Jeff Hirsch - The Darkest Path

“You in a fight?”

He dipped his snout into my face and there was a metallic clink under his chin. I found his narrow pink collar and turned it around. There was a silver tag with two mostly scratched-off phone numbers on one side and a single word on the other.

Bear.

“Why would anyone name a dog Bear?”

“Rrrrr-Rup! Rup rup!”

I turned back to the grocery store, thought for a minute, and then started toward the entrance. The grocery store was abandoned but not completely empty. I walked up and down the aisles, Bear’s claws clicking on the cracked linoleum behind me.

“Sorry,” I said, standing in front of the cleaned-out pet section. “No Alpo left.”

I spied a couple dusty water bottles left in a far corner. I took them along with the spare-change dish from the front counter, then went back outside. The second I got the dish full of water, Bear was on it, lapping hungrily and panting between gulps.

“Yeah, you’re thirsty, all right.”

While he drank I ran one hand along his side until it came to the gash. Something with claws had gone after him. I cracked open another bottle of water and knelt beside him. Bear growled when I poured water over the cut.

“Take it easy.”

Bear’s copper brows scrunched together as he eyed me, but soon enough he returned to his water, and I returned to the wound. I trickled water down his side, then swept along after it with an open palm as gently as I could, wiping away dirt and crusted blood. Long and shallow, it didn’t look quite as bad as I had feared. After refilling his water dish, I moved farther along his flank, washing off the dried mud.

Once I was done and Bear drank his fill, he turned and stepped up into my lap.

“Hey. Wait. You—”

He ignored me, spinning a few times before dropping down and laying his snout across my knee. He yawned and then the thump of his heartbeat slowed against the side of my leg. I leaned over him. His fur smelled warm and haylike. My palm fell on his side and I petted him with long, even strokes.

“Mom said when me and James got back from Phoenix, we’d go to the shelter and pick out a dog. But then we never came back.”

Bear huffed and squirmed. I looked over him at the emptiness that stretched north and east. Somewhere on the other side of all that was home.

Ithaca.

For years I had pushed thoughts of it, along with thoughts of Mom and Dad, out of my head as fast as they came. I was afraid they would sweep me away, back to the terrified kid I was six years ago. But sitting there with my hand on Bear’s side, I felt anchored in place and I let the memories draw near. When I did, I realized how indistinct they had become, like photographs faded in the sun. Had Mom’s hair been fully blond or was there brown in it too? Who was taller, Mom or Dad? What exactly was the tattoo on Dad’s right arm, and what kind of guitar was it that he would play for us every night after dinner?

I wondered if I’d reach the day when the memories of them would fade entirely and I’d be left with just my years in the Path camp. What would it be like to look backward and see nothing but stretches of desert and the stubbly, bloated face of Benjamin Quarles? How would it be to trade the sound of Mom singing Joni Mitchell songs to the strumming of Dad’s guitar for the chop of helicopter rotors and the bay of starving dogs?

How much longer would it be before I lost them forever?

There was a rush of wind as a beat-up supply truck appeared on the highway, kicking up a trail of dust as it headed into Cormorant. Bear lifted his head.

“Rup! Rup rup! RRRRR-RUP!”

“Well done,” I said. “You really scared them off.”

Bear jumped up and headed toward the parking lot. He rooted about in the debris by the gas station until he discovered a length of black rubber. He brought it over and dropped it between us.

“Rup! Rup rup!”

“I don’t want to play,” I said.

Bear wouldn’t take no for an answer. He edged the stick of rubber toward me with his nose and barked until I tossed it away halfheartedly. Bear exploded across the parking lot and dove on top of it, tumbling over onto his side and then trapping it under his paws like a fleeing squirrel. Once it had been subdued, he took it in his jaws and proudly dropped it at my feet.

“Rup!”

I laughed and snatched it up again. Bear leapt up onto his hind legs and danced in anticipation, his forepaws clawing at the air.

“Oh. Bear. Like a dancing Bear. I get it now.”

I threw it out into the desert, each time farther and farther away. We played until I collapsed into the sand. My wrist ached underneath the cast, but it felt distant now, muted by exhaustion. Bear protested my idleness with a few playful growls, then dropped down beside me, nestling into the crook of my arm, his front paws on my chest. He held his head erect, scanning the desert, his ears on alert, panting happily. I raised one rubbery arm and took his silver tag in my fingers.

I saw him then as the family dog he must have been once. Curled up on a couch and sleeping with his family. Eating from a bowl with his name on it. Nothing at all like the monsters kept by Quarles, whose eagerness for anything other than blood and violence had been starved out of them ages ago. I ran my fingertip over the scratched-out phone numbers on the tag and wondered if Bear still thought of his old owners and his old life. Was he trying to get back to them, or had he given up too?

Bear dug his snout beneath my hand, urging me to pet him. I cupped my palm against his cheek and drew it back over his ears. His fur was smooth and warm.

We dozed a moment and when I opened my eyes again, the sun had dipped into the west. What time was it that Quarles had sent me away? Nine thirty? Ten? I realized with a shock that it had to have been hours ago.

I jumped up and started back toward the lot. Bear trotted along behind me and when I stopped to pick up the dogcatcher, he planted himself in front of me, eyes bright and expectant. I dropped the dogcatcher and took his head in my hands.

“You can’t come with me,” I said, a dull ache growing in my chest. “It’s not a good place.”

Bear shook himself away, dancing backward like we were playing again. When I didn’t follow, he stood there, staring back at me.

“You’re going to have to find your way back home, okay? It can’t be far.”

I wished he could understand me, but I knew it was pointless. Nothing could change what had to happen next. I had to go present myself to Rhames, and Bear had to go his own way. There was no sense in putting it off. I moved toward the road but Bear raced by, beating me to the parking lot. When I caught up to him, he was staring out toward Cormorant and barking wildly.

A dust cloud rose in the desert across the road. I squinted into the sunny glare and saw that it was centered around a black Ford pickup that was racing in our direction. It was one I’d know anywhere, one that only a single person would be driving.

Quarles.

I didn’t even think. I grabbed Bear’s collar and ran.

Quarles threw open the door of his truck and stepped out.

“Where’ve you been?”

“I was looking for the dog,” I said. “I thought he was somewhere behind the store and—”

“I tell you to do a thing, you do it and come back. You don’t make me wait. You don’t take your time.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought I could find him, but I guess he—”

Quarles’s open hand slammed into my jaw, nearly knocking me down.

“Don’t lie to me. Supply truck radioed about some kid playing with a mutt.” Quarles reached for the dogcatcher he kept in a metal sleeve on the side of the truck. “Useless. Like always, if I want something done, it’s on me.”