Instead, he rushed along the fence until he faced another backyard, climbing over, straining to see every portion of this yard in case there was a dog in here as well, but there was nothing, just a tiny plastic wading pool, and he ran past it, hurrying along the side until he reached the sidewalk in the front, and then he swung across the next yard toward the front door of the house in back of which the dog was baying even more grotesquely.
If he'd been the man he claimed to be, he would have known what next would happen, would have paid attention to the weed-choked lawn, the untrimmed bushes, would have understood the owner here. But he was taken up with urgency. He gripped the wobbly railing, charging up the stairs. On the porch, he pressed the doorbell, but the sound of a television blared out from the open windows so he couldn't hear the doorbell. He couldn't even hear the dog now, and he pressed the button once again, staring through the screen door past the open main door in there, toward the shadowy living room. He realized that the doorbell wasn't working. As a crowd cheered on the television, he banged at the screen door. He shouted, "Hey, is anybody home?", hammering so fiercely that the wood trembled and a shadow moved in there, pale against the murky sofa, a man coming to the door.
The man was husky, naked to the waist, a can of beer in one hand. He was surly, unshaven. "Yeah, what is it?"
"Look, your dog-"
"I know. The bastard won't stop barking.'
"It needs treatment."
"What?"
"You've got to get it to a vet," the medical examiner blurted.
"Up your ass. I told the neighbors I was working on it. Hell, I even got a special collar." "I don't-" "One with batteries. The kind that every time the dog barks sends a shock to stop it barking."
The medical examiner was speechless.
"Who the hell are you? I've never seen you anywhere," the man said.
"I'm…" The medical examiner explained who he was.
"You live around here?"
"No, I-"
"Then up your ass, I said. If this isn't where you live, why don't you mind your own damned business?"
There was no way that the medical examiner was going to make him understand. He gripped the door to pull it open, heading in.
"Hey, now wait a minute. What the hell do you think you're doing?" the man demanded, blocking him.
"I've got to use your phone."
"The beer store has one on the corner."
"There's no time."
The crowd cheered on the television. As the medical examiner squirmed to get past the man, he saw beyond the sofa where the television showed two boxers slugging at each other.
"Hey, buddy, I'm through being patient." The man shoved him hard.
"Rabies."
"Don't be nuts. The dog just had her shots."
"Christ, go back and look at her."
"The collar makes her act that way."
"I can't afford to take the chance."
The two men struggled toward the middle of the room.
"I have to phone a vet."
"If you're not out of here, you're going to have to phone an ambulance."
The medical examiner slipped past the man, dodging toward the phone that he had seen beside the sofa.
"Get out," the man ordered.
But the medical examiner was dialing.
"Okay, buddy, don't forget I warned you."
As a woman's voice came on the phone to tell him "Animal Associates," the medical examiner turned just in time to see the hand that held the beer can lunging toward him. He was vaguely conscious of the other hand that set him up and held him steady. But the blow that split his lips and shocked him backward he was never conscious of at all. He had a sense of someone moaning, and he wondered through the spinning darkness what that murky cheering was about.
FOUR
They ran with the bloodhounds up the steep slope through the trees. The dogs were silent, sniffing as they forged up higher, and the men who held their leashes were exhausted.
"This is crazy," one man said and pulled back on the leash to slow the dog. "If we keep on like this, we'll be useless in an hour."
He was gasping, taking in long breaths, exhaling like a bellows.
"Never mind an hour. Fifteen minutes is more like it," another man said and swallowed, breathing, reaching for a tree to get his balance. "I say take it slower."
They were five miles up from where they'd left the pickup truck. They hadn't organized the search until almost three o'clock. It took that long to get their knapsacks and their dogs. Then there had been instructions, and the dogs had needed time to find the scent. The search had really started at three-thirty. Running with the weight of knapsacks, rifles, walkie-talkies, and ammunition, they had labored through the forest, climbing bluffs and crossing ridges, stumbling down and up through gorges, and a tangle of dead timber had been just about enough to finish them. They had to carry each dog through the tangle, but the dogs had not refound the scent across there, and the men had struggled with the squirming dogs to carry them back to the first edge of the tangle. Bodine must have tried to cross, then given up. But they themselves had managed to get through here. Why not Bodine? "Never mind," one of the state policemen said. "Let's just keep moving."
So they had worked higher, and although they'd only gone five miles, they'd needed several hours.
"Christ, six-thirty."
"Hey, it must be time to eat."
"Another mile yet. If this guy's in trouble, one more mile could be enough to help him."
Which was understandable, so looking at the shadows stretching darker through the forest, they moved farther, higher, through the mountains. Slower, though. They couldn't run up ridges as if they were sprinting around the local baseball field. They knew their breathing should be constant, their heartbeats steady. Keep things smooth and even. They had hurried at the start, but that had been because they were impatient. Now that this had become routine, now that it was boring, they were moving much less frantically. Something broke a branch up to their right, and they were staring, but the deer that showed itself and ran away only made them laugh.
"I don't see why that guy went up here anyhow. If it was me, if I was chasing some wild dogs, I wouldn't try it on my own."
They heard the helicopter roaring closer. It had been a muffled droning far off to their right, but now it skimmed across the trees above them, and they saw the insignia of the U.S. Lands and Forest bureau.
"Air search to police," a man's voice crackled from the walkie-talkie.
They halted on an open bluff and squinted toward a line of trees that obscured the helicopter. They had little trouble hearing it, however.
Once again the static from the walkie-talkie. "Air search to police."
The man in charge, a sergeant, gave his dog's leash to a trooper beside him. He fumbled with the straps that looped his walkie-talkie across his shoulder. Then he pressed a button and put the walkie-talkie to his ear as he leaned back against a boulder. "Roger, air search. We can hear you. What's the problem? Over."
"Is that you on the bluff I just passed?"
"Roger. Affirmative. Ten-four. Over," the sergeant answered.
The man beside him winced. He was well aware that there were special words you had to use with walkie-talkies. "Affirmative" was better than "yes," which sounded like a hiss. But he'd seen some men pick up a walkie-talkie, and they suddenly were like some god-damned hotshot actor in a police movie. "Roger. Ten-four." A smug look in their eyes like they were getting screwed while they were talking. Jesus.
A crackle from the walkie-talkie. "I just wanted to be certain. I'm done for today. The ground's too dark to see much."
Except us, the second man thought. Sure, you saw the bunch of us, all right. You're just eager to get back to town and celebrate Saturday night in a bar.
"Roger," the sergeant responded.
Christ, the second man thought.
The sergeant continued, "Anything that looked suspicious? Over."
"I checked all along the slope to the north of you. I checked the lakes up that way. Nothing. Some nice elk at Wind-shift Basin."
"Well, we'll keep moving with the dogs then. There's a lake another mile above us, and we'll camp there. Over."
"Just make sure you cuddle close, boys. It gets awful lonely on your own in the woods."
"We've got the dogs to keep us company. Over."
"Yeah, but you should see what I'll have. Nighty-night, boys."
"Roger. Ten-four. Out." The sergeant brought the walkie-talkie down.
"Aw, go screw yourself," the second man grumbled. He wasn't certain if he meant the man up in the helicopter or the sergeant, but the sergeant grinned at him, and so the second man decided, raising up his hand to make an obscene gesture toward the far-off roaring of the helicopter. Soon the noise dimmed, becoming fainter, at last inaudible, and the men now looked at one another. Throughout the afternoon, they'd heard the chopper roaring near them in the mountains. They had gradually become accustomed to it, at last so familiar with it that they hadn't been aware that they were hearing it. They heard it now, though, or rather heard its absence, and they missed it, somehow incomplete without its reassuring presence. "Let's get moving," the sergeant said. He reached for the leash he'd handed over, and they let the dogs go on, straining to keep up with them.
"What a way to spend a weekend," someone said.
"Saturday, and hell, we won't be back at least till Sunday evening."
"Well, if you boys worked as good as you complained," the sergeant told them, "we'd have found this Bodine long ago."
The dogs began to slacken and then cower.
FIVE
It was crouched behind the deer cage, watching as the black and white police car reached the end of the lane, stopped a moment, and then drove toward the swimming pool. The thought of water made it gag again, and when it crawled out from its cover to be certain that the car continued moving, it saw people diving from the high board, splashing into the water, and it had to turn away to keep from retching. There were people over by the swings and slides, children and a mother. They were laughing. A man and a woman strolled toward the deer cage. In the cage, the deer had long since shifted toward the side away from it. They stared at it, their withers rippling nervously, and it was bothered by them just as much as by the people coming near. It only wanted to be on its own, to hole up somewhere safe, to stop the spasms racking through it. Finally the man and woman reached the deer cage, and it scurried through the bushes up the slope. It dimly recollected that a walkway angled across the slope above there, and it reached the walkway, wooden steps that cut up high across the slope, and it was running up them. In the sunlight, it pawed at its eyes and squinted. Once it stumbled, falling, and it scrambled up on all fours, rasping, whining. Then it reached the top, and it could see the mansion over there. Once its mother had taken it here to visit the place, a big, tall, old-time house with many rooms and stairways, and it still retained the image of those dark corners, all those sheltered crannies it could hide in. Squinting far around, glancing toward the park down there, the people, it shivered and turned toward the mansion again. It saw the trees around the place, the bushes, and the gravel driveway that led up to the front steps, and it saw the car parked in the front, and it was ducking toward the bushes, moving closer. All those shadowy rooms. The front door suddenly came open, and it paused among the bushes. Now a man came out, and he was talking to a woman. They had boxes in their hands.
"The afternoon's been slow. I don't think anyone will come up now."
"Well, I've got guests. I can't stay any longer."
They closed the door. The man reached to put a key inside the lock.
"No, I didn't tell you," the woman said. "Eva phoned to tell me she couldn't find her key."
"Well, she can get mine from me in the morning."
"No, she wants to do her work before tonight. She has to go away tomorrow."
"I can't leave the place unlocked," the man said.
"Only for ten minutes. I expected her before this."
"If vandals get here sooner, you know how the owners will react."
"From what I hear, they still have plans to sell the place. It doesn't make a difference."
"Just remember. It was your idea."
"Such a gentleman."
They started down the stairs.
It crouched behind the bushes, watching as they put the boxes in the car.
"I'll drive you home," the woman said.
"No, that's all right. I need the walk. So when's your next shift?"
"Not for two weeks. Sunday afternoon."
"They've got me chairing meetings."
"Well, I'll see you later."
Nodding, the man walked down the gravel driveway, and the woman got in her car, driving past the man. She blared her horn. The man waved, and soon both the man and car were out of sight.
It waited just a while. Then it crept out from the bushes, running toward the porch. It huddled by the steps and looked around, then scampered up the steps and turned the knob, and it was in there.
Very quiet. Everything smelled musty. It remembered the large big hallway, bigger than the living room at home, and there were tables, stacks of papers to one side, and a box where people put their money in.
Its mother had, at any rate, She had explained about historical societies and how an old house like this had to be preserved for people to appreciate the way things used to be. It hadn't understood the words exactly, but it sort of had the sense that this old place was special, and it hadn't liked the musty smell back then, but now it did.
The hall was shadowy, rooms on both sides, old-time furniture in there, guns up on the wall and maps and faded oval photographs. It listened, but there wasn't any movement in the house, and it crept forward. Now it faced a big room with the longest table it had ever seen, big-backed chairs along it, plates and glasses set out, knives and forks and more spoons than it understood, as if a party soon would be here, people eating. There were ghosts here, it was sure, but oddly, that was comforting. The staircase wound up toward the second floor, a caged-in elevator to the side. Its mother had explained about the elevator, how the platform rose without an engine. You simply had to pull down on the rope that dangled in there, and a pulley then would turn to raise you. But the cage had boards across the front, and anyway it never would have stepped inside there. All those bars. The place was too much like a trap.
It walked a little farther, pausing as the floor creaked. No, it had made that noise itself. There wasn't anybody in here, and it wondered where to go. Up the stairs or to the cellar. No, the cellar would be a trap as well, and boards creaking, it was inching up the stairs.
But it stopped as the front door opened. It turned, the daylight out there strong, painful, staring at the man who stood within the open doorway. This man had just left. He'd walked until he'd disappeared along the gravel driveway. That was why there hadn't been a warning, why there hadn't been a car sound to alarm it, and it hissed now as the man came forward.
"Yeah, that's just what I expected. Leave the door unlocked, she says. God damn it, kid, get out of here."
It hissed again.
"What's your name? I'm mad enough to call the cops."
It growled then, and the man hesitated, frowning.
"None of that damned stuff. You get your ass on down here."
One more step. The man was at the bottom of the stairs. He reached, and it was leaping, body arcing down the stairs to jolt the man and send him sprawling.
"Hey, God damn it." But the man apparently expected that it next would try to scramble past him toward the open door. The man lunged to the side to block it, his neck uncovered, and it dove in straight below the chin.
"Jesus."
They struggled. It could feel the blood spurt into its mouth. It gagged again. The taste was not unpleasant, even in a way compelling, although the choking was an agony. It chewed and swallowed, gagging.
&
nbsp; Abruptly it couldn't breathe.
The man was squeezing at its throat. It felt the pressure in its chest. It squirmed. It twisted.
"God-damned kid."
Then teeth free, it was snarling at the hands around its throat. It tried to bite the hands but only nipped the acrid, cigarette-vile, suit-coat sleeves, and suddenly one leg was underneath it, pushing, as it flew high to one side, its body slamming on the wooden floor and rolling hard against a table.
Even so, its instinct was automatic. Turning, it scrambled on all fours and braced to spring again. The man rolled, coming to his feet. They stared at one another.
Then the man looked at the blood across his clothes. He touched his neck. "My God!" He understood now, his hands up, stumbling backward.
It leaped, but not strongly enough to drop the man, just knock him farther backward. "Oh, my God!" the man kept saying. And the open door was suddenly behind the man. The man was out there, kicking as it leapt again. Its shoulder took the kick. The jolt spread through its body. Falling, it landed on that shoulder. It crawled back and snarled.
Snarled not just toward the man but toward the carsound coming up the lane now. It could see beyond the man toward where the car was coming into view. A different car. A different woman driving. It was staring, crawling farther toward the stairs. Its shoulder wasn't working. It snarled and stumbled up the stairs. Then as it heard the car door out there squeak open, as the man glanced quickly out there, it mustered the little strength it retained and scuttled farther up the stairs. The stairs kept winding. It reached the second floor, and out of sight from down there, it huddled, tensing.
"Mr. Cody!" It heard the woman's voice outside, the rushing footsteps on the porch. "Good Lord! Your throat! The… Mr. Cody!"
It heard the heavy body slump to the floor.
"Never mind me. Get in there and use the phone," the man rasped. "Call the cops, an ambulance. Watch for some kid, something, on the stairs."
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