Junkyard Dogs

by Craig Johnson

  I reached the landing and turned to find the front door once again hanging open, but I cut left toward the kitchen. I stalled at the swinging door I’d first seen Betty Dobbs walk through and could see Vic lying on the floor, blood on her head.

  I ran to her. I could feel the pressure of my own body exploding from the inside. I gently pushed my arm under her shoulder and pulled her toward me and up from the floor. I froze as her head lolled to one side, and I could feel the air leap from my mouth. “No way, not like this. Not here.”

  She gasped a short breath, and it was then that I could see she was still breathing.

  Her next words were quintessential. “Fuck me.”

  I held her head and spotted a frying pan big enough and old enough to have fed the whole Seventh Cavalry. It was lying on the floor by the refrigerator along with a large amount of spilled fried potatoes. There was a spot on it that was bloodied and held a tuft of brunette hair. I held her face up to mine.

  She stirred again, and a hand came up, glancing off my arm and then dropping again. “What the fuck . . . ?” Her other hand came up and latched on to my sleeve.

  “Are you all right?”

  “My head . . . That bitch.” Her eyes opened, and I could see where a blood vessel had burst in her left one. “What the hell did she hit me with?”

  “Looks like a frying pan. I guess you should be happy she didn’t have her gun.” I propped her up a bit. “Are you okay?”

  “No, my head . . . Yeah, I’m good.” She started to sit up, but her equilibrium was off and she wavered in my arms. “Shit.”

  I pulled her toward the kitchen cabinets and leaned her against them. “I’ve got backup coming with medical. Morris Stewart’s upstairs where she shot him in the chest—just like Ozzie Dobbs. Do you believe he’s still alive?”

  She stretched her jaw, and I could hear the popping noise. “When we’re all dead, the only thing that’ll still be alive will be cockroaches and a Stewart.”

  She was all right.

  “Any idea where Gina and the dogs went?”

  She tried to shake her head. “No idea. Did you check the car?”

  “No, but we’ve got her blocked in, and I’ve got the keys.” She sighed, and I could tell it hurt. “I’ll check . . .” Her hand slipped, and she jarred back onto her butt.

  “Stay. When the troops show up, tell ’em Morris is upstairs in the last bedroom to the left.” I stood.

  She looked at me. “Where are you going?”

  I pulled the .45 from my holster. “Hunting.”

  I could see from her prints in the fresh snow where she’d tried the car, but then that she had turned and gone back in, the dog tracks following hers. There was melted snow from her shoes and the dogs’ paws that led down the stairs to the basement.

  I turned the knob, but it was locked again. I reared back and planted a size thirteen into the wood by the knob plate and caught myself in the doorway as the wood exploded onto the stairs. I listened, but there was no noise from below, just the cold air from what I now knew was the cellar tunnel.

  I flipped on the light switch and continued down the steps. She could’ve gotten her gun but wouldn’t have taken the risk of finishing off Vic since she knew I’d be coming down the steps pretty quickly. She was used to taking her victims unaware and at close range; she might get lucky with the .32 if I came at her, or she might not.

  Then there were the dogs.

  As I turned the corner at the landing, my radio crackled. “Walt, it’s Ruby.”

  I pulled the radio up as I aimed the Colt at large into the darkened basement. “ . . . Kinda busy here.”

  Static. “Walt, Santiago is here and says he’s got more information on Felix Polk.”

  “Put him on.”

  Static. “Boss, the name Polk didn’t come up as an inmate in Huntsville so I did a search for a Felix P and found a Felix Poulson who did time for killing a garage owner in San Antonio.” It was silent for a moment. “Gotta be the same guy, Boss. His next hit was the stretch in San Quentin for kidnapping a woman in Utah and killing her—same name, Felix Poulson.”

  Where had I heard that name before? I keyed the mic again. “Is there any mention of next-of-kin contact?”

  Static. “Kayla.”

  I flipped the lights on and looked around with the radio over my mouth. “Have we got people coming?”

  Static. “Yes. Everybody’s on their way.”

  “Morris is in the bedroom upstairs, and Vic is on the floor in the kitchen.”

  Static. “What happened to Vic?”

  “Fortunately, she was assaulted with a frying pan.”

  Static. “Fortunately?”

  I keyed the mic again. “It was a hell of a sight better than the .32 Gina used on her great-uncle-in-law.”

  I clipped the radio to my belt and continued to check the basement. There was no one there—man, woman, or beast. I watched the air blow the blue plastic that covered the opening in the old house’s foundation back toward me along with the cold from the other end.

  The four-by-four attached to the bottom of the tarp was kicked sideways, and I was pretty sure it was where she and the dogs had gone. It was the only way out to the tow trucks that were the only other working vehicles.

  I moved to the opening and shifted the wood on the floor to the opposite side. It was dark in the tunnel, and I reached up to the right where I could feel the junction box and switch.

  I flipped it and absolutely nothing happened.

  “Damn.”

  I pulled my Maglite from my belt and directed it into the tunnel; the batteries were starting to fade, I’d been using it so much lately.

  Poulson. Where had I heard that name?

  The weak beam of the flashlight only penetrated the gloom of the tunnel for so far, and the only things I could see were a few cardboard boxes, a stack of mulch, and another of fertilizer. Saizarbitoria had done a pretty good job of cleaning out the place; it was such a shame that it had turned out to be his swan song.

  I started into the jagged opening and had gone about a dozen steps when I felt the air pressure in the confined space change. The cold was like a wall, and I could feel it increase as I stood there. I listened carefully but could only hear a scrambling noise.

  It was about then that I heard the breathing of something at the end of the tunnel, something running. I raised the flashlight again and could plainly see a single set of golden eyes moving fast and headed my way.

  16

  At least it was only one set of eyes.

  Something in me hesitated as I brought the large-frame Colt up; I remembered how Butch had licked my hand. Maybe it was the ranch boy in me, maybe it was just being stupid, but I wasn’t willing to kill the less ferocious of the dogs.

  If he got to me and there was no choice, well, then there was no choice.

  But what if it wasn’t Butch?

  A lot of this stuff was passing through my mind in the few seconds it took the dog to race down the tunnel. I had learned how to handle a dog in a death struggle in the Corps. In boot they’d given us a chance against a few extremely well-trained German shepherds; an eight-man squad, and we’d all lost badly.

  Hypothetically, the trick was to feed the dog your passive forearm, then wrap your other around its neck and push, effectively breaking the dog’s neck. The instructor said that it usually worked, unless the dog was large and powerful, in which case his jaws could break the proffered arm, making it doubly difficult to concentrate on step two. He also said that if the dog was trained properly it would leap for the arm but then at the last instant go underneath and clamp its jaws around your throat.

  A recruit had asked what you did at that point, and the instructor said he’d heard that if you stick a finger in the attacking dog’s anus, the animal would break off the attack. Intrasquad consensus was that you’d have just as good a chance if you stuck the digit up your own asshole.

  I set my feet and kept the butt of the .45 ready to br
ing down on the dog’s head.

  I could see him plainly now, but it was impossible to tell which one it was. He looked like he meant business though. I braced my legs for the impact and then suddenly remembered the only other weapon I had at hand—my voice.

  Just as he was shortening his stride to time a leap, I yelled. “Butch, bad dog! Down!”

  It was as if someone had cut off the fuel, and he landed at my feet a little clumsily. His head was between his paws as he looked up at me with the glow of the flashlight in his eyes. He wagged his tail in supplication, just a bit, and then was motionless.

  “Good boy.” His head rose. “C’mere.” He stood and turned, sitting his behind on my boots. “Good boy, good boy.” I ruffled his ears, stroking the silky hair at the back of his neck, and remembered the biscuits that Larry had given me at the drive-through. I pulled one out and gave it to him. That left me with another biscuit for Sundance, an item likely to be as helpful as an accordion on an elk hunt.

  With the experiences of the last few months, I had to remember to carry an entire assortment of animal treats with me. “Good boy, good boy.”

  I started down the tunnel again, this time with a wagging companion. I didn’t think I could get him to stay, so I let him tag along, figuring that I could close the door at the end of the tunnel to keep him from joining Sundance if Gina put him on me.

  When I got to the end, I could see that the snow had crept in the doorway and held the door open a few inches. I looked down at my companion, still wagging. “This is as far as you go, buddy.”

  I buttoned my sheepskin coat, flipped up the collar, and pulled down my hat. I wedged the door back far enough to get a leg through and just hoped that Gina wasn’t waiting on the other side with the .32 pistol. It was dark, and the darting snowflakes stung.

  I dropped my face down into my coat and tried not to think about how my skin already stung, my foot already hurt, and about the bite wound on my left cheek. Butch had tried to follow after me, but I brushed him back with my boot and shoved the cellar door closed. I again figured if he got together with Sundance and Gina, he was more likely to run with the pack.

  I turned into the night and wondered where my pack was.

  Visibility was no more than twenty feet. I looked around for prints, but the gusts had filled anything that was out here. The wind was coming straight out of the North Pole, and there were no stars or moon.

  I looked toward the ridge in hopes of seeing something that might indicate that she’d gone that way, but there was nothing but drifts, running like shallow sea waves toward the southeast. I looked toward the gated walkway that led to the quarry, but there was nothing there either.

  She had to be after the tow trucks. They were solid and had four-wheel drive and weren’t blocked in by my three-quarter-ton. Had to be.

  I postholed my way toward the junkyard below, aware that if I went in the wrong direction, I could take a seventy-five-foot header. The wind had scoured the edge of the cliff, and the pathway became more evident as I got to the gate, which was swinging freely in the wind. I could see boot prints now and figured I should move as quickly as I could, since there was no way Gina would stay out in this weather any longer than absolutely needed. If she was going for the tow trucks, she’d be going for them fast.

  It was easier going downhill, and the wind wasn’t as bad inside the quarry. The snow had been accumulating with a vengeance and was about two feet deep in the junkyard itself, but at least the visibility had improved to the point where I could now see about thirty feet, which was the length of one of those behemoths they made back in the forties and fifties.

  It was easy to feel small and alone in the muffled quiet of the snow amid all that dead hardware.

  It was hard enough for me with my long legs to move quickly in the deep drifts, and I wondered about the desperation that must have forced Gina to try. I thought I saw something ahead and stopped by a ’66 Belvedere with a Buick stacked on top of it and a Ford sedan on top of that. It was only when the ricochet of a .32 slug caromed off the quarter panel of the Plymouth that I became really sure.

  I jumped back to the rear of the coupe with all the agility of a circus bear and peered around the taillight. “Gina, it’s the sheriff. There isn’t anywhere to go. I’ve got people on the way and they’re going to block off the gate, so you better just give it up now!” I hoped the part about the people was true.

  My answer was another round from the .32, which disappeared somewhere behind me, and the barking of the dog.

  I figured I’d flank her and continue down the next row and try and cut her off before she got to the trucks. I high-stepped to my right and hoped she and the dog hadn’t had the same idea as I made my way along the other side of the car tower. I tried to remember how many rows there were before the main thoroughfare that held the office and the straight shot to the gate and was thinking three before I hit the turn of the century in motor vehicle manufacture and crossed the road.

  I hurried through the seventies and the eighties, and was just making it to the nineties when I thought I saw something ahead again.

  It was smaller than me and, more important, it wasn’t standing upright.

  I stood there breathing heavily, most of my energy drained from slogging through the snow, and waited. That primordial stem at the back of my brain shot a jolt through me, the same jolt that it’d sent through my ancestors’ brains for a couple hundred thousand years, the jolt that told you something was coming for you and you were too far from the safety of the trees.

  He knew where I was but was waiting to see if I knew where he was.

  The hackles rose between his shoulders, and the sound that resounded there had nothing to do with civilization. He walked on his paws with the shape of his own savagery: suspicious, hostile, and deadly, with yellow eyes as still as a snake’s.

  “Easy.”

  He didn’t hesitate for an instant, and it was almost as if my speaking to him had weakened my position on the food chain. My voice went out into the distance like a match dropped in the snow.

  I could easily see the great, gapping jaws now and the saliva dripping from his lips. He lumbered in the snow on the first few steps but that almost instantly changed into a gallop. He launched like a torpedo, and I had that sickening feeling that there wasn’t going to be any way to circumvent this. The dog’s mouth was like a tunnel full of teeth, and he was fast. I had dissuaded Butch but knew the results were going to be different this time.

  Sundance didn’t waver, didn’t misdirect, but came straight at my throat. The beast forced me backward in the snow, and we both rolled ass over elbows. His mouth slammed shut, but the majority of the bite went into my heavy sheepskin coat, and I flipped him over my head, the momentum forcing his jaws loose as he continued to bite at me with bone-crushing force.

  I flailed with the .45, but one of the bites hit my wrist. I rolled over and flopped forward, desperately grabbing for my dropped sidearm. It was snow- caked, and I reached for it, but my hand refused to operate. The bite had either broken the bone or hit the pressure points in my hand enough so that the thing was useless.

  The monster had turned now and was rising from the snow with his black lips pulled back and his ears lying flat. I could see the muscles ripple under the heavy coat, and the determination in the jaundiced eyes that weren’t likely to be fooled again.

  I scrambled my left hand across my body, but there was no way I’d make it.

  He leapt, and I have to admit at that moment I was stunned by the grace of the animal; the way the broad chest and magnificent head looked in that final moment of attack. Maybe I’d get the Colt up against him before it was all over but probably not.

  It was then that something hit me square in the back, forcing my face into the snow and knocking the wind from me. All I could think was that Butch must’ve gotten free from the tunnel and had decided to join the fun.

  My hand finally closed on the Colt but the dog on top of me was gone, a
lmost as if he’d used me as a launching pad.

  Only it wasn’t Butch.

  I raised my head and tried to focus. The two of them rolled like a giant, fur-covered wheel into the open well of a junked, snow-covered GMC pickup. The collision caused the snow to fall off the vehicle like a miniature avalanche, but neither of them was giving quarter. Sundance crunched down on the back of Dog’s heavy neck, but Dog lurched forward, slamming him into the fender of the truck. Sundance redoubled his efforts, but Dog’s wide head rammed him, flipping him sideways and backward. Sundance was faster, but Dog’s muscle mass gave him the advantage in close contact.

  My dog stood there in the center of the pathway between us, the hackles raised on his swirling red, brown, and blond back that surged with a tide of muscle. His muzzle was wider than the wolf ’s, mastifflike, with teeth like the edge of a front-end loader.

  Sundance started to move left, still intent on getting hold of me, but Dog shifted his weight, and I watched the spittle drip between his splayed legs. There was blood in the strings, but he showed no sign of weakening.

  I had to give the wolf credit for concentration; even faced with Dog, he was still focused on me as his victim. I brought the .45 around with my left hand, fumbling to get it aimed, but my movement distracted Dog. That was all the wolf needed. He sprang forward but was struck sideways when he passed as Dog closed his massive muzzle on one of Sundance’s forelegs, and I could hear the sickening crunch from a car length away.

  The damage was done, and he fell away with a squealing yelp. Dog stood his ground and watched as the other dog struggled up on three legs to pace right. Dog pivoted to follow.

  Sundance stopped pacing and growled, but Dog countered by digging his claws into the ice and snow in a false charge. The wolf backed off, and just like that, the fight was gone from him.

  The .45 trembled in my hand. I lowered it and pushed up on my hands and knees.

  I stayed there for a few moments, trying to get my adrenaline level back to approaching human. I cleared my throat and caught my balance with a hand extended to the nearest junker.