Bewere the Night (35 page)

Oh. You don’t understand. Well, that’s understandable.

So you will not answer my questions?

Very well.

I wish you the best. Thank you for your time.

And there goes the crow, flying in a decidedly crooked line. That did not go so well at all. Are there any other suggestions?

Yes, the young lady in the back. You wish to offer an idea?

Ahem, well, yes I see where you are going with that. If we were in fact to
become
crows we would, by necessity, be aware of what we feared. But how, may I ask, do you propose to turn any of us into crows?

I thought so.

Any other suggestions?

A show of hands, please. Surely
someone
has some ideas. You are the most advanced class in the academy. Am I to deduce from the general lack of hands showing that my most gifted students are unable to offer a single viable path to success in the present situation? Or are you afraid to look foolish? What have I said about such fears?

Yes, the young man in the front row.

Exactly. There are no foolish ideas, only fools who will not attempt to create ideas.

So let me ask you, one more time, how might we go about creating the next generation of scarecrow?

Nothing?

No one will even attempt a proposal?

Class, what is all that ruckus?

Calm down, please.

What are you pointing at?

Ah, I see. A flock of crows. Yes, and they appear to be heading in this direction. Well, this is fortuitous. Perhaps the pressure of an actual attack will spur you to heights of accomplishment.

Why should we take cover? You do not fear the crows do you? If anyone should, it is me.

Now class, those crows appear to be upset and they wish to unleash their fury on us. Here is your moment. Seize it! How will you scare them away? By what mechanism or sorcery?

No. No. It will not do to run away. Not now. Come back! Class, obey me! Return to your seats this instant.

Yes, my clothes are torn, I see that. My limbs are thin and bent. But why do you point at me so? My head is smooth and bald. What did you expect?

Where are you going?

Come back.

They do not fear me. They will be on me in an instant.

Class.

Come back.

Class, please return. Don’t leave me alone. I cannot face them any longer.

THE GAZE DOGS OF NINE WATERFALL

KAARON WARREN

Rare dog breeds; people will kill for them. I’ve seen it. One stark-nosed curly hair terrier, over-doped and past all use. One ripped-off buyer, one cheating seller. I was just the go-between for that job. I shrank up small into the corner, squeezed my eyes shut, folded my ears over like a Puffin Dog, to keep the dust out.

I sniffed out a window, up and out, while the blood was still spilling. It was a lesson to me, early on, to always check the dog myself.

I called my client on his cell, confirming the details before taking the job.

“Ah, Rosie McDonald! I’ve heard good things about your husband.”

I always have to prove myself. Woman in a man’s world. I say I’m acting for my husband and I tell stories about how awful he is, just for the sympathy.

I’ll bruise my own eye, not with make-up. Show up with an arm in a sling. “Some men don’t like a woman who can do business,” I say. “But he’s good at what he does. An eye for detail. You need that when you’re dealing dogs.”

“I heard that. My friend is the one who was after a Lancashire Large. For his wife.”

I remembered; the man had sent me pictures. Why would he send me pictures?

“He says it was a job well done. So you know what I’m after?”

“You’re after a vampire dog. Very hard to locate. Nocturnal, you know? Skittish with light. My husband will need a lot of equipment.”

“So you’ll catch them in the day when they’re asleep. I don’t care about the money. I want one of those dogs.”

“My husband is curious to know why you’d like one. It helps him in the process.”

“Doesn’t he talk?”

“He’s not good with people. He’s good at plenty, but not people.”

“Anyway, about the dog: thing is, my son’s not well. It’s a blood thing. It’s hard to explain even with a medical degree.”

My ears ring when someone’s lying to me. Even over the phone. I knew he was a doctor; I’d looked him up.

“What’s your son’s name?”

The silence was momentary, but enough to confirm my doubts there was a son. “Raphael,” he said. “Sick little Raphael.” He paused. “And I want to use the dog like a leech. You know? The blood-letting cure.”

“So you just need the one?”

“Could he get more?”

“He could manage three, but your son . . . ”

“Get me three,” he said.

I thought,
Clinic. Five thousand each. Clients in the waiting room reading Nature magazine.

There are dogs rare because of the numbers. Some because of what they are or what they can do.

And some are rare because they are not always seen.

I remember every animal I’ve captured, but not all of my clients. I like to forget them. If I don’t know their faces I can’t remember their expressions or their intent.

The Calalburun. I traveled to Turkey for this puppy. Outside of their birthplace, they don’t thrive, these dogs. There is something about the hunting in Turkey which is good for them. My client wanted this dog because it has a split nose. Entrancing to look at. Like two noses grown together.

The Puffin Dog. Norwegian Lundehound. These dogs were close to extinction when a dog-lover discovered a group of them on a small island. He bred them up from five, then shared some with an enthusiast in America. Not long after that, the European dogs were wiped out, leaving the American dogs the last remaining.

The American sent a breeding pair and some pups back to Europe, not long before her own dogs were wiped out. From those four there are now about a thousand.

The dogs were bred to hunt Puffins. They are so flexible (because they sometimes needed to crawl through caves to hunt) that the back of their head can touch their spine. As a breed, though, they don’t absorb nutrients well, so they die easily and die young. We have a network, the other dealers and I. Our clients want different things at different times so we help each other out. My associate in Europe knew of four Puffin Dogs.

It’s not up to me to ponder why people keep these cripples alive. Animal protection around the world doesn’t like it much; I just heard that the English RSPCA no longer supports Crufts Dog Show because they say there are too many disabled dogs being bred and shown. Dogs like the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, whose skull is too small for its brain. And a lot of boxer dogs are prone to epilepsy, and some bulldogs are unable to mate, or are unable to give birth unassisted.

It’s looks over health. But humans? Same same.

The Basenji is a dog which yodels. My client liked the sound and wanted to be yodeled to. I don’t know how that worked out.

Tea cup dogs aren’t registered and are so fragile and mimsy they need to be carried everywhere. Some say this is the breeders’ way of selling off runts.

Then there’s the other dogs. The Black Dogs, Yellow Dogs, the Sulphurous Beast, the Wide-Eyed Hound, the Wisht Hound, and the Hateful Thing: The Gabriel Hound.

I’ve never been asked to catch one of these, nor have I seen one, but godawful stories are told.

The only known habitat of the vampire dog is the island of Viti Levu, Fiji. I’d never been there but I’d heard others talk of the rich pickings. I did as much groundwork as I could over the phone, then visited the client to get a look at him and pick up the money. No paper trail. I wore tight jeans with a tear across the ass and a pink button up shirt.

He was ordinary; they usually are. The ones with a lot of money are always confident but this one seemed overly so. Stolen riches, I wondered. The ones who get rich by stealing think they can get away with everything. Two heads taller then me, he wore a tight blue T-shirt, blank. A rare thing; most people like to plaster jokes on their chests. He didn’t shake my hand but looked behind me for the real person, my husband.

“I’m sorry, my husband was taken ill. He’s told me exactly what I need to do, though,” I said.

The client put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “He’s lucky he’s got someone reliable to do his dirty work,” the guy said.

He gave me a glass of orange soda as if I were a child. That’s fine; making money is making money.

I told him we’d found some dogs, but not for sale. They’d have to be caught and that would take a lot more.

“Whatever . . . Look, I’ve got a place to keep them.”

He showed me into his backyard, where he had dug a deep hole. Damp. The sides smooth, slippery with mud. One push and I’d be in there.

I stepped back from the edge.

“So, four dogs?” he said. “Ask your husband if he can get me four vampire dogs.”

“I will check.” My husband Joe had his spine bitten half out by a glandular-affected bull dog, and all he could do was nod, nod, nod. Bobble head, I’d call him if I were a cruel person. I had him in an old people’s home where people called him young man and used his tight fists to hold playing cards. When I visit, his eyes follow me adoringly, as if he were a puppy.

My real hunting partner was my sister-in-law Gina. She’s an animal psychologist. An animal psychic, too, but we don’t talk about that much. I pretend I don’t believe in it, but I rely on the woman’s instincts.

The job wouldn’t be easy, but it never is in the world of the rare breed.

My bank account full, our husband and brother safe with a good stock of peppermints, Gina and I boarded a flight for Nadi, Fiji. Ten hours from L.A., long enough to read a book, snooze, maybe meet a dog-lover or two. We transferred to the Suva flight, a plane so small I thought a child could fly it. They gave us fake orange juice and then the flight was done. I listened to people talk, about local politics, gossip. I listened for clues, because you never know when you’ll hear the right word.

Gina rested. She was keen to come to Fiji, thinking of deserted islands, sands, fruit juice with vodka.

The heat as we stepped off the plane was like a blanket had been thrown over our heads. I couldn’t breathe in it and my whole steamed sweat. It was busy but not crazy, and you weren’t attacked by cabbies looking for business, porters, jewelry sellers. I got a lot of smiles and nods.

We took a cab which would not have passed inspection in New York and he drove us to our hotel, on Suva Bay. There were stray dogs everywhere, flaccid, unhealthy looking things. The females had teats to the ground, the pups mangy and unsteady. They didn’t seem aggressive, though. Too hot, perhaps. I bought some cut pineapple from a man at the side of the road and I ate it standing there, the juice dripping off my chin and pooling at my feet. I bought another piece, and another, and then he didn’t have any change so I gave him twenty dollars. Gina couldn’t eat; she said the dogs put her off. That there was too much sickness.

I didn’t sleep well. I felt slick with all the coconut milk I’d had with dinner; with the fish, with the greens, with the dessert. And new noises in a place keep me awake, or they entered my dreams in strange ways.

I got up as the sun rose and swam some laps. The water was warm, almost like bath water, and I had the pool to myself.

After breakfast, Gina and I took a taxi out to the latest sighting of vampire dogs, a farm two hours drive inland. I like to let the locals drive. They know where they’re going and I can absorb the landscape and listen while they tell me stories.

The foliage thickened as we drove, dark leaves waving heavily in what seemed to me a still day. The road was muddy so I had to be patient; driving through puddles at speed can get you bogged. A couple of trucks passed us. Smallish covered vehicles with the stoutest workers in the back. They waved and smiled at me and I knew that four of them could lift our car out of the mud if we got stuck.

The trucks swerved and tilted and I thought that only faith was keeping them on the road.

The farm fielded dairy cows and taro. It seemed prosperous; there was a letter box rather than an old juice bottle, and white painted rocks lined the path.

There was no phone here, so I hadn’t been able to call ahead. Usually I’d gain permission to enter, but that could take weeks, and I wanted to get on with the job.

I told the taxi driver to wait. A fetid smell filled the car; rotting flesh.

“Oh, Jesus,” Gina said. “I think I’ll wait, too.” I saw a pile of dead animals at the side of a dilapidated shed; a cow, a cat, two mongooses. They could’ve been there since the attack a week ago.

“Wait there,” I told Gina. “I’ll call you if I need you”

Breathing through my mouth, I walked to the pile. I could see bite marks on the cow and all the animals appeared to be bloodless, sunken.

“You are who?” I heard. An old Fijian woman, wearing a faded green T-shirt that said
Nurses Know Better
pointed at me. She looked startled. They didn’t see many white people out here.

“Are you from the
Fiji Times
?” she said. “We already talked to them.”