by Tim Willocks
To his annoyance, everyone ignored him.
“Which crate is Keeva in?” asked Dervla.
“I don’t know. But I didn’t come here just for Keeva. I came to free them all.”
“Great,” muttered Skyver. “While we’re at it, why not discover a cure for fleas?”
Down in the compound below, the greyhounds started barking and crooning with hunger. The din grew more and more frantic.
“Breakfast is late,” said Furgul.
“Don’t we know it?” said Skyver. “I can’t remember the last time I ate. Look, old buddy, I know you’re under pressure—and I don’t want to make it any worse—but do you have any kind of plan at all?”
“Breakfast is late,” repeated Furgul.
“He’s lost it,” said Skyver. “If you’d listened to me, we’d have already eaten our breakfast by now and be going back to bed, safe and sound, at Appletree.”
“Hey, whinger, or whatever your dirtbag name is,” growled Dervla, “no one asked you to come along. So why don’t you put your feet back in your mouth and stop chirping in my face.”
Skyver at once went back to licking his blisters. Dervla looked at Furgul.
“In the dog pen at the carnival I had a lot of time to think about how to get out,” she said. “The only weak spot is when the masters open the gate. Like at mealtimes.”
“Good point,” said Furgul. “And breakfast is late.”
“What’s their schedule?” asked Dervla.
“Dedbone opens the gate to wheel in the sacks of feed. He may have the Gambler to help him. Tic and Tac will be with him. He locks the gate behind them. After he’s filled the troughs, Dedbone opens the crates and lets the hounds out to eat. Then he goes home to drink whiskey. When he returns, he opens the gate, locks it, puts the hounds back in their crates and leaves again, locking up the gate for the rest of the morning.”
Dervla said, “Okay, so we strike when he’s on his way to drink his whiskey, just before he can relock the gate. All the hounds will be out of their crates.”
“You’ve never seen sixty greyhounds at breakfast,” said Furgul. “While there’s food in the trough, they’d rather eat than be free. We’d never get them to leave.”
Dervla said, “So we make our move the next time he opens the gate—when he comes back after his whiskey—and before he crates them up again.”
“Right,” said Furgul. “But even that isn’t so easy if you know greyhounds. They’ve never known anything but slavery—blind obedience—the routine. They’re indoctrinated. And they’re all too terrified of Dedbone to try to escape.”
Dervla nodded. She understood that better than anyone.
“If I could get in while they were feeding,” said Furgul, “I could persuade them to rebel. I could also find Keeva. I know they’d listen to her.”
“So we’re back to square one,” cheeped Skyver. “You’ll never get over that fence.”
Dervla rose to her full height, baring her teeth. Skyver hopped away on his blisters.
“I can get over that fence,” piped Zinni.
They all turned to look at her, mostly in disbelief. Skyver opened his mouth—caught Dervla’s stare—and shut it again so fast he hurt his teeth.
“See those overhead cables,” she said, “with the crows sitting on them? Electrical, or telephone, maybe both? They stretch right over the compound.”
They all looked back at the compound. She was right.
Zinni said, “I can walk along them and drop down inside.”
“So, what, you were in the circus?” jeered Skyver. He held both paws up to Dervla. “Just a question! Just a perfectly reasonable question!”
“I’m a papillon,” said Zinni. “That’s the kind of stuff they had me doing in shows and competitions—tightrope walking, somersaults—that’s how I got my diamond necklace, for making my mistress look cool to her friends.”
“But how will you get up on the wires?” persisted Skyver, one eye still on Dervla.
“If I can walk along wires, climbing on Dedbone’s roof is a piece of steak.”
“Zinni,” said Furgul, “if you can whip up the greyhounds—”
“When they get a load of me, they’ll whip up real quick,” said Zinni. “I’ll lead those greyhounds out.”
“Once Zinni’s in the compound, our timing has to be perfect,” said Furgul. “If it’s not, she’ll be trapped in there too. The minute Dedbone opens that gate, we have to take him out along with Tic and Tac, the new mastiff pups, and maybe the Gambler too.”
Dervla looked at Brennus. He nodded.
“We’ll keep Tic and Tac busy,” said Dervla. “Cogg and Baz can back us up.”
“I’ll take Dedbone,” said Furgul. “If I can get the key from his hand as he takes it from the lock, he won’t be able to relock it.”
“All we have to worry about, then, is getting killed.” Skyver pointed his paw at Dedbone’s Hole. “Speaking of which, no one said anything to me about bullmastiffs.”
Dedbone was shambling toward the compound, pushing a wheelbarrow full of feedbags. The Gambler walked beside him with a sawed-off shotgun over his arm. Behind them, enormous and malevolent, slouched Tic and Tac.
“Here’s something else we didn’t tell you,” said Furgul. “You’re going in there first.”
Skyver cringed. “But, Furgul, after all the times I’ve saved your life—”
“And before you go in, you’re going to douse yourself in goat poop.”
Skyver laughed at that one, until he saw the way the others stared at him. The others weren’t laughing at all. Skyver suddenly looked rather queasy.
“Goat poop?” he gasped.
Moments later, Skyver was facing a heap of fresh goat poop.
The others watched and waited. Skyver wrinkled his nose.
“I heard rumors that some dogs love to roll around in doo-doo,” whined Skyver. “But I thought it was a joke.”
“It’s not a joke, Skyver,” said Zinni. “It’s a nice big steamer.”
“The Bulls will smell us at thirty feet, even if we stay out of sight,” said Brennus. “With you up front—daubed in poop—all they’ll smell is goat.”
“Isn’t there something else I could do?” asked Skyver.
“Sure,” said Furgul. “Brennus can be the goat, and you can take out Tic. Or Tac.”
Skyver dived into the poop and rolled around until he was covered.
“You’ve missed a bit around your eyebrows,” said Zinni.
“And don’t forget your gums,” added Dervla.
Skyver gave her a look that said, “You’re kidding, right?”
Dervla shook her head.
Skyver grimaced and peeled back his lips—and scooped up a pawful of poop.
“Furgul,” warned Brennus. He nodded toward the Hole.
Five more bullmastiffs were mooching around the outbuildings. They were young, but they looked every bit as big and nasty as their parents.
“Tic and Tac’s new brood,” said Furgul. “Looks like they’re allowed to wander about the perimeter at will.” He looked at Dervla and Brennus.
“Seven bullmastiffs is a handful, even for us,” said Brennus.
“If I can trust my nostrils, that’s a smokehouse over there,” observed Cogg.
“And a hog pen too,” added Baz.
The Bunch looked at them as if they were mad.
“A smokehouse plus hogs equals bacon,” explained Cogg.
“Plus ham, jerky, sausage, fatback and other smoked-pork products,” added Baz.
“So that’s that.” Cogg and Baz nodded to each other and smiled.
The rest of the Bunch had no idea what they were talking about.
“What’s what?” asked Skyver.
“For that much bacon we’ll take any five mastiffs in the world,” said Baz.
“In other words, you can leave the five youngsters to us,” said Cogg.
“They don’t scare us a bit,” said Baz.
“Not after fighting that huge ginger tom,” agreed Cogg.
“I fought the ginger tomcat!” said Baz. “You fought the Pekingese!”
The rest of the Bunch watched them squabble with amazement. But although Cogg and Baz were maniacs—and absolutely clueless to boot—no one detected the slightest trace of fear in either of them.
“No, no, no, I’ll take three, you can have two,” said Cogg.
“I’ll let you have the two biggest,” offered Baz.
“Nope. You can have the two smallest,” countered Cogg.
“You mean you want the three biggest? All at once?”
While Cogg thought that one through, Furgul cut them off.
“There’ll be plenty for all of us,” said Furgul. “This is what we’ve come to do. Let’s do it.”
The schnauzers saluted and bounded off down the hill. Zinni, Skyver and Dervla followed. Furgul loved them. Because he loved them he felt a sudden fear. He looked at the impregnable compound. Inside the wire, Dedbone was pouring sacks of feed into the troughs. The sun winked from the Gambler’s brass thumb and from the barrels of his sawed-off shotgun. Tic and Tac growled at the greyhound crates for fun.
Furgul turned to Brennus. “Do we have any chance at all?”
Brennus said, “When leaves die they turn into earth.… ”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE ATTACK
The Dog Bunch crawled through long, scrubby grass to the edge of Dedbone’s property. Skyver was prodded along at the front by a series of bloodcurdling threats. They stopped at the edge of the grass and kept their heads down. The first phase depended on Zinni. If she failed, the plan fell apart. Zinni ran the tip of her tail over Skyver’s goat-stained cheek to pick up some scent.
“Is that all you need?” hissed Skyver, who was caked from gums to claw.
“You’ve got to stink for all six of us,” said Zinni.
Then she darted out of the grass and into the danger zone.
After locking the main gate behind him, Dedbone had filled the troughs and was working his way down the long rows of crates, opening them one at a time. As the hounds came out, Tic and Tac bullied them into a pack and made them wait. They all had to race for the troughs at the same time. The Gambler did nothing useful. He just stood around, as if the sawed-off shotgun made him special.
Zinni was as fast as a hare and as agile as a sparrow. Her size meant she could hide behind almost anything. She sped from the grass and paused behind a pile of old tires. Tic and Tac were too busy bullying the greyhounds. The five younger Bulls were cocking their legs on the posts of the hog pen and sniffling around the outbuildings. Zinni took off again. Even Furgul, with his hunter’s eyes, lost sight of her as she crisscrossed the junkyard.
She reappeared outside Dedbone’s cabin. She leaped onto an oil drum. She scanned the terrain she had to climb. She leaped from the barrel to the planks of a scaffold on which stood some cans of paint. She sped along the scaffold and made a leap about five times her own length—to land on the tin roof of an outhouse. From there she jumped, her front paws hooking over the edge of the cabin roof, her hind paws scrabbling the wall to shove herself upward.
She disappeared again.
The next time Furgul saw her she was on the other side of the cabin roof. The two black cables that snaked through the air from the telephone pole were attached to the front of the cabin, a few inches beneath Zinni’s feet. Zinni looked over at the Dog Bunch and waved her tail. Skyver began to wave back. Dervla slapped him down.
Zinni stepped out onto the two high wires with her front paws.
The cables swayed this way and that, and the crows turned to gape with amazement. Zinni balanced her weight and then committed one hind paw, and then the other. She was standing in midair. Her tail curled back and forth as the swaying cables threatened to pitch her into the junkyard. For long seconds Zinni’s fate—and the fate of the mission—swung in the balance.
Skyver put his paws over his eyes. Furgul didn’t blame him.
Zinni’s expert tail work steadied the cables. They all held their breath as she inched forward. She crossed above Dedbone’s weed-infested garden, then above the pickup truck parked outside. She paused, as if to take in the view, as if she now owned the sky. Below her lay the trash-littered waste ground. She walked on—somehow getting faster and faster—until she passed above the top of the high wire-mesh fence that surrounded the dogs’ compound.
No one in the Bunch dared speak. Zinni approached the flock of sullen crows that squatted on the wires in her path. They could knock her off with a single feather if they wanted to. Right beneath the crows, with his shotgun, stood the Gambler.
They couldn’t tell what Zinni whispered to the crows, but it worked. They cawed with alarm and took off into the air. As they did so, the Gambler clapped a hand on the top of his head. He swore and started to look up toward the cables.
“Looks like I’m not the only one covered in poop,” whispered Skyver.
The flight of the crows caused the cables to swing like a hammock. Zinni froze, trying not to fall and at the same time preparing to jump and run for her life if the Gambler saw her. But the Gambler’s eyes saw the crows flap away before he could glimpse Zinni. He threw the sawed-off shotgun to his shoulder and fired. BOOM! BOOM! Dedbone jumped and cursed. The crows sailed away unharmed.
“Grouse! Grouse! Grouse!” shouted Dedbone in annoyance.
“Bicker! Bicker! Bicker!” the red-faced Gambler replied.
Neither of them noticed Zinni, and neither did Tic and Tac, whose nostrils were too far below to pick up her scent. Zinni pressed onward. At last she stopped above the double stack of crates. And there—in midair—she waited.
“What’s she doing?” gasped Skyver. “I can’t stand it.”
“She’s waiting until Dedbone has opened the last of the crates,” Furgul explained. “Not only does she have nerves of steel, she’s smart too.”
The starving pack of dogs was held back from the troughs only out of fear of the Bulls. As the last greyhound joined them, Dedbone nodded to Tic.
“Come and get it!” barked Tic.
The greyhounds surged forward in a yowling flood. Zinni jumped down from the wire onto the crates, the sound of her landing smothered by the noise of the pack. In a flash she was out of sight.
The Dog Bunch heaved a sigh of relief. Dedbone and his cronies—Tic, Tac and the Gambler—left the compound and locked the gate. Then they vanished into the cabin to drink their whiskey and eat their meat. For a moment the coast was clear.
Furgul said, “Let’s go.”
They strung out in a line behind Skyver, whose cowardice made him an excellent point dog. Years on the scrounge had made him as sly as a fox, and as he crossed the open ground and neared the compound, he spotted nooks and crannies that Furgul would not have seen.
“Cogg, Baz,” snapped Skyver, “take that hollow behind the empty whiskey bottles. If you lie flat on your sides it’ll hide both of you. Dervla—crawl into those garbage sacks. The black plastic will disguise your fur. Brennus—under that old canvas.”
Furgul learned fast. He grabbed a perfect hiding place behind a rusting lawn mower. The greyhounds were now just a few yards away, chomping and scrapping at the troughs. He reckoned he could reach the gate in two seconds.
Skyver was peeved. “That was my spot,” he hissed.
“Get under the bathtub,” said Furgul, pointing with his tail.
“The tub’s full of stinking—oh, what’s the difference?” sighed Skyver.
As Skyver squeezed beneath the legs of the rotten old tub, it started to leak a foul-smelling slime that drip-drip-dripped on his head.
They were all in position. Now came the hardest part: They had to wait.
Furgul’s heart thumped against his ribs. His stomach was tied in knots. But his mind was focused and clear. He wondered how often Argal had faced death. He pictured Argal’s tunnel-deep eyes and felt stronger. But for once he didn’t have to ask himself:
What would Argal do? Furgul was doing it for himself.
The minutes crawled by.
The greyhounds finished their breakfast and milled around. Then Furgul saw Zinni emerge from behind the crates. Of all the Bunch, her job was the most hazardous. These greyhounds lived for a single dream: to hunt down something small and white and tear it into tiny pieces. If they detected a whiff of fear, pack instinct would overwhelm them and they’d lynch her. But Zinni faced down sixty greyhounds as if they were a flock of field mice. The big males jostled to get to the front as she spoke. They were mesmerized. And it wasn’t in Zinni’s character to play any girlie tricks. She just stood tall—even though that was only as high as the shortest greyhound’s knees—and told them what it would feel like to be free.
Argal couldn’t have done better.
Furgul’s eyes scanned the horde of greyhounds for Keeva. He couldn’t see her. He caught a flash of dark blue fur here and there, but not her face.
“Psst!” whispered Skyver. “Here they come!”
Dedbone came out of his cabin and rubbed his hands over his bulging belly. He was already sweating, and it must have been from drink, for the morning was still cool. Since the evening before, he’d gained a black eye, and one front tooth had gone missing. The angry mob at the track must have given him a hard time. He scowled and stretched as if his body ached all over. He rubbed his walnut knuckles as if they were sore. Dedbone was a bully and a cheat, but he was hard and tough too. Tic and Tac and the Gambler came behind him.
They started toward the compound.
Furgul would be the first to attack. He had to get Dedbone’s key.
“Psst! Psst! Hey, Furgul!”
Furgul glanced toward the bathtub. Skyver trembled underneath.
“Once they’ve seen you, I don’t need to smell like a goat anymore—right?” said Skyver. “So does that mean I can retreat?”
Furgul waved a paw to shut him up. He peered through a gap in the lawn mower. Tic and Tac were sniffing the air and frowning. They were brutes, but they were first-class guard dogs. Furgul could hear their voices.
