Animal Appetite

known.”
    “Having accidentally killed the beasts, you would unhesitatingly swallow the stuff yourself.”
    I said nothing.
    “I am,” Randall said, “engaged in a deep internal debate, to wit, whether ’tis more fitting to dose you first and permit your stalwart guardians to stand by as you perish, or whether to let you survive to savor the sight of your hairy friends as they consume their din-din.” Unwrapping the raw meat, he said, “The latter, I suppose. One is pulled in both directions.” He placed the hamburger on the counter next to the copy of Lewis Clark’s book. With infinite care, he unscrewed the cap on the glass bottle.
    “Stay,” I quietly told the dogs. The ax called to me. I could almost feel the familiar handle in my hand.
    Lights. Headlights. In Kevin’s spot. Through the window, I saw Kevin heave his bulk out of his car.
    What did I have to lose?
    Desperate to sound an alarm, I shot my arm past Rowdy to the door of the kitchen closet, the closet where I store the dry dog food. How much was left in the forty-pound bag? Half, I thought: twenty pounds of premium, meat-based kibble. Rowdy bounced and whined. Kimi yelped. As Randall Carey tipped the poison bottle over the raw meat, I wrenched open the closet door and shoved my way past the hungry dogs, who already had their noses to the bag of dog food and were already jockeying with each other. Rowdy, who’d started out next to the closet, was the first to force his head deep into the bag, but with a deep, menacing snarl, Kimi nipped at his neck and hurled herself on top of him. As Rowdy swung his head around to administer a painful lesson in the perils of stealing his food, Kimi took advantage of his momentary inattention to ram her head past his and straight into the bag.
    I grew up with big dogs. From my earliest days, I’d been warned never, ever to tease a dog with food and absolutely never to try to break up a dog fight. Another prohibition went without saying: It never occurred to my parents that I’d deliberately trigger a dog fight. What’s more, with the peaceable golden retrievers of my childhood, the task would have been difficult. Two rivalrous males would’ve quarreled over a female with a come-hither scent; nothing but the eternal canine triangle, however, could’ve persuaded our sweet-tempered kennelmates to turn on one another. I certainly hadn’t had to tether my goldens at opposite ends of the kitchen to give them dinner. Rowdy and Kimi were devoted to each other. Malamute devotion, however, had nothing to do with sharing food.
    Now that I’d started the fight, my goal was to move it out of the closet. Stretching my arms over the snarling tangle of dogs, I sent my hands flying down past the flashing teeth, got a grip on the bag, hauled it up and out of the closet, and upended it on the linoleum. As I’d hoped, when the twenty pounds of loose kibble hit the floor, the dogs switched into what malamute people call “survival mode.” Ignoring Randall Carey and his deadly meat, the dogs scrambled and snatched until the two-dog melee transformed itself into a single beastly, roaring swirl of flying fur, crashing bodies, fighting jaws, and gnashing teeth.
    Randall Carey, meat and poison in hand, took a step toward the battling dogs.
    I turned toward the hallway, toward the closet where I’d stowed the ax. Its blade was sharp and heavy. The muscles in my arms and shoulders swelled.
    “Hannah.” Carey’s voice caressed the name.
    That persistent, mocking Hannah stopped me. I felt suddenly sick to my stomach. I am not Hannah Duston! I thought violently.
    Brushing past the dangerous diversion I’d created, I grabbed a wooden kitchen chair, raised it, and, with its seat shielding me and its sharp legs projecting forward, gave a survival-mode snarl worthy of both my dogs, launched myself and my domestic makeshift weapon at Randall Carey, and drove that murderous son of a bitch away from my animals and across the kitchen until his back slammed into the refrigerator. With a quick yank, I jerked the chair toward me and aimed one of its legs directly at the center of his face.
    In a reflex effort to save his sight, Randall Carey dropped his shoulders, lowered his head, and flexed his arms inward at the elbows.
    “Listen to me, you bastard!” I growled. “No one hurts my dogs! NO ONE!"
    Like Jael, who put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman’s hammer, I drove the wooden legs of my weapon forward.