Jeff Hirsch - The Darkest Path

The ammonia stench of urine clung to my skin as I crossed the kennel and found the bucket of kitchen scraps. It was a gloppy mess of day-old meat, rice, and rotten vegetables. I grabbed a scoop off the shelf and stepped into the aisle, kicking the bucket ahead of me.

The dogs threw themselves against their cages and howled. I just wanted to feed them as fast as possible and get out of there. My arm and my head were screaming. I tossed half rations into each cage, which blunted their frenzy for the ten seconds it took to gobble it all down. I paused at the doorway, looking back at the dogs as they threw their scrawny bodies against the steel, eyes wild, jaws snapping.

Disgusting as Quarles was, Monroe put up with him because he knew how to train an attack dog and how to do it cheaper than any kennel master Cormorant had ever had. Most of the dogs came in as skinny strays, scared and hesitant. They left with a streak of violence running through them like an electrified fence.

I glanced out the door at Quarles, then threw an extra scoop of food into each dog’s cage. They fell to it savagely. I felt heroic for half a second, before I realized that there’s nothing heroic about giving an animal what it deserves.

“What now?” I asked, standing in front of Quarles on the practice field. “Want me to clean the cages?”

The sun was high and Quarles was sweating heavily, his skin blotchier than usual. He sneered at me. “You’d rather muck out cages than watch them tear apart a few dummies. What’s the matter, Roe, feeling a little delicate this morning?”

“They don’t perform well when I’m here,” I said. “You know that.”

Quarles considered a moment. I looked back and saw a company of men kicking up dust as they descended the hill.

“They’re almost here,” I said.

Quarles scooped a dogcatcher pole off the ground and handed it to me. It was a long stick with a sliding handle that tightened a noose at the end.

“Got report of a stray out by the highway. Go see if you can bring him in.”

“With my arm like this?”

A stiff-backed sergeant appeared out of the glare. His men were arranged around him.

“Are you ready, Mr. Quarles?”

Quarles’s own back went straight. “Yes, sir!” he announced, his voice without slur or stutter. “We’re ready whenever you are.”

The sergeant directed his men into the kennel. When he was gone, Quarles looked at me, his hand resting on his belt, between his black club and his revolver.

“Go get that mutt or you’re gonna be down one more arm,” he said. Then he climbed the dusty hill, up to the range.

An abandoned shopping center sat on a little-used highway at the edge of the base. There was an old supermarket. A gas station. A pawnshop. All the windows had been shattered and their signs were bleached to ghostly shades by the relentless Arizona sun.

I stepped onto the cracked parking lot, then circled around to the back, where scrubby weeds gave way to desert. In the far distance were the tops of rock-pile mountains. No dog in sight.

It had taken me nearly an hour to walk to the lot, which meant the soldiers had at least another hour of training to do. There was no way I was going back until they were done. I propped the dogcatcher over my shoulder and walked onto the hard-packed dirt. It was like wading into the ocean, the asphalt shore and sun-bleached bones of the shopping center at my back, an endless plain ahead.

I dropped onto a gravel-and-dirt hill, broiling in my dress uniform and my shined shoes. I hated myself for every second I had spent in the mirror that morning, combing my hair, brushing my clothes. I wanted to look so on Path. The picture of a citizen. I dug into my pocket and pulled out a small metal token. A sunburst bisected by a razor-sharp line. It glowed, growing hot in my palm.

“I have wonderful news,” Monroe had said, standing up behind his great oak desk as I entered. “Quite an honor.”

I stood there, grinning and attentive as a fool, ready for that single word to part his lips. I wanted to hear it so bad I almost swore I had, but then Monroe slid the token across his desk, and the illusion was shattered. I stared at it, my world collapsing down onto that gold pin.

“Generally we make novices become citizens first,” Monroe said. “But your work yesterday was so exemplary, so indicative of a young man on Path that you are excused from that requirement.”

I tore my eyes from the pin. “Sir?”

Monroe beamed, clearly pleased with his own generosity. “You’re our newest recruit, son,” he said. “You are now Private Callum Roe in the Army of the Glorious Path. You’ll be assigned to Sergeant Rhames’s platoon.”

He paused there, waiting for… what? Joy? Thanks? I knew that was what he expected and what I needed to give him — for me, for James — but I couldn’t find it inside me. When I finally managed to speak, my voice was small and shaky.

“And I’ll… be doing what I did at the last base?”

Monroe nodded. “Exactly. Sergeant Rhames will be taking his men on an indefinite campaign into California. You’ll infiltrate a town, preparing it for Rhames and his men. They’ll lead the assault, bringing whoever they can to the Path before moving on. You’ve seen it done, so you know how it works. You leave in three days.” Monroe stuck his hand out across the desk. “Congratulations. It’s an incredible honor.”

“But James,” I said. “He’ll still be made a citizen.”

Monroe dropped his hand. “Callum…”

“You said—”

“I prayed hard on this, son. Believe me. Your brother is a fine valet. Best I ever had. But as much as I may want to, I cannot grant citizenship to someone with his… difficulties.”

“But you gave him the medicine. If he takes it—”

“Giving him that medicine was a sentimental weakness on my part. I shouldn’t have done it and I apologize.”

“But, sir—”

“Each man walks his own Path, Cal. You got where you belong and your brother will do the same in time. You have to trust in that.”

A helicopter flew by, toward Cormorant, kicking a cloud of dust into the empty lot and snapping me back to the present.

The pin lay in my hand like a bit of molten gold. My arm ached to hurl it into the dunes, but I knew I couldn’t. I needed to fix it to my collar and present myself to my new commander. To Rhames. I closed the metal in my fist and got up to go.

That’s when I saw him.

The dog was standing on a nearby dune, watching me intently, his short legs tensed, ready to flee. He looked like a Doberman but at about a quarter of the size. He was deep black with blazes of copper on his legs, chest, and muzzle. Rust-colored pips sat above each eye, giving him expressive little eyebrows. His tail had been docked into a stub, and he had enormous ears that stood straight up.

The dogcatcher was inches from my fingers. He flinched as I went for it but didn’t run. He leaned forward instead, curious, tongue out and panting. I imagined him back in Quarles’s cage, cowering amid monsters twice his size, and pulled my hand back from the dogcatcher.

“Go on,” I called. “Get out of here!”

When he didn’t move, I kicked a cloud of dirt at him. He held his ground, so I grabbed a small rock, sure a glancing blow to his side would send him running. I lifted the stone, ready to throw, but my arm went weak.

The dog crept down his hill and then up mine. His muscles were taut, ready to flee if I made another wrong move. When he reached the top of the hill, his eyes darted over me, sharp and alert, the color of amber.

“Go on,” I said again but softer this time.

Close up, I could see his ribs standing out as bold as a range of sand dunes. His short fur was filthy, matted with dried mud. I held out my hand tentatively and he sniffed at it. His nose, cool and wet, prickled the hair on my arms. He licked a patch of sweat off my forearm and then came closer. There was a barely healed wound on his side.