The black man was glad that they found themselves downwind, for were it otherwise they would never manage to find the dogs before they were detected. The late summer breeze would carry away their scent and the small sounds of their approach. They avoided stepping on any dry leaves or twigs, keeping their feet on rocks and bare earth as they moved with the utmost slowness through the trees. Rodney kept his camera poised for action, for one good picture could get him a commission to cover the full story for a national newspaper or magazine.
It was as much a surprise for them as for the dogs when they suddenly moved into a clearing where the four wild animals were sharing out the meat from a lamb they appeared to have killed. Clete's rifle was not even at the ready when they surprised the four oversized German Shepherds crouched savagely over the carcass, their jowls smeared with blood and their yellow eyes blazing, like something out of an atmospheric horror film. Each one of the combatants, four dogs and one man, froze in a galvanic pose, a pose that Rodney caught perfectly on film from behind and a few feet to the right of the sheriff. The tableau was fixed on the film forever, the bloody lamb, the snarling dogs ranged around it in a way no artist could hope to devise, and the hulking, powerful form of the black sheriff, just bringing his rifle to bear.
Rodney's camera whirred efficiently, advancing the film, capturing the whole thing twice a second, changing position as the dogs moved toward their most hated human, the rifle coming up, the fire jumping from the muzzle. The second largest, and huge he was, darted to the right of the men, but the rifle had discharged accidentally, without proper aim, and it was only blind luck that the bullet penetrated flesh. Blood flew and Dusty yelped, superficially wounded, but Clete wasted no time and slapped the lever of the 30 caliber Winchester down and back, raising it to aim again for a kill shot. Rodney's heart leapt as he contemplated the violent death of the dogs, one by one, to be taken into his camera. The film was spending fast, but he always carried two cameras as a precaution.
Dusty should have been a corpse worth fifty thousand dollars, but Lobo, darting out from the men's right, closed his powerful jaws over the barrel and wrenched it from Clete's hands. Clete's grip had been relaxed for the shot or even Lobo would not have been able to tear it from his iron fingers, but the delay gave the dogs a chance to get away, Dusty trailing drops of blood from a painful flesh wound under his belly.
Clete's eyes were blazing as he turned, then pursued, and Rodney followed in his own, slower way. The big sheriff disappeared from sight into the bush, but within a few minutes, he returned.
"Fuck it! They got away!" he growled. "Fat lot of help you were!"
Rodney was taken aback. "What could I have done? No bullets come out of these cameras."
Clete's eyes narrowed. "Did you get any pictures?"
The reporter nodded. "You bet your ass, and they're some good ones too. Worth a fortune."
The sheriff nodded. "Yeah, yeah, and I want copies of all of them. The council will want to see them. And Jim Devereaux."
Rodney drew back, his face showing his shock. "These are mine. They belong to me. I have copyright." He clutched his camera tightly. "My livelihood depends on these photos. My story…"
Clete's hand shot out and closed on the other man's slender throat. "I don't give a fuck about all that. Just get them developed and show them to those people. My livelihood depends on that. Understand, shutter bug?" And he gave Rodney a shove.
The young reporter rubbed his throat where the sheriff had left red fingerprints.
"Yes, I understand. But-but I keep possession."
Clete was already retracing their steps back to his car. He was furious at having lost the dogs without a single kill, without a single check for a five with four zeros. The reward for just one of the raping animals would change his life forever, and the whole two hundred thousand would completely make it for him, his marriage with Nancy and his affair with DesirЋe on the side. How he wished it could be the other way around, but right now, DesirЋe was chained to Mark Denning, body and soul, even though her body had betrayed her several times.
He dropped Rodney at his own car, and said a brief so long, not waiting a moment. He was disappointed, but excited. He had actually, really truly, tracked the animals, and he knew he could do it again. After so many weeks of hunting them, he had finally drawn first blood, and suddenly the reward looked like much more than a dream. A nice house, a good car, fine clothes, and Nancy on his arm.
Damn, but he was horny all of a sudden! That taste of success and the excitement of the blood lust that was natural to him had sparked a flame centered in his giant male member and heavy, swelling testicles. If Nancy didn't get pregnant today, then there was something wrong with her. He was so hyped up, so frustrated, yet elated. He had to fuck a woman, and fuck her good.
He sped over the dirt road in the direction of Nancy's house, his cock itching for the irresistible caress of her tight, hot pussy. And then, as he crested a hill, he almost crashed into a car sitting askew in the road. It was easy to recognize the cute little German car that DesirЋe's father had bought her for her twentieth birthday. But where was the darling girl? He looked in all directions, and then began to follow the road. She was out here somewhere, and he was worried about her.
Billy Canning drew his thoroughly spent and sore cock from DesirЋe's quiescent vagina, feeling Sam's flop out at the same time. The girl had been an incredible fuck, and he had enjoyed her body more than any other, ever. Her body was cooling now as she slept the sleep of the dead, her sweat drying on her without odor, while millions of his and Sam's sperm invaded her vulnerable womb. Shakily, he got up from the bed and looked down at her, seeing Sam coming around himself. It was time to finish their business here and get going.
The video tapes had long since played out, so he stored the used ones and inserted new. He didn't want to miss catching what would come next, for that was what they had come for. From the leather bag he took the big hunting knife with the razor-sharp blade. It would be beautiful, cutting her throat while she was in a stupor of sexual satiation, slumbering innocently. He would draw the blade across her throat, making it bite deep, severing the arteries and windpipe while her hot blood pumped out onto the same old sheets where she had just been bred like a prize heifer. Then she would be cut up, and her head hid in the sheriff's office.
Billy moved forward slowly, hefting the heavy knife, so big that it resembled a scimitar.
Sam was waking up, rubbing his eyes, his hand resting on DesirЋe's breast. He saw Billy beginning to bend over her, bringing out the knife to lay the blade against her tender throat. Suddenly Sam understood that Billy, in spite of the joy the girl had given him, still meant to kill her. Sam, now strangely emotionally tied to the lovely girl, forestalled Billy.
"What, you mean you're going to do it with me here on the bed, cover me in blood?"
Billy looked taken aback. "Uh, uh, no, uh, I was just getting ready."
"You still want to snuff her? After all this, you still want to snuff her?"
"Well, yeah, why not? There's the buyer for the film in Europe. Lots of dough on that."
Sam was grasping at straws. He, like many men that knew the lovely, young woman, had fallen for her, loved her. Now Billy wanted to kill that love, as impractical as it was. "But, man, like, you've probably knocked her up. You'd be killing your own baby."
Billy shrugged. "Yeah, so what?" he had aborted enough of his own girlfriends' babies that he would not be worried about this one.
"Man, her husband's going to the top in politics. You could have a baby in the state capital or the US Congress."