The Dog (9 page)

and the flick of matches. Stiff fabric swished against straps.

They had other dogs with them. When they came closer

they growled. The black one lying by the fire leapt up, his

ragged ears rising. He rushed off towards the other dogs,

then stopped in his tracks halfway and put his nose to the

ground. He'd caught the scent of the grey dog.

Running excitedly, he took up the trail. When he came

dangerously close the grey one rushed up and fled out

towards the far end of the point. He heard the black dog in

pursuit. Behind them the men were shouting and tying up

the other loudly barking dogs.

He zigzagged through the undergrowth on the point. His

heart was pounding; bursting with fear. There were no steep

hills to hide in here, no endless marshes, no mountain

forests. At the end of the point there were just cliffs on either

side. More than once he ran down to the edge of the water

and turned back. Finally he stopped. The black dog stopped

too. They weren't far apart. The grey one lowered his head,

ears pulled back, baring his teeth with a fierce expression.

That was too much for the other dog. He attacked.

They fought, growling deeply all the time. The black

dog's body was heavier and his legs shorter. He wasn't easily

thrown off balance. He bit wherever he could reach, vicious

warnings, while continuing to growl, urging his opponent to

bare his neck and give up.

The grey one was still young, and emaciated. He'd never

been in a fight before. But now he was fighting for his life.

He bit back, wherever he could reach, and his bites were

sharper than the black dog's. They didn't hear the voices

shouting all around them. The men and the other dogs, on

leashes, were there now, too. One man grabbed the hind legs

of the black dog and pulled at him. He lost his balance and

his jaws released their grip. Another man aimed a kick at the

THE DOG

chest of the grey dog. They were separated. Someone managed

to get the black foxhound on a leash, pressing a glove

over the bleeding wound on his cheek.

The grey dog stood all alone on the lakeshore, facing the

men and three dogs. His body was rigid. When one of the

men began to approach he didn't flee, but pulled back his

upper lip and lunged.

So many voices and bodies. He had to keep each individual

in the crowd in sharp focus while he was looking for a

hole to escape through. Then something happened that confused

him.

All but one of the men withdrew. They left, taking the

other dogs with them. He could still hear them among the

trees. Only one man stayed behind, alone. But he didn't

come closer. He went down on his knees. Then he lowered

his head so neither his eyes nor his teeth were visible. A

voice came out. It wasn't like the others. It murmured and

clucked. It was a gentle stream of soft talking that awakened

a strong urge in the young grey dog, in the midst of all his

confusion.

Something might happen here. He didn't know what. He

was still frightened. Every time the crouching man moved,

the dog's muscles went taut. The voice, though, made him

feel weak with longing. He wanted to run up to the man.

But at the same time he was terrified.

So he sat down heavily on his bottom and started thumping

his back paw against his neck, behind his ear. The

motion made his chest ache. After some time he got up and

moved to one side. His body was no longer so rigid. He

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bear soft sounds and dogs whining from the woods

But instead of fleeing for his life he walked along the shore

at a measured, leisurely pace. Once or twice he turned

around to look at the crouching man, who was still talking,

on and on, in a soft, lulling tone. When the grey dog was

out of sight the man stood up and whistled for him. Short,

high-pitched sounds.

The grey dog stopped. He was part of the way up the

slope, heading for the pasture, and he knew he was visible.

The whistling was like the lulling voice. He was drawn to it.

Deep inside, deep down, was everything that had happened

between himself and the man. It had happened

between a litter of puppies and a deep-voiced fellow who

could shrink to half his own size by going down on his

knees. He had a voice that made them so excited they would

pee all over the linoleum and nip at his sweater sleeves and

fingertips.

It was not lost. It did not begin to happen again when

the man whistled and called. But something shifted,

moved.

He didn't go any farther than the barn. Once there he lay

down and listened. He licked his coat thoroughly clean. He

had a bleeding sore high up on one shoulder that his tongue

couldn't reach. He tried rubbing it with one paw and then

licking the paw clean. He was thirsty and would have wandered

farther afield for water, would have gone all the way to

the beaver tarn, enveloping himself in the silence, if it hadn't

been for that whistling. The short, high-pitched sounds

reached him off and on. His chest ached where he had been

kicked. He wanted to lie still for a long time. It hurt when

he breathed.

He didn't see the men pull the female moose up out of

the lake. But the sickening smells of blood and excrement

came to him on the wind. When the men left, carrying

heavy loads and taking the dogs, straining at their leashes, he

withdrew. But he came back to listen. All he could hear was

the rustling of the leaves and the little waves breaking against

the stones on the shore.

When he walked down to the lake the injured rib in his

chest ached; it hurt more when he moved. But thirst

drove him. Lapping up water, he stood with his paws in the

lake, feeling the chill spread through him, deadening the

pain. He walked a little farther out, letting himself be

numbed.

Then he heard the whistling again. He turned fast, trying

to run up out of the water, but he stumbled, hunched and

stiff. Once he was out of the lake he didn't stop until he was

halfway up to the barn. The man was still at the spot where

they had cut up the moose. He'd been completely still until

that moment.

The soft whistling kept the dog there. He lay in the grass

listening to what the man was doing. Most of his tasks were

silent ones, but now and then he would break dry branches

or split a log. The smell of smoke wafted up. And that occasional

whistling.

Once they both appeared in the open. The dog stood up

in the grass. The man stepped forward to the edge of the

birch brushwood that extended from the point up towards

the pasture. After a while they both withdrew again, one

silently, the other whistling softly.

Late that afternoon two boats came and collected the

man and the moose meat, which he had butchered into

manageable pieces. The man paced uneasily. When he left

with the other men he was whistling, but the dog didn't let

himself be seen. When the voices and the sound of the oars

in the water were gone he went down. He was extremely

tense and agitated by the whiffs of scent crossing every

which way in the rough terrain. Now, though, he was alone

at the point.

At the spot where the moose had been slaughtered there

were patches of blood but no remains. He sniffed around.

The smells awakened the hunger pangs in his belly. But he

was tired and his injured chest hurt. He couldn't hunt in the

pasture when his body wouldn't respond. He licked at the

patches of blood but found nothing to eat. In the end he

wandered back up to the cabin and rested at the foot of the

steps. He lay very still, curled tightly into his own dizziness

and pain.

At dusk he went back down. He walked on stiff legs and

with slow, jerky movements. There was a strong wind

blowing from off the mountains to the west. It had picked

up as night fell, and it washed through his coat and cleared

his nose and ears after all the confusion of the day and the

jumble of scents and loud noises.

Then he caught a whiff of the man. He knew he wasn't

there. But his smell was. It was at the spot where he'd been

fighting with that black dog; a compact odour, not just a

residual scent from the morning. His instinct was to turn tail,

but his muscles wouldn't obey. Then he smelled the blood.

He moved closer to something dark between the stones.

Next to it he found the food.

He ate, pressed low and tail uncurled. It didn't take long

to devour the pile of meat. Before he hobbled off, he sniffed every bit of the fabric, its familiar smell.

That night he slept up in the cleared area, where he could

hear all the sounds coming off the lake, even the most distant

ones. His belly was heavy from the meat. He slept for long

stretches and the pain receded. At dawn he went back down

to the spot where the man had left his jacket spread across

the stones alongside the pile of chopped moose lung.

Sniffing the whole area thoroughly, he found a few scraps

he'd missed.

It was a windy day. He couldn't hear any noise from the

forest, no gunshots. He lay still for so long that when he got

up there were yellow birch leaves stuck to his coat.

The man returned that evening, rowing across. The creak

of the oarlocks cut through the wind. As he stepped out of

the boat he whistled and talked, but he didn't stay long.

When darkness was falling he pushed the boat out into the

lake and it vanished, along with the creaking and splashing.

The grey dog lay in the clearing, ears pricked, following the

journey.

There was food down there. The man had put it where

the wind would carry the scent to the cleared area. The dog

had revealed himself there for an instant, a grey-black mask

and a pair of attentive ears in the undergrowth.

Things had gone quiet all around the pasture. Only the softest

voices were still there. He heard the chirping of the

titmice and the soft calls of the bullfinches from among the

trees. The Siberian jays fluttered gently among the birch

leaves, which fell even on windless days. The aspen leaves

were ready to fall. Sometimes on frosty mornings he heard

soft clicking sounds as they snapped loose.

The water that had filled green leaves and made the grass

grow tall was receding. The blanket of pasture was withering

and turning yellow. At the roots, where the soil was still damp and warm, the mouldering process began, working on

leaves and whatever else was on the ground. Everything that

happened now took place deep down, and from the earth

rose the heavy, powerful scent of decomposition. When the

rain began to sweep in off the ocean beyond the mountains,

the pasture became a brown place of rough grass and rotting

stalks. It was silent there. The short-eared owl rarely

swooped, and eventually it flew away. Not even the vixen

caught any voles.

The dog's shoulder healed but his bruised rib continued

to ache in the cold weather. Most of the time he lay still,

though he had to guard the food spot out at the point and

keep the vixen away. She sniffed around, sticking her pointy

snout in between the stones where there were still patches of

blood. He moved awkwardly from the pain in his ribcage, so

he was careful not to rush at her, just letting himself be seen

so she wouldn't become overconfident. The fur on his

shoulder was long again. He raised his head and chest, and

she ran off. But she would soon be back unless he stayed out

at the point, guarding the spot.

The man arrived late each afternoon. After a few days he

moved the food spot over to the cabin, laying the chopped

entrails in a bowl at the bottom of the outside steps, his rain

soaked jacket across them. Before he headed home he sat in

the boat for a long time, whistling and talking.

Rain and days passed by. One blue-sky day when the sun

was warm but the frost was thick and the air still, the boat

appeared in the morning instead. The man pulled it further

up than usual. Glancing towards the cleared area, he noted a

pair of alert ears following the noise made by the bottom of

the boat scraping on the damp gravel. He walked past the

cookhouse and up to the cabin with loud steps, tossing his

backpack down with a thump that reverberated in the still

air. He settled in, with slamming doors and groaning

window frames. He lit the stove, knowing that the gusts of smoke, and later the smell of coffee, would reach all the way

up to the cleared area. But the dog didn't appear. In the

evening the man put out food as usual, but this time right on

the steps. Then he shut himself inside the cabin. In the

morning the food remained untouched.

All day he busied himself around the pasture. He felled

birch saplings and repaired a broken pane in the cookhouse

window. Although he could see no signs of life up at the