The Demolishers (2 page)

I said, “That’s because you’re not a dog man, sir.”

“I should hope not,” he said. “Nor am I cat man or a ferret man or a monkey man or a parakeet man, or a little-white-mouse man. And I would have thought at your age you’d be cured of that childish pet nonsense.”

“Age has nothing to do with it,” I said. “A dog can mean just as much to an older person as it does to a kid, maybe more. And calling my attitude names doesn’t change anything. I grew up with hunting dogs and you know it; you may even recall a couple of assignments where my familiarity with dogs came in quite handy. As a matter of fact, I picked up a pup on my recent jaunt to Scandinavia. He’s in a training kennel in Texas right now and I hope to take him duck hunting shortly—the season opens in a couple of weeks—and see just what kind of a retriever my Svenska relatives wished off on me. And even though I haven’t had much time to get acquainted with him, I strongly recommend that nobody lift a finger against him, because my reaction would be exactly the same as Bultman’s.” I stared right back across the desk. “You’ll never understand that, sir. You told me once that you were brought up to be afraid of them; and that it gave you a lot of trouble when you had to revise our methods of dealing with attack and guard dogs.”

Mac said dryly, “To be frank, my attitude is that of the late W. C. Fields: Any man who hates dogs can’t be all bad. A slight exaggeration, but close enough.”

‘‘As I recall, Fields included children also.”

Mac disregarded that, frowning at me across the desk. ‘‘You can’t be serious about refusing this mission simply because the target is a fellow dog lover.” When I didn’t respond to that, he wept on sharply: ‘‘Nobody is asking you to
hurt
any dogs, Eric! All you have been instructed to do is deal with a dangerous man . . . . ”

‘‘A dangerous man who, crippled and perhaps not altogether well, had retired from being dangerous,” I said. ‘‘Okay, let’s pull it all out and look at it, including the parts you neglected to mention. Bultman was living on board his boat, a thirty-two-foot sloop, and doing no harm to anybody—you never know who you’ll find taking off in a boat these days. He was sailing through the Caribbean by easy stages, alone except for his ancient Alsatian bitch. He got caught by the fringe of a hurricane, his boat sustained some damage, and he limped into the nearest port, which happened to belong to a new island nation that’s free of rabies and hopes to stay that way by keeping all strange canines out. Their privilege; but there’s also an ancient tradition about affording refuge to distressed mariners.”

Mac said, ‘‘Just because an arrogant official exceeded his instructions ...”

I said, “We don’t know what his instructions were, sir.
Now
it’s being claimed that he exceeded them, now that the shit has hit the fan; but that’s the way of governments everywhere. Anyway, under similar circumstances more reasonable countries with the same kind of antirabies regulations just quarantine the dog. Not Islas Go-bemador. Those clowns didn’t even give Bultman the choice of putting back to sea with his damaged boat and his four-legged companion. They simply hauled the old lady shepherd onto the dock and shot her to death right
under her master’s eyes.” I drew a long breath. “And Herman Heinrich Bultman kept his temper and said
st, senor
, and
por favor, senor.
He got out of there without killing anybody, and I know exactly why. He didn’t just want the few he could get by grabbing one of the machine pistols that are always waving in the breeze in a place like that, and cleaning off the dock with a few well-aimed bursts. Suddenly they’d given him a new purpose in life, something interesting to do in his retirement. Now he’s going to use everything he learned in all his years as a soldier of fortune and professional assassin to carry off one final, efficient, Bultman operation: wiping out, not only the trigger-happy officials who did the job, but the lousy government that put them there to do it.”

After a moment, Mac said, “I don’t condone what was done, of course. But to suggest that the death of one animal justifies in any way the kind of bloody revolt this man is planning ...”

I sighed. “I knew we’d get to that after-all-it’s-just-an-animal routine eventually, sir. But Bultman isn’t doing what he’s doing for an elderly bitch that would soon have died of natural causes anyway. He’s doing it for his
right
to keep an elderly bitch and, when her time was up, let her die in peace with her old gray head in his lap.”

“Very touching, Eric, but . . .”

I said, “I won’t go after him, sir. I won’t say he’s justified in what he’s doing. As you point out, it was only an animal, and a lot of human beings are going to die for it. But I can’t go after him because, as I said before, if it had been my dog, I’d have reacted in exactly the same way; so how can I hunt down the man for that? As a kid out west I learned that if you mess with a man’s horse or his dog you’ve only yourself to blame for what happens next. It’s time these people learned it, too, and I’m not about to stop Bultman from advancing their education. If you want my resignation, it will be
on your desk as soon as one of the girls downstairs can type it up . . . "

When
I was a boy, a Labrador retriever was always black. I was aware that the yellows and chocolates were permissible variations, but I can’t recall ever seeing one of those offbeat canines. Nowadays, however, every dog breeder is striving for something new and different. The yellow Lab has been rescued from obscurity and is starting to take over from the black.

The pup that had been given me by the Swedish relatives on whose farm I’d stayed the previous spring ranged in color from pale red gold on the back to straw white on the chest. He was the biggest juvenile Labrador I’d seen. At eighteen months he weighed over a hundred pounds, with enormous feet and a head like a bear. His greeting was overwhelming, like being mauled by a grizzly; but I didn’t mind. I mean, it showed that he remembered me and, dammit, love is where you find it. There aren’t that many humans around eager to hug and kiss me.

“Grown a bit, ain’t he?” Bert Hapgood said, grinning. He was a lean dark man in jeans and a denim jacket. “Down, pup, down! I ought to charge you extra, Matt, the grub he puts away. In the morning you can shoot him a duck or two and see what he’s learned about handling them. . . .”

Bert and his handsome, brown-haired wife, Doreen, ran what might be called a combination operation. They had their kennels, and they boarded and trained dogs throughout the year; but they also had boats in which they took people fishing in the appropriate seasons, and they had a considerable amount of local marshland under lease, on which they ran guided hunts in the fall and early winter from their rustic hunting lodge on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico. It was a weathered building raised on stilts like the beach houses I’d passed on my way there, so high storm tides could wash underneath without damage. From my room, spartan but comfortable enough, I could hear the surf until I fell asleep thinking about tomorrow’s hunt.

It was an improvement over some night thoughts I’d been having. I kept telling myself that I’d survived longer in the business than most, and that it had been only sensible to quit before the statistics of my profession caught up with me; but I’d have liked to have it happen in a more friendly fashion. I assured myself that it was ridiculous to entertain any sentimental or regretful thoughts about Mac; might as well start getting mushy about the public executioner. Still, we’d worked together a hell of a lot of years . . . But that night in Texas I thought only about ducks and dogs and shotguns, and fell asleep in record time.

In the morning, after a hearty breakfast, we loaded the yellow pup into a crate in the back of Bert’s four-wheel-drive pickup and headed east along the highway, with another carload of hunters following along behind. It was a clear morning, with a good breeze and the sky already lightening in the east. The road followed the Gulf. Sizable waves were still breaking on the beach to the right. To the left was an endless expanse of marsh, into which Bert turned after a while, following an old, overgrown levee of some kind. At the end of it was a swampy pond.

On the far side of the pond I could make out, in the growing light, a duck blind with a couple of dozen decoys floating in front of it.

“It’s deeper than it looks; you’ll need the pup to fetch whatever you drop out there,” Bert said, leading me to the edge. “That’s why I gave you this spot, so you can see some water work. Don’t expect him to be steady when the gun fires; we haven’t insisted on that yet. I wanted to get him good and eager first. I’ll be back for you around nine; they generally stop flying about then. Good luck.”

The pup, released when we got out of the pickup, was already swimming happily in the pond, something I was pleased to see. They’re supposed to be water dogs, but they don’t ajl know it. I called him in, as Bert drove off to take care of his other clients. After the usual ritual of shaking himself all over me, the dripping youngster accompanied me around the pond to the blind, which consisted of several barrels sunk in the mud, concealed by reeds and brush. I climbed into the left-hand barrel, which seemed to be most strategically located. It was reasonably dry and had a comfortable seat. I loaded my shotgun, an old Remington automatic I’d had for years.

I whistled in the pup and parked him on a water-level wooden platform beside me that had been built for the purpose.

Oddly enough considering where he’d been born, his name was Happy. The Swedes seemed to like picking their dog names from the English language, judging by the three-generation pedigree I’d been given that was nicely sprinkled with champions Qf one kind or another— I didn’t know what the European titles signified, but they looked impressive. We sat and watched the marsh come to life as the sun rose; the reedy vista gradually turning from dawn gray to daylight gold. Some shots were fired in the distance; then the pup stiffened, staring off to the left at an incoming single that was obviously seeking the company of the friendly-looking group of decoys.

It was a teal, a small duck, but I wasn’t being particular this morning; I just wanted to see my dog work. I waited for a close and easy shot. When I rose at last the teal, just lowering its flaps for the landing, flared away to the left, low over the decoys. I let it get clear so I wouldn’t blast Bert’s imitation ducks, and fired. Rifle shooting is a deliberate science; shotgun shooting is the instinctive art of sweeping a fast-flying target out of the sky with swinging gunbarrel. This shot felt good, and was good.

At the report, and the resulting splash beyond the decoys, Happy launched himself like a rocket, sending spray flying in all directions. He surged out there, swimming powerfully—no heads-up puppy-paddling here—and came back with the colorful little teal drake cradled in his mouth. He made the delivery in proper fashion. There’s always something special about the first bird brought you by a new young dog; and we admired it together and I scratched his ears and told him what a great retriever he was.

It had been a long time since I’d owned a dog and I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed having one. But as I praised the pup, the instinct developed by years of survival in a nonsurviving business was whispering in my ear that it was too soon for me to relax and consider myself a normal, dog-loving, private citizen. I wasn’t through with them yet, the deadly ones, the killers I’d hunted all my life, not because I hated them so much, but because somebody had to hunt them and it took another hunter to do the job. They were still out there, somewhere; and I’d better keep a sharp eye on everything I valued, even a dog, because they could strike anywhere ....

I brought my mind back to ducks, but too late: a pair
of pintails had dipped low over the blocks and disappeared before I could get to my feet and get the gun to my shoulder. I’d barely sat down again when a larger bunch of assorted ducks pitched in to the decoys. They flared in all directions as I rose; the sky seemed to be full of them. I picked the one that made the best target, and hit it, and saw it fall. Happy was after it instantly, a yellow streak exploding from the blind. I swung on another and missed, but corrected my lead and dropped it into the marsh behind us.

Suddenly the sky was empty again. I reloaded and waited for the pup to bring me the duck that had landed in the water, a shoveler drake with an outsize bill, very gaudy and handsome; but they usually taste a little fishy. However, Happy was proud of it, and that was what counted today. He hadn’t seen the second fall, but he followed me back there and went to work willingly, searching where I indicated. Soon he hit the scent and dug the bird out of the tall reeds, a nice pintail, the best duck of the day so far. Then back into the blind in time to repel the next airborne assault . . .

By the time Bert’s truck appeared, I was sitting on the levee on the outer side of the pond, where it was more or less dry. I was field-dressing my ducks while Happy kept telling me that there were still birds flying, so why weren’t we shooting them? He didn’t understand about game laws and bag limits.

“Looks like you did all right,” Bert said, coming up. “Any problems?”

“Yeah, this dumb dog doesn’t know when to quit,” I said. I grinned, scratching the pup’s ears and trying to keep him from climbing into my lap. “No, no problems. He did just fine.”

“I was a bit worried when you first brought him here,” Bert said. “We’ve had some yellow Labs that didn’t have a lot of hunt in them, if you know what I mean; not compared to the usual run of blacks. But this one’s turning out pretty good. Give us a little more time to teach him manners and you’ll have yourself a retriever.”