There was no blood by the car he’d been trapped inside, and his prints moved in the opposite direction, so whoever walked in my tracks and let him out, did so unmolested. Dogs, while not exactly smart, have good memories—at least for people. He remembers me, I think, the woman who saved another dog, but left him to freeze or starve.
While I want to just dive for the door and throw myself inside, I know the sudden movement will set the dog off. And I don’t know if the door is unlocked. I could slam into the thick wood and fall back into the dog’s jaws. Moving a slow step at a time, I walk toward the door sideways, facing the dog, keeping my gaze fixed on his, our battle for dominance all in the eyes. At least, for the moment.
I reach for the handle, and the dog’s eyes flick toward it. He’s a modern dog. Understands what doors are. That they can be passed through and slammed in his face.
He licks the side of his drooling mouth and lowers his head, hackles rising up, leaving little doubt about his intentions. I twist my hand over the knob, but it doesn’t spin. My insides seize. Holding my ground, I remove the mitten from my hand, take hold of the knob once more, the freezing metal burning my skin. I apply clockwise pressure.
It turns.
The dog moves forward, one cautious step at a time, closing the distance to just ten feet.
When the handle stops turning, I tense, and then move. I push my shoulder into the wood, prepared for the familiar swing of an opening door. But I find only resistance.
A savage bark and the sound of huffing breath propel me forward. The door, frozen shut at its base, gives way and snaps open. The handle shudders in my grip, slipping free and removing its contribution to my balance. I spill forward over the threshold, making it inside the firehouse.
Devil dog makes it through, right after me, his long snout catching my leg. He bites down, lower jaw on my calf, upper on my shin, the teeth grinding with intense pressure. If not for the malleable calf muscle taking most of the crushing force, I think the bone would have broken already. He gives his head a shake. The teeth on my calf, large and sharp, cut through my snow pants, my jeans, to my white, soft skin, and tear. The sudden tug removes the rest of my faltering balance and I fall forward, crying out.
I land two feet away from a pile of clothing mixed with white powder. He’s as big as I am, this monster animal, and I claw at the cold firehouse floor, my fingers probing the linoleum for a crack or imperfection, anything to grip and pull away. But there’s nothing—the seams are smooth and perfect. My fingers squeak over the floor, and then slip, coated in white. He shakes my leg, tearing my clothing and skin, but reduces the pressure for a moment to adjust his bite. When he clamps back down a little lower, I feel the first trickle of warm wetness sliding over my leg. I’m bleeding. And helpless. I’m just his squeaky chew toy, an amusement, an outlet for his canine rage.
He holds on, pulling me backward, as my fingers burn with friction, grasping. His feet slip on the linoleum, and from my belly I manage to push myself up on my arms, bend my free knee and kick him in the side of his head, reinjuring my ankle.
The blow surprises the dog, and he releases me with a yelp. But he shakes it off like a prize fighter, and lunges at the same time I do. I make it just a few feet before he catches my leg again, this time, mercifully, just the snow suit. But I land on my stomach, helpless once more.
My hands clench to fists, ready for a final battle. But the digits of my right hand squeeze over something dry. I glance. The hand lies atop the flakey fireman remains. I don’t think about what I do next. It’s as instinctual as it is horrible. Clutching a fist full of the dead man, I twist around, sit up and throw the dust into the dog’s face.
It winces back, releases me once more, and after a quick inhalation, sneezes. And then again. By the third sneeze, I’m moving and trying not to vomit as the reality of what I’ve just done sinks in. I scramble and crawl across the floor. My legs feel useless. They might not be, but I’m afraid to try them. If I can’t walk, I won’t survive. And neither will my baby.
I imagine August, on his way. I flash ahead, weirdly, to a life with him and my child. A strange last family—daughter, mother, grandfather—three generations of survivors. The last of humanity. But that dream is currently slipping away...
Unless I stand.
Stand!
I scramble to my feet, slipping in dust, and run into the window-lit firehouse. For a moment, the place falls silent, which unnerves me. I’m not sure why until I realize that it’s the dog. It’s not sneezing. Then I hear it again. Closer. The dog’s nails click against the floor behind me, its heavy breath ragged with the promise of more pain. I emerge from the front office and into the engine garage, its two trucks still housed there. I don’t make it far.
The dog leaps at me again, snagging the back of my parka. His jaws close on it, snarling and yanking me backward. Blood dribbles down my calf, filling my sock and the interior of my layers.
Tripping backward, I unzip my coat and shimmy out of it, leaving the dog to rip it to shreds, his paws holding it steady while he tugs and rips long strips into the air. Who keeps a dog like this? I shamble as fast as I can on two injured legs, moving around the garage until I spot the axe on the side of one truck.
Don’t do it, dog. Don’t come at me again.
I grip the axe handle and pull. It remains stuck in place. In my panicked haze I missed the safety latch. What good would an axe be if it could fall away with every bumpy road? I unlatch the axe and lift it from the truck. The weight of its head surprises me. Weighs me down. But it also bolsters me. I hold the heavy blade upright in both hands, ready to swing, but moving steadily away. I need to find the satellite phone, if there is one.
Stay there, dog. Enjoy my coat.
He’s right by the door into the office space. I shift the axe over my shoulder, right hand above left, baseball bat style. I played baseball in middle school. That’s right, baseball, not softball. I was swift like a tiny mosquito. Base stealing. No one could believe the power in my small frame. The balls would sail over surprised faces, every at-bat. I quit when the boys grew to twice my size. So I ran track, cruising past my opponents with the invisibility and silence of a flea. But I always missed the smack of the bat, the moment of jarring, arm-rattling impact.
Don’t do it, dog, I think, when I see his eyes move from the shredded coat, up to me, one eyebrow cocking up higher than the other. Its head goes still, the jaw now jittering, loosening its grip on the jacket.
“Don’t fucking do it.”
With a powerful bark, the dog leaps. Jaws open. Toward my belly.
I can’t run away.
There’s no avoiding violence.
My baby.
I’ve got this, Squirt.
I swing the axe, the heaviness at the end like a weighted bat. I twist my frame, using every muscle in my body, transferring as much force as I can to the axe head.
And miss.
But not entirely. While the blade has missed the dog, the axe handle strikes the dog’s head, connecting with a hollow thunk. The stunned dog lands on its feet, turning on me, tendrils of drool twisting toward the floor as I raise the axe up once more, my arms still burning.
The attack is announced by snarling lips and a throaty growl. Movement triggers an automatic response, my arms swinging around. Eyes on the ball, I hear some past coach shouting. Eyes open, I bring the axe around as the dog rises up again, once more reaching for my belly. Anger fuels the swing, propelling the blade until contact is made. The heavy blade’s arc is tugged slower for just a moment, and then it’s past the resistance, as I follow through.
There’s a sharp cry and a meaty, wet thunk.
Not being eaten, I know I’ve done the job, and I turn to inspect the damage.
A severed limb lies still at my feet.
The dog, gushing blood, is out of its mind, trying to run on its side, but it only manages to smear a circle of blood on the floor, each revolution deepening the color.
I take a slow step ba
ck, the axe sliding through my loose grip until it falls free to the floor. I follow it, dropping to my knees, hands over my mouth, tears in my eyes.
I can’t believe what I’ve just done.
Amidst all my artwork, all the emotional depths I’ve plumbed, the scrutinized images, never have I experienced this. What was I trying to say, all these years? My simple artist life, the erasing, the redrawing, the painting over, the final products equaled a body of work unaffected by true loss. In a life defending no one but my own strong self, I searched for meaning where there was none.
But now. I am killing this dog, brutally, to protect my child. Not exactly where I thought I would end up when I went to my parents’ house. But the moment is far more profound than any image I have ever, or will likely ever conjure. The animal lies bleeding into the floor before me. I sit down next to him, so tired. I’ll have to take care of my own leg soon.
Deep welling mercy overcomes me, as the dog’s revolutions slow to a stop. It’s still alive, eyes wide and confused, panting as its life slowly drains away. I reach out a tentative hand to stroke his side. He snaps at me, just missing my forearm. The action seems to ignite a new fire in the dog. He sits up, bounds to his feet with a fresh, bloody snarl and runs at my face. But he still doesn’t understand his leg is missing, and when he tries to step on it, gravity pulls him over. He slides to a stop beside me, close enough to bite me, but he just lays still, the last of his vitriol leaking out on the floor.
Put him out of his misery, some part of me thinks. But what am I supposed to do? Hack him to bits like a psychopath?
With the recognition that I can hurt him no more, I crawl away, out of the garage to let him die. Alone once more.
“I’m sorry,” I say to him, crying. I leave him there, his black side stuttering with labored breath.
Inside the office, I lean against the desk and sob. I scream curses at the ceiling. Blood continues to dribble out of the dog’s bite on my leg. Wracked with pain and anguish for another life lost, I want to escape, to cease feeling, and maybe even living.
The fissure inside my mind widens, opening slowly, like an earthquake’s sinkhole, letting in more and more darkness, the depth cavernous. No light can reach in there.
That poor dog. I think for a minute, imagining the kind of hateful person that could raise such a pet. I watch the hatred spread, the evil that loves violence, wicked, malicious intent, a human widening his own malevolent reach through his trained animal. Is that evil in me now? Because I was violent in return? This feels like a loss I cannot recover from.
But no. I think about Squirt, the knitting together of her little parts, and how she saved both of us. I wouldn’t have had the strength to fight back if she wasn’t around. I would have given in. And then where would that leave Luke? Sweet, lovable Luke? And Sylvia, my cow, and the other animals, dependent on me?
I summon the last of my artistic powers and imagine the fissure in my brain as a sinkhole in a dirt road. It’s closing, just a bit. Two mighty hands are pushing and pressing the sides. Stiff clay, rocks and roots tumbling from the ground, until the two sides crash together like thunder, a cloud of brown dust filling the air. Fissure healed. We can now pass through here. The road is smooth again, the cleft mended. I imagine sunshine and birdsong.
I can do this.
Squirt has made the choice for us.
New life insists.
I find the firemen’s bathroom on the second floor, above the garage, near the overnight quarters, and I strip down to investigate my bleeding leg. Not the most terrible wound, due to the padding of my winter layers, but enough to worry about and to tend. While the cuts aren’t as bad as I imagined, the bites are already bruising, turning deep purple. I’ll put snow on it later, I decide, and I prop my leg up on the sink, my ankle protesting as it takes all my weight. With the cut under the faucet, I turn the tap clockwise. Ice cold water streams over the wound. I squirt antibacterial soap over my leg and rub it in, screaming as the wound burns. But it’s better than an infection. Still soapy, the water starts to gurgle and cough. The power is out, I think. Stupid! The water flowing from the tap is propelled by the pressure remaining in the line, and that will run out soon. Ignoring the pain, I scrub fast, clearing the rest of the soap away.
After patting the wound dry with a towel and holding it in place until the bleeding stops, I hop to the closet, open it and sigh with relief. A first aid kit sits on the shelf. After using all the gauze to wrap my leg, and cinching it tight with tape, I stand slowly, testing my weight. Both limbs complain, but the pain is manageable. Briefly, I wonder about rabies. I remember the jangle of his tags and think, no, just a dog raised in violence, responding to the frightening unknown the only way he knew how. There’s nothing I can do about it if he was rabid, anyway. I wouldn’t even know which medication to take, being pregnant, and there’s no way in hell I’m going back to the grocery store’s pharmacy.
Three steps toward the door, exhausted and thinking of bed, I remember the reason I came all this way in the first place: the satellite phone. I have no idea what one looks like. I think back to movies, stuff I’ve seen on TV, people in the military, shouting into things. Maybe kind of like a walkie talkie/cell phone combination?
A quick look around reveals nothing obvious. If August is right, sat phones aren’t common, and would really only be needed in a dire emergency, when cell networks, landlines and radio weren’t working. So where would a fire station keep something like that? My eyes land on a closed door, and I realize I’m asking the wrong question. Not where, but who. The label on the door reads, ‘Chief Dreyling.’
I head for the door. Locked. I try to shove it open, slamming my body into the solid wood, but I’m greeted by immediate pain from head to toe. That’s not going to work. I look around for keys, but finding the right keys could take all day, and without my parka, the cold is starting to seep in.
The solution rears its ugly head and pulls a groan from my throat. Despite how uncomfortable it makes me, I don’t waste time debating. Instead, I head down the stairs, propping as much of my weight on the railing as I can. When I step inside the garage again, I half expect the dog to be back on its immortal feet, ready to devour me. But it lays still, surrounded by blood, no longer breathing. The axe becomes my solitary focus and I pick it up. Its weight now feels like an impossible burden. But I carry it back up the stairs, one slow step at a time, until I’m standing in front of Chief Dreyling’s office once more.
After a long, deep breath, I raise the blade up—eyes on the ball—and bring it down hard. The impact sends a jarring tingle up my arms, freeing the axe from my grip. But the racket of falling metal doesn’t belong to just the axe. The knob has broken free. I hear a dull thunk on the other side, as the knob falls apart. The door gives way to my knee, granting access.
And then I see it, cradled in a charging station atop a black filing cabinet. The phone looks like an oversized, old school Nokia, but with a thick antenna. While I couldn’t picture the Sat-phone, now that I’m seeing it, I recognize it for what it is and snatch it from the charger.
I push the power button, so nervous that I feel like I have to pee.
Nothing happens. I lift my finger again, and push the button.
Still nothing. The phone is dead.
I turn my attention back to the charger and follow its cord down to the outlet, where it dangles free, not plugged in. Useless. “Smart thinking, Captain Dreyling,” I grumble, and take the charger along with the phone and head, as quickly as I can manage, for the exit.
Outside, the cold assaults me. Without my jacket, atop a snowmobile, I’m going to freeze.
Take a fire engine, I think. The heavy vehicle will be undaunted by the snow. I nearly turn back to the station door when I see a better solution parked across the street. A smile slips onto my face, as I read the word PROPANE stenciled on the side of a large tank. While my parents have a large supply of propane for heating and running the generator, it’s not going to last
forever . But this...this will get me through the winter and then some.
I cross the street, rolling my eyes as I look both ways. Aside from my snowmobile tracks and the dog’s footprints, the layer of snow is perfectly smooth and undisturbed. I open the driver’s side door without thinking and unleash a swirl of white powder. I step back, waving my hands in the air, holding my breath.
I consider giving up on the truck, but it solves too many problems to ignore. He’s not your parents, I tell myself. You already threw a fireman’s remains. You can do this. It’s just dust.
Setting my jaw, and covering my mouth with my scarf, I step up to the side of the truck, place my forearm on the dust and clothing covered seat and brush the whole mass out into the snow. I still hold my breath and close my eyes, but the job is done quickly. I climb up in the cab and close the door, and put the sat-phone and charger in the passenger’s seat. Then I look to the ignition. No keys. It’s disappointing, but also a good sign. The truck wasn’t left running. I glance around and find the keys on the floor, below the ignition. The driver must have been about to start the vehicle, making late night mid-winter deliveries before the weekend.
The truck roars to life. I turn up the heat and bathe in it for a moment, pin pricks of pain flowing over my chilled skin. Then I throw the big vehicle into gear and pull away. There is a moment of resistance from the snow, and I worry that I’m stuck, but the truck’s massive weight crushes the snow and pulls away. I take it slow and steady, making wide turns, but never stopping.
The drive home is uneventful, my head heavy with exhaustion. A mental checklist starts to form in my mind. The propane isn’t a concern yet. So figuring out how to attach the truck to the home’s tank can wait. But many other things can’t. I’ll feed Luke, check on the other animals and eat lunch, take a prenatal vitamin and wash it down with farm milk. Then I’ll lie down. Sleep for days. My life has been reduced to a list of survival necessities. First this, then that. This is new for me, my brain more used to the divergent spontaneity of art-making, living for myself and the expression of that self.
The Distance Page 14