A small muscle jumped in Dewitt’s jaw. He was mad—Mary could tell he was mad as hell letting a woman make demands like this—but his eyes (that strange color of frost) flickered to the money. He just couldn’t let that money walk out the door; it was probably more than all the others put together. His frosty eyes looked as if they could cut her, but all he did was mutter “Fuck” and motion for them to follow him.
Only a few feet from the big barn was a much smaller horse barn. When he pushed in the door, a wedge of light partially illuminated the stalls, and the dogs started barking. The place had been utterly dark. Mary counted eight stalls, with dogs in five of them. There were two more pit bulls in the first two, three terriers (she wasn’t sure what kind), and, in the last stall, Jules and a caramel-colored puppy.
She nearly shouted with relief. It was all she could do to stand silently before the stall. Trying not to appear eager, she clung to the top of the stall door and watched while Jules got onto his feet, let out a tentative bark, and started wagging his tail. She looked swiftly down at the second stall where Dewitt was making noises as if he was trying to wind up the pit bull. But in a moment he moved over to Jules’s stall to stand by Marie.
Anyone, thought Mary, even anyone as slow on the uptake as Dewitt, might be suspicious of that tail-wagging, that playful yapping. The puppy joined in, as if Mary spelled deliverance. Oh, hell, she thought, and looked at Marie, who certainly was on Mary’s wavelength.
Marie turned on Dewitt, as if Jules’s behavior were completely Dewitt’s fault, and said, “You putting this dog in the ring? This pansy dog? What kind of operation you got going here, Mr. Dewitt?”
Dewitt looked at Jules and frowned. “I ain’t never seen him act like that. That’s a vicious dog—” He stopped suddenly as if that sounded false even to him.
“Oh, please.”
Immediately Dewitt changed his tune. “Well, but we got to have a few mild-tempered ones to warm up Colette and Dixie.” He smiled broadly and winked, as if he just realized the lewd implications of this remark. Most of his teeth were rotten, Mary saw.
“This poor excuse for a dog can’t even fight,” said Marie. “So where’s the sport in that?”
Mary kept her eyes on Jules and removed herself from the argument going on behind her. The Labrador stood gazing at her, the tail quiet now. Why don’t you hate me? I’m the one got you into this. She wanted to say it aloud but was mindful of Dewitt behind her, giving whining answers to Marie’s questions. Finally, Marie seemed satisfied that the fight was worth spending her time and her money at, and Dewitt led them out and back to the main barn.
The ring where the fights took place was fashioned of logs and posts, somewhat in the nature of a small corral, except this ring was surrounded by screening to close up any openings an animal might escape through.
It was lit by one old fixture, a metal-shaded bulb that hung from a long cord in the center of the dirt ring. Besides this light, there were lanterns on top of wooden barrels that lit the place but dimly. It was difficult to see individual faces for long, for the light shifted and shadowed them.
On the inside of the big barn doors a dour woman (possibly Bobby Kruppa’s wife or sister, since she looked like him) was handling the bet money. People would pass the money along—and why did they trust one another?—down the line to her and she’d note it and send back a chit. She did this very quickly, could do the accounting for a lot of money in just moments.
Mary judged there to be perhaps thirty-five or forty people standing around the ring, talking, laughing, clearly eager for the show to begin. Most of them were men, but there was a scattering of women just as eager. There were what looked to be several teenagers, but older than Mary herself. No small children. A few elderly, like the old gent in the wheelchair beside her who had, with the greatest difficulty, stood himself up by fastening his cane on the top rung and pulling. Then he could support himself by leaning on the rail. Behind Marie and Mary a couple of middle-aged good ol’ boys, shadow-bearded and loud, were passing a pint back and forth. Mary saw this when she turned her head, and the one behind her with eyes colorless as spit winked at her. Marie ignored them until one got a little too close, made a movement Mary didn’t catch. Marie drove her elbow fast and sharp into his side. The woman beside Marie laughed and leered. She was too hefty to be pretty, even with the aid of layers of eyeshadow and mascara and bright lipstick on her bunched lips, which looked as if she were kissing a persimmon. Mary wondered if a word she had heard seldom but always strikingly—slag—applied here. Mary had little sexual experience—well, none (be honest!) beyond a few kisses and random samplings of warm flesh—and why in God’s name, with the important job of getting Jules back, was she thinking of sex now? Then she realized there was an air, an atmosphere of hot breath and expectancy; it was not only the berry-faced woman or what the goons behind them were doing—not just the single gesture—but a collective heat, a charge of potency that seemed to hang above this ring of people waiting to explode.
The tension rose as Kruppa called out to Dewitt it was “about time” he got there. Dewitt opened one of the gates in the ring of poles and pushed the terrier in. The dog shook himself and looked baffled. Kruppa had a small brown bag, which his hand went to. He pulled out a kitten and, calling out, Here goes, folks, tossed the kitten into the ring. He let out a whoop.
Unable to stop herself, Mary backed away from the fence. Marie grabbed her arm, hauled her back.
She knew there was nothing she could do now but avert her eyes. The ring of people stomped and whistled as the kitten, now the object of both dogs’ attention, and forced back against the ring, raised its hackles and spat and hissed as if it could fight back. The crowd cheered and egged on the dogs, shouting at them, whistling, hollering. The pit bull, Colette, was clearly a stupid dog for all its meanness, for it couldn’t seem to make up its mind between the kitten and the terrier. When the terrier lunged at the kitten, the pit bull attacked. Both clamped down on the kitten, shook it furiously like a rag doll. It could as easily have been a bit of sacking, a bone, a branch. The faces of the crowd moved in and out of the shadows, lit for a moment by the swinging lamp and the lanterns on the barrels. Specks of blood flew out and fell in a red mist in the shifting light.
Nausea gripped Mary. Her body would betray her. To stave off the bile rising and burning her throat, she raged, went pretend-crazy. Her actions were hardly wilder than the whoops and screams of the watchers around her. The pit bull shook what was left of the kitten and tossed it aside. It was eager now for a go at the terrier.
As if she too were cheering Colette, Mary continued yelling, beating down the sickness, watching money still being passed to the sour-looking woman, who appeared to exercise no rules, was taking bets even as the pit bull had his jaws clamped around the terrier’s throat. She watched Marie pull out that roll of bills, peel off a couple, and pass them along. The terrier, blood draining from its head, somehow miraculously got free of the pit bull, and that sent up more cheers. They were getting a fight for their money or, if not exactly a fight, at least a delayed death.
It was too much for Mary’s mind to grasp; as if protectively, she started seeing things in slow motion: the pit bull gouged the terrier’s eye, sent it shrieking to the rails, where it tried to dig its way out underneath. It wasn’t anything either dog could walk away from. No bell would send them back to their corners to be tended by their trainers, and death was the only referee. In and out of the dark the faces flickered like candles, a surge forward and then back. The surreal light that fell across these faces when they moved seemed to split them in two, the visible lit side like a half mask. The only thing keeping her standing was the ring itself, for she could prop her arms on top. Awareness came back in a blaze, as Kruppa took the dead terrier out of the ring and Dewitt came in leading Jules through the crowd.
I’ve got to watch this, she thought. No. Another wave of nausea hit her. “Marie, I’m going to faint.”
“Oh,
no, you’re not,” Marie said in a low voice. “You faint and we’re fucked. Stiffen up.” Marie put a hand on Mary’s shoulder and squeezed. Hard.
Jules, who must have sensed the danger, would not be led; he pulled back, tautened the leash. Finally, Dewitt picked him up and carried him to the ring.
Then she heard a frail old voice nearby. “Lift me up, lady! Lift me up!” It came from the occupant of the wheelchair. “My name’s Asa Stamper. I ain’t heavy. Lift me up!”
Marie on one side, Mary on the other, they lifted the old man, who looked like the husk of a person, dried out and windblown. It was like lifting a bag of leaves. “Now just lean me on this rail, just put my arms up, and—there, that’s right. I can’t hear for all the yellin’. When’s Mule goin’ to be put in? That’s my dog, Mule, raised him up from a pup. Orneriest dog I ever did see.” Asa Stamper kept on talking to whoever would listen or just the wind. “Wait’ll Mule gets in there, he’ll kick their ass!” Asa raised his fist and lost his balance and slid nearly to the ground before Marie caught him and put him in the chair again. He went on talking.
Kruppa brought in the ugly-faced black-and-brown bulldog. Far from being reluctant, it seemed eager to get into the ring. This was the one that, apparently, would fight Jules. Mary couldn’t help the weakness; she felt giddy, put her head in her hands. Then Asa was yelling at her, “Girlie, lift me up! Lift me up! That there’s Mule!”
She got her hands underneath the old man’s armpits and lifted him to the ring, putting his arms across the post. It was like arranging a suit of clothes. She did all of this none too gently, hating this old man whose dog was going to maul Jules. He kept cheering on Mule (who was running back and forth, dementedly), raising his fists and nearly falling every time he did so, for he needed the fence for support.
Suddenly, Mary realized that they might have an ally in Asa Stamper. She said to him, “Well, nobody’s ever going to know whether Mule’s any good or not, not if they put that poor old Labrador in the ring with him. He’s weak as a kitten, just look at him.” Jules did look weak, like the old man himself, nothing but skin and bones, slinking down behind Dewitt, straining away from him. Smelling danger.
Asa yelled, “Get that damn sissy dog outa here. That fag dog ain’t gonna fight my Mule! You call this a dogfight?” He raised his fist, struck at air. His body defied gravity and stayed put.
Marie said to him, leaning on the fence, “Dixie, tell ’em to put Dixie in the ring.”
“Dixie! Let’s see Dixie and Mule!” shouted Asa.
The call for Dixie made the rounds. It grew to a whistling, foot-stomping demand.
Marie yelled to the woman collecting the bets: “I got five hundred here to put on Dixie!” She slipped five bills off the roll, passed them to the Kruppa relation when she came around the ring.
Goaded by this huge bet, others followed, demanded Dixie be brought. Kruppa hadn’t much choice; the crowd was too excited, wanted to see blood for real. He shouted to Dewitt to get Dixie, but Dewitt had his hands full with Jules.
“Dixie ain’t in the stalls; where you got her?”
“In the damn house. Go get her!”
Jules was still straining at the leash and, with surprising strength, all but toppling the skinny Dewitt.
Mary stepped over to him. “Here,” she said. “I’ll take him back and you go get the other dog.”
Dewitt looked doubtful but was glad to be rid of the Labrador and handed over the leash. Immediately, seeing Mary, the dog stopped pulling away and sat down. Mary looked at Marie, who made a sign with her thumb and finger, smiling and nodding in the direction of the door. Mary left, with Jules calmly following after.
Her chest hurt with breath she hadn’t even been aware of holding, and she let it out once they were out in the night, the door shutting off some of the noise of the crowd. While Dewitt was hurrying off toward the house, she made for the stalls and went inside to wait. Jules was silent, lay down with his head on his paws. Mary went back to the stalls, empty now but for the puppy. God only knew what was in store for it.
She watched through the little window that faced the house, watched until she saw Dewitt come out of the screen door with the other dog, Dixie, heard him curse and Dixie bark. When they disappeared into the barn, Mary left the stalls, flicking the leash to get Jules to follow. They crossed the gravel and she walked briskly up the path to where the cars were parked on the grass.
Suddenly, the man materialized beside her.
“What are you doing here, girl?”
It was Krueger. Mary felt herself go stone cold. Even her mind went numb. Pretending to a calm she certainly didn’t feel—but, after all, what was there to say?—she said, “I just stopped by to pick up my dog.”
Even Krueger seemed amused by this. But he stood blocking her path, and when she moved a little, either to right or left, so did he. Mary felt like the kitten must have.
“Well, I think there’s a misunderstanding, little girl. I think this dog here belongs to Buck Follett. And I’m interested in how you come to be here, not only you but his wife too. I imagine Buck’ll find all this very interesting.” His smile in the dark was like a blade.
Mary heard a low growl. She could feel the growl, for the ground beneath her seemed to vibrate with it. Jules launched himself at Krueger and, as the man yelled, fastened his teeth in Krueger’s shoulder. His scream was only one scream among many, nearly washed away by the excited voices coming from the barn.
“Jules,” said Mary. The dog responded. It released Krueger, fell back, but still stood tensely beside her. “Seems you don’t make friends easy, Dr. Krueger.”
Pressing a handkerchief against his shoulder and neck, Krueger yelled at her as he made for the parking area, “I’ll get that damned dog put down!”
“Gee,” said Mary, unimpressed.
He yanked the door of his luxury car open, switched on the engine, and spun out and down the drive. She stood looking after it, wondering how they—how she and Marie—could shut down Peaceable Kingdom.
Jules was quiet, sitting now, turning his head to look up at her.
“Good dog,” she said and patted the head.
Marie came out as Mary was putting Jules in the Ford. She walked quickly away from the barn, a din of voices following the opening of the door, fading when it closed, waves advancing, retreating. “Jesus, let’s get out of here.” She climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Wait a minute,” said Mary, taking off down the path.
“Mary!”
“One minute!” Mary called back to her.
The puppy seemed to be in a daze in the dark of the stalls, probably rendered that way by fear. Mary knew she herself would have been. It was compliant when she picked it up. Soft like butter, it tried to slither out of her grip as she ran with it to the car.
Marie had the engine going and the car out off the grass. Mary popped the back door and slid the puppy into one of the cages. Jules whined and clambered over the other two cages to inspect it.
“And just what’s that for?”
Mary slammed the passenger door. “You deserve a reward.”
“Thanks.” Marie accelerated, whipped the wheel around, and sped away from the house and barn.
Mary told her about Krueger. “There must be some way to close his practice. Look at all those ‘missing’ dogs. He’s been supplying them.”
Marie nodded. “It would be hard to prove, though. First off, you’d have to prove Jules was one of his patients. He probably covers his tracks pretty well.”
Why do you think I took the picture? Andi’s voice came back to Mary. She sat up. “The camera’s in the car!”
“What?”
“Andi took a snapshot, him and Jules together at Peaceable Kingdom.”
“No kidding?” Marie sounded excited. “That might do it . . . except then you’d have to show Jules was brought here for the fights. Somehow, I don’t think you’d find Dewitt or Kruppa eager to testify. Who would? It doesn’t
exist, remember?”
Mary slumped down in her seat. Suddenly, she sat up. “That old man! Asa Stamper! Look, he doesn’t care about anything but that damned dog of his—it didn’t get killed, did it?” she asked.
“No. I hate to tell you the shape Dixie’s in, though.”
“He’d be sure to remember that ‘fag dog’ he didn’t want fighting Mule. He might be old and nuts, but it’s worth a try.”
Marie laughed and sped on down the straight-arrow road.
Mary leaned back, feeling good. She turned her head toward the passenger window. The moonlight was so dense and bright the stubbled fields looked covered with snow. It made her think of the winter mountains, of Andi in her cabin. She thought Andi would have approved of this night’s work.
• • •
“Everybody wants to drive me home.” Mary shook her head, but the truth was she was bone-tired and glad to have someone offer.
“I can think up a story to tell your housekeeper.”
She had told Marie about Rosella. At this point, though, Mary didn’t much care what Rosella would say. She closed her eyes.
Marie went on talking about the trip. She talked about routes and distances. For a woman who never left the house, she was amazingly conversant with maps. (She and Andi would get along like a house afire.) Perhaps it was because she spent a lot of time looking for ways out. “We can start early and drive right through. It’s not too far to do that. And when I get tired, you can spell me. Mary?”
Mary was sleeping with her mouth open.
Marie turned to look at Jules, sitting up straight and panting and ready for action as if he were overseeing the whole operation. The puppy yapped.
“Okay, you can spell me.”
46
It took some explaining: Rosella looked at them with deep suspicion, though she seemed better able to accept the presence of Marie Follett than she did the dog, Jules.
“You got a coyote, you don’t need no dog.”
Biting the Moon Page 31