I told Billy to cut Howard loose and to tape Mitchell up to the tree, then we all got in the SUV and headed across the brush. Howard looked like he was in shock and he didn’t say a word while Billy was talking nonstop. I didn’t hear any of it because all I could think about was that pit bull’s jaws tearing poor Al to death.
Harter’s cell phone was fastened to the dashboard and I used it to call AJ’s. Kelley wasn’t going to be happy, but this went way beyond pissing him off. The SUV banged and bumped across the muddy field and it didn’t handle the terrain anything like it did on the TV commercials. It was a fifteen-minute ride and my heart was racing faster than the engine was.
I skidded the SUV to a stop in time to hear the fit of barking. I instructed Billy to drive toward town and look for the police. Harter had the lights on and the meditation garden was all lit up. From the distance, I could see that Al was running around and around with Seagal chasing him, growling and showing his teeth the whole way. I ran to the fence and took a running leap onto it and scaled it as fast as I could. I got toward the top and saw the layers upon layers of razor wire that would shred my hands and arms if I went through it.
I heard myself yell “Shit!” and Al stopped to look up at me while the pit charged him with its jaws wide open. At the last split second Al started to run again and for whatever reason, maybe his own sense of flight or fight, he started running all crazy zigzagging around the stone garden. The pit bull was athletic and mean but it didn’t have Al’s ability to change direction and Al had him baffled with his open-field maneuvers. Unfortunately, this just fueled the pit’s anger.
I knew there was no way Al could keep this pace up for long and I struggled to the razor wire, slicing my index finger pretty good in the process. Al was barking and his ears were flapping as he barely evaded the pit’s charges. I looked close at Al as the razors got caught in my jeans, and it dawned on me that Al didn’t look scared and he didn’t look angry. The crazy-ass hound looked like he was playing a game.
Al stopped suddenly and skidded on the stones with the pit bull dead straight ahead of him at a distance of less than ten feet. Al barked, almost baiting him, and waited for his charge. I screamed to Al to run and he waited to the last second, taking off with the pit literally right behind him. Al was heaving for air as he switched directions, and the pit bit the very end of his tail. He was closing ground on Al and snapping his jaws when Al ran around the Buddha.
It appeared Al was losing his breath and starting to slow down on his third trip around the Buddha. I pulled hard to free a leg and the razors cut through one leg of my jeans. It cut me but I had one leg free. My heart felt like it was in the back of my throat as Al started another trip around the Buddha at a much slower speed. He was tiring out.
The pit bull wasn’t and he got past Al’s tail and jumped toward Al’s shoulders to bring him down. There was no way Al could survive a dogfight with this animal. The pit bull jumped to tackle Al and Al leaped too, but as he did, he took a mid-air, ninety-degree turn like he would in the Moody Blue. The pit bull tried to follow but as Al ducked his low-flying frame under one of the stone benches in front of the Buddha, the pit bull came in high.
The pit bull’s head cracked just like my shin on a coffee table, except he was flying from a distance of ten feet and the bench was made of solid granite.
The pit bull’s head split open and the dog collapsed a few feet from the bench that Al was now safely tucked under. I pulled my second leg through the razor and I was now cut all up and down my legs and over my hands, but I pulled myself through and fell the fifteen feet down to the stones, landing on my back. I got up and charged the door to the steel building to find Harter. The door flew open before I could get there, and there stood Harter in front of what looked like some very sophisticated lab equipment.
He was holding a gun and had it pointed at my head.