Craig Davidson - Cataract City

“You know what they say,” Drinkwater said breezily. “Even the blind squirrel finds a nut.” He swaggered off, cowboy boots pink-a-pinking on the cement floor.

“What a dick.”

“He’s got his qualities,” Harry said diplomatically.

Harry handed Dolly over to the lead-outs and we headed to the traps.

“That’s Hurricane Jessie, Teddy Simms’ girl.” Harry pointed to a muscular greyhound with Dalmatian markings on her coat. “And that’s Drinkwater’s entry, War Hammer.”

War Hammer was jet black with a frost of white hair fringing her muzzle. Her ears were pinned flat to her skull and she had the mincing gait of a boxer during his ring walk. She moved like a creature that wanted to outrun its own skin.

Dolly drew trap number 4. Hurricane Jessie was in number 5, the outermost. War Hammer would run the rail from the 1 spot, with Primco Posy and Tilda’s Vinton filling out the other traps.

The mechanical hare zipped down the electrified rail. The traps sprung open, unleashing a fury of muscle and bone. At first it was difficult to separate one dog from an other: they were nothing but a mad blur of limbs like smears of paint on a canvas.

The crowd rose to a quick roar as the hounds hit the front stretch. War Hammer led with Primco Posy running outside her heels, boxed in on the outside by Tilda’s Vinton. Hurricane Jessie had established her spot on the far right. Dolly was in last place, a yard or so behind Tilda’s Vinton.

She was running higher than usual; she couldn’t find room to open up. Hurricane Jessie had the long body to make a wide break difficult, plus Dolly would sacrifice too much distance against War Hammer on an outside pass attempt.

She rolled her shoulders and ducked in at Tilda’s Vinton, trying to squeeze past. The dog met her charge nimbly: Dolly’s head snapped off Tilda’s haunch, killing her pass attempt.

The dogs hit the turn. War Hammer rode the rail so close you’d think she was zippered to it; her positioning ensured she kept her lead over Primco Posy, who ate a faceful of dirt. Hurricane Jessie eased into her turn, running smartly but dropping her speed. Suddenly an opening presented itself.

Dolly shot the gap between Hurricane Jessie and Tilda’s Vinton. She gunned up the high side of the track, finding open space. She angled her shoulder to the bend, banking like a fighter plane on a make-or-break manoeuvre and battling every inch of the way.

I hopped on the rail hoping for a better view but all I could make out was the dogs’ cresting shoulders. I stared into the stands at Ed, trying to gauge the race from her face. Her fists were clenched, her mouth open in a frantic O.

The bunny rocketed down the homestretch. The lead dog was War Hammer. Next came Dolly, wide on the outside, fully into her stride.

Then a funny thing happened: War Hammer went low. Not as low as Dolly, but her body flattened and became streamlined like a street racer tapping the nitrous oxide for the final kick. But Dolly was just naturally faster, plus she’d done her work early in the race — she was running flat out.

Dolly and War Hammer hurtled down the last fifty yards. Their strides were so long that they covered seven, eight yards at a go. Dolly’s head was down, eyes fixed on the finish line. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

They crossed the line at a dead heat. The results went out over the loudspeakers: Dolly had won by a quarter of a second — razor-close, even by dog-racing standards. A small cheer went up from the stands.

Harry shook my hand like I’d had something to do with it. “A magical dog,” he said. “Merlin on four legs!”

Drinkwater collected War Hammer. He smacked her ass hard enough to rattle the poor thing’s bones, and shot me a challenging look— What, you’re going to do something about it ? He said, “Talk about your bullshit luck.”

I should have resisted, but I couldn’t. “Winners win and losers go home.”

“This one’s won plenty,” Drinkwater told me, stroking War Hammer’s skull so hard that the skin peeled back from her bulging eyes. “Why else would I keep her around? She’s beaten far better than your jumped-up sidewinding bitch.”

“I guess we’ll never know.”

“Guess we could,” Drinkwater said. “I’ll put her up against your slippery little greaser any time. Do it right here, after hours. Harry can set it up, can’t you, Hare?”

“I’m not getting involved,” Harry said.

“You already are,” said Drinkwater. “Let’s put some money on it, why not?”

My gaze drifted into the stands, where Ed watched Dolly take her victory lap. In a two-dog race Dolly could go wide and blow the doors off Drinkwater’s mutt.

It was a foolish bet. But there was a need in me that ran deep. I couldn’t finger the root of that need, but it ripped at the dearest parts of me with phantom teeth. It had something to do with the rumble of the Falls inside my Cataract City bones; something to do with the fingernail of rust on the wheel well of my pickup and how the sight of it chewing into the paint brought an invisible weight crashing down on me.

Drinkwater named a bet. Twenty thousand. My heart rate spiked.

“Sounds fine,” I said, calm on the outside.

“I don’t take food stamps.”

“And I don’t take loose cigarettes.”

Drinkwater said, “Shake on it?”

I offered my hand. Drinkwater reached into his mouth, took out the wad of gum he’d been chewing and stuck it in my open palm.

I almost punched him. But I’d seen the bone-handled knife sticking out of his boot and Drinkwater struck me as a guy who’d know how to use it.

The days leading up to the race passed strangely. Not in a dream, exactly, although I did feel disconnected from the fabric of the world. The only constant was the zing of electricity in my blood.

I worked nights at the Bisk. Heat filled my arms on the line, and an odd feeling echoed through my jawbone on those nights — not panic, because there was no immediate danger; more like a taste of faraway lightning under the tongue. After work I’d drive through the early-morning fog, listening to the Falls, that sound in the background of my entire life. I tried to imagine myself someplace absent of that sound and could not: it followed me like a lost dog.

Edwina knew about the race but not the size of the wager. Twenty thousand dollars; where would I find that?

“I’m in,” Owe said when I floated the idea. We met on a weekend when he’d come down from college. He looked good: healthy, with muscle back on his bones. He walked with a cane but at least it was a cane; the wizard staff was gone.

I said, “Just like that?”

He shrugged. “Sure, why not? Dolly’s a killer, right?”

“It’s not a sure thing.”

“You trying to talk me out of this?” He laughed. “You’ve made your sale. I’ll bet the last of what that Mexican banana impresario gave me for, y’know, stripping me of my athletic dignity and so forth.”

A part of me had hoped he’d say: Dunk, it’s a stupid idea, put it out of your mind . Still, it was great to see the old Owe back. Maybe the wounds between us had healed for good.

Meanwhile, I spent a lot of time at Derby Lane with Harry, who kept Dolly loose on the practice loop.

“Things can happen,” he said. “A dog can pull up lame, cramp up or spring a hole in their bucket when the traps open.”

We watched Dolly sprint down the rail in pursuit of the bunny, which zipped to the end of the circuit and stopped. She raced past, breaking into a run that carried her around the bend.

“Scientists say that in fifty years or so, Olympic records will quit being broken,” Harry said. “Humans will have hit our limits. Only so fast a man can run, right? That’s what these eggheads figure. But when I see a greyhound run, I think one day a greyhound’s going to fly. One day a greyhound’s going to find a nice flat stretch and break into a full-out scream . It’ll be like a plane taking off. Higher and higher till it’s just a speck in the sky.”