Foodchain

by Jeff Jacobson

  Frank was quiet for a while. “I don’t know if they’ll fight. The dogs and the cat.”

  “Son, I can make any of these animals do any damn thing I want. You watch. They’ll fight. We got mace and pepper spray and cattleprods and pitchforks. We got all kinds of persuaders. You add all them together and you got yourself a real humdinger of a fight all right. No, that I ain’t worried too much about that. These dogs we got, these dogs from the pound, they ain’t much for fighting. I figure that cat, if provoked enough, it’ll tear ’em apart. No, they’re just practice. We’re gonna see how fast that cat can take care of ’em tonight. Say, ten?”

  Frank said, “Yeah.”

  * * * * *

  They caught six of the pound dogs. Five were the biggest dogs left, but the sixth, the tiny mutt that darted forward to snap and bark, Sturm wanted that one special. They locked the dogs in the horse trailer and took them up to the auction yard.

  The last time Frank had been in the main room of the auction yard was back on the night Sturm had fought the lioness. Now it was encircled with long sheets of chain-link fence; the top was covered as well, again with stretches of chain-link fence, held up by four poles, providing about five and half feet of clearance inside. Sturm could walk around in the center ring standing up straight, but Frank had to hunch over.

  They turned the cat loose in the auction yard floor, and kicked the dogs into the cage, one at a time. At first, the cat ignored the dogs, pacing constantly and hissing once in a while. The dogs were smart enough to avoid the cat. But when all six dogs were finally in the pit with the lioness, Sturm got impatient and had Chuck hose the lioness with pepper spray while Jack jabbed at the dogs with a pitchfork.

  It didn’t take long. Sturm had been right. The lioness went through all six dogs like a swather through a wheat field, leaving the floor stained with blood. The little dog was smart enough to stay well behind the bigger dogs, but the lioness snaked through air like some kind terrible eel, snapping and lunging, tearing the guts out of clumsy flounders, until only the little dog was left. It circled the floor, looking for any kind of break in the fence. The lioness didn’t hesitate and crushed the dog’s skull like Petunia had done to Mr. Noe’s dog.

  * * * * *

  Sturm sat down on the lowest bench and asked, “Think we can it make it happen in four? I want these fuckers betting, understand? I don’t want it to be obvious.”

  Frank scratched his head. “Depends on the dogs. What’s she fighting?”

  “Mostly pits. Retired fighters. Old champions. Owners who want to see their dog go out in style. Maybe a few Dobermans, one or two Shepards. Guy might be bringing a goddamn Mastiff.”

  Frank shrugged. “They’re gonna have to be tough. I mean, real tough. This one, she’s a fighter. She’ll kill the first few easy. After that…I don’t know. Hard to say.”

  “Well, you just do your best. But hell, that’s just tomorrow night. We’re gonna make our real money the night after. Tomorrow night is just a taste, something to whet their appetite. I want all these dipshits to drive back down to Reno or wherever the hell they’re flying into, and I want these boys to call as many as these rich fuckers they know, and have ’em bring as much cash as they can carry. We’ll get three, maybe four solid days out of it. Maybe more. Depends if a few calls I made earlier today work out.”

  “Cats fighting dogs?”

  Sturm spit. “No. That’s just the opening round. I want to see what two, maybe three of these cats would do when they face that Kodiak.”

  DAY THIRTY-ONE

  The next morning, Frank found pieces of Asshole #1 stacked neatly inside the freezer. The clothing had been removed. Asshole #1’s head stared up at him from inside a plastic freezer bag. His mouth was open, eyes almost shut, as if caught in the middle of a sneeze.

  He’d been shot in the right side of the head, leaving a crumpled hole the size of a bottlecap in the left temple. Pine told Frank all about it; he’d been hiding in the backseat of the Escalade with a nine millimeter Smith and Wesson semi-auto, and was planning on just putting the gun to Asshole #1’s head, telling him to just drive slow and easy out of town, but Asshole #1 took off before Pine could get up off the floor. So Pine waited. He didn’t want to shoot the dumbshit and be stuck in an out-of-control SUV. Asshole #1 slowed and stopped at the mouth of the driveway; he couldn’t remember which way to turn on the highway to get out of town, and was halfway through stabbing at the onboard GPS when something spooked him. Instead of just picking a direction and getting as far as he could, he went for the cell phone. Soon as he flipped it open, Pine simply sat up, jammed the barrel against the Asshole’s right ear, and fired.

  Pine and Chuck hid the SUV in a barn and were thoughtful enough to butcher the body for Frank, leaving it in easy to handle pieces. Feeding Asshole #1 to the lionesses put him in good mood all day.

  * * * * *

  It was going to be a long couple of days so he took a nap around noon. Afterwards, his head felt clear, clean. He sat in the yard a while with a few beers on ice. When the shadow of the tree had completely crawled off onto the lawn and onto the building, leaving him squinting and sweating in the sun, he took a shower, put on a clean shirt, got his shotgun, climbed into the long black car, and drove to the auction yard.

  * * * * *

  He parked in the back, next to the clowns’ trailer, and kicked his way through empty beer cans to the back door. Hunters had been gathering all day, drinking, smoking, gambling, and shooting. Now, around three in the afternoon, everyone was huddled in whatever shade they could find, sitting at the picnic table under the trailer awning or slumped against the tires of their trucks. Out in the fields, a couple of men were tossing beer cans into the air and blasting away with antique shotguns.

  A high, whining sound, like a tooth being filed down with a power sander, grew as four of the Glouck boys flew into the parking lot on their ATVs. Ice chests were strapped to the back end of the first three ATVs, full of cold sandwiches and colder beer. The fourth carried a little gas grill to reheat burritos and cook plump, oblong balls of aluminum foil. They set up shop in the corner of the highway and the auction yard driveway and sold out of the aluminum balls in fifteen minutes.

  These little footballs, slightly larger than a brick and nearly as heavy, had been named “Campfire Surprise.” Frank had been reluctant to try any, but the hunters loved ’em. Basically, they were filled with leftover meat, raw potatoes, onions, garlic, plenty of butter and spices, some frozen peas and corn; you buried one in the embers of a dying fire for a half an hour to forty-five minutes, then slapped some sour cream and hot sauce on top and dug in.

  New men had brought dogs all day, keeping to themselves in the southeastern corner of the parking lot. They were young, younger than Frank, and drove low, flashy cars. They kept their dogs in the cars, letting them out one at a time to sniff the others’ urine and shit and leave their own contribution to the party. The dogs, mostly pit bulls, were beat all to hell. Scars everywhere. Over half only had one eye. Entire jowls were missing, leaving the teeth and gums and sometimes the bottom of nasal passages permanently exposed. Southern Comfort and blunts were handed around.

  Chuck had been letting them lock up their dogs in individual stalls. Frank went inside and counted twenty-nine dogs. Sturm was very particular about who he let into town, and imposed a fairly strict guest rule, so there weren’t many more men than dogs.

  Frank gave all the dogs water. He let the owners feed their dogs if they wanted, then pushed everyone back outside and locked the door behind them. He got his clipboard and went to work.

  * * * * *

  Around six, the lot was half full. Combined with the dog owners, Frank guessed the audience would be around fifty, maybe sixty men.

  Sturm pulled into the parking lot, got out, took a look at the trash and shook his head. “Hey!” he called over the cluster of three Glouck boys, up on the bank of the highway, sitting on their ice chests. They glanced at Sturm and ignored him,
clearly on their own time.

  Sturm’s pumpkin face of a scar bobbed as he yelled across twenty-five yards of gravel, “Okay. You’re young, so you get one more chance. I expect you to be down here in three seconds. One.”

  One Glouck kid smirked at his brothers. One spit. The third, Gun, picked at a scab on his knee.

  Sturm slammed the backrest of his truck’s seat forward into the steering wheel. The rifles were tucked neatly away behind the bench seat. He grabbed his 30.06, wrapped his left forearm around the leather sling and pulled it snug into his shoulder. Frank had enough time to crack open a beer before Sturm squeezed the trigger.

  The lower half of Gun’s ice chest exploded and he fell backwards into the cloud of dust, plastic, ice, and water. The other two didn’t waste time getting up. They took a look at their nine-year old brother, each other, then the ground, and came trotting over. Gun swore viciously under his breath in at least two or three languages and followed his brothers.

  “Next time I tell you something, you best listen.” Sturm worked the bolt quickly, spit one shell out onto the dirt, and reloaded. He slid the rifle back into the scabbard. “That was your first and last warning,” he said, slamming the door. “Next time it’ll be your skull I crack. I will open your head and let the light of God inside.”

  They nodded, but wouldn’t take their eyes off the ground.

  “Good. I hope I’m making things clear here. Now,” he gestured at the litter. “This place better goddamn sparkle before I come back out. Start with that casing right there,” he said, pointing at the spent shell. “Your family and mine have a contract. You will do your job or so help me Christ you will suffer the consequences.”

  * * * * *

  Everyone followed Sturm through the back door and into the pens.

  Frank and Chuck went down to the center of the aisle to the lioness cage. Sturm turned and walked backwards slowly, addressing the men and the dogs. “Take a good close look gentlemen. You’re gonna be wagering on these canines very, very soon. You’ll place all your bets through the office upstairs.”

  Girdler sat outside Bo-Bo’s room, whittling away at some stick; he watched the dog owner’s with amusement. He looked like he desperately wanted to be asked what he was doing, but nobody said anything. Sturm ignored him.

  The aisle stretched away from them, to either end of the building, with stalls on both sides, thirty in all. They had built a chute that ran from the lioness cage to the auction yard floor.

  Everyone got a good close look at the cat that had been chosen for the fights that night. Frank was hoping that one of the dog owners would kick the cage or spit on the lioness, just to piss Sturm off, but the dog owners just flung quiet insults at the cat.

  She stared at the men, coiled tight on the blanket and wooden pallet Frank had put in the corner farthest from the door, right next to the gate that opened out to the chute. She never blinked, never moved a muscle except for the flicking tail. “You sure this thing ain’t stuffed, and that tail is some kind of machine?” one of the hunters asked.

  The taxidermist spoke up, his voice loud and scratchy in the dusty air, like a worn needle settling into the groove of an old record. “If I had indeed preserved that creature, as you say, it would be the proudest moment in my career. What I achieve in my work is nothing but a crude mockery of this, this beautiful specimen here.”

  The lioness yawned. The teeth were something to see.

  “Exactly,” Sturm said.

  * * * * *

  After the tour, everyone walked down the chute, through the auction yard floor, and out through a special gate, arguing about what dogs were the most dangerous and how long the lioness would last. The dog owners kept together and claimed the far left side, under the chalkboard. Frank and Chuck waited at the mouth of the chute, on backside of the one wall of the auction yard that wasn’t seats.

  Once everyone had gone through the floor and settled into place in the bleachers, Sturm stood way back in the chute, letting the anticipation build. He turned to Frank, talking low and fast. “I want that lioness to last at least four rounds. You got that? I want her to finish that last one strong. Then we’ll get ’em in the fifth. I want it to look like she can go seven, eight easy. Got it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Sturm went down the chute and out into the cage, raising his hat. The men erupted. The sound barreled around the auction yard main floor and bleachers, rattling the tin roof. It rolled into the back barn aisle like thunder, pricking every dog’s ear, making the lioness hiss.

  Sturm was dressed the same as the night he faced down the lioness. Boots, jeans, and a cowboy hat. He took off his hat and banged against his knee a few times, knocking off the dust. Under the blinding sodium vapor lights, every detail seemed magnified. Sturm’s head was deeply tanned from the forehead down; his skull was an off white, like an Easter eggshell that had only been dipped into the dye halfway. If you got close, you could see black dirt beginning to collect in the wrinkles and crevices of his scar across the back of his head. The scars on Sturm’s tan, hairless chest now looked like five great furrows of ash.

  He raised a hand to get everyone’s attention. “Gentlemen. Gentlemen. Now, I promised you something special here tonight.” He let himself out through the gate at the far edge. “You’ve all seen them dogs. You’ve seen that cat. In just a few moments you’re gonna be putting your money where your mouth is—but right now I’m going to have to take just one more moment of your time, before we open the betting.” He padlocked the gate shut. “Tonight, that cat will take on as many dogs as it takes. But tonight, tonight is just the appetizer.” Sturm climbed up the edge of the cage and propped his boot on the cover, bouncing the whole thing slightly. “Tomorrow night, well, that’s the main course.” He spit onto the bare dirt floor of the pit. There was no sawdust this time. No blood would be hidden. “Tomorrow night, three of them cats are going to fight a goddamn grizzly to the death.”

  For a split second, it was quiet enough that Frank could hear a dog licking itself three pens back. Then the men exploded.

  * * * * *

  The next thing Frank knew Girdler was passing him, the Kodiak on a dog leash, lumbering placidly behind him. They passed under the wall, and the shouting got even louder. Girdler soaked it all up. It was just a taste of his moment in the sun, when he got to prove to everyone that he was a goddamn genuine mountain man, and that bear was truly lethal.

  Bo-Bo didn’t look lethal. He looked sleepy. His lower lip hung away from teeth the size of .45 shells, wagging sluggishly from side to side as he loped along on his curiously pigeon-toed stride. If wasn’t for the great gashes his four inch claws left in the dirt, he almost resembled a gigantic, shaggy teddy bear. Girdler walked him leisurely in a circle around the cage and back up the chute.

  Frank and Chuck stepped well back and gave the man and bear plenty of room. Girdler walked his bear down the aisle like he was taking a horse for a walk and went back to Bo-Bo’s special quarters.

  Sturm got everyone simmered down enough to yell, “That’s tomorrow.” He let that go for a second, then yelled, “Tonight!” and turned his cowboy hat upside down.

  Jack came down, carrying a mason jar filled with twenty-nine of Sturm’s checks. V-shaped slices of each of the dogs’ ears had been stapled to the checks. Each check was blank, just waiting to be filled out and signed by Sturm, just for bringing their dogs to the fight. Jack dumped the jar into Sturm’s upturned hat as Sturm said, “We’re gonna draw these names out at random. Soon as the names are read, well pretty soon after, the house’ll issue its odds.”

  Of course, it was all a show. Jack had the whole sequence memorized. Frank had taken a good long look at each of the dogs and ranked them according to the most dangerous down to the least. Jack memorized the dogs and spent a few minutes in the back, arranging the checks into the seemingly random order, twisting them into a tight circle, then fanned out the ends, so it looked like it was just a big wad of knotted up paper. When he d
umped them into Sturm’s hat, it just turned them right side up, so they would be easier to read.

  Jack reached into the hat, pretended to search around for a bit, and pulled out the first check. He handed it to Sturm. Sturm read the result and held up the check for everyone to see. “Desperado! Desperado!” For the first round, Frank went for a dog a little on the slow side. Not too weak, but not too strong either, compared to the other twenty-eight dogs. He wanted to see what the lioness would do with a fighting dog with still plenty of fight left, at least compared to the pound dogs.

  A stocky guy still wearing sunglasses and at least a couple hundred dollars on each ear and a thousand on his fingers came down. He took the check from Sturm, folded it once, and tucked it into his back pocket. A few of his buddies shouted encouragement in Spanglish at him. He went through the office upstairs and down a flight of wooden stairs into the aisle behind the scenes. He went down the aisle, got Desperado, and waited. The dog knew damn well something was up, and began to growl.

  Frank slammed the chute gate open and stomped his foot, just once. The lioness shot out of her cage. Chuck hit her with pepper spray and kept spraying her through the chain link fence until she hit the auction yard floor. She circled, hissing and spitting and rubbing at her burning eyes.

  Chuck and Pine snapped a handle originally used for a shovel over Desperado’s collar and led the dog, a half-blind pit that limped slightly, away from his owner into the chute. The dog didn’t want to go down into the pit. He growled louder. A quick jab from the cattle prod helped him along.

  The cat didn’t need any encouragement. It wasn’t much different than the practice session with the pound dogs. The lioness, already primed and conditioned, went after Desperado immediately, before the cattle prods could come out. The dog tried to follow the cat with his good eye, but when the cat came at him from the left side, where Desperado’s eye was nothing but a ragged, terrible wound, as if a fine steak had been gouged at with sharp spoon. The lioness ripped the dog’s body back and forth, snapping the neck faster than Asshole #1 could pop open his cell phone. Desperado was dead inside seven seconds.