The Savage

by Frank Bill

  As he neared the earthy edge to glimpse the ruin and loss of canine, smells of shit, piss, and vital juices reeked from the large perforation. His eyes took in several short furred hips coming into view. Poking ribs with whittled spikes, puncturing through hide. Then more shapes crossed one another like a Celtic-patterned knot as he crawled past the edge to see, one, two, three, four, five dead dogs. Short-furred. Some white with spots of brown and black. Brindle. Walkers, if he had to guess. Starved, almost emaciated. Off in the corner he noticed a shoe and a boot and an action figure, a superhero or something. Odd, he thought.

  Then came the bounce and snap just inches from his face as he reared away from the opening. One had endured the drop. Unnerved; instinct took over and he reached behind him for his pistol. Hand jerking with busted nerves. He could hear the snarl. Then a silence and the whining.

  Looking down upon what had survived. A dog the color of fudge and melted peanut butter with drooping ears sat upon the expired. Its fores balanced on the walls of the pit, glancing up. Situating himself, Dorn leaned back on his knees. Leveled the pistol, taking in the sad sink of hide around its sight. He held no compassion for the mongrel, but an emotion nonetheless rose within Dorn. That of a boy and a beast. Of the bond. Of how hard it was for one to erase the other’s vitality.

  THEN

  Knowing his time was lessening, Claude, Van Dorn’s grandfather, lay in a hospital bed losing his mind. Rubbing between crown and widow’s peak till it was raw of hair. Wanting to give all the lessons of his life to Van Dorn before he died. Telling of his toughest decision. Of doing what was right. On crossing that line from boyhood to manhood, even when it meant a loyal companion’s path would have to be cut short.

  Claude’s first hunting dog was bought when he turned ten. Eight years before enlisting in the service. He named him Sam. Picked from a champion litter. Well-proportioned, his hinds and fores were muscular and white. His spine and ribs held the print of caramel that hugged him like a saddle. Ears the same shade of tan, splashing around his eyes and over his snout. He was a specimen. His grandfather had spent his farming coin on the German pointer hound. Though his own father had told him he was wasting his earnings on a dog meant to hunt bird. Regardless, he put in months of stacking hay, picking beans, shelling corn, and chopping wood to save.

  To train Sam, he trapped or caught coons. Placed some in rusted roll cages, others he skinned. Always threw the tails to Sam. Giving him the scent. Watching him bark and toss the coon tail around in his pen as a pup. Other times Claude took the hides. Dragged them over the ground and up a tree to where he tacked them. Then set Sam loose to strike on the smell. Bark at the tree.

  The grandfather taught commands to Sam with a steel whistle he strung around his neck with a piece of leather through its hooped end; it was about as long as a grown man’s pinkie. Blowing once to get his attention. Watching the lift and perk of his ears. The upward hook of his tail, his body ready. Then with a double blow of the whistle, Claude would yell, “Here’a Sam, here’a.” Let Sam know he needed to get busy, strike on the scent.

  His grandfather diminishing, his flaccid skin curtained upon his frame like unfilled garbage sacks in a room that reeked of rubbing alcohol, Van Dorn listened as his grandfather told him that the hardest part was getting the pup from the dog and turning the dog to a hound. On the first hunt, Sam struck up on a scent. Took to bawling and disappeared into the wild. Leaving the grandfather to walk. Follow the barks through the wilderness, his .22 ready.

  At first, it seemed a good strike. Then Sam’s barks began to go kamikaze, distancing one direction, then another, for far too long. Coming across the scrape of horns to a small tree, the scratch of a buck. From the fresh pellets of tiny marshmallow-sized manure, Claude knew Sam’d struck upon a deer trail. Even with all the early training, the dog knew how to hunt, but had yet to distinguish between what he was bred to hunt and what he wasn’t. Meaning, like all young hounds, he’d need to be broken, the old way. And it’d take only the one time, if he lived through it.

  Next morning the grandfather woke early. Entered the woods with his father’s, Van Dorn’s great-grandfather’s, .30-30. He walked with the molten plastic sky of morning overhead. Passing the sycamore and oak, over the trundle of leaves and limbs to a midpoint on their property. Where he sat. Waited next to a small swampy green pond littered with hooved tracks. Seeing his breath murk as dawn broke, a deer, almond and custard, came through the weed and berry briars to the watering hole for a final sip. The grandfather put it down, a single shot to its lung point. Parted the cords of its throat. Removed its gut but not its glands. Bound the twine around its rear legs and dragged it to the field in front of their home, where he left it to lie. Went to unleash Sam. Led him to the deer. Let him encompass its scents. Pushed and wrestled Sam to the ground, held him on his side, while banding his front legs together just above the paws, then the rear, leaving Sam immobile and whimpering. He cut the binding on the deer’s rears. The dog whined and jerked but could do little more till Claude banded his snout shut. Dragged him to the dead deer’s ass where he’d split it. Lifted the hind leg. Buried Sam’s face in it and lowered the leg.

  It was all about timing. Wait too long and Sam suffocated. Pull him free too soon, he’d not be feared by that scent, but removal at the right moment, he’d be broken.

  Watching Sam’s raise and lower of the rib cage. First it rushed. Then it came slower and slower. Inhaling and drowning in the backside scents of gore from the venison. Forever searing his mind with that odor. When it looked as though Sam was near death, hardly a lift or drop from his cage, Claude pulled Sam from the deer, Sam’s face caked and stained by blood. He cut the twine from his legs and patted Sam, who slowly came around. Eyes blinking, then full-bore open. He’d timed it just right. Leashed and walked him back to his pen.

  It was an old way of training passed down from father to son to break a hound. And the first time he’d done it by himself. Next day he put it to the test. Walking Sam in the woods. Watching him strike a trail. Then came the yelp, running the opposite direction as though shot by electricity, that deer’s redolence forever engraved within his memory; a venison’s trail had apparently crossed the coon’s scent he was chasing.

  Sam would be the closest the grandfather could get to an animal. Placing his life’s blood in the hound. Taking him on hunts and dog shows from state to state. Letting him ride in the cab, seated on the front seat next to him. Filling his family’s freezer with coon meat and his coffee can with cash from the selling of pelts but also studding him to breed with bitches for pups to sell.

  Within two or three years Sam developed a golf-ball-sized tumor below his throat. And the grandfather’s father told him, “Eventually he won’t be able to eat, breathe, nor maneuver. Know what’ll need to be done. Your dog, you’ll be the one to take to it when the time comes.”

  Most hound dogs’ joints begin to give out after eight years, Sam had another five good ones. The lump had gotten near the size of a grapefruit. Claude would’ve liked to have had it removed, but back then it was unheard of, as money was spent on family and bills. He knew what he’d have to do. His father’s words ringing ever so loud in his mind’s eye every time Sam had troubles eating, and even breathing as he lay on his side in the straw-floored pen of the barn. Freckles of tan over his coat like ticks, having problems rising. He’d sit up with what sounded similar to a bronchitis fit of coughing.

  In the hospital bed that day, Claude spoke of Sam as though he were royalty. Telling Van Dorn, No dog needs to suffer, to be left without a choice. His cataract eyes juiced with moisture. His voice cracked and he said it was the hardest decision he’d ever made. Unleashing Sam for a long walk, Claude had his whistle around his neck, .22 in the bend of his right arm. How he shook when Sam’d struck up a trail and off he went. His bark sounding clotted and broken. Every so often stopping to hack. Buckling Claude’s heart. Knowing what had to be done. He was the one who had to do it. When he got to the tre
e where Sam’d run the coon, the grandfather looked above. Saw the marble of gray and black fur. Tiny robber mask around the eyes that peeked from a limb above. Its tail fringed and ringed. The grandfather lifted the .22 and shot the coon from the tree. Sam stood proud, looking down upon his final treeing as the whistle was blown once. Sam raised his head in the opposite direction. Perked his ears and hooked his tail. Ready for a double blow from the whistle that was replaced by a .22 shell discharged from the rifle that pierced the rear of Sam’s skull. Dropped his shape to the earth next to the coon.

  NOW

  Bearing the .45 down on the dog with its snarls of wanting, Van Dorn now understood why Claude had told him of Sam. Of needing him to understand how hard it was to put his best friend down, so he’d not suffer.

  Even with the threat of being chased, possibly mauled, something within Van Dorn would not allow him to pull the trigger. Unlike he’d done when his life was threatened by the men before, something within the madness of this hound’s retina said it was not Dorn’s scent that made him growl.

  As Van Dorn lowered the pistol, the hound sat upon its dead brethren. Reacted by resting its melon-sized dome between its paws. The hound’s eyes bored up at Van Dorn, not wanting him to splay its savagery, its way of surviving, onto the walls of the earthy pit.

  Rolling to his side, maybe the hound sensed his emotional weakness. Knowing animals could smell one’s fear. Holding the pistol out, Van Dorn looked at it. All he had to do was spend a cartridge on the hound and move on.

  Moments passed. Van Dorn sat with his leg outstretched. Heard the whine of the dog. Reached down at his ankle. Felt the swell of pain. Noticed a shimmer of something metallic and golden among the leaves next to his leg. Reached and pulled a chain with a locket in its center. Thought it odd to find a piece of jewelry lying out in the middle of the woods. Wondered where it came from. Slid it into his pocket. The dog whined again. Dorn wondered where the pack had come from. They couldn’t have belonged to the men who came into Toby and Ann’s lair of murder or they’d have been waiting on him when he ran from the property. He thought that when he’d crossed over Rothrock Mill Road, it was a coincidence. The dogs were a mob of wild creatures, on the hunt for food, and he just happened to cut into their supper time. Dorn studied the opening. Whoever dug the pit would check it, for what, Van Dorn could only guess; food, and to keep trespassers away, or possibly both. Then he thought of the toy in the pit, the locket he’d discovered. Maybe the owners of these things were like Toby and Ann, eaters of all tissue devoid of husk or shell.

  Looking down on the beast, he couldn’t shoot the hound nor leave it to rot and agonize or be eaten. He decided to offer the animal a choice. Salvage its life.

  Glancing about the forest of foliage, Dorn searched for something vined, ropy, and something of length. And it dawned on him all at once, touching his belt, then the leather that ran over his shoulder, crossed his torso with the hem of brass casings for the .30-30 that he no longer carried. Limped to the edge. Peered down upon the feral hound once again. It lay as it had moments ago, unmoving, eyeing Van Dorn. If the dog stood, he could noose the belt around its neck. Then he’d have to tug it up by its head, hoping not to break nor damage the tendons or vocals of its throat or, even worse, strangle it. Even then, getting his belt from its nape could enrage the brute. Cause it to go into hysterics. Test his hand, leave Dorn no other choice than to end its life.

  As he unbuckled the strap of leather from his waist, his skinner fell to the ground. Van Dorn ran the belt back through the buckle, creating a small snare to lasso around the spiked fur of the dog. Took the other end of the belt that he’d hold, mended and knotted it to the belt of bullets he’d pulled off. Thumbing the cartridges from their loops. Tested his tying skill’s strength, seeing now that he’d more than enough length, he could only hope he’d not hang the dog before it placed its footing back on solid ground.

  As he lay flat on his belly, ache ran up from his ankle, through his hip, over his ribs, and to arms outstretched over the opening. The dog raised its head as Van Dorn lowered the homemade gin toward its snout. Beneath the dog lay the piled and unmoving. Scents rose as Van Dorn inhaled their fuming discharges.

  In the canine’s eyes sat a pity, deep and cavernous as though bedded in a wilderness that had once been civil and overnight turned lunatic and barbaric. The dog did not snarl. It only bored into Van Dorn’s vision. Letting him fling the noose over its monstrous bloodhound head. He took this as a sign. And told the feral dog, “Know that I’m offering you life, not death, can only hope you’re just as generous.”

  Working from his elbows to his knees, Van Dorn stood and slowly tugged the belt. The dog went with the pull. Van Dorn maneuvered with its weight, going hand over hand. The knots of the leather tightened, the dog reared back on its neck, as if to keep tension from its throat, then the heft of its weight came all at once and the hound hung in the air, dangled within the pit like a monstrous drop of mucus being dragged up the side of the dirt wall, gurgling and hacking through its nose. Van Dorn above, rearing his weight backward.

  Shaking and tremoring, Van Dorn’s legs and arms burned acidic. His ankle a chemical reaction of pain as though vinegar and baking soda were being combined. Kneeling, he continued placing hand over hand till he could see the hound’s penuche-colored skull. Leaned and lowered himself over the edge. Held tight with one hand to the leather belt. Red fired his complexion, his other hand reached and wrapped around the dog’s chest. Grunting, Dorn felt the pop of his own shoulder and back muscles, giving one final heave, almost falling forward. Then taking the weight of the dog and dropping backward like a wrestling suplex.

  On his back he lay, looking up into the limbs of tree overhead that roofed his vision, the sky peeked through in hints of C4 putty and cotton whites. Blood rushed to his head. A relay of inhales and gasps. His heart fluttered and his lungs scorched. The odor of retch spread over his chest. Like that of a rotted carcass or sun-baked coon found along the rutted surface of country passages where vultures fed.

  The slow thump of a muscle, not his own but that of the unruly beast, vibrated against his body. Slowly he bent his neck, raised his hands to the leather that collared around the hound’s nape. Removed it. Rolled the dog from atop of him. Spent and unconscious, it lay spread out on its side. Dorn sat on his knees, studied the dog. It looked to be an oversize pup, maybe nine to twelve months old. Part bloodhound, part Rottweiler. Its paws were the diameter of a large tuna can. Thick and stealthy, connected to lean-muscled fores and rears. Not starved as he’d thought.

  Nails slick as rubies, rounded off. The coat smudged and crusted with soil and whatever it’d killed and ate. Reaching a hand at its riblets that rose and fell, Van Dorn rested his digits. Then slowly began to stroke them back and forth. Taking in the pulse and warmth of what he’d offered. Life.

  Untying his makeshift noose, he placed brass back into the leather holdings, slid it over his torso. Looped his belt back around his waist, reattached his skinner, when from behind came the clatter of weight over leaves.

  Feeling for his pistol, Van Dorn gripped the .45. Turned with the gun raised. Eyes searching about the wilderness with the oncoming snaps of twig and branch. Over his shoulder, the mongrel stirred and began to growl when Van Dorn took in an enormous shape’s curled husks and dime-sized nares.

  * * *

  Rumors had spewed from hunters’ mouths to the Widow’s ears during deer and turkey season. Thin or sawed-off stumps of men came camouflaged into the mart, divulging the small pockets of breeding. Speaking of swine being nourished on the eggs of ground vertebrae and deer fawns. Some said they’d been taken from Louisiana, brought here some twenty years before by one mangy male on a hunting trip, released into the wilds of southern Indiana. Done over and over, letting them spore and spread.

  Before now it had been just that, a rumor. But here was this appearance of blackened-rind hide and hair thorned all over with tips the shade of dead field brush, ears in
rounded points, hooves digging into the dirt as the snorts scuffed sound. Van Dorn had never laid eyes upon such a creature. As he kneeled, the hound growled behind him, its exhalation of breath nearly gagging him. Smelling of something far beyond rot. Fearing this dog he’d saved would take a jag to the rear of his neck, Dorn began to turn when the hound jetted past him. Belling and kicking up leaf and soil with the pat and dig of pawed claws. Steading fast like a purebred racing greyhound.

  Van Dorn trained the .45 on the wild boar; because he’d helped butcher and process many a hog with his father and the Widow, he knew that, unlike a deer, its lungs were more forward, above the shoulder area. Aiming too low, he’d shoot beneath the boar. Watching it snort and charge into a collision with the mutt that did not back down, he wanted to shoot but couldn’t. Fearing he’d clip and kill the hound as it charged like a spearhead. Dug into the boar’s ribs. Squeals lit up the wilderness. The boar twisted. Lowered its head, tried to root its tusks into the dog. Clawing and swaying; lock-jawed barks followed with the pierce of brutality.

  The hound climbed till it looked as though it were mounting and hunching the boar as it swiveled and bucked. Took the hound for a bull ride till the dog released its clamp. Hit the ground. Yelped. Was knocked senseless. The hound tried to regain its footing. Blood oozed from the boar, dotted and smeared about its hide as it came with its second wind. The hound staggered. Dazed. The boar charged.

  Van Dorn tugged the trigger. Pieces of pork spine greased the air. Van Dorn limped toward the boar, wished he had his .30-30, knowing this would’ve ended with a single shot as he tugged the trigger again. Ribs opened up. The boar squealed. Kept its head lowered and rammed the dog. It belled in pain.

  An explosion concaved the air. Wrung the wilderness of its quiet. An oozing red jackhammered above the boar’s right leg. All four gave out as it lay expelling a sound more chilling than a metal rake screeching down aluminum. As it heaved its final gasp with a silver-dollar-sized puncture within its mount, moisture drained from the beast thick as ketchup.