Sheepdogs: Keeping the Wolves at Bay, Gordon Carroll [howl and other poems .txt] 📗

flopped forward. I swiveled the sight to the left, looking for the second sniper, but he was gone. I had to trust Max to handle that end of it.

I looked back at Mr. Spock and saw that he held Amber in his arms with a gun pushed up under her chin. She’d awoken and was sobbing, big crocodile tears rolling down her chubby cheeks.

My stomach went cold and I felt sick and scared and mad, all at the same time. “I have the flash drive,” I yelled. Mr. Spock’s eyes scanned the stage, darting this way and that. He hunched his shoulders, using the girl as a shield. Big, brave man.

Muted screaming came from the top of the seats. Mr. Spock jerked his head in that direction then back to the stage. “Come out now or she dies,” he shouted. I thought I heard a trace of fear in his voice. Good, maybe I’d made up the ground he’d gained in surprising me by coming from below.

I opened the door and walked out on stage, my S&W in my right hand, swinging loosely at my side. In the left I held the transmitter for Pilgrim’s collar. “Let her go, and you get the flash drive.”

Mr. Spock looked up at the cries from the top of the amphitheater. “You did something to my men; shot one of them.”

“You should have come alone.”

He looked back at me, his hot eyes cooling to that cold professional killer I knew him to be. “Okay, so now I’m alone.”

“Are you?” I scanned Creation Rock, the hole of the cave looked empty. I shifted my gaze to the left, Ship Rock jutting out of the earth like the Titanic going down for the final time.

His jaw flexed. “The flash drive.”

The rising sun speared the sky with radiant beams that slashed out from the rocky backdrop of boulders lining the rear of the stage behind me, barely touching the tops of the giant mountains to the right and left. I pointed to the lighting shed a few rows up and center. The small drive still in its case wedged by two nails I’d pounded into the wooden door. Mr. Fixit strikes again.

I obtained sight picture on the flash drive, my one hand stance holding the gun, rock steady. “Send over the girl or I blow it to bits.”

Mr. Spock started walking toward the shed. “You do and I’ll scatter her brains over these seats.”

The screaming up top stopped, leaving the bowl of the theater eerily quiet except for Mr. Spock’s footsteps and Amber’s sobbing. Reaching the side of the shed, he sat Amber down, keeping the gun pointed at her head, and pushed on the locked doors, trying them. He lifted the drive from between the nails, looked it over. He removed a miniature drive reader from his coat and slipped the thumb dot in. I saw him close his eyes, take in a deep breath and sigh it out. The gun dropped to his side.

My gun was pointed at his face. “Amber, come over here, honey.”

Mr. Spock held up a finger and shook his head. “Wait.” He nodded and two men came from the south side of the stairs, both sporting MP-5 sub-machine guns. They walked up alongside him, looking down at me.

“You’ll be the first to go,” I said, lining my sights on the bridge of his nose.

Mr. Spock shook his head again. “I propose a deal.”

“We already have a deal.”

“A new deal,” said Mr. Spock, his free hand gently brushing Amber’s hair. “I can’t let you live. You know too much. But, if you give up now, I’ll make it painless and as a bonus I’ll let little Amber here live. After all she’s just a baby, she can’t hurt us.”

“And her parents?”

There was a pause. “The father has to die; he’s seen some of my people.” He thought for a moment. “I can let the mother live; she’s no danger to us.” He looked down the bore of my gun. “It’s the best I can do.”

“I don’t suppose you would accept a vow of secrecy?”

He slipped the drive into his coat. His lips curved up slightly at the corners. “No.”

I shrugged. “It was worth a try.” Half way through the last word I pulled the trigger. The muzzle was pointing straight at his face while his hand and gun were still dangling carelessly at his side.

And he still beat me to the shot.

Sanity returned slowly as the fog of battle subsided. Max released his hold on the dead meat and dropped low behind the body; he sensed danger. Looking for the second man on the far planter beneath the pine tree, Max made out an unmoving, lumpy shape. Taking a deep breath he caught the scent. Human, but different. Dead human. Max darted to him, stopping by his foot and smelling carefully. A pool of blood lay beneath his face, the shallow dirt of the planter slowly absorbing it into its embrace. Max sniffed at the shattered hole in the back of the man’s skull. He caught the barest of scents of the Alpha, still lingering from the bullet that passed through the man’s brain.

The wind shifted abruptly. Popping sounds came from below. Max looked up, scenting the wind, catching its swirling trails in short, quick sniffs. There was something… faint… but there… he was sure of it. Like a drop of blood in an ocean of water. He moved, stepping over and past the meat beneath him. He circled to the left — to the right — back to the left — moving in wider swaths — searching for the trail of scent — following it back and forth as it drifted and broke on the vagaries of the breeze — and then he had it — powerful — like a cold splash of water in the face.

Man

Max took off, running to the north alongside the west face of Creation Rock. He rounded the far side, scrambling over boulders and