The eyes never quit looking at Eloise. The phone rang, a boss yelled, the room cleared. Those brown eyes were still watching.
“Come here” she whispered. The dog watched her.
“Ven aca” she whispered in Spanish. The dog crouched, and slithered over to her heel. She got in her truck and the dog slipped between her feet and laid down on the floorboard of the passenger side. His brown eyes steadily watched her as she worked the “three-on-the-tree” to shift the truck’s gears as they left the parking lot.
“Me and my Arrow, straight up and narrow, wherever we go, everyone knows . . . Me and my Arrow” is how the theme song of a movie about a boy and his dog goes, so she named the dog Arrow.
She pulled up to a gas station in Seattle, a man in coveralls came to the window, and she popped the hood latch. He walked around and removed the nozzle from the regular pump. and began filling the truck. He lifted the hood and pulled the dipstick from its tube and wiped it with a rag.
Walking slowly behind him, on the street, was a tall man with a shaved head.
“You’re about half a quart low” the gas station attendant said. Eloise glanced at the man on the street, then down into the brown eyes of her dog. Keys dangled in the ignition.
“I’ll go inside and get a quart” she said. The gas station attendant followed her.
The shaven headed man slammed the hood shut, and jumped into the driver’s seat of the truck, reaching for the keys.
Arrow lunged. He tore a flap of skin from the man’s forehead and blood ran into his eyes. Eloise ran to the truck and grabbed the squealing man by the shoulders. Arrow sunk back down into the floorboard.
“Get in back,” she commanded. The bitten thief obeyed. She worked the lever on the steering column as she drove the man to the hospital.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Eloise was laying on the couch, watching TV. The blackness of night watched her back, through her windows. The door knob rattled and Arrow sprang off the floor and ran to the door. There was a loud crash as she got off the couch. When she rounded the corner, her door was hanging open and blood was sprayed all over the floor. There was a trail of blood, red man and dog tracks, dripping and running away.
When the police arrived, they followed the trail of blood with their flashlight beams, through the woods, down and across the creek, and back up the draw to where there was a large puddle of blood and a crowbar laying in a parking lot.
“Ma’am, it looks like you got yourself a new crowbar, if you want it. Looks like that dog of yours did a number on him,” said the officer at her door.
“Do you think it was the Greenwood Murderer?” she asked.
“He knew you were in there, it wasn’t an attempted burglary.” said the officer.
Arrow padded softly up to Eloise, and she petted him. He was wet with blood.
