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“Oh, c’mon, Mommy dearest! Your promises are so lame!” She snorted. “And besides, you’re not going to be around to do a thing.”
I processed her words. She was going to shoot me!
Paige knew it too. But rather than terror, there was a look of fierce determination on her face. “You’ll never get away with this, Tanya!”
“Puh-lease! I get away with everything. I stole your Stanford essay. I stole your boyfriend. I stole your mother’s heart. And now I’m going to steal your life—”
“You’re forgetting you stole the keys to my car. That didn’t work out so well…Scarface!”
“Shut up!” she squawked at Paige, her eyes still pinned on me. The gun still pressed into Paige’s temple. “Natalie, say goodbye to your despicable daugh—”
Another voice cut her off. “Bear, get her!”
Will! What was he doing here? I’d told him to stay behind in the car. And he’d agreed.
My head spun around. I could barely see my precious son in the blinding blizzard. He was several feet behind a leash-free Bear, who was leaping toward Tanya. Almost flying and bearing his teeth.
Tanya’s eyes grew wide with fear as our dog neared her.
She screamed. “Stop him! Get him away from me!”
Terror hijacking her wits, she let go of Paige.
“Paige, run!” I yelled.
I watched as she dashed off the dock, moving as fast as she could in the foot-deep snow.
Shrieking, Tanya began to back up, moving closer and closer to the edge of the dock. My eyes pinned on her, I didn’t see Will run up to Bear.
“You little brat!” Tanya cried out. “You deserve to die too.”
With fierce determination, she aimed the gun at him, and I thought I’d have a heart attack as she pulled the trigger. I darted in front of my son, ready to take the bullet. Click. Except to my utter shock, the gun didn’t fire. Frantically, Tanya pressed the trigger again. Click. Again it didn’t go off. Was it not loaded?
Totally flustered, she pressed the trigger one more time. Again nada. “What the fuck?” she muttered, oblivious to our dog’s vicious growls.
“Bear, sic her!” Will yelled.
Everything happened so fast. Like a bolt of lightning, Bear charged at Tanya, going for one of her new boots. He sank his fangs into the deerskin, gnawing and tugging at the boot like it was a new toy or a piece of rawhide. Growling and barking. Growing more and more relentless and ferocious.
Terror washed over Tanya’s face as she desperately tried to shake him off her leg. “Get him off of me!” she screamed.
Bear only grew more determined, more aggressive while Tanya grew more frantic and helpless in the tug-of-war battle. Her pink hat blew off, the fierce wind carrying it until it disappeared into the night. Her long blonde hair whipped across her face as our snow-loving dog stayed focused, ahead of the game. Tanya his prize. Shrieking, she suddenly lost her footing and fell backward. Frozen as a corpse, I gasped with a mixture of shock and horror as she careened into the swollen, half-frozen lake.
“Help me! Help me!” she wailed. “Please! I can’t swim! Pleeease!” The word was long and drawn-out. A mournful, keening sound.
Paige, Will, and I gathered together and wordlessly, numbly watched her flounder. Her arms flapping. Her head bobbing in and out of the deep, icy water. The gun still in one hand. The wind whooshing, the snow blowing, I wrapped my arms around my children and drew them close to me. Bear snapped at his prey madly, his hackles rising like the teeth of a chainsaw. His deafening barks drowning out her desperate cries.
Then, as if he’d had enough, he stopped. Tilting up his snow-covered snout, he proudly howled into the cold, sober wilderness. The Call of the Wild. I’d once read that a dog howling was an omen of death. Tanya was near hers. He’d gotten his revenge.
Paige always said: Where there’s a Will, there’s a way. She was right. The gun sank. And so did she.
There was nothing we could do. For sure we’d all freeze to death in the frigid water trying to haul her to shore. I’d lost too many children and couldn’t risk losing more.
Revenge was not a dish best served cold.
Ice-cold.
It tasted bitter.
