The Dog by Kerstin Ekman Read Free Book Online

Bumblebees
    sting in your mouth. He knows.
    THE DOG
    In his drowsiness he gazes out across the familiar pasture.
    The grey fluttering of birds. The flecks of butterflies. The
    grass is fragrant and the air is filled with pollen.
    In the mornings he sees the vixen. She's usually there
    before he is, hunting for voles, surrounded by a haze of powerful
    scent. Ifhe he rushes her she vanishes, running low in the
    grass, which closes above her.
    They've never approached each other but he's lain on a
    hill above the inlet, looking down on her den. Her cubs
    often come out in the sun. Growling, they squabble over
    bird wings. Though there are sometimes food scraps outside
    the den he never goes down there. There's something
    between the foxes and him, something that keeps them
    apart.
    The pasture is his. It billows under his drowsy gaze, humming
    and whirring.
    Catching the young hare brought about a change in him. So
    much blood and warmth at once. Such extended pleasure,
    along with the lingering sense of surprise.
    It had happened quickly. The hare popped up in the grass,
    rustling in a clump of ferns. With a single leap he had him;
    the smell of blood merged with the smell of broken ferns.
    The rustling of stiff fronds and their bittersweet fragrance
    excited him long afterwards.
    The full-grown hares kept their distance. Not so long ago
    he'd thought of them as huge. As a pup he'd kept still by the
    root of a spruce when they bounded by on the crust of the
    snow. He hadn't felt safe.
    It was the same with the large birds, the black or brown
    speckled ones that flapped up from the thicket. For a long
    time he didn't dare hunt them, remembering the hard wing
    of the owl, the reprimand in his own pasture.
    But now there were others like those hares, only smaller
    and more afraid. The fine hairs of fur so erect the downy
    undercoat caught the light. The eye. The smell of death even
    before his fangs sank in. The stench of terror.
    Prey.
    There were wood grouse chicks in the grass. Cheeping,
    scurrying in the same glassy-eyed terror of being caught.
    The dog was changing, growing into his muscular body.
    Inside him, something was evolving: a purpose. Filling his
    mouth with blood and warmth, keeping it filled. Pouncing
    when he heard a rustling noise. Sinking in his fangs. What
    was there to be afraid of in the shadows? His body was nearly
    full grown now. It hardened around this awareness: can
    strike. Am stronger than the rustling and the shadows.
    The warm nights brought gnats and black flies. They
    plagued him and he never got used to it; the torment didn't
    become part of him. He tried to flee but there was nowhere
    the insects didn't catch up with him. The flies crept into his
    eyes, the gnats settled in his belly fur. He licked the swellings
    they left. Only the wind brought relief.
    The voices were also part of the warm nights. He avoided
    them. Now he was sleeping up in the woods, on windy
    mountain slopes where the gnats and flies were swept away,
    but the unfamiliar terrain made him uneasy. The wind was
    blowing too hard for him to hear properly. He was on edge.
    In the mornings, when he came down to the pasture to
    hunt, the voices were gone. The smell of smoke hung in the
    air. Gusts of wind brought other enticing smells, thick and
    unfamiliar. He began going down to the shore and searching.
    There was fish blood on the stones. If he got there
    before the vixen he might come across a tiny, stiff fish that
    had been left. He found rubbery sausage skins. Although
    they were salty and hard to chew, he couldn't resist then;. He
    was thirsty after going through the scraps the fishermen had
    left by the cold campfire, and his mouth burned. He lay at
    the edge of the lake by the boat landing, licking his paws
    clean from grease and soot. Then he took a long drink of
    cold lake water.
    From the bramble down by the shore a surge of living
    creatures makes its way toward the pasture. The air is humming
    and sticks in his throat