Lost Souls

by Hwang Sunwon

  “Whose dog is this?”

  Before the others could turn and look, he had kicked Whitey square in the ribs. Whitey scurried outside, yelping. At a little distance she turned around, as if reluctant to leave the mill. The farmhand and the two women were once again absorbed in their work—ownership of the dog was none of their affair. But the headman was staring in her direction, and when he bent over as if to pick up a rock, Whitey fled with all her remaining strength. She started down the gentle hill, and sure enough a rock flew by, landing at her side.

  She crossed the ditch, where water had pooled from the previous day’s rain, and kept running through the hardscrabble plots worked by Kim Sŏndal and others. At least she wasn’t limping anymore, and under the circumstances this was fortunate.

  At the mill next to Kannan’s family’s house at the foot of the mountains to the west, she lay down beneath the winnow, which still wore a coat of dust but nothing else. Some time later she set out again for the headmen’s mill. Reaching the gentle rise, she stopped and gazed toward the mill. The younger brother was nowhere to be seen, so she continued on. But the sight of the vicious-looking farmhand turning the winnow brought her to a halt, and after inspecting the scene she retraced her steps to the mill next to Kannan’s family’s house.

  As the day began to wane, Kannan’s mother and grandmother came into view along the millet-stalk fence of the house across the way. Before entering their own house, they looked into the mill. Whitey rose apprehensively, but the women paid no attention to her and disappeared inside their house.

  In no time Whitey was back at the headmen’s mill. It had been swept, but there remained a generous layer of rice husks on the posts and other timbers. Whitey started beneath the winnow and licked everything clean.

  Early that evening, as Whitey stood inside the gate to the elder headman’s house gazing at the basin while Blackie finished his meal, a door slid open and the headman emerged. Like his brother, he was a stumpy man with closely cropped hair, his complexion was good, and he looked much younger than his age. At a glance you might have wondered if the brothers were twins. And in fact people meeting them for the first time often confused them.

  Stepping down to the yard, he discovered Whitey intent on the basin and realized he’d never seen this dog before.

  “Damn mutt!” he shouted, stamping his feet. His tone was firm like his brother’s.

  Startled, Whitey wriggled through the dog hole and fled.

  Just as the headman emerged from his gate in pursuit, his brother appeared, making an after-dinner visit. Spotting Whitey, he realized she was the dog he had chased from the mill that morning. She was now being driven off by his brother, and it occurred to him that this damned mutt no one had ever seen before might be mad.

  “Mad dog! Grab it!” he shouted in the same firm tone.

  The older brother followed suit, also struck by the thought that this unfamiliar mutt with the pinched belly, this damned mongrel running off with its tail between its legs, might indeed be mad: “Mad dog! Catch the damn thing!”

  He flew inside his gate, emerged with a good-sized stick, and set off after Whitey, shouting over and over, “Mad dog! Grab it!”

  By the time the brothers reached the bottom of the gentle slope, Whitey was cutting through the hardscrabble plots. Kim Sŏndal, still working his plot, heard the brothers shouting. He looked around and spotted the dog.

  “That damn mutt must be the mad dog.”

  He ran after Whitey, shovel in hand.

  The headmen stopped at the plots, their energy flagging. “Mad dog! Catch it!” they kept shouting in turn.

  It was as if through their shouts they were ordering Kim Sŏndal to step up his efforts to catch the mad dog and beat it with his shovel, as if by the sound of their voices they were calling on the people living at the foot of the western mountains to arm themselves, burst forth from their homes, and slaughter the mad dog. They continued shouting until Whitey had disappeared among the shacks beneath those mountains, until they could no longer see Kim running in his distinctive way, trunk bent back instead of forward.

  After the brothers had stopped bellowing, an eerie silence descended upon the evening. And then from the foot of the mountains to the west rose a commotion that carried so clearly you might have felt you could reach out and grab it. A short time later a thin mist began to rise, and out of it Kim returned, at the head of several villagers. No mad dog had been caught. Kim passed the vegetable patch, but before he had reached the hardscrabble plots the younger brother called out.

  “What happened?!”

  It was such a loud shout, spreading throughout the village in the still of the evening, that he thought maybe he’d overdone it.

  Frustrated by the lack of a response, his brother took up the cry.

  “Well, what happened!?” he shouted just as loudly.

  “We lost it. Damn mutt ran like the devil. It’s up in the hills somewhere.”

  Kim’s voice seemed to come not only from the depths of his body but also from far in the distance. How was such magic possible? Ah, through the silence of early evening in this mountain valley.

  “You mean it ran so fast it got away from you?” sneered the older brother. “I’ll bet you gave up. You were scared—scared of a worthless mutt. . . .”

  Kim could joke with the best, but this time he strode off silently into the mist and retrieved his hoe and shovel from the plot he’d been working. It was as if he were admitting to what the headman had said.

  It was still a bit early in the year for people to be gathering outside in their yards, but nightfall found a few of the neighbors squatting in the corner of Ch’ason’s family’s yard. They discussed farming: Was there enough to eat until the first barley crop was harvested? And then someone brought up the mad dog.

  Kim Sŏndal spoke up at once. Just the night before last, he’d gone to South Village to borrow an ox—hadn’t come back through the pass till late. Just then he’d heard a dog howl somewhere off in the distance. Weird, it was—scared the hell out of him. Sounded like the dog was sick, or like someone was dragging it at the end of a rope. But if someone was dragging a dog along, you wouldn’t expect the howling to come from the same spot each time—that was the weird thing. Now that he thought about it, it was probably the mad dog.

  All Kim had to do was open his trap and out came a fanciful story that was sure to bring laughter. So he had long been known, not only in the village but also in the surrounding area, as a latter-day Pongi Kim Sŏndal, after the famous jokester of old. For this reason the listeners couldn’t be sure how much of his story was fancy and how much was true.

  In between puffs on his pipe, Ch’ason’s father sent a stream of saliva flying. The part about the dog being dragged by the neck while the sound seemed to come from the same place was calling something to mind. Maybe, he offered, the dog belonged to one of the P’yŏngan-bound travelers who had passed through the village a few days earlier. Perhaps it had been tied to a tree and left behind and had gone mad. That would explain why it was in the village now. Animals, you had to remember, go mad after several days without food. In fact, Ch’ason’s father continued, he was quite certain that the dog Kim Sŏndal had heard was such a dog—howling while trying to break free of the rope about its neck.

  Kannan’s grandfather, while admitting to himself that this was plausible, recalled something his wife had told him a short time before—that the dog she’d seen that morning at the village heads’ mill, and again on her way home at the mill in their own neighborhood, didn’t look rabid. In any case, he now declared, you couldn’t tell if a dog was mad unless you looked at it up close. But mad or not, the dog would soon be back—that much was clear. Ch’ason’s father agreed, adding that everyone had better be careful.

  Whitey, under cover of darkness, had already come down from the hills and trotted through the hardscrabble plots toward the headmen’s houses. You would have seen her moving cautiously, in spite of the darkness.

/>   At the top of the gentle slope, she paused to inspect first the mill and then the two houses with the tile roofs. And then, with the greatest of care, she approached the older brother’s house.

  Through the dog hole she went. Blackie acknowledged her without growling, as if she were now familiar to him. Whitey went straight to the food basin and began to lap.

  In the younger brother’s yard, Spotty accepted Whitey in similar fashion. There too Whitey went straight to the basin and lapped up what was left.

  Then she was off to the brothers’ mill, where she licked the places she had covered that afternoon, and the rest of the mill as well. But she evidently had no intention of sleeping there, and set off toward the foot of the mountains to the west.

  The next morning Kannan’s grandfather, who was known for rising early, emerged from the millet-stalk gate of his house and discovered Whitey prone beneath the winnow in the mill nearby. He returned home, fetched the supporting stick for his A-frame backrack, and reappeared at the mill, hiding the weapon behind his back. It might be mad, but a blow with the stick would kill it.

  Whitey rose, startled by the sound of someone approaching. Instinctively, she tucked her tail between her legs.

  Not a good sign, the old man thought. He stood motionless, glaring at Whitey, tightening his grip on the stick. Still, he told himself, I don’t see it drooling or foaming at the mouth. If it’s rabid, it can’t be that serious. He looked at her eyes. If it’s rabid, those eyes ought to be bloodshot, or have a bluish tinge—but not this dog. All the old man saw in those eyes were crust and fear.

  Whitey looked right back, wondering if this man meant to hurt her. Kannan’s grandfather looked dangerous because of his tall, robust build and the salty beard covering his swarthy face. His glaring eyes were also crusted, with crow’s-feet. As she looked at those eyes, Whitey sensed this wasn’t someone who intended to harm her, and her tail between her legs lifted ever so slightly.

  It wasn’t rabid after all, the old man decided. At least not yet. He relaxed his grip on the stick, and it came into view. Startled, Whitey slinked past him and fled.

  Yellow, outside in his master’s yard, chased Whitey. A thought flashed across the old man’s mind: What if the dog was rabid and bit Yellow? He called his dog. But by then Yellow had caught up to Whitey and was blocking her path. Whitey seemed ready to tuck her tail even tighter between her legs, but then Yellow, recognizing her scent, touched his nose to hers. Whitey nuzzled right back and her tail began to lift. No, Kannan’s grandfather told himself again, the dog wasn’t rabid.

  That day Whitey went up the gentle slope to the mountain behind the headmen’s houses, almost like waiting for the two brothers to leave, you might think.

  After breakfast the headmen walked to a ravine below the village where they were having a dry field regraded. The steep upper portion of the field, owned by the older brother and worked by Ch’ason’s family, was being leveled; the deep lower portion, owned by the younger brother and worked by Kannan’s family, was being filled in. The two portions were to be combined into a rice paddy that could be properly irrigated. Since the spring thaw, virtually every member of the two families had been turning out for this reclamation project.

  Some time after the brothers had left to oversee the work, Whitey cautiously ventured down to feed at the basins. Then she went to the mill for the new layer of dust and chaff. Finally she visited the brothers’ outhouses, before retracing her path uphill and settling beneath a tree. There she lay prone while the day wore on into evening, and when night had fallen she went back down to the houses with the tile roofs and on to the mill beneath the mountains to the west. She didn’t forget, either, to lap up some of the water in the ditch near the vegetable patch.

  Every morning when Kannan’s grandfather emerged from the gate of millet stalks in front of his house, he would see Whitey leave the mill and walk along the path through the hardscrabble plots. It was as if she had decided to be the earliest to rise.

  One night Whitey was licking the food basin at the older headman’s house. The man came outside and tiptoed to the granary, where he got a stick. He stole up behind the dog. Whitey was not unaware of his movements, but her hunger kept her at the basin. Finally, with the man close behind her, she whirled about and scampered toward the front gate. At that instant the man saw a strange blue gleam that seemed to be coming from her eyes. It struck him that the dog really was mad, but for some reason he couldn’t shout this news.

  Whitey stole through the dog hole beside the gate, and finally the headman shouted, “Mad dog! Catch the damn thing!” and gave chase. He realized that the dog was skipping off in the darkness toward the mountain behind his house. On he ran, shouting, “Mad dog! Catch the damn thing!” But he wouldn’t get within striking distance. Instead, he grew more and more afraid of a close encounter with Whitey, and his shouts became louder and more fierce. Whitey disappeared up the mountainside. After several more shouts, the headman turned toward home. As his brother and their families ran toward him, he remembered how he had chided Kim Sŏndal for being afraid to get near a “harmless” mad dog. If only he had broken the damned dog’s back in his yard once and for all, he scolded himself; he could have caught the dog if he’d tried, but he’d been afraid to get close. His temper flared. “What took you so long!” he barked at the people thronging toward him.

  The next morning, before leaving to supervise the reclamation project, the older headman paid a visit to those who lived at the foot of the mountains to the west. There he told everyone he met that the dog was surely mad. He had seen a blue gleam in its eyes the previous evening. The dog had attacked him and he’d barely managed to beat it off with a stick. Anyone who caught sight of it ought to kill it on the spot; otherwise the villagers would have hell to pay. The headman’s shouts had carried clearly the previous evening, and the villagers knew the mad dog had reappeared. If the dog had actually attacked someone, blue gleam and all, then it must be crazy for sure. Ill at ease, they made up their minds—they’d take care of that dog, you bet.

  For her part, Whitey seemed even more cautious. She remained out of sight of the villagers beneath the western mountains, not to mention the two headmen and their families.

  One night Kannan’s grandmother, using the outhouse, rushed back inside saying she’d just seen the mad dog with the blue gleam in its eyes. When Whitey had been called mad and driven from the village, the dog had not seemed mad to her. But now that she’d seen that blue gleam, there was no doubt in her mind—the dog was mad.

  Kannan’s grandfather, though, argued that dogs were no different from people: you could see a gleam in their eyes if they went hungry or got their dander up. Why should this dog be any different? No need to be so frightened just because it was on the loose. But suddenly the old man realized something: the dog had come to the outhouse to feed on his valuable supply of nightsoil. That was the last straw. He headed for the outhouse, hefting the supporting stick for his backrack. Sure enough, near the pit for the feces he saw a blue flash. “Damn mutt!” he shouted, giving one of the outhouse posts a crack with his stick. The blue gleam whirled away, and the dog, a white blur, escaped through the millet-stalk fence.

  From then on, no glimpse was to be had of Whitey. Summer arrived, and with it the rains—just in time for transplanting rice seedlings into the paddy newly graded by the two headmen and their tenants. Then one day a rumor spread through the village: as Kim Sŏndal was having a smoke while weeding his plot, he saw a fleeting movement among the trees on the mountainside behind the houses with the tile roofs. Looking carefully, he had seen it was the mad dog. But it wasn’t alone, it had other dogs in tow—Blackie, the older headman’s dog; Spotty, the younger brother’s dog; and with them still another dog he hadn’t seen clearly enough to identify.

  It was just as Kim Sŏndal had said. Blackie and Spotty hadn’t been seen at home for a good two days. The village heads were indignant—that damned mad dog had infected their dogs right from the
start and now it had lured them away. And they were fearful as well. And—the villagers didn’t know this, because Kannan’s grandfather had told his family to say nothing—Kannan’s family’s dog had also been gone the past two days.

  During those two days, a number of villagers reported hearing dogs growling, both in the daytime and at night, from the mountainside behind the tile-roof houses. The headmen again were indignant, realizing they should have hunted down that damned mad dog and killed it.

  On the third day, the brothers’ dogs finally returned, one after the other. Kannan’s family’s dog also returned. Blackie and Spotty immediately found some shade and lay down on their stomachs. They panted, drooling tongues hanging low, then closed their eyes and fell fast asleep. They looked wasted from their two days outside.

  The brothers were watching over the transplanting in the reclaimed paddy when the farmhand arrived with the news.

  “Good enough,” said the brothers. “About time we got rid of them.”

  They set out for home, the farmhand and Kannan’s grandfather in front.

  Kannan’s grandfather approached Blackie bare-handed. That old fellow’s in for some trouble, thought the older headman and the other onlookers, keeping their distance. The old man stroked the dog’s head. The animal opened its sleepy eyes, then closed them and began wagging its tail in delight, sweeping it back and forth across the ground like a broom.

  “And this dog is supposed to be mad?” Kannan’s grandfather said, returning to the village head’s side.

  “Well, it’s a good thing if it’s not,” said the headman. “But when you see it drooling, when it can’t keep its eyes open, you know it’s only a matter of time—we’d better get rid of it before it’s completely rabid.”

  “Mad dogs aren’t supposed to have an appetite,” said the farmhand. Why not try to feed Blackie? In the kitchen he prepared a mixture of steamed rice and water in the feed basin. When he brought the food out Blackie put his snout near, but after a token sniff he closed his eyes.