The Best Australian Stories (26 page)

Ben took the spade and rifle out of the tray and stood for a time with one implement in each hand, as if balancing them, or weighing something. Should he dig the grave first? Or afterwards? Nosing about in the dry grass, the dog still seemed impervious to his fate. Dig first, and work a little agitation out of the system? And if it delayed the inevitable a little longer, so be it.

The work was hard; the stony ground had never been tilled, and no rain had fallen since August. He should have brought a pick, or mattock. He dug slowly and methodically, wanting to take his time, needing to take his time, all the time in the world. He took an unnecessary break, and sat with his legs dangling from the back of the ute, sipping tea from the cap of his thermos. The dog ran to him, expecting a treat, but he was saving the one treat in his pocket till later, and the dog immediately turned and ran back to his explorations, able to read the man's intentions in this respect at least. Ben savoured a second capful of the tea, black and sugary, then returned to his digging. The hole was Nigger-sized in length and breadth, but no more than two feet deep when he decided that enough was enough. The phrase ‘a shallow bush grave' came to him, poignantly, from somewhere, another murder story in that morning paper perhaps. He rolled himself a cigarette from a long-abandoned pack in the glove box. Having smoked it to the last few millimetres, stale tobacco or not, he could delay no longer. How small the .22 shell he fossicked from his breast pocket seemed, not much more lethal than an air-gun slug. He broke open the old rifle, loaded the chamber, snapped the breech shut. He took the scrap of dried liver from his pocket, a treat his father had never approved of for working dogs, and dropped it into the hole.

‘Here, boy.'

The dog came to him, looked down into the hole, looked up into his eyes, looked down again, then once more up, quizzically.

‘It's OK, boy,' he said, and as the dog stepped down into the hole for its last, small meal, he lifted the rifle to his shoulder in one quick movement, aimed it into the black crown of the dog's head, and fired; the dog collapsed on its own legs without a sound.

As fast as the shooting had been, the tears that sprang to Ben's eyes were even faster.

‘Sorry, boy,' he said, and knelt and examined the dog through the film of those tears. ‘Sorry, old feller.'

There were no tears in the dog's motionless eyes, or even any kind of death shiver in its legs. He rose and took up the spade and began to fill the grave, working rapidly this time. When he had finished, he found the sight of the small mound – exactly the length and width and volume of the dog – too disturbing, and he began to remove dirt from it, and spread it around. He couldn't bring himself to tread down the remaining heap, not wanting to further damage the dog, or in any way to squash it.

He drove off immediately to his fencing chores and buried himself all day in the physicality of star-dropping, and stringing and tightening wires. Hard enough work for two, near impossible for one – but he had no distractions. He had drunk most of his tea while stalling for time at the shooting, and had left home early without packing lunch. His father's car had gone when he returned to the house late in the afternoon; he washed down a meat and pickle sandwich with a bottle of beer, then slumped into the cane throne on the veranda, exhausted.

‘Ben?'

‘Hmmm.'

A kiss on his forehead. ‘You're sleeping in the sun, darling. Come inside.'

Meg made no mention of Nigger, then or later, over dinner, but she brought Blue into the house and fed him a choice scrap of meat from the table, whether for her comfort or the dog's or to make some kind of obscure point to Ben he couldn't tell.

He had dreaded facing her, but she seemed especially kind to him also.

His mother rang after dinner. ‘You OK, Benny?'

‘Fine, Mum.'

‘And Meg?'

‘She's managing.'

‘I know she was fond of old Nigger. But your father was right. It had to be done.'

‘I know, Mum. Thanks for the call.'

‘Give my love to Meg.'

‘Of course. She's right here. You want to talk to her?'

‘I'm sure she has more important things to do. Just give her a hug.'

Blue nosed his way in through the flyscreen door the next night as they were eating. It was clearly lonely out in the yard, and after the three of them had cleaned the two dinner plates between them, Ben brought the dog's basket inside.

It was Blue tugging at the quilt that woke him in the small hours the following night. He had seen the dog agitated before – the morning of Nigger's execution for one – but he had never seen such a silent, purposeful agitation. Something was afoot. An intruder? The hairs were bristling along the dog's back, but still it made no noise, insisting only with its body language that Ben follow, immediately. Meg, exhausted, slept on as he slipped from the bed. It wasn't until he reached the hall that he heard the scratching at the kitchen door. Blue was already waiting at that door, staring at it, ears pricked, hairs erect, one forefoot raised. Ben pulled his old cricket bat from the hall stand, turned on the porch light, and jerked open the door.

A dog was lying with its head on the doormat, scratching at the fly-screen; it took a moment for Ben to realise, shocked, that it was Nigger. His heart was thumping as he knelt and examined the dog. The entry wound on its crown had congealed into a dark, hard scab. There was no sign of an exit; the slug must still be in there somewhere. Blue was whimpering now, finding his voice, and after some sniffing, and licking of the older dog's nose, began to lick methodically at its wound.

‘Nigger,' Ben whispered. ‘It's OK, boy.'

The dog had lost the power of dog speech, apparently; it made no noise at all, not even a whimper. It dragged itself an inch or so closer, but skewing sideways, crabwise. Ben saw that it –
he
, he reminded himself – was able to move his right-side legs only, as if cut down by a stroke rather than a bullet. His coat was encrusted with dust and clay; he had clearly been unable to clean away the grave earth. Ben looked out, across the dust of home yard; within the fall of the porch light he could make out the trail of the dog, a dragging, snake-like spoor. A black joke from childhood came back to him, made poignant now; what do you do with a dog with no legs? Take it for a drag.

But what
do
you do? His immediate reaction, through the fog of disbelief, was to take the dog straight back out into the bush and shoot it again, before Meg woke. To put Nigger out of his misery, certainly – but even more, to spare her. But the rifle was in the bedroom; he couldn't get his hands on it without waking her. The cricket bat was still tucked under his arm; he became aware of its weight again. Could he club the dog to death? He baulked at the thought, but the bat seemed to be getting heavier all the time, as if by a sudden surge in gravity. Did he have the heart for it? No – he had the heart
not
to do it. Did he have the stomach for it? He was saved, for the moment, by the padding of bare footsteps along the hall floorboards behind him. He shifted on his haunches to hide the dog, but Meg was already leaning over him, her ‘What's the matter, darling?' swallowed by a horrified gasp: ‘Oh, my God!'

She covered her mouth with both her hands and in the same movement sank to her knees. ‘Oh, my poor boy. My poor Nigger.' She took the dog's head gently in her lap and its long tongue slid out and licked weakly, lopsidedly, at her hand.

She looked up at her husband, distraught, through wet eyes. ‘What can we do, Ben? What can we do? And what are you doing with that
bat
?'

He had no answer. His eyes met hers for a long moment, then he stepped back inside the house, and kept walking through to the bedroom. He climbed the stool and took down the shotgun. He slid three plump, red cartridges into the magazine and loaded one in the chamber. The gun could hold more, but four already seemed like overkill. He pocketed another three cartridges all the same. To be found wanting once was once too many.

‘What are you doing?' Meg demanded when he reappeared.

He shrugged, and spread his arms.

‘You're going to shoot him
again
?'

‘Look at him, Meg. What choice is there? He must be in misery. Dragged himself two miles back to the house. What else can I do?'

‘Can't we give him the night at least? Something to eat? Maybe he'll recover.'

He looked at her, unable to speak.

‘It's not right, Ben. You put him through this. You and your father. And isn't there some kind of law? If you survive the execution you can't be convicted again …' How had this nonsense popped into her head? She abandoned it as soon as it popped out of her mouth. ‘If you'd done it properly the
first
time …' ‘You think I don't know that?'

The dog was shivering. She took off her towelling robe and tucked it over and around him.

‘Get some water, Ben.'

He leaned the shotgun against the wall inside the door, and filled a saucer in the kitchen. The dog ignored it, or was unable to control its head enough to sip.

‘I'll warm some milk,' Meg said. ‘You bring him inside. Put him on the spare bed.'

At least the dog seemed in no pain. Paralysed down one side perhaps, and unable to speak any dog words, unable even to whimper, but uncomplaining as he was wrapped more tightly in the swaddling of bathrobe and lifted into Ben's arms. The dog was surprisingly light – dehydration? blood loss? – and by bending his knees Ben was also able to grab the shotgun. Meg had vanished, naked, into the kitchen. For a moment he paused in the doorway, half inside the house and half out. Nigger looked up at him and licked his hand. Blue was out in the yard, facing them; as Ben stepped down off the veranda the younger dog ran between him and the utility and turned, crouching, then turned and crouched again, as if trying to herd him back into the house.

‘Stand down, boy.'

He laid the bundled dog gently in the tray, then took the shotgun into the cabin with him, placing it carefully across the backrest. He had started the engine and turned towards the grid when Meg walked out in front of the ute. He hadn't seen her emerge from the house; she had pulled on boots and jeans and a thick pullover. Instead of the promised saucer of milk she was carrying the garden spade, cradling it across her chest like a weapon. His pulse flared: was she refusing to allow him to pass? Over my dead body, Ben? Instead she walked around and climbed into the passenger seat, nursing the spade between her knees, perhaps – the thought came to him – to keep it out of sight of the dog. She reached over and squeezed his hand, briefly, but without looking at him. Sensing that she couldn't bring herself to speak, he kept silent himself as the ute rumbled across the grid and into the home paddock. She climbed out to open the first gate and climbed back in after he had driven through, still without speaking. After the second gate, she climbed back onto the tray instead and sat nursing the dog's head in her lap.

He opened and closed the third gate himself.

He parked facing the same stand of scrub, leaving the headlights blazing. The shallow grave had imploded; he dug it out quickly while Meg remained up in the tray, murmuring soothing sounds at the dog. He worked hard and fast, digging out another entire hole's worth of dirt, wanting to be certain this time, before tossing the spade aside.

‘I'm ready,' he finally said.

‘You'll need to lift him out,' Meg said.

He took the towelling bundle from her and carried it around into the headlights, keeping the dog's head towards the ute, not wanting him to see the stand of gums, or the gaping hole – although Nigger surely knew exactly where he was.

He set the dog on the ground and, as Meg knelt and fondled its ears again, walked back to the cabin of the ute for the loaded gun. He checked the breech as Meg tugged a corner of the robe over the condemned dog's eyes. Nigger licked her hand once, but as she stood back, the right side of his body, the working side, began trembling, violently.

‘He's scared,' she whispered, hoarsely. ‘He knows. Do it quickly, Ben.'

Not too quickly, he reminded himself as he aimed the gun with more deliberate care at the masked head. He squeezed the trigger slowly, and with such forced concentration that he barely noticed the hard, bruising kickback of the stock against his shoulder, or the explosion of the shot itself.

Meg's gasp of horror was barely audible to his deafened ears; she had already turned away to lean against the bonnet of the ute as he lowered the gun. He could look no longer than a second himself. He leaned the gun against the wheel of the ute and dragged the dead dog by the hind legs to the edge of the hole, keeping his face averted.

Then he took the spade and cleaned up the fragments of shattered bone and brains, still trying only to look out of the corner of his eye. He had scraped two small mounds of dirt and remains into the hole when nausea overcame him.

‘Here,' Meg was saying somewhere, far off, although apparently close enough to take the spade from his hands. He squatted on his heels, with his head between his knees till he stopped feeling faint. He could hear her working somewhere, and by the time he felt safe to rise to his feet again she was banging down the earth on top of the grave.

‘You OK, Ben?'

‘Getting there. And you?'

A long silence. ‘Do you think we're cut out for this?'

‘I think you are,' he said, and she offered up the glimmer of a smile.

They drove back to the house as they had driven out, in silence. Blue was waiting at the grid, prick-eared, pacing relentlessly about. As they climbed out, he was already looking past them from the tray to the cabin and back again. Ben left the shotgun in the cabin, but tossed the spade into the toolshed and closed the door; he would hose it down later. Blue followed Meg up the steps onto the veranda, searching her face for a sign, looking back at Ben's face, looking past them out into the night, looking and searching everywhere.