Read Online No Man's Dog by Jon A. Jackson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jon A. Jackson
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later, when you’re feeling better . . . I might go back.” It seemed to satisfy her, for the moment. He knew better than to suggest that she needed him to look after her. As it was, she just scoffed at his protests.
“Oh, you and your study! Well, I suppose you’ll go back when curiosity gets the better of you.”
A few days later she volunteered that she’d remembered a couple of things. She wondered if the police shouldn’t know. Mulheisen sighed and called Tucker.
4
Home Guard
J oe Service was on his way to kill his neighbor’s wife. He hadn’t killed anybody in so long that he had begun to feel innocent . . . not that Joe’s conscience had ever plagued him on this score. He never thought of these targets as victims, only as . . . targets, some more deserving of Joe’s dispensation than others. The last person he’d chilled had richly deserved it. The guy had, in fact, been on the verge of killing Joe. Several men had been on that verge, over the years. It wasn’t a comfortable verge: all of them had tumbled into the abyss of Hell, to use a convenient name for the trash bin of homicidal incompetence.
This dispensation of Fedima Oberavich was different: not, strictly speaking, a matter of self-defense. Although, as Joe saw it, in the long run it was totally defensive, in the manner of a pre-emptive strike. Fedima was bound to bring him into mortal danger, he felt. She was threatening his well-being, at present, and his life, ultimately.
Fedima Oberavich had given birth to her first child four months after she was married. It was a bit of a surprise, since she hadn’t appeared to be pregnant at the time of the wedding. Anyone acquainted with her history immediately did a little mental math and then sighed at least inwardly with relief. It couldn’t havebeen the child of the monster, Bozi Bazok, who had murdered her family, kidnapped her and raped her innumerable times during their trek out of Kosovo, too many months earlier.
No one alive knew that her lover in Kosovo had been her husband Frank’s late cousin, Paulie. But obviously, he was not the father of the child. Nor could it have been her husband, whom she’d met only a few weeks before the marriage took place. It had to have been some unknown fellow along the route that brought her to America. Fedima wasn’t talking. After all, it was of no consequence. The significant thing was that she was now a mother. It was a transforming event.
There was no one in the world who could now testify to the character of Fedima, at least in the sense of knowing her past. Her entire family had been wiped out by the paramilitary beast Bozi Bazok, who had all by himself slaughtered her mother and younger siblings and her extended family in a cave in the hills behind the farm where her people had tilled the land and piled the rocks of the fields for more than a hundred years. Fedima, and now her son—inevitably named Paul—were the sole living descendants of the family Daliljaj . . . at least, as far as Fedima knew. There may have been some cousins, but she didn’t know of them.
This horrendous situation was shockingly not rare among the peasants of Kosovo. But for Fedima it was no less devastating. Who knew that she had been a heroine of sorts? Who saw that in the demure, seemingly complacent young girl who had somehow made her way to America and been, finally, offered as a bride to a young man of remote Serbian heritage in faraway Montana, here was a young woman of unusual courage and determination?
Among those living about her now it soon became apparent that she was not a shrinking violet. She was no pushover, no complaisant wife for Frank Oberavich. An early indication was her adamant insistence that something must be done about the two dogs,Sylvie and Bruno. These two dogs were the faithful servants of Frank, an important component of his security system. But they had demonstrated that they would attack a human being: they had torn to pieces the
“Oh, you and your study! Well, I suppose you’ll go back when curiosity gets the better of you.”
A few days later she volunteered that she’d remembered a couple of things. She wondered if the police shouldn’t know. Mulheisen sighed and called Tucker.
4
Home Guard
J oe Service was on his way to kill his neighbor’s wife. He hadn’t killed anybody in so long that he had begun to feel innocent . . . not that Joe’s conscience had ever plagued him on this score. He never thought of these targets as victims, only as . . . targets, some more deserving of Joe’s dispensation than others. The last person he’d chilled had richly deserved it. The guy had, in fact, been on the verge of killing Joe. Several men had been on that verge, over the years. It wasn’t a comfortable verge: all of them had tumbled into the abyss of Hell, to use a convenient name for the trash bin of homicidal incompetence.
This dispensation of Fedima Oberavich was different: not, strictly speaking, a matter of self-defense. Although, as Joe saw it, in the long run it was totally defensive, in the manner of a pre-emptive strike. Fedima was bound to bring him into mortal danger, he felt. She was threatening his well-being, at present, and his life, ultimately.
Fedima Oberavich had given birth to her first child four months after she was married. It was a bit of a surprise, since she hadn’t appeared to be pregnant at the time of the wedding. Anyone acquainted with her history immediately did a little mental math and then sighed at least inwardly with relief. It couldn’t havebeen the child of the monster, Bozi Bazok, who had murdered her family, kidnapped her and raped her innumerable times during their trek out of Kosovo, too many months earlier.
No one alive knew that her lover in Kosovo had been her husband Frank’s late cousin, Paulie. But obviously, he was not the father of the child. Nor could it have been her husband, whom she’d met only a few weeks before the marriage took place. It had to have been some unknown fellow along the route that brought her to America. Fedima wasn’t talking. After all, it was of no consequence. The significant thing was that she was now a mother. It was a transforming event.
There was no one in the world who could now testify to the character of Fedima, at least in the sense of knowing her past. Her entire family had been wiped out by the paramilitary beast Bozi Bazok, who had all by himself slaughtered her mother and younger siblings and her extended family in a cave in the hills behind the farm where her people had tilled the land and piled the rocks of the fields for more than a hundred years. Fedima, and now her son—inevitably named Paul—were the sole living descendants of the family Daliljaj . . . at least, as far as Fedima knew. There may have been some cousins, but she didn’t know of them.
This horrendous situation was shockingly not rare among the peasants of Kosovo. But for Fedima it was no less devastating. Who knew that she had been a heroine of sorts? Who saw that in the demure, seemingly complacent young girl who had somehow made her way to America and been, finally, offered as a bride to a young man of remote Serbian heritage in faraway Montana, here was a young woman of unusual courage and determination?
Among those living about her now it soon became apparent that she was not a shrinking violet. She was no pushover, no complaisant wife for Frank Oberavich. An early indication was her adamant insistence that something must be done about the two dogs,Sylvie and Bruno. These two dogs were the faithful servants of Frank, an important component of his security system. But they had demonstrated that they would attack a human being: they had torn to pieces the
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