The Dog Stars by Peter Heller Read Free Book Online

would. That my finger was moving on the trigger.
    Before he took over.
    What the fuck Bangley. Not sure I still had what in me?
    Silent. Knew I knew what.
    I’ve never had it fucking in me. But I do it. What the fuck were you thinking? What if I’d seen you and thought you were one of them?
    Never happen: You see me. Unh unh. Not that way.
    I opened my mouth, closed it. I said, Unfuckingbelievable. What if they had broke apart. I mean just launched. Sooner.
    Silence. Knew I knew now that he had them covered from the get go.
    Well how the hell did you know I was about to pull the trigger and why didn’t you? Let me?
    Silence. Knew that I knew now that he was scoping me more closely than he was scoping them. Scoping my frigging fingerwhile he kept half an eye on the men that could have frigging killed us. Had them sighted all along. Let loose only when he saw me take the big breath maybe. I see him in my mind’s eye pulling the trigger on the first man not even looking, watching me first in the good night scope on its own legs, watching me jerk back in alarm in surprise, then casual but efficient tuck down to his weapon and sweep the rest of the group. Not sweep. Bangley doesn’t believe in full auto. Two shots probably to each panicked leaping shadow. T-TAP . Each one that fast. Maybe he was laughing at my confusion all the while he harvested this bunch of souls.
    C’mere Hig. Show you something.
    Goes over the top and down the berm. Jasper still down there, this side, trembling. Not with fear. I can see him in the starlight. Sitting on his haunches following my movements with concern, restraining himself from action, somebody doing their job just their job the way they are supposed to.
    C’mon. I whistle soft. He jumps, not like the old days but still fast enough up to the top of the berm and over. Bangley is down there among the black figures sprawled. Jasper already moving one to the other, not stopping, nosing, the low growl.
    Look at this Hig. They never should have done it.
    He doesn’t sound unhappy.
    Bangley has reached up and switched on the LED headlamp banded to his cap. His cap is on backward. He shines it on the short man, the one in the cowboy hat, the hat now tumbled into a drainage furrow a few feet off. It’s a boy. Maybe nine. About the age. Melissa seven months pregnant when. Nine years ago. This boy is thin, hair matted and tangled. A hawk feather tied into it.
    Face hollow, a shadow smirched with dirt and exposure. Would have been born into this. Nine years of this. Piecing the jigsaw puzzle of this world into some dire picture in his head to end cast as an extra in Bangley’s practical joke.
    He grunts. Arms in the hands of babes. Should have left him behind.
    Where?
    Bangley shrugs, swings his head up, the light up into my eyes, blinding.
    I wince down against the harsh white blare but don’t turn.
    Then when he wandered out of the creek starving tomorrow you would have shot him just like the others, but in full daylight and at three hundred yards not thirty.
    I can’t see anything but the light, but I know Bangley’s grin is straight across and grim.
    Hig you haven’t learned a goddamn thing in all this time. You’re living in the past. Makes me wonder if you appreciate any of this. Goddamn.
    He walks off. He means do I deserve it. To live.
    I walk away leave Jasper to his business. We will bury them tomorrow.
    This is what I do, have done: I strip off haunches arms breast buttocks calves. Slice it thin soak in salt brine and dry to jerky for Jasper for the days between. You remember the story of the rugbyteam in the Andes. The corpses were corpses already dead. They did it to survive. I am no different. I do it for him. I eat venison, bottom fish, rabbit, shiners. I keep his jerky in airtight buckets. He likes it best of all his food I’m sure because of the salt. Tomorrow I will do it again but not the boy, I’ll bury him not with any tenderness or regret just in one piece with his