ONE
THE WOLF MOVED through the trees, nose to the ground. Down from the mountain and out of the primordial darkness of the forest, towards the lights of the city. It skulked through a hole in a fence, its heavy pads on the worn pavement. Past a leaning stack of pallets and into a lot that stank of gasoline and men. Jaundiced light beamed from the poles haloed in the light drizzle. The rain dampened the stink of the ground and turned it sour.
It kept to the shadows, winding through the yard to avoid the lights. It wasn‘t far now, the smell it was after. Prey. It caught the scent from a mile away and tracked it from the slope of the dead volcano down into the city.
It was close, the thing it tracked.
The dogs came after, a clumsy pack of pokey ribs and ravaged hide following the lead animal. A Rottweiler and three pit bulls, a Doberman and a sleek Siberian Husky. Others of no discernible breed and still more of such bastard mix they were barely dogs at all. Heads low and single file, the dogs followed the lobo‘s path step by step. The pack snorted and snuffed, sometimes snapping at one another but none barked, none made any unnecessary noise. When the hunt was on, they stifled the raw instinct to bark and ran silent. The lead animal taught them this and they had learned it the hard way. The pack was down in numbers because two ill-mixed breeds couldn‘t help themselves and barked on a hunt. The wolf killed them both, snapping their necks in its enormous maw. The troop was learning. Dogs barked, wolves did not.
They were hungry but the wolf had taught them how to hunt as a pack. First the small woodland animals darting across the forest floor and then bigger prey. At night, always at night. But this night was different and all to an animal knew it. The wolf hunted even bigger prey bigger this night. Something slow and stupid and easy to kill.
TWO BOYS AND A GUN. How many terrible nights have started this way? The gun was an old bolt action rifle. A 303 Enfield with a walnut stock and a battered scope. Lifted quietly from its dusty rack in Owen‘s grandfather‘s house in. Owen held the gun now, sliding the bolt forward to reveal the loading gate, showing it to the other boy.
“Just lemme shoot the fucking thing.” Justin was fifteen and impatient about all things. He drained his beer, also stolen from Owen‘s grandfather, and crushed the can.
Owen looked at him with contempt. “You gotta learn how to load it first, dumbass. Maybe you ain‘t big enough to wear the big boy pants.”
“Hurry the fuck up. Before those things run off.”
They were hunkered down under the steel bridge that spanned the Willamette, the dark riverwater moving slowly below them. Empty cans of Pabst scattered around, two fresh ones sweating cold in the plastic bag. The air was warm, pushing the stink of the river up the banks.
Owen had seen that old Enfield in his granddad‘s cellar since he was seven years old. Once, when he was ten, he pushed a chair up to the wall and climbed up just to touch it. The black metal was cold to his fingers but the wood felt warm. His grandfather had caught him just as he was trying to lift it from its cradle and Owen had gotten a sharp crack over the ear for it. After that the old man kept the basement locked but Owen never forgot about the gun. Now that his grandfather rarely left his bedroom, Owen took it whenever he wanted. Justin wanted to shoot it so they got the beer and the gun and headed down to the river. There were raccoons and cats down there among the broken bikes and appliances dumped from the roadside and the boys had taken to shooting at them late at night. But tonight was different, tonight they got lucky. There were dogs.
God knows where they came from. Six, maybe seven. Hard to tell at this distance. Big and mangy looking. Strays for sure. They swarmed over something down in the weeds, scrapping over it. Teeth snapping and jaws popping. Feeding time.
Justin tossed his can away. “Lemme shoot already.”
Owen sighed and handed him the rifle. “Here”.
Justin rolled onto his belly in the dirt, aimed and fired. It was that quick. He jumped back at the recoil and whined. Owen watched the dogs bolt away then circle back. They sniffed the air then tore back into the thing in the weeds.
“Fuck are they eating down there?” Justin looked through the scope, watching them feed.
“You missed.”
“You‘re fat.”
Owen took the rifle back and now he lay on his gut in the dirt. He put his cheek to the stock and squinted down the scope. He recalled everything he knew about firing a rifle, all of it schooled from a Punisher comic book. Draw your aim, hold your breath and squeeze the trigger slowly. Bang.
He jolted from the kick but quickly re-aligned the gun and looked down the scope. One of the dogs was flopping in the weeds, twitching in a spastic fit. “Shit,” he said. “Did I hit it?”
The dog was still by the time they walked down there. It wasn‘t dead, just lying on its side, tongue flat on the ground and peppered with dirt. It panted, the ribcage undulating up and down. The boys stood over it, watching it die. Neither one horrified or repulsed. Justin spat on it.
“Lucky shot, is all.”
Owen smirked, watching the dog‘s legs kick. Justin moved on, trampling down the weeds. Looking to see what the dogs were scrapping over.
“Fuck me.”
Justin lurched away and puked. Owen stepped up and saw what was there. Limbs. Legs and feet. An arm. The core of the body had been chewed up and eaten. There wasn‘t even a face. All of it pulled apart like jerky by the hungry dogs. Owen backed away from it and looked around. The dogs were long gone.
TWO
JOHN GALLAGHER SMILED as he pushed the shitbag up against the chain link. The guy looked antsy and sweaty in his green parka, and that made Gallagher happy. Few things were as satisfying as watching the eyes of some screwhead when he realizes his world has turned instantly to shit.
Gallagher had been with the Portland Police Bureau for sixteen years, the last eight as a detective with Homicide Detail. And nothing topped working homicide. Ninety percent of the job was braindead boring but the other tiny percentage of piecing together murders and tracking down perps was unlike anything else. The methods one chose to pursue the job were key and John Gallagher led more with his guts than his head and that had consequences. His internal file was stuffed fat with reprimands, warnings and final warnings about his aggressive methods but all of that was balanced against a clean closure rate. The complaints and threatened lawsuits from banged-up suspects were silenced by a clean evidence trail that pinned the son of a bitch to the wall. Just like this shitbag in the parka.
“Hey man, we just wanna talk”, Detective Roberts said, holding up his palms. Roberts was older than Gallagher, clocking down this side of fifty. Cautious and methodical. He hated working with Gallagher and the feeling was mutual. Fourteen hours earlier, they had been at the hospital, looking down at a woman who had died shortly after arrival. She had been beaten and tossed down a flight of stairs in some godawful tenement in No Po. They went to work looking for the woman‘s boyfriend and voila. Now the part Roberts hated, playing peacemaker off Gallagher‘s wolverine schtick.
“Wasn‘t me.” The man in the parka clucked his teeth with impatience. “Go piss on somebody else‘s life.”
“We will, chief”. Gallagher pushed him one more time. “Soon as we‘re done pissing all over yours”.
“Fuck you.”
Parka Man walked away. He bumped Gallagher‘s shoulder on the way and that was all it took. Gallagher smiled. Oh Christ, thought Roberts.
