4 Woof at the Door (29 page)
Read 4 Woof at the Door Online
Authors: Leslie O'Kane
Tags: #Mystery, #Boulder, #Samoyed, #Dog Trainer, #Beagles, #Female Sleuths, #wolves, #Dogs
Indeed, some of the big cats were venturing outside of their cages, looking to poach some more meat from their neighbors. There was a general clamor of warning growls and snarls.
Janine, meanwhile, had sat up and some semblance of cognizance had returned to her features. “Where am I?” she said, her words slurred. “Why are we in a cage?”
“Chesh Bellingham trapped us,” I answered. I returned my attention to Damian. “She threw the circuit breaker.” I glanced in the direction of the tunnel, which led to the exterior circle of pens. “Does that mean the electric fencing above the pens is off as well?”
He shook his head. “Separate circuit. We can’t climb over it with the power on.” He yanked on the padlock. “I have to get out of here,” Damian muttered. “I can’t leave the animals like this.”
Janine started crying and whined, “Damian, help me. My head hurts.”
The padlock Chesh had fastened was a combination-style, which she’d fed through an old-style bicycle chain. Damian quickly cut through its plastic sheathing, then began sawing on one of the links. In the meantime, I noticed that Atla and one of the female tigers were in the initial stages of squaring off. Atla was poised to claim the mostly empty bucket and the entire open space as her own.
“That’s going to take forever,” I said. “Do the electric wires outside extend between the pens? Can you climb into Atla’s pen with us?”
Damian promptly pocketed his knife and scrambled through Kaia’s tunnel to the outer pen. Ignoring Janine’s whimpering beside me, I knelt to watch through the small tunnel in Atla’s cage as best I could. The only view was directly ahead and not of the fence separating the pens.
I gasped as I spotted Chesh on far side of the pen, brandishing some sort of stocky rifle. Before I could react, she fired.
An instant later, there was a thud as Damian dropped to the ground. Then he rose and staggered through the tunnel toward me.
Reflexively, I grabbed his shirt and helped pull him inside.
“Shit!” he said. “She’s got my tranquilizer dart gun. Hit me in the thigh.” He dropped something he’d been gripping, which rolled across the floor.
There was another report from outside, and a dart wedged itself in the bottom of the thick meshed gate to the cage. Chesh had shot a second dart at us through the tunnel.
“You think you can outsmart me, hey?” Chesh screamed. “I’ll shoot a dozen darts into each of you and kill you myself!”
At the noise, a cougar and a black leopard emerged from their cages. They both dashed past us, both Atla and the tiger letting out warning protests.
Damian slumped over. I shut the mini-gate to the tunnel, a solid guillotine-like sheet of metal.
“Damian! No!” Janine started sobbing and rushed beside him, pulling him down into her lap.
He let out a small grunt, then lost consciousness.
Damn it all! We’d be sitting ducks if we stayed in this cage until Chesh came in after us. What the hell could we do? “She’s not going to just barrel in here, knowing all the animals are loose,” I muttered, thinking out loud. Then again, she had the cattle prod to fend off the animals.
At least four big cats and Atla were set to do battle. My only hope to stop Chesh from shooting us with darts, was to enter the cats’ arena. Shit! How had I gotten myself into this mess!
Beside me, Janine sputtered and cried, rocking herself with Damian’s head and shoulders in her lap. “Janine,” I said coarsely. “We have to save ourselves. I’m going to have to go out there again. Surprise Chesh as she’s coming through the door.”
“You’ll never manage,” Janine answered, catching on to what was happening. Her words were still slurred. “The animals. The dart gun.”
“Then help me! We’ll get on either sides of the entrance!”
“I can’t go out there like this!” she whined. “I’m bleeding. I’m seeing double. I can’t do it.”
“You have to! She’s going to come in here and shoot us! We either stop her now, or we’re dead!”
“I can’t.” She burst into tears.
I didn’t have time for this. I reached through and flipped the latch into the open position, then started cranking the door back up.
“Janine,” I said through a tight jaw, “pull yourself together. Grab a meat bucket. You hear her rattling the lock, you get ready. When she comes through the door, drop the meat bucket over her head.”
I cranked open the gate just far enough to crawl through. Atla was half whining, half howling. The bear, too, was in the center of the open space, playing with the meat bucket like an overgrown toddler. Mercifully, this seemed too much for the leopard and cougar. They’d returned to their respective cages to defend their meals.
Janine, still sobbing, lowered the gate behind me. “I’m sorry,” she cried. “I can’t help you.”
I walked past both of the animals in a slow gait, not looking at either of them to portray a confrontation. If they attacked, it would only shorten my life by a few minutes.
I grabbed my hideous club of meat and flattened myself against the wall alongside the door. I heard a key in the lock.
I raised my club, the flesh of my unbandaged hand sticking to its icy surface. A moment later, the lights went back on, the door was kicked open, and Chesh charged into the room, the rifle in one hand, the cattle prod in her other.
I’d been surprised by how fast she’d entered. I swung at her head with the full force of my fury. She saw me coming enough that she dodge a little. My blow landed on her shoulder.
She cried out in pain and dropped the rifle.
I scrambled after it and swept it up, just as I felt an unbelievably horrible pain in one leg. The Taser felt at once as though my leg had been crushed and stabbed.
I managed to keep my grip on the dart gun and whirled toward her.
She dropped the prod and got both hands on the rifle before I’d gotten a strong grip myself.
She screamed as Leo trotted close to us. He wanted to claim my “club” before any of the others did. I kicked it his direction, still wrestling with the gun, but she pulled it free. All I could do was hold onto the rifle barrel and prevent her from aiming it.
“Let go!” she hollered. She spun around with so much force I couldn’t hold on any longer. It felt as though my fingers were broken from the force, and I fell.
She aimed at me. I scrambled to me feet.
“Look out!” Janine cried.
Chesh automatically flinched and turned to look back. I tackled her, launching my shoulder straight at the back of her knees. She got a shot off as she was falling, the rifle once again dropping from her grasp.
I fought for all I was worth. The bear ran back into his cage as Janine and I flailed away at each other on the hard-packed dirt floor.
She clawed at my injured hand. The pain was excruciating, but I elbowed her in the breast. There were some metallic clicks behind us. I prayed that the sound was of a gate being cranked open.
Chesh managed to roll on top of me. She got both hands around my neck. I pushed up desperately, but couldn’t get leverage. I grabbed her wrists and tried to pull her hands off of me, but she had her full weight on them. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t last much longer.
From the corner of my vision I saw a flurry of motion. A gunshot echoed. Janine’s grip loosened.
Chesh collapsed on top of me. Gasping for air, I slithered out from under her. My neck hurt horribly. I tried to speak, but couldn’t. Janine sat down on the ground, dropping the rifle from her hands in the process.
I pulled the dart out Chesh’s back and dropped it, then staggered toward the still open door. I flipped the switch on the circuit breaker on the outside wall, then went back in and lowered all the gates. As I did so, I realized that the door to the open space had been wide open this whole time. To the best of my knowledge, all of the animals had stayed inside, as Damian had once told me they would.
Only Leo and Atla remained outside of their cages. Leo was contentedly gnawing away on my former club. Atla was pacing in the open space, near the opening to where Damian still lay.
Janine looked like a character from a horror film. Blood was matting her hair. Her face was totally white. Her eyes looked like black holes. She stood stock still, gripping the tranquilizer gun, staring down at Chesh.
Supporting my throbbing throat with one palm, I said in a cracked voice, “Janine. We’ve got to go get help.”
To my surprise, she shook her head. “Can’t leave Damian.” She reached into the pocket of her shorts and tossed me a set of keys. “There’s a cellphone in my van. You can get coverage about ten miles toward the city.” She picked up the cattle prod from where it lay, a short distance from her feet. “I’ll keep watch.”
I shut the door behind me and got out to my car as quickly as I could, hurting with every step. I drove as fast as I could, while keeping an eye on my phone until a bar appeared. I pulled over, called nine-one-one, and told the dispatcher to send an ambulance and police to Damian Hesk’s ranch.
She kept asking more and more questions. My throat was killing me with hen I spoke. Finally I pretended we’d just gotten cut off and hung up in the middle of one of my answers.
I dialed Russell Greene’s home number, my heart pounding at the sound of his hello.
With my hand supporting my throbbing throat, I said, “Russell, I love you.”
There was a pause.
“Allida? Is that you?”
My throat hurt too much to laugh, but I smiled. “Is this Russell Greene?”
“Yes.”
“In that case, yes, it’s me.”
“Ah,” he said with a smile in his voice. “In that case, I’m the luckiest man alive.”
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