“ Do you know how to shoot?” he asked her as soon as they turned onto the winding road out of town.
“ Yes.”
“ Can you handle a forty-five automatic?”
“ Point and pull the trigger,” she said. “What’s to handle?”
“ Can you hit anything?”
“ I was raised in Kenya.” That got a quick glance from him.
“ Like your Grandmother?”
“ Yeah.”
He grabbed another look at her and smiled. The moonlight was shining through her golden hair, shimmering off her breasts. She was naked and his quick look told her she was attractive.
He hit a straight part of the road and accelerated, holding onto the wheel with his left hand, favoring his right. It must hurt an awful lot, she thought. She winced when she saw that his chest was bleeding through the torn shirt, where the wolf had raked him with its claws, and she winced again, noticing that he had torn open the scabs on his face.
“ It’s in the glove compartment,” he said.
She opened it and took out the holstered weapon. The weight of it felt good in her hand. It offered a kind of safety. She held it against her breasts, like a child holding on to a blanket its mother wants to take away.
“ Is it loaded?” How could she be so stupid, she thought, of course it was loaded.
“ Eight in the clip, one in the chamber, safety’s off.”
“ Dangerous,” she said.
“ Not for me.”
She unholstered the weapon. For a second, she thought about pointing it at him and ordering him to pull over. But she figured he wouldn’t do it. He’d keep going to wherever it was he was headed, come hell or high water. So she inspected the gun and asked, “What do you want me to do with it?”
“ Be ready.”
“ For the wolf?”
“ For the wolf.”
He slowed for a curve, downshifting into third, gritting his teeth as his burnt palm gripped the shift knob. She could only imagine what it must feel like.
“ You should have that looked at as soon as possible.”
“ If I’m alive tomorrow, I’ll do that,” he said.
Paranoid again, she thought, looking over at him as he slowed for still another turn.
Then he hit the brakes, screeching to a stop.
She looked forward and gasped.
It snorted at them. Then it rose up onto great hind legs and roared into the night. The thick matted fur glowed rich brown and the mammoth paws carried five inch claws. Steam rose from its mouth into the cold night and its great head shook as saliva drooled from its cave of a mouth, the giant teeth, razor sharp stalagmites and stalactites of death. It looked like it weighed a thousand pounds, and it took up the whole road. There was no way around the giant bear.
Its eyes glowed red. It was no ordinary bear.
“ Back, we have to go back,” she said. The bear was twenty-five or thirty yards ahead of them. Waiting.
“ Aim for the head.” He gunned the motor. She whipped off her seatbelt and kneeled on the front seat, breasts hanging over the front window, elbows pressed against it for support, both arms forward, right hand wrapped around the gun, the left holding the right for support.
“ Now!” He popping the clutch. The wheels screeched again as they lay rubber on the road and the car shot forward like a missile of fiberglass death as she started pulling the trigger. The monster head of the bear was too large to miss, even with a forty-five from a moving vehicle.
Her bullets found home and the bear did a jerking dance with each slug that tore into its huge head. The titanic beast stumbled backwards as the screaming car bore down on it. Sarah was pulling the trigger as fast as possible. The last slug caused the monster bear to jerk to the left, leaving barely enough room for the Corvette to slip by.
“ Hold on,” he yelled, but she had nothing to hold on to. The left side of the car struck the beast a sharp blow, with John Coffee manhandling it between the tree lined road and the huge bear. She felt pine needles lash her right shoulder and breast and tasted the foul breath of the giant grizzly as they plowed into it.
And she ducked as one of those huge paws came at her head.
Chapter Fourteen
Arty was dripping with sweat as he hustled down the sidewalk. The night was quiet. There was a light breeze on his face as he walked into it. His hands were in his pockets against the cold. His heart was hammering.
The man would have caught him in the tent, if Brad hadn’t thrown that rock. What would he have done? Would he have shot the man with his own gun? Would he have cowered and begged to be let go? Or would he have explained what he was doing there, and hope the man understood? And who was the man, and why did he have that gun?
He picked up his pace as his mind wandered through the labyrinth of possibilities, and he slipped on the damp sidewalk as he turned the corner onto Lynda’s street, barely getting his hands out of his pockets in time to break his fall. He grimaced as he skinned the heel of his left palm against the sidewalk.
He heard it before he saw it. The deep throated bark of a big dog. He picked his head up and clambered onto his hands and knees, shooting his eyes around the neighborhood. The wolf, he thought, fighting panic. He had to get up. He had to run. He tried to scream, but couldn’t get sound past his lips.
Another bark-to his right, he looked over and saw it as it as it charged across the street. There was no mistaking that happy-to-see-you, dog grin on Binky Bingham’s Doberman Pincer. Arty dropped flat on the sidewalk, his hands covering his head as the animal pounced on him.
“ Get off, Condor,” but the dog ignored him as it licked the backs of his hands with its long, sloppy tongue. “Come on, let me up.” The dog had him down and was clearly enjoying himself.
“ Condor,” Arty said, with a snap in his voice. The dog recognized the change of tone. Arty didn’t want to play. It was hard for him to understand, because his friend was on the ground, like he always was when they played, but he wasn’t laughing and giggling as usual, so the dog stopped the licking, stepped off his friend and sat on his haunches.
“ That’s better.” Arty pushed himself up. “Now come on.” He started back down the sidewalk, but the dog whined and he stopped. “Oh, all right.” Arty reached under the chest of the massive dog and scratched his belly, smiling as Condor wagged his stub of a tail in joy. “Okay, that’s all till tomorrow. Now we gotta go,” he said, after a few scratches. He turned away and started down the block, with the big dog at his heels.
“ Come on, Condor.” Arty climbed the front porch. He went to the door, but the dog hung back. “Come on,” Arty insisted. The dog slunk up the steps after him and lay at his feet, crossing his front legs and resting his head on them. Arty looked down at him, shook his head, and said, “That bad?”
The dog didn’t answer and Arty rang the bell.
“ Coming,” Arty heard Mrs. Bingham’s happy, high voice as it rang through the closed door. Arty stood at a sort of parade rest, stiff legged, feet apart, hands clasped behind his back. He blinked as the porch light came on.
“ Oh, Arty,” Mrs. Bingham said, throwing open the front door, “I’m so sorry about your father.”
“ It’s okay,” Arty said.
“ How’s your mother?
“ She’s okay.”
“ It’s so sad,” she said.
“ Not really,” Arty said, surprising both himself and Mrs. Bingham. “He was a bad man and I think the world is
