Nebraska

***

His food tasted bad and he was out of cigarettes. He sat in a stuffed chair all day and watched his dog. Her teeth nitched at her paw. She groomed her tail. She splattered water when she drank from her pan. When he called, she didn't come.

He dealt solitaire and listened to the radio. Once he got up and squashed an insect that was loggily crawling the floor. His dog got up and sniffed it.

He put on his coat, loaded the magazine of his gun, and locked the cabin door from the outside. He waded through snow to the center of the clearing. He saw his dog barking at the cabin window, her paws on the sill, her breath fogging the glass. He carefully lowered the gun on each of the nearer trees. Bark exploded off with each shot. His dog dropped from the window.

He shoved the gun back into the pocket of his coat and filled his lungs with cold air and smiled agreeably. He stamped his boots on the porch step and saw that the door had somehow been unlocked. He went inside and saw his dog sitting primly by the chair. He slammed the door but it didn't close.

She scratched at her neck with a hind leg. It turned the leather collar, jangling the tags.

He grumpily paced the cabin.

Ching ching ching, he said. He bent to her level and said it louder. Ching ching ching ching ching!

His dog regarded him angrily.

She would chew a swatch of hair, then lick it, then chew again.

The coffee in his tin cup was cold. He pushed it across the table, turned

on the radio, and watched her teeth burrow higher. He watched for quite a while, then banged his cup. Why are you always eating at yourself?

She looked at him and returned to her thigh.

He went to the kitchen, rinsed his cup, and poured himself more coffee.

You never used to do that.

He saw new flakes of snow tap against the window.

I hate that sound.

He kept waking in the middle of the night to see her there beside him on the comforter. She would be silent, observing him, stars of light in her eyes. He would resist touching her and shift to his side.

His dog was off somewhere. He stumbled through the forest, blowing on his fingers. His gun was cold under his belt. He heard his dog growl and wrestle with something. He ran ploddingly through snow, his breath surging, the gun outstretched in both hands. He reached a clearing and saw his dog near a fallen deer, sniffing the red stains in the snow.

Quit that! he shouted. He rocked from side to side, stamping his boots. Quit that quit that quit that!

She stared at him, then trotted ahead, blithely sniffing at snow-laden ferns. She snapped at yellow weeds and dug through snow to the ground.

He ran a few steps and kicked her, knocking her into a tree. She yelped and shied from him and limped ahead, looking over her shoulder with suspicion.

He was awake all night. In the outer room she was growling.

Shut up, for God's sake.

She growled the way she did sometimes when he came too near her food. He threw the covers aside and stood next to the bedroom door. Shut up!

He opened the door and she raised her pitch. She glared at him.

Quiet!

Her nose wrinkled and her teeth showed.

He closed the door and leaned against it.

At dawn she still made the noise, but it was hoarse and dry, like bricks rubbed together. He dressed and went out to her. Her head was on her paws. She growled and lifted her eyebrows and glared at him.