Canis Major

by Jay Nichols

  * * *

  Later that evening, not long after sunset, Mike placed the collar along with one of the letters on Hector’s back porch, then quickly ran across the yard and crawled underneath the chain-link fence. He hoped it would be Hector who opened the door first, because he really wanted to see his reaction when he read the letter and looked at the collar, but if it turned out to be the lady, that would be okay, too. As long as Hector got the letter tonight, Mike would be happy.

  "It’s about to happen, Huey," he whispered into the bulldog’s ear. "And you’re gonna help. Aren’t you? Aren’tchu?!"

  Huey panted heavily into Mike’s grinning face. When Mike went in to kiss him, the swarm of gnats hovering around the bulldog’s slobbering muzzle divided so that, when Mike pulled away, half flitted near Mike’s mouth while the other half stayed with Huey.

  Swatting air, Mike said, "I hate these things. They’re everywhere these days."

  Huey panted a response. Saliva droplets fell from his ever-exposed tongue to the pine needle carpet. O’Brien didn’t think the dog looked too hot.

  "Are you sick, boy? You’re breathing like you just ran a marathon."

  Huey licked his nose and looked up desperately at his owner.

  "Well, there ain’t nothin’ I can do ‘bout it now. You’re just gonna have to wait."

  Huey twitched, then dropped and shimmied his belly on an exposed pine root. Mike’s initial instinct was to laugh, but when he remembered what he had seen on the bulldog’s body two days ago, he grew suddenly grave.

  Mike lifted his tubby friend, turned him over, and placed him on his lap. On Huey’s white belly, dozens of black ticks the size of corn kernels pulsated rhythmically. One be one, Mike plucked the parasites from the dog’s flesh. Some he was able to remove whole. Others broke like glass ampules, spilling blood over Mike’s fingers. The ones that broke, he cursed, damning them to hell while wiping his fingers on his stained shorts.

  "Huey," Mike scolded, "what have I told you about getting ticks?"

  Huey whimpered at his master’s tone.

  "I told you not to get ‘em. Is that too hard a thing to do?"

  At the moment Mike said that, Huey sneezed, peppering O’Brien’s face with phlegm.

  "Gross!" Mike said, laughing. "You’ve got the worst manners, boy. You know that?"

  Then, lowering the dog to the ground, O’Brien grabbed Huey’s head and checked his ears. Four more ticks hid in the folds. Mike picked their bloated bodies and flicked them through the links in the fence.

  "There. Does that feel better?"

  Huey rolled his head from side to side and Mike read it as a yes.

  "Let’s not forget what we’re here to do, boy. First, we’ve got to wait. It’s like spying right now. That means we’ve got to be quiet." Mike put a bloody index finger to his lips. "Quiet," he repeated.

  Huey sat down on his stub of a tail and sighed. From their hiding place, the boy and the dog watched the light slowly bleed out of the day. To O’Brien, the pink clouds above Hector’s house began to look so much like scoops of strawberry ice cream that he salivated freely until night swallowed them up and spat back stars and a thin slice of moon in their stead, which, in turn, cast a milky twilight over his and Huey’s upturned faces. Then the orange porch light buzzed to life, blighting out the stars and throwing a shadow net over the conspirators’ silent and still bodies.

  People moved about inside the house—Mike saw their outlines through the window shades and blinds—but the back door remained closed.

  Come on, he thought impatiently. Let’s get this show on the road. Open the stupid door.

  To take his mind away from the characters in the play who weren’t following their script, Mike began to hum an aimless, improvised tune. The fact that the characters didn’t have a copy of the script—a script that existed only in Mike’s addled mind—was totally lost on the dirty teenager crouched in the periphery of the woods.

  "Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up."

  Huey raised his head then lowered it. He panted softly, hastily.

  "Why would they turn on the lights and not open the door?" Mike asked quietly.

  To this, Huey had no answer other than to lift his head and lick his chops.

  "Later, boy. I’ll get you water later. And don’tchu give me that look, either. You ate this morning. I found food for you and you ate it all."

  The dog opened his mouth, curled his tongue upward, and yawned.

  O’Brien adjusted the weight on his shoulder. It itched his sunburn, but he always wore it when he was this close to the house.

  "There—that’s better. Say, Huey?"

  The dog’s ears perked.

  "Go find Tommy."

  Huey just sat there, a blank expression on his mashed face.

  "I said go find Tommy, you numbskull."

  Mike patted the bulldog’s butt, and when that didn’t work, he gently kicked his haunch with the top of his dirt-blackened foot. "Go!"

  Huey scuttled slowly off into the ominous woods. The reason Mike didn’t go himself was because he was too scared. He hated walking through the forest at night without at least four of his bigger friends by his side. Who knew what kinds of vicious monsters lay lurking in those depths—evil things that could easily shred a person to pieces. Sometimes in the early hours of the morning, he would awake underneath a car to the sounds of bestial roars and groans emanating from the forest. Then after the noises had stopped and the paralysis of fear wore off, he’d remain on the ground, worrying about Huey and his friends’ safety until finally summoning the courage to get up and confirm their aliveness.

  Huey will be alright. He’ll stay close to the ground and the bad things won’t see him. He’ll bring Tommy, and then we’ll get this show started.