After the Snow by S. D. Crockett Read Free Book Online Page B

the valleys, rising up from the sea. One minute you been lost in the snow-covered heather in the lee of a crag and the next you get up on high and see the sea stretching away, far off from Harlech to Barmuth. It’s a mighty big place.
    So it’s good when I tuck down among the craggy rocks at the bottom of the pass and follow the hill. I stop when I round the bluff.
    There it is. That ragged little house. I pick my way a bit careful down toward it, remembering those black toes sticking up out of the rags. I wonder how that body got there and who put it there and all that gruesome kind of stuff that make me want to turn back. But everything good and quiet. I go down through the pass and stand out in front.
    I got a funny feeling. I don’t like this place. Really. I’m glad I aint those two kids been left here all on my own. They sure gonna be pleased to see me.
    I bang on the door.
    “It’s me,” I shout. “I come back with some food.”
    I wait there for what feel like a pretty long time but nothing happen. No sound come from in the house or nothing.
    I bang again. Feel like someone watching me which don’t feel good.
    “It’s me who came with the sled,” I say. “Said I gonna come
back with some food for you and your brother. I aint lying see. I aint gonna just leave you.”
    Right by the door is a small boarded window and I step up to it. Maybe I’m gonna be able to get a look inside cos I still don’t hear nothing.
    But right when I lean forward to look through a crack in the boards something catch my eye. Down in the snow. I stare down and my eyes follow the footprints. Down to the end of the house. Down where the shed is.
    And as I follow those tracks, I raise my head up and I see him.
    His head coming out from round the end of the house. Like he just heard me. He aint pleased to see me here cos I can see he’s been busy. His mouth all dirty and red.
    That hungry dog will kill you, boy!
    Good dog calling me loud.
    “Let me in!” I shout at the door.
    The blooded dog aint moving yet but he’s gonna. He’s growling low down in his throat. He’s big and thick in the shoulders—black turning to brindle gray.
    He come right out from around the end of the house and stand foursquare straight at me, head and shoulders flat and low. He aint scared of me—I see it then.
     
     
    Big hungry dog with manblood on his mouth.
     
     
    “Hey, girl. It’s me. Let me in or the dog gonna get me!”
     
     
    The growling dog step forward. Our eyes meet. For that moment everything been hanging in a dark tunnel between us. His spit splatter out across the snow as he rage deep down in his hungry guts. His jaws snap. Mouth open. Teeth bared. Eyes full of fearsome anger.
     
     
    He’s gonna get me down in two seconds.
     
     
    There’s a crunch in the snow—she-dog slinking along the front of the house behind me—
    “Let me in!”
    Her shackles are high. Growl make my blood turn cold. Those two dogs kind of talking to each other now about how they gonna bring me down and the fear burst open inside me flooding down my legs.
    Then, like a miracle, the door of that house open.
    I don’t think nothing. Just fall inside. And big dog bound forward angry and dump down in the snow where I been standing.
    But the door bang shut at my back.
    The dog jump up—his heavy feet shudder against the door—and I can hear his slobbering rasps of anger behind the wood. My chest heave up and down so fast with breathing I think I’m gonna fall.
     
     
    “You aren’t going to hurt us, are you?”
    It’s so dark I can’t even see the girl.
    There’s a nasty smell in here.
    The girl witter on. My heart been beating so fast I think I’m
gonna faint in this cold dank dark place, and I been mighty pleased I can’t see that thin pale face for a minute or two. But pretty soon she stop talking.
    I kind of pull myself together then cos I got to think this thing out good, what with that mean dog slathering just a board’s width behind