen minutes later, Allison pulled Juniper to a stop. Her mind’s ear had drawn a line from their overnight camp spot diagonally across the valley and this was the spot on the trail that intersected it.
The horses stood on a trail as straight as a gun barrel, due west. They needed to veer off to the south about thirty degrees. Curiously, Allison noted, the forest bulged here and the line she had in mind would allow for a fast crossing of the open meadow. The way across was dense bunchgrass. Allison thought she could see a route where the grass had been disturbed, but couldn’t be sure.
“Don’t hear ’em now,” said Colin.
“It’s been awhile,” said Allison.
Colin had once heard an elk scraping its antlers on a tree and it wasn’t for another ten minutes of careful stalking in the woods that the sound came within range for her. Ah, tender ears never exposed to the crushing noise of the city.
“You have a bead,” said Colin.
“If I was being chased, animal or not, and if I was somewhere around in here,” said Allison. “I’d want cover pronto and I’d head straight for the woods—right there.”
“Makes sense,” said Colin. “About as much as anything else.”
He had parked Merlin next to Juniper, haunch to haunch. With the early light, Colin didn’t need his sunglasses yet. His eyes revealed the short nights and his hard work. Despite the obvious fatigue, his gaze held a permanent look that was one part sly and reserved, one part utter enthusiasm for whatever is next.
“I don’t like that the howls have stopped,” said Allison. She pointed Juniper off the trail.
“We can shoot the dogs,” said Colin. “If they’ve got wildlife cornered, we can shoot them.”
“And first go through the assholes I ran into yesterday?” asked Allison. She turned around in the saddle to look at Colin as Juniper picked her way. “They aren’t going to appreciate the interference. They aren’t expecting an audience.”
“Call the game warden?” said Colin.
“Haven’t seen a good cell tower in some time,” said Allison.
“You prepared to shoot Rover or Lassie?” said Colin.
“If they’ve chewed up a deer or cornered a bear, I won’t be thinking of them as pets,” said Allison. “I’m not dying to shoot anything. But hell, with the howls all the elk and deer that were here are long gone and I’m mad enough about that to shoot anything in sight.”
She thought again that she should be back at the barn getting ready for her clients. Depending on what the next hour held, she told herself, she could be back by noon and then work late or pull an all-nighter.
Dense fir greeted them at the forest’s edge. They went back in time, at least using daylight as a clock, as they entered. The dim sunlight from the open field wasn’t enough to light up the interior of these dark, wooded caverns.
The horses snaked around trees. Without discussing it, Colin separated about thirty yards on her left flank, deeper still in the woods, and matched her pace. She heard him, caught the occasional flash of Merlin’s nut brown coat. They held their bearings, heading southwest. The terrain rose and fell in tame undulations like a gentle swell, the weakest tide the moon could manage. The forest floor was clear. This old stand had never suffered a blowdown or fire. All the saplings had grown up and grown old together with minimum family trauma. The footing for the horses was premium carpet, almost spongy. It was spooky quiet although Merlin’s tack or something in Colin’s gear clacked with a dull metallic rhythm like a quirky European waltz.
One, two, clack. One, two, clack.
Dogs would have had no problem, of course, keeping at top speed in these woods but Allison had to give credit to the riders who could keep up or at least stay close on a horse. Keeping a straight line presented a challenge at a walking pace, let alone moving at a faster clip.
Had they both dreamed it? Had they both heard an odd elk bugle as howling dogs? Had she been mentally tricked by the power of suggestion, seeing the dogs yesterday?
Allison shook off the notion, although the library-like hush of the inner forest fueled her self-doubt. It was hard to imagine a pack of howling dogs had torn through and torn up this much serenity, though maybe the sheer lack of bugs, birds, and woodland creatures was evidence enough that the fierce canine whirlwind had frightened the entire animal kingdom into deep hiding mode.
Ahead, a pattern of dark scuff marks in the pine-needle floor. Allison halted Juniper and slid off. Something had ripped through here, indents that exposed a nick of dirt in an obvious pattern. Horses.
Back on Juniper, Allison scanned the forest ahead. She veered to the right. To the left, Colin and Merlin cut through the densely packed timbers. She caught strobe flashes of horse rump, a glimpse of Colin’s jean jacket.
It felt she was skimming breaths from the surface of her lungs. Her chest seized. Fear wormed into her and squeezed a python. The sensation came on in a flash. It wasn’t born of logic. Nothing in her sight, smell, or lack of sound suggested she should hit the button of internal panic and basic dread. She didn’t believe in ghosts, had a hard time with mystics who could read the color of your aura or the meaning of the creases in your pal
m, but she also knew enough to not ignore strange, unexplainable hiccups of attitude, emotion, or sensitivity. If dogs could sense an earthquake minutes before the real thing, there might be a more animal part of her that had already moved up ahead, tapping the vibe, touching the untouchable and sending up flares.
If she had a gun in a holster, she would have drawn it.
She stopped.
She listened to her heart thud.
She scanned left for Colin, but he had dropped out of formation. He was gone.
Nothing.
She was alone.
Then the soft clack, distant, of Merlin’s tack and she spotted Colin up ahead.
Colin looked back and through an opening in the trees he must have seen her expression because he looked startled and tense.
He mouthed one word:
“What?”
She shook her head, shrugged.
Colin turned Merlin and headed her way.
She held up her hand palm-out like a stern traffic cop and he stopped.
She looked at Colin but suddenly realized it was her ears that were straining and picking something out of place.
A breath.
A groan.
Allison slipped off Juniper in a flash, tied her loosely to the closest low bush.
Colin was on his feet too, stepping her way like he was on a bomb squad dealing with a motion-sensitive trigger.
That breath again.
That groan again.
Soft.
Desperation and resignation buried in the mix.
Allison thought: last gasp.
Four steps from Juniper, the sound floated in on a cloud. She couldn’t get her bearings.
Again, the breath and the groan and then she spotted the dark splotch that at least confirmed why her guts boiled.
Wet blood. A misshapen pool about the size of her boot heel.
And another.
Now the direction was a snap. She turned and gave Colin a wave to hustle and he was quickly alongside her and then on the far side of the next spruce—there was the source of the groans, curled up around the trunk like his grip was saving him from a fall off a cliff.