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
Part
2
By
R. Peterson
I grabbed Ralph’s
hunting gun and headed off toward the sound of the tracking hounds. Don’t ask
me why; I was scared for Starlight and had to do something. I heard all them other
dogs barking close together along with drunk men yelling and I figured they
must have found her. I fired Ralph’s four-ten in the air and yelled as loud as
I could. “Come on girl! Let’s get ourselves out of here!” And I tried to lead
them away. That’s when all hell broke loose. I could hear men and dogs coming
through the trees toward me. I can outrun almost anything when I’m scared … and
I was terrified.
Tracking dogs in
Arkansas is mostly used for hunting raccoons and all I lacked was a little bit
longer nose and a striped tail. I crashed through huckleberry and thorn-brush
that would tear the arms off a man with any meat on them. Being so thin, made
me harder to snag-up. I was about two miles away from where I’d left Starlight,
winded and gasping for air, when I climbed a tree.
Ralph, a dozen men, and
a pack of dogs surrounded the tree trunk. “You come down out of there right now
and show us where you got that bitch hid … and the beating will go easy!”
I was no fool. I knew
what was coming. I held out as long as I could. Luke Grover finally climbed the
tree and snagged my foot. He was a part-time lumberjack, when he wasn’t making
whiskey, and he twisted my leg until two toes broke. I was bawling when they
pulled me down.
I don’t remember
telling them where Starlight was, all I remember was limping ahead of them to
the spot with my nose bleeding …and my ears ringing something awful. My dog was
gone. The rope was still tied to the tree but it had been chewed in half part
way down. I don’t remember much of the rest of that night. I remember Sheriff
Moss telling Ralph to stop kicking me because my death would complicate things.
Somebody carried me in the house and dropped me in a pile by the woodstove.
-------2-------
Somebody was pounding
on the door and Ralph yelled for me to see who it was. I was stiff and could
hardly walk. It took a minute to open the door. I’ve never seen Sheriff Moss as
wide-eyed and as scared as he was that morning. He had three deputies with him
and they was all packing guns. “Something broke into the Grover’s house last
night and ripped Clevis Grover’s head clean off,” he said. I noticed he said something … not someone. “Daryl and Otis
is dead too. They still got their heads, but they was chewed-on something
awful. Luke spent the night with that whore who lives down the river. He found
his kin all kilt this morning and lit out for the state police in Little Rock.”
“You best be getting
after that bitch dog then,” Ralph told the sheriff.
“This here ain’t no more
my problem,” the sheriff said. “I found extra big tracks circling my house when
I fed chickens this morning. I figure whatever killed the Grover family is
coming for me next! You brought this trouble into our woods and you better take
care of it!”
-------3-------
Ralph didn’t say
nothing to me the next couple of days. It wasn’t like him and he was too quiet.
I thought about Starlight a lot and I hoped she was okay. On Friday Bill
Sievers stopped by and told us about the sheriff. It looked like somebody had
forced his county car off the road and then broke out most of the windows. They
found parts of his body scattered up and down the road and had to put most of
them into plastic bags.
Luke Grover never come
back to our neck of the woods and Ralph was extra nice to me. He never laid a
hand on me once.
One evening when I was
gathering hay for the milk cows, Starlight appeared around the side of the
barn. She was bigger than I remember but half-starved and limping on both paws
like she’d jumped through a broken window. I filled a bowl with water from the
well and tried to get her to drink. Ralph must have heard me trying to coax her
into coming to me.
Just when I thought she
was going to trust me, Ralph came out of the house with a raw steak from the
ice-box and the four ten hid behind his back. She growled once when she saw him
but quieted down when he began to talk nice. He was standing with his back
against the well and I heard the hammer on the gun click when he got it ready
to fire.
Starlight stopped about
twenty feet in front of him and looked at me. She whined like she was just
lonesome for friends. I opened my mouth and no words would come out. Then Ralph pulled the whistle I’d made out of
his pocket and blew on it. Starlight began to wag her tail walking toward him.
Her eyes was on the meat.
I don’t know if I
screamed but I wanted to. I saw Starlight flying through the air toward Ralph
just as he brought the shotgun barrel up. Her mouth looked like them teeth they
paint on World War II fighter planes.
I heard the blast and I
was running toward her. When the smoke cleared, she lay on the ground bleeding.
Her crying made my eyes water up. Ralph had fell backward into the well and I
could hear him splashing around in the water far below and hollering for me to
let down the rope.
Starlight was quiet …
too quiet.
I used my shirt and the
water in the bowl to wipe away the blood. Several pellets had grazed her
stomach … but she looked okay.
I carried her into the
house.
-------4-------
Ralph continued to cry-out
long after dark came, and sometimes he was bawling. Other times he was cursing me
something awful, describing all the ways he was gonna slow-skin me once he got
out. I got so I couldn’t take it no more and after I put an old door over the
well, me and Starlight lit out for the river. The moon was glistening off the
water and after a while me and Starlight both felt happier than we’d been in
some time. I don’t know if it was the night, the wind in the trees or something
else but I could hear my mother whispering to me … telling me what to do.
I think Starlight could
hear that voice too … she seemed to know.
The next morning there
was no more sound coming from the barnyard … or the well. Starlight had a
fever, probably infection from the gunshot. The evil men do, lives long after
they do and Ralph had always kept old rusty shells. I tried to keep her warm.
She was hurt worse than I thought.
After I put back the old
door covering the well and did a couple of other things, I walked to the
neighbors and told them with my eyes full of real tears that Ralph had had an
accident. But the tears weren’t for him.
-------5-------
When they pulled Ralph
from the well he was black all over and not blue like my mom. I was glad of
that. It looked like they was bound for different heavens. The well was
floating with empty whiskey bottles and they figured he was drunk when he fell
in.
I was too upset to go
to the funeral. I don’t know who showed up.
-------6-------
The new sheriff was as
good as Sheriff Moss was bad. He checked on me near every day and then insisted
on taking Starlight in for a rabies test on account he said some folks claimed
my dog was trouble. Starlight was almost dead when they carried her to the car …
but at least they was gentle.
It near broke my heart
when they drove away. I’d always thought she would get better.
My uncle Pete from
Kentucky came to live on the farm and after I’d cried for a few days, me and
him got along just fine. He was just about the hardest working man I ever saw.
He made me go to school and kicked the back of my pants a few times when I
caught a bigger fish than he did, but he taught me how to laugh.
-------7-------
I’d just about given up
on ever seeing Starlight again and was stunned when the sheriff’s car pulled
into the farm yard. I dropped a whole bucket of milk … and it spilled
everywhere. Pete was happy too. He threw the pail he was carrying. Starlight
was out of the car like a bullet and knocked me down. She licked my face until
I near drowned and her tail was dusting me like a broom.
“I’m sorry it took so
long to get her back to you,” the sheriff said. “She’s clean as they come and
to be honest … almost everyone at the courthouse wanted to keep her.”
-------8-------
Things were back better
than they had ever been. Starlight was with me wherever I went. One morning she
wasn’t in the barn when I went in to do the milking. I didn’t see her for two
days and was near frantic. She showed up limping from a knife-wound and with a tiny
little dog following behind her that was no bigger than a cat. They was
friends.
It looked like no dog
I’d ever seen. Someone had cut out round pieces of cheesecloth and most likely
soaked them in cornstarch to make them stiff then attached them to the back of a
tiny green costume the dog wore. The collar had the name Tinkerbelle stamped in the leather and a metal tag with some
numbers. I figured someone had made up this dog to look like the fairy from
that Disney movie.
I asked all the
neighbors and no one knew anything about the dog. The next time I went in
Annie’s General Store to get our mail I asked if anyone had lost a dog. Annie
told me gypsies from a traveling-carnival had showed up a day or so before
looking for a dog they had taught to perform in a stage show. That woman Annie is
as smart as a fox and could wring the truth out of a sober politician. She said
one of the gypsies confessed to her that they had stolen the dog from a country
called England while they was crossing Europe. They lit out when she said she
was going for the sheriff. I’d learned a bunch about England in school and knew
it was full of castles. I figured this dog must belong to a Queen … Kings like big dogs.
Pete said that dogs
were like people and they belonged with the ones who love them. He somehow came
up with enough cash-money to put a five-line lost and found notice in a fancy London
newspaper. He told what Tinkerbelle looked like and the numbers on the tag and
who we thought took her. The money them folks over there use is called pounds and Pete said it was a lot
heavier than our kind. We’re still waiting for a letter to come in the mail. I
figure it will. God works in mysterious ways … and not just for church goers.
-------9-------
I’d brushed away all them
big muddy wolf tracks months before
except for one which I dug up real careful and hid under a straw-pile in the
barn. One night after the milking, I called Starlight over and I compared both
her paws with the print I’d been saving. Tinkerbelle sat there watching us with
her paw on a squirming barn-rat she’d caught in the corner. She was one mighty proud
and haughty fairy-dog. I looked them paws, and that wolf-print, over real
careful under the lantern light.
I won’t say it came from
Starlight, but I won’t lie either.
Some things are better
left for me, my ma … and the dog with human eyes to know.
THE END ?
