Color of Blood(100)

They stared at each other for a moment, and then the agent appeared resigned to his fate. He suddenly bent down to grab one of his boots, saying, “Can I just take one of these?”

It was the combination of the agent’s look of resignation and the absurdity about taking just one boot that confused Dennis.

In what seemed like the practiced throw of a professional baseball pitcher, the agent fired the boot in one fluid motion toward Dennis’s head. The boot heel bounced off his forehead as Dennis turned away, and he managed to get off one wild shot with his pistol.

The agent sprang clear across the top of the ATV, landing on top of Dennis and knocking the gun out of his hand. The two men rolled several times over each other down the shallow ravine. Dennis feared the agent had a knife and tried to keep hold of his wrists as they tumbled over the hot earth.

The agent fought to turn Dennis over in a clumsy maneuver, but Dennis resisted. At one point they came to rest, and the agent smashed his elbow so sharply on Dennis’s cheekbone that he saw bright yellow stars.

That was the moment the man was looking for; as Dennis regained his bearings, the agent flipped Dennis onto his stomach. He used his two bare feet to wrap around each of Dennis’s thighs from behind, and slid his right arm under Dennis’s neck so the boney area above his wrist was pressed hard against Dennis’s windpipe. The agent used his left hand to pull his right arm tight.

They wrestled this way for a minute or two until it became clear to Dennis that he could not stop the agent from strangling him.

He tried to stop moving to conserve his energy and keep oxygen going through his compressed windpipe, but the agent was well trained; the less Dennis struggled, the harder the agent compressed his neck.

Eerily, Dennis began to feel sad and wistful, almost as if he were watching a movie of someone else’s life. What a strange place to die, he thought as he drifted. He felt peaceful—not the least bit angry at his circumstance, face down in the red grainy soil of the outback. A young man was dutifully and skillfully strangling the life out of him.

Inexplicably, Dennis remembered a pet dog he had nurtured as a nine-year-old boy. Its image came to him in faint outline, the chubby black Labrador named Rascal. That was a nice dog, he thought.

Dog.

Nice.

Dennis had trouble processing thoughts and wondered if this was how things ended. Random solo thoughts placed in sequence, one after the other, until they just stop: Words. Dog. Fuzzy. Warm. Dog. Angry Dog. Warm, angry Dog.

Dennis wondered why the dog was angry and was startled to feel pain in his throat.

“Ow,” he said feebly. He heard the words reverberate in his ears.

Then he heard a dog barking furiously, and he winced, feeling like he was being devoured by a ravenous, slobbering creature.

He heard voices and more dog noises. He felt his eyes opening—he didn’t know they had been shut—and found he was staring at a patch of red soil.

“Ow,” he said again, feeling the guttural sound agitate his eardrums. “Ow.” His hand moved to his throat and found there was no wrist strangling him. “Denny!” he heard. “Denny, mate. You all right?”

He stared into the gauzy, indistinct face of Jimmy.

“Ow,” he repeated.

“Get up, mate,” Jimmy said, urgently pulling Dennis to a sitting position.

Dennis tried to focus on Jimmy’s face.

“What . . .” he said sloppily, unable to finish a word or thought. Turning his head, he saw the agent who had been strangling him about twenty feet away, holding his right hand out in front to fend off Snippy, snarling hysterically. The agent held his other hand to his neck, oozing bright-red blood from between clenched fingers. The front of his khaki shirt was wet with blood.

“Get him away from me,” the agent yelled. “Fucking dog’s rabid.”

“Denny, can you walk?” Jimmy said. “Come on, mate. Is this your gun?”

Dennis nodded.

Jimmy dragged him to the Cruiser, put him in the passenger seat, and threw the pistol onto his lap.

Jimmy got in the driver’s side and whistled a short, sharp note. Snippy turned and raced back to the Cruiser, jumping onto Jimmy’s lap.

“In the back,” Jimmy said, pushing Snippy into the back seat.

They took off into the desert in a scatter of pebbles, the heat blasting in the passenger compartment and the windows open to let the dust and warm air in. Dennis’s head bounced like a bobble-head doll.





Chapter 36


They drove for a while without speaking, Jimmy occasionally glancing at Dennis.

“Drink some water, mate,” he said, pushing Dennis’s bottle of water at him.

Dennis guzzled half the container, and though the water was as warm as urine, it felt good. Each time his Adam’s apple bobbed, he winced in pain.

“Thanks for coming back,” Dennis said hoarsely.

“Nick of time, I reckon,” Jimmy said. “When I pulled up, I saw you fellers rolling there like two poofters.”

“What’s a poofter?”

“Don’t matter.”

They bounced across the landscape in silence for several more minutes until Dennis said, almost to himself, “They must have a kill order out on me.”

“What?” Jimmy asked.

“Nothing.” They continued to bounce along through the rough ground looking for the trail.