Read Online Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson - Free Book Online Page A

furious. Pete backed away, palms up, and they reared hindlegged at the gate like dwarf landlords, upright dogmen now whimpering in fury. Pete halted his retreat. It was okay. He was okay. He grabbed his own chest in relief. Heart still rattling in its shallowed brisket.
    Their barking continued unbroken, and they seemed to need no breath to do it. Pete flipped them off. He turned and walked back to his car, dodging puddles, happily hopping over them, quite giddy at this point, coulda shit myself, sweet Jesus that was close—
    Of hot white sudden he realized that the barking was halved, that the rhythmic tread of dogfeet was at least one of those fine animals loose and headlong at him.
    He didn’t even look.
    He leapt potholes to where his car had died, yanked open the door, and flung himself inside in terror just as the dog hit the open door, skidded past and immediately recovered, lunging, snapping at his hand before he could close it. For a moment the dog just barked at him as he dared not reach for the door handle. Then he did reach. The dog clamped its watering maw onto his outstretched hand. He yanked it free of the animal’s mouth, but the dog was able to budge into the car with him.
    From the yard, the less clever of the two animals stood and barked in high agony, completely forgetting the gap in the fence. The vehicle rocked at the combat within it, and the dog watched the man spill screaming out the passenger door, and leap atop the car. The Rottie followed him out, ran back into the vehicle, and out the driver’s side door, bewildered that it didn’t somehow arrive on the roof.
    Pete quaked and nearly retched with fear as he checked himself. Dark blood pooled in his palm and dripped out the back of his hand. Abrasions seethed under his coat. A long tear in his pant leg where the dog’s jaws had snapped closed like a sprung trap. Which the animals were. Hatred for Tony Short swelled in his breast. Fucking hill people and their fucking dogs lying around like loaded guns.
    The vehicle shook under him as the dog began tearing the upholstery. The second Rottweiler had found the hole in the fence now, and sprinted over and joined the other in the car, and from the sound of it, the two of them fought one another for a moment. Then they circled Pete’s car and Pete on top of it, heaving themselves up, whining and smiling at him, circling, until at last one attempted to scramble up to him, claws slipping on the bumper and hood as it slid off with a grunt. It would not be long, though, before one of them simply leapt onto the hood and drove him off the roof and into the jaws of the other.
    The moment to move was now.
    Now.
    Okay now.
    They’re going to get up here, you don’t do something—
    Pete slid over and shut the passenger door from above, and the dogs closed in on him, jaws clacking at his hand, and then he flung himself over to the driver’s side, dropped off the car, sprung into it, and slammed closed the door.
    The Rottweilers scratched at the door and window, and then snapped at one another again, hindlegged in an outraged dance. The gnashing inches from him on the other side of the window like something you wouldn’t even see at a zoo. Buffeting the car with their muscle, Pete’s keys jangled in the ignition.
    He opened the glove box and soaked up blood from his hand with a paper napkin. He grabbed a flask and opened it against his chest with his good hand and dribbled liquor onto the holes in his bad hand. It burned, and he winced hugely. He pressed the saturated and ripping napkin against his hot wounds until it finally stanched the bleeding and clung poulticed to his palm. The dogs crazed and slicking his window with slobber the whole time. He yelled at them, but naturally they could not leave him be.
    He dropped his head back and tried to cease shivering. Pictured the Short house in flames. How he’d do it. He didn’t even care about the Shorts’ children anymore, children who’d turn out just