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IT'S GOING to be hard to dump these mutts, Joe Grey thought. They clung to him like road tar. When he tried to drive them back into the ravine they nearly smothered him with slurping kisses. Even his lancing claws no longer deterred them. They licked their noses where he'd slapped them and bounced around him like a pair of wind-up toys, fawning and trampling him, grinning with the delighted assumption that he was their dearest friend; they were so stupid and innocent that even if he could have ditched them and made his escape, something within Joe rebelled. He knew he couldn't abandon them; puppies and young dogs have no more notion of how to find food for themselves than does a human baby.

Well, he'd take them home to Clyde. Let Clyde deal with the problem. Clyde would love the stupid mutts. And maybe they'd cheer up old Rube. Rube had been mourning the death of Barney, their golden retriever who had succumbed to cancer, for far too long.

So, okay, he'd take them home. But did they have to make such a scene? By the time he reached the road above Hellhag Canyon his fur was sopping from their affection.

Atop the cliff, the sea breeze came stronger, lifting and thinning the mist. The narrow two-lane, clearing of fog, glistened wet and black. In the watery sunshine, the pups looked even more skeletal, every rib casting a curved shadow, their cheeks so deeply sunken that he could see each indentation of their canine skulls. Turning his back on them, he studied the slick black road.

Where the car had gone over the edge, the earthen shoulder was scarred raw, rocks tumbled, bushes broken and uprooted. Trotting along the verge watching for the man they had scented below, for a stranger to suddenly appear climbing out of the canyon, Joe could find no skid marks on the dark macadam. It looked, just as Joe had guessed, as if the driver, when his car hit the second curve, had no brakes at all.

Examining the wet paving, he found several splatters of brake fluid pooled like oil. He had to drive the pups away, cuffing and slapping them to keep them from licking the spills. He didn't know if brake fluid was poisonous like radiator coolant, but he didn't care to find out. It was not until he trotted around the second bend that he smelled burnt rubber.

Before him, S-shaped trails snaked across the asphalt, and a larger puddle of brake fluid gleamed. Joe imagined the driver stamping repeatedly on the pedal, trying to slow, the fluid spurting out until it was gone.

Pumping the pedal, jerking the wheel, he'd have hit that second curve like a missile, the car swerving back and forth, gaining speed on the downhill, hitting the shoulder to plow up half a ton of dirt and flip a double gainer straight into Hellhag Canyon.

He could find no sign of the second car, no trace of a second set of skid marks.

He wondered if the driver had braked suddenly to avoid not an oncoming car but the pups themselves looming in the fog.

Except, the horn had honked before the skid, not at the same moment, as one would expect if the driver were startled by the sudden appearance of animals in his headlights.

Crossing the road, Joe headed up Hellhag Hill through the tall, wet grass. He was halfway to the crest when he realized the pups had left him.

Rearing above the wild oats and barley, he saw them far below, creeping along the edge of the highway, staring up the hill white-eyed and quivering.

Joe didn't know what was wrong with them; something on the hill terrified them. He stood tall on his hind paws, observing them, smiling a sly cat grin.

Now would be the perfect time to ditch them. Take off across Hellhag Hill and leave them cowering down there.

A practical voice told him, Lose them, Joe. Lose the silly mutts now, while they're distracted. You'd be stupid to take them home, they're sure to have mange, fleas, ringworm. They'll give it to the household cats and to poor Rube, and he's too old to fight a case of mange. Dump them. Dump them here. Now. Do it now.

But a kinder voice whispered, Come on, Joe. Have a heart. Clyde can take them to the pound, where they'll be fed and safe, not running along the highway. Even a dog deserves a little compassion.

Ditch them. They'll learn to fend for themselves, live out of garbage cans. There's that trailer park up Hellhag Hill; some dumb human will feed them.

And above this internal argument, he kept wondering about the dead man, and about the unseen stranger in the canyon, wondering where he had come from, and why he didn't hike on into the village and report the wreck. Joe hadn't seen the guy come up out of the canyon.

He wondered how long before someone else would come along the road, notice the torn-up shoulder, take a look down into the canyon, and call 911. Get the cops and a wrecker down there. Meanwhile, below him on the road, the pups crept along shivering with fear. Poor dumb beasts.

Well, he'd take them home. Clyde would love them. They'd give him something to do: he'd feed them, get them in shape, have them vetted, walk them and bathe them, worm them, fawn over them. Find homes for them. He'd be so proud when they were sleek and had collars and homes of their own.

Right. And when did Clyde ever give away an animal? He won't find homes for them. He'll keep the beasts. You and Rube and the household cats will be sharing your nice peaceful pad with a pair of wild-mannered elephants. Think of poor Rube, he…

Sirens screamed from the village, and a rescue unit appeared around the farthest curve, moving fast and followed by a black-and-white. The pups stared around wildly and fled into the drainage ditch, but when a second police unit came scorching toward them, the pups chose the lesser of two evils and bolted up the hill to cower whimpering against Joe.

Joe couldn't see much with the pups milling around. He glimpsed four officers disappearing down the hill: he thought it was Wendell, Brennan, Davis, and Hendricks, following two paramedics with their stretchers and black bags. He could hear the officers' muffled voices mixed with the crackle of the police radio. The fog had broken into wispy scarves; now, beyond the cliff, the vast sweep of the Pacific Ocean gleamed up at him in the sun's first rays, the white surf crashing against the rocks. Off to the north, the red rooftops of the village caught the sun's light, too, and he could hear the distant, thin chime of the courthouse clock striking seven. The morning smelled of sea and iodine, and of coffee and frying sausages mixed, nearer at hand, with the pungent stink of wet dog. When, somewhere on the village streets, a little boy shouted, the pups cocked their floppy ears, whining and panting. Their eager innocence touched something tender in Joe Grey. "You poor, dumb puppies. So damn lonely."

They slobbered and drooled on him, so starved for affection that they made a cat barf. Gently he stroked their wet black noses with his velveted paw.

If Clyde takes them to the pound, they'll be locked in a cage.

They'll be fine in a cage; dogs have nothing like a cat's burning need for freedom, they'll thrive in a nice warm kennel. Dogs love structure. Look at police trackers, always on leash or on command.

But his other voice said, Pound dogs are gassed, Joe. Euthanized. Sent west.

Ignoring both voices, he moved swiftly toward home, the pups pressing so close that their legs were like a moving forest through which he had to navigate. He wondered, would the cops examine the wreck carefully enough to find the leaky brake line? Lieutenants Brennan and Wendell might very well miss that damning bit of evidence; Wendell had just recently made lieutenant, but he was better with street crime than with the subleties of a possible murder scene.