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

hills of dirt dotted with cactus and scrub brush and prairie grass. He wound his way through a maze of rock walls, littered with small, sharp edged stones. He lost the scent, found it, moving in and out of the cone like a shark smelling blood. He found his way blocked by a sheer wall of rock, the scent drifting down to him from directly above. Max stretched up on his hind legs, his front paws on the wall. He jumped and dug in with his nails, but the soft sandstone crumbled beneath his scrabbling paws. The great wall was unscalable. Max went east another fifty yards and found a winding path that led up and south before curving back west at a higher grade.

The trail grew stronger, the scent coalescing from a fragmentary misty vapor to a solid ribbon of scent that beckoned him like a siren’s song. The slab of rock beneath him ended abruptly, leaving a chasm between him and another rock fifteen feet ahead. The drop at least fifty feet. Max circled, giving himself room to run. He bent low, his powerful legs gathering tension to shoot forward. Ears back, he exploded, gaining top speed in eight strides and the edge of the abyss in twelve. Without a change in stride, he launched himself out and over, clearing the gap with yards to spare. Landing smoothly he continued on, racing now, the scent so strong he knew he was close and the knowledge driving him toward that mind blanking state of bloodlust he so craved.

I felt two impacts to the center of my chest, pushing me back and collapsing the air in my lungs. My bullet spanged off the concrete seven rows up, completely missing Spock. I rode with the movement, letting the momentum pull my arm to the left, bringing the two thugs with the MP-5’s into my line of fire. They were both jerking their weapons up for a shot. I nailed the first one in the throat, the second one in the stomach, hip and thigh. Spock grabbed up Amber, an action which robbed him of the title “mister” in my book, and threw another round that punched into my stomach. I landed on my butt on the hard concrete, dazed and dizzy, feeling sick from fear and adrenaline and pain. I rolled, my instincts taking over, and heard chips of cement rattle as a bullet smacked into the floor of the stage. Sounds took on a muffled, elongated quality that seemed to stretch forever. The thug with the bullet in his throat aimed his MP-5 in my direction and I saw fire spit in a long stream from the barrel. Bullets screamed overhead whacking against the walls behind me.

The shed doors burst open and I saw Tom shoot the man in the back of the head. He dropped like a wet sack of potatoes. Tom turned and aimed at Spock. Spock jerked Amber in front of him and double tapped Tom so fast it sounded like one shot. I saw blood spray and Tom fell back into the shed.

Without thought, I fired three rounds into Spock’s exposed back. He flared, his arms going wide, and dropped Amber, who fell screaming to the hard rock of the seats.

I pushed on, pumping round after round into Spock, spinning his body so I hit him in the stomach — chest — the back again. My gun ran dry, locking the slide back.

A shadow loomed from above me and reactively I hit the button of the transmitter. A shotgun blasted and rock shattered in front of my face. I ducked, falling backward, and saw Pilgrim hit the man on the boulder behind and above me. The man fired into him and they both fell fifteen or so feet onto the stage. I heard bones snap and prayed they weren’t Pilgrim’s.

The uphill slope ended in a five foot wall that continued the trail upward. Max took the jump, the nails of his back, right paw losing traction on the slippery rock and giving way, smacking his knee into the hard stone. But he was beyond that now and regained his gait taking another jump, this time over six feet and through a hole the size of a manhole cover. He made it, his head just scrapping through and coating his fur in dust and pebbles. Beyond that rose the entrance to a cave. Here the scent blew so strong that Max could hardly contain the growl bubbling up his throat. But he was too good a hunter for that. He steeled himself, pushing back the overwhelming desire to rush into bloodlust, and moved forward slowly, slinking low like a big cat stalking its prey. The battle would come, but man was a dangerous animal with weapons he couldn’t understand and wouldn’t again underestimate. He crept along, moving through the shifting tunnel, dimly aware of the thousands of tons of rock above him making him feel cramped, closed in, trapped.

The light was dim here, the sun’s power pinched at both ends, clutching the dark and the cold in the grip of the rock.

Max found the sniper at the end of a curved path leading into an open alcove that broke out on the side of the rock revealing a crystal clear swath of blue sky beyond.

The man was pointing a rifle.

All was chaos. The world spun and shifted as I gained my feet, looking for Amber and Spock, my vision blurred to a narrow tunnel. My mouth felt dry as dust, my tongue swollen and three sizes too big for my mouth. It stuck to my cheeks and the roof of my mouth. I tried to produce spit, but there was nothing.

I saw a flash of sunlight reflected off glass from the cave in the side of Creation Rock. My mind snapped back to the night my wife and daughter were murdered, when I’d seen the same type of flash. I was