Memphis Run

Chapter Eleven

“It’s a mistake, damn it!” Bonnie snapped.

“My decision is final,” Blade informed her.

“We need it,” Bonnie insisted.

“Do you have something against walking?” Blade asked.

“No,” Bonnie replied, “but I don’t like the idea of being ripped to pieces by dogs.”

Blade hefted the AR-15 he had confiscated from a dead Hound. “There are dog packs in Memphis?”

“There are dog packs everywhere,” Bonnie revealed. “They usually shy away from humans, probably because they’ve seen us kill other dogs. Dog stew is real popular.”

“We leave the jeep here,” Blade said, glancing over his right shoulder.

They had driven three and a half miles from the ambush site and taken an unmarked exit. The jeep was parked in a deserted garage next to a dilapidated frame house, and Hickok was lowering the wooden door.

“All tucked in, pard,” the gunman declared.

Chastity, standing to the gunfighter’s right, took his hand in hers. “Stay close to me, Daddy. I don’t like this place. It smells.”

“Where I go, you go, princess,” Hickok promised. He placed his left hand on the strap of the M-16 slung over his left shoulder.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Bonnie stated.

“You’ll get us all killed.”

Blade pivoted to his left and gazed at her angry features. “We’re not taking the jeep any farther.” He didn’t want to chance damaging the vehicle, not when the jeep was their means of returning to the Home.

“At least let’s stick to the main highways,” Bonnie suggested. “The dogs don’t go near them.”

“No.”

Bonnie glanced at her brother, who was leaning against the corner of the garage with the bazooka cradled in his arms. “Talk to this turkey. Tell him!”

“He’s the boss,” Clyde said with a shrug.

“Big help you are,” Bonnie remarked.

Blade faced to the northwest. “Lead the way,” he directed her.

Bonnie turned and tramped off, her annoyance conveyed in her posture.

An AR-15 was over her right shoulder, a pistol around her waist.

Clyde followed. His pockets were bulging with the rockets for the bazooka, and his pants swayed awkwardly as he walked.

“Have you figured out why she wants to tag along with us?” Hickok asked, stepping to Blade’s left.

“Not yet.”

The Warriors trailed the sister and brother, winding along the trash-filled streets and alleys. Many of the buildings they passed were decayed and crumbling. Rusted, derelict vehicles were everywhere.

Clyde slowed and waited for the Warriors to catch up. “Please forgive Bonnie,” he said to them. “She’s not herself.”

“She’s not very fond of the Hounds,” Blade mentioned.

“She hates their guts,” Clyde said.

“And all because one of them wanted to go to bed with her, and he rigged the Hound physical against you?” Blade commented skeptically.

“There’s more to it than that,” Clyde responded.

“Did the Hound she mentioned, Sergeant Boynton, molest her?” Blade probed.

“No, he didn’t.”

“Then what’s her real mission?” Blade queried.

“I can’t say.”

“We’ll keep our lips sealed,” Hickok chimed in.

“You’ll have to ask Bonnie. I promised her I’d never tell a soul,” Clyde divulged, and quickened his pace to reach his sister.

“Hmmmmmm,” Hickok said.

“I agree,” Blade observed.

As they progressed deeper into Memphis, the mounds of refuse became more numerous, the condition of the buildings deteriorated drastically, and the sickening stench intensified.

“How do folks live in this pigpen?” Hickok asked as they crossed a street and entered a gloomy alley.

“Is your Home like this?” Chastity inquired.

“Are you kiddin’?” Hickok rejoined. “This dump makes our Home look like Heaven. Our buildings are kept in tiptop shape, and we burn all of our garbage and trash.” He paused. “You’ll like the Home, princess. There are dozens of young’uns to play with, the Weavers will make you fine, new clothes from the fabric we’ve received in trade with the Civilized Zone, and you’ll get three squares a day.”

Chastity glanced up at the gunman. “Why would I want three squares?”

“I meant food,” Hickok explained.

“You eat square food?”

“Not square food,” Hickok said. “Three square meals a day. It’s an old saying.”

“Oh,” Chastity responded, and was quiet for 30 seconds. “Why are your meals square? What kind of food do you eat?”

Hickok sighed and looked at Blade. “Why don’t you lend me a hand?”

“Wouldn’t think of it,” Blade said with a smile. “You’re doing just fine by yourself.”

“Thanks, pard.”

“So what’s a square meal?” Chastity persisted.

“I told you. A square meal is an old expression,” Hickok elaborated.

“When you eat a square meal, you eat your fill. You’ll never go hungry at the Home. Do you understand now?”

“I think so.”

“There are dozens of sayings that have been around for ages,” Hickok went on.

“Like what?” Chastity queried.

“Oh, like you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” Hickok said.

“Why not?”

Blade chuckled.

“I suppose you could teach an old dog a new trick,” Hickok stated.

“But you just said you can’t,” Chastity responded.

“I know. But I was usin’ an example of a saying,” Hickok said. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

“But you just said you could. I’m confused,” Chastity remarked.

“That makes two of us,” Hickok declared, exasperated.

“Can you teach an old dog new tricks?” Chastity asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m sorry I ever brought the blasted thing up,” Hickok mumbled.

“Maybe we could try,” Chastity suggested.

“Try what?”

“Try to teach an old dog a new trick.”

Blade beamed at the gunman, who promptly glared back.

“What about him?” Chastity queried.

“Who?” Hickok replied, gazing at her.

“That dog,” Chastity said, and raised her left hand to point.

The Warriors looked up and froze.

Balefully eyeing them from the second floor of a four-story structure on their left, its canine features framed in a window long since shattered, was a gray and black mongrel.

“Maybe it’s alone,” Hickok commented.

Blade glanced to their rear. “No such luck.”

Three dogs were 30 feet to the rear, standing close together, their mouths slightly open, their tongues and fangs visible.

Hickok looked back, then scooped Chastity into his left arm. “Four isn’t so bad. We can take four, no sweat.” He stared ahead to find Bonnie and Clyde stopped in their tracks by the sight of five dogs blocking the mouth of the alley 20 feet beyond.

Bonnie sighted her AR-15.

“No!” Blade called.

She turned, perplexed.

“The shots will alert the Hounds,” Blade said, advancing slowly, warily watching the dog in the window as he passed underneath.

“I warned you this would happen,” Bonnie reminded him. “How do you expect us to get out of this mess without firing a shot?”

“I’ll take care of the dogs,” Blade informed her.

“All by yourself?”

“You can help if you want, but no firing,” Blade directed. He scanned the alley, spying a recessed entry or exit eight feet to the left. “Get in there. Move!”

The brother and sister hastily obeyed, stepping into the narrow space between the alley and a closed, pale green door. On their heels, alertly regarding the canines, came the Warriors.

Bonnie tried the doorknob. “It’s locked.”

“Break it in,” Blade ordered.

The dogs on both sides began to pad forward.

“Here they come,” Hickok announced, drawing his right Colt.

“Remember,” Blade reiterated. “No shooting if we can help it.”

“How do you plan to stop them?” Bonnie cracked. “With your breath?”

Blade glanced at her, his eyes narrowing. “Break down the door. Now.”

He slung the AR-15 over his left shoulder and drew both Bowies, then positioned himself in the opening to the alley.

“And be quick about it,” Hickok added, feeling uncomfortable wedged in the middle with little room to maneuver.

Bonnie applied her right shoulder to the door.

“Lend her a hand,” Hickok said, nudging Clyde with the Python.

“Are the dogs coming, Uncle Blade?” Chastity asked.

“Yep,” Blade confirmed, looking to the right and left. The mongrel in the window had disappeared, but the other eight were converging on the entry way, padding softly, their heads held low, their lips curled back. He crouched, gripping the Bowie hilts tightly, grateful the dogs would not be able to rush him en masse. The cramped confines would hinder their attack. He heard the thumping of Bonnie’s and Clyde’s shoulders against the door.

And the canine pack charged.

Galvanized into motion by a bestial growl from a Doberman pinscher on the left, all eight hurtled toward the giant.

Blade took them as they came, arcing his right Bowie into the first to reach him, a stubby mixed breed with oversized teeth that leaped at his midriff. He met the dog with the point of his Bowie, burying the knife in the breed’s neck, the impact jarring his right arm. Blood gushed over him as the dog thrashed and gurgled, and he savagely tossed the dying animal from him with a sweep of his steely right arm.

The second dog never missed a beat. A grungy Samoyed, its white hair matted and filthy, snapped at the Warrior’s ankles.

With a swiftness belying his size, Blade shifted his boots a few inches backward, evading the Samoyed’s raking teeth, even as he swung his left arm down and in, the Bowie catching the dog in the left eye, slicing into the orb and shearing off flesh, hair, and the Samoyede’s left ear in the bargain.

Howling in anguish, the Samoyed staggered off, crimson spurting the alley.

Blade straightened in time to take the largest dog head-on. A brindle-colored Bull Mastiff, over 30 inches high at the shoulders, 110 pounds of feral fury, snarled and went for his throat. He managed to get his left forearm in front of his neck, sweeping his arm under the mastiffs slavering jaws, momentarily holding the animal at bay, long enough to sink his right Bowie into the dog’s chest.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The Bull Mastiff yelped and toppled to the left, sprawling at the Warrior’s feet, briefly deterring the remaining pack members.

Blade glanced over his left shoulder at Clyde and Bonnie, who were still endeavoring to batter the door in. “Hurry!” he urged, then faced the growling dogs.

“We’re trying,” Bonnie said.

“Not hard enough,” Hickok snapped, smacking her on the left arm with his Colt. “Move aside!”

Scowling, Bonnie leaned away from the door. Clyde did the same.

Hickok drew his right knee up to his waist and lashed out, planting the heel of his right moccasin next to the rusted doorknob. There was a loud snap, but the door held. Holding Chastity securely in his left arm, the gunman kicked once more, and was rewarded by cracks appearing in the wood panel.

Behind the gunman, Blade tensed, waiting for the pack to renew its assault. Oddly, the dogs were snarling and barking, their hair bristling, and staying out of the range of his Bowies.

Why weren’t they pressing their attack?

The answer was revealed seconds later.

Grunting with the exertion, Hickok delivered another kick to the door, grinning as the wood around the lock splintered and the door swung inward into a murky corridor.

Filled with dogs.