I TURNED AROUND AND stumbled back toward Steve, along the path I’d broken in the snow.
When I got there the dogs were moving in on him, slipping among the trees in the darkness, excited, snarling and snapping at each other. They slid in and out of sight, so that first it seemed there were three of them, or even four. But I kept watching and there were only two. Dobermans, I thought. Steve was flat on his ass in the snow, both legs straight out in front of him, his right foot pointing at a weird angle to the leg. He was waving his gun back and forth, trying to draw a bead on the creatures moving through the snow and brush around him. He hadn’t seen me yet, and I couldn’t decide just what to do.
It was decided for me. One of the dogs caught my scent. It stopped, sniffed the air. Swiveling its head from side to side, whining, honing in on me as though with radar. Then, with the whine dropping into a throaty growl, the dog began to walk my way. I didn’t move a muscle and it probably hadn’t seen me yet, but it kept on coming—stalking me with stiff, tentative steps. Its companion was still focused on Steve, but this dog was locked in on me.
It was useless to turn and run. Maybe if I took off my coat, I could wrap it around my arm and …
The instant I moved, the dog snarled and rushed toward me.
“Stay!”
The voice came from my left. A strong voice. Confident. A voice the dog seemed to recognize as having authority. The creature stopped, turned its head. Still snarling, but with a new, almost questioning tone. A tone that asked: Whose voice is this?
I knew.
“Stay!”
The same voice. Lammy’s voice. He stumbled forward through the underbrush. Not toward me. Directly at the Doberman, who didn’t back away, but was silent now. The other dog stood still and silent, too.
“Jesus,” Steve called out. “What the fuck is—”
“Shut up,” I said.
Lammy spoke directly to the dog closer to me, but clearly had the other one’s attention, too. He was talking nonstop. The words were nothing unusual. “Stay … good dog … atta boy…” The same words everyone uses with dogs. “Atta boy … easy … get back … good dog…” But the message had more to do with the tone, the inflection, it seemed, than with any rational meaning. I remembered Lynette Daniels’ comments about whether dogs think, and about intuition and instinct—and Lammy.
Whatever did it, the closer dog turned around to slink away and join its partner. Half hidden in the trees, they stood together, on the other side of Steve from us. Motionless, emitting occasional ominous throaty comments.
Lammy stood beside me. He was shaking visibly, despite the confident tone he’d used with the dogs. “I got scared when we split up,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Well, you don’t have to—”
“We gotta go now. These dogs, they’re smart animals. But I’m going against their training. And they don’t know me.”
“What about Steve?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you, motherfucker.” That was Steve, still sitting in the snow. I turned … and stared into the barrel of the pistol he held trained on my face. “I’ll tell you what about Steve,” he said. “Steve’s gonna blow your fucking brains out, unless this faggoty freak here sends these goddamn dogs away and you get me outta here.”
The dogs started snarling again.
“I can’t.” Lammy’s voice was soft, tentative.
“Don’t give me that shit, you prick,” Steve said. “Get rid of the stupid goddamn fuckers.” One of the dogs started barking furiously.
“Be careful,” Lammy said. “You’re making them ner—”
“Do it!” Steve yelled, jerking the gun in his hand. “Do it, or I blow fucking Foley away.”
The dogs were shifting around again now, with louder, more menacing growls, snapping at each other again with excitement. And moving closer to Steve all the time.
“Do it,” Steve screamed. “Get rid of them!” He was beyond control. He waved his pistol at the dogs. They had separated now, and were moving around him, whining and barking strange, soft barks. “Do it, you motherfucker!” he screamed, and swung the gun back in our direction.
I yanked on Lammy’s arm and pulled him down with me and Steve’s shot went into the woods. We half-crawled, half-stumbled backward away from him, watching in horror as one of the Dobermans leaped forward at him. He fired two shots. The huge dog whirled away and dove back into the darkness, whimpering.
Steve looked our way, but couldn’t spot us. Lammy and I both turned and ran as best we could. There were two more shots, followed at once by a furious cacophony of snarls and yelps and yapping barks—mindless, bestial sounds that were dissonant accents against the high keening screams of a man whose flesh was being torn away.
Lammy and I kept on running.