Doglands (2 page)

Furgul looked at the mountain. He felt as if his heart had just grown bigger.

“I’m going to be free,” he said. “Like Argal.”

Keeva panted and licked her lips, and Furgul could tell she was nervous. She looked about to make sure no other hounds were listening. She lowered her voice.

“Dedbone checked my feet and muscles this morning and gave me the special breakfast. That means the racing season has begun. I’m going to be racing tonight. For Dedbone.”

She looked at him. Suddenly Furgul didn’t feel quite so brave anymore. Dedbone was the master who did all the
shouting and who starved the greyhounds and made them live alone in crates. All the dogs, even the biggest—even the Bulls—were scared of Dedbone. They talked about him all the time. They hated him. But what could they do?

Furgul remembered that the first sight he’d ever seen—when his eyes had just learned to see—was of Dedbone’s steel-toed boots. The boots had kicked sparks from the ground as they’d walked past the whelping cage. And they’d smelled of blood. Dog blood.

Furgul said, “You mean you want me to escape tonight?”

Keeva nodded. “When Dedbone comes to the cage to put on my racing muzzle and leash, I’ll run away. He’ll get angry and chase after me. That’s when I want you to sneak past and run to the truck without letting anyone see you. Can you do that?”

Recently Furgul had started to play a game with the brutal, stupid Bulls. During the exercise hour he peed on top of their pee then ran and hid behind the cages, where he could watch them foam with rage when they sniffed his smell. They hunted for him, but he was always too fast and crafty to let them catch him. He was sure he could get to the truck.

He nodded. “I can do that.”

Keeva asked, “Do you know what the truck looks like?”

Furgul said, “It’s red and has a row of crates on the back.”

“Very good. Dedbone always puts me in the last crate, nearest the back. It will have lots of old newspapers on the
floor. I want you to jump in the crate, hide beneath the newspapers and wait for me. Can you jump that high?”

Furgul thought about it. The truck was very high indeed, at least for him.

He asked, “Could Argal jump that high when he was only my age?”

“I’m sure he could,” said Keeva.

“Then so can I,” said Furgul. “But what about the Bulls?”

“The Bulls never come to the races.”

“Okay, Mam,” said Furgul. “What happens when we get to the track?”

“When Dedbone opens my crate, I’ll run away again. While Dedbone’s trying to catch me, you must jump out and hide beneath the truck. After a while you’ll smell that Dedbone and I have gone. You’ll hear lots of roaring and cheering in the distance—”

“From masters like Dedbone?” asked Furgul.

“Yes, except these masters don’t have dogs. They just like gambling on them at the track, especially dogs like me who make them lots of money. When you hear the roaring and cheering, you can come out from under the truck. You’ll find yourself in a parking lot—you’ll be surrounded by lots of empty trucks and cars. There’s no fence around the parking lot, so if you run all the way to the edge, you can escape.”

Furgul concentrated until he was sure he remembered every detail.

He asked, “What do I do when I’m free?”

“I don’t know,” replied Keeva. “I’ve never been free. That’s when you’ll need to be lucky and clever and brave.”

“Why don’t you come with me?”

“I’ve got a number tattooed in my ear. Dedbone would find me.”

“Perhaps he wouldn’t try,” said Furgul.

“Yes, he would,” said Keeva. “I’m the most valuable dog he’s got. In any case I can’t leave Eena and Nessa and Brid.”

Furgul suddenly had a terrible feeling.

“Mam, if I go free, does that mean I’ll never see you—ever again?”

Keeva turned away, but Furgul could still see the tears in her eyes.

“Yes,” she said. “We’ll never see each other again.”

“Can’t I wait a bit longer, then, before I escape?”

“No, Furgul, you have to go tonight.”

“But why?”

“Because you were born with a secret,” said Keeva. “A dangerous secret.”

Furgul was confused. “What secret?”

“You’re not a greyhound.”

Furgul was stunned.

“What do you mean, I’m not a greyhound?” he said. “All the dogs at Dedbone’s Hole are greyhounds, except for the Bulls.”

Keeva said, “Your father wasn’t a greyhound either.”

This made Furgul feel a bit better. “If I’m not a greyhound, what am I?”

“Argal was a mixture of greyhound and wolfhound,” said Keeva. “The masters call that a crossbreed—or a mongrel, or a mutt. The masters don’t like mutts. I don’t know why. They only like pure breeds, with pure bloodlines, which they call pedigrees. That’s why they control who we breed with—or at least they try to. The masters love to control things. If they could, they’d control absolutely everything in the world. They would never allow a crossbreed like Argal to come near a dog like me.”

“Because you are a pure breed.”

“Yes,” said Keeva. “But look at it this way. If I wasn’t pure, I wouldn’t have to live in a crate.”

“So I’m a mongrel or a mutt?” said Furgul.

“Argal said he was a lurcher, which means a thief.”

Furgul liked the sound of that much better. He cheered up. “A thief?”

“The masters won’t feed lurchers,” said Keeva, “so Argal became an outlaw. To survive he had to steal his food or kill other animals, like rabbits. That’s what you’ll have to do when you’re free. You see, you’re a lurcher too.”

This made Furgul remember that he wasn’t so sure that he wanted to be free anymore. He didn’t want to never see his mother again. He started to feel very sad. He heard a whimper in his throat, and his eyes began to water.

“Don’t cry,” said Keeva. “This isn’t the time. If you cry, you’ll be weak. And you won’t survive.”

“But why can’t I stay with you, just a little while longer?”

Keeva said, “When Dedbone finds out you’re not a greyhound, he’ll get rid of you. He’ll take you away and you’ll never come back.”

Furgul could see that she was serious. He had heard the stories that some greyhounds—the weak, the slow, the old—went away with Dedbone and never came back. He had heard the rumors that greyhounds were drowned in sacks, and shot with guns, and hanged by the neck from ropes, and even buried alive in pits. He had heard that lots and lots of greyhounds, more than any dog here had ever even seen, were “put to sleep”—which really means “killed”—with “injections.” But a lot of hounds in the camp didn’t believe these rumors. They said the stories were made up just to frighten them and to make them run even faster.

Looking into Keeva’s eyes, Furgul could tell that all the stories were true.

“When you’re a little pup,” said Keeva, “a greyhound and a lurcher look just the same to the masters. But you’re growing up fast. Your chest and shoulders are getting too big for a greyhound. I can see it. Soon Dedbone will see it too. And lurchers aren’t allowed to race at the track, so you’re worthless, at least to him.”

Furgul had a horrible thought.

He asked, “Does that mean you’ll get in trouble for being in love with Argal?”

Keeva gave him a dog smile and licked his face. The lick felt good.

“Your brain is bigger than a greyhound’s too,” she said. “But don’t worry about me. As long as I’m the fastest, Dedbone won’t do me any harm. And I aim to be the fastest for a long time.”

Furgul had another thought, even more horrible than the last.

“But what about Nessa and Eena and Brid? They must be lurchers like me. Does that mean Dedbone will think they’re worthless too?”

Keeva’s eyes darkened. “That’s why I want you to escape tonight. You can show them how it’s done. If you can do it tonight, maybe they can do it tomorrow.”

Furgul loved Nessa and Eena and Brid. He looked at them snoozing together in a heap at the back of the whelping cage. They were beautiful and good. How could they be worthless, just because they weren’t pure? Furgul’s throat trembled with a growl.

“Will you do this for me and for your sisters?” asked Keeva. “Will you be brave and make me proud?”

“Yes,” said Furgul. He swallowed his rage. “I’ll make you proud.”

The sun began to sink in the gold and crimson sky beyond the mountain. Furgul knew that soon it would be time to make his escape. Keeva had told him not to tell his sisters, in case they became too excited and gave away the plan. That meant Furgul could not say goodbye to them, and this was
hard. But he was strong and he obeyed his mother.

He practiced the plan in his mind until it felt perfect. He knew he could get to the truck and jump into the crate and hide beneath the newspapers. At least he would be with Keeva on the journey to the track. He would snuggle right up to her belly all the way. He knew he could hide until he heard the cheers of the gamblers. He knew he could escape from the parking lot. After that—when he was free—he had no plan at all.

Furgul was scared. But he thought of the father he had never seen, the mysterious outlaw—the legend, the ghost, the vision—named Argal. And he thought of his mother, Keeva, the fastest and the most beautiful. And he thought of his sisters, Nessa and Eena and Brid. And even if he did not know what he would do when he was free, he knew that he would make them all proud. Or he would die.

“Furgul,” said Keeva. “Get ready.”

Through the bars of their cage Furgul saw Dedbone walking toward them.

All masters were bigger than the greyhounds, but Dedbone was a monster. He had a big head with greasy black hair and a neck as thick as a tree trunk. He had strong arms and meaty hands with knuckles like big red walnuts for punching the dogs. His belly spilled from his pants as he swaggered across the yard, kicking up sparks from the soles of his steel-toed boots. His mouth was scarred and twisted. His eyes were small and dead, like pellets of sheep dung. He
devoured a leg of fried chicken as he came, and the hungry dogs watched him from their crates and licked their lips.

Behind Dedbone came the two bullmastiffs, slavering from their big fat mouths and flashing their big sharp teeth. Walking next to Dedbone was another master, whom Furgul had never seen before. He had eyes like sheep dung too, but he wasn’t half as big as Dedbone. Furgul had the feeling he was one of the masters who gambled on the dogs to make money. They stopped at the cage, and Dedbone pointed at Keeva and puffed out his chest.

“Boast, boast, boast!” droned Dedbone.

Dogs learned a few words of the master tongue, the ones that they heard all the time like “No!” and “Sit!” and “Go!” and “Cage!” and “Bad boy!” But the rest was mainly gibberish. The masters thought they were clever, but the fact was that dogs could learn at least a little of the human tongue, whereas masters were too stupid, or too lazy, to learn any of the dog tongue at all.

Not a single word.

Dogs didn’t need to understand all human words because they could read what humans were feeling. Most humans couldn’t read dogs at all. In fact, they couldn’t even read each other. Furgul couldn’t translate what Dedbone was saying, but he knew the sound of boasting when he heard it.

“Brag, brag, brag!” bragged Dedbone.

After being angry and nasty, which he was more often than not, Dedbone liked to brag and boast more than anything
in the world. Keeva said he liked to gloat and wave a big fat wad of cash, especially when he beat his friends at the races. Most of all he liked to boast about Keeva. To hear Dedbone talk you’d think that he was the one who ran the races.

Dedbone threw away the chicken leg. The hungry greyhounds watched as the Bulls squabbled for it. Dedbone bent closer to Keeva’s cage. His face was blotchy and red. His hairy nostrils flared at the stink from the unwashed concrete floor. Yet his own breath stank of something so vile it made Furgul feel dizzy just to sniff it.

“Gloat, gloat, gloat!” Dedbone went on.

But then the other man—the Gambler—pointed at Furgul.

“Sneer, sneer, sneer!” sneered the Gambler.

Suddenly Furgul felt very bad, though he wasn’t sure why.

The Gambler stabbed his crooked finger at Nessa and Eena and Brid.

Though he still didn’t know why, Furgul felt even worse.

The Gambler scoffed and laughed. “Scoff, scoff, scoff! Jeer, jeer, jeer!”

Dedbone’s face turned even redder than usual. He scratched his head, and greasy white dust tumbled over his shoulders. His eyebrows squirmed and his mouth went all pouty with rage. He bent over and stared at Furgul through the bars of the cage. He stared for a long, long time.

Furgul stared back at Dedbone. He’d never seen a human face at such close range before. Dedbone was ugly, but the
pocked skin, the bad teeth, the red nose and the pale dog-bite scars didn’t bother Furgul at all. What bothered him was Dedbone’s stare. Furgul felt as if the stare were sucking the life from his marrow.

Keeva let out a whimper of alarm.

Furgul had never heard Keeva whimper before.

Dedbone and the Gambler turned around and walked away. The Gambler was still laughing. He seemed to be laughing at Dedbone. Dedbone was so angry he couldn’t even shout. The Bulls lingered behind and grinned and slavered at Keeva through the bars. The Bulls didn’t have dog names. They answered only to the names that the masters gave them—Tic for the male, and Tac for the female.

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” said Tic.

“Who’s been a naughty girl, then?” said Tac.

Tic and Tac barked together—“Rowf, rowf, rowf!”—which was their way of laughing. Then they turned and followed Dedbone across the yard.

Keeva paced around the cage in a state of panic. The girls woke up.

“Mama, what’s wrong?” asked Brid.

“You’re scared, Mama,” said Nessa.

“Yes,” said Eena. “What’s wrong?”

Keeva stopped pacing so the sisters wouldn’t be frightened. “Nothing, my loves,” she said. “I’m just nervous about the race.”

Furgul didn’t believe that this was the reason. A race
could never make her nervous. He tried to catch her eye, but Keeva avoided him. Suddenly Furgul realized what had just happened. And he knew that he wouldn’t be escaping after all.