The Savage(27)

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.