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his head. When he saw them, his heart leaped toward the towers that shone on
all four sides of the park. He looked toward the rich far windows of Central
Park
West and yearned as he had at Kissinger's party for the hiss of luxury.
He was passing the baseball diamonds now and turning in to the Ramble. As he
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moved he noticed one odor that stood out above all the others and gave him
greater alarm than had the police or even the pound employees. It was a musk,
deep and tart. What did it mean? Here it rose from a bush, there it covered a
patch of browning leaves. He found the bones of a bird and gnawed them, but
they were too dry to be of any use. Deep in the Ramble, down in the dark where
roots tangled like ropes of distressed muscle, he moved swiftly and silently
along.
He passed a derelict sleeping under a bench. Then he smelled that odd smell
again, so strongly that it stopped his easy slithering through the
undergrowth.
He crouched, very still. A cold understanding crept into his mind: this smell
was a warning. Other canines were not wanted here. Something had claimed the
Ramble as its own.
He knew then that he was being observed, and from very close by. He had
blundered into the middle of a pack of some kind, and it did not want him
here.
As if in response to his thought, they flooded him with their smell, a
straw-blood odor shot with urine and feces. It revolted him, and their dark
little eyes revolted him more. Two of them came prancing stiff-legged out of a
blackberry thicket.
They bared razor teeth. The eyes with which they regarded him were
astonishingly intelligent. One animal stared him down while the other glanced
constantly about, keeping watch. Their ears moved with method back and forth.
These wary beings never ceased to test their environment, not for one instant.
They were the size of scrawny sheepdogs and a lot thinner. Their heads were
wide and their ears big and pointed, like giant cat ears.
This was no motley pack of stray dogs. As more of them slipped into view Bob
found himself stopped by awe and understanding. These were wild animals who
made their living off New York City. They were the legendary coydogs of New
England, a strong cross between the coyote and the dog, among the smartest
animals nature has ever produced.
They were notorious dog murderers. And they obviously did not like big, wheezy
wolves too much either. They were wiry little monsters, their faces sharp with
hate and hunger. It was clear to Bob that they would kill him if they could.
He could locate six of them in the shadows around him. He noticed the bones of
a dog scattered about. It had not been a small dog.
He could sense movement all through the dark shrubbery, ahead, to the sides,
behind. The only thing that prevented them from attacking him was the locked
stare he was giving the leader. If he broke the look first, he was going to be
torn to pieces.
Every whisper of fur against leaf, of paw in loam registered in Bob's ears.
The breathing of the coydogs sounded like tiny pumps hissing. When he cocked
his
ears toward the leader, he could hear his heart beating faster and faster.
And his scent was changing, rising to greater sharpness. He was a creature
cocked, ready to dart like an arrow for the throat of the big, slow animal
before him.
There was a frisk of movement just at the corner of Bob's eye, and a
high-pitched squeal as one of the coydogs snatched a bat from the air and
gobbled it down, the wings fluttering against its chin.
For the edge of an instant, the leader glanced at his companion. It was
enough:
feeling as clumsy and lethal as a tank, Bob ran at him. The little creature
did not expect this. Bob shouldered him aside and took off running as fast as
he could toward the lights of the Transverse Parkway.
As he ran one of them dropped down from a tree, its claws spread, growling
rage.
Bob took it on his back and felt the hot touch of its claws before he managed
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to scrape it off against an overhanging limb.
Then he was at the reservoir and the coydogs were still with him, slipping
dangerously along nearby. If only he understood this situation, but he did not
even begin to: if he had any wolfish instincts at all, they were a vague
mental stubble. Bob was no more a part of this secret wild than he was a part
of humankind.
Thirst made his tongue feel like a wooden paddle. His nose was tight and he
longed to dip his muzzle in clear, fresh water. His hunger made his insides
seem like a hollow shell. The feelings were astonishingly intense, much more
than they had been before he changed. Even the various diets Cindy had tried
out on him had not created burning, passionate hunger like this.
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