(originally appeared in the Threepenny Review #107 Fall 2006; erroneous version appears in the O. Henry Prize Stories 2008)
Among the tall clusters of evergreen that obscured the horizon in all directions, Shelley looked up and saw the sun vanish behind the darkening cloud cover. Her left hand was too cold to grip the copper strings of her scuffed acoustic guitar, and every so often she stuck her fingers in her mouth to suck the stiffness out. She felt a cold wet tap on her neck, a thrust of wind from the west, another tap on her cheek. The autumn showers had started three days earlier and perennially grayed the skies, making it hard to see the pale aurora at night and impossible to get out when she wanted. Shelley felt a jab of dread at the thought of being holed up with her father for the next three months; the longer she was stuck with the Moose, the more she thought about jobs she could take, or correspondence classes, or—by boat, floatplane, ferry, bus, and then taxi—just getting up and heading south.
Dark rain spots soaked the dirt around Shelley. She wiped the body of her guitar clear with the elbow of her plaid hunting jacket, then laid it in the case, latched the rusty hasps, brushed trails of her rat-dark hair behind her ear. There were bootsteps and the swish of jeans coming from behind her, the Moose: he had his rifle gripped in one hand, nothing in the other. He was whistling dryly. His shades were settled on top of his faded blue baseball cap, and the frayed loops of his suspenders dangled out at his hips from under his tan jacket.
“Damn bitch got away,” he called out to Shelley, still distant. “Heard me coming.”
Shelley waited until he was near, picked up her guitar case and started walking with him as he passed without breaking stride: he was small, almost shorter than Shelley, and they kept an equal gait. They marched a straight path side-by-side through the berry-green muskege and out of the thicket of dully glinting evergreens. Shelley wanted to linger, but the current of sea wind that filtered through the collar of her jacket drove her onward towards the shore. Her fingers ached with chill as she gripped the handle of her guitar case. Sheets of rain drenched the surrounding pines, shedding fat drops from their lowest needles, and under the drizzle, Shelley heard a creak of metal.
“What’s that?” Shelley said, slowing her stride to a halt.
Again, the sound: it wasn’t a creak, but a living, fluttering sound—a whimper.
“Hold, Shel.” The Moose pushed his shades onto the bridge of his sunburned nose, gripped his rifle close to his chest, slid his finger into the cradle of the trigger. Whatever it was, it was hurting. Shelley stopped, searched her pocket with her free hand for the smooth bone handle of her hunting knife, and rested her fingertips on it as the sound grew clearer through the rain and the Moose approached.
The feeble sound was only a few yards away from where they were walking, closer than she’d expected. It was a dog, a real dog, a Dalmatian. Its coat stood out against the green-gray terrain, and as soon as its black eyes found the Moose, it bolted at him and a wild scream escaped its throat. Shelley’s shoulders bucked in surprise, and the Moose took a step backwards, then saw that the dog was hitched to a moss-covered log by a yellow nylon rope further back. The rope was cinched tense around the dog’s neck and it leaned against the leash, panting and bristling, and Shelley and the Moose stood and met its eyes. The Moose crept in a few yards, keeping his fists in front of his neck, and hunkered down.
“No tags, no collar,” said the Moose to himself, holding the animal’s stare.
In a rough circumference around the mossy log, the dirt was pitted and grooved where the dog had taken to restless pacing. Shelley saw the starved outline of the dog’s ribcage, spine, hips. It was missing an ear. Snarling and oblivious to its wretched condition, it hauled against the rope again, lunging and snapping back against the rope with its front paws suspended in the air, back legs treading the frozen dirt. Shelley darted her eyes around; there was no house nearby, no boot tracks. It could have been waiting there, for them, forever.