Free The Dog by Kerstin Ekman Page A

all his
    confusion.
    Something might happen here. He didn't know what. He
    was still frightened. Every time the crouching man moved,
    the dog's muscles went taut. The voice, though, made him
    feel weak with longing. He wanted to run up to the man.
    But at the same time he was terrified.
    So he sat down heavily on his bottom and started thumping
    his back paw against his neck, behind his ear. The
    motion made his chest ache. After some time he got up and
    moved to one side. His body was no longer so rigid. He
    i
    mgm^mmmmr^
    lid
    bear soft sounds and dogs whining from the woods
    But instead of fleeing for his life he walked along the shore
    at a measured, leisurely pace. Once or twice he turned
    around to look at the crouching man, who was still talking,
    on and on, in a soft, lulling tone. When the grey dog was
    out of sight the man stood up and whistled for him. Short,
    high-pitched sounds.
    The grey dog stopped. He was part of the way up the
    slope, heading for the pasture, and he knew he was visible.
    The whistling was like the lulling voice. He was drawn to it.
    Deep inside, deep down, was everything that had happened
    between himself and the man. It had happened
    between a litter of puppies and a deep-voiced fellow who
    could shrink to half his own size by going down on his
    knees. He had a voice that made them so excited they would
    pee all over the linoleum and nip at his sweater sleeves and
    fingertips.
    It was not lost. It did not begin to happen again when
    the man whistled and called. But something shifted,
    moved.
    He didn't go any farther than the barn. Once there he lay
    down and listened. He licked his coat thoroughly clean. He
    had a bleeding sore high up on one shoulder that his tongue
    couldn't reach. He tried rubbing it with one paw and then
    licking the paw clean. He was thirsty and would have wandered
    farther afield for water, would have gone all the way to
    the beaver tarn, enveloping himself in the silence, if it hadn't
    been for that whistling. The short, high-pitched sounds
    reached him off and on. His chest ached where he had been
    kicked. He wanted to lie still for a long time. It hurt when
    he breathed.
    He didn't see the men pull the female moose up out of
    the lake. But the sickening smells of blood and excrement
    came to him on the wind. When the men left, carrying
    heavy loads and taking the dogs, straining at their leashes, he
    withdrew. But he came back to listen. All he could hear was
    the rustling of the leaves and the little waves breaking against
    the stones on the shore.
    When he walked down to the lake the injured rib in his
    chest ached; it hurt more when he moved. But thirst
    drove him. Lapping up water, he stood with his paws in the
    lake, feeling the chill spread through him, deadening the
    pain. He walked a little farther out, letting himself be
    numbed.
    Then he heard the whistling again. He turned fast, trying
    to run up out of the water, but he stumbled, hunched and
    stiff. Once he was out of the lake he didn't stop until he was
    halfway up to the barn. The man was still at the spot where
    they had cut up the moose. He'd been completely still until
    that moment.
    The soft whistling kept the dog there. He lay in the grass
    listening to what the man was doing. Most of his tasks were
    silent ones, but now and then he would break dry branches
    or split a log. The smell of smoke wafted up. And that occasional
    whistling.
    Once they both appeared in the open. The dog stood up
    in the grass. The man stepped forward to the edge of the
    birch brushwood that extended from the point up towards
    the pasture. After a while they both withdrew again, one
    silently, the other whistling softly.
    Late that afternoon two boats came and collected the
    man and the moose meat, which he had butchered into
    manageable pieces. The man paced uneasily. When he left
    with the other men he was whistling, but the dog didn't let
    himself be seen. When the voices and the sound of the oars
    in the water were