Doglands (17 page)

“Don’t give up,” said Jodi. “If Keeva is still racing, we’ll find her.”

One day two men came to the sanctuary to adopt a dog. Furgul didn’t usually take much interest in these matters, but he smelled them from the field. They smelled of engine grease, hot dogs and cotton candy. They hadn’t washed for weeks. He knew at once that they were not real dog lovers. They smelled like men whose only real love was money. He ran over to the house to investigate. A battered pickup truck stood outside with one door open. Various strange dog smells drifted out, but none of them dogs that Furgul would care to meet. He found the two men having an argument with Jodi. Brennus and Zinni stood at Jodi’s sides to protect her. They were glad to see Furgul.

Jodi was being very cold toward the men. She could see for herself that they weren’t dog lovers. She shook her head and spoke sternly in human tongue.

“No. No. No,” said Jodi. She folded her arms across her chest.

One man was young and skinny and had crusty red spots all over his face. The older man had blue-black tattoos on his neck. He waved a rolled-up newspaper in his fist.

“Argue! Argue! Argue!” said Tattoo.

Spotty pointed at the barn, where the other dogs were. Evidently, he wanted one.

“Gripe! Gripe! Gripe!” griped Spotty.

Tattoo noticed Furgul, and his eyes lit up. He pointed at Furgul.

“Perfect!” said Tattoo. “Perfect! Perfect! Perfect!”

“Give! Give! Give!” demanded Spotty.

Furgul bared his teeth and gave them a low, menacing growl that meant:
You’d better get back in your truck while you can still walk
.

Brennus backed him up with a savage bark, which meant:
We’ll eat your shins to start with, then work upward till you beg us to tear out your throats
.

And I’ll claw your eyes out too!
snarled Zinni.

Both men turned white and stepped backward. Jodi smiled.

Furgul caught a sniff of something intense, a rich, overripe aroma, with a hint, perhaps, of turmeric and ginger. It was coming from the pickup truck. He turned as Skyver trotted over, looking pleased with himself. Skyver rose up on his hind legs and panted up at Tattoo. The men scowled and shooed Skyver away.

“Goodbye!” said Jodi.

She gave the men a wave. Tattoo spat on the ground at Jodi’s feet.

As one, the four dogs snarled into action and went for one ankle each. The two men danced away in panic. Tattoo swiped at Zinni with his rolled-up paper, and Brennus gave his arm a light crunching with his giant teeth. The newspaper
fell to the ground. Both men turned and sprinted away for their truck.

“Let them go,” said Skyver. “The best is yet to come.”

The two terrified men jumped back in their truck. Skyver wagged his tail with joy as Tattoo sat down behind the steering wheel and slammed the door. Both men started bellowing and groaning with horror.

“What did you do?” said Jodi to Skyver.

“The driver’s seat was lovely and warm,” said Skyver. “And after the tin of Chumley’s Curry Supreme I ate last night, I needed a poop real bad.”

Tattoo and Spotty jumped out of the truck holding their noses. The four dogs growled with maximum ferocity and charged at the two men. Tattoo and Spotty jumped back into the truck even faster than they’d jumped out. The dogs barked with laughter as the truck drove away, Tattoo’s head sticking out of the window as he gasped for air.

Zinni said, “It’s going to be a long drive home.”

When the dogs turned around, Jodi was reading the newspaper that Tattoo had dropped on the ground. As the dogs trotted toward her, Jodi looked at Furgul. “Does ‘Sapphire Breeze’ ring any bells?”

That night Furgul couldn’t sleep. He wandered around the fields thinking about Sapphire Breeze. As soon as Jodi had read out the name, he had remembered: Sapphire Breeze was Keeva. And she was racing tomorrow evening at a track
that wasn’t too far away. Jodi had promised to take Furgul to the track, to make sure it was Keeva. Then she’d find out who owned Keeva and start the process of shutting down Dedbone’s Hole for good.

“How can you do that?” Furgul had asked.

“I don’t like greyhound racing,” said Jodi. “For every twenty greyhounds they breed, only one is good enough to race. Most of the rest get abandoned or killed. The lucky ones get adopted or come to places like this. But even the greyhound business doesn’t allow such abuse as you described at Dedbone’s Hole. There are laws and societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. They’ll try to put Dedbone in jail.”

“Jail’s too good for Dedbone,” said Furgul.

“Maybe. But what counts is liberating Keeva and the other greyhounds.”

“Can Keeva come here, to Appletree?”

“Of course she can.”

“And the other greyhounds?”

“I’ll make sure they’re well cared for, somewhere. Perhaps I’ll give Chuck Chumley another call.”

The hope in Furgul’s heart was almost painful. “How long will it take?” he asked.

“I’ll find out who Dedbone is tomorrow evening. Next day I’ll get the society to start an urgent official investigation. It shouldn’t take more than a few days.”

“A few days?”

“We have to be patient, Furgul, and do this right.”

Now Furgul prowled up and down beneath the trees in the dark, imagining what it would be like to see Keeva. Would she recognize him, now that he’d grown so much bigger? Surely she would. Argal had known him. Would Keeva still love him? He hadn’t been able to save Eena and Nessa. And Brid was lost, perhaps forever. Would Keeva forgive him?

As he turned these questions over in his mind, he heard a squeal of pain.

His ears pricked up toward the sound. It came from beyond the old stone wall that surrounded the sanctuary. Furgul ran over in the light of the moon, which was almost full. He heard the squeal again—it sounded like a young puppy. He sniffed, but all he could detect was a bitter chemical smell, such as Harriet had liked to spray all over her house, especially the kitchen and the bathroom. Humans thought it smelled like flowers or pine trees, but there was nothing natural about the smell at all. With the chemicals in his nostrils, Furgul couldn’t pick up the real scents beyond the wall.

“Who’s there?” he barked.

“Help me,” cried a little dog’s voice. “I think my paw’s broken.”

The wall was too high for the other dogs, but as part of his training, Furgul had been jumping over it for some time. He trotted back into the field, turned and sprinted forward. At just the right distance he slowed, sprang with all the power in his hind legs and rose up. As he cleared the wall, he saw a little puppy lying near some bushes. His leg was all twisted,
and he was crying. Furgul landed nearby and turned to the puppy. The chemical smell was all over the place. Furgul was suspicious. Only a human would spray it. But why spray it just here?

“Please, help me!” begged the pup.

Furgul looked all around but didn’t see anything. It didn’t make sense.

“Where did you come from?” said Furgul. “How did you get here?”

“I don’t know,” said the puppy. “Everything went dark, then my leg hurt.”

The puppy wasn’t lying. The sooner they got out of here, the better. Furgul bent over and grabbed the puppy by the scruff of the neck with his teeth. He picked him up and turned to carry him back to the house. He heard a rustle in the bushes and dropped the pup and started to dodge away. But too late.

He heard a sound: CLACK-CLACK!

Then something hard as steel hit Furgul’s skull. He staggered, still trying to get away, trying to open his jaws to bite, but a sack was thrown over his head and he couldn’t see. He struggled but there were two of them. He felt ropes wrap around him and tighten, trapping him in the sack. He heard the poor puppy squealing and heard several heavy blows with the steel bar. The puppy fell silent.

Furgul knew there was no point in fighting the ropes. The men would only hit him again and that would make him
weaker. Furgul played dead. He felt the two men pick him up. As they carried him away the chemical stink got weaker, and he got a whiff of something he recognized: the rancid odor of Spotty and Tattoo. They dumped him in the bed of their truck, swearing and chuckling with glee. Then they drove away into the night—and Furgul left Appletree farther and farther behind.

S
potty and Tattoo were crafty. When they got Furgul out of the sack, they didn’t untie the ropes until they’d fastened a choke-collar around his neck. The choke-collar and leash were made of steel chain. They also put a muzzle over his snout. He couldn’t bite and he couldn’t run away. Furgul decided there was no point in fighting until he had a chance to win. When they pulled on the leash, he jumped from the back of the truck without resistance.

It was morning now, and the scents he’d smelled on the dognappers—cotton candy, hot dogs and engine grease—saturated the air. As Tattoo pulled him along with vicious—and unnecessary—tugs on the choker, Furgul took a look around.

They were on a sprawl of wasteland at the edge of a town.
The wasteland was covered with enormous, dirty machines and with funny little brightly colored shacks full of gimcracks and glitter. In fact, the whole place seemed to be built from color and dirt.

There was a giant wheel festooned with colored buckets. There was a railway that went up and down—over towering peaks and plunging dips—with colored carriages sitting in a row on the tracks. There was a contraption with long metal arms, like a giant spider’s, and at the end of the arms were colored coaches with bright red plastic seats. The little shacks were painted with colored stripes and hung with colored balloons. There were colored flags and colored plastic castles and colored fake horses hanging from stripy poles. The colors were so many and so loud, you could almost hear them shouting.

Yet everything was smeared with dirt, and the place was quiet.

None of the machines were moving. And no one was living in the little stripy shacks. A few people mooched around here and there, but they didn’t speak to each other. Their clothes were as brightly colored as the machines, and their faces were just as dirty. Furgul didn’t know where he was, but he knew he didn’t like it.

Tattoo dragged him through the dirt toward a holding pen that was fenced and roofed with wire mesh. At the back was a filthy kennel made of corrugated iron. Furgul’s nose detected a gang of dogs. The dogs, like the people, stank of junk food and nasty habits. Bad people and bad dogs were a
bad combination. Furgul felt a clench of fear in his belly. He remembered what Argal had said.

When you’re scared is the only time you really need to be brave
.

Furgul saw the dogs in the cage, and the dogs saw him. They pressed their noses to the wire and checked him out, their black nostrils writhing, their slavering mouths hanging open to reveal rotting teeth. There were four of them, all skanky mutts. They must have been picked for their spiteful and obnoxious temperaments: mixed-up breeds of Doberman and corgi, pit bull and collie, and others too weird to untangle. Dogs who’d been born mean, and whose masters had treated them badly to make them meaner.

Tattoo unlocked the gate of the holding pen and spat curses at the dogs. Mean though they were, the dogs were terrified and cringed away. Tattoo loosened the choke-chain and slipped it from Furgul’s neck and kicked him inside. The boot caught him hard on one hind leg. But Tattoo didn’t take Furgul’s muzzle off. Furgul couldn’t use his teeth to defend himself.

“Welcome to the carnival, dogbait,” said one of the mutts.

“Give him a break, Gremlin,” said another. “The dogbait hasn’t had his breakfast yet.”

“Neither have we, Lunk,” said Gremlin. “But it’s just walked in the door.”

The gang laughed and slavered, their drool making pools in the dirt.

Furgul didn’t respond. These dogs had done this before. Many times before. He could see it in their soulless eyes and smell it on their breath. He had to keep calm and think it through. Argal had given him advice on how to fight in a muzzle.

A muzzle takes away your teeth, but look around—there are teeth everywhere
.

Furgul’s eyes roved the pen. He spotted a nail sticking out two inches from a fence post. He saw a couple of sharp, rusty edges on the corrugated iron of the walled kennel at the rear. Just in front of the kennel was a stout metal trough on legs, which stank of rancid hot dogs and french fries. Between the roof of the kennel and the roof of the pen, there was just enough room to stand up in.

Turn your enemy’s attack against him. Use speed, timing and position
.

Furgul felt out the ground beneath his paws. It was slick with drool and other filth. His eyes returned to Gremlin. Gremlin was the type of nasty little rat dropping who liked to talk tough—as long as there were other dogs to do the fighting.

“The masters are always stealing lurchers and greyhounds,” said Gremlin. “They’ve only got one use for you lot—and none of you ever come back.”

Gremlin stared at him. Furgul stared back. It was a battle for dominance.

The fight is won or lost before it starts. Never be the first to blink
.

Furgul remembered Argal’s awesome stare, when they’d first met in the Trap truck. After holding the eyes of the king, looking into Gremlin’s hateful little face was as challenging as staring down a hamster. After only a few seconds, Gremlin blinked and turned away. His cronies hooted and mocked him.

“Did you see that, Freak?” crowed Lunk. “Gremlin’s scared of the dogbait.”

Freak rolled his massive shoulders. “Dog—bait,” he mumbled, very slowly.

Freak deserved his name. His yellow coat was shaggy and matted with grime. His big flat head was misshapen, as if a mastiff had mated with a donkey. His teeth were as dirty and yellow as his coat. Furgul guessed that his brain was no larger than a peanut, and that even at that size, half of it had never been used.

“Very good, Freak,” said Gremlin. “That’s the longest word you’ve ever learned. And I’m
not
scared of the dogbait, Lunk. I just got something stuck in my eye.” Gremlin scrubbed his eye with a paw, but no one was fooled, not even Freak.