Spirit
The dog is frozen against the fence post. Mouth open, tongue grey, frost in the creases of its eyes. He left them outside the first night. The storm wasn’t that bad yet, he figured. In the morning he dragged it off by the back legs and didn’t think about it much. Brought the rest inside. Chained them to the wall studs with the back of his axe and some rusty nails he scavenged.
That was two weeks ago.
He picks up his bottle, light and hollow, and tips it anyway. One cold drop hits his tongue. He hurls it at the dogs. It smashes against the wall behind them. They don’t move.
Outside the storm is the same as yesterday and the day before. Wind whipping hard off the lake, ice packed against the door so it scrapes when he tries to open it. He doesn’t bother now.
The leg stinks. Putrid-sweet, rot underneath it, getting worse day by day. He wrapped it himself when the bone went sideways under him on the ice. The wrapping is grey and stiff and he doesn’t touch it.
Seven dogs chained along the north wall. The floor under them is black with piss and old shit. The stench overpowers his own rot. Almost. The man doesn’t care about the stink. Or that the dogs live in it. He built them this way: mean, obedient, quiet unless he wanted noise. He’s proud of the work. A dog that doesn’t back down is a dog worth feeding. He walks, hobbles, the line some mornings just to watch them hold still while he passes.
He kicks the closest one now with his ruined leg and curses with pain. The dog doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t show teeth, doesn’t whimper. Just holds still and watches him.
He moves back to the cot.
The woodpile is gone. He broke up the second chair yesterday. One chair left, then the table, then the cot legs. He does the math. But it doesn’t change a thing.
Three more days. He marks them on the wall with the knife. It’s a habit when time gets slippery. The storm doesn’t care about his marks.
The food is low. He eats more than his share. The dogs get what they get. They’re always restless now, the chains working against the wall bolts, that metal-on-wood sound going all night.
He hits them with the ash-bucket shovel when the ruckus gets bad. They’ve stopped. They just watch him now.
The next day two of them go at each other. He hears it from the cot, gets up too fast, and puts weight on the leg. He goes down hard, shoulder into the floor, and lies there watching.
The fight gets serious. Not posturing. The smaller one always had something soft about it, some hesitation he never fully beat out. It’s losing. The bigger dog has its throat and isn’t letting go. It whips its head back and forth as it rips. Tears.
The man watches from the floor. He can’t get up.
The small dog stops moving. Warm blood mixes in with the stench. The pack closes in. He approves. His dogs. His work.
He’s hungry enough.
He crawls to what’s left. The blood is already freezing on the floor. He pulls meat off with his hands, doesn’t think about what he’s pulling. Swallows without chewing much. His beard is wet with it when he’s done. He wipes it on his sleeve.
He sweats through the blanket, and the cold sweat dries, and his body heats again. The stink of pus fills the cabin. Sweat, rot and piss and the grease of eight bodies in a small space and the smoke from burning any and everything. None of it burns quite right.
He still walks the line when he can stand. Shorter trips. He hits them because it’s what he does in the morning, same as the knife marks on the wall. The dogs don’t flinch anymore. He’s finally got them squared right.
The fever brings nothing useful. Heat and confusion and sometimes he’s shouting at someone who isn’t there. He comes back to the cabin, the filth, the dark, the sound of the dogs breathing and shifting, chains scraping the floor.
He burns the last scrap of wood in the night. Watches it sputter and burn. The heat doesn’t reach far. He drags the cot closer to the stove and the dogs shift with him, chains scraping across the floor, their breath coming in clouds in the cold.
The lead dog moves closest to the cot. He trained that one longest. Broke it the most. It took two seasons to get the last of the softness out. He looks at it. Doesn’t kick it. That’s enough.
The man sleeps.
He can’t stand. He can’t crawl. The leg is black to the knee. He knows it’s done. He’s done. His curses are whispers.
He hears the chains. Then doesn’t.
The dogs come in close. All of them, or most. He hears their breathing, can feel the heat of them in the cold cabin, the warmth of the pack just being that close. The lead dog is at his leg. He expects the pain and braces what little he can brace.
The tongue is warm. Wetter than he expects. More of them come. He can hear them working. The wet sounds of it, the low growl some of them carry even doing this. The wrapping comes loose. The pus smell hits hard and fresh. They don’t stop.
Good dogs, he thinks. My dogs.
