I aim my gun.
There's another movement. A dark shape below where I'm aiming.
The mother wolf-dog staggers onto the path. Her gray fur is matted with blood, and she moves with a stiff-legged gait, breath coming so hard I can hear it.
Dalton says, "Fuck, no," and that seems odd. Yes, it's a tragedy that the wolf-dog has also been mortally wounded, drawn back by the cries of her cub, but there's a note of fear in his voice that I do not understand until I see what hangs from her jaws.
Saliva.
Bloody, foaming saliva.
"Rabies?" I whisper.
"I hope not, but presume yes. We're going to have to take her down. You got a bead on her?"
I nod.
"Okay, take the--"
The wolf-dog charges. One second, she's shambling along, seeming a heartbeat from keeling over. The next she is in flight, jaws snapping, bloody froth flying.
I fire.
The bullet hits her. And she doesn't care.
I fire again, and Dalton stays right there, beside me, and I want to shout at him to move. Get out of the way. Dive for cover. Run!
But he just waits as I fire more rounds, and by then she's so close I can see the proverbial whites of her eyes as they roll.
"Eric!" I shout as I fire one last time.
He pushes me to the side. It's not a shove, just a push, and I'm scrambling out of the way, and he's just moving aside and . . .
The wolf-dog falls. Midflight, she collapses, this weird movement, almost like she's dancing as she folds in on herself. Then she drops, and when she hits the ground, those wild eyes are frozen open in death, a bullet hole between them.
"Nice shot," he says.
"Next time, can you not stay in the path of a charging wild animal?"
"I knew you'd get her."
"Just humor me, okay?" I walk over to see I did get her--with every bullet. Two to the chest, both of which would have been fatal, but she'd been too far gone to care.
"Got another one here where the blood's drying."
It's the spot I'd seen on her flank, matted with blood. Dalton pokes at it.
"Bullet's . . ." he says.
He uses his knife to cut it out. I've stood in on countless autopsies without flinching, but I swear Dalton makes me look positively squeamish. There is a question to be answered here, and he digs that bullet free without a moment's hesitation.
He holds the bullet up, his fingers red with blood.
"Nine-mil?" he asks.
"Yes."
One of the perks of being on the Rockton police force is that we get to choose our own sidearms. Mine's a Sig Sauer P226. Dalton is a revolver guy--the product of growing up here and using older guns. He carries a .357 Smith & Wesson. Anders prefers a gun that might actually stand a chance of taking down a grizzly: a Ruger Alaskan .454, which requires more wrist strength