Bernie let go and stood up, eyes still on me. “Stay,” he said, louder now. Then he turned and started up the hill again, hands raised.
Stay? But if I stayed, how were we going to run together? Maybe Bernie was going to blast them all with the .38 Special first, and then we’d be running. Did that sound like good strategy, strategy being how we were going to come out on top, me and Bernie? I thought so. And so I stayed, although as Bernie got farther and farther away I shifted some in his direction, but still on my backside, which is a form of staying.
As Bernie reached the top of the rise, a couple of Jeeps drove out from behind the watchtower. The uniformed dudes closed around Bernie, pointing their guns. One of them began to pat him down. Oh, no. What if he found the—
And he did. He took the .38 Special from Bernie’s pocket and handed it to Captain Panza. Captain Panza held the .38 Special up in the light, squinted at it. “What luck,” he said. “This must be the murder weapon.”
“I didn’t murder anyone,” Bernie said, not screaming or even agitated; just the same calm voice he’d use any old time.
Captain Panza pointed the .38 Special down at Darren Quigley, lying in the open, shallow grave. “That looks like a murder victim to me.” He turned to the others. “Muchachos?”
“Sí, sí,” they said. A few of them were grinning, like something funny was going on.
“He’s a murder victim all right,” Bernie said, “but it wasn’t me.”
“No?” said Captain Panza. “If not you, any idea who was the real murderer?”
“I’d like to think it was you,” Bernie said.
Silence up on top of the rise. Everyone went still.
“Maybe,” said Captain Panza, “my English is very bad. Maybe so bad I didn’t understand what you said. Please—por favor—tell me again.”
Bernie took a deep breath—I could see his chest swelling up. Then, in a loud booming voice, a tremendous voice I’d never heard from him before and didn’t know he had, Bernie shouted, “Chet—run!” And he batted the .38 Special out of Captain Panza’s hand.
I ran. The loud boom of Bernie’s voice was like a wave, carrying me, pushing me along even faster than my very fastest. CRACK! A shot rang out. PING! Dust exploded off a rock, right beside me. Then from behind came a thud, and another thud, sounds I knew well, sounds of fighting. I slowed down, looked back, and there was Bernie, still on his feet, locked in a struggle with the uniformed guys. One or two lay motionless on the ground and Bernie was a great fighter, but there were so many of them! I stopped running. Hadn’t Bernie told me to run and not stop? Yes, but now he needed me. I couldn’t make those two things fit together. Meanwhile, I found I was sort of inching my way back down the footpath, toward Bernie. And what was this? Still down in the graveyard but definitely moving my way—a uniformed guy with a rifle.
I knew what rifles could do, of course, one of the most important things I’d learned on this job, but I kept inching down anyway. Bernie—still fighting on that little rise above the trees and the graveyard—needed me. What had he told me to do, again? Couldn’t quite remember and also had no big desire to. I inched down some more, maybe not inching now, more like walking. The uniformed guy stopped. I was still pretty far away, but suppose I sprinted at him, my very fastest, and then sprang right at his throat and—
He raised the rifle. At the same instant came Bernie’s voice, that booming shout, like thunder from the sky. “Chet—run!”
I didn’t want to run, couldn’t leave Bernie like this but at the same time I had to do what he said, or at least give it the old college try, whatever that happened to—
Muzzle flash, bright orange. CRACK! Thump. All those things came together practically at once, and at the same time the top of a cactus got blown off right by my head. White droplets from inside the cactus went spraying in the air. I felt some on my face. Once this real bad perp took a bullet as he stood beside me, and some of his blood dripped down on my fur.
“CHET!”
I remembered that sticky feeling of blood on my fur, and the smell, too, one of the richest smells there is. I rolled around in the dirt plenty after that time with the bleeding perp.
“RUN!”
I turned and ran back up the hill, not my fastest at first, but another CRACK sped me up. Blood had gotten me going, hard to explain the connection. I tore along the footpath. It got steeper and steeper and vanished forever in a jumble of rocks. From behind I heard ACK-ACK-ACK. I knew that was automatic fire from back in my days at K-9 school—it would have been nice if I’d gotten the certificate on the last day, the day things went wrong—so it shouldn’t have been a big surprise when the dirt in front of me erupted in dust-spewing pockmarks, like during the monsoon rains, but it surprised me just the same. I started taking switchbacks of my own over hard ground, whipping past spiny cacti that whipped back at me—uh-oh, the stinging kind—and all the time behind me: ACK-ACK-ACK, ACK-ACK-ACK. Run! Run! Run! I heard Bernie’s voice now, but not from Bernie actually speaking. Instead I was hearing Bernie in my mind, which happens a lot. ACK-ACK-ACK. I swerved, swerved back, swerved the other way, my whole body low to the ground—steep steep ground that kept trying to tip me over and roll me all the way down—the wind in my ears, high and scary, me not really running now, more like climbing, digging in with my front paws, pushing from the back. ACK-ACK-ACK—and what was that? I felt a buzz right through the fur on my back, a buzz like a big hard insect might make, and then PING—close by a fiery spark shot off the face of a rock. The next moment I was suddenly over the top, going so fast I flew straight up in the air—ACK-ACK-ACK—and then I fell, landing hard on my stomach, but on the far side of the hill, almost a cliff, really; on the far side and safe from human weapons.
I lay there, trying to get my breath back. So weird, that feeling of getting the breath knocked out of you. But no big deal. The point was I heard no more gunfire, heard nothing at all, except for a cascade of pebbles and stones I’d knocked loose on the other side, and soon that went silent, too.
My breath came back. I breathed. Should I be getting up? I really didn’t feel like it at the moment. I felt like just lying on the ground and breathing. Was that a good idea? I didn’t know. Then Bernie spoke in my mind: On your feet, big guy.
I got on my feet. Maybe that hadn’t been Bernie speaking in my mind, but Bernie in real life. Oh, I hoped so. I crept back up to the crest and stuck my head over, just the smallest bit. Wow. I was up so high, had come such a long way. I gazed down the slope—yes, a cliff in places—all the way to the bottom of the box canyon with the graveyard and the trees, trees that looked like tiny garden plants from where I was, and on to the ruined village with the crumbling watchtower. Not a soul in sight, which is human talk for no people. There was at least one soul around, if I understand the term properly, and that was me. But I could be wrong; words were tricky. Not important anyway; what was important was the absence of people. Bernie, Captain Panza, the uniformed men, the rifle dude and ACK-ACK-ACK dude, the Jeeps: all gone. Did I spot a dust cloud on the far side of one of the humps of the two-humped mountain? Maybe. But it might have been an ordinary cloud, the kind that sometimes brings rain. I checked the sky: not another cloud in it, bright blue and the sun kind of glaring. I realized I was a bit thirsty.
Maybe Bernie was down there in the box canyon and I just wasn’t seeing him. I checked again. No Bernie. I barked. Bark bark. And from the box canyon came a bark bark. I barked again. Bark bark bark. And bark bark bark came back. None of my guys were down there, not that I could see. I trotted back and forth on the crest, this trot that happens sometimes when I’m getting beside myself. That’s an expression of Bernie’s. You didn’t want to get beside yourself—that was important in this business. I remembered another important thing—you were never supposed to show yourself at the top of a crest: No better target than that, big guy. I moved down the back side a short way, out of sight.
But soon I found myself trotting back and forth on top of
the crest again. Where was Bernie? I barked. The bark came back. And that kept up for a while and then I was beside myself again. I had a faint memory of Bernie explaining the barking thing that was going on, maybe explaining it a thousand times, which had to be a lot. The actual explanation wouldn’t come, but just knowing that Bernie had cleared it all up made me feel better, put me back inside myself.
I stood on top of the crest and breathed. This was Mexico. Things were different in Mexico: that was another saying of Bernie’s. Mexico was different. So therefore? Bernie said that, too, sometimes with his head in his hands. So therefore? Then, after so therefore? things would get real quiet, so quiet I could feel his thoughts, like gentle breezes in the air. Meanwhile, the air around me, this warm and clear Mexican air, was perfectly still.
TWENTY-FIVE
This one here flunked out,” the handler said.
“Yeah,” said Bernie, although I didn’t know he was Bernie then, just knew I liked his smell—apples, bourbon, salt, and pepper, plus a little extra something that actually reminded me of me. “I saw.”
“Too bad,” said the handler. “He’s the fastest and the strongest of the bunch.”
“And the smartest,” Bernie said.
“Think so?” said the handler. “Then how come he’s out of the parade?”
“I don’t know,” Bernie said. “There’s something about him. What’s his name?”
“We’ve been calling him Chet. Must’ve had some other name before. Some tenth precinct guys found him in a crack house when he was just a pup.”
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“Shelter, I guess,” said the handler.
“Tell you what,” Bernie said.
Which was how we got together. Funny that I’d be thinking about that now, up on this crest in Mexico where things were different, because there were probably lots of other things I should have been thinking about.
Such as?
Such as—that was another saying of Bernie’s. He used it on people, to make them . . . I’m not sure what, but to make them do something. I used it on myself: such as, big guy? Such as?
Nothing happened.
I gazed down into the box canyon, and especially at the graveyard. Too far away to really tell, but I thought the body of Darren Quigley was gone. You see dead bodies in this job, and for a while at least they look like they could be sleeping, but they don’t smell like they could be sleeping, far from it, and that’s from the get-go. The life smell goes, and that’s that.
A shadow passed over the box canyon, moving fast. I glanced up, saw a big dark bird. I’m not a fan of birds. This one reached a place in the sky high above me and started circling. That gave me a bad feeling, hard to say exactly why. I moved off the crest, down the back side a few steps. When I looked up again, the big dark bird seemed to have moved with me, circling slowly in the blue, not bothering to flap its wings, just gliding.
Meanwhile, my mouth was real dry. On the patio at our place on Mesquite Road, we have this fountain Leda had installed a long time ago—oh, those poor workers!—a fountain in the shape of a swan. When Bernie turns it on, a sparkling stream of water flows from the swan’s mouth. I love to stick my tongue in that stream. Is that the best water I’ve ever tasted or what? Actually, it’s not. Once Bernie and I went for a hike, somewhere very high up, and on this rock face hung an icicle. Wow. First and only time I’ve seen one. We couldn’t quite get to the icicle, but it was dripping water off the pointy end, and that water ran down the face of the rocks and I licked some off. That was the best water I’ve ever tasted. I could taste it now, pure, cold, rocky. I got thirstier.
I gazed down from the back side of the crest. The ground fell sharply away, down and down, just as steep as the other side, or steeper. At the bottom lay a plain, and beyond that endless hilly country, on and on, with rock formations here and there, plus desert plants that looked like green dots. But on the plain itself—funny how first it wasn’t there and then it was—I saw a shimmering blue pond. My mouth started watering right away, and then quickly dried up. But at least now I had a plan. Such as? To head for water.
Yes, the back side was very steep, almost a cliff at first, and a few times I found myself leaning way over an edge, my front claws trying to dig into the rock face and keep me from falling off. At those moments the bird shadow would suddenly grow bigger and pass right over me; but no looking up, big guy. My balance is pretty good, better than yours, no offense, but with only two legs—and no tail!—it’s a miracle you can even stand up; still, my balance isn’t so good I can do a lot of looking up while I’m on a cliff face.
I worked my way down a bit, came to an outcrop that ended in a sheer drop. Down below was a kind of narrow dirt shelf topping another cliff, but off to one side of the shelf the angle evened out a bit, and then things seemed to get easier over that way. The problem was the distance to that shelf. From where I stood, it looked like a long distance. Too long? How did you figure out the answer to that? I crouched on the edge of the outcrop for a while, gazing at the shelf, hoping the answer would come.
The bird shadow passed over me, back and forth. I raised my eyes, gazed at that shimmering blue pond on the plain. What would Bernie say now? I listened real hard but didn’t hear him. All I knew was that I didn’t want to think about this anymore.
Then I was in midair. I’d been in midair before—it’s that kind of job—but never this long. There was lots of time to look around—which I didn’t do—or to think about things. I thought about Bernie.
And was still thinking about him, when—OOOMPH! I landed on the shelf. Right now I’m maybe going to surprise you and point out something good about cats. Have you ever seen them land? A thing of beauty.
My landing on the shelf wasn’t a thing of beauty. I came down on all fours like cats do, but that was just about the only similarity. You don’t hear a loud thud when cats land, and if you’re the cat doing the landing, you probably don’t feel a jolt of pain that goes up your legs, into your shoulders and chest and through your whole body, and you probably don’t find yourself rolling, rolling and rolling right to the edge of the shelf and then shooting off into thin air and starting that long, long—
But not quite off the edge. At the very last second—which I’m sure isn’t much time—or even less, with the front part of me already hanging over empty air, the back part got a grip, those two paws digging in, hitting the brakes harder than I’ve ever hit them; and I pulled myself away from the long, long fall.
I sat safely on the shelf, panting and panting. No good to have your tongue hanging out like that when it’s all dry and stiff, but I just couldn’t help myself. Get a grip, big guy. I got a grip, stood up, moved toward the side of the shelf. Just as I’d thought: things weren’t so sheer over this way, more like a regular mountain. I stepped off the shelf and started down.
A breeze rose up the slope from the plain, carrying lots of smells—including a creature smell that might have been goat, although I saw no goats down there, nothing moving at all except for the shimmering on the pond, although for some reason the water smell wasn’t in the air. The ground was hard and dry, with lots of prickly pear cactus from which I kept my distance, and—almost at the bottom now—one of those gnarly manzanita trees. I stopped and lifted my leg against it. Surprise: nothing came out! Kind of strange, since when was the last time I’d lifted my leg? Plus I always had a little something in reserve for marking purposes.
I reached the plain and headed toward the pond, still shimmering in the distance. Was there any reason not to ramp up into my trot? I’ve got a few trots, but there’s one I can do forever, my go-to trot, Bernie calls it. I went into my go-to trot and started closing the distance between me and that cool blue water fast. Only here was another strange thing, mixed up in my mind with the strangeness of having nothing to mark with: the distance wasn’t closing at all! The shimmering pond kept shimmering, but it seemed to be moving with me. I sped up a little and the pond sped up,
too, no doubt about it. I slowed down and it slowed down. Meanwhile, this plain wasn’t very big, and the hills on the other side were coming closer—no doubt about that, either—with every step I took. So therefore?
I didn’t know, so I just kept going. I realized my head was hanging down a bit and raised it up. The pond kept moving away from me; the hills came closer. What was that about? All of a sudden I recalled Bernie talking about this very thing. But what had he said? I was still trying to remember, trying my very hardest, when the pond stopped shimmering, stopped looking blue, and vanished completely. There was nothing but the desert plain, with its stones and dust, prickly pears and other spiky things. I crossed the little of it that remained and entered the hills. The bird shadow made interesting patterns in front of me.
* * *
For a while I was thirsty, and then not; you’ve got to be tough in this business. I went up hills, down hills, around hills. Also on the move were the sun, sliding lower in the sky, and the shadows of the hills, growing longer and longer. As for the bird shadow: gone. I felt pretty good, maybe not tip-top, but pretty close. The breeze blew in my face, carrying a smell of smoke, and that made me feel even bet—
Smack. Something hit me from behind, knocked me for a loop. I did a somersault, twisting in the middle of it, landed facing the way I’d come. And there stood a goat, making chewing motions the way they do. All at once I was in a bad mood. I snarled at the goat. It did that bleating thing—the sound actually reminding me of the ACK-ACK-ACK of automatic fire, except toned way down—and lowered his head. I’ve never had anything against goats, but now that was all changed. I didn’t like that ACK-ACK-ACK bleat, didn’t like that wispy beard—don’t like wispy beards on anybody—and there were probably other unlikable goat things, but before I could get to them he was charging at me again. This time I was ready.
Makes a difference, doesn’t it, Señor Goat? That was my thought as I stood over him a moment later. He lay on the ground, looking kind of stupid, in my opinion. I barked in his face, a bark that felt real dry in my throat. He bleated again. Not an ACK-ACK-ACK: this bleat told me he was done. I backed off. The goat struggled to his feet and ran away, kind of stiffly.
To Fetch a Thief Page 20
