There were a number of trucks parked about in no one particular way. Men were walking into and congregating about the wide doors of an old barn. The house that went with it was long ago abandoned, a corpse of a building just lying on the hill above.
Luke turned off the engine and looked around. “Moonie, this has all the earmarks of a cockfight. I don’t need this.”
“It’s not a cockfight. Shows how much you know.” Muñoz got out of the truck and pushed the door shut.
Luke got out. “So, what’s going on?”
“You’ll see.”
They walked toward the barn. As they passed a pickup, Luke caught in his eye the face of a dog. He stopped and gave her a rub behind the ears. He studied the hollow, intense eyes and began to feel unsettled.
“No, Moonie, I’m not goin’ in there. It’s a fuckin’ dogfight.”
“So?”
“So, I’m not goin.’”
“You ever been to one?”
Luke shook his head.
Muñoz grabbed him by the arm. “It’s something to see. Something to see that you’ve never seen.”
Luke let himself be dragged in. Men sat and stood around, some with dogs beside them in cages. All the dogs were silent, not a whimper, not a bark. The men barked, betting and ribbing and eager for the upcoming fight between a black pit bull and a brown-and-white one. The dogs stood in corners of a small corral, leaning toward the center, keeping their masters’ muscles tight against taut ropes. The men yelled in Spanish and English. The dogs just stared at each other, like it was their business, like boxers.
Muñoz pulled Luke to the corral. Luke was saying to himself that he didn’t want to see this, but he couldn’t pull himself away. What he wanted to do was run out and call the state police, but that would have only gotten him killed. Sick as it made him, as embarrassed as he felt because of it, in some way he wanted to see.
Then they let the dogs go. There was no stalking, no circling. The black dog ripped into the shoulder of the other, drew blood and bit again, moving sideways against the grip the brown-and-white had on his upper foreleg. The men shouted, more money changing hands. The masters yelled commands. Luke observed the different styles of fighting, the way the black dog sought to lessen the effect of the bite on his leg by moving into it. Then he heard the leg snap. The black dog yelped and for a second let off chewing at the wide hole he’d made in the brown-and-white. He let off for a second, and that was it. A charge turned him over, and the brown-and-white tore into his chest. The master of the black turned away in disgust. Luke was running out before he could see the heart of the animal exposed. He vomited outside between a pickup and a Pinto wagon.
He raised up to find the eyes of the dog he had petted earlier, still tied and standing in the bed of the truck. He went to the animal, and before he knew what he was doing, he had her untied. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her to his truck, put her in the cab.
“Hey”, somebody yelled, then ran into the barn.
Luke sped away, back to the road and through Questa, where he turned south and headed for Taos.
Luke wanted to kick himself. The owner of this dog would get the word somebody had taken off with his pooch, and the chase would be on. These people took this dog business seriously. He looked at the brindle pit bull, reached over and scratched it behind the ear. He could take the dog to the state police and tell them about the fighting, but his truck had been seen, so he would still be in trouble. The dog stared ahead through the windshield, not smart-looking, not stupid-looking, just there.
He stopped at a Texaco mini-market gas station. The dog sat quietly while he pumped five dollars of regular into the tank. He made kissing sounds and talked to the dog while he screwed on the cap. While he was inside paying the cashier he watched an over-sized Buick with Oklahoma plates pull up alongside the pumps just beyond the truck. The pit bull was out before the car had stopped good and the driver could open his door. There was a small collie in the car, and the pit bull wanted it. There was a little girl in the back with the collie and she was screaming, she was so frightened.
Luke ran out. The man held at bay behind the wheel glared at him. Luke found that he himself was afraid to reach for the dog’s collar to pull him away. The pit bull was not barking, but growling in a low rumble and leaping at the window, his jaws snapping, sounding like a big book being slammed shut.
The man looked at Luke. He realized now that the dog was with him. “Do something,” the man mouthed the words behind the rolled-up window.
Luke took the rope from the bed of the truck. He formed a loop and dropped it over the dog’s head. He gave a strong yank and jerked the dog off her feet. He climbed into his truck from the passenger side and slid over, pulling the dog in behind him. He held fast to the rope while he started the car. He took off, the passenger-side door swinging shut as he curved out onto the highway.
The Okie was out of his car and yelling at him. “What kind of idiot has a dog like that!”
Luke threw the rope at the dog’s face. “Christ,” he said. “I drag you away from a slaughter and—” He stopped. He’d taken the dog, he guessed, because he had failed to see anything vicious in her face. Now, he didn’t know what to think. “Bad dog!” he said. If the dog heard him, she wasn’t impressed. Luke began to wonder what he’d gotten himself into. What was he going to do with this dog? He couldn’t take it back to Questa: he’d return it and they’d beat the shit out of him. He couldn’t let it go in Taos: the damn thing would kill every dog in sight. And what if the asshole whose dog it was called the cops and reported it stolen, description of truck and thief included? No, the guy was dogfighting. He wouldn’t call the police. Would he?
Luke cursed the dog. Then he decided that this was all Cindy’s fault. He pulled into the parking lot behind the plaza and considered that. If Cindy hadn’t told him about the geek from Texas, then he wouldn’t have blown off his ride and ended up with Muñoz at a dogfight. So, here he was, thirty-seven dollars down the drain, a savage dog beside him and some crazy dogfighting banditos hot on his tail. All the fault of a woman. Cindy. She should have this dog.
He started the truck. Dusk was corning on. It would be late when he reached Red River. Especially since he had to go around the other way, through Angel Fire and back through Eagle Nest to avoid Questa and the boys.
It was late when he rolled down the mountain into Red River, and he was asking the same question then that he had been asking the whole way. “What the hell am I doing?” There was no place he knew to look for Cindy. Hell, he didn’t even know if they were in Red River. He had it in his mind to cruise up and down the single drag of town with an eye out for her. He was beginning to think that maybe he had taken a fall off that bull and dinged his head up pretty badly.
Up and down the road, the dog looking out the window at the car lights and store lights and people.
Luke studied the Texans, the dog, the night. He stopped the truck and led the roped dog behind the tavern where he tied her to the bumper of a shiny car. He walked back to his pickup, smiling at pretty, narrow-nosed, blonde women, climbed into his pickup, and drove away toward Oregon.
Esteban
The van had pulled off the road east of Flying Mountain and followed a faint, tire-rutted trail. It just sat there, dusty blue on the white flat. Nothing moved. There was no breeze. Cole Dixson parked his rig beside Winston Keeler’s.
“Anything?” he asked, taking his rifle from its rack.
Keeler continued to peer through the field glasses. “Nope.” He lowered them, reached into his jeep through the window, pulled out a shotgun.