Here’s another one: Dawn

Stone

Chapter 56 – The Dogfights

Steel trotted along after Stone when he left the dock, after watching Jason and Kalosun sail off to the east. Steel was the puppy Jason had brought from Greenstone, although he was now several years old. He had been in heaven for the past few months, following his boy around from dawn to dusk. Normally he only got to see Jason when he was not at sea, but while the ship was being repaired, he had the boy around for days at a time.

Stone had gone into the shipyard to make sure that work was resuming on the Moon Goddess and when he returned two hours later the dog was still sitting on the dock, staring at the point where the ship had last be visible, as if watching and waiting would make it return sooner. Stone called the dog, and with a last look over his shoulder to see if the ship was returning, he trotted after his secondary master.

Stone walked down the street until he was approached by a white man he didn’t recognize. The big man knew almost every Kithren in town, down to the young boys, but there were many whites he didn’t know, particularly scruffy working men like this fellow.

“Zat the dog gonna fight tonight?” the partially sober man asked.

“Fight? Steel? No, of course not. Why would you think he is going to fight?”

“I’se heared tha’ there were a German Shepard dawg in Miller’s fight tonight,” the man slurred.

“Are there dog fights at Miller’s? For how long?” Stone demanded.

“Since ‘bout nine weeks ago, now,” the man said, starting to realize if he had made a mistake in talking to the big man.

When Steel and his mother Daisy first came to WestPort, they were the only German Shepherds in town. Over the past few years Stone had noticed an increasing number of shepherd mixes, clearly showing that Steel was having his way with some of the other stray bitches and mutts. A few looked quite a bit like Steel but were all mixed breed. Daisy hadn’t had another litter since Steel’s, and now stayed in the house almost exclusively, although she had gone to the new school a few times last year when Rayla was teaching there, becoming a school mascot.

Now, in her waning years, she stayed at home, usually in the kitchen where she watched Cass like a hawk to see if anything spilled. Occasionally the cheerful cook would toss her a slip of beef fat or other goodies she was cutting up. The other member of the household who doted on the old dog was Sissy, who considered her a living doll, and would sew clothes for her, which the animal would abide by while the girl was around, but insisted with a bark that Cass take them off when Sissy lost interest and went elsewhere. Sissy was convinced that Daisy could unbutton the clothes herself, no matter how often Rayla said she couldn’t.

Stone left the inebriate and headed home after getting some more details about the dog fights, such as the time and place. He found Keeper in the garden.

“Did you know there are dog fights in this town?” Stone asked the handyman.

“Yep. Have been for years. They stopped when I was about 11, nine or ten years back, but I heard Miller has started them up again. His place isn’t too big, so he can only sell about 50 tickets at two silver each. Half goes to the purse and half to Miller. Winner take all. They’re usually eight dogs and they fight eliminations. Most of the money is in betting though. Miller takes a cut of that, a tenth I think.”

“That is disgusting,” Stone said. “Do the dogs get hurt much?”

“Oh sure,” Keeper replied. Usually one or two die each week. Of course they are always the losers. Sometimes even the winner gets tore up pretty badly. If they do, they get a few weeks to recover. If not, they are back next week as returning champion. If there is a returning champion and a healed-up former champion, then Miller charges four silver. Doesn’t happen often, but sometimes golds are bet on those fights.”

“Sounds like you’ve been to a few of those things,” Stone accused.

“None at Miller’s,” Keeper said. “Back when I was a boy and Armster was doing them, we used to sneak in through a hole in the gate and watch. Now I think it is too bloody.”

“Well we’re going tonight,” Stone said reaching into his coin purse. “Go to the butcher and buy eight steaks; about a pound each. They can be cheaper cuts … we aren’t going to eat them.

The young man sped off into town and Stone went into Rayla and told her about the ‘sport’ going on in their town.

“How horrible,” the pretty redhead said. “Can’t you do something?”

“Yes, I will. I’m going there tonight and hopefully rescue those dogs. They are pretty vicious if they are fighting dogs, so we will keep them in the other house until they are tamed a bit. Can you do something to make eight spots where we can keep them. Even a closet will be okay. Hopefully we can tame them a bit fairly quickly.”

“At a quarter to nine, when the fights apparently started, Keeper and Stone headed to the other side of town. They got to Miller’s mansion and saw there was a chain on the gate to the side yard, where yelling and shouting could be heard. Stone worried that the fighting had started. He drew Pate from her sheath and noticed that he didn’t going into battle mode. Apparently, there was no danger here. He flicked his wrist and suddenly the chain was in pieces, and he pushed the door open.

Apparently, the shouting was people putting down bets. Two big and rough-looking men stood at opposite corners of a fenced in ring, holding their dogs back by the collar as the animals strained to get to their opponent in the other corner. Men were assessing the dogs to determine which would be the one to bet on.

Stone leapt down into the ring with Pate out. Keeper stood outside the ring and flung a slab of meat in front of each dog. The keepers were outraged. They had starved their animals for days to have them mean and hungry and now they were attacking the steaks.

One keeper tried to get the meat from his animal and nearly lost his hand as the dog had trouble distinguishing between cow meat and human flesh. The other man came at Stone swinging his leash, which had a chain on the end, in circles.

Pate cut the chain in two on the first pass, and then the rope on the second time it flew around. The man’s eyes went wide as he realized he was charging at a giant with only an 18-inch piece of rope. He tried to stop, but was nearly on Stone when Pate knickered again, and suddenly the man’s head separated from his body.

The other man, with the bleeding hand, backed off. The dogs happily tore into their steaks. The crowd, which had been ready to storm the ring also quieted when the two pieces of the dog handler rolled on the sand of the pit.

One man continued forward. It was Miller, owner of the dog pit. He was armed with a sword in one hand and a long knife in the other. He raised the sword and Stone dropped into battle mode. One swing from Pate sliced through the sword. The next swing disarmed the knife, and by disarmed it means that Pate sliced through the man’s arm, cutting it near the shoulder, so arm and knife flopped to the sand. Miller, naturally, screamed. Four men came into the pit carrying truncheons. One attacked and died when Pate split through his torso. The other three were wiser, and backed away, although one flung his weapon at Pate, who sliced off the last four inches and then swatted that fragment back at the man, hitting him on the head and knocking him unconscious.

The other two were pretty sure they didn’t work for Miller anymore and turned and ran into the crowd of men trying to get through the gate to the street at the same time. They used their truncheons to knock spectators out of the way to get out quicker.

The dog pit was silent, other than the moans of Miller as he bled out, and the two dogs finished their steaks and were now chewing on the carcass of the dead dog handler. Stone came out of battle mode and looked at the other handler, trying to wrap his mangled hand in his shirt: “The other dogs? Where are they?”

The man pointed to the west with his good hand. Stone pushed the fence in that direction, knocking it to the ground under his huge feet. He strode towards the sound of growling. There were six rooms containing dogs and handlers. One more man died to Pate’s great pleasure, and in another the man set his dog, a great mastiff, loose at Stone. Pate hit the dog with the flat of her blade, and flung the animal into the wall, knocking it stunned.

Keeper had followed Stone and flung a steak into each room where the hungry dogs ravenously attacked the meat.

When they got back to the pit, they found Miller was gone, either limping off to a healer or helped by a servant. The two dogs from the first fight were still gnawing joyously at the body of the man, and no longer seemed so vicious. Stone grabbed the leash of one, and Keeper, still not going into the pit, flung him another leash for the dog whose leash had been used as a weapon.

The two men then brought all the dogs out. Now that they were fed, they were much tamer, although Pate had to be used to slap some occasionally with a flat blade to separate them when they got out of hand.

The big mastiff was put on a cart, and Keeper managed to wheel him out to the road as Stone brought the other seven on leashes. The mastiff woke groggily halfway home, but there was a steak laying near its head, and it started to slowly eat the meat.

At the house the dogs were locked into their rooms and closets and left with water and some of Steel and Daisy’s food in bowls. The family all gathered round and looked at the animals. For some reason Sissy decided that the mastiff was her personal pet, and to Rayla’s alarmed surprise she nestled in next to him. Still hurting, the dog didn’t attack the girl, but snuggled up to her and spent the night sleeping with her.

In the morning the mastiff was clearly Sissy’s pet. It was nearly large enough for her to ride, but she hugged it and it wagged its great tail in pleasure. The other dogs took longer to tame, but after Keeper came around each morning to feed and water them, they became calmer and calmer. He took them each out on a leash for a walk twice a day, individually, and soon they were quite tame for him. Emily remained frightened of the once wild beasts, and said she already had a dog: Daisy. And while the other dogs soon warmed up to Stone, the mastiff never did seem to forgive him for using Pate on him and would growl when Stone came close.

The next day the captain of the guard came by and said he had to arrest Stone. Stone looked behind the man and asked: “Where is your army?” The captain got the message and left returning two hours later, with all 12 of the guard.

“Are you all ready to die,” Stone asked threateningly.

“Not at all,” the captain said. “We were all fired by the mayor for not bringing you in. We wonder if you wanted to hire some guards. With no proper town watch, there is going to be trouble, and everyone in town knows where you keep your gold. We thought you might like to keep it safe.”

Stone, who had been worried that he might have to fight and kill some of the men he had fought with several times, from Sarn to Greenstone, relaxed. “You are all hired until the town council regains its sanity. Same pay but fewer drunks to fend off.”

The disaster didn’t happen for three days. But on Tuesday, the town roughs realized there was no effective guard. The mayor had appointed four men as replacement guards, at a lower pay than the old guard had earned (and were earning working for Stone). In fact, in the ensuing troubles the four guards became instigators, rather than trying to quell the problems.

Tuesday saw some scuffles in the street, and a few of the businesses in the downtown suffered broken windows and minor looting. Wednesday was when the real trouble occurred. At midnight almost 100 of the whites rioted and vandalized the downtown strip between the shipyard and Teller’s Jewelers, where Stone stored his gold, and stationed his men.

The new guard, who felt they had the legal right to do whatever they wanted, approached the jewelry store and ordered Stone and his men to vacate since the rioters wanted to break into the store and get jewels and gold. The big man refused and drew his sword. Twenty men charged him, and Pate was drawn. Two of the new guard were dead and dismembered in seconds, along with five of the rioters who made the mistake of running too fast. The others stopped and backed up and lived, since Stone didn’t chase them away. Instead they ran back to the places with easier pickings, including the bars, where barrels were broken open fueling the rioters.

By 3 a.m. the entire business district was on fire with several merchants killed or beaten trying to protect their stocks. The white business district. The Kithren stores were past Teller’s, and Stone and his men had stopped the men short of that area, leaving it unscathed. And the shipyard workers stopped the riot at the other end of the street, defending their employer’s yard from the ruffians.

The next morning the town council met, and Stone finally appeared. Three members of council were absent, dead or injured in the riot, and the others were terrified. Stone told them that he would have his guards protect the rest of the town, since there were rumors that the rioters planned to attack the mansions next. He also noted that the men he had employed in the pine grove for the past year had a huge stockpile of wood that he would sell at the going rate, in spite of the suddenly increased demand. He would also offer credit terms to merchants willing and able to rebuild.

In return he insisted that animal baiting and other forms of cruelty be banned in the future, and the law be made retroactive to before his attack on the dog fights the week before thus making his attack legal. He also suggested a week-long curfew to prevent another riotous group from forming up.

The mayor was not pleased at the man dictating terms like this, but the other councilors were not happy with him, since he had fired the guard and hired the replacements. Eventually all the council voted to approve Stone’s plan, and the big man left to give his guard the good news, along with a healthy bonus for their work in containing the rioters.

That night over 40 men were rounded up by the replaced guard under the curfew rules and no major rioting happened. The next day those 40 were made to clean up the destruction of the prior night. Several merchants took up Stone’s offer of wood and buildings were repaired or rebuilt.

A nice side benefit of the riots was that the undamaged Kithren shops did a booming business while their white compatriots were out of business. People who had never entered the Kithren side of town found the black merchants were as good, or better, than the ones they had shopped in before. Many of the Kithren stores grew and kept their new clients even after the main downtown was rebuilt.