The Devil's Feather - Minette Walters [82]
I thought briefly about calling for Jess, but I didn’t want to alarm the dogs with loud noises, and chose instead to put myself on their level by sitting down. I can only explain it by instinct, because logic was telling me I’d have more authority standing up. I remember thinking I’d appear less afraid if I could hold a rock-steady position on the ground with my back against the outhouse door.
Which is how Jess found me, ten minutes later, shivering, cross-legged with three great muzzles in my lap, and two of the male dogs using my shoulders as leaning posts. I don’t recall what I said to them, but it was a long and rather aimless conversation, punctuated by a lot of stroking. In the time I sat there, I became an expert on mastiffs. They have a drooling and flatulence problem, they snort and wheeze, and the boys roll over at the drop of a hat to expose their extremely large testicles.
I watched Jess approach with a torch. “Are you OK?” she asked.
“MacKenzie knows about dogs,” I told her. “If I can do this, he’ll have them eating out of his hand in a minute flat.”
“They’ve got you penned in, haven’t they? Try standing up.”
“They’re too heavy.”
“Point made then.” She clicked her fingers and motioned them to stand behind her. “They’d have barked if you’d tried to move, and I’d have found you a lot quicker. What are you doing out here?”
I nodded to the axe which was lying on the ground where I’d left it. “Looking for weapons.”
She stooped to pick it up. “I’d forgotten Lily had that. I’ve brought you a few things from the farm. There’s a couple of baseball bats that belonged to my brother and a lead-weighted walking-stick. I’d lend you a gun but you’d probably shoot yourself by mistake.” She eyed my rigid posture. “Are you coming back in?”
“What about the dogs?”
Jess shrugged. “It’s up to you. We can leave them out here or take them inside. But I’ll tell you this for free, if you’d had Bertie in the house earlier, I’d never have been able to reach your bedroom without him hearing me.”
“I meant, will they do something if I move?”
“You won’t know unless you try.”
“Can’t you shut them in the hall?”
“No.” She turned away but not before her teeth flashed in a smile. “If you can sit with their heads in your lap, you won’t have a problem walking past them.”
THE MOST DRAMATIC THERAPY for phobias is “flooding,” where a person is immersed in the fear reflex until the fear starts to fade. It’s a form of familiarization. The longer you’re exposed to what you fear, the less anxious you feel. It doesn’t work for everyone, and it wouldn’t work for me if I was locked in a cellar again with some Alsatians, but I did relax with the mastiffs. It’s hard to be frightened of an animal that wags its tail every time you stroke its head. “Is this Bertie?”
Jess glanced sideways from where she was cooking a fry-up on the Aga. “No, that’s Brandy. There are two bitches—Brandy and Soda—and three boys—Whisky, Ginger and Bertie. I wanted Lily to call Bertie ‘Jack Daniels’ but she wouldn’t do it. He’s the one with his chin on your feet.”
“Do they fight?”
“The bitches did once…frightened themselves so much, they’ve never tried again.”
“What did you do?”
“Let them get on with it. They’d have had a go at me if I’d put myself between them.”
“Were you frightened?”
“Sure. There’s nothing worse than a dogfight. It’s the noise—sounds as if they’re killing each other—but most of it’s for show. They’re hoping to scare each other off before they do any real damage.” She broke some eggs into the frying pan. “Did MacKenzie’s dogs fight?”
“Yes.”
“What breed were they?”
“I never saw them. Alsatians, I think.”
“How did he get them to fight?” She glanced at me again when I didn’t answer. “You said in your email to Alan Collins that you thought they were police dogs, but police dogs don’t fight. It’d cause mayhem if they started attacking each other in the middle of a riot. They’re selected for their temperaments, and the aggressive ones get booted out PDQ. They’ll bring a man down but they won’t kill him.”
“He threw them something…said