The Fear In Yesterday's rings

out as it bounded after its elusive prey. As I ran, arms and legs pumping, I could hear it behind me. Then it screamed, the sound piercing in the closed confines of the silo, and I knew it was about to spring.

I reached the doorway and dove through it not a moment too soon. The lobox's killing scream was in my ears, and its saliva spotted the back of my neck as I left my feet. However, Garth and Harper's timing was perfect, and the animal's scream changed to a roar of surprise as the old, rotting net we had patched together out of rope and burlap bags dropped down from the top of the doorway and caught it.

I hit the ground on my right shoulder, rolled, and came up on my feet. I whirled around in time to see the lobox, its muscular body churning in a paroxysm of blind fury, tearing at the improvised net with its fangs and claws. But it was too late, as Garth closed the door firmly on the animal's neck, then leaned against it with all his weight. Harper hurried around to Garth's side and placed a measured length of two-by-four between the floor and the doorknob, wedging the door shut.

'He's all yours, Mongo,' Garth said tersely as he stepped back from the door. The front of his shirt was covered with foam. 'Show the furry fucker who's boss.'

I paused to give Harper, who was white-faced and trembling, a quick hug, then stepped forward until I was only inches from the writhing lobox's fangs. I stared hard into the golden eyes, which were clouded now with shock and fear, as well as fury. I whacked it hard on the side of the skull with one stick, then followed that up with another hard whack on the opposite side. It yelped in pain, then began to thrash with renewed enthusiasm. The door and wedge both began to show signs of giving, and Garth leaned hard against the wood. I hit the animal a third time, on top of the skull; as it cringed and closed its eyes, I shoved a stick between its jaws to wedge them open, used both hands on the stick to shove its head back, then quickly leaned forward and bit hard into the fleshy center of its hot, foam-coated nose, drawing blood. Then I pulled the stick from between its jaws, stepped back, and waited.

The lobox, blood running from the wound in its nose where I had bitten it, stared at me, pain and fear swimming in its eyes, which had suddenly grown bloodshot. I decided that I'd certainly succeeded in getting its attention. Froth coated its fangs and flecked its lips, and its struggles were growing weaker as it became exhausted. I cracked the sticks together, and it cringed. It was the effect I wanted. Luther had his revolver, but- short of actually killing the animal-there was nothing he could do with it except cock the hammer. The weapon I used to produce sharp sounds could also inflict pain, which I had demonstrated to the creature. That circuit, I thought, might well be overridden.

It was time for the next step.

'Harper, love, turn around, will you?'

'Why, Robby?' Harper asked, puzzled.

'Modesty precludes me from allowing you to watch the next phase of my animal-training act.'

'What are you going to do, Robby?'

'Oh, that,' Garth said, and stepped in front of Harper.

I unzipped my fly, loosed a stream of urine over the beast's face and head. The lobox closed its eyes, tried unsuccessfully to turn its head away. When I had emptied my bladder, I zipped up my fly, brought the nunchaku sticks very close to the animal's eyes, and banged them together. Again, the animal cringed. A low whine escaped from its throat.

'All right,' I said to Garth over my shoulder, 'let it go.'

Garth didn't move. He glanced at Harper, who seemed just as puzzled as he was, then back at me. 'Say what?'

'Let it go.'

'That doesn't make any sense at all, brother,' Garth said quietly.

'Who's in charge of the animal training around here?'

'You are-but it looks to me like you've accomplished what you set out to do. You've got the damn thing under control.'

'No. I've got it trapped, helpless, hurt, humiliated, and temporarily cowed. There's a difference. It isn't enough.'

'It looks good enough to me. Why let it go when we had to go to so much trouble to trap it? How the hell do you know what it's going to do?'

'I don't know what it's going to do; I do know that it's going to do us no good the way it is. We have to find a way of getting it out of here. That cheesecloth net certainly won't hold it. Even if we could manage to hogtie it, we wouldn't be able to keep it up on Mabel's back. We have to take the next step.'

Garth shook his head. 'It's too risky, brother. Kill it. A dead lobox is just as useful to us as a live one, and a lot safer.' He turned to the woman. 'Harper, find me a rock or a wrench or something, will you? I'm going to beat its brains out.'

'I don't want to kill it,' I replied as I abruptly kicked the wedge out from under the doorknob.

The lobox seemed momentarily confused by the sudden easing of the pressure on its neck. I nudged the door open even further, then knocked the sticks together in front of its bleeding nose. The creature started, then wheeled around, its claws tearing free of the improvised net, and raced beneath the menacing tusks of the trumpeting Mabel, out of the silo.

'That was stupid, Mongo,' Garth said in the same soft, even tone.

'It's basically after me. It was my call.'

'And it was a stupid one. We should have killed it when we had the chance. I know how you feel about animals, and I appreciate that it's only following its instincts and training, but I can't believe you could be so sentimental about an animal that's determined to kill you.'

'It's not sentiment. I say a live lobox is more valuable than a dead one. If Luther gets away with the others and they end up as assassination weapons, it might help if the good guys had a live lobox to learn from.'

'Well, you shouldn't have let the damn thing get away. All you did was beat the shit out of it, and now it's going to run right back to Luther.'

Harper moved closer to me, and I put my arm around her. 'I don't think so, Garth,' she said. 'Robby hasn't wiped out its training program or its instincts. He hasn't created a cowardly lobox, just a very confused one. It won't go very far.'

'Right,' I said. 'It won't go back to Luther unless it kills me-or chooses to believe that it can't, or shouldn't.'

Garth looked back and forth between Harper and me. 'So what happens now?'

'What happens now is that I want the two of you to go up to the cheap seats by the vents and watch my next trick,' I said, and stepped out through the doorway.

'Mongo?! What the hell-?!'

'You said I should make it mine,' I said, waggling one end of a nunchaku stick at my startled brother. I took the broken padlock out of my pocket, glanced at it, then tossed it away. There was no sense in trying to lock up my brother, because he would be through the door just about in time to distract me from what I had to do. And probably get himself killed. 'Well, I don't have time to explain to you how I propose to do that, or why it has to be done this way. But I have to go now. I'll be all right. You wait here. If you want to watch, you take Harper with you and go up to the vent at the front.'

Without waiting for a reply, I wheeled around and started walking across the silo floor, pausing to pat a very skittish Mabel on the trunk. I edged carefully up to the slightly open door and could feel Mabel moving up behind me. Standing just at the edge of a wedge of sunlight that streamed in through the opening, I took a series of deep breaths, trying to relax and steady my nerves.

If the lobox was waiting for me just on the other side of the silo wall, I was a dead man. Yet I had no choice but to go out and face it. I sucked in one last deep breath, slowly exhaled, then stepped out of the silo into the bright sunlight.

So far, so good.

The lobox was lying on the patch of grass about twenty yards away, to my right. It sprang to its feet when it saw me, but remained where it was. I spun my nunchaku sticks, first one and then the other, then gripped them and smacked them together. The hide of the lobox began to quiver, its ruff suddenly expanded, and it charged.