Craig Davidson - Cataract City

Oh, Dolly. She stood at the water’s edge stamping her feet. She dipped one paw and withdrew it, growling restlessly.

It dawned on me: she was upset that it stopped her from going forward.

I crept to her quietly, certain that she’d bolt. Ten feet … seven … five … She turned, but I’d already hemmed her in: rocks to each side, water behind her.

“It’s okay, baby. It’s just me.”

Her haunches dipped and she began to shake. I grabbed her collar in one hand and wrapped the other around her neck. When I felt her in my arms I reared back and swatted her backside.

“Bad dog. Bad .”

It was the first and only time I’d ever hit her. And I knew it was wrong of me. She’d only taken advantage of an opportunity that any dog would. I hadn’t struck her out of anger, but just to burn off that pent-up fear.

Dolly shivered against me. Her flesh pressed to mine, but I realized with a small shock that there was no real closeness — a wall had been set between us, thin as crepe paper but solid as brick.

Later, as a weary and relieved Ed and I watched Dolly run laps in her sleep, I wondered, What do greyhounds dream about? Endless open fields, I supposed. Escape velocities. I thought of those Russian dogs in the satellite. I knew that if Dolly had been in that satellite, she wouldn’t have felt a shred of fear. She’d have experienced speed at its purest, a gravitational pull slingshotting that satellite around the curve of the earth fast enough to make it glow hot. I pictured Dolly in the cockpit as she hurtled into deep space. Loving it. And that scared me.

Dolly’s spirits were high the night of the race. So much so that she got into Ed’s purse and chewed up a tube of her mascara.

“Holy shit!” I said when I spotted the ragged black ring around her lips, teeth black as stalactites.

“She’s full of beans,” Edwina said, wiping Dolly’s mouth with a paper towel.

“What’s in that stuff? Could it make her sick … could it make her slow ?”

“Take a pill, Dunk. The tube was nearly empty.”

We arrived after eight o’clock. Owe was waiting in the parking lot with an envelope full of cash. The two of us had gone to the bank earlier that day to make our withdrawals. The teller had wetted her fingertips with a sponge in a dish and counted the bills with sleepy eyes, as though she worked with that kind of money all the time.

A silver pickup pulled up beside us. Drinkwater got out with a large man wearing engineer’s overalls. He shot Dolly a look. “She looks like shit — been eating it?”

The mascara had left a dirty ring around Dolly’s mouth. Ed smiled cheerily and said, “Go fuck yourself.”

Drinkwater smiled back. “Ooh, a smart-mouthed bitch from Cataract City. Never seen one of you before.”

Owe and Ed and I took Dolly inside. The Winning Ticket was shuttered, the stands empty. Spotlights shone down on the groomed dirt. Harry waved at us from the kennels.

“I dragged the smoother around twice,” he said. “The track’s pristine. Where’s Drinkwater?”

“Out in the parking lot.”

Harry’s brow creased. “Go on, take Dolly in back. I’ll be with you directly.”

We took Dolly to the prep room, where Ed babied her onto the scale. I considered writing her weight on her Bertillon card, but why bother? This evening’s event was like a pro boxer fighting a bare-knuckle match in a parking garage.

When Harry showed up, he paced the length of the prep room and said, “Did you keep an eye on Drinkwater in the parking lot? You got to mind that man, didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I?”

“What’s the matter?” I said.

“The man’s got no care for his dogs. They’re just motors to be gunned until they conk out. I already told you about the hot peppers, but there’s other tricks. One is using that boner pill, what’s it called?”

Owe said, “Viagra?”

Harry snapped his fingers. “The very thing. Stuff one of those down a dog’s throat and it’ll get the heart racing, open up the blood vessels and give it extra pace down to the wire.”

“Drinkwater’s in the parking lot feeding his dog Viagra ?” said Owe.

Harry said, “I took a peek in the lot and the two of them, him and his buddy, they weren’t feeding that dog anything. I do believe they were injecting it.”

“Jesus,” Owe said softly. “So what — bet’s off?”

Harry offered his palms. “You got no grounds to welsh. No drug tests before or after. All you got are the suspicions of a half-blind old man.”

We met on the track. Drinkwater’s associate looked exactly like the sort of man who’d inject Viagra into a dog. War Hammer stood at the man’s side, body flexed tight as a railroad tie, unblinking, nostrils dilated, breath coming in whimpering gasps.

We loaded the dogs into the traps. War Hammer in trap 1, Dolly in 5. Drinkwater gave me a queer look: the outside trap meant Dolly needed to cover more ground. War Hammer went into her trap robotically — she looked as if she might explode like a firecracker inside a tin can.

We retreated to the spectators’ rail while Harry climbed up the operator’s box. The mechanical hare warmed up, sparks popping off the electrified rail. I tasted it in the back of my mouth, sharp as ozone.

The hare sped off. At the thirty-yard mark it tripped an electrical circuit that sprung the traps.

The dogs shot out in a fury. Dolly stumbled out of the gate and I turned to Drinkwater thinking he’d rigged it somehow, greasing the dirt, but it was just a slip, a simple slip that could happen to any dog and might set them back half a step — nothing but a bit of bad luck.

War Hammer was ten yards ahead and accelerating. A terrifying mania ran through her limbs; she was totally out of control and fear-stricken: she ran as if pursued by wolves. The dogs stormed down the dirt, the thunder of their paws matching the thunder in my blood. Dolly dropped a level, spine flattening like a dancer going under a limbo stick.

That’s it baby, drink looooow .

They blazed past us and it was as if the passage of their bodies sucked every sound from my ears: they now ran in a wrap of silence like dream animals, untouched by friction or gravity. When they hit the bend War Hammer was still in the lead. Their spines humped over the far rail for the first hundred yards before they both went low enough to vanish. Sound washed over me again as Owe and Ed hollered a single ongoing encouragement:

“Gooooooo!”

The dogs rounded back into view. Dolly was outside, banking high, screaming around the turn. Her stride was strangely even, almost conservative — which is when I realized that she’d finally figured it all out. Her speed was there — hell, she was faster than ever — but she was under control. Somewhere on the far side of the track she’d dialled it in. And she was perfect. Perfect the way Owe had been on a basketball court, the way Dade Rathburn had seemed to be in the squared circle. War Hammer was a few yards ahead, but Dolly had saved a little something for the finishing kick. Her eyes bulged from their sockets in a way that might have seemed comical if not for the frothy ropes whipping from her open mouth. It was no longer a matter of who was faster — it was a matter of whether Dolly could catch War Hammer before she ran out of track.

With 125 yards to go, Dolly’s spine arched and her shoulders rose. She looked as if she was preparing to climb an invisible ramp. Her front legs— was I really seeing this? — appeared to push off from thin air.

I pictured Harry watching from the operator’s booth, whispering, “I told you it could happen.”

Another step, maybe two, and she’d have lifted off. I truly believed that would’ve happened.