Chapter 13 #2
Cloister jumped down off the road and jogged across the crash-scored earth to the upturned truck. He scrambled up the underside using the blown-out tire and the drive shaft for purchase to reach the driver’s side door. The dirty metal was hot enough to sting as he dragged himself up.
“Gerrofme!” the prowler yelled as he flailed at Bourneville with fists and a heavy wrench.
It gave a meaty, fur-muffled thud as it hit Bourneville’s shoulders and back.
She was locked onto the prowler’s arm, his cheap jacket ripped to shreds as her teeth punched through to flesh beneath.
Her paws scraped over the dash and kicked off the steering wheel as she tried to get purchase.
Cloister braced his knee on the door, metal denting under his weight, and reached in. He grabbed Bourneville by the scruff of her neck—all hair, a handful of loose skin, and tensed muscle underneath—and snapped, “Aus.”
She let go. Cloister braced himself and hauled her up out of the truck in one smooth yank. Thick black nails scraped the already battered paint job as she scrabbled for purchase to get her feet under her. She was panting and wagging her tail as she emerged.
Inside the cab, the prowler twisted around and scrambled out of the driver’s seat.
His sweatpants slid down, caught on the cracked leather upholstery, to reveal a slice of back welted with scabbed cuts and scratches.
He left a slug-trail of blood behind him as it dripped from his torn-up arm.
As he reached the back of the cab, he put his shoulder to the crazed sag of the cracked back window.
It gave under his weight with a crackle, chunks of glass spilling into the bed of the truck.
The man crawled out through the hole, arm clutched to his body as he scrambled to his feet.
Bourneville grunted. It was her version of “shall I,” a gruff noise in the back of her throat.
“Warte.”
“Cloister didn’t wait to see if she acknowledged the “wait” command.
She would. He scrambled to his feet, his weight making the door panel depress with a hollow clang, and went after the prowler.
As he scrambled down, he gestured for Bourneville to go around.
She leapt down behind him and slunk along through the scrub, not quite in a crouch but low to the ground.
The various tarps and bags in the back had been thrown out when the truck overturned.
They had rolled away into the scrub, caught under scraggly sage bushes and hung-up rocks.
A quick glance didn’t show any of them moving or stained with blood.
The seams had given up on a couple of them, and old shoes and wires were what spilled out.
Not a body.
Good news and bad at once.
The prowler was on his hands and knees, crawling through the bags as he looked for something.
“Put your hands where I can see them,” Cloister ordered as he strode forward. “I’m a deputy sheriff, and you’re under arrest.”
It was habit, suspension or not.
“You think you can still fucking fool me, Strawman?” the prowler spat over his shoulder.
He fumbled at a tarp, leaving bloodstains on the rough canvas.
“I got proof now. On the dashcam. Military issue robot dogs being set on a sovereign citizen? Careless. Desperate. I got close this time. Too close, huh?”
“You should talk to Javi,” Cloister muttered. He heard Bourneville shift her weight behind him, her nails scraping on the door, and threw his hand up to keep her in place. “You need to—”
The prowler made a satisfied noise in the back of his throat as he found what he was looking for. He dragged it, clumsy and one-handed, out of the folds of fabric and rolled over onto his back. Sweat dripped down his face as he pointed the shotgun at Cloister.
“What comes out when I shoot you?” he asked, whale-eyed and manic. “Straw or blood? Blood or straw?”
Cloister stopped, weight balanced on the ball of his foot. The ache of exhaustion dulled as his body dredged up the last dregs of adrenaline to flood his bloodstream. He could taste it on the back of his throat, like salted metal or bile.
“You don’t want to do this,” he said as he held up his hand. “It won’t end well.”
The man laughed, a hiccupping, bitter croak of noise. The muzzle of the shotgun wobbled as he tried to brace it.
“I didn’t want any of this,” he said. “You brought it to me. You strawmen with your fake letters and fake smile and fucking fake DOGS!”
He pulled the trigger.
Cloister threw himself down. He felt the hot wash of buckshot skim along his back, from the nape of his neck to his ass.
It didn’t feel like any of it had got him.
If it had, it hadn’t killed him. The spray of pellets cracked and plinked against the truck.
The prowler gave a raw, shocked grunt of pain from the impact of the butt against his sternum.
Dust puffed damply around Cloister’s mouth as he exhaled raggedly. A drop of blood ran down his jawline and plopped onto the dirt, sucked down into the mud. So he’d been clipped at least.
And shotguns had two barrels.
Cloister braced his elbow on the ground. “Gib Laut!” he snapped out the command, as crisp as strained lungs could manage.
Behind the prowler, Bourneville braced her front feet and dropped her head as she gave forth a vicious, full-chested fusillade of snarls and barks. It was the sort of noise that reached right down into something primal and yanked on it.
The prowler flinched and started to swing the shotgun around.
Cloister threw himself forward. He grabbed the shotgun with one hand, barrel hot enough to sting against his callused palm, and the two of them wrestled for control of it.
He won. When the prowler’s finger spasmed on the trigger, the shot went into the desert, blowing a handful of sage and briars to pulp and splinters.
The blast made Cloister’s ears rattle and buzz, almost drowning out Bourneville’s still furious snarling barks. He wrenched the shotgun off the prowler, tossed it up onto the road, and wiped blood off his face onto his arm. Under him, the prowler screwed his eyes shut, face twisted in expectation.
Cloister glanced up at Bourneville, who was still barking. Her bloody teeth snapped at the air.
“Ruhig.”
She stopped mid-snarl, ears perking up and body immediately relaxed. With a huff, she flopped down onto her belly, tongue lolled out of the side of her mouth like a ribbon as she panted.
“I keep telling people, don’t run,” Cloister said.
He rolled the prowler over onto his stomach and pulled the lead from his neck to use as a makeshift set of cuffs.
The man made a rough sound of pain. It was hard to tell if it was from his shredded arm or his probably cracked sternum.
Probably both. “Nobody listens. Maybe you guys should talk to each other.”
Cloister took the cap off the water bottle with his teeth. He poured some into his cupped hand for Bourneville to drink. She butted her nose into his palm as she slurped it up. Blood and dirt matted her fur flat to her skull, her ruff sticking out in spikes like he’d invested in a coyote collar.
“That was for you,” the paramedic said dryly.
One of the deputies on scene laughed at that.
“She’s the elite athlete,” Cloister said. “You want, you can stand me a beer later.”
It occurred to him, a second too late, that he had a boyfriend now.
That was going to be awkward if the paramedic took him up on the offer.
Luckily, all he got was a snort and directions to keep his scrapes clean.
As the guy walked away shaking his head, Bon lifted her head to watch him go.
The water that dripped from her chops was bloody.
Cloister frowned as he caught under her muzzle and pushed her lips back from her teeth with his thumb.
She huffed her opinion of her exam against his palm but let him look.
A field exam was limited, but her incisors looked fine. There were no obvious cracks or damage to the other teeth.