Wild Dog City (Darkeye Volume 1) (2 page)

"How old do you think the scent was? Was it
urine, or-"

"It was," said Mhumhi, "but…" He hesitated.
"Sacha is right, isn't she?"

"That we shouldn't go looking for her?"

"That- that she might have left on
purpose."

Kutta swung her head around to stare at him,
but before she could reply a puppy burst out at the top of the
stairs and began yapping shrilly.

"Oh go away, Kebero, let us through," Kutta
said, shoving at his chest with her nose, and he backed off, ears
back and rump wagging against the ground. He was sandy-colored,
with a white underbelly and a narrow, foxy face: a Simien wolf. He
was half-grown, not quite all the way weaned; but Sacha and Kutta
could not produce milk for him, so meat was what he got.

Now he danced around Mhumhi's front paws, all
a-wag.

“Auuwhooo,” he said, his jaws working. “Auu-
oo- hun- hungry!”

“Don’t try and talk right now, Kebero,” said
Kutta, turning an ear back. To Mhumhi she added, more softly, “He’s
been doing this all day. I’m going mad.”

Kebero shut his mouth and licked Mhumhi’s
chin. Mhumhi swallowed hard and leaned away.

"I ate so long ago, I think it's all gone,"
he said.

Kutta walked over and poked him hard with her
nose in the corner of his mouth. With a surprised gag he opened his
mouth and regurgitated a small pile of meat onto the floor. Kebero
was on it at once, enthusiasm making up for his lack of skill at
chewing.

"You puppy, Mhumhi," said Kutta, "hoarding
from your brother."

Mhumhi wanted to whine. Until Kebero had
gotten there he HAD been the puppy of the family, and hadn't had to
give up any of his meat at all.

They left Kebero to his clumsy eating and
leapt up together onto the moldy-smelling bed. Kutta started
licking the subway dust and rain out of his fur.

"Did Sacha really say Mother left us?" she
said, eventually.

"Not just like that," said Mhumhi. "She kind
of implied it."

"Sacha always picks on her, you know that,"
said Kutta. "Mother didn't leave us. I mean- it would be better if
she did, I suppose, because it would mean she wasn't hurt badly or-
you know. But I know she wouldn't just abandon us like that."

Mhumhi, chin resting on the well-worn
coverlet, rotated his ears forward and back, thinking of how Sacha
had put it earlier.
Mother may not be dead
.

"Don't listen to Sacha," said Kutta said,
more firmly, perhaps guessing at his thoughts, and nudged her head
against his. "We're Mother's children. You know, I still think
that- that any day she'll come back with…"

She stopped herself, raising her head to look
at Kebero, who was sitting on the floor next to the remains of
Mhumhi's meat. He was watching them, head tilted. At Kutta's look
he licked his lips and gave his ropy tail a tiny wag.

It made Mhumhi recall the day their mother
had shown up with him in her mouth, a tiny thing with round eyes
and fur that was still dusted dark brown.

"He is Kebero, your new brother," she'd told
them. Mhumhi, a year younger then, had not understood at the time
the look that Kutta and Sacha exchanged, or why Sacha got up and
left whenever their mother entered a room for several days
afterward.

"Come up, Kebero," he said now, wagging his
tail a little, and Kebero bounded eagerly to his feet and made a
clumsy go of jumping up on the bed, sliding halfway back down
before he managed to get on top. He situated himself, wagging, in a
small space between the longer backs of his siblings.

Kutta made a little sound, not entirely
pleased, but rolled over to give Kebero a few licks between the
ears.

The three of them dozed together for a while,
Kebero occasionally squirming and kicking, listening to the loud
patter of rain on the metal roof above them. The acrid smell of it
grew stronger, as did the strong scent in the room coming from
Mhumhi's wet body. He licked his broad paws, trying to tease it out
of his fur, but it was a halfhearted effort at best.

Sacha came up the stairs, hopping over each
one, glanced at them, and went left. She disappeared into the other
upstairs room.

Mhumhi rolled over with a sigh and stretched,
eyes closed, feeling the warm little knot that was Kebero behind
him. He indulged himself in a fuzzy half-daydream: his mother had
been small, too, smaller than him when he reached his full size,
though at one point in his life she was the biggest thing he had
ever seen… He could imagine that she was still there, behind him,
smelling of milk and warmth and home.

Then the daydream started going sour, because
he was reminded of the morning he had woken up to find the spot
beside him empty. No- think of other things- think of her voice, he
told himself, firmly. She had a strange voice, not like other dogs,
with a liquid sibilance to it, but she did not speak very
often…

Abruptly he jerked up, out of his half-doze,
for from outside there had come a loud howl, a sort of bay of rage,
then a volley of fierce barking.

Kutta and Kebero woke up as well, Kebero
whining wordlessly, but Mhumhi had already jumped to his feet and
was running down the stairs. The barking had not come from a wild
dog, but a domestic one- he had just been thinking about his
mother's voice-

He nearly bowled over Sacha on his way to the
door, and heard her give a startled utterance of some sort, but he
paid it no mind and shoved his way through the door and outside
onto the wet street.

Outside it was chaos, pure chaos- there was
yelping and snarling and blood running through the cracks in the
asphalt. And a mass of dogs, most of them small, two of them big
and struggling with one another. Mhumhi tripped over a dark-colored
fox that was lying very still, and suppressed a frightened shudder,
pushing his way through. He was hoping to see a dog with a dirty
white coat and a curled tail, smelling of milk and warmth, but when
he saw the fighters he fell still.

One was a golden jackal, yapping and
snarling, the other was a massive domestic dog, solid and broad,
all dense rusty fur. His muzzle was streaming with blood, and when
he turned his head all Mhumhi could see was the meat clenched
between his teeth and his brilliant blue eyes filled with fear.

A Show of
Aggression

The crowd of yapping foxes started to clear
rapidly from around the fight once Mhumhi appeared, his size and
painted coat enough of a deterrent. The golden jackal backed up a
few steps as well, licking her muzzle and growling. The domestic
dog stood stock-still, though his tail was tucked. He still had the
meat tightly clenched in his bleeding jaws.

"Are you police?" said the golden jackal,
glaring at Mhumhi.

"Yes," said Mhumhi, trying to raise his tail
a bit to look more important. "What're you fighting over? Has
someone stolen that meat?"

The jackal looked him over, her lips still
drawn back from her teeth. She was half the size of the big
domestic, but easily twice as fierce, especially as Mhumhi could
see the teats hanging swollen from her belly.

"That
domestic
," she spat, "is a
filthy killer. He's killed before and he'll do it again. You should
arrest him."

Mhumhi glanced at the domestic, uneasy now at
the size and muscle of him- he was shorter than Mhumhi at the
shoulder, but far broader and heavier-looking. The domestic did not
move, though, just clutched his meat and stared at Mhumhi with
those unnerving blue eyes.

"Who did he kill?"

The jackal gave a loud snarl. "Are you really
police? You should know who he's killed. He's a domestic,
anyway!"

Her last statement came out high-pitched and
confused, and she stared at Mhumhi with an expression of
consternation.

There was a yap, and a diminutive little
fennec fox ran up to Mhumhi's front paws. "Hey, police, I saw
everything that happened!"

Mhumhi glanced down at the fox, who lived in
the storm drain down the street, and who definitely knew he was not
a member of the police.

"Then what happened?"

"Nothing," said the fox. "He didn't do a
thing- he was just walking. She jumped out at him along Food Strip
Street and chased him down here. He never even nipped her, and look
how she's torn him up!"

"You little rat," growled the jackal, and the
fox ducked behind Mhumhi's front legs.

"The way I see it," he continued, from his
safer vantage point, "she's just picking on him 'cause he's a
domestic and she wants his meat!"

This brought out a great deal of yapping and
whining from the foxes that still lingered in the area. Domestic
dogs were not well-liked, but they were liked far better than meat
thieves. The golden jackal trembled a little as she growled.

"Well, then," said Mhumhi, glancing at the
domestic dog. He did seem a little pitiable, such a big fellow, and
as the fox had said it was he who was marked all over, not she. "I
think you should leave, jackal."

"What?!"

"I'll let you go," said Mhumhi, "but you'd
better leave this dog alone from now on. And count yourself lucky
he hasn't fought back today."

The jackal seemed shocked by his statement,
and glared at him another moment in confusion. The domestic also
gazed at him.

Someone in the crowd yapped, and the jackal
jumped, and snapped angrily at the air.

"You're not police!" she cried. "I know what
you are- you're one of the orphans of that wretched pup thief!"

Mhumhi went stiff with anger at her words,
but his tail tucked as she advanced on him, fur bristling.

"You've got no authority here! You're as much
as a domestic yourself, you coward!" She snapped her jaws again,
threatening, and Mhumhi had to scramble a few steps backwards, ears
back, and nearly tripped over the fennec fox as it darted out from
underneath him and into the storm drain.

With an angry squeal, suddenly Sacha ran in
front of him, all twelve pounds of her, and confronted the jackal
with a terrible snarl.

"Get out of here," she spat, as Kutta came to
touch shoulders with Mhumhi, wagging her tail against him
reassuringly. "Leave my little brother alone!"

"Your little brother," the jackal snorted,
but she seemed a bit too nervous to step forward again in the face
of Sacha's wrath. "They call you the pack of orphans! You all know
that your mother's a filthy kidnapper!"

"Leave!" cried Sacha, and lunged forward, and
the jackal leapt and twisted in midair to get away. Kutta added her
whistle, and darted forward and snapped at the jackal, who was
forced to back up even further.

"I'll tell the real police about this!" she
snarled, but she knew she had lost the encounter pretty badly. She
ran from the scene with her head and tail very low, and disappeared
around a block of houses.

At once Sacha and Kutta turned around and ran
to Mhumhi together. "That vicious little thief!" Kutta said,
licking his right ear, and Sacha, who was standing up against his
shoulder to lick his neck, growled, "You could have taken her, you
dumb brute."

Mhumhi shut his eyes, quite overwhelmed, then
opened them again. The domestic was slinking away in the opposite
direction that the jackal had gone in.

"Wait!" Mhumhi said, struggling to break free
of his sisters' affection. "Don't go yet!"

The domestic looked back at him and tucked
his rump and ran in a sideways, frightened scuttle. Mhumhi chased
him, catching up easily with his lanky legs, wagging his tail.

"I won't hurt you! I just want to ask you-
since you're a domestic-"

He caught a flash of the dog's vivid eyes as
he looked back again. The meat- not more than a few mouthfuls,
covered in blood and drool- swung from his teeth.

"I won't steal your meat!" Mhumhi cried,
running to bound along directly beside him, so that he cringed away
into a doorway and had to stop.

"It's all right," Mhumhi emphasized, wagging
harder- he could hear Kutta and Sacha coming up behind at a more
sedate pace, and he wanted to get the domestic to talk before Sacha
bared her teeth at him. "I won't steal it- just speak to me."

The domestic either believed him or
recognized he had no choice in the matter, for he slowly put down
his meat. Mhumhi wagged harder and licked at the blood caking his
muzzle as the dog flinched away.

"Tell me," he said, encouragingly, "have you
seen any other domestics around this area? Any female
domestics?"

"No," said the domestic. His voice was rough
and blunt.

"I'm looking for a white female," Mhumhi
pressed on, "who's kind of stout, with a curled tail and folded
ears- are you sure?"

The domestic hesitated, his jaws open, his
lower canines just grazing his upper lip. His thick pointed ears
were laid flat against his skull.

"Maybe," he said.

"Maybe!" cried Mhumhi, bouncing on his
forepaws. "When? Where?"

The domestic had shrunk back from his
excitement, and flinched as Sacha and Kutta came up to flank
him.

"Where what?" said Sacha. "You didn't-"

"He says he's seen Mother!" said Mhumhi, eyes
alight. "He's seen her, Kutta!"

"Where!" said Kutta at once, leaning towards
the domestic. "Where, where did you see her? How recently?"

Mhumhi had to glance at Sacha, but she was
standing still, her small eyes devoid of expression.

"Not…" The domestic licked his lips. "Not
recently. And only maybe. I saw her… I saw a white dog… She was
running towards Big Park."

"Big Park?" said Kutta, exchanging a confused
look with Mhumhi. "What would she do there? That's…"

"Domestic!" barked Sacha, making them all
jump. "How many days ago did you see her? What did she look
like?"

"I don't know," said the domestic, shrinking
back. "I don't know how many days ago it was… many… She was white,
but her belly was black with dirt… small…"