The Fear In Yesterday's rings

on my chest and pinning me helplessly to the ground. Its golden eyes stared into mine, and I tensed, waiting for the surge of a clawed hind foot that would tear away the lower half of my body, or the snap of jaws that would remove my face and throat.

It made a soft growling sound, then proceeded to lick my face with a long, red washcloth of a tongue that was at once slimy and rough, like a cow's.

I had offered it a sign of affection, and now the damn thing wanted to play.

Well, this just wasn't the time for the leader of the pack to play, but the problem was finding a way of communicating this fact to the huge creature that was pressing down on my chest.

The first trick was to pull my right arm free from where it was pinned next to my body by one of the lobox's legs. My nunchaku sticks were within reach, but I didn't want to hurt the animal now-just get its attention, get it off me, and then get it to do the next thing I wanted it to do. I made what I hoped was an appropriately menacing growling noise, then whacked it across its wide, wet muzzle with the flat of my hand.

'Get the fuck off me!' I snapped, and whacked it again. 'Work now, play later.'

The lobox whined, then backed off me and stood at my feet with its head bowed, looking amazingly reproached.

I stood up, wiped saliva off my face, then picked up the nunchaku sticks and clicked them together. 'School's not out yet, pal. Pay attention.'

At once, the animal raised its head, pricked up its ears. I walked over to the open doors in the center of the side of the truck. I beat a tattoo on the inside of one with my sticks, then started walking toward the silo. The lobox dutifully trotted along beside me, its tongue lolling out. We reached the silo and I looked up at the vent, where Garth and Harper were standing at the edge, staring down at me. Garth was grinning and shaking his head as if in disbelief. He gave me a thumbs-up sign, which I returned. Then I loosened the chain holding the doors shut, pushed one open slightly, motioned the lobox in.

From inside the silo came a cacophony of sound-barks, yelps, roars, lobox screams, and generalized bustling about. About a minute later the two females came scampering out of the silo, virtually under the startled Mabel's trunk, with the male right on their heels. There was much chasing around, with the male doing his sheepdog number, nipping at the females' flanks, and once the three of them disappeared around the other end of the silo. But then they were back, with the male herding them. I walked back to the truck, waited. It took the male another five minutes but he finally managed to get them both to leap, almost simultaneously, into the truck. I grunted with satisfaction, slammed the doors shut behind them.

'Now sit,' I said to the lobox, pointing with a stick toward its flank. It sat. I unhesitatingly put my hand on its head, scratched it behind the ears. 'The Road Runner's very proud of you, Coyote.'

I looked up in time to see Garth and Harper emerge from the silo. Garth, ambling along with his hands in his pockets, was still grinning and shaking his head. Harper broke into a run. She came up to me, brushing right past the sitting lobox, threw her arms around my neck, and hugged me.

'Robby,' she breathed in her huskiest, sexiest voice, 'that's the most incredible thing I've ever seen. I love you!'

'Not too trashy a show, Mongo,' Garth said to me as he came up and laid his thick right arm across my shoulder. 'I'd have actually paid to see that.'

'Thanks, brother. I realize that's your highest compliment.'

Garth grunted. 'That truck has a CB antenna, so it must have a radio. Let me see if I can't rustle up some help.'

I said, 'Tell whoever you get hold of to bring food. I don't know about you people, but I'm hungry.'

Garth climbed up into the cab of the truck, closed the door. Harper and I simply held each other, gazed into each other's eyes, and I knew I was most definitely, hopelessly, in love.

'Help's on the way,' Garth announced, climbing back down from the cab. 'And food. Heroes and coffee for us, a hundred pounds of horsemeat and a ton of hay for our entourage.'

I nodded. 'That sounds like about the right take-out order to me.'

'I charged it all to your personal Amex card, brother,' Garth said with a grin.

'Thanks a lot, Garth. What's the going rate for horsemeat and hay?'

'Beats me. I expect it's the handling and transportation charges that are going to be expensive. I thought it would be a good lesson to you. Just because you keep getting yourself involved in strange business like this, there's no reason why the company should have to pay for it. This way, it will save us the trouble of trying to explain expenses for hay and horsemeat to our accountants and the IRS.'

'Oh, yeah. Good thinking, Garth.'

Harper nodded toward Mabel, who was off to one side of the silo nuzzling her trunk in a patch of grass, then placed her hand next to mine on the lobox's head. 'Now we really need a circus.'

Garth said, 'I don't think it's going to be all that difficult to find one for sale.'

Epilogue

Ah, yes. The usual congressional committees had announced the usual hearings, and they were all planning to round up and grill the usual suspect: the CIA. The thinking was that this time that venerable agency, indomitable defender of individual liberties, might even have been collaborating with the KGB-or some Eastern bloc country whose leaders were now more worried about insane mullahs, renegade Arabs, and Israelis than they were about the traditional ideological conflicts of East versus West. Such were the fruits of glasnost and perestroika, as harvested by the ever-fumbling intelligence communities. Three committee chairmen had even had the remarkable good sense to inquire about the possibility of having Frederickson and Frederickson assist in their investigation. Garth and I had told them we'd think about it. Personally, I didn't think they were going to get very far.

'I always said you had a mystical way with animals,' Harper said as she wrapped her arms around my waist and kissed my neck-to the hearty applause of the huge crowd jammed inside the Big Top of the Statler Brothers Circus.

I flushed, thoroughly embarrassed, and raised my arms to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd-as if being kissed on the neck by a beautiful woman while riding on the back of a monstrous elephant was an astonishing trick.

'There was nothing mystical about it, my dear,' I replied, leaning back slightly so that she could hear me above the roar of the crowd. 'Loboxes are smart. They learn quickly. But they aren't people; they interpret things in an animal way. I've explained it all to you. Their first attack on us was a failure-'

'Thanks to you,' Harper said, and I felt her shudder. 'If you hadn't pulled me back, it would only have been half a failure.'

'Whatever. It couldn't get us, I shot it, you killed his buddy, I challenged him for territory, and then made it stick by whacking him around. Also, it could see that I controlled Mabel, an animal that was much bigger and more powerful than he was. He probably also thought I controlled you, which is a howler. Anyway, lobox logic dictated that it should stop screwing around with me. That was all there was to it.'

Harper giggled. 'Then it certainly doesn't appreciate the full range of your many talents. I love to screw around with you.'

'Harper, this isn't the time or place to talk dirty.'

'Like I said, Robby,' Harper persisted in her husky voice, 'you have a mystical way with animals. And it's not only with Mabel and Coyote. You make me feel like an animal. . and there's no question that you put me in heat.'

'Now you've done it. You've given me a hard-on in front of a few thousand people.'

'I'll tend to it later.'

Mabel had reached the enlarged VIP box and was going into one of her patented, dainty pachyderm pirouettes. Below us, the occupants of the box cheered, grinned, and clapped wildly. Phil Statler, stockholder and managing director for life of the circus that once again bore his name, looked at least fifteen years younger than when I had seen him lying close to death in Bellevue Medical Center. Garth and Mary sat on either side of him, and