His wolf sense knew there was food value in the slop. But the man Robert Duke was not about to taste it.
At one o'clock his gut knotted. In the distance he heard Paul Simon singing "Graceland," and they hauled four more dogs down the hall. The slop, drying and lined with flies, said, "I am life."
Two o'clock. The keepers muttered. A man came, smelling of coffee dregs, sauerkraut and hot dogs, and took pictures of him through the bars. When the keepers retreated, the man pulled a monopod out of his camera case and tried to prod Bob. "C'mon, you sucker, get mad." He laughed, a cruel, nervous man with a nose like a knife, a man with eyes glazed by what Bob saw was a habit of sadness. "Heyah! C'mon, sucker, give me a snarl!" He lit a Bic and thrust it at Bob, flame full on.
With a blubbery flap of tongue and lips, Bob blew it out.
"Holy moly."
The man then met his eyes. A terrified, screaming mutt was slammed into a cage. Barking erupted, the flip-flop rhythm of doghood.
The man looked away. "What the fuck are you?" he said in a hoarse voice. He started to raise his camera, then dropped it and grabbed the monopod. "You bastard!" He jabbed it at Bob, who pressed himself against the far bars. He jabbed again, and Bob felt the monopod against his skin. Again, and it seared a rib. The man was sweating, grimacing. "Fight, baby! C'mon, you aren't gonna fucking eat me! Fight, you bastard!"
Then the camera, click click click. Bob tried to create an expression of utter peace, deep, soft, calm. With a curse the man ran off. Soon he was back, one of the keepers in tow. "Look, get behind the cage. Get the damn thing's tail and give it a pull. I gotta have it growling. I'll get page one if this sucker looks dangerous enough."
"I ain't doin' that. It ain't right."
"Ten bucks says different."
"Ten bucks, man, I can't buy shit with ten bucks."
"A double saw, then."
"Double, you got yourself a man." The keeper headed around to the back of the cages. Bob stood in the middle of his space, his tail curled way up under his legs. "C'mon, c'mon— Jeez, how you know I'se after your tail?"
"It's weird. You shoulda seen it a minute ago, it blew out my lighter. Sorta slobbered it out. I dunno."
Fingers came in and closed around Bob's tail. He felt stabs of agony right up his spine and he cried out.
Almost at once the pain stopped. "Christ!" The keeper was out from behind the cage. "You hear that? You hear what it sounded like?"
"What of it?"
"I been around dogs for fifteen years. Wolves, I seen a dozen wolves. We get 'em in here once in a while. They jus' big, quiet dogs. They don' make no sound like that." He was staring at Bob. "We oughta gas that thing right now. I don' know what that is."
"I still didn't get my picture."
"You can keep your fuckin' picture! I don't want your money. Thas' a voodoo in there."
"Oh, Christ, do you believe in that stuff?"
"I'm from Brooklyn, turkey. But there ain't no wolf that screams like a man. Ain't no wolf."
The keeper retreated, his footsteps echoing on the damp concrete floor. The newspaperman took a final picture. "Thanks a lot, Voodoo Wolf," he said. With a last jab from his monopod he also left.
Silence brought boredom, the curse of all the creatures here. Boredom intensified hunger. Bob imagined a nice array of sushi: tekka maki, taro, ikura, sparked by a pyramid of green Japanese horseradish, freshened by delightful slivers of fresh ginger, the whole deliciousness washed down by a rich Sapporo beer. Then he would have yokan, sweet red bean paste, as dessert. Not this flyblown bowl of garbage that so tempted the wolf.
Left alone, he had plenty of time to consider the significance of a newspaper photographer. Maybe there would be a public outcry against his imprisonment. But no, on reflection he suspected it would go the other way. Man fears the wolf, that is in the nature of things. Newspaper people would have one objective: excite that fear in order to sell papers.
Water dripped, a dog whined, four more animals were gassed together, their frantic, muffled barking sending thrills of fear through the little colony. More strangers were brought in, to fill the cages of the dead. Doors clanged, slop was poured, a vet forced something down the throat of a dog with diarrhea. Another dog vomited worms and was gassed at once, and his cage swabbed down by a tired-looking keeper.
Pigeons, sitting on the sills of the high windows, gobbled and cooed. Bob looked up, as millions of men and others have looked up from cages and jails, and longed after the wings, and saw a thread of sky. He could have wept but he had no tears. Then he leaned swiftly down and ate his slop.
His cage was thrown open, and before he could so much as growl, a net came and he was being carried down the hall. The black gas box stood before him, open, its wooden interior scored by a legion of digging dogs. He could see where they had chewed frantically on blocks and joints, and he could see the grille at the back where the gas came through.
He screamed, it was his only hope, apparently all he had left from humanity. Their faces went wide with surprise, but they kept at their work. He wallowed in the net as they stuffed him down into the box. Then the door closed. It was tight. His legs were twisted under him, his muzzle jammed against the wood. The oldest and worst of all terrors burst up within him. Monster though he had become, he wanted to live. A windy night, a bucking deer, blood beneath the moon; starlight in Manhattan, dancing at 3:00 A.M. Slow love, the jumping of cubs in the spring, watching Kevin sleep the sleep of an angel.
A valve creaked, the gas hissed. He smelled its choking must, a powerful, ugly note of ether in it that marched him off to sleep.
An angel stood before him in a seersucker suit, his white wings glancing sunlight. He was laughing, and waving a red lantern. When their eyes met, the library of the universe was opened to Bob, and he received rich, sustaining knowledge: he, too, was known, Robert Duke, and his fate was understood, and he was loved.
Then he was strapped to a table and there was another strap so tight around his jaw that his muzzle whistled when he breathed. His side was partly shaved, he could feel the cool air. And his head was thundering. They had only half killed him, had stunned him.
"Weight's a hundred and sixty-one pounds. That makes him one of the largest wolves ever found. He has a most unusual voice, and he has green eyes, another unusual feature. His coat is richly colored, displaying seven distinct shades, browns, grays, tans, white, and black. The overall effect is to give him an extraordinary glow. His teeth are healthy, and his skeleton is massive. Until we have done detailed X rays or dissected him, we cannot determine the laryngeal features that give him his voice. Our present theory is that he is a highly unusual breed of wolf, perhaps Russian or Chinese in origin, possibly imported to serve a ritual purpose within the voodoo community. When he wakes up fully, we will display him in the rear courtyard, at which time you may take pictures."
Bob watched a stuffy man with the bald head fold his papers and clear his throat. Then the net floated down and he was carried away again. As two of the keepers were putting him in his cage he heard a number whispered in awe: "fifteen grand."
"You kiddin.' In the pool?"
"Sure enough. This a voodoo wolf. They gonna be a doc to bleed 'im. They gonna be a mama-san. He gonna eat them shepherds up. I glad I ain't got my money on 'em."
"It a bad scene, man, you gonna get some demon outta that thing. I dun hear it screamin' in the gas, it's some kinda banshee or somethin.' Gonna let Roy hold my marker for the pool."
"What make you think Roy so brave, if you not? Who gonna run the fight, the mama-san?"
"They gonna ring the whole courtyard with the Fierce Water of Johnny Blood."
"Then it safe."
"I ain't so sure. Them voodoos always get all mix up. You never know what's gonna go down, they start playin' with the demons."
"Where your faith my man, Papajesu gonna protect you."
"Papajesu, shit. I ain't goin'."
Later Bob was brought to the courtyard. For a t
ime the air was brilliant with flashbulbs. In the green, glowing haze they left in his eyes, he saw a single pale face and his whole body ached with longing. He stared straight at her, he devoured her with his eyes, he tried to coordinate his tail enough to wag it. Cindy shone in his glance. She stood familiarly beside the vet who had examined him, seemed to speak to him easily, and even touched his arm from time to time with the tips of her fingers.
That gave Bob hope. If he understood what she was attempting, it was a good idea. She might be. able to accomplish it. When he was returned to his cage, he found there a bowl of chopped steak. He gobbled it; this body did not easily bear hunger. Cindy had somehow been responsible for this food, he was sure of it.
As night slipped in the high windows, he became less sure. Finally there was a stirring among the dogs. His heart raced. He expected to see her with keys.
Instead there came a strange procession. He had always heard that there was voodoo in New York City, but this man was more elaborately dressed than the cardinal on Easter Sunday morning. He wore long white robes embroidered with a collar of dancing skeletons. There was a red cross on his back and a black pentacle on his breast. He wore a top hat and carried a cane. Over the robe was the tattered tailcoat of an ancient morning suit. His fingers were all ringed with skulls and such, and his feet were shod in doeskin shoes. He smelled of oil of cloves and dried blood, molasses, and thick, decayed breath. A drum beat in his shadowy entourage, and many of the dogs barked with fear. Straining on leads, their collars worked with daisies and spray-painted purple carnations, came four powerful young German shepherds. They were snarling and eager. Bob had seen them before, waiting in the front cages where the keepers took prospective owners and claimants. You could get a mutt here free, but one of these animals would cost. They were fine and brushed, and the keepers exercised them daily.
As they passed Bob they set off a poundwide round of nervous barking.
He listened to the rhythm of drums and the bleating of a trumpet, and saw flames flicker up from time to time in the dark outside. There were chants. The old priest pranced past the door, his top hat shining in the torchlight, a cigar clenched between his teeth.
Bob kept watching the corridor, hoping that Cindy would come through it, having somehow struck whatever deal she was making with the vet. But she didn't come, and the ritual that had formed around the betting pool grew louder.
Incense, cigar smoke, the sharp scent of hashish all wafted in, borne on a heavier layer of oils: rose, clove, pepper. The worshipers danced past, their faces alight in the torches, saying words he could not understand in the pidgin of the islands. When they put their hands on him, he let forth the scream that had terrified them before. If it frightened them now, they gave no sign. He was carried out into the courtyard and left there with the four shepherds, who had been worried during the ritual to a pitch of rage.
He could smell their anger and their hurt. These dogs had loved man. Human enmity made them feel bad about themselves.
Their thick, angry odor gave over to the hot pitch of breath when they barked at him. To be with him in unbarred surroundings terrified them. He was more afraid, though, and he clawed desperately at the door, trying to somehow get away. At all of the high windows there were faces peering down, and over the back wall they also peered.
Bob didn't know what to do. He couldn't talk to these dogs, he had no arm to parry with when they attacked. All he could hope to do would be to bite back. But he'd never bitten. He didn't know how to bite.
The dogs hammered out their barks, their ears back. In Bob the wolf stirred.
They rushed him, all four of them at once, their bodies slamming into him one after another. The first came in under his throat, the second right beside it. They knocked him off his feet. The other two buried themselves in his soft belly. He felt an awful pain, kicked, squirmed, and was surprised to notice within himself a confident undulation. He rose and his jaw went off like a spring mechanism; one of the dogs was on three legs, screaming dog screams, and the crowd went wild. Then the fury of the shepherds was renewed. Their barking was like the clatter of applause. This time when they rushed him, Bob trotted away. Now they changed their tactics and began to chase. In a moment they were running around the courtyard. Bob was astonished at himself. He could run like the wind. In fact he ran so fast he was soon behind the slowest dog, the one with the hurt leg. Then he leaped on that dog and felt his muzzle probing for its throat. He thought about it, thought about aiming his teeth, finding the right place in the fur—and in an instant was at the bottom of a heap of snarling, snapping killers.
Again he got to his feet, but this time he could feel his own blood leaking from a hole in his neck. He needed a doctor; what if the wound was close to his jugular? Still just the one dog was wounded. He noticed, though, that their chests were heaving. He was barely tired.
A voice said from the dark wall: "He can run, man, but he slow in the clinch."
"He strong."
The dogs were wary now, keeping their distance, very intelligently using their superior maneuverability to worry him. Every few moments there would be another excruciating pinch and another wound. If this kept up, they would slowly tear him to pieces. When they came close, he would try to bite them, but he inevitably missed.
It was not long before their circle had tightened. They were crouching low, their heads against the ground, their hindquarters in the air, tails flying. He had a dozen wounds. Between them they shared perhaps four, only one of them serious enough to reduce the victim's efficiency.
He shook his head to get the blur of blood out of his right eye. His muzzle reeked with his own blood when he inhaled, and he seemed almost to be floating. The battle went far away.
Instantly they leaped at him, biting wildly. They were going to eat him alive, to tear him apart. He screamed in agony as teeth dug into him.
Wolf: the gleam of the careful tooth, the mind calm in the mayhem, calculating a death blow and then the snick of the jaw, a shocking flash as the tooth passes through flesh and a dog howls its last, its bowels splashing from the hole Bob had made.
Wolf: leaping on the back of a squirming dog, gobbling at his bones, gnashing down on the gristle, feeling tooth slide against backbone, tasting the soft sweetness of the spinal bundle. Another one dead.
Then the wolf stopped, scented the air, tossed his head to clean his ears of the wild screaming, the thundering drum, to clear his eyes of the flicker of the torches. Two dogs remained, one dragging a leg and constantly shaking its head, the other shrinking against the far wall.
He had a vision, and he knew that he could make the vision true. Quickly he trotted to the near side of the courtyard. Between here and the back wall there was a twenty-yard run. He tossed his head and catapulted forward, a bullet of glowing fur. His legs carried him, took him upward, soaring, flying in the screams of the crowd and one scream in particular: "Bob, Bob, Bob!"
Cindy was in the courtyard. The vet was behind her, his face flushed. Beyond her was Monica, angular in the light cast from the building. He glimpsed Kevin, too, his beloved son!
Bob's claws reached the top edge of the wall. He pushed, the timing perfect, and cast himself up onto the scree of glass shards embedded in the concrete. Below him there was an alley, and in that alley a panic-stricken crowd was falling wildly over itself in its urgency to get away. A shot exploded, a blue, blinding flash, a rush of hot air, a stink of powder and hot oil.
Bob learned forever the smell of a gun.
Then they were gone, all of them, the doctor, the mama-san, the worshipers at the altar of the game.
"Bob, Bob, come down. You can come home now, honey. We'll take good care of you."
It was hopeless. There would be no peace at home, not with the press blitz that was probably breaking on the eleven o'clock news just about now. Atavisms would be brought up in the marginal people; there would be men with high-powered rifles, poisoners, trappers, and of course O'Neill and his lawyers.
"Bob, please."
He hesitated, drawn by the night and the freedom, and by the soft, familiar scent of his wife. The moon paced the clouds, the wolf paced the high wall. "I'll get the dart gun," the vet said softly. Hearing that, the wolf won.
Bob leaped off into the wild, free night.
Chapter Eleven
WHEN HE DISAPPEARED OVER THE WALL, CINDY BRACED for another shot. Instead there came the high-pitched screams of the voodoo worshipers still in the alley, who cared not at all to have their wolf-god join them.
Rage broke in Cindy like a bloody foam of waves. She ran her fingers in her hair and shrieked. "Shut up," Monica bellowed. "Pull yourself together."
"He's going to get killed!"
"Ma'am, we'll get him back."
"You were using him, you were treating my husband worse than I'd treat an animal. You're vicious, inhuman monsters! I swear, if he dies I will come back and I will kill you one by one!"
The vet's mouth had dropped open. The word "husband" formed and died silently on his lips. Then a glance askance at Monica.
Cindy roared on. "I know what you're thinking, you bastard. You're thinking I'm crazy. You're hoping I am. But I am not crazy and I have a superb lawyer, and you and the city and the ASPCA are going to suffer for this! Your career is over, buddy, dead and in the dirt. And as for this bunch of cigar-chomping weirdos—look at them, you ought to be ashamed, for Chrissake—you talk about cruelty to animals, my God, you oughta be closed down!"
Cindy's words flashed into a silence. Even the dogs quieted down. The voodoo practitioners who had been in the windows were creeping away. As for the vet, he had gone to attention. "Yes, ma'am," he said in a voice he had probably learned during military days, "there have been irregularities. They'll be corrected at once, ma'am!"
Cindy laughed, harsh and derisive. "I don't care about your irregularities." Now her voice rose to a cutting quaver. "I want my Bob back, and I want him back alive!"
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