Sundance didn’t waver, didn’t misdirect, but came straight at my throat. The beast forced me backward in the snow, and we both rolled ass over elbows. His mouth slammed shut, but the majority of the bite went into my heavy sheepskin coat, and I flipped him over my head, the momentum forcing his jaws loose as he continued to bite at me with bone-crushing force.
I flailed with the .45, but one of the bites hit my wrist. I rolled over and flopped forward, desperately grabbing for my dropped sidearm. It was snow- caked, and I reached for it, but my hand refused to operate. The bite had either broken the bone or hit the pressure points in my hand enough so that the thing was useless.
The monster had turned now and was rising from the snow with his black lips pulled back and his ears lying flat. I could see the muscles ripple under the heavy coat, and the determination in the jaundiced eyes that weren’t likely to be fooled again.
I scrambled my left hand across my body, but there was no way I’d make it.
He leapt, and I have to admit at that moment I was stunned by the grace of the animal; the way the broad chest and magnificent head looked in that final moment of attack. Maybe I’d get the Colt up against him before it was all over but probably not.
It was then that something hit me square in the back, forcing my face into the snow and knocking the wind from me. All I could think was that Butch must’ve gotten free from the tunnel and had decided to join the fun.
My hand finally closed on the Colt but the dog on top of me was gone, almost as if he’d used me as a launching pad.
Only it wasn’t Butch.
I raised my head and tried to focus. The two of them rolled like a giant, fur-covered wheel into the open well of a junked, snow-covered GMC pickup. The collision caused the snow to fall off the vehicle like a miniature avalanche, but neither of them was giving quarter. Sundance crunched down on the back of Dog’s heavy neck, but Dog lurched forward, slamming him into the fender of the truck. Sundance redoubled his efforts, but Dog’s wide head rammed him, flipping him sideways and backward. Sundance was faster, but Dog’s muscle mass gave him the advantage in close contact.
My dog stood there in the center of the pathway between us, the hackles raised on his swirling red, brown, and blond back that surged with a tide of muscle. His muzzle was wider than the wolf ’s, mastifflike, with teeth like the edge of a front-end loader.
Sundance started to move left, still intent on getting hold of me, but Dog shifted his weight, and I watched the spittle drip between his splayed legs. There was blood in the strings, but he showed no sign of weakening.
I had to give the wolf credit for concentration; even faced with Dog, he was still focused on me as his victim. I brought the .45 around with my left hand, fumbling to get it aimed, but my movement distracted Dog. That was all the wolf needed. He sprang forward but was struck sideways when he passed as Dog closed his massive muzzle on one of Sundance’s forelegs, and I could hear the sickening crunch from a car length away.
The damage was done, and he fell away with a squealing yelp. Dog stood his ground and watched as the other dog struggled up on three legs to pace right. Dog pivoted to follow.
Sundance stopped pacing and growled, but Dog countered by digging his claws into the ice and snow in a false charge. The wolf backed off, and just like that, the fight was gone from him.
The .45 trembled in my hand. I lowered it and pushed up on my hands and knees.
I stayed there for a few moments, trying to get my adrenaline level back to approaching human. I cleared my throat and caught my balance with a hand extended to the nearest junker.
I struggled up beside Dog. “Jeez . . .” I could feel the bile in my throat and choked back the nausea. My balance was still a little off, and I put a hand on the door of another rusted hulk, took a few more breaths, and got my voice back to a squeak. “What took you so long?”
He didn’t turn to look at me, but his head cocked as if I were calling to him from another world—I guess, in a way, I was. He raised his bloodied muzzle but kept his eyes on Sundance. “Good boy.” I breathed out a great sigh. “Good boy.”
He was bleeding from his jaw, and his ear looked torn, but he wouldn’t turn. I took a few more deep breaths and whispered the only word I could think of saying. “Stay.”
I swear he glanced up at me with the expression of “What the hell else do you think I’m going to do?” I smiled and kicked off after the only prey left, confident that Dog had my back.
My right hand was still inoperable; it didn’t hurt, but it wouldn’t work from the wrist down and only flopped when I rotated my arm. I checked the Colt to see that the breech was still pulled and the safety off, which it was.
In the distance I could hear a motor turning over, the starter grinding in the cold, running the battery down. I continued through the snow and could finally see the row of tow trucks, but I couldn’t tell which one was producing the noise.
I stepped from the row as one of the tow-truck engines caught and fogged a blackened exhaust onto the snow. It was the one closest, and I raised the .45 in my left hand. “Sheriff ’s Department, freeze!”
My voice might’ve carried to the end of my arm.
I cleared my throat and tried again. “Sheriff, freeze!”
Maybe two arms’ length.
I bellowed out with all I had as I staggered forward, the Colt leading the way. “Sheriff !”
I could see Gina, frantically trying to get the tow truck in gear with both hands, and then could hear the horrendous noise as the gears caught and the big vehicle leapt forward in granny—a good one mile an hour.
The Fords I remembered from that period had floor shifters like Arthur’s sword in a stone and, once you got them in the lower-case gears, they didn’t come out. The hubs were locked, and the heavily knobbed snow tires dug like the steel wheels of a locomotive.
We were now set for the slowest chase in high plains history.
Brandishing my sidearm in a highly dramatic fashion, I limped forward, only slightly faster than the approaching truck. “Gina, shut that thing down! Now!”
The truck continued to forge on toward me, the tow- lift cables swinging behind it in the falling snow. The grille guard on the front was homemade and consisted of four-inch pipe and steel grating, honeycombed across the front, with a large opening so that the hood could be raised.
I had limited ability with my left hand but figured I could hit the radiator, so I raised the barrel of the Colt and fired. The thing spewed a blast of steam and dribbled a sickly green onto the packed ice and snow, but it kept coming at me.
I could see Gina better now, and it looked as if she was intent on upping the stakes. Her hand came forward, and she pushed the pistol toward the glass.
“Gina, don’t! That .32 won’t—”
The double crack of the firing pistol and the bullet’s collision with the heavy glass sounded as one, and then I could hear the round, which was incapable of breaking the windshield, ripping through the cab. Undeterred, she fired again, spreading the spiderweb of breaking glass. This time the ricochet must’ve found Gina. She fell against the steering wheel, and the tow truck lurched in my direction.
“Oh, hell.”
I scrambled backward, started to slip, but then caught my balance as I tried to get next to the relative safety of the stacked cars. The Ford was bearing down and it occurred to me that as slow as the tow truck was, I was slower.
I made a calculated decision and changed direction—it wasn’t like the thing was going to kill me with speed. I tried to make it to one side, but I slipped again and had no choice but to climb onto the grille guard.
I hitched a leg up and rolled myself onto the hood as the truck slammed into the nearest stack of cars, moving them sideways for about four feet. I looked in the cab, but Gina was still slumped against the wheel.