Maze of Memories

I dont like ranch, not just the dressing.

"It's a cattle guard," Grover said.

"A what?" Percy asked.

"They put them at the gates of ranches so cows can't get out. They can't walk on them."

"How do you know that?"

Grover huffed indignantly. "Believe me, if you had hooves, you'd know about cattle guards. They're annoying!"

Percy turned to Annabeth. "Didn't Hera say something about a ranch? We need to check it out. Nico might be there."

She hesitated. "All right. But how do we get out?"

Tyson solved that problem by hitting the cattle guard with both hands. It popped off and went flying out of sight. We heard a CLANG! and a startled Moo! Tyson blushed.

"Sorry, cow!" he called.

Then he gave us a boost out of the tunnel.

We were on a ranch, all right. Rolling hills stretched to the horizon, dotted with oak trees and cactuses and boulders. A barbed wire fence ran from the gate in either direction. Cherry-colored cows roamed around, grazing on clumps of grass.

"Red cattle," Annabeth said. "The cattle of the sun."

"What?" Percy asked.

"They're sacred to Apollo." I awnsered.

"Holy cows?"

I gave Percy finger guns.

"Exactly. But what are they doing—" Annabeth began.

"Wait," Christine said. "Listen."

At first everything seemed quiet...but then I heard it: the distant baying of dogs. The sound got louder. Then the underbrush rustled, and two dogs broke through. Except it wasn't two dogs. It was one dog with two heads. It looked like a greyhound, long and snaky and sleek brown, but its neck V'd into two heads, both of them snapping and snarling and generally not very glad to see us.

"Bad Janus dog!" Tyson cried.

"Arf!" Grover told it and raised a hand in greeting. The two-headed dog bared its teeth. I guess it wasn't impressed that Grover could speak animal.

Then its master lumbered out of the woods, and I realized the dog was the least of our problems. He was a huge guy with stark white hair, a straw cowboy hat, and a braided white beard— kind of like Father Time, if Father Time went redneck and got totally jacked. He was wearing jeans, a DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS T-shirt, and a denim jacket with the sleeves ripped off so you could see his muscles. On his right bicep was a crossed-swords tattoo. He held a wooden club about the size of a nuclear warhead, with six-inch spikes bristling at the business end.

I got a bad feeling about this guy. A memory was tickling at the back of my mind. The dog, I know that dog. What was its name... Oros? No, it was something like...

"Heel, Orthus," The owner told the dog.

The dog growled at us once more, just to make his feelings clear, just to make his feelings clear, then circled back to his master's feet. The man looked us up and down, keeping his club ready.

"What've we got here?" he asked. "Cattle rustlers?"

"Just travelers," Chrisitne said. "We're on a quest."

The man's eye twitched. "Half-bloods, eh?"

Percy started to say, "How did you know—"

Annabeth put her hand on my arm. "I'm Annabeth, daughter of Athena and my sister Christine. This is Percy, son of Poseidon. Grover the satyr. Tyson the—"