The Wild (14 page)

The dogs hammered out their barks, their ears back. In Bob the wolf stirred.

They rushed him, all four of them at once, their bodies slamming into him one after another. The first came in under his throat, the second right beside it. They knocked him off his feet. The other two buried themselves in his soft belly. He felt an awful pain, kicked, squirmed, and was surprised to notice within himself a confident undulation. He rose and his jaw went off like a spring mechanism; one of the dogs was on three legs, screaming dog screams, and the crowd went wild. Then the fury of the shepherds was renewed. Their barking was like the clatter of applause. This time when they rushed him, Bob trotted away. Now they changed their tactics and began to chase. In a moment they were running around the courtyard. Bob was astonished at himself. He could run like the wind. In fact he ran so fast he was soon behind the slowest dog, the one with the hurt leg. Then he leaped on that dog and felt his muzzle probing for its throat. He thought about it, thought about aiming his teeth, finding the right place in the fur—and in an instant was at the bottom of a heap of snarling, snapping killers.

Again he got to his feet, but this time he could feel his own blood leaking from a hole in his neck. He needed a doctor; what if the wound was close to his jugular? Still just the one dog was wounded. He noticed, though, that their chests were heaving. He was barely tired.

A voice said from the dark wall: "He can run, man, but he slow in the clinch."

"He strong."

The dogs were wary now, keeping their distance, very intelligently using their superior maneuverability to worry him. Every few moments there would be another excruciating pinch and another wound. If this kept up, they would slowly tear him to pieces. When they came close, he would try to bite them, but he inevitably missed.

It was not long before their circle had tightened. They were crouching low, their heads against the ground, their hindquarters in the air, tails flying. He had a dozen wounds. Between them they shared perhaps four, only one of them serious enough to reduce the victim's efficiency.

He shook his head to get the blur of blood out of his right eye. His muzzle reeked with his own blood when he inhaled, and he seemed almost to be floating. The battle went far away.

Instantly they leaped at him, biting wildly. They were going to eat him alive, to tear him apart. He screamed in agony as teeth dug into him.

Wolf: the gleam of the careful tooth, the mind calm in the mayhem, calculating a death blow and then the snick of the jaw, a shocking flash as the tooth passes through flesh and a dog howls its last, its bowels splashing from the hole Bob had made.

Wolf: leaping on the back of a squirming dog, gobbling at his bones, gnashing down on the gristle, feeling tooth slide against backbone, tasting the soft sweetness of the spinal bundle. Another one dead.

Then the wolf stopped, scented the air, tossed his head to clean his ears of the wild screaming, the thundering drum, to clear his eyes of the flicker of the torches. Two dogs remained, one dragging a leg and constantly shaking its head, the other shrinking against the far wall.

He had a vision, and he knew that he could make the vision true. Quickly he trotted to the near side of the courtyard. Between here and the back wall there was a twenty-yard run. He tossed his head and catapulted forward, a bullet of glowing fur. His legs carried him, took him upward, soaring, flying in the screams of the crowd and one scream in particular: "Bob, Bob, Bob!"

Cindy was in the courtyard. The vet was behind her, his face flushed. Beyond her was Monica, angular in the light cast from the building. He glimpsed Kevin, too, his beloved son!

Bob's claws reached the top edge of the wall. He pushed, the timing perfect, and cast himself up onto the scree of glass shards embedded in the concrete. Below him there was an alley, and in that alley a panic-stricken crowd was falling wildly over itself in its urgency to get away. A shot exploded, a blue, blinding flash, a rush of hot air, a stink of powder and hot oil.

Bob learned forever the smell of a gun.

Then they were gone, all of them, the doctor, the mama-san, the worshipers at the altar of the game.

"Bob, Bob, come down. You can come home now, honey. We'll take good care of you."

It was hopeless. There would be no peace at home, not with the press blitz that was probably breaking on the eleven o'clock news just about now. Atavisms would be brought up in the marginal people; there would be men with high-powered rifles, poisoners, trappers, and of course O'Neill and his lawyers.

But there would be Cindy and Kevin, and the chance to be a little bit human in the privacy of their home.

"Bob, please."

He hesitated, drawn by the night and the freedom, and by the soft, familiar scent of his wife. The moon paced the clouds, the wolf paced the high wall. "I'll get the dart gun," the vet said softly. Hearing that, the wolf won.

Bob leaped off into the wild, free night.

Chapter Eleven

W
HEN HE DISAPPEARED OVER THE WALL,
C
INDY BRACED
for another shot. Instead there came the high-pitched screams of the voodoo worshipers still in the alley, who cared not at all to have their wolf-god join them.

Rage broke in Cindy like a bloody foam of waves. She ran her fingers in her hair and shrieked. "Shut up," Monica bellowed. "Pull yourself together."

"He's going to get killed!"

"Ma'am, we'll get him back."

"You were using him, you were treating my husband worse than I'd treat an animal. You're vicious, inhuman
monsters
! I swear, if he dies I will come back and I will kill you one by one!"

The vet's mouth had dropped open. The word "husband" formed and died silently on his lips. Then a glance askance at Monica.

Cindy roared on. "I know what you're thinking, you bastard. You're thinking I'm crazy. You're hoping I am. But I am not crazy and I have a superb lawyer, and you and the city and the ASPCA are going to suffer for this! Your career is over, buddy, dead and in the dirt. And as for this bunch of cigar-chomping weirdos—look at them, you ought to be ashamed, for Chrissake—you talk about cruelty to animals, my God, you oughta be closed down!"

Cindy's words flashed into a silence. Even the dogs quieted down. The voodoo practitioners who had been in the windows were creeping away. As for the vet, he had gone to attention. "Yes, ma'am," he said in a voice he had probably learned during military days, "there have been irregularities. They'll be corrected at once, ma'am!"

Cindy laughed, harsh and derisive. "I don't care about your irregularities." Now her voice rose to a cutting quaver. "I want my Bob back, and I want him back alive!"

"Bob? Is that the wolf's name, ma'am?"

"Yes, of course it's his name. Bob Duke."

"He responds to the name Bob Duke?" The vet's face was now impassive, very carefully so. He definitely scented craziness, perhaps even amusing craziness, but this lady was so mad he couldn't risk the smallest sign of mirth. She was going to be complaining loud and clear, and the voodoo ritual was going to be very difficult to explain to the board of directors.

For the first time Cindy saw the reporters, who had flowed out into the courtyard and were now trying to scale the wall. Realizing it was hopeless, one astute camera team came thundering back through the pound itself, camcorders swinging. "Fan out," shrieked a tiny man in a Hawaiian shirt, his face purple, the veins in his temples pulsing like fire hoses.

"Who are these people?" Cindy asked.

The vet brightened. He was looking forward to being on TV. WCBS and Channel 5 had already interviewed him. "The media—"

"You're kidding!"

"No, this is big news. I'm sure I can get them interested in talking to you, too. They don't just want expert opinion. Human interest has a place, too."

Monica grabbed Cindy's arm. "Let's get out."

As they left the building police cars started roaring up, their sirens wailing, their lights jumping red against the dun girders supporting the elevated part of FDR Drive. Radios spattered codes, uniformed men jumped from the cars and sprinted off down the street. A van disgorged a SWAT team decked in full body armor and carrying 12-gauge riot guns. "They'll kill him," Cindy moaned.

"Come on, Cyn, let's find a cab. We've got to get out of here. We need the media like a hole in the head."

Outside of the vicinity of the pound, the streets were gray and lonely. "What will he eat?"

"He'll find what he can. Bob's a resourceful man."

"Oh, he is not! He's about as resourceful as— as—" She stopped, considered. "A three-year-old would be more resourceful!" Her poor husband, he couldn't camp out, couldn't even hike without getting hopelessly lost. Even around the house he was a disaster. "Last week he glued himself to the dishwasher with Krazy Glue trying to fix a knob. When I found him, he'd been there for two hours. The phone was within easy reach the whole time. He knew where I was, but it never occurred to him to call me. Do you think the man who did that can survive alone on the streets with no money, with no clothes, with no hands, with no way even to talk to people?"

"He'll hunt, he has the capacities of a wolf."

"Bob Duke will hunt. I've been hunting with him, so have you. He'll starve and he'll get wet and cold and confused and make mistakes. Meanwhile every man, woman, and child with so much as an air rifle is going to be hunting
him
!" She stared up and down the street. "Bob," she called, "Bob!" A camera crew began running toward them.

"Uh-oh, we're recognized," Monica said. "Let's get a move on."

Just then the vet burst out of the pound, his white coat flying.
"Live at Five, Live at Five,
they want us all on
Live at Five
!"

A cab rolled around the corner. Monica waved at it even though it was occupied. "I am doctor," she hollered, "matter of life or death." The driver gunned the motor, a New Yorker's seasoned instinct to get away, but he lost the light and a line of cars coming off the FDR Drive prevented him from running it. As Monica and Cindy crowded in with the surprised passenger the driver hit his steering wheel with the heel of his hand.

"Sorry," Monica said to the passenger, "gotta take a little detour. This woman is having a heart attack." The driver turned around. "Listen, bitch, I gotta fare."

"This woman is dying. Now step on it."

"I don't give a damn who's dying." He produced a baseball bat. "You get out of here."

"The hell we will. You don't do exactly as I say, I'll haul you up on charges."

"Taxi commission, taxi commission, I've heard that shit a thousand times. Lady, you get out of this cab or I'll beat your goddamn brains from here to Scarsdale, now move!"

It was obvious to Cindy that Monica couldn't handle this. She took over. "We're not talking commission, gorp-face, we're talking five years in jail for uncooperative manslaughter. Five years, and you
will
serve that time! We will not stop, Mr. Czlywczi, until you are in jail and the key is thrown the hell away. You see those cops over there? If you don't help us, I am going to scream, and when I scream, those cops are coming over here, and they will see your baseball bat—"

He threw it out the window. It clanged on the street and rolled into the gutter. "Step on it," Cindy said.

"I get out," blurted the passenger, a stunned Japanese businessman. He leaped from the cab just as the light changed.

"Kill the meter," Cindy commanded. "We'll make it worth your while. Monica, give the man ten bucks. Take us to Mercer and West Fourth."

The driver became happy now that he had the ten. "God knows what'll happen to that Jap." He laughed. "From here he'll have to swim down to the UN Plaza if he doesn't want to walk."

For a time they rode in silence. The driver was studying Cindy through the rearview mirror, his eyes twinkling. "Look, no offense, but I want to know something. Do you ladies always pull this routine? I mean, every time you want a cab? Or what?"

"Every time we want a cab," Cindy growled.

"Jesus, I been hackin' twenty years and I never seen shit like that. I mean, you gotta admire shit like that!"

"Step on it."

As the cab pulled up to her building Cindy saw a crowd lurking around the entrance, their silhouettes dark against the glow from within.

As they exited the cab a klieg burst on, and Cindy found herself confronting a bright impenetrable wall. A familiar TV face came into view. A microphone was thrust at her. "Dr. Wilcox at the ASPCA says Bob is one of the largest wolves on record, and the largest ever held in captivity. Can you tell us where you got this wolf?"

Cindy heard him, but she was totally unprepared to answer. Her mouth was so dry it tasted like a cedar closet. She learned, in that moment, the true meaning of the term "tongue-tied." What could she say? The camera eye gleamed, moths fluttered in the hissing lights. Sweat beaded up through the reporter's makeup.

"Cut a minute, Jake. Look, Mrs. Duke, we're going to find out one way or another. We're going to find out everything."

"My God, help me," a male voice screamed off in the dark. Instinctively, Cindy whirled. Flashbulbs popped, somebody scuttled off.

"Don't worry about that," the reporter said, "it's just the
Post
going for a reaction shot. You and Bob are their front page tomorrow."

Cindy rocked back on her heels. Front page! All it meant to her was Bob's body, full of bullet holes, being held up by a proud SWAT team. "How long have you had the wolf?"

"A day," she finally managed to answer. "We found him on the street. He was hungry and alone and he needed help. He's such a gentle creature—

"You found him on the street? Where?" What had she said before? Was it Fifth Avenue? She couldn't remember. She'd be vague. "Uptown. On a comer. He's so gentle and sweet, so tame. I'm just terrified that—" Her chest ached, her throat all but closed. She looked at the camera, and for an instant she was looking into a million faces. They were not hard faces, they were faces of ordinary people, watching her blankly. Right now they were impassive, but at a word from the reporter they were all going to turn into cavemen. "Please don't hurt him. Don't hurt my Bob." She could not go on. Before that savage crowd she felt so weak, so helpless, all of her bravado collapsed and she buried her face in her hands and gave way to tears.

"This is Cynthia Duke, ladies and gentlemen, the distraught owner of the giant savage wolf that is now roaming the streets of New York. Again, police have urged that people stay indoors, that any and all suspicious-looking stray dogs be reported at once. Remember, this animal is fast moving, intelligent, and savage. It has already seriously injured one of the Dukes' neighbors. You could be next. John Lye, Newswatch Five."

Monica dragged Cindy through the hectoring crowd. Cameras were flashing, microphones were being jammed into their faces, questions were being shouted. The sheer energy of it all dulled Cindy, so when Lupe silently handed her an envelope in the elevator, she took it without even much curiosity.

She was still holding it when she put her key in the front door. No sooner had she done that than the door flew open and Kevin leaped into her arms. "It was on the newsbreak, Mama. They're saying we had a dangerous wolf and it's on the loose."

She groaned, hugging him to her. There might have been things she could say to her son that would comfort him, but she could not think of them. It helped her to hold him, and she trusted that it helped him to be held.

They went arm in arm into the living room, Monica following behind. The television glared at Cindy, a sheer gray eye. "Turn it on," she said.

"Don't you think perhaps you'd better not?"

"Turn it on, Monica, it's nearly eleven. We don't want to miss the news."

"Cyn, I'll tape it and you can look at it in the morning."

Cindy went over and turned it on. She sat down and crossed her legs, staring blindly at the last few minutes of
Thirtysomething.
The envelope lay on her lap. She looked down. The return address was Weisel and Dobson. The landlords. She opened it. Legal papers. She read with quickening interest. "We regret to inform you that under paragraphs 14 and 23 of your lease we are compelled to initiate summary eviction proceedings against you. We were willing to negotiate with you about the matter of nonpayment of rent, but this harboring of a dangerous animal in total disregard of the safety of your neighbors has led us to respond to the dozens of complaints we have received, and ask you to leave."

"God, they're prompt. Monica, I'm being thrown out."

"Give me that." She snatched it away from Kevin, who had grabbed it from his mother. He was white, his eyes following the paper as if it was a cobra ready to spit. Kevin had never known a home other than this. The room where he had grown up was filled with his things, his books, his art, his stamp collection, his coin collection, his computer, his very secret collection of girlie magazines. "I wish Dad would come home."

"This is outrageous. They can't do this. Why haven't you paid your rent?"

"We're dead broke, Monica."

"You're kidding. I thought Bob was doing so well."

"He hasn't made a dime in months. I thought you knew that. I assumed you did."

"He never mentioned financial problems."

"Well, he sure as hell had them."

Monica regarded Cindy and Kevin with tenderness. "I don't have any big answers, Cyn, but at least I can help you with money."

"I don't like to ask."

"No, that isn't your way. Bob married you because he was attracted to your strength."

"I'm too damn strong! I drive people away. I scare men to death." She did not add what she thought, that she only scared the strong ones. The weak came to stay.

"Don't worry about that now. I'm going to write you a check, Cindy. How much money do you actually have?"

"What's in my wallet. Eight dollars, plus three Bob gave me yesterday. That's somewhere in the bedroom."

"I have twelve dollars in my box," Kevin said.

"But what assets? What can you draw on?"

"Nothing, unless you consider the furniture."

"You're kidding."

Don't get defensive, Cindy cautioned herself. She's your good friend. "We don't have a thing."

"I can lend you five thousand dollars, Cyn. I wish it could be more."

"I haven't seen that much money in months." Just then the news started. Cindy turned up the sound, and they all watched the story of the wolf unfold. It was the lead item, preceding the president's operation and the crash of a commuter plane on Long Island. There were terrible, lurid pictures of Bob glaring into the camera, his face lighted to look menacing. To see him made Cindy groan aloud. What was it like to
be
that? What was the poor man thinking, what hell was he going through?

They talked about the "enormous, very dangerous animal." An "expert" named Dr. Bert Choate from the Fish and Game Commission appeared and warned the public that while wolves were normally not particularly dangerous to man, in an unusual situation like this, "anything can happen." He leaned into the camera. "This animal is frightened and alone. It feels cornered. The first chance it gets, it will lash out. And believe me, I've seen what a wild animal can do. Its teeth are a razor-sharp weapon. And it's so skilled at using them, it can catch a floating hair out of the air and split it."