Man-mountain lifted the baton and suddenly Delta Dawn was attached to his inner thigh. My girl had disobeyed a direct command and returned to save my life. Man-mountain brought the base of the baton down on her head—once, twice—like picking at a block of ice, before she dropped with a yelp. Delta twisted about, prepping another attack, when the baton swung sideways, smashing across my dog’s shoulder, and sending her tumbling. The bastard turned, and though my farm collie was barely moving, he headed her way to finish the job.
I struggled to my knees. Cappelli’s brass knuckles, Goldy, lay within reach and I scooped them into my right hand. Tears streamed down my face and I willed myself to rise, but I couldn’t. Somehow I managed to fling Cappelli’s evil little weapon at Man-mountain as hard as I could, which wasn’t much at this point, but the knuckles bounced off the back of Man-mountain’s head. This didn’t do much except return his ire toward me.
And there lay Delta Dawn on the ground, somehow still wiggling. My poor beautiful little collie was a scarlet mess.
Bile flowed from my mouth, but I stayed on my knees, facing the son of a bitch. He held up the baton for me to see—drops of Delta’s blood dripping at the base—and again he stepped my way. I was functioning at maybe twenty percent so I didn’t hear the snarl until Man-mountain snapped his head backward.
Vira flew off the hill like something out of a Jack London novel, connecting with the big man’s face a heartbeat before landing, twisting about like an F5 tornado, suddenly leaping, his left forearm between her jaws. The baton tumbled to the dirt, and Man-mountain punched at the whirlwind attacking him with his injured right fist. Man-mountain’s cheek, where Vira had nicked him in mid-flight, was shredded, dripping blood. His fedora had been knocked to the ground.
And I spotted something out of character in the big man’s eyes.
Fear.
I realized at that moment something I suspected Vira already knew—what with her being two steps ahead of anyone else in the room. Something Delta had also known, something that had brought her back into the fray. This was not a win-win situation. And there could be no happy middle ground.
Either Man-mountain dies … or we do.
I pushed myself to my feet, maybe now at thirty percent. Man-mountain switched tactics, grabbed a fistful of fur at the back of Vira’s neck, yanked her off his forearm in a spray of crimson, and slammed her to the ground. Vira cried out in pain, bounced up, and circled behind him.
I marched in, throwing fists, pounding his stomach with every ounce of energy left inside me because no one fucks with my dogs. No one. But it was like hitting a brick wall. And suddenly he had me by the throat again, lifting me up, cutting off oxygen, choking me to death, and I stared into Man-mountain’s eyes.
He had crossed over—was pure animal now—feral, a wild beast … like my dogs … like me.
Then a flash of movement between us, his mouth turned a distorted O in a silent scream, and he flung me against the cabin wall. I ricocheted off, smashed to the hard ground; my chin now throbbing in pain. There wasn’t a square inch that didn’t screech in agony.
I looked up.
Maggie May had locked her jaws below Man-mountain’s navel and, a blur later, Vira found his most-vulnerable spot. She’d attached herself to the back of Man-mountain’s neck. Callum’s enforcer spun about in a demented danse macabre, striking at Vira futilely, trying to smash her down. He swung wide; my golden’s body a helicopter blade, and then dropping. Man-mountain’s hands shot to Maggie May as she refused to let go of her hold on his abdomen. A left hand felt its way to her right paw, and he snapped it outward. Maggie dropped to three legs with a cry that broke my heart.
She hobbled for safety. Man-mountain raised a boot to stomp her life away, but abruptly he froze, staring my way. I’d made it to my feet and realized I’d been screaming at the top of my lungs. I came at him in a fighter’s stance, fists held high, as Maggie stumbled to the cabin wall and collapsed in pain. I was at five percent, maybe, but this was all for show anyhow. I had nothing left. But I’d seen something Man-mountain hadn’t—Vira again mounting the hill behind him. Man-mountain threw a roundhouse, but I was already backing away. It glanced off my forehead, and I went down on my ass, mostly from the breeze.
Vira leaped and connected, riding the back of his neck again, a swing ride at the state fair, and as Man-mountain spun frantically to shake her off him, I saw his neck and the top of his long coat were drenched in blood. Then another new tactic; he stumbled backward into the hill. They both hit the ground hard, and Vira scrambled out from under his shoulder. He shot an elbow into her rib cage and she limped away, out of his reach to regroup.
I clawed at the ground to get up.
Gravity declined to comply.
I was at one percent.
“Fuck this,” Man-mountain said as he reached for his pistol and stood.
He swung the gun toward me and there was an explosion. A puff of crimson off his bicep spun Man-mountain sideways. He saw something he didn’t like and raised the pistol, but there were three more explosions in rapid progression, and three more puffs of red in the center of his chest. Man-mountain dropped his pistol. He sunk to his knees, his features frozen in astonishment, perhaps coming to terms with his own demise.
“I got him, Wabs,” Kippy said, walking into the clearing. “I got him.”
She held the gun on Callum’s driver until he dropped face-first into the dirt.
CHAPTER 51
Dispatcher: Where is your emergency?
Unidentified Male (breathing heavily): There’s been a shooting. Um, a bunch of screaming and then shots were fired.
Dispatcher: Where are you located?
Unidentified Male: I’m on the lake. Um, Rock Lake. Off old Route 9—um, the east road—but the shooting’s not here, not at my cabin.
Dispatcher: Where’s the shooting? Where’s that address?
Unidentified Male: I don’t know. I was on the dock and outta nowhere there were these thumping noises, like hitting a canoe paddle against a boat house or something and, um, dogs were barking up a storm, but they stopped and then came a scream—like, um, a guy, it was a male voice—screaming bloody murder.
Dispatcher: Where are you at now?
Unidentified Male: My wife and I, we’ve locked ourselves inside our cabin. There were more noises and then came the screaming again, but I think a different voice, um, maybe a different guy. And I ran inside for the landline when the shooting started.
Dispatcher: Could you tell where on Rock Lake the shots came from?
Unidentified Male: That’s the problem—the sound carries around here, it carries and echoes and I couldn’t see where it was coming from. It could be the other side of the lake—um, the west side—or it could be ten cabins down. There’s been dead silence since the gunshots and we don’t know what happened to the screaming guys. Jesus Christ, I hope they’re—um, Jesus Christ—the screams were … I hope they’re still alive.
Dispatcher: Okay, sir, I need you to calm down a second and tell me your exact location. Where are you at?
Dispatcher (talking to someone else): Reported gunshots and screams on Rock Lake. Repeat, gunshots on Rock Lake. I’ll get you the caller’s address off Route 9—the east side of Rock. Caller’s not clear on where the shots were fired so sending all available units to circle the lake.
CHAPTER 52
Okay, Mace is breathing … and he has a pulse … and he just moaned … thank you, God.
Kippy then looked from Maggie May—who lay whimpering against the side of the cabin, one paw twisted at an impossible angle—to Delta Dawn—who lay in the dirt, bleeding from her head, blinking drops of crimson from her eyes. It was all Kippy could do to keep from rolling Man-mountain over and emptying the rest of the Beretta’s magazine into his face.
Instead, she darted inside Feist’s cabin, tore through the undersized bedroom closet, grabbing at the towels she’d spotted earlier. She added a half dozen bottles of water on top of her
pile and shot back outside, to Maggie, where she began wrapping a towel around the farm collie as though taking a newborn from a bath. She kept the towel-tucking away from Maggie’s broken paw, and then dribbled water over Maggie’s mouth, hoping little sips would help.
Tears tumbled onto the fur of Maggie’s throat, and Kippy realized they were coming from her.
She moved Maggie as gently as possible near Mace—hoping that would provide her comfort and security, some kind of solace. Then she attended Delta—wrapping her in a towel, dribbling water onto her lips, using the rest of the bottle to rinse the blood away from Delta’s face, away from her eyes—and also carried her near Mace.
Kippy then drenched the single washcloth she’d pilfered and wiped softly at the blood and dirt on Mace’s face. His eyes fluttered, and then closed.
“Stay with them, Vira,” she said, standing. “Stay with them.”
Kippy cut into the woods, sprinting full bore, angling upward, heading toward the gravel road, toward where she’d abandoned the dog mobile. It was imperative she get Mace to whatever passed for a hospital or ER in Lake Mills as soon as possible. She’d feed whoever was on duty a line of shit—John Doe had been involved in a car accident or bad fall, a plane crash or whatever—and once the doctors began treating Mace, she’d make a speedy departure, find the nearest veterinary clinic and feed them a line of BS as well. She’d make sure the sister collies were in good hands, shake a finger at the dog mobile, and give them Paul Lewis’s number.
Then she’d have to get serious about the flash drive—hit up the library again, see if they could rig her up with a PC that wasn’t read only. Or … wait a minute … Callum’s computer guy was locked in the Lincoln’s trunk—didn’t he have all sorts of gadgets she could utilize?
And speaking of Superintendent Callum, how the hell did his men find them so soon?
This was the second trap Kippy had walked them into in as many days. Wabs’s death would be an open wound—something that’d never heal—but if Mace died or wound up with some kind of brain damage, or if Maggie or Delta were so critically injured they had to be put down, Kippy wasn’t sure what she’d do.
She’d recently told Mace he had a screw loose, but Kippy hadn’t meant it in a bad way and, as a cop, she’d witnessed an entire spectrum of loose screws. Sure, Mace was about as goofy as that new puppy of his, but he made her laugh—often out loud—and often when there really wasn’t that much to laugh about. And the way he loved his dogs, his kids as he called them … Mace was a good guy.
And Mace had more courage in his little finger than the over-testosteroned lunkheads she’d been wasting her time with.
Kippy wished she could return to the moment Mace had kissed her in that over-scrubbed kitchen of his … she might have handled it differently.
And based upon the past couple of days, there were several things she’d handle differently.
Kippy swung open the dog mobile’s door, hopped inside, twisted the key in the ignition, and headed back to get the gang.
CHAPTER 53
Evidently, I lost consciousness for several minutes.
Someone was licking at my hand, and then a soft nibbling began at the web between my thumb and forefinger. Vira gave a gentle bite, then a stronger one, trying to pull me back into the land of the living.
“I’m here, Vira,” I said, opening my eyes and pulling my hand away. She’d left a couple of slight puncture marks and a tiny smear of blood. “Hey, that’s not a very nice wake-up call.”
I’d read once that casualty dogs in World War I could distinguish between the dead and unconscious. If a soldier was dead, the dog would move on; if the soldier was injured, the dog would return to friendly lines for help; however, if the soldier was dying, the dog would remain with him to offer comfort as he passed away—accompanying him—so he wouldn’t feel left alone. There’s something terribly bittersweet and wonderful in all that, but, as I stretched out my limbs, I hoped Vira wasn’t operating in that mode.
I looked around. Man-mountain lay in the motionless heap where he’d collapsed. And my heart broke again when I saw that a bath towel Kippy must have pilfered from Feist’s cabin had been wrapped around Delta Dawn. Her fur was awash in crimson, her head lolled from side to side as she tried to peek my way.
There was a low whimpering on my other side. Maggie May was loosely wrapped in another bath towel. Her right front leg hung at an unnatural angle.
“Oh, Maggie,” I said, and put a palm on her back as gently as possible.
I sat upright. My face and neck were moist. Two empty water bottles lay near my feet, along with a damp washcloth that had likely been appropriated with Feist’s old towels. Obviously Kippy’s work, which begged the question—where the hell was Kippy? As if to answer my query, I heard the CACC truck before I spotted it backing down Feist’s driveway.
Kippy stepped from the driver’s seat. She looked ten exits past stressed out but tossed a crooked smile my way. “Nice of you to join us, Mace; you had me terrified,” she said. “Time to get the hell out of here.”
* * *
“I’ve got to get you to an ER.”
I shook my head. “I need to get my girls to a pet hospital.” I sat in the passenger seat, held Maggie in my lap, atop another of Feist’s cabin pillows, with Delta, still bundled in Feist’s beach towel, lying on my left side, and Vira in the back seat. I listened to Maggie yelp at every bump or pothole, but Delta’s continued silence scared me even more. And to make matters worse, Maggie had started to pant. Like humans, dogs can sink into shock after an injury, which causes an insufficient flow of blood to the body’s tissues, which can then cause significant damage to their organs … even death. I’d poured water in the cup of my hand, but Maggie had no interest. “That’s my number one concern.”
Kippy peeked my way. “You look like you fell off a cliff.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “Maggie and Delta are my number one concern.”
Kippy provided a one-minute update on the way to Man-mountain’s car; she told me about Feist’s flash drive, about Cappelli Jr. being left cuffed to a tree, and how there was a computer guru or someone locked inside the Lincoln Continental’s trunk.
Kippy had been a busy girl. Just like her to knock some pieces off the chessboard.
“Can you even drive?”
“I’ll find a way,” I said. “Your number one concern is to get those files to Agent Squires and get his ass out here before Callum sends more men.”
Kippy backed the dog mobile into a driveway three or four doors down from Feist’s cabin, past a Continental shrouded in the tree line, and halfway down the first bend where we could no longer be seen from the access road. Kippy clambered out with Vira and both jogged back up toward Man-mountain’s sedan. I eased out of the passenger seat as softly as possible, lay Maggie and pillow back down, and buckled her in as best I could for our ride to town.
Then I stumbled to the front of the truck, bent over, stuck a finger down my throat, and threw up more green bile. I was anything but thirsty so I dumped the rest of the water bottle over my head. I inhaled gasp after gasp of country air and eavesdropped as I heard Kippy order someone to shut the hell up.
A minute later Kippy jogged back down the driveway, Vira at her heels. “I found some Advil and a .38 in the Lincoln’s glove compartment.”
She dumped four pills into my palm and handed me another bottle of water. I downed the pills with a sip of the water. Then she stared at me, eyes brimming with apprehension.
“What?”
“A squad car drove past,” she said. “I heard the gravel and ducked behind a tire.”
“Just one car?”
“I guess if they knew anything, they’d be out here in force.”
“Some screaming,” I said. “A few shots.”
“Yeah. I assume someone called it in, but noise carries around here and, hopefully, no one has any idea where the shots came from.”
I took another mouthful of fresh a
ir. “It’s after school, so maybe kids are farting around with firecrackers or maybe some guy’s sighting a rifle.”
Kippy was a step ahead and said, “I’m going to jog over. If the squad car is at Feist’s, Vira and I will come for you at the vet.” She pointed up toward the Continental. “If we don’t show up at the vet, that means we’re still here.”
I watched Kippy and my golden disappear into the woods from a side mirror as I turned the CACC truck left onto the access road. I called information when I hit the highway into Lake Mills and kept repeating the number they’d provided as I poked it into the burner phone.
“We’re getting there,” I said to a soundless Delta and poor little Maggie May, whose panting was now coming at a faster clip. “It’s going to be okay, girls. I promise it’s going to be okay.”
The receptionist at the Lake Mills Pet Hospital answered and, after I informed her what was coming so she could prep the vets, I forced her to stay on the line so she could guide me in, providing directions like a human road map, right until I pulled up at their front entrance.
CHAPTER 54
Kippy cut through the wooded hill at nearly a full sprint, Vira by her side. Sixty yards out, she dropped to her knees. There was no squad car that she could spot from her vantage point, no startled officer radioing in news of his discovery. Kippy lifted the binoculars from the CACC truck up to her eyes and scanned about. There was no sign of activity, even if the squad car was blocked by Feist’s cabin. There were no cops circling the structure with guns drawn, and no interest coming from the lakeside.
The Keepers Page 21
