Predatory Animals by Gabriel Beyers

Author:Gabriel Beyers [Beyers, Gabriel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Gemini Gremlin Ink
Published: 2012-08-02T23:00:00+00:00

Knife to a Gunfight

The sun was bright and strong. It stood high in the sky warming the air, and though it was still technically spring for another couple of weeks, summer was revving its engine and telling its milder sibling to get out of the way. Casper watched the children chase the dogs, trying to herd then into the pen that had been built just yesterday. But the dogs weren’t playing along. Just when the kids were about to get the third dog into the pen, one or both of the others would escape and the process would begin again.

Casper stood on the back deck. “Get the dogs into the pen. It’s time to leave.”

Tad looked up, his chest heaving. “We’re trying, but they don’t want to go in there.”

The pen was chain-link, about ten feet by ten feet, and nestled near a sycamore tree for shade. Normally Casper would have enjoyed building the pen, but with his bum leg he had been forced to turn it over to a local handyman. A doghouse large enough for the trio of dogs stood in the center, complete with food and water dishes. It was the Hilton for dogs, but when you’re used to being free-range, Casper thought that even a dog must view it as a prison.

“Fill the bowls with food then close the door when they go in to eat,” Casper told Tad. Tad did as he was told, but the dogs didn’t take the bait. Casper frowned. He knew one way to get the dogs into the pen, but he hated to try it. “King, Sky, Shadow.” The dogs stopped in place and looked toward him. Their eyes were savage and inhuman, but held a quiet intelligence that unnerved him. “Get in the pen.”

The three dogs turned without question and walked into the pen.

Tad gawked at his father. “Wow. How did you get them to do that?”

“An old Marine trick.” He turned his eyes away from the dogs. “Shut the gate so we can go.”

Maggie stepped outside. “Everyone ready?”

Lucy ran up and attached herself to her mother’s leg like a monkey climbing a tree. “Yeah, let’s go. I want to see lions, like on The Lion King. Will the mean hyenas be there?”

Maggie laughed. “No. It’s a place just for cats. There will be lions and tigers and cougars and bobcats, and I’m sure a lot more.”

Lucy skipped into the house calling for her siblings to hurry. Beth, Tad and Maggie followed Lucy into the house and to the garage. Casper waited a moment on the deck, watching the dogs.

When the pen was empty one hundred square feet seemed plenty large enough. But now that the three were inside it seemed cramped and congested. There was nothing he could do about it, though. It was safer this way.

The St. Francis Exotic Cat Rescue Center stood only twenty minutes from their home, but as Maggie drove the short distance Casper’s mind wandered. What was he hoping to find there? Dale

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