Owens was strong, but he was no match for Kendall in a street fight. Although Kendall wasn’t interested in hurting the soldier, he needed to get to Andy and Owens would not quit. Kendall finally landed a hard blow to Owens’s mouth that appeared to stun him. After that, Owens stepped back into the crowd.
With Owens in temporary retreat, Kendall tried to find Andy, but the street had fallen into confusion. He watched as the dogs ran out of the church and began moving as one, following some invisible current, heading east through the crowd. Wherever the dogs ran, the fighting slowed and then stopped. One moment members of the crowd pushed and shoved against angry soldiers or pulled away from frustrated cops. Then the dogs passed through and the humans paused to watch. Upraised arms and weapons were lowered, and shouts and curses were abandoned in mid-sentence.
In later interviews, those who had participated in the conflict tried to explain the change they’d experienced when the dogs ran among them. Most said it had just been the right distraction at the right time. But others implied that they’d felt something more; that seeing the dogs had reminded them of old promises to do better, or that it had simply been too hard to hold on to self-righteousness and anger in the face of such grace. Even McGreary would later admit to Kendall that he’d sensed something deep within him shift—a great unburdening: “Watching those dogs run free, it was like when the last bout of nausea from the worst stomach flu passes and you’re finally able to get some damn sleep.”
Whatever was happening to the civilians, police, and Guard, one person on the street in front of that church remained unaffected. Owens had returned and he was in the place that experienced combat soldiers call “the Gray”—the place where they hear and see nothing except for the combatant directly in front of them.
Kendall knew he was that combatant.
Owens drew his handgun and pointed the weapon at Kendall’s head. McGreary tried to reach them but Owens and Kendall were too far away.
“Owens! No!” McGreary screamed at him.
Owens fired. He was no more than five feet from Kendall.
Kendall saw a muzzle flash and then the pack of dogs driving between him and Owens. He squeezed his eyes shut against the bullet’s impact.
In his darkness Kendall saw his wife and daughter. He longed for more time with them and to know the look on Deb’s face when she opened the wrapping on that bike, the quiet comfort of more family dinners and movie nights, the warmth of close walks, the different tones of his child’s laughter. Then they were gone.
He saw his old partner.
Phoenix was coming for him one last time. Kendall’s legs crumbled from the impact.
But it wasn’t the bullet that brought him down; it was the force of one word.
Forgiven.