Flawed Dogs (15 page)

Sam was meant to fight. And win. And survive.

Not likely.

Which is why Sam lay down against the wall and closed his eyes, allowing—for the first time in many years—the memories of a long-past life to flood his mind before the coming violence descended upon his tiny body. He was back in the grass of Vermont, running, a girl’s voice calling his name . . . when another familiar voice broke through.

“BUDDY!”

Sam opened his eyes and looked up at the crowd of faces. He saw the Rough-Handed Man looking down at him.

But he saw something just below him. A ragged poster next to others lining the filthy walls of the pit. It was for the Westminster Dog Show in New York City. It was the large picture of a dog at the center of it that made Sam sit up and squint into the glare of overhead lights.

It was a huge poodle. Looking gorgeous and regal and very, very familiar.

Cassius.

A word that he had long blocked out along with the rest of his memories. A word that suddenly fell on his mind like a butcher’s cleaver.

“Cassius!”
said Sam loudly.
“CASSIUS!”

The crowd heard a bark from the absurd, tiny dog lying in the pit waiting for death.

Silence.

Two hundred voices suddenly went still, their waving hands grasping the money stopped. The Rough-Handed Man stared, as did the others, waiting. Even the great snarling pit bull opposite Sam froze.

Cassius.
The destroyer of worlds . . . Sam’s world.
Cassius was alive!

If only it were
he
that stood five feet away at this moment, thought Sam, rather than the mindless, broken pit bull that was.

That would be something to live for. To die for.

To kill for.

That single thought . . . the seed of an unfinished idea . . . was enough to hook the frayed remnant that had become Sam’s life and keep him from sinking.

The stunned crowd watched in disbelief as Sam got to his feet. His eyes, now wide and focused, scanned the small pit and wood wall that surrounded it . . . and the killing machine opposite his nose.

Gotta get out of this place!
he thought, his mind racing, roaring, cooking at full boil.

But first he had to deal with the huge saliva-dripping problem in front of him. He dug deep for the instincts and skills from a distant time in his life.

“Let him go!”
Sam barked to the man holding back the pit bull
. “NOW!”

The pit bull opposite was released, but before the great dog could lunge, Sam was rushing
him.
The massive jaws snapped at Sam’s tiny head but found only air, for Sam had dropped low and slid between his wide-set legs as if on ice, emerging below the dog’s tail. Spinning, Sam leapt atop the beast’s back and careened off his head like a squirrel bouncing across a rock in a stream. But as Sam passed the smooth head, his stainless steel leggle whacked the surprised beast on the skull, stunning him, making him wobble on his spread feet.

Sam raced around the perimeter at blinding speed, the bigger dog spinning dizzyingly in the opposite direction,
vainly trying to intercept the smaller, faster one . . . all of which made Sam look like the tiny ball spinning around a giant roulette wheel.

The crowd screamed.
This
they’d never seen before. The Rough-Handed Man simply sat, mouth slightly open, eyes wide in shock.

The pit bull was powerful but slower than the tiny target, and Sam stayed in front of his flashing teeth. Over and over, Sam would leap high on the wall and fall atop the big dog’s head with a well-aimed whack of the steel ladle. But this would not be enough. It only drove the pit bull into further rage, the snot blowing from his flared black nostrils like dragon’s breath. It set itself up for one final run straight at Sam, backed up against the wall.

The big dog kept his head low, knowing Sam’s favorite trick. The muscled legs propelled the fighting machine forward with shocking power, and his head was nearly upon Sam when the dachshund leapt straight up, four feet like a sprung mattress spring. He wrapped his front legs around the surprised fist of the Rough-Handed Man leaning over the railing . . . and hung on.

The pit bull never saw Sam do this and to this day remembers none of it, for when he hit the wall with the top of his pointed head, he was knocked clean into blissful unconsciousness, where he immediately commenced a dream of being stuck inside a locked closet filled with expensive shoes and beef liver and then eating his way out: the default fantasy for all pit bulls.

The crowd sat stunned, silent. They turned their eyes up to Sam, still dangling on the Rough-Handed Man’s arm, who lifted the victorious dachshund and placed him on the wall before him. Slowly and silently, men began handing fistfuls of cash to the man, laying them in little piles next to his dog. Their bets.

It was a lot of money.

Sam looked up at the only small window above the crowd’s heads, the full moon shining brilliantly beyond the distant horizon. He looked back over at the man’s eyes and looked at him squarely. Even if this human being would have understood the dog, no words were needed:

It was time for Sam to leave.

The Rough-Handed Man looked back into the eyes of the dog that he’d nursed back from the edge of death many months ago, and he smiled.

Then with a wink he stared squarely at Sam and began singing under his breath:
“Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies . . .”

Instantly, Sam hopped atop the man’s head and then leapt to another two feet behind him. That man threw his hands up to try to catch the bounding dog, but Sam was long gone to the next noggin. And the next, moving ever closer to the window behind them all as the men went wild again and roared, pushing closer and reaching to stop the head-leaping runaway.

Dogs just don’t escape, they were all thinking. Not
here
!

And especially not one that took their money.

Food and drink cups and bottles hurtled toward Sam, but the dog simply ducked and dodged the missiles. Two men spotted his destination and moved to block the tiny window. Now where? Grimy hands reached for him, tearing at the folds of his skin but finding no purchase with the smooth coat of fur. Sam moved in jerky, frantic changes of directions as he looked for any escape, any exit, any possible path to freedom, but the enraged crowd only closed in tighter. The lights went out and the room fell into darkness.

Suddenly a different voice—a dog’s voice—cut through the roar, as if someone had turned the crowd’s volume control down:
“ ’ Ere, lad! Over ’ere!”

He heard it again.

Sam couldn’t see the caller, but he leapt across more heads toward the voice, trusting its urgency. There was no other option.

“The tunnel! Go for the bloody tunnel!”
said the stranger with a metallic echo.
“Follow me melodious voice!”

Sam spied a small opening at the base of the filthy wall at the back of the room—a heating duct from where the voice emerged. Sam went for it. He shot into the dark hole, but a large red-faced man with a stinking, fuming cigar clenched in angry teeth grabbed the weakest link in any dog chase: Sam’s tail.

Sam came to a sudden stop in the duct. Then he was dragged backward toward the man’s huge, red bald head, which was now wholly inserted into the aluminum tunnel. Sam had little choice but to push the nuclear button in a dog’s world of survival:

He peed.

This, among other more useful results, extinguished the cigar.

Sam wiggled through the heating vent duct like a rat in a drainpipe, the sounds of the hollering men growing distant behind him. He saw a light ahead and aimed for it. He hit a wall grate and tumbled out into a filthy stairwell. The source of the voice stood staring at him nervously on the steps.

It was—from Sam’s best guess—a Scottish terrier- hyena-dust mop mix.

One that appeared to have been plugged into an electrical socket while standing in a dish of muddy water.

“Who are you?” said Sam.

“No! ’Oo are YOU?” said the beast with an odd Scottish lilt.

“You called for me to run into the duct!”

“No, I called for one o’ them sixty-pound murder ’n’ mayhem machines. And out pops a peewee tofu pup wearin’ a kitchen spoon. Now what bloody good are you?”

“What good am I
for what
?” said Sam.

He followed the mutt’s nervous glance down the stairs. A dozen serious, murderous-looking feral cats crept up from the building’s depths straight toward them.

The new dog looked at Sam and shrugged.

“It ’appens that in regards to the house management, I am a little behind on me mouse payments.”

He pointed at his pursuers.

“Sic ’em, killer.”

Suddenly a metal door flew open on the landing just behind the gang of cats, out of which tumbled a gaggle of men. The large bald one—still with a soggy cigar in his mouth—was wiping his head dry of defensive dachshund pee. The damp man yelled, “THERE! THERE! GET HIM!”

Sam spun and dashed up the stairs, the other dog following. Sam hit the roof door and found himself on an empty flat rooftop four stories above the streets in the driving rain of a summer night’s thunderstorm. The skies lit up and cracked in rolling rumbles.

The gang of cats emerged from the doorway, fifty feet opposite them. They fanned out to attack, crouching low.

The men followed. Pulling their shirts over their heads against the rain, they too fanned out. Sam and the mutt’s backs were now up against a low wall at the corner of the roof sixty feet above the concrete.

Trapped.

The men and cats started moving in on them.