The Cutthroat Cannibals (18 page)

But if Excaliber was the Chosen Dog that everybody was getting so excited about, he didn’t seem to show the class befitting
his station. For he suddenly raised his leg and released a quick shower on a half dozen or so collies and spaniels sitting
below. Then, satisfied that that about summed up his feelings about the entire situation, the pit bull turned, ran over to
Stone, and barked three times as if to say “rock climbing was fun, now let’s get the picnic going.”

There was no food, no water, nothing, which didn’t seem all that terrible to Stone at first. But after it grew dark and still
there was no stirring from the lines of motionless animals below, he started getting a little edgy. He needed water, not just
to drink but to wash down his still throbbing leg. However none was forthcoming. Cracking Elk, hiding himself from Stone’s
view as he apparently wanted his Indian secrets to remain just that, did some voodoo over near an overhang that formed a small
cave and presto, a small fire was going, with twigs and the whole side of a dead branch that had fallen from above onto the
ledge. There was no food, but at least fire. Fire to keep away the cold, the damp, and the dark spirits that seemed to fly
above the audience of flesh-eating dogs.

Stone had just gotten himself stretched out on a nice hard, cold piece of rock, bullshitting himself after about an hour of
attempts that it actually wasn’t too bad and would be just fine to fall asleep on, when the howling started again. Every one
of the suckers down there suddenly rose up as if the conductor had just tapped his baton. They opened their jaws, threw back
their heads, and howled. Hound dogs and pekinese, chows and sheep dogs, newfoundlands and bulldogs, every fucking breed Stone
could remember seeing in his entire life all crooning up at the three fugitives—a death song of love. Such hits as “Let Me
Kiss You with My Teeth,” and “I’d Love to Rip Your Face Apart,” and even “Kidneys Taste Better at Night.” All the tunes from
the carnivores’ top ten list.

But just so the dogs didn’t think they were getting away with anything, Excaliber counterattacked with his own collection
of Oldies but Goodies. “Fuck You, Fur Face,” “We’re Coming Down Soon to Kick Booty,” and “You Up Front with the Cropped Ear—Your
Ass Is Grass,” were some of his selections. In any case it made sleep completely and utterly impossible for Stone and the
Indian, who just lay there tossing and turning as if their skins were on fire as they endured an endless night of howling
and baying from two-hundred nineteen dogs all trying out for the Canine Corps of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

When the sun rose slowly as if not wanting to have to endure the sounds any more than the humans did, the battalion of killers
was still at it, untiring, taking long slobbering breaths and then letting out with howls, growls, and drawn-out bays that
would have made the Hound of the Baskervilles retire. How the animals’ jaws didn’t tire out and go slack as flat tires Stone
couldn’t even begin to imagine. But the dogs just kept it up, into the morning, then the early afternoon. Stone and the Indian
couldn’t even talk above the roar of the crowd, but gave each other disgusted looks every once in a while. How long could
it go on? Under the influence of the Three, the army below seemed ready to slash their own mouths to ribbons just to keep
up the sound attack. Stone wondered what it would be like to die of dehydration or to be howled to death.

The howling continued right into the evening as Stone could feel his mouth puff up, his stomach expanding like a piece of
cotton fluff as his body screamed, begged for water. And with the river roaring by just a hundred feet away it started driving
them all mad with a ravenous desire. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the Three appeared again, trotting along at their own swaggering
pace. They walked to the front of their army and growled and yowled out a whole set of incomprehensible dog orders. Immediately
the entire crew jumped up and shook themselves off after their nearly twenty-four-hour siege of the ledge. Then without even
looking up, as if they no longer cared, the Three turned and moved off again at half speed, their tails pointing in the air
like sabers behind them.

The entire pack, in no particular order, more a ragged crowd, shot after the departing leaders, jockeying for place in the
hierarchy of the band, trying to get further up in the stampede, closer to the Three, as proximity to them conferred status.
Within minutes, they were gone, even the last struggling little poodle with a missing leg that skittered along on just three,
falling down every five or six steps like a broken wind-up toy.

“What do you think?” Stone asked as he listened on the wind, and heard not a bark nor a howl.

“Trap,” Cracking Elk sneered back. “No question about it. You see what those top three are like. They’re smart. Never seen
no dogs like that. Probably went to plan something. But over? No way. You know it, Stone Man, as much as I.”

“Then let’s make our move now,” Stone said. “I don’t want to die up here, puffing up like rotting fruit from lack of water.
It ain’t the way a man should go. I say we make a dash for the fucking river. It looks a little less flooded. We might have
a chance. I know we don’t up here.”

The Indian paused reflectively to consider what Stone had said and then nodded. “You’re on, white man.” Stone could see just
the vaguest hint of friendship glimmer for a moment behind the dark, savage eyes. After all, when men share imminent death
together, it makes for feelings of closeness. The guy standing next to him might well be the last bastard he’d ever see on
the face of this earth. But just as quickly the light was out in the brave’s eyes and the pupils returned to mirrors, as impenetrable
as the slate clouds that moved past overhead. Hearts pounding like jackhammers, the three of them scrambled down the side
of the cliff. Then moving like a racing relay team of the insane, they stumbled, lurched, ran, and fell as they desperately
tried to reach the river before an army of teeth reached them.

O
F course it was a trap. They had gotten only halfway to the river when the whole raging pack, raising up a dust storm like
Attila the Hun, came charging in from their left flank. Fortunately for the fleeing trio, the dogs had pulled back a little
too far, underestimating how fast terrified humans can run. But it was close. As fast as Stone flew along the rocks and sand,
he could feel them coming in from the side, like missiles bearing down. He didn’t dare look, knowing that if he faltered for
even one second it was all over.

Then the river was just yards away, and as he rushed toward it he felt the crutch he had been scrambling along with suddenly
catch in a gopher hole, and he started to topple over and down. But instead of letting the stick do him in, Stone used the
momentum of the branch to launch himself forward and up so that he literally flew over the last eight feet of shore. Two dogs
flew right by his air currents, their jaws snapping tight. As Stone hit the water, with still fairly slow currents along the
banks, he saw Cracking Elk about ten yards ahead starting to float downriver. And splashing around about thirty feet out,
also just sort of spinning around in the slower waters, was Excaliber, his head bobbing up and down like a brown-and-white
cork.

A few of the dogs tumbled in after them, but the majority stopped at the shoreline barking up a storm, again infuriated at
having been so close and yet so far away from satisfying their craving for human flesh.

Those who followed quickly gave up their pursuit as they found themselves tossed around like twigs in the currents. It was
impossible for anything without flippers and tail to control its motion in the crazy quilt of currents. Suddenly the pursuers,
far from pursuing, were just trying to hang on as they headed back to shore paddling madly. Stone saw two of them disappear
under a large wave. The dog pack had already started following them along the shoreline, barking and snapping from about seventy-five
feet away. They ran fast, jumping from rock to rock, then running hard along the stretches of clear sand as the river started
pulling their would-be dinners faster and faster downstream.

But Stone wasn’t paying attention to the dogs. He had his own problem to worry about—like not drowning. As much as he had
wanted to get to water just minutes before, now that he was in it and had satisfied his physical thirst many times over, Stone
wished he could take a raincheck back to the mountain ledge. For he could hardly keep afloat. He reached down and ripped the
splints free from his leg. It might rebreak the damn thing, but with the leg all stiff and useless he had no chance at all.
There was no sense in trying to swim, the currents were running the show here. And he couldn’t go back to shore, as the pack
was keeping pretty much of a pace with them.

But not for long. Within minutes as the three of them were whipped around a sharp bend in the river, Stone could see that
it was bad in the boiling stretch that rushed ahead for about two miles. Suddenly he was in a world of bubbles, everywhere
white reaching for him, grabbing him, taking him down into its depths with liquid arms wrapped tight around his chest and
waist. It was only his physical strength that enabled him to resist the inevitable forces of nature, the watery jaws that
grabbed at him again and again.

He couldn’t even see the rest of the world now, not the pursuing dogs on shore or his own comrades. Just white caps of foam
that kept smashing at him. The hardest part was keeping aware which way was what, so that when he paddled hard after each
little whirlpool swept him down, or a wave flapped him straight up in the air like a pancake and he dropped down deep on the
return, he didn’t swim in the wrong direction. Because, as pilots experience when flying through clouds, you quickly lose
the sense of which way is up. Stone found himself spun around, upside down, all over the fucking place. He tried not to puke,
though why it even mattered out in the middle of this great toilet bowl, he couldn’t imagine.

Suddenly he saw rocks straight ahead. He was being rushed toward them at what felt like the speed a fastball approaches a
bat. Stone threw his arms straight out in front of him. They might break, but rather them than his skull. But with the capriciousness
of all rivers, a swirling wave suddenly grabbed hold of him and pulled him to an abrupt stop so that he just lightly banged
against the rocks. Then he was off again sharply to the left moving through the water as if a shark was dragging him along
in its jaws. Suddenly he was just deposited into the slower-moving waters along the shoreline, thrown back like a catch the
river had investigated and no longer wanted.

Stone caught his breath as he managed to tread water in the quieter currents that tongued along the shore. There were no dogs,
at least none that he could see. But there was a figure, Cracking Elk it looked like, lying in the dirt as if asleep. With
his heart pounding hard from fear of what he would find, Stone managed to kick and paddle his way the fifty or so feet to
the bank. Then he dragged himself ashore, moving along like a wounded animal, as without his crutch that’s pretty much what
he was. He reached the rocky shore and looked both ways. This could be a trap too, though the river had been sweeping them
along so quickly he didn’t see how any of the dog pack could have gotten here ahead of them. No, the dogs had to be miles
behind.

Stone reached down and grabbed a stick, much smaller than his previous one, and used it like a cane to move along. He moved
forward, his face growing paler and paler. For the body lying there
was
Cracking Elk, and there was a pool of blood gathering beneath his face, which was buried in the mud. Stone reached the body
quickly and kneeled down next to it, turning it over fast. He almost gagged. It was the brave, and his throat had been torn
right out of his neck, as if a grizzly had just taken a big bite. Arteries, nerves, all kinds of stuff just sort of hung out
of the Indian’s throat.

But as Stone stared, he was even more horrified to see that the man’s eyes opened to half mast and looked up at Stone with
that same stoic look that he had had when Stone first laid eyes on him. The Happy Hunting Ground was about to get one cool
customer. The mouth of the dying Indian tried to say something, but only bloody bubbles spurted out from between the lips.
Then Stone felt the brave’s right hand clutch his with a fevered jerking motion. He felt something pressed against it and
looked down. A lighter, a windproof Zippo, pressed into his palm. So that’s how the bastard had been lighting the fires. So
much for secret Indian fire magic.

Stone looked down at the bloody mess of a man and gave him a razor grin. And he swore that through the blood, and what had
to be incredible pain, the brave grinned back. Then his lips spoke one final time. And Stone heard the single word, spat out
in blood-soaked breath. “Friend.”

“Yeah,” Stone answered softly, taking the lighter and gripping it tightly in his hand. “I am your friend, pal.” But the Indian
was dead before he had finished speaking. A stream of blood came out of the opened mouth as if it had one more word to say,
but never would. Stone, still gripping the dead brave’s hand, placed it back on his chest. Then he closed the staring eyes.
Whatever he was seeing now, he didn’t need these to see it.

T
HEN Martin Stone saw that the whole damned thing had been a setup from start to finish. He had been led or pushed like a rat
through a maze. For the Three, the trio that ruled the whole bloody show, were standing there, waiting for him. They had run
on ahead before the whole circus started, guiding Stone into the water to be pursued by the rest of the dogs, knowing that
the waters grew deep and slow here, that the fugitives would come ashore one by one. And the Three would finish them off as
they had done the Indian. He had put up a good fight. The Labrador was bleeding from a deep gash along its chest where the
brave had been able to wound it with his machete before the Pit Bull had come in behind him and ripped out the whole side
of his neck like a piece of cotton candy.