Frank slammed the chute gate open and stomped his foot, just once. The lioness shot out of her cage. Chuck hit her with pepper spray and kept spraying her through the chain link fence until she hit the auction yard floor. She circled, hissing and spitting and rubbing at her burning eyes.
Chuck and Pine snapped a handle originally used for a shovel over Desperado’s collar and led the dog, a half-blind pit that limped slightly, away from his owner into the chute. The dog didn’t want to go down into the pit. He growled louder. A quick jab from the cattle prod helped him along.
The cat didn’t need any encouragement. It wasn’t much different than the practice session with the pound dogs. The lioness, already primed and conditioned, went after Desperado immediately, before the cattle prods could come out. The dog tried to follow the cat with his good eye, but when the cat came at him from the left side, where Desperado’s eye was nothing but a ragged, terrible wound, as if a fine steak had been gouged at with sharp spoon. The lioness ripped the dog’s body back and forth, snapping the neck faster than Asshole #1 could pop open his cell phone. Desperado was dead inside seven seconds.
The men were impressed. More money was laid down.
The lioness flung the corpse at the back of the pit, near the chute. She shrank into a spot between the dog owners and the hunters, up in the front, refusing to look at the body. Chuck dragged the dead dog out with a long gaff, originally designed for hauling 100-pound tuna out of the ocean.
Jack read two more names. “Scorpion” and “El Perversio.” Based on how fast the lioness had killed an experienced fighter, Frank chose one of the strongest dogs, Scorpion, and a dog near the bottom, El Perversio. Scorpion had both eyes, most of his muscle; El Pervesio had three legs. The entire process was repeated, all the way through until the cat killed both dogs. She was smart, and went after Scorpion first, holding El Perversio off with her left paw. That fight lasted fourteen seconds.
The lioness was panting, so Frank opened the chute and placed a five-gallon bucket half-filled with water on the floor and stepped back. The cat came forward sniffed, and lapped at the water. Frank studied her and decided to gamble. The cat had to die in the fourth round, yet Sturm wanted the hunters to believe that she could just keep killing dogs all night long, so Frank had to make it look realistic. He chose three of the healthiest and most vicious dogs. They weren’t the biggest, but he knew they would be some of the toughest. He rested his beer on the fence, holding it loosely with his right hand, fingers slowly working in code. His eyes remained on the cat. Six. Nineteen. Twenty-seven.
Jack, who was seemingly looking at Sturm the entire time, nodded. He pulled out the checks and read the names aloud. “Shadow of Death. Pansy. Tr—” But before he could finish, Pine tore up into the stands and knocked one guy on his ass. Pine must have caught the hunters making a bet between themselves.
While the first hunter struggled to push himself up from in between the bleacher seats, Pine alternated between jabbing the second hunter in the chest with his index finder and driving the first hunter on his back deeper into the narrow gap between the benches. When Pine finally let the guy up, the hunter was spitting blood.
Nobody had any objections to placing all bets through the house after that.
Jack repeated the first two names and read “Trigger” for the third round. Frank knew the cat would kill all three, she was that tough, but it would be a good fight. The dogs would undoubtedly get a few good licks in, maybe tearing her open a little in the process. With all the blood in the auction yard floor, Frank figured it would be tough for the hunters to get an accurate fix on the cat’s condition.
The dogs were released, and the lioness took on all three at the same time, one with her right paw, one with her left, and the dog in the middle with her teeth. Pansy, the dog under her left paw, got loose and circled around the back, snapping at her back legs. Pansy got hold of the lioness’s dew claw just above her back left foot, and nearly tore it completely off. The dog sank it’s teeth into the meat of the of the cat’s leg, just under the knee. The lioness whirled, Shadow of Death still hanging limply from her jaws, and broke Pansy’s neck with one swipe. Trigger was kicking in a slow circle, dragging his intestines through the dirt.
Girdler, who had been keeping track with his watch, hollered, “Two minutes, forty-three seconds!”
Frank immediately saw that she left a track of fresh blood every time she took a step with that back left paw. No one else could see it, the chain link fence was too constricting, and there was simply too much blood on the auction yard floor. But Frank knew it was over. This was fresh; there was an unmistakable sheen under the lights. But like cats everywhere, she hid any outward evidence of the wound and never altered her rolling, sinuous walk. This was an instinctive trait, hiding any weakness or sickness from possible predators. So no one suspected. No one knew. It would help.
* * * * *
“She’s wounded,” Frank said. Nobody listened. But that was okay. It was his job to make things realistic, so he took a chance that this bunch would be ready to brush off his warning. “I said, she’s wounded.”
Sturm watched him. “Heads up,” he hollered. “The vet says she’s wounded. I don’t see it. Any else see it?”
Frank didn’t point out the location. He wrote it down on a twenty, and wedged it into the edge of the cage. “When it’s over, you check and see what I put down. You’ll find the wound on her. You can see the blood already.”
“That’s fucking dog blood,” somebody in the crowd shouted. He stumbled down the bleacher steps to the cage. “I’ll fucking bet you that goddamn lion is gonna chew through the next four dogs faster you can say shit. That bitch is mean.” He jammed a cigarette into his mouth, held a light to it, and inhaled. But the act of taking a deep breath jarred something loose, and he coughed up a thick tether of phlegm that unfurled in one long wave, the back end still clinging tenaciously to the side of his tongue. The other end stuck to his bottom lip and chin like a dead jellyfish. Either the guy didn’t notice it or just pretended it didn’t happen, he took the cigarette back out of his mouth as if he’d forgotten what he was doing, got out a twenty, stuck it in the cage. “Fucking believe it. I’ll take that bet. She’ll kill them dogs deader n’ shit.” He stuck the cigarette back into his mouth and finally got it lit.
“Sir, you do understand that Frank is telling you flat out, that that lioness, that beautiful specimen down there, that she’s not going to make this round, and you still want to bet?” Sturm asked the guy, but he was saying it loud enough so the crowd could hear.
“You’re goddamn right,” the smoker yelled.
“I’m telling you, that cat is finished,” Frank said.
“Go fuck yourself, retard.” The smoker wiped his chin. A chorus of insults rained down over Frank as hunters rushed to leave cash at the cage.
Plenty of men wrote their names on twenties and stuck them in the crevices of the cage. Frank yelled back. “Bunch of piss-brain morons.”
“Look who’s talkin’,” someone else yelled back.
Frank knew he’d take some shit for his gamble, and getting insulted was necessary part of the plan. But this was more than he’d expected. The men saw it as the perfect opportunity to air all their jokes and names in an open place. They unloaded on him. It was unnecessary. He got pissed. “Look, I’m telling you. She’s not going to make it. The wound is connected a major tendon back there—that back leg goes, that’s it. It’s over.”