Bill Pronzini: Camouflage

But we weren’t going to do our waiting back here with that stink in the air and that damned creaking. Out on the road, by the gate. That was fine with Chavez; he had no more desire to hang around this godforsaken place than I did.

We started back across the littered farmyard. But our timing was off, just a few minutes off.

We hadn’t gone more than twenty yards when I heard the rumbling and rattling on the far side of the hill, low and distant, then rising. Oncoming vehicle jouncing over that uneven track. No, more than one-two distinct engine sounds, one louder than the other, moving in tandem toward the notch between the hillsides. Not county sheriff’s cruisers; there hadn’t been enough time.

Chavez caught hold of my sleeve.

“It’s them,” he said. “Coming back.”

You don’t have much time to make a decision in a situation like this. Flash through your options, pick one, take action. Four choices here. Stay where we were in the open, guns drawn-stand and deliver. Run for the house. Run for the barn. Run for the shelter of the trees along the creek behind us. We were about equidistant from each of those last three.

The engine sounds were louder now, faintly hollow-the vehicles grinding into the declivity. Not much more than a minute before the lead driver would have a clear view of the farmyard.

I said, “The barn!” and broke into a run.

Chavez didn’t hesitate; he was right there beside me. There were fewer ground obstructions in that direction, letting us run in more or less a straight line. But clusters of weeds grew along there, one of them a tall thistle plant that I didn’t see in time to avoid because I’d cast a quick sideways glance at the track. I plowed through the thistle, trampling it, and its sharp little spines snagged at my pant leg, pitched me into an off-stride stagger. I might’ve gone down if Chavez hadn’t been close enough to grab hold of my arm, keep me upright and steadied.

Thirty yards to the barn, twenty, ten. He put on a burst, reached the doors a couple of steps ahead, yanked one half-open a foot or so as I pounded up. The nose of some kind of car was just poking into view. He nudged me through the opening, crowded in behind me. When he pulled the door shut behind us, it muted the approaching vehicle sounds to a low rumble.

There were chinks and gaps in the door halves that made for eyeholes. I found one, Chavez another. Both vehicles were in sight now, jouncing along the track. Neither one was the Ford Explorer. The lead car was a gray four-door Nissan compact, dwarfed by the medium-sized U-Haul truck immediately behind. Those women were no dummies. They’d sold or traded or dumped the SUV, bought or rented the compact, and then rented the U-Haul, and they’d no doubt done the buying and renting using one or the other’s real name.

Both of us drew our weapons. I sucked in a couple of deep breaths, trying to slow my pulse rate, as the car and truck rattled into the yard. Sun glare on the Nissan’s windshield prevented me from seeing who was driving until it turned to the right off the track. Carson. With the yellow-eyed Rottweiler, Thor, beside her. The driver’s door stayed shut while the U-Haul rolled past toward the barn.

McManus was as reckless with the cumbersome truck as she’d been with the SUV in rush-hour traffic; twenty yards from the barn she made a sharp, tilting half turn in the opposite direction, braked hard, and then slammed into reverse with a gnashing of gears. The rear tires spun, digging up clods of turf, as she backed and began maneuvering.

They hadn’t spotted us on the run or they’d be reacting differently out there. McManus kept backing until the rear end of the U-Haul was within a dozen feet of the doors. While she was doing that, Carson got out of the compact and the Rottweiler bounded out after her.

Chavez said in an undertone, “Coming in here. Be easier to take them if they walk in together.”

“As long as they leave the dog outside.”

“What if they don’t?”

I waggled the. 38. “What do you think?”

The barn had been the right choice. We were in perfect position to surprise McManus and Carson, take out Thor if necessary, and hold the women until the county law arrived. Good plan-except for one thing we hadn’t figured on.

That damn dog and his heightened senses.

Through the eyehole I saw the animal stop moving once he was free of the car, stand with muzzle up and the big body starting to quiver. Then he was barking, loud. And then he lunged into a streak-run straight for the barn doors.

He didn’t slow down when he got there. Left his feet in a sideways jump and rammed his body into one door half hard enough to splinter a couple of the rotting boards. Turned and jumped up again, nose on this time, barking and snarling and scrabbling at the wood with his nails.

“Knows we’re in here,” Chavez said between his teeth.

“But the women don’t. Maybe they’ll think he’s after an animal that got in.”

McManus was out of the U-Haul now, coming around to where Carson stood, both of them watching the dog’s frantic scratchings at the barn door and not trying to call him off. Wary, but not alarmed yet. Neither of them looked to be armed. If they owned guns, and they probably did, the weapons would be stored in here with the other stuff. They’d have had no reason to take the guns along this morning.

I thought we might have a standoff that would last long enough for the law to show-the two women and the Rottweiler out there, us in here, nobody doing anything but standing fast. Wrong on that score, too. Because I didn’t take the yellow-eyed beast’s instincts into account.

He quit scrabbling at the door. Quit barking and snarling, too. I heard him moving and then I didn’t hear him at all. Didn’t see him anymore. I shifted position to another peephole, still didn’t see him.

“Alex. You spot where the dog went?”

“No.”

Not back to McManus and Carson. They were still standing together, talking to each other but looking at the barn.

Seconds ticked away, nobody moving. The silence seemed heavy, strained. Where the hell was the Rottweiler?

Pretty soon we found out.

The warning sounds came from somewhere at the side wall behind Chavez, where the half-collapsed remains of cattle stalls showed as shadow shapes in the murky light. Bumping, scratching, slithering. A deep-throated snarl. Faint blurred movement. The goddamn dog had sniffed around out there and hunted up a gap in the decaying wallboards large enough to squeeze through.

I hissed a warning to Chavez-too late. Thor was already inside and launched in a black blur. Chavez turned, bringing his revolver up, but he had no time to set himself and fire before the hurtling, snarling shape hit him straight on.

The force of impact drove him backward into the door, wrenched a cry of pain out of him, and knocked the gun out of his hand. I heard it clatter off the boards, hit the ground. He got his left arm up in time to keep the bared fangs from tearing into his throat, but the powerful jaws locked around his forearm and the dog began to shake it the way a terrier shakes a rat.

Chavez tried to throw the animal off, but the heaving weight had him pinned. I was there by then and I kicked at Thor’s ribs, his haunches; a third kick caught him square in the ass. But none of the blows did anything except bring out more growls and cause the fangs to sink deeper into Chavez’s arm, shaking it even harder. For me to try wrestling the Rottweiler loose was a fool’s move. I couldn’t take the chance of jamming the muzzle of the. 38 in against the squirming body, either, not with the poor light and the way the two of them were locked and thrashing together; if I tried that and didn’t get the angle right, the bullet was liable to go right through the dog and into Chavez.