Sharon Henegar - Sleeping Dogs Lie

He was taller and stronger than me, but I was on top and my weight was an advantage. And he could not possibly have been as angry as I was. He tried to roll over, but Jack was everywhere he turned his face, snapping and growling. We writhed on the ground. I panted, “Drop it, damn it, drop it. Drop it! ”

The tape popped out of my waistband and clattered to the ground. Our struggle paused as we both stared at the tape. Then he began to fight harder. A few more seconds of struggle and he would break loose. He’d shoot me and Jack and grab the tape and he would win. He would dump our bodies in the lake, and go back to his comfortable life. He would find some way to take Bob out of the picture.

I was not going to let that happen. Perhaps Jack inspired me.

I bit him.

The man tasted vile but I savored the savage satisfaction of grinding my teeth into the bones of his wrist. I think I was growling.

Carl bellowed in pain and rage and the gun fell. I grabbed it and shoved myself back onto my knees and then to my feet. I pointed the evil thing at him. Good. I liked this. A gun was way better than a belt buckle.

“Jack, watch him,” I commanded. The dog crouched, poised to attack. I reached down and picked up the videocassette, never taking my eyes or the gun off the monster at my feet.

Carl made a move to get up, and my back stiffened with outrage. “Don’t even think about moving,” I told him. My voice was clear and as steady as the gun in my hand. “I know you killed your wife and Ian, and I saw you kill Bonnie. And if you shot my dog, I'm going to kill you myself, you son of a bitch.”

My tone must have sounded as convincing to him as it did to me. He subsided onto the ground, and that’s when the Mounties arrived.

“Then what happened?” Bonnie was enthralled by our tale.

Kay and Bob and I clustered in her hospital room. Flowers were everywhere. She had spent days in the ICU, surrounded by medical machinery, but after she was out of danger she’d been moved to this tiny box. We replaced each machine with flowers. I recognized roses and daisies and Queen Anne’s lace. Other arrangements included orchids and exotic blooms that could have come from another planet.

Late afternoon sunlight slanted through a window that looked over the tops of trees turned red and gold by October frosts. The room itself was nondescript, walls of grayed-green, requisite television bolted at a height guaranteed to be dangerous to people as tall as Bob. But all you noticed was the riot of blooms.

Ten days had passed since an ambulance screamed its way to the nearest hospital in High Cross with Bonnie. They removed a bullet from below the rib it had broken on impact. She had lost a lot of blood, but Carl was as bad a shot as he was a lousy human being, and the bullet had missed any vital organs. It's possible that my crying out when I saw him shoot her saved Bonnie’s life. Instead of making sure she was dead, he’d taken off after me.

“The clincher for the police was when you regained consciousness and told them who had shot you,” Bob told her.

“But before that, it was the teeth marks on his hand that kept Louisa out of jail and stopped Carl from disappearing,” my cousin added.

“I can't believe he said was you who had shot me,” Bonnie told me.

“That surprised me too,” I admitted.

“I wish I'd had a chance to bite him.” She sat propped up in bed against a pile of pillows. Her exquisite bed jacket was knitted of red angora, making her as bright as the most exotic of the flowers.

“He tasted bad, but I admit it was gratifying,” I told her. “And there was never any real doubt which one of us started out with the gun. I'm sure Ed knew I didn’t have one.”

“So tell me again what happened after you got the gun,” Bonnie demanded. It was her favorite bedtime story.

“I told him he was toast if he’d killed my dog. I don’t even think I'd have needed a gun,” I said. “Then Jack barked, and Emily Ann led a parade into the clearing. Kay, and Bob, and Ed, and a highway patrolman I'd never seen before, and Ambrose.”

“Emily Ann took us straight through the woods to Louisa. It would have taken hours to find our way without her,” Bob said.

“I never realized before that Lassie was really a greyhound in collie makeup, and that Emily Ann is a direct descendent,” Kay added.

We all laughed, though this sounded quite plausible to me.

“Go back to the patrolman,” Bonnie said. “How did he get into the picture? Bob and Ambrose went to buy coffee and picked up a side of highway patrolman?”

“It was a miracle,” Kay stated firmly. “I saw Ambrose’s car by the side of the road. A highway patrolman stopped them for speeding.”

Ed had told me he was the one who noticed them, since Kay was trying to get a speeding ticket of her own.

“We took too long buying provisions. Ambrose kept meeting people he knew,” Bob said. “He spent a lot of time at the cabin with his uncle as a kid.”

“It doesn’t matter where you go,” Kay said, “Ambrose always finds people he knows. Anyway, I did a u-turn and pulled over behind them.”

“Then Ed got out and saw that the patrolman was someone he knew,” Bob added.

“So I started explaining (“Babbling,” Bob said in an aside to me) about bringing Bonnie out to the cabin to see the tape, because I figured if we could get both Ed and George involved, someone would have the jurisdiction and the balls to arrest this son of a bitch.”

“Ed finally got everyone into their cars and we all went back to Ambrose’s cabin,” Bob said.

“And when we got there, Emily Ann came streaking up and Jack took off and we followed Emily Ann to where Louisa had Carl on the ground begging for mercy,” Kay finished.

“Not begging for mercy,” I corrected. “More like having a wounded panther at my feet ready to tear me apart.”

The gun had been steady in my hand as Jack and I stood over Carl. When Jack looked around and barked, I recognized Emily Ann’s bark in return. My knees went a little weak at the realization she was alive. I heard large rustling noises and voices coming nearer.

“We’re over here,” I yelled, careful to keep my attention on Carl.

Emily Ann slid into view, closely followed by Kay and Bob. They ran to me. Kay threw her arms around me while Bob took the gun from my hand and turned to point it at Carl. He wore an expression I had never seen before. Carl quailed at his feet.

“Oh my god, he could have killed you,” Kay sobbed. She nearly strangled me with the strength of her hug. I embraced her with relief before I fell to my knees to hug Emily Ann.

“You did it, Emily Ann,” I whispered so only she could hear me. “You won the race. You are a good, good girl.”

Kay was babbling at me. “Oh, Louisa. How the hell did he get here?”

“He must have followed you,” I said.

‘I swear I kept an eye out the whole time,” she sniffled. “I don’t know how he did it.”

“It's okay,” I said, climbing back to my feet. “He’s way sneakier than we are.”

Both dogs pricked up their ears. More crashing from the underbrush. Ed stumbled out of the thicket of brush, followed by a uniformed highway patrolman. Finally Ambrose slid into the clearing.

“I love a parade,” I said, wondering who else would arrive.

Carl didn’t waste a second when he saw the uniformed patrolman. He started to rise. “Officer, thank god you’re here. This woman shot my sister-in-law and then attacked me.”

“What!” I glared at him.

“I thought she was going to kill me. She must be insane.” The indignation in his voice was perfect.