Chapter 7 7

Jesse heard the click of the dog's paws. She understood that the dog was really still in the house and was coming this way.She started screaming.She knew it was perhaps the worst thing a man could do--it went against all the advice she had ever heard about never showing your cowardice to a potentially dangerous animal--but she Can't help it.What brought wild dogs into the bedroom, she knew all too well. She raised her legs while using the handcuffs to pull herself up against the bed.As she pulled, her eyes never left the door leading to the passage.Now, she heard dogs barking.The barking made her feel like diarrhea, her bowels were hot and wet.

The dog stopped at the door.Here the shadows have begun to close.To Jesse, the dog was just a vague figure, low to the ground—not a big dog, but definitely not a toy poodle, nor a chihuahua.Two curved orange crescents that reflect sunlight indicate where its eyes are located. "Go away!" Jessie yelled at it. "Get out! Get out! You... you're not welcome here!" It's funny to say that...but, in this case, what's not funny?Maybe I'm going to ask it to get the key off the top of the dresser for me.she thinks. There was movement in the back of the figure in the aisle: it started wagging its tail.In some sentimental novel the girls read, it could also mean that the stray dog ​​confused the voice of the woman in the bed with the voice of his beloved, long-lost master.Jesse couldn't believe it.Dogs don't just wag their tails when they're happy.Like cats, they wag their tails when they are indecisive and still assessing the situation.The dog hardly flinched at her voice, but he was not at ease in the dimly lit room either.At least for now.

The ex-prince did not yet understand what a gun does, but in the six weeks or so since the last day of August it had learned many, many harsh lessons.That day, Mr. Charles Sutterling, a lawyer of Bollinger, Massachusetts, drove him into the woods to die instead of coming home to pay the combined state and town dog tax of seventy dollars. .Seventy dollars a dog was no big deal, but fifty-seven dollars for a can of Hines brand dog food was too much, in Charles Sutterling's opinion, a little too much.In June of that year, he bought himself a motor sailboat for a five-figure sum. If you compare the low price of the boat and the dog tax, you can conclude that there is something wrong with him--of course you can, anyone can.But this is not the crux of the matter.The point is that buying a motor sailing boat is a planned behavior, and it has been in the old Sutlin's schedule for more than two years.

The dog, on the other hand, was bought on impulse from a roadside food stand.He would never have bought the puppy if his daughter hadn't been with him at the time and had taken a liking to the puppy. "Pa, that dog," she said, pointing to it, "the one with the white spot on the nose—the one standing there by himself, like a little prince." So he bought her the little dog. Dog, his little girl rejoiced.But seventy dollars (perhaps as much as a hundred if the prince was classed as a large B dog) was a lot of money for a dog that didn't have a single word of identification on it.When the time came to close the lake house and come back next year, Mr. Charles Sutterling decided that the cost of the dog was too high, and that it was a nuisance to bring him back to Breen in the back of the Cyber--he would go anywhere Make a nest, and even vomit and shit on the carpet.He could buy all kinds of doghouses for it, he thought, but thirty dollars was the minimum for these fancy gadgets, and prices were going up.In any case, a dog like the Prince would not like to be in the kennel, but would rather run wild and make the whole of the North Woods his kingdom.Yes, Sutlin told himself.Parked on the deserted Long Beach of Lane Inlet on the last day of August, coaxing the dog out of the backseat, the Prince was in the happy waif mood—you had only to look at him to see that.Sutlin was no fool, and on the one hand he knew very well that this was just bullshit to his own advantage.But, on the other hand, he was also excited by the idea.He got back into the car and drove away, leaving the prince standing by the side of the road watching him.Then he whistled, which was the theme song of "Born Free."He sang a line from time to time: "Born...and free...follow your...heart!" He slept soundly that night and didn't give the prince any thought.And that same night, the Prince curled up under a fallen tree, trembling, too hungry to sleep.Whenever an owl hoots in the woods, or an animal makes a noise, it whines in terror.

Now the dog that Charles Sutterling had cast out to the tune of "Born Free" stood in the master bedroom foyer of Gerald's summer house (Sartlin's house was at the end of the lake where the two Never met, though they had casually nodded at the town's cruise ship dock three or four summers ago).The dog hung its head, stared, and raised its ruff.It didn't realize it was barking non-stop.All its attention is on the inside of the house.With its innate instinct, it knew that the smell of blood would soon sweep away all its caution.Before that happens, it has to make it as clear as possible that this isn't a trap.It doesn't want to be caught by an owner with hard legs that can hurt people, or have hard clods picked up and thrown at it.

"Go away!" Jessie tried to call out, but her voice sounded weak and trembling.Just shouting at it won't make it go away.The beast somehow knew she couldn't get out of bed and hurt him. It can't happen.she thinks.How could this be?Just three hours ago, I was strapped into the passenger seat of a Mercedes, listening to Ryan Max on the radio and reminding myself to pay attention to what movie was playing at the Valley Cinema, just in case we did decide Stay here overnight.We sang to Bob Walkenhurst, how did my husband just die? "One more summer," we sang, "one more chance, one more romance." We both knew the full lyrics to that song because it was a great song.In that case, how could Gerald die?How could things have changed like this?Sorry guys, but this can only be a dream, it's too absurd to be real.

The wild dog began to pace slowly into the room.Its legs were stiff with caution, its tail was drawn, and its black eyes were wide open.Its lips were set back, exposing perfectly matching teeth. Eight-year-old Catherine Sutlin used to play happily with the ex-prince (at least until her birthday, when she got a rag doll named Marnie and temporarily lost some interest in dogs).The prince was half pig-dog, half shepherd-dog, a mixed breed, but by no means a mongrel.When Sutlin chased him out at Lane Bay in late August, he weighed eighty pounds, sleek and well built.His brown and black hair (with a prominent white fringe on his chest and neck like a bib) is endearing.He weighed less than forty pounds now, and a hand on his side could feel his protruding ribs, not to mention the rapid beating of his heart.One of its ears was cut wide.Its fur was dull, damp and covered with burdock.Curving along one of its haunches was a partially healed pink welt, a painful memorial of crawling under a spiked fence.There are a few porcupine quills stuck in its mouth, like a curved beard.About ten days ago he found the porcupine lying dead under a log and gave it up as soon as he started nibbling his mouthful of quills.It was hungry all the time then, but not yet desperate.

Now, it is hungry and desperate.Its last meal was some maggot-infested scraps it had dug out of a man's discarded garbage bag in a ditch next to State Highway 117.This dog once quickly learned to fetch a ball for Katherine Sutlin, who would roll a red leather ball across the living room floor, or let it roll into the living room, and it would retrieve it for her.But now it's really starving. Yes, but here—right here, on the floor, visible!Pounds and pounds of meat, fat, with sweet marrow in the bones.It's like a gift from the wild dog god. The one-time darling of Katherine Sutlin continues on to Jerrod Burlingame's body.