“It was easy. I was cornered.”

Then the music started and a number of ladies wanted to dance with the hero. Warlock in his whiskey haze noted that he could see no panty line under Diana’s dress. He felt terribly sexy suddenly, and pondered the chances of slipping her off into the shrubbery for a quicky. Nil. By the time the party ended he felt cheated in the car because he hadn’t had his half chicken.

He kneeled on the two track and peered at Hudley’s bloodgrizzled maw. The dog’s eyes flashed and he growled at his master, reverting on a warm June morning to the completely feral.

“I’m giving you five minutes, then we’re going to kick ass.” He crept around the car to the other side but the dog, too, had deftly changed positions. He couldn’t drive off without running over the dog. It was a Mexican standoff and now he wanted something to eat and a cold beer. Clete ate fried woodchuck. No frying pan. No beer. No oil. And the woodchuck was in shreds. He reached in the car and laid on the horn, a noise that normally drove the dog crazy, but he only hurt his own head. He got in the car, started it, and edged forward, his heart beating and mouth dry. He continued creeping ahead, noting the dog continuing to chew in the rearview mirror. When the dog was a speck he got up and raced after the car. Warlock floored it until he reached the river, nearly a mile away. He parked his car in a grove of white birches and undressed. He was halfway down a sandbank when the dog appeared at top speed with the woodchuck still in its mouth. Warlock ignored the dog and descended into the cold clear water, carried along by the swift current to an eddy near the far bank. The dog followed eagerly, his jaws gripping the wet carcass. Warlock firmly held the dog by the neck and dunked him until the woodchuck’s body was released and floated downstream. He let go of the dog who nipped his forearm in a survival frenzy. The offended dog swam back across the river and jumped into the car. It was snoring soundly when Warlock dressed and drove off. His own mind was quarreling over what restaurant in Traverse City might offer a few drinks and the least repellent lunch.

Chapter 14

In the evening he pushed away the Free Press and Jack Anderson’s abrasive column when only half finished. Criticism wasn’t enough, somebody had to take the bull by the horns, as his dad used to say. He read Anderson to keep on his political toes, but now a thousand words of carping about bureaucratic toadies in Washington seemed less than apropos.