Camouflage(70)

McManus was as reckless with the cumbersome truck as she’d been with the SUV in rush-hour traffic; twenty yards from the barn she made a sharp, tilting half turn in the opposite direction, braked hard, and then slammed into reverse with a gnashing of gears. The rear tires spun, digging up clods of turf, as she backed and began maneuvering.

They hadn’t spotted us on the run or they’d be reacting differently out there. McManus kept backing until the rear end of the U-Haul was within a dozen feet of the doors. While she was doing that, Carson got out of the compact and the Rottweiler bounded out after her.

Chavez said in an undertone, “Coming in here. Be easier to take them if they walk in together.”

“As long as they leave the dog outside.”

“What if they don’t?”

I waggled the .38. “What do you think?”

The barn had been the right choice. We were in perfect position to surprise McManus and Carson, take out Thor if necessary, and hold the women until the county law arrived. Good plan—except for one thing we hadn’t figured on.

That damn dog and his heightened senses.

Through the eyehole I saw the animal stop moving once he was free of the car, stand with muzzle up and the big body starting to quiver. Then he was barking, loud. And then he lunged into a streak-run straight for the barn doors.

He didn’t slow down when he got there. Left his feet in a sideways jump and rammed his body into one door half hard enough to splinter a couple of the rotting boards. Turned and jumped up again, nose on this time, barking and snarling and scrabbling at the wood with his nails.

“Knows we’re in here,” Chavez said between his teeth.

“But the women don’t. Maybe they’ll think he’s after an animal that got in.”

McManus was out of the U-Haul now, coming around to where Carson stood, both of them watching the dog’s frantic scratchings at the barn door and not trying to call him off. Wary, but not alarmed yet. Neither of them looked to be armed. If they owned guns, and they probably did, the weapons would be stored in here with the other stuff. They’d have had no reason to take the guns along this morning.

I thought we might have a standoff that would last long enough for the law to show—the two women and the Rottweiler out there, us in here, nobody doing anything but standing fast. Wrong on that score, too. Because I didn’t take the yellow-eyed beast’s instincts into account.

He quit scrabbling at the door. Quit barking and snarling, too. I heard him moving and then I didn’t hear him at all. Didn’t see him anymore. I shifted position to another peephole, still didn’t see him.

“Alex. You spot where the dog went?”

“No.”

Not back to McManus and Carson. They were still standing together, talking to each other but looking at the barn.

Seconds ticked away, nobody moving. The silence seemed heavy, strained. Where the hell was the Rottweiler?

Pretty soon we found out.

The warning sounds came from somewhere at the side wall behind Chavez, where the half-collapsed remains of cattle stalls showed as shadow shapes in the murky light. Bumping, scratching, slithering. A deep-throated snarl. Faint blurred movement. The goddamn dog had sniffed around out there and hunted up a gap in the decaying wallboards large enough to squeeze through.

I hissed a warning to Chavez—too late. Thor was already inside and launched in a black blur. Chavez turned, bringing his revolver up, but he had no time to set himself and fire before the hurtling, snarling shape hit him straight on.

The force of impact drove him backward into the door, wrenched a cry of pain out of him, and knocked the gun out of his hand. I heard it clatter off the boards, hit the ground. He got his left arm up in time to keep the bared fangs from tearing into his throat, but the powerful jaws locked around his forearm and the dog began to shake it the way a terrier shakes a rat.

Chavez tried to throw the animal off, but the heaving weight had him pinned. I was there by then and I kicked at Thor’s ribs, his haunches; a third kick caught him square in the ass. But none of the blows did anything except bring out more growls and cause the fangs to sink deeper into Chavez’s arm, shaking it even harder. For me to try wrestling the Rottweiler loose was a fool’s move. I couldn’t take the chance of jamming the muzzle of the .38 in against the squirming body, either, not with the poor light and the way the two of them were locked and thrashing together; if I tried that and didn’t get the angle right, the bullet was liable to go right through the dog and into Chavez.

Only one thing I could do. I spun away to the row of stacked goods, jamming the gun into its holster, and tore off one of the plastic sheets. Bunched it up accordion-fashion with my arms and hands spread wide. Chavez was still struggling to break loose, grunting but not making any other sound. The Rottweiler’s growls had a kind of frenzied canine elation, as if this sort of vicious attack was what he lived for.