Deadline(152)

            One of the men, white-faced, scared but angry, said, “If you’re a cop, go arrest them.”

            Everybody stopped and looked at him, and Virgil looked back down the field, where dozens of people were either freeing dogs or beating the hell out of the trucks. One of the big trucks, the buncher truck, went over on its side, and the other was rocking.

            He turned back to the group and said, “Tell me what to do. Huh? What the hell am I supposed to do? You guys stay here. Sooner or later, you’ll get back to your trucks. Some of those people, you saw it yourself, weren’t afraid of your gun. They’re willing to be martyrs, if you’re willing to go to prison for murder. And, tell the truth, I’d hate to think of what they’d do to you guys if you shot one of them. So calm down and stay here, and I’ll try to get everybody I can out of here alive.”

            —

            VIRGIL JOGGED AWAY from them. People were still beating up the trucks, but four of them had brought down a roll of fencing and a dozen tall stakes, and were setting up an impromptu pen in the center of the field. Virgil had to walk close to them, so he swerved over and asked, “Who are you guys?”

            “Buchanan County Humane Society. We’re all legal here, we’re just seizing distressed and stolen dogs, the ones we can get inside the fence.”

            “God bless you,” Virgil said.

            —

            VIRGIL CONTINUED WALKING toward the last of the trucks that were still being unloaded. As the attackers finished the unloading process, they’d unhitch the trailers and turn both the trucks and trailers over on their sides. Virtually everybody was now wearing bandannas over their faces, and the TV camerawomen and a couple of Big Hairs were interviewing the raiders.

            Johnson Johnson, who would have been unmistakable for his tattooed arms even if he hadn’t been wearing a black bandanna, came jogging up and said, “I hope you’re not pissed.”

            “Get away from me, fuckhead.”

            Johnson veered away.

            The yellow dog, the same one that Virgil had seen in the crate, came loping up and sniffed his knee, and then fell in beside him. Virgil said, “Go away. Shoo.”

            The dog looked up at him and stuck its tongue out, and hung next to his knee as Virgil got into the heart of the crowd and shouted, “Hey! Everybody! You’ve made the point. These dogs are gonna die out here if they run off and hide and we don’t find them. So start herding them up to the Humane Society pen while we’ve still got them here.”

            That got the crowd interested in something besides wrecking the trucks, although one more truck went over onto its side, and then ten or twelve people cooperated in rolling it over onto its roof. The roof flattened a bit, and oil and other fluids began dripping out from under the upside-down hood.

            “Did you just have to do that one more?” Virgil asked. “Did you just have to do that?”

            “Yeah, we did,” said a man behind a red cowboy mask.

            Virgil asked, “Winky? Did you get your dogs back?”

            Winky said, “Yup. I owe you big, Virgil. Carol wants to have you over for dinner.”

            —

            A WOMAN’S SMALL HAND slipped into Virgil’s back pocket, and Virgil turned and found Daisy Jones smiling up at him. “Virgil Flowers. My, my, my. Did you organize this shindig all by your little ol’ self?”

            “I would arrest everybody here, including you, if I could,” Virgil said.

            Virgil and Jones had known each other for years: she was a smart, good-looking if slightly tattered TV reporter from the Twin Cities. She gave the yellow dog a scratch on the forehead and, “Nice dog you got there.”