“Is there gambling?”

“You bet your ass.”

“Who’s gonna win?”

“We are. Here’s how it’s going to happen—that girl, she’s gonna take on one dog for round one. Two dogs for round two. Three for round three. And so on. Until that round when there’s just two many damn dogs and that’s it. You’re gonna make it look like she can go strong ‘til round five, but it’s gonna end in round four. You ain’t still here ’cause of your good looks, son. So you tell me. What do you need?”

Frank was quiet for a while. “I don’t know if they’ll fight. The dogs and the cat.”

“Son, I can make any of these animals do any damn thing I want. You watch. They’ll fight. We got mace and pepper spray and cattleprods and pitchforks. We got all kinds of persuaders. You add all them together and you got yourself a real humdinger of a fight all right. No, that I ain’t worried too much about that. These dogs we got, these dogs from the pound, they ain’t much for fighting. I figure that cat, if provoked enough, it’ll tear ’em apart. No, they’re just practice. We’re gonna see how fast that cat can take care of ’em tonight. Say, ten?”

Frank said, “Yeah.”

* * * * *

They caught six of the pound dogs. Five were the biggest dogs left, but the sixth, the tiny mutt that darted forward to snap and bark, Sturm wanted that one special. They locked the dogs in the horse trailer and took them up to the auction yard.

The last time Frank had been in the main room of the auction yard was back on the night Sturm had fought the lioness. Now it was encircled with long sheets of chain-link fence; the top was covered as well, again with stretches of chain-link fence, held up by four poles, providing about five and half feet of clearance inside. Sturm could walk around in the center ring standing up straight, but Frank had to hunch over.

They turned the cat loose in the auction yard floor, and kicked the dogs into the cage, one at a time. At first, the cat ignored the dogs, pacing constantly and hissing once in a while. The dogs were smart enough to avoid the cat. But when all six dogs were finally in the pit with the lioness, Sturm got impatient and had Chuck hose the lioness with pepper spray while Jack jabbed at the dogs with a pitchfork.

It didn’t take long. Sturm had been right. The lioness went through all six dogs like a swather through a wheat field, leaving the floor stained with blood. The little dog was smart enough to stay well behind the bigger dogs, but the lioness snaked through air like some kind terrible eel, snapping and lunging, tearing the guts out of clumsy flounders, until only the little dog was left. It circled the floor, looking for any kind of break in the fence. The lioness didn’t hesitate and crushed the dog’s skull like Petunia had done to Mr. Noe’s dog.

* * * * *

Sturm sat down on the lowest bench and asked, “Think we can it make it happen in four? I want these fuckers betting, understand? I don’t want it to be obvious.”

Frank scratched his head. “Depends on the dogs. What’s she fighting?”

“Mostly pits. Retired fighters. Old champions. Owners who want to see their dog go out in style. Maybe a few Dobermans, one or two Shepards. Guy might be bringing a goddamn Mastiff.”

Frank shrugged. “They’re gonna have to be tough. I mean, real tough. This one, she’s a fighter. She’ll kill the first few easy. After that…I don’t know. Hard to say.”

“Well, you just do your best. But hell, that’s just tomorrow night. We’re gonna make our real money the night after. Tomorrow night is just a taste, something to whet their appetite. I want all these dipshits to drive back down to Reno or wherever the hell they’re flying into, and I want these boys to call as many as these rich fuckers they know, and have ’em bring as much cash as they can carry. We’ll get three, maybe four solid days out of it. Maybe more. Depends if a few calls I made earlier today work out.”

“Cats fighting dogs?”

Sturm spit. “No. That’s just the opening round. I want to see what two, maybe three of these cats would do when they face that Kodiak.”

DAY THIRTY-ONE

The next morning, Frank found pieces of Asshole #1 stacked neatly inside the freezer. The clothing had been removed. Asshole #1’s head stared up at him from inside a plastic freezer bag. His mouth was open, eyes almost shut, as if caught in the middle of a sneeze.

He’d been shot in the right side of the head, leaving a crumpled hole the size of a bottlecap in the left temple. Pine told Frank all about it; he’d been hiding in the backseat of the Escalade with a nine millimeter Smith and Wesson semi-auto, and was planning on just putting the gun to Asshole #1’s head, telling him to just drive slow and easy out of town, but Asshole #1 took off before Pine could get up off the floor. So Pine waited. He didn’t want to shoot the dumbshit and be stuck in an out-of-control SUV. Asshole #1 slowed and stopped at the mouth of the driveway; he couldn’t remember which way to turn on the highway to get out of town, and was halfway through stabbing at the onboard GPS when something spooked him. Instead of just picking a direction and getting as far as he could, he went for the cell phone. Soon as he flipped it open, Pine simply sat up, jammed the barrel against the Asshole’s right ear, and fired.

Pine and Chuck hid the SUV in a barn and were thoughtful enough to butcher the body for Frank, leaving it in easy to handle pieces. Feeding Asshole #1 to the lionesses put him in good mood all day.

* * * * *

It was going to be a long couple of days so he took a nap around noon. Afterwards, his head felt clear, clean. He sat in the yard a while with a few beers on ice. When the shadow of the tree had completely crawled off onto the lawn and onto the building, leaving him squinting and sweating in the sun, he took a shower, put on a clean shirt, got his shotgun, climbed into the long black car, and drove to the auction yard.

* * * * *

He parked in the back, next to the clowns’ trailer, and kicked his way through empty beer cans to the back door. Hunters had been gathering all day, drinking, smoking, gambling, and shooting. Now, around three in the afternoon, everyone was huddled in whatever shade they could find, sitting at the picnic table under the trailer awning or slumped against the tires of their trucks. Out in the fields, a couple of men were tossing beer cans into the air and blasting away with antique shotguns.

A high, whining sound, like a tooth being filed down with a power sander, grew as four of the Glouck boys flew into the parking lot on their ATVs. Ice chests were strapped to the back end of the first three ATVs, full of cold sandwiches and colder beer. The fourth carried a little gas grill to reheat burritos and cook plump, oblong balls of aluminum foil. They set up shop in the corner of the highway and the auction yard driveway and sold out of the aluminum balls in fifteen minutes.

These little footballs, slightly larger than a brick and nearly as heavy, had been named “Campfire Surprise.” Frank had been reluctant to try any, but the hunters loved ’em. Basically, they were filled with leftover meat, raw potatoes, onions, garlic, plenty of butter and spices, some frozen peas and corn; you buried one in the embers of a dying fire for a half an hour to forty-five minutes, then slapped some sour cream and hot sauce on top and dug in.

New men had brought dogs all day, keeping to themselves in the southeastern corner of the parking lot. They were young, younger than Frank, and drove low, flashy cars. They kept their dogs in the cars, letting them out one at a time to sniff the others’ urine and shit and leave their own contribution to the party. The dogs, mostly pit bulls, were beat all to hell. Scars everywhere. Over half only had one eye. Entire jowls were missing, leaving the teeth and gums and sometimes the bottom of nasal passages permanently exposed. Southern Comfort and blunts were handed around.