CALL of THE WILD

From the R.M. Dolin novel, "Trophic Cascade"
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Chapter 11: Call of The Wild

Dario arrives midmorning; he took the day off in part to help Jake mash up a fresh batch of bourbon and load the trailer for this weekend’s wine fiesta, and in part in make sure this new guy doesn’t get any ideas about making his tenure permeate. Uncertain of his spot in the distillery hierarchy now that Chance’s been hired, there’s just no way he’s not here. Besides, after what went down yesterday, he’s committed to being around plenty for the foreseeable future.

It’s a reasonably nice day for May, warm with a soft breeze that beckons you to be outside. Jake’s finished malting his blue corn, a process taking anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks depending on the weather and what he’s making. Today’s chore is to convert grain starch to sugar using the enzymes malting naturally creates. The heavy work is moving the mash into the fermenting tank, cooking the grains, and then pitching yeast once the grains have cooled to start phase two of the whiskey production process. Jake appreciates Dario’s help but reminds him it’s not necessary now that Chance is on board. He also now has to wait until after Dario leaves to the last few ingredients make this mash Mula.

They work hard for over an hour processing the mash, and Chance clearly carries his weight. Normally thsi would earn Dario’s respect, unfortunately he probably doesn’t like Chance. Not because he’s new, but because he threatens the pecking order, the hierarchy of their delicate ecosystem that needs protection. Dario also worries it’s dangerous having someone around Sympatico who Jake felt the need to fingerprint. He retains a strong sense of obligation and responsibility for her that’ll linger as long as she needs looking out for, which could easily be forever.

“I still can’t believe I lost,” Dario teases as he scoops a shovel of malted blue corn from the concrete floor into a mostly full fifty-five-gallon drum. “I had Big Slick in my hand and big slick flops!” he adds with exacerbation.

“What’s Big Slick?” Chance asks between strained breaths. He’s yet to acclimate to the thin high elevation air, and there’s an intense unspoken competition he’s engaged in with Dario, trying to match him scoop for scoop.

“Ace-King.” Dario ridicules. “Last night, I’m dealt Ace-King and Ace-King flops.”

“So, you had two pair?” Chance concludes in a tone marginalizing the incredible strength of Dario’s hand.

Dario chooses to shrug off this insult. “I come out with a huge bet and this guy calls, which can only mean he’s chasing a straight or paired on the flop, but either way, I’m ahead. I should have gone all in at the turn, especially when a ten gets played. But nooooo, the bastard slow plays my slow play. He pretends to agonize about betting and then comes over the top of my bet twice more. I have top two pair, but it isn’t nuts.”

“So, what did he have?” Chance asks.

Dario grabs a broom and aggressively sweeps the edges of the malting box to get the last remaining kernels in a single pile. He takes his time to prolong finishing the story. “I don’t know, I had to fold. I mean it’s a complete position bet on his part, but you don’t come over my bet unless you have something.”

“Oh Dude,” Chances teases, “he bluffed you right out of your boxer briefs.”

“It’s all about the betting,” Dario mumbles as he spins his full drum of malted corn toward the pallet that already has two full drums on it. Once Chance loads his drum the next step is to haul them to the fermenting room.

“Did either of you see the news this morning?” Chance inquires to extend their storytelling break at least long enough to catch his breath. It’s not that Chance minds hard work, it’s the altitude, he never seems to catch his breath once the heart rate elevates.

“No why?” Jake answers sweeping up Dario’s kernel pile.

“The folks in Sydney are still recovering for last week’s storm,” Chance proudly relates, “winds so high it blew the roofs off buildings.”

“Big whoop,” Dario asserts, “wind blows here every day.”

“This storm caught everyone by surprise,” Chance proudly continues. “The meteorologists predicted a nice day, so they rolled out a rocket for a satellite launch that got damaged, I mean millions of dollars lost. Now folks are asking how the meteorologist could have been so off.”

“The problem with complex weather models is after you’ve accounted for all the known variables,” Jake explains, “a butterfly flaps its wings in Albuquerque.”

“And the weather changes in Moscow!” Chance excitedly interjects.

“You know Chaos Theory?” Jake asks somewhere between being surprised and impressed.

“Never heard of it, but it’s the tag line a guy on the weather channel uses.”

“Ask me over bourbon and I’ll to explain it, but right now you need to quit slacking. We got a lot to do and we’re short help with Theresa being off the next few days.”

“No, that’s cool,” Chance says forcing his fatigued body back to work. “But let me ask you this,” he stops working again. “Why’s the butterfly always in Albuquerque?”

Even though there’s a hard day’s work ahead, the intellectual in Jake is eager to answer, “It’s where the theory was first postulated. In a universe of chaos, everything is connected and nothing’s random. Something happening in one place effects everything happening everywhere else. That in turn, affects everything everywhere else, until you wind up with this cascading collision of chaos. It’s not just a butterfly in Albuquerque affecting weather in Moscow, it’s all things everywhere effecting all things everywhere.”

“Like rain in Bolivia causing wind in Sydney?” Chance asks.

“Why Bolivia,” Dario harshly interrupts finding it disconcertingly ironic he uses Sympatico’s home country.

“Because rain in Bolivia is what caused that windstorm in Sydney.” Chance pushes back.

“You actually think one causes the other?”

“Think it?” Chance asserts with conviction. “Dude, I know it!”

“Doc,” Dario pleads. “Tell him he’s full of shit.”

“Technically, it’s possible. Not probable I would imagine, but possible.”

“I’ll be damned,” Chance says to himself with satisfaction.

Jake continues, “Usually it’s the connection of seemingly unrelated things, like drilling for oil in Iraq causing an earthquake in Kansas. But even that’s too simplified because you can logically deduce the cause and effect in that.”

Chance returns to work with renewed enthusiasm, he’s four-for-four the past two weeks, his best roll so far, way out-performing the weather channel pros.

“Load that last drum on the pallet,” Jake directs Chance, “then lash em together. After that, come to the fermenting room.” Jake hops on the forklift, maneuvering to pick up the first pallet of drums. Once raised, he tilts the load toward the forklift mast and backs out of the malting room into the parking lot. Dario walks beside the forklift pleased Chance was the one left behind, content for the moment the new guy’s lower in the pecking order.

Once inside the fermenting room, Jake raises the pallet so it’s slightly higher than the fermenting tank. Even though he’s lectured Dario many times on waiting until the forklift’s turned off before using it as a ladder, Dario hops up the front fender as he steps onto the pallet. He undoes the strap holding the drums and then tilts one of the forward drums toward the open fermentation tank allowing malted corn to spill inside. While Dario’s busy dumping grain, Jake steps outside to hook up a water hose when he suddenly hears a frantic scream emanating from the tasting room. He drops the still running hose and races across the parking lot.

Dario reacts with the same committed voracity. In a powerful jerking motion, he attempts to throw the tilted drum upright, but the bottom edge jams in the pallet’s open slot causing the drum to buck back with an equal and opposite force. The drum’s unexpected recoil catches Dario off balance and the momentum’s so strong it knocks him backward. He frantically reaches for the forklift mast but cannot catch it before his momentum thrusts him out of reach. He falls from the pallet into the fermenting tank landing forcefully on the small pile of soft wet corn he’d just dumped. The impact of the five-foot fall coupled with the drum’s unexpected recoil leaves him massively disorientated.

It only takes a few seconds to regroup and begin frantically struggling to climb out of the tank. By then Jake’s crossed the parking lot and hurried through the open archway into the courtyard. The fierce sound of fighting dogs is so unmistakable, Jake’s not surprised to find Quando entangled with some local Cholo’s macho dog. It’s happened before and usually not a huge deal. In those previous instances, Jake just grabs the broom from the tasting room and uses the handle to beat the snot out of the Cholo dog with enough viciousness to insure he never returns. The problem with the valley’s Cholo dogs is their owners never discipline them, don’t fix them to keep their aggressiveness down, and keep them chained to stakes. This leaves the dogs mean, vicious, and on the razor’s edge between pet and predator.

Dealing with a single Cholo dog takes one person and a broomstick. Dealing with a pack of Cholos requires a significantly different response because once dogs pack up, the wild instincts dormant in all canines awakens. Pack dogs no longer look at humans as companions, but prey. The singular purpose of a pack is to hunt, and Cholos don’t need much provocation to awaken their predatorial desires. The instant Jake enters the courtyard he accepts his prior expectations no longer align with reality, and he seamlessly transforms into the ranch hand who skinned his first dead calf at twelve and held down many a steer during branding and alteration. Like dogs in a pack answering the call of their wild, Jake reverts to a long dormant person capable of horrific things when a situation demands an extra-ordinary response. In that microsecond between realizing something dramatic is going down and something sensational needs to be done, he becomes callously detached, determined, and focused.

Sympatico stands in the back left corner of the courtyard holding the broom Jake just moments ago thought he’d use to beat the snot out of the Cholo dog who’d wandered into the yard. She’s holding the broom near the base by the straw bristles ready to jab the long handle at anything approaching. Eight feet away Quando’s engaged in a fierce fight with a large reddish colored dog that’s part Chow and part Rottweiler, a common mixture for Valley Cholos. The two dogs are growling and snapping as each other trying to gain their opponent’s jugular. As they roll along the flagstone it appears one moment Quando is winning and then in the next, the roles reverse.

There are six other dogs in the pack each as large and inbred as the Rottweiler. Two look like mutts with strong Heeler ties, one’s a German Shepard, one’s a mutt of no distinction, and another appears to be predominately Chow. The last dog is part Malamute/wolf hybrid who’s bigger than a standard Malamute but retains their distinguishing one blue eye. Their ragged appearance validates how poorly they’ve been cared for, and their large frames and aggressive cocktail of breeds is a clear indication of their owner’s low self-esteem.

The German Shepard and two mutts are trying to help their Rottweiler buddy take down Quando by biting his legs, ears, and hind quarters when given the opportunity. Quando’s holding his own, but Jake sees several wounds, including a chunk of hide missing from his right hindquarter and blood on his left front shoulder that’s probably from a fang puncture. There’s also scratch wounds along his ribcage that are deep enough to ooze blood whenever Quando moves.

The other Chow and the Wolf-hybrid have backed Sympatico into a corner, her dress is ripped, she has a long scratch on her right calf with blood trickling down, and her left hand’s punctured. For the moment she’s holding her two attackers at bay with the broom handle, but it’s clear they have previously broken through. Most men in similar situations would be unsure what to do, others might hesitate uncertain about entering the fray. There’s neither hesitation nor uncertainty in Jake’s resolve. The rule he grew up with; well actually, more of a rural South Dakota mandate, is anytime you encounter five or more dogs packed together you’re obligated to do exactly what he intends to do.

The wild dogs are so engrossed in their attacks on Quando and Sympatico they don’t notice Jake enter the courtyard and dash to the large flowerpot beside the tasting room door. They’re unconcerned as he frantically brushes dirt out of the flowerpot, and equally un-phased by how, with a single fluid motion, he opens the box buried beneath the soil and pulls out a pistol. Jake quickly but calmly approaches the Chow who’s backed Sympatico into the corner and is launching a lunge with determined ferocity. Sympatico tries blocking his attack with her broom, but the Chow slips his head to the side while bringing his paw up to her belly and racking a claw down her left thigh cutting a deep gash through her dress and flesh. The momentum of his lustful launch knocks Sympatico off balance. She slams against the back wall with so much energy it knocks her breath out. She wilts into a sitting position on the flagstone too dazed to offer defense, which creates an opening the Wolf-hybrid quickly exploits. Sympatico raises her arm in defense as the wolf-hybrid lunges at her, which is about all she’s capable of at this point. Her meager attempt to avail his attack only provides the Wolf-hybrid something soft and easy to sink his teeth into.

By the time Jake gets to the back corner, the Wolf-hybrid is tearing viciously at Sympatico’s arm and his hind legs are relentlessly clawing into the flagstone as he works to back up viciously shaking his head from side to side to rip away precious pieces of flesh. As deliberately as someone might open a car door, Jake walks up to the Wolf-hybrid, places the pistol against his single blue eye and pulls the trigger. He shoots the Wolf in the eye to ensure the bullet’s angle of trajectory is away from both Sympatico and Quando. Not much brain matter follows the bullet on its way to embedding in the stucco wall, but the demon Wolf-hybrid dies instantly just the same.

Without pause, Jake turns and shoots the Chow who’s just beginning to launch another attack. He deliberately shoots in a downward direction to ensure the bullet enters at the base of the dog’s neck and travels through the rib cage puncturing a lung while tearing through other vital organs. The Chow slams onto the hard flagstone with all the force gravity can conjure, and fortunately, or unfortunately depending on what side of the slug you’re on, does not die right away. The bullet skips harmlessly along the flagstone on exit bouncing off the front wall. Jake quickly surmises that the dog, while not yet dead, is no longer a threat.

Moving on to Quando, Jake shoots the first Heeler-mutt in his side just behind the front shoulder from about eight feet out. The dog has his teeth in Quando’s hindquarter preventing a head shot. It pisses Jake off that this Heeler-mutt gang fights, so he doesn’t much mind if the mutt bleeds out slow. He next shoots the second Heeler-mutt in the head at point blank range. Unfortunately, the bullet exits with enough energy to embed itself in the stucco wall. At this point, the German Shepard figures out Jake’s a threat and breaks off his attack on Quando to wheel around. Snarling his blood-stained fangs while stealthily stalking toward his new prey, with a swift force-filled move, the Shepard lunges at Jake easily covering the distance between them in a single leap. Leading with his head lowered, the Shepard is as much a missile as a deadly predator. He slams hard into Jake knocking him backward into Sympatico. As Jake falls back, his knees buckle over Sympatico’s shoulder initiating a less than graceful fall to the floor. This allows the German Shepard to re-launch a fangs-first attack. Just as Jake feels the dog’s fangs puncture the top of his skull, he’s able to position the pistol under the dog’s jaw and shoot him through the throat. The dog dramatically drops onto Jake’s lap like a sack of Southern Colorado potatoes. ‘Ironic,’ Jake thinks as he waits to catch his breath and clear his head, ‘like Padre’s story only different.’

Jake brushes the dead dog aside and struggles to stand up discovering he’s a bit woozy. Nevertheless, he manages to steady himself by grabbing the broom from Sympatico. The mutt of no distinction now understands the threat Jake imposes and breaks off his attack on Quando. Though still woozy Jake shoots the mutt in his chest just below the throat as the dog is about to lunge. The mutt of no distinction is dead before he hits the flagstone dropping beside the now dead Heeler-mutt.

Two things are now painfully clear to Jake as he struggles to clear his head, a) something must be done about the Rottweiler attacking Quando and b) he’s out of bullets. Nothing can be done about issue (b) and as is often the case, issue (a) is about to resolve itself. The back and forth between the Chow-Rottweiler and Quando currently has the Chow with the upper hand. The earlier gang-fighting has taken a deep toll on Quando and his naturally white fur is heavily spotted red with blood from multiple rips, tears, and punctures. The happy dog who lives to chase tennis balls is at the end of his energy. He knows he’s almost depleted – as does his attacker. The large red dog has managed to get Quando on his back with his neck exposed, which is the opportunity he’s been fighting for. As the Chow-Rottweiler feels his fangs press past the soft white fur finding the warm pre-flesh skin, he’s overcome with an intoxicating lustful ecstasy he’s never experienced before. He draws a deep breath of anticipation but just as he begins to clamp his powerful jaws around Quando’s unprotected throat, confident the overwhelming sensation of warm blood in his mouth is moments away; he unexpectedly feels the sharp bone cracking pain of the broom handle whacking him hard across the nose. The force of the blow coupled with the adjoining agonizing pain causes the dog to release his murderous grip on Quando’s throat.

In the long term, the blow Jake delivers will lead to the dog’s slow agonizing death because it fractured his upper jaw. Eventually he won’t be able to eat, and the broken bone will get infected, but that’s long term. In the short term all Jake’s accomplished is pissing this deranged animal off. Immediately after the bone breaking smack, the dog wheels around toward Jake and without thought, pause, or hesitation lunges at his new enemy with the singular purpose he was bred for. The combination of Jake still being woozy and the momentum of a ninety-five-pound dog lunging through the air again knocks Jake against the wall where his knees again buckle over Sympatico’s shoulder. As he falls backward the foremost thought is ‘shit, I’m still out of bullets.’

As Jake falls backward the dog regroups for his next lunge. With the long-term implications of Jake’s broom-handle assault having no short-term effect, the dog lunging toward Jake. Out of time and options, he goes with his only real option. With his left hand he reaches for the dog’s collar, while his right hand prepares to ram the empty pistol as far down the dog’s throat as possible. Before Jake’s left hand finds the flying dog’s collar, a thunderous boom fills the courtyard with such resonating veracity you actually feel the sound waves reverberate off the stucco walls. The dog, who an instant ago was traversing through space for a missile strike on Jake, is now traveling in a perpendicular direction; literally in two pieces.

The blast of the elephant gun is louder than even Dario remembers. His bullet nails the dog right below the spine part way between the front and back quarters with so much velocity it shatters the spine and rips the dog in two. The bullet exits the two-part dog with sufficient energy to pierce the exterior stucco of the kitchen wall, travel into the kitchen blasting through a cabinet door, hit a pot with enough energy it push it through the back of the cabinet causing splinters to fly everywhere.

The next few moments seem frozen. Nobody moves, nobody makes a sound, even gun smoke seems suspended in stasis. Jake slowly raises his hand to his head feeling for blood, finding more than expected. He wipes his blood-soaked hand in his jeans and attempts to untangle himself from Sympatico but is too woozy to stand on his own so Dario helps.

The entire incident, from the moment Jake heard Sympatico scream until Dario split the Rottweiler in two, lasted forty-seven seconds. After years as a professional bull rider, Jake’s well versed in the intensity of micro-events that can be crammed into a few seconds. It took Dario three seconds to fall into the fermenting tank and catch his breath, and another ten to climb out and stagger to his truck suppressing the excruciating pain from his partially dislocated back. It takes him eleven seconds to dig his rifle out and load bullets into the clip, ten to stagger across the parking lot, get into position, and take aim. The rest of the time was anxiously spent waiting for an open shot.

Chance doesn’t hear Sympatico scream from the back of the malting room, but he did hear Jake’s first gun shot. It takes him twelve seconds to catch up with Dario at the entryway of the courtyard and the rest of the time to sort out what’s going on and how he can add value. His initial thought is to jump in between Jake and that bad-ass Rottweiler but given Dario’s working to get a shot he correctly concludes that’s not helpful. He then considers rushing to Sympatico but again for reasons around Dario and his cannon, Chance correctly concludes jumping into the fray is ill-advised. All he can realistically do is wait for Dario to do what he’s going to do.

It takes less than a second for Quando to bolt from the tasting room floor where he’s casually napping into the courtyard when after getting his first whiff of Cholo canine. The time between the Rottweiler’s first growl until Quando’s between the dogs and Sympatico is less than a second. During that microsecond, Quando determines who’s Alpha, and without any loss of purpose launches his preemptive assault with all the viciousness any Labrador can conjure.

It three seconds from Sympatico’s first scream until the Wolf-hybrid buries his fangs in her arm the first time. In considerably less than that, a week’s worth of hard-fought recovery is erased. Sympatico falls back into the quasi-comatose quasi-instinctual condition she was in that night at the Al Azar. Gone is any sense of safety or security she’s allowed herself to feel for the first time in years. All her burgeoning optimism that bad and evil have for so long suppressed, evaporates like alcohol in heat as evil once again reclaims her for personal amusement. The person she foolishly allowed to peak around the darkness of her depleted soul retreats once more to the empty hole where it’s resided for so very long. Taken by the demon wolf in his first attack, is hope and happiness. All these precious treasures lost when his fangs first find their home.

“Shit,” Jake says wobbling to his feet as he recovers from the intensity of the past few moments. He’s still woozy but manages to stand on his own. He holds his left hand on his head to slow the flow of blood and numb the pain. “Ya freaking split him in two.” He stands over both Rottweiler pieces with victorious satisfaction.

“Right on,” Dario whispers mostly to himself as he lowers the rifle. “Shot a little high, but the rifle’s not meant for close quarters.” Even though Dario aimed at the dog’s vitals through the scope, the barrel was actually pointed at the top of the dog’s back. If anything, he’s lucky he didn’t miss altogether.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever hear normal again,” Jake adds still dazed.

“She’s loud alright,” Dario agrees. “How was the pistol?”

“Not enough bullets,” Jake grouses while steadying himself on the broom as he wipes blood from his face. He starts feeling the damage from the two times he got missiled in the chest by lunging dogs. His heart hurts, like its bruised or something. ‘This is what it’s like,’ he thinks remembering that afternoon during his rookie year when a bull stepped on a cowboy with so much force it stopped the cowboy’s heart.

Chance needs a moment to take in the carnage, between blood splatters, dead animal carcasses, and burnt gunpowder, he’s way beyond his threshold of imagination. He’s been on hunts and around gunfire plenty, but he’s never seen anything like this. “What the hell?” He finally blurts out taking in the totality of what’s happened.

In all the chaos, the boys sort of lose track of what still has to be done, that is until Sympatico groans. “Quando,” she mumbles, “is he alright?” Jarred back to reality, Jake looks at his beloved dog lying on the flagstone awake but not moving, his body spotted with blood, cuts, and tears. “Quando!” he calls as tears mixed with blood stream down his face. He staggers over to Quando and kneels down gently stroking his head. Slowly, the cobwebs clear. He glances over his shoulder to assess Sympatico’s condition; she’s leaning against the tasting room wall staring blanking ahead in the same comatose state he’s seen before. Her dress is shredded in multiple places and there’s blood on her thigh and legs from claw scratches and quite a bit more on her arms from punctures. “Dario,” Jake instructs, “Work on Quando, give him whatever you got for pain.”

“I got stuff for my colt in the truck.” Dari immediately gets to work with the surgical precision his Corpsman training ingrained. This is not the worst shit he’s been in, but it’s been a while.

Jake’s still working with partial brain function, he points at Chance not remembering his name. “Get the wheelbarrow and load up these dogs. Take them down to the arroyo behind the distillery and dump em; I want the coyotes to have a go.”

“Save the collars and tags,” Dario interjects, his voice riddled with disgust.

“What the hell for?” Chance asks, not wanting to touch the dead animals any more than necessary. “Is it some twisted trophy or something?”

“I’m tired of these punk-ass Cholos and their macho dogs running wild,” Dario replies. “I’m gonna track down the bastards who own these dogs and kick their asses.”

“Whoa big fella,” Jake cautions. “No need for that.”

“Hell there ain’t! Half the problems in this valley would be eliminated if we kicked the crap out of a few more folks a little more often. This is not the first-time shit like this happened, but it damn sure needs to be the last.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” Jake decides lacking the energy to continue.

Jake instructs Chance. “After the dogs get moved, clean up the blood using lots of bleach.” He pauses for a moment to consider the business ramifications of what’s happened. “Guess we’re closed for a while, no way in hell of explaining this shit to East Coasters in a way that’ll make sense. Last thing I need is this showing up in another bad review.”

Jake stumbles toward Sympatico, “When you’re done with Quando,” he instructs Dario while getting down on his knees, “we’ll get Sympatico inside and tend to her there.” He looks into her eyes but finds little cognition. He understands she’s back in that same dark place she was the morning after Cinco de Mayo, and that all the progress they’ve made, will have to restart. “It’s okay,” he softly says brushing hair from her face. Not knowing what else to do, he slowly, and with great pain, he leans against the wall positioning himself beside her. Slowly, he puts his arm around her shoulders and pulls her close recognizing that together they look like lingering remnants of a world in chaos, which causes him to wonder what the hell he ever did to piss off butterflies.