Robert Calder - The Dogs

"They're gone." She leaned and kissed him on the forehead.

He began to cry.

"Damn it, stop that! You've got to protect Harriet."

He wiped his arm across his eyes, then across his nose. He bobbed his head. "I'll be okay," he said.

Josie left.

Ed gripped the barrel of the gun with his left hand. He pushed the safety off and slipped the index finger of his right hand into the guard and rested it lightly on the trigger. He stared into the woods.

THE telephone rang. Bauer answered. "Do you have your radio on?"

Ben

Nichols asked. "No; why?"

"Your dogs attacked again. At that commune on Sproul's Mountain."

"Oh no." Bauer closed his eyes.

"They killed a child," Nichols said quietly. "And his mother died on the way to the hospital."

The weight of these new deaths settled over Bauer. He braced against it.

"When?"

"A couple of hours ago. They're calling in police from all over the state. They're mobilizing National Guard units."

"Ben, can you load the bike into your truck and get me over there, right now?"

"I don't think you should be in it now, Alex."

"Can you do it?"

"Yes."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes."

Bauer went into the bedroom and changed into Levi's and a wool shirt.

He put on his climbing boots. His gear was laid out along a wall of the living room. He pulled the stuff apart, threw food for a couple of days into the pack, a change of pants and socks, compass, fire starter, rain gear and a thermal parka. He belted on a knife. He took the pack and the sleeping bag out to the car.

He caught the news on the way. Spotter planes were already up. State police, sheriff's deputies, constables from neighboring communities, and conservation officers were establishing a perimeter around the mountain's base. Acting on the request of state police Colonel Mulcahey, the governor had ordered five National Guard companies mobilized.

Guardsmen were reporting to their assigned armories and trucks bearing the first detachments were expected by the late afternoon. A state police sharpshooter team, accompanied by a tracker, was at the site of the attack, but the effort of the moment was to secure the base of the mountain so that the dogs would not be able to escape it. Colonel Mulcahey had issued a terse statement: "We're going to get them this time." While there was no conclusive evidence, interrogation of the two surviving victims indicated that one of the pack had borne a litter of pups. If this was true, said a conservation department spokesman, then the animals were certain still to be on the mountain. If it was not true, and the dogs had fled the area before it could be sealed, then it was anyone's guess: hundreds of thousands of wilderness acres were accessible to the pack, and without burning half the state down to bare rock, finding them would be more a matter of improbable luck than anything else. Police warned against civilian involvement.

Unauthorized persons would be arrested, their weapons confiscated, and they would be heavily fined.

Nichols was waiting in his yard. He'd run the trail bike into the bed of his pickup. A piece of the.270's stock was visible at the top of a leather scabbard strapped to the bike's frame.

Bauer transferred his gear from his car to the pickup. "Thanks, Ben. I appreciate this."

"Alex, this isn't rational. If the dogs are on the mountain, they're not going to get away, and it'll be done whether you're there or not.

These people know what they're doing. You don't. They'll find them.

It's not your responsibility."

"Yes, it is. I have to find them first. I have to find Orph, and no one else."

I loved him. I love him. This wasn't his fault. I can't let him be torn apart by a mob. He deserves better. I can't allow him to be debased and butchered like vermin.

"You're crazy," Nichols said.

Bauer didn't answer.

"They're sending a small army up tomorrow morning. You run a very good chance of getting your ass shot off."

"I'm going up there, and I'd like to use all the daylight I can. Can we leave now?"

"What if I said no, I'm not going to help you act like a fool and maybe get yourself killed."

"Then I'd drive into town, buy a rifle, come back and walk up that mountain."

"Okay." Nichols opened the pickup's door. "Get in."

They pulled out of Nichols' drive.

"There's a two-gallon tin of water on the bike and a one-gallon tin of gas.

The tank's full. You can get sixty, seventy miles out of that."

Bauer nodded.

"The.38's in the glove compartment. There's a box of shells with it, and another one for the Winchester."

Bauer undid his belt, ran it through the loop of the holstered revolver, and closed it again.

"Here," Nichols tossed him a government Geological Survey Map without taking his eyes from the road. "Find the best side up and tell me where to go."

The elevation lines were widely spaced on the southwest face, the most gradual angle of ascent. Several draws were indicated, too, which would help.

Police cars flashed past them on the drive, sirens wailing and beacons spinning.

Nichols turned off the highway onto a country road, turned again five minutes later. The road was bumpy and densely foliaged on either side.

They came upon a parked cruiser. A state trooper stood beside it sweeping his eyes up and down the road. He ignored the truck. A hundred yards ahead, a second trooper kept watch, and 150 yards beyond him they passed another cruiser and a third man.

Nichols lifted his chin toward the treed juggernaut looming on their right.

"Sprout's Mountain."

They circled the mountain, passing police cars parked at intervals and officers in various uniforms carrying rifles or pump shotguns who paced slowly, watching the road and the brush line beside it. Men and cars were spaced widely, but there was little terrain that didn't fall under the scrutiny, at some distance or another, of at least one man.

Bauer looked at the map. "Left at the next fork, a quarter mile ahead.

Then we go about a mile, it looks to be."

"Give it up, Alex."

"No."

As they neared the point from which Bauer wanted to start, Nichols said,

"I'll pull off in the biggest gap I can find between the cops. We'll have to do it fast or they'll grab you. When I set the brake, jump out, drop the tailgate and climb into the bed. There's a two-by-ten next to the bike. Shove it out to me. I'll set it, you wheel the bike down. Toss your pack on your shoulders, you can lash it to the bike later. I'll start it-she's temperamental sometimes-then you get on and go.

You'll only have a minute or two."

"Right." Bauer folded the map and slipped it in his shirt, he shoved a box of cartridges into each pocket.

They passed two more cruisers and a couple of policemen. Then a section where the officers were stretched more thinly.

"Okay?"

"Okay."

Nichols swung off the road, stood on the brake pedal and threw the emergency on.

Bauer was out the door. Nichols followed a moment later. Nichols took the bike at the bottom of the plank, straddled it and turned the key.

"Hey! You two guys. Hold it!" A cop 200 yards away was walking toward them.

Nichols stomped on the kick-start. The engine turned over. The cop was running now. Nichols revved the engine, drowning the cop's shouts.

Bauer clapped Nichols on the shoulder and swung on. "Thanks!"

He drove off, careful not to hit the throttle hard.

The cop skidded to a halt beside Nichols. "God damn you, stopl" Bauer was drawing away slowly. The cop's face twisted in anger. He raised his rifle.

"You going to shoot a man for riding a motorcycle?" Nichols said.

The cop glared at him, then sprinted after Bauer. He gave it up after a hundred feet and returned to Nichols. "Okay, mother. Get your license and registration out."