And I knew where this particular game was going.
I acted. The hero moved.
'Hey!' I said.
It startled even me. The inanity of it. The hoarse echoing
loudnessofit. Hey. Idiotic. But that was what came out. And choked
back everything else.
The dog turned.
That is, its head did.
A square black head on a neck as thick as the trunk of a birch tree.
I've seen other full-grown dogs that were not as big as that skull was.
I felt suddenly very frail.
It moved slowly around and stared at us with cloudy black eyes.
Cataracts, I thought. It's practically blind. An old dog, its black
coat flecked with white. And I remembered that among the predators
there was nothing more dangerous than the old or sick or blind, because
they would hunt anything, even man.
Its muzzle pulled back into a grin that growled like muted thunder. I
saw huge curved incisors longer and broader than my thumb, easily three
inches long. I saw rows of smaller sharp teeth between them for
gripping and pulling, and behind them the blunt wide molars. A grim,
discolored killing machine was what I was looking at. Long gray battle
scars across the muzzle.
I felt its half-blind stare work its way into me like a burrowing worm,
leaving me rubber legged, sweating.
He turned completely.
It was slow and graceful, belying his age. His torso unfolded like the
sluice of a great black whip. In full view he was enormous- easily
four and a half feet from the tip of the flat black nose to the base
of his tail. Standing on his hind legs he'd be seven feet tall, I
guessed. As big as a bear.
Of bastard parentage, I think now. Somethingof the Great Dane about
the head. Something of the wolf in the set of the shoulders.
The pitchfork and axe handle seemed like toys.
A pair of tin soldiers was what we were.
No axe handle was going to crack that skull. No ridiculous garden
implement was about to pierce that hide. My brain computed the heft
and sinew of both of us and compared it with an old sick dog's and we
came up looking like sparrows.
I could see the mad strangeness in those eyes.
He could crack us like eggs.
My fear of him was almost superstitious. My voice still echoed in the
room.
And I thought what if there are more of them? Beside me Steven went
rigid.
It stared at us. Head down, eyes rolled high and moving from one of us
to the other. Deciding. Black eyes deciding. A casual,
And I knew we were no surprise to him. Downwind or not, we'd been
expected. He was in no hurry. We were not a problem. It was a matter
of who to take down first. He could do it at his leisure.
The animal drooled.
Pleasure. Anticipation.
I'd seen enough dogs to know how it would happen. He'd drop the tense,
stiff-legged stance in favor of a very loose, very amiable-looking,
very doggy trot. The trot would turn quickly into a deadly lunge of
teeth and claws and muscle.
Nice dog. Watch the spume of blood. Good doggy.
The only way to go was to move before he did.
I used my smallest voice. 'I'm going to move on him,' I said.
It took Steven a while to respond. Then he told me okay and I knew he
was as ready as he was going to get.
I watched the slow drift of the animal's eyes from Steven back to me.
When they returned to Steve again, that would be the time.
I'd have to try for the heart. The eyes would ideally be better, or
the soft, sensitive nose, but both those targets were too small for me
at this distance and I knew how fast and well he'd move them.
I looked down at the massive bony chest and then back to the eyes. I
knew where the tines would have to go. I tensed to put them
The growl was loud as a buzz saw in that space. The teeth snapped.
Impatience. Display. And knowledge, too, of what we had in mind. I
know that now.
The eyes held on me. Through the cloudy white lenses I sensed a
recognition. Yes, it's me. We've met before. You know me.
Arrogantly, they shifted.
I rushed him, arms and legs moving like machines in fine order. No
missteps. No faltering. My arms drew back the pitchfork and plunged
forward with power and accuracy. I surprised myself. I was good. I
was very good.
And not nearly good enough.
I was prepared for bone and muscle. There was every bit of me behind
it, one hundred seventy pounds. He'd be hard to kill, so it had to be
that way there'd be no second try. So I gave it everything. And felt
a sickening scrape along his backbone and a tug of resistance at the
hip joint of the right hind leg, and then there was nothing but air.
I fell forward hard, the flashlight skittering out of my hand. I heard
it crack and saw it die against one of the vertical columns next to
Casey. I still had the pitchfork. I rolled as I fell and hit
shoulder-first and kept rolling, over on my back, and pulled the tines
up close, expecting to see it looming over me, knowing it would go for
the neck.
But it wasn't there.
His flashlight beam slid erratically over the ceiling. I looked up and
heard the heavy thunk of his axe handle and sighted him in time to
watch it bounce off the animal's skull as though it were lightweight
plastic.
