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

let him set up an ambush to kill me.” I was leaning so close a few drops of blood dripped from my chest onto his jeans. He turned even whiter and looked as though he would vomit. “You have no idea what you’ve started. You say you’re no boy scout and think of yourself as some kind of nefarious corporate mastermind, but what you really are is a petty, maniacal, control freak who’s money has gotten him in way too deep and whose lap dog has slipped his leash and wrapped it around your throat.” I stood up straight, my breath coming hot and fast. “You’ve done too much; caused too much pain, to be allowed to claim ignorance as your defense. As far as I’m concerned you are directly responsible for all the harm that has happened here. Your greed and pride have destroyed a family. The only thing you can do at this point is to order Verick to stop and give up the girl. If you do that and he agrees, and nothing bad happens to the girl, I’ll turn you over to the police and you can get your high priced lawyers to do what they can for you. But that’s your only chance. If this plays out any other way, you might as well consider yourself a dead man. Because that’s what you will be.”

I didn’t believe Doors would be able to call off Spock, it had gone too far and Spock would kill Doors before he went to jail for him. But I would let him try. I couldn’t absolve Doors of his guilt, but I could offer him this much, this one chance to try and get Amber back safely and right a little of the wrong he had brought about.

I turned my back on him, disgusted. There were things I had to prepare before Spock got here. I was thinking about them and maybe that was why I didn’t hear anything until the unmistakable “chu-chunk” of a slide pumping a round into the chamber of a shotgun sounded behind me.

My vest was sitting on the couch beside my shirt, my gun next to them. They might as well have been on the moon. The transmitter to Max’s collar was still on my belt, but I stationed him outside the house, thinking I had more time. My biggest regret was that I had failed Amber and her parents. I made the turn slowly. I would try and throw Spock off by turning slow then lunging at him, knowing I would take most of the blast head on. I steeled my will to keep going no matter how badly I was hurt. I had to try and kill him before I died. I had to give Amber that much of a chance. I’d failed my own daughter and wife, I would not fail her.

I finished the turn, my calves and hamstrings bunching in preparation, but it wasn’t Spock. It was Joseph Franklin and the shotgun he held was pressed against the base of Roger Doors’ skull.

47

Max

The Alpha had put Max in a down behind a screen of hedges that breasted the front porch. From beneath and between the bushes Max could see the road that led to the cabin. He laid perfectly still, only his eyes moving.

He caught the boy’s scent long before seeing him. The fear smell was there. He watched him walk up from the southeast, go to the Escalade, quietly open a door, rummage around inside and take out the long barreled shotgun. The boy walked within a body’s length of him and peered into a window, cupping one hand and standing on his toes.

Max could have hamstrung him easily, his razor sharp teeth slicing through tendons and muscle and bringing him to his stomach where the soft meat of the throat would be readily accessible. But the Alpha had not given the signal. So he remained still — remained silent — watching.

The boy went to another window, and another, finally slipping around to the back and out of Max’s sight. It didn’t matter. If the signal came, Max could find him, catch him, kill him. The boy was no threat. Even with the weapon. Max had no fear of him.

After a while, Max heard sounds from inside the cabin. Loud sounds. His first instinct was to break and go inside. The Alpha left the scent article beside him so he would be able to track to an entrance the Alpha left open. Of course Max could easily crash through a window, he’d done it before. The glass had cut him in several places, but the cuts had not been bad and once inside Max found prey to kill. But again, there had been no signal. So Max stayed in place.

Another period of time passed; Max half slept, his mind drifting but his senses alert. He remembered the fire and the smoke; Two Fingers slumping to the gore littered snow. He remembered tearing into The Huge Man’s leg a last time and the terrible weakness that invaded his muscles and his mind. He remembered the Bear Killer’s eyes looking into his as consciousness slipped away. He remembered thinking he was dying and being surprised when he awoke, riding in the belly of a helicopter that vibrated his whole body. He struggled to a sitting position and looked out a window. The ground far below, farther even than the time he ran to the top of a mountain and peered carefully over the sharp edge at the trees beneath.

The Bear Killer and another man were sitting in front of him with their backs to him and somehow he knew that the Bear Killer was in control. Max lay down, feeling no fear and falling quickly back to sleep. He awoke several times during the long journey, feeling himself being carried, sat down, moved. But it was all like a dream, as though he were seeing it from outside his body. There