And from inside the house, very faint, so faint I wasn't sure, something yapped. Once. Hoarse.
And at the very same moment, from the receiver in the captain's hand, we heard Ingot. Three barks. Small and tinny and a half second late, coming out of the little speaker like an echo. Then the yap from inside, a half second late. The captain looked at the receiver and then at the door and he didn't say anything at all. He didn't have to. I've never in my life been as sure of anything as I was right then, standing on that porch, hearing our own dog come back to us through a machine.
He pounded on the door with the side of his fist. Bang bang bang. "Fire department! Anybody home? Fire department!" Bang bang bang came out of the receiver, late, tiny. Nobody answered. He tried the knob. It was locked. Chuy went down off the porch and around to the front window and put his face to the glass with his hands cupped around it, and couldn't see past the drapes. The captain keyed the portable radio on his shoulder.
"Engine 4, bring it around. Evans, the green house across from quarters. We're making entry. Have dispatch send the ambulance, now, possible CO, two patients, one pediatric. And bring the bar."
I heard the engine start up behind us across the street, the big diesel catching and turning over, and the air brakes let go with a hiss, and Hank pulled Engine 4 out of the bay without the siren, just the red lights going, sweeping across the snow and the houses and the frosted Country Squire and our faces, red and dark and red and dark. He stopped it in the middle of Evans and climbed down with the Halligan bar, a long iron bar with a fork on one end and a hook and a blade on the other, and came up the walk with it on his shoulder like a man going to work.
"Stand back, Eloy," the captain said, and I did, I went down the steps backward, and Ingot came with me and pressed herself against my legs and leaned, the whole weight of her, so I had to put my hand on the porch rail to stay up.
Hank set the fork of the Halligan in the crack of the door beside the lock, about level with his belt, and Chuy held it there while Hank hit the other end with the flat head of an axe. Twice. The sound of it went off the houses across the street like a gunshot. Then Hank leaned on the bar, his whole big body, and the door frame split with a long dry crack and the door swung in.