THE DOG WITH HUMAN EYES

Copyright (c) 2020 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

THE DOG

WITH HUMAN EYES

By R. Peterson

My step-pappy always found mean in the last few swallows of Old Crow and he went looking every day. I learned to be gone when each bottle was near-empty. Ralph Mohsen was probably a decent man once or else my Ma wouldn’t have married him after Pa died … but I don’t remember. Ma passed-on when I was six. The last three years had been just me, him and his scraggly Canadian scarf kicking around on an Arkansas weed-patch … with another thirty-seven acres of cotton share cropped-out to a no-good-negro-family, his words not mine, … for taxes and drinking money.

One Saturday I dumped an arm-load of empties in the barrel near the back door and found a dollar-bill stuck to a whiskey-bottle with chewing tobacco. Annie’s General Store was four miles through tangled-woods but I was determined to get there before noon to spend my fortune. I showed up late, after taking the long-way around two skunks trying to make babies.

Annie asked if I wanted to buy a pup when she was pulling licorice-whips out of a glass jar. “What kend is dey?” I tried to talk like a man with money, but the truth was … I didn’t know a dog from a duck.

“They’s Heins fifty-sevens,” she says … and then laughed to let me know she wasn’t sure.

Four pups was crying in a cardboard box with ragged-shirts and socks for bedding. “You got sixty-two cents coming,” she says, beginning to bargain. “I’ll give you a pup, a rope and two day-long suckers … since you’re a favorite customer.”

My momma didn’t raise no fool! “Throw in a bottle of Nehi Orange and you gots a deal,” I said.

I was drinking the pop with the pup under my arm when I noticed its eyes was not right. Something about them gave me the shivers. They was like no dog’s that I’d ever seen! I tied the pup in the barn, fed the chickens and looked to see if Ralph was sleeping-one-off before I figured it out.

Them eyes was a bad-shade of blue … like my momma’s skin looked … when they pulled her from the well.

-------2-------

The next morning I was feeding hogs and I heard the pup yelping. I knew Ralph had found her. I’d tied the pup in the corner just past the milking stalls and Ralph was kicking her with his boots. The poor thing couldn’t get away.  There was a broken rake handle that Ralph used to beat the cows into the chutes. I’d always put a little hay in their troughs and never had any trouble. I hit him in the back twice before he turned his boots and his fists on me.

When I woke up I could hear him singing in the house and I knew his bottle was near gone. The dog was cowering in the corner … forgotten by him for now. I untied the pup and we lit out for the river. I’d walked along the dark waters too many times in the full moonlight … but this time I had a friend along. I decided to call the pup Starlight. She licked the blood off my face and I wiped the blood off her nose with a torn-shirt soaked in river water. We were friends.

It was almost morning when we came home. I decided to leave Starlight untied … at least that way she had a chance. I think Ralph looked everywhere for that dog the first week. Starlight was never around when he was … I made a whistle from a willow stick and she always came when I called. “That bitch shows up again and I’ll shoot her,” Ralph promised.

Ralph cooked me breakfast for two days after the beating: runny eggs and burnt potatoes. He said it was my fault I got beat up but that he was sorry and he’d never lay a hand on me again. It’s what he always said … he was a liar. Ralph was just who he was. He didn’t care none about nobody or anything. I knew he didn’t give a lick about me.

After Ma died he talked to a lawyer from Ward and found out the farm was in my name. I listened in from the back porch while they was talking. The will couldn’t be changed. If I was to die, an uncle who lived in Kentucky would get the farm. Ralph needed me around and alive. Besides … I did all the work.

-------3-------

Ralph somehow got Ma’s old truck running and started being gone at nights. I think he was running moonshine for the Grover brothers. They was a mean bunch that always packed knives and shotguns … and even the Lonoke County Sheriff was afraid of them.

Starlight grew fast and two months later was bigger than most. We spent all the time we could fishing the river and chasing down rabbits. I’ll leave it to you to decide who did what. She had a big fluffy tail that was always wagging. I swear sometimes when I looked in her eyes she seemed to be smiling. We was as happy as two creatures could be.

One morning Ralph left the truck running when he staggered into the house. I shut it off. Gasoline was near forty cents a gallon at Annie’s store. There was blood smeared on the steering wheel and on the gear-shift lever. I wasn’t surprised when Sheriff Moss showed up the next day with two State Police officers. Ralph yelled while I was hoeing beans and they all made me come in the house and answer questions.

A chewed-off leg belonging to a Bible salesman from Georgia had been found by the road three miles from our farm. They all wanted to see Ralph’s truck and we all went outside to have a look. I’d never seen any Ford so clean. I opened my mouth to say something and Ralph knocked me on the ground. “You don’t talk unless you’re spoken to!”

Sheriff Moss smiled. “You’re raisin’ him right,” he says.

“It’s that damn stray you brought home!” Ralph bellowed. “Must have got into rabies in the woods!”

The cops all said if I saw the dog again to let Ralph know … so he could shoot it.

I found a spot for Starlight down in a gully and would bring her leftovers when I could. She was back on a chain never came near our farm. One morning three police cars pulled into our barnyard. They found a bloody hand in the barn … before they woke up Ralph. “Lenard Grover’s car hit something in the road,” one of the cops said. “Looks like he stopped to see what it was … and got attacked.”

They asked Ralph if he knowed anything about the severed hand in the barn. He said it was my dog and to ask me. They wasn’t leaving him alone and asked him lots of questions. Then one of the officers found what looked like giant wolf tracks by the barn. We all went to take a look. I don’t know what made them … but it wasn’t Starlight.

An hour later there was half a dozen trucks at our farm. There were at least thirty men with guns, including the rest of the Grover Brothers, and two packs of tracking hounds. There were three dog carcasses from neighboring farms that had been strung-up and skinned-alive in the back of one truck. “Lord you should have heard then howl,” Vic Grover boasted. We ain’t cat people … but we’re taking no chances.”

They was drinking whiskey and having a good time.

I was trying to think how I could get to Starlight and turn her loose when Ralph came out of the house with my home-made whistle. “She’ll bark when you blow on this,” he said handing my call to the sheriff.

            “You should have let me stomp her down,” Ralph said to me right before he left with the trackers. “Now she ain’t gonna go easy!” He smiled and patted his knife when he saw the tears in my eyes.

I stood by the well crying I could hear the hounds baying as they picked up a scent. I fell to my knees and began to pray as I stared into the dark hole they’d pulled my Ma out of. “Please God,” I begged. “Don’t let them hurt her!”

TO BE CONTINUED …