The Dog Days of Fall

The puppies were whining. Whimpering. The high pitched sounds of babies hungry for milk. They hadn’t even opened their eyes yet, he knew. New births. He could smell them. Could see the burlap bulge and move with their squirming, their tiny bodies weighing next to nothing in the sack he held by the knotted and bunched cloth in his hands.

“Take these pups down to the crick and drown them,” his pop had said, steam lifting from his mouth in the cold.

Silas knew better than to question the old man. He knew the man’s temper, and the ways it manifested itself into fists, or worse. His backside knew the bite of rawhide and green sticks pulled from trees, just as his face knew the bruises of quick flashed backhands that left his world in bright and brief suns of disarray. There was nothing he could say. He had to do as he was told.

“Can’t be havin’ any more mouths to feed. Dumb animals can’t stop screwin', trying to put us in the welfare line,” Pop had said. “We ain’t beggars.”

“Yes, sir,” Silas had said, making sure to show no sign of emotion.

Pop had shoved the coarse brown sack at him with a sneer. His gray eyes seemed to glimmer with a hint of mocking pleasure.

“Well, get it done then. And be quick about it. Plenty more to do before supper.” He spat and walked away.

The path down to the creek was just trampled dirt. A winding trail between the trees behind their shack, worn smooth by their countless footsteps packing the fallen leaves into the earth, crumbling brown husks into dust. Overhead, the limbs creaked. Black-shadowed limbs contrasted the grey October. Leaves that had yet to fall rustled on the wind, a cold sound. Something scampered through loose foliage out of sight. Probably a squirrel. But the forest seemed more silent than ever to Silas, as if it knew the deed he had come to do, and it was watching.

Before he reached the water, he could hear it. The sound of creek trickling over stone, a genuinely soothing music. But today that sound brought him no comfort. Instead it seemed unnervingly loud, a bright metal nail dragged across the glass window of the sky.

Silas neared the bank where he knew the water was deepest. The moist ground sunk slightly as it accepted his footfalls, as if with just a bit more weight, he could be swallowed completely by the soil. As if the whole world was a grave waiting to happen. He stood at the edge and looked down.

Beneath him, the brown water swirled next to the bank’s muddy edge. White light reflected in the ripples and vibrated like strange galaxies on another plane of existence. Silas could feel the October air in his nostrils, burning in its crispness, even as he could smell the tinge of creek water and wet earth. Such a serene spot for death.

He didn’t want to do this. His throat tightened at the thought, but it tightened worse at the thought of disobeying his father. The heart in his chest was suddenly hammering much too hard. His senses were amplified by anxiety. He clutched the burlap bag to his breast, feeling the warmth of the animals inside. They seemed afraid. How could such tiny creatures already know fear? They mewled and cried, infants in need of their mother, sounding strangely almost human in their infancy.

I can’t. I can’t. I can’t, Silas thought. His mind went to Rosie, their loyal German Shepherd. He could picture her dark eyes, watching him from her spot beneath the shed. He wondered if she knew what was happening to her children.

I can’t.

But then he did.

The burlap sack flew from his arms. It splashed heavy in the pooled water. There was a brief flurry of intensified yelps as the puppies in the bag seemed to sense the danger, or maybe they felt the pain of the fall. But then they were gone, submerged, nothing but a cluster of bubbles gurgling where the burlap had soaked and descended. The silence that followed was claustrophobic.

Silas allowed himself to weep. He fell to his knees, put his face in his hands. He was just eleven years old. Suddenly he felt much older, crowded close to the edge of that adult sensation of helplessness. Forcing himself to calm, he smeared the tears from his cheeks with dirty palms. He couldn’t keep his pop waiting for long.

***

That night, sleep would not come. The pillow where he rested his head seemed to squirm beneath his skull. Each time he approached the precipice of rest he would hear the baby pups crying next to his ear, and he would shake awake, clothed in a cold layer of sweat. There was something about that final scream. Something so guttural and shrill. It pierced his memory like a hot needle. It sent a chill through his very core.

Daylight came much too soon. He dragged himself from his bed and begun his daily chores, bleary eyed, yawning. The stack of firewood next to the shack was low, and he went about the task of refilling it, lost in the whirlwind of thoughts trapped between consciousness and almost dreams. He almost didn’t notice the blood.

One of the sticks of wood felt sticky in his hand as he was placing it in the crook of his arm. Silas turned it over to see if it was anything other than some residual sap. Instead, there was a prominent splotch of bright red drying to the smooth bark. It was obvious was it was.

What the hell? Silas thought, glancing around for his father. The old man was not in sight. Crouching, he noticed now that there were spots of blood drying on the ground next to the stacked wood. He followed the trail of droplets around behind the shed. There, they stopped, and the ground had clearly been disturbed. Setting his sticks aside, Silas knelt and brushed away the loose, mounded dirt. His fingers rested quickly in matted fur.

Silas felt his stomach turn. His breath caught in his mouth as he gasped in disgust. Here. Here were the newborn pups. Their tiny heads had been smashed cruelly to mush. Silas turned away and retched, but nothing came up. His mouth was full of saliva and he spat.

“What are you doin’, boy?”

It was his father. He was standing several feet behind him. Silas froze, his eyes brimming with tears.

“Nothin’. I ain’t doin’ nothin’. Just getting firewood.”

“Find somethin’ there, did ya?”

“I guess so.”

Silas stood on shaky legs and turned slowly to face his old man. Jasper Cole was a thin, tall figure. His blue flannel coat hung loose about his body. Whiskered face, speckled with gray that seemed to eerily match his eyes. Worn brown hat pulled down over his forehead, ear flaps flaring comedically away. But this wasn’t funny. In his hands, Jasper Cole held an axe.

“I guess you best forget what you just found. Unless you want to worry about what you took to the crick yest’ry.”

“No, sir.”

“Good boy. Good boy, then. Told you yest’ry, we got too many mouths to feed. Lord knows can’t afford another’n.”

Jasper glared at Silas for several stretched seconds. The cords of his neck stood out like tensed cables. Silas could feel sweat dribbling down his back. Something seemed understood between them, an unspoken truth, that to continue down this path much further would end in the most bloody of ways. Jasper turned and stalked off then, muttering to himself as he readjusted his axe.

Silas let out a rush of air from his lungs and collapsed back to the earth. The tears that had brimmed in his eyes now toppled and spilled. What had he done? What had he done?

His body shook with the sobs as he realized the gravity of his actions. The realization came like an unfolding and unspeakable horror, sliding free to reveal itself in his mind like a sheet pulled slowly from a corpse. Rosie wasn’t the only member of the household that had been expecting. The last few weeks his mother had been bedridden with her pregnancy. He had been anxiously awaiting the news of his sister’s birth. Somehow, it had already come.

Overhead the shadow limbs quivered like newborn fingers clawing at the clouds. Silas allowed himself to fall completely to the ground, to feel the coldness of the world working its way through his clothes, into his spine. He lay there for what seemed like hours, watching a distant hawk or buzzard, coasting lazily in circles overhead. He lay there until his flesh seemed so froze, he wondered if he would ever move again. But then his father was shouting at him, and he had to get back to work.

THE END