HYBRID: A Thriller Read online

  “Smith peppers his story with chilling scenes ... [his] writing is full of evocative language ... A creature feature that earns its suspense by rigorously developing its characters.”

  — KIRKUS REVIEWS

  “One of the year’s best thrillers. Exhilarating and original ... Cerebral, complex and yet heart-pounding, HYBRID teeters at a full boil throughout. A Finalist for the 2017 William Faulkner-Wisdom Novel Award, HYBRID is a must-read.”

  — BESTTHRILLERS.COM

  “... a compelling thriller when mixed together in a vivid story backed by James Marshall Smith’s science savvy and attention to crafting exquisite tension and detail into his story.”

  — MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW

  “HYBRID is a taut, suspenseful tale of vengeance, deceit, and man’s folly in believing that humanity is top of the food chain ... in the vein of JURASSIC PARK ...”

  — MANHATTAN BOOK REVIEW

  “The plot was super fun ... a fast-paced, entertaining read that will keep you on the edge of your seat.”

  — SAN FRANCISCO BOOK REVIEW

  “HYBRID is equal parts adrenaline rush, scary science, and page-turning action. James Marshall Smith picks up where Michael Crichton left off, then takes things to a whole new level.”

  — JEFF EDWARDS, bestselling author of ‘Sea of Shadows,’ and ‘Steel Wind Rising’

  HYBRID

  A THRILLER

  James Marshall Smith

  Aura Libertatis Spirat

  San Diego

  HYBRID

  Copyright © 2017 by James Marshall Smith

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author or publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places or incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  Braveship Books

  www.braveshipbooks.com

  Aura Libertatis Spirat

  Cover Artwork & Design by Slobodan Cedic, 99Designs

  ISBN-13: 978-1-64062-022-3

  Published in the United States of America

  To J.M., and what could have been.

  Also by the author:

  Silent Source

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am indebted to all of the participants in the Rocky Mountain Wolf Conference, held during a beautiful spring week in 1997 in Chico Springs, MT. There I learned from many of the world’s experts on wolves and wolf restoration, including discussions with David Mech, Carter Niemeyer, Joe Fontaine, and Diane Boyd.

  Many thanks Doug Smith, leader of the Yellowstone Wolf Restoration Project, who shared with me accounts of the historical wolf restoration in the Park.

  Thanks to staff librarians who provided excellent research assistance at the Veterinary Medicine Library, University of Tennessee. I am also grateful to those who read parts of the manuscript and provided expert advice: Sue Mansour, DVM, Ziad Kazzi, MD, and Timothy Smith, MD. Helpful also were enlightening discussions with Addison Fischer, Tom Stover, Col. Don Sawtelle, US Army (ret.), and Antonio Lacy.

  A group of keen readers made invaluable comments on book drafts at various stages of development, including Pat Minicozzi, Jane Santiago, Sue Tankersley, Lynda Miller, and Susan Potts Sloan, MD. Many thanks to John Paine for superb editorial assistance on early drafts.

  Although all of those acknowledged above provided helpful comments and advice, responsibility for any errors in the text are mine alone.

  I am especially grateful to Jeff Edwards of Braveship Books, who has shown continued enthusiasm and support for my work. I cannot express my gratitude enough for my Chief Editor and loving wife, June, who provided not only meticulous editing but also much needed encouragement from beginning to end.

  James Marshall Smith

  November, 2017

  “Human reactions are so profoundly influenced by the individual past that they are usually unpredictable and therefore appear completely irrational.”

  — René Dubos, in So Human an Animal, 1968

  “Um elfe kommen die wölfe, um zwolfe bricht das gewölbe.”

  (At eleven come the wolves, at twelve the tombs of the dead open.)

  — German folk saying

  ONE

  October 1993

  Fourteen miles south of Hinton, Alberta

  The young farmhand sneaked outside the barn to shake off the reek of fresh blood. A full moon climbed from a blanket of snow that draped Whitecap Mountain, casting a feeble silvery light on miles of harvested grain. The isolation of the barn was perfect. Sounds of terror from within faded into the Canadian wilderness.

  A sour taste squirmed at the back of the farmhand’s throat. He took a deep breath in the freezing air, a long satisfying breath before he returned inside and crouched near the fighting pit.

  A chest-high fence of Ponderosa pine bordered the square pit that was six paces on a side. Between contests, the old man raked pieces of hair and flesh from the dirt.

  Qualifying for admission that evening took a full year of work on the Castille Farm. “Where’s the big Jap?” the farmhand asked.

  “Just got here an hour ago,” the old man replied, rolling a cigarette. “They’ll bring him out for the wash-down shortly.” He jerked a thumb. “Take a look at the mother he’s facing.”

  A man with a hunting cap led a pit bull on a chain. They bore similar expressions, ferocious and sad. The dog’s slick coat was milk-white with brown splotches. The ears stood erect, except at the tips that curled like dead leaves. Largest of its breed on the Alberta circuit, the pit bull weighed in at one hundred and eighteen pounds.

  Two dozen men gathered around the fighting pit—local ranchers, sawmill workers, lumberjacks, drifters, farmers with hired hands. The men chatted in tight groups and shared hip-pocket flasks of cheap whiskey. In one corner, a pot-bellied stove burned pine. Heavy wool jackets hung along a wall above bales of hay.

  The grand finale approached.

  From a side entrance a massive dog hauled an Asian man by a rope. He leaned back as though headed into a Clipper wind. The rope linked to a chain that circled the dog’s neck like a noose. The look of the animal demanded respect: a corrugated brow, bulky through the shoulders, taller from ground to withers than the pit bull. Heavier by a good fifty pounds.

  “What the hell is that?” the farmhand asked.

  “Tosa Inu,” the old man said. The words slid from around the cigarette that dangled from the corner of his mouth. “More beast than dog. They shouldn’t allow ‘em in.”

  The sheen on the coat of the giant dog seemed to glow in the dim light of the barn. Its coloring was the most spectacular of the evening, shades of a deep crimson. “It looks almost red,” the farmhand said.

  “The color of old blood.”

  “How come I’ve never heard of the breed?”

  “Bred for centuries in Japan. Fighting, guarding royalty and shit like ‘at.”

  From across the barn the fight boss called out for bets. Spectators tossed cash onto a makeshift table, a battered door from a shed placed over two sawhorses. The pudgy boss climbed atop a folding chair. He carefully balanced himself and shouted above the crowd, but only with enough effort to avoid shifting his weight.

  “Listen up, fellas. Last call on the final contest. Peter the Great, the Grand Champ-ee-un pit bull terrier from Edmonton, versus the
Japanese Warrior . . . the towsa eenew from Seattle. Cloooosing out!”

  The pit bull snarled and tugged at its chain. Piercing eyes glared from an egg-shaped head, staring down its opponent that stood frozen in place, a statue of itself.

  The fight boss swaggered to the corner of the fence. After waiting for stragglers to lay down their money, he hoisted his arms to command attention.

  “Action’s closed. Handlers, are you ready?”

  All stares fixed on the dogs.

  “Face corners!”

  The handlers grasped the prized animals around their thick necks and knelt into position. Each handler had a breaking stick tucked down his backside—a piece of hickory with bark gnawed to shreds. Dogs and handlers gazed at their corner posts while the gamblers clustered around the fence, yelling, swearing.

  “Unchain!”

  The handlers unhooked the restraints.

  “Face dogs and release!”

  The handlers retreated over the fence. As the dogs charged across the scratch line with erratic head thrusts, the fighters circled each other, growling.

  The crowd jeered, waving arms and fists.

  The dance continued until the Tosa withdrew, moving backward but still facing his opponent. The pit bull—Peter the Great—matched the stride, step for step strutting forward and snarling. Sensing victory, it bounded on the Tosa and sank gaping jaws into the Tosa’s shoulder. As Peter the Great dangled by its teeth, the Tosa reeled about and catapulted the startled animal into the fence with a thud.

  A roar burst from the crowd. Peter the Great staggered, then attempted to regain balance.

  The Tosa attacked like a rattlesnake.

  It buried its teeth into the pit bull’s throat and ripped open its neck, exposing the windpipe and silencing its howls.

  Peter the Great’s handler leaped over the fence and thrust a breaking stick between the Tosa’s teeth. The Tosa snapped the thick baton in half, then turned for the handler, who tripped as he backed away. He fell hard to the dirt and quickly covered his face with his arms and curled his knees into his stomach.

  The Asian jumped into the pit and grabbed the Tosa by the neck with both arms. He quickly hooked the chain and yanked with the full weight of his body.

  A tremor arose from above, the thumping of helicopter blades.

  A lookout darted inside. “Mounties! Mounties!”

  Pandemonium erupted. Everyone scattered, some dashing for the wall to snatch their coats. The young farmhand raced for the door before braking.

  A dozen Alberta troopers—Royal Canadian Mounted Police—surrounded the barn’s exit. A Comanche helicopter hovered above and beamed a searchlight onto the field. The troopers below aimed their revolvers straight ahead and yelled for the fleeing men to stop.

  The farmhand ran back to the fighting pit as the Asian clutched the Tosa to his chest. Mounties spanned the area with their weapons. The Asian released the chain and shouted to his dog. “Ike!”

  The Tosa vaulted the fence and bolted through the crowd. One trooper spun around, but too late to avoid the leap of the mammoth animal. A glancing blow knocked him to the floor and the dog’s claws slashed the trooper’s cheek as he screamed.

  The Tosa darted through the center of gunfire for the open door.

  ***

  The Japanese Warrior was free. The Tosa sprinted like a leopard along a path lighted by a metallic moon, throwing his rear legs out before his muzzle and stretching his front paws far beyond natural stride. After a while he stopped to thrash about in a patch of snow to soothe stinging from the open wound inflicted by Peter the Great.

  The howl of a wolf arose from a distant valley. Another followed. Both melded with those from a pack, a feral chorus carried on an arctic breeze, the lament of his brothers and sisters. He resumed his lope among spruce and fir dusted with snow.

  Deep within Alberta’s wilderness, the Japanese Warrior would soon find his new home.

  TWO

  Four years later . . .

  Colter, Montana

  She lay on the ground in the soft light of a lantern and sheltered from the wind by the tall evergreens beyond the farmhouse at the top of the hill. Occasionally she reared her head, snorting and seeking relief from her pain.

  “Easy, girl. Easy, Penny,” Dr. Dieter Harmon whispered. He softly stroked the hind leg of the cinnamon brown horse and stifled a yawn. In the early dawn, the sun hid just behind the mountains and ribbons of high clouds reflected a golden hue.

  He glanced at his watch. It had been two hours since the call from the Loudermilk ranch.

  Dieter tried to work his gangly legs into a more comfortable position as he squatted beside the mare. After he raised Penny’s tail, wet because her water had broken, he shined his flashlight on her hindquarters to examine the distended vulva. He rubbed his hand over the horse’s belly. No sign of movement; he thought the worst.

  The three Loudermilk women crouched on the field grass while they anxiously monitored his every move. They wore dresses of pastel that appeared homemade but too long for working a ranch. The oldest had introduced herself as Katherine Belle. The quiet one, Marilee, kept her head down most of the time. Charlene, the youngest, was frail but alert, curious. Like her sisters, she sported a tall wave of hair set back from her forehead.

  Katherine Belle had told Dieter that at the first sign of trouble, she called Doc Hartwell but he wasn’t around. She said that her answering service gave her the name of a veterinarian in Gardiner, of all places, but she knew better than to try convincing someone to drive all the way down to Colter in the middle of the night. Then she found Dieter’s card on the fridge door although she had no idea how it got there. She’d heard that “Dr. Harmon was a nice young man.” He was someone who knew how to treat ranch animals even though he was from back East. She said she thought at the time he should be able to get there quickly and probably needed the business since he was so new.

  Little did they know. He would’ve come just to get word of mouth going. But he needed the pay, too.

  He reached into his satchel for a bar of surgical soap and tube of lubricant, then rolled up his sleeve and washed his arm with steaming water from a bucket that Charlene had fetched. He slipped his greased arm into the birth canal. A tiny hoof protruded through the amniotic sac. He grabbed it, but the foal didn’t yank back. He continued probing. In normal delivery, the head, neck and front legs stretched forward within the womb, as if the foal were jumping through a hoop. But now only one leg extended forward. The other hung back under the body and the muzzle faced the rear.

  He withdrew his arm, reached for a towel, and took a deep breath. As he wiped at his arm he could only think that in his eleven years of practice, he’d never confronted a lateral deviation this grave. How was he going to deliver that news to the three women?

  Katherine Belle hugged Penny’s neck. “She’s sweating like crazy, Doctor.” The woman had the stern look of a mother, piercing eyes watching over her daughters and prized animals, caring for those she holds dear.

  The horse wasn’t the only one sweating. Dieter brushed back his hair and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. After searching his satchel for a roll of gauze, he asked, “Can someone tie up her tail for me?”

  Katherine Belle nodded toward Charlene. She caught the roll he tossed and held her smile at him for a moment, then carefully wrapped the mare’s well-groomed tail.

  Dieter withdrew two cc of xylazine into a syringe and held Penny’s neck tightly while he injected her in the jugular and waited for the mare to relax. He lubricated his right arm again and rammed it into the birth canal up to his shoulder to get a firm grip on the foal. Gently, he shoved it farther down into the uterus and glided his hand back to grasp its neck. The mare’s intestines were like bags of sand that pushed against the womb and limited the working room.

  While he manipulated his arms and fingers, he sensed the rhythm of his own pulse through the throbbing in his head. He slid his hand down along the foal’s n
eck, then slowly back again, repeating the motion several times until he gradually realigned it. Feeling Charlene’s stare, he shifted his eyes toward her. As she turned her head away, the flickering lantern revealed the hint of a blush.

  The drug was wearing off and Penny’s contractions returned. “Push, girl, push.”

  A miniature snout emerged.

  Caught in the excitement, Charlene squealed and clapped her hands. “Push! Push! Push!”

  The exhausted mare heaved twice more and the foal plopped onto the grass. Limbs sprawled out in four directions as the lump of flesh lay crumpled like a wet gunnysack. Dieter held his stethoscope to its chest. “A normal heartbeat,” he announced. “Looks like we have a healthy colt!”

  The women threw their arms around each other and whooped through their tears. Katherine Belle and Marilee jumped up and hurried down the path to the farmhouse to rouse the family while Charlene stayed behind. Dieter prepared to wash the mare, which had reared her head up to sniff and lick the colt.

  Charlene lay by the side of the frail creature and hummed a lullaby, as if caring for a newborn baby. “I didn’t know we had such a good vet right in our own backyard, Dr. Harmon.”

  He smiled and passed the wet cloth along the spine of the mare.

  “How long you been here?” she asked.

  “Almost three months now.”

  “You from Billings?”

  “Not quite. Pennsylvania.” He put the cloth on the ground. She wanted to talk.

  “That’s awfully far from Montana, I think.”

  “I used to visit my uncle out here during the summers when I was growing up,” he replied. “Always loved the West. But my wife loved Pennsylvania where she grew up.”

  Charlene shifted her legs to a new position and her long dress slipped an inch above one knee. He quickly averted his glance.

  She twisted the braids in her hair between her thumb and forefinger then studied his face. “You got kids?”