With a last look across the field, Kelly shakes his head. Far to my right, the headlights turn away, and I see taillights that remind me of those I saw on Cemetery Road the night Tim died.
?All this work,? I mutter, ?and it?s come to nothing.?
?Maybe not nothing. We?ll see what Danny turns up.?
?Should we just call the Highway Patrol and have them stopped on some pretext??
?No, they'?re clean now, away from the scene. Honestly, I'?ll be surprised if the plates on those SUVs are traceable. But we?ll find out who owns this land and see if we can learn something that way.?
As Kelly turns away from the field, a pale shadow flashes across my sight from right to left. I fall backward as Kelly goes down with a thud. Scrambling to my feet, I see a huge white dog mauling his left arm, trying to reach his throat. I yank out my Star Trek and yell, ?Danny! Carl! We need help!?
Kelly?s gun is still in his gear bag, and the bag is behind him. As I crab-walk toward it, my eyes on the attacking dog?a Bully Kutta, I see now?the dog whips its head from side to side, trying to rip off Kelly?s blocking arm. Kelly?s struggling to get his right hand under the dog?s belly. Yanking the gear bag clear of the fight, I struggle with
the zipper, but before I get it open, the Bully Kutta arches its back, its four paws galloping in midair as it tries to wrench away from Kelly, who is jerking a knife from the dog?s scrotum to its rib cage. When I see a loop of intestine spill out in silence, I know that this dog too has had its vocal cords removed. As the animal rolls on the ground in its death throes, Kelly cinches his belt around his left biceps as a tourniquet.
?Are you okay?? I ask. ?I couldn'?t get the bag open!?
?It?s okay. Find me a rock.?
?A rock??
?A rock! Half an inch thick?flat, if possible.?
Three feet away I find a flat pebble smoothed round by the river. Kelly takes it and wedges it under his tourniquet, against the artery, I guess. Both sides of his forearm show puncture wounds, and the flesh is ripped near his inner elbow.
?This isn?t good,? he says, staring at the wounds. ?I don'?t even know??
A sound like running hoofbeats makes us whirl. This time the flying shadow is black, not white. Before I can even backpedal, I hear a bullwhip crack, and the wolf-size dog slides harmlessly to my feet, a quivering pile of muscle and bone. I leap backward, but Kelly just shakes his head and holds up his wired earpiece.
?That dog knocked it out of my ear,? he says.
?What just happened?? I ask, trying to get my breath. ?Did you shoot that dog??
?Hell no.? Kelly pulls his pistol from the gear bag and shows it to me. ?Carl shot it from the chopper.?
Kelly inserts his earpiece and says, ?Thanks, buddy. You cut that kind of close.?
?You?re lucky I even saw the damn thing,? Carl replies. ?I missed with my first shot. That was the second.?
McDavitt?s voice cuts through the chatter. ?What?s the situation down there, Delta? You want me to follow the vehicles or do you need a hospital? My partner says it looks like a dog got to one of you.?
?We?re fine,? Kelly lies. ?We need to ID those vehicles.?
?I already got a license plate.?
?I want to know where they'?re headed.?
?Okay.?
?Are there any more of these monster dogs out there? That old Ranger sure was right. I didn't hear a damned thing till it hit me.?
?The two dogs by the building are still there. I don'?t know where those came from.?
Kelly chuckles darkly. ?I think they'?re the ?deer? you thought you saw bedded down. They?re big, man.?
Kelly looks sharply at me as the new voice breaks into the conversation, but I recognize the tone immediately. It?s my father.
?I'm here,? I tell him. ?What?s the matter??
?Jenny was just run off the road in Bath. Her car flipped.?
I swallow hard as an image of my sister lying dead beside an English motorway flashes through my mind. ?Is she alive??
?Yes. She called me from the hospital, and I spoke to her doctor. She?s in mild shock, but she could easily have been killed.?
?When did it happen??
?About an hour ago. She?d dropped the kids with a friend and was on her way to the university.?
A wave of heat rushes over my face as guilt suffuses me. ?Where are you??
?On my way to the safe house.? Kelly insisted that we have an empty house within ten miles of the operation to review any evidence we collected without having to go to a place Sands could know about. ?Caitlin?s with me,? adds my father.
?Doc?? Kelly cuts in. ?I know you?re upset, but go easy on the names, okay??
?Fuck that,? says my father. ?I?'ve had it with these sons of bitches.?
?How soon will you reach the house?? Kelly asks, his eyes moving right and left like those of a man thinking fast.
?Twenty minutes. And I want you there. I want everybody there.?
Kelly looks down at the corpse of the white dog. His left hand is balled into a fist, probably against pain, but I sense that he?s weighing the possibility of progress against the immediate crises. His entire posture communicates frustration; he looks as though he?s about to kick the dead dog.
?Pave Low?? he says into the Star Trek.
?Here.?
?Come get us.?
?Ten-four. You want me to set down right where you are??
?No. We can?t be sure that building?s empty. We?ll find a sandbar downstream. A mile, maybe.?
?I'?ll be flying right over the water, coming upstream. Out.?
I key my Star Trek again. ?Dad, we?re on the way.?
?I heard. Don?t waste any time.?
As I shove the walkie-talkie into my pocket, the sound of my father angrily carving a Sunday roast makes me turn. But it?s a trick of the mind. Kelly has the Bully Kutta?s head wedged between his knees, and he?s sawing through the lower part of its neck like a man being paid for piecework, not by the hour.
?What are you
??
?Rabies,? he grunts without looking up. The spinal column slows him down for a few seconds, but Kelly?s obviously field-dressed a lot of game in his time. ?I don'?t know if this fucker?s had his shots or not. You gotta get the brainstem and everything for that test.? When the head tears free, Kelly lifts it by its wrinkled face and stuffs it into his gear bag. Then he straps on his pack, heaves the dog?s carcass over his right shoulder, and stands with a groan. ?What are you waiting for? Pick up the other one.?
?Where are we going??
?To throw them in the river.?
With a strange buzzing in my head, I kneel beside the black dog, lever my right arm under it, then wrestle it over my shoulder in an awkward fireman?s carry. The damn thing must weigh a hundred pounds, and it stinks. I'm winded before I cover twenty yards, but Kelly?s already far ahead.
This is one time I should have let him do the job alone.
When I reach the river?s edge, the white carcass is already spinning slowly downstream under the stars, and Kelly is stuffing the dog?s head into the rear cargo hold of his kayak. With the last of my strength, I stagger downstream from the boats and heave my burden into the current. The Bully Kutta disappears with a splash, then bobs to the surface.
?They actually went after my sister,? I say with breathless disbelief. ?I haven'?t heard my dad sound that upset
