THE DOG
by
KERSTIN EKMAN

Translated from Swedish by Linda Schenck and Rochelle Wright

sphere
First published as Ihtuden in Sweden in 1986 by Bonmers
First published in Great Britain in 201)9 by Sphere

Copyright  Kerstin Ekman 1986

Published by arrangement with Bonnier Group Agency, Stockholm, Sweden.

The right of Kerstin Ekman to be identified as Proprietor of this Work has been
asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those
clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

('. Illustrations Henrik Krogh 1986

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication mav be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in ,inv torm or by any means, without
the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated
in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published
and without a similar condition including this condition being

imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
ISBN 978-1-84744-171-3

Typeset in Bembo by M Rules
Printed and bound in Great Britain by (days Rid, St Ives pic

Papers used by Sphere are natural, renewable and
recyclable products sourced from well-managed forests and certified in
accordance with the rules of the Forest Stewardship Council.

Mixed Sources
An imprint of
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London IIC4Y 0l)Y

An Hachette Livre UK Company
www. hachettelivre.co.uDDINBYCH
Bertrams


When does something begin?
It doesn't begin. There's always something else before it.
It begins the way a stream starts as a rivulet and a rivulet
starts as a trickle of water in the marsh. It's the rain that
makes the marsh water rise.
In winter the spruces have full skirts. The snow is so deep
that it catches in the bottom ring of branches. When storms
pack it down, hollows and dens form under the trees. A fox
can find a hideout there, out of the wind and foul weather.
Grouse hens take cover under the skirts of the spruces too,
but never under the same root as the fox. He huddles there
waiting for night to fall. He waits for the moonlight and for
a crust to form on the snow.
Where does a tale begin?
Under the root of a spruce, perhaps.
Yes, under the root of a spruce tree. A little grey fellow
was lying there, all curled up, his muzzle tucked under his
tail. A dog. But he didn't know that. He was so small he was
able to squeeze in under a root. The root encircled him like
a rough brown arm but it didn't keep him warm.
The only warmth he got was from his own body. Inside
him was emptiness. He couldn't think: warmth, belly, teats,
milk. He didn't remember his mother's belly with its thin,
white coat, or her yellow eyes gleaming when they all suckled.
He
couldn't remember. There was nothing but a great big
hole inside, a gnawing, a hunger for warmth and for the
mild, pungent sweetness that filled his mouth, and for his
mother when she had come in from outside with strange
scents in her fur, nipping at the scruff of his neck and licking
the corner of his mouth.
How had he ended up under that spruce?
He didn't remember and he couldn't have told the tale.

The man headed out on to the frozen lake on his snowmobile.
He was going fishing. The mother dog had seen him
take his green jacket from the hook and figured he was going
hunting. It was the wrong time of year, though; the scent of
the March air told her that. She sat on the front steps, quiet
and attentive. When the snowmobile swung out behind the
woodshed she thought she saw the butt of a rifle, but her
sight wasn't very good. It was the ice drill he had strapped
onto his backpack. He hadn't called her to him. He hadn't
signalled his plans. But the green jacket, the rifle butt. She sat
rigid, ears cocked, until the snowmobile vanished in among
the pine trees by the marsh. Then she bounded off after him
anyway. The hunt!
And behind her, the pup.
It was a wide path, rough from snowmobile tracks. He
could smell petrol and oil and his mother. He ran, barrelling
along on his short legs. Soon she was out of sight, though he
could still hear the engine. Then there was silence and he
was alone on the long, white ribbon leading out on to the
lake.
The man drove across the lake to the boat landing by the
summer pasture, and looped up to the cabin to check that
things were all right. Then back down to the lake. He didn't
see the dog following him until he stopped. By the time she
caught up she was worn out. Her belly sagged under her. You
silly girl, he said. I'll bet you thought I was going hunting!
He started drilling through the new ice over the fishing
holes, and set the lines in place. The air was piercing cold,
the mist so thick he couldn't see the mountain tops. The dog
sat beside him, her yellow eyes squinting. Her sensitive nose caught the scent of her pup, and every now and then she
took a turn round the fishing holes, expecting him to come.
The fish weren't biting and the cold, black water froze in
layers of ice on the fishing lines.
A flurry of snow, a grey swirl, passed over the lake. She
snorted. Her master said, We'd best be heading home. He
took it slowly enough for her to keep up. But he drove back
in a wide arc, not the same way he had come.
When the man returned his wife was on the front steps,
her hands up the sleeves of her sweater. By then there was
driving snow and a hard westerly wind off the mountains in
Norway. She told him one of the pups was missing. The
dark grey one.
They searched all day in the powdery, whirling snow. They tried to get the mother dog to follow his scent but she
couldn't. The snow didn't let up. By evening it had become
a storm. His wife wept, saying they'd never find the pup.
He'll have frozen to death by now, she said.
A storm from the west is like a broom, a grey blast sweeping
across lake and forest. Afterwards there's no trace of ski or
snowmobile tracks, of animal or bird, no wads of snuff
around the fishing holes, no bait, no blood. Everything is
fresh, white and smooth.

Now, the morning after the storm, no one could see the
tracks from the man on the snowmobile. The weather had
cleared. The sun hadn't yet risen and the sky shifted towards
green as the day grew light. The sliver of moon above the
hill faded. It looked tenuous and tattered.

A black grouse flew up. The snow whirled around his
wings when he burst out from his hollow under the spruce.
He settled high up in a birch and soon there came another
and yet another. They clung there like dark fruit in the
crown of the birch, so heavy the branches sagged under
them. They began eating leaf buds.
The pup had slept under his spruce. He was stiff and
thirsty when he crawled out and lifted his nose above the
newly fallen snow. The light, what little there was, blinded
him. He saw the grouse in the birch tree but didn't know
what they were or whether they were dangerous. They
were alive. In the whiteness their black heads were the only
thing moving. He crept backwards into the hole and ate
snow. It triggered his hunger, and his stomach began to
ache. He whined but no one came. He whimpered, listening.
No paws crossing the linoleum, no boot steps, no
voice.
He slept a little but the bellyache was still there and made
him whine. The next time he awakened he thought he
picked up a smell that wasn't like snow or cold or air, and he
started digging. He kicked up pine needles and soil and then
finally found what he'd smelled. He kept at it for a long time
and when the sun came up and gleamed in the icy windows
of the pasture cabin he had eaten two fox turds and a few
lingonberries.
When he next woke up the grouse were gone. Sunlight
glared off the snow and he squinted with pain. He shut his
eyes and ate some snow; it melted quickly in his mouth.
Water from the thawing snow ran into the hole. Now he was
really freezing because his fur, still a puppy coat, was soaked
through.
A magpie flashed across Ins field of vision and settled not
far away; he could hear her chatter and peck.
He recognised the sound. Magpie chatter was followed by
the mother dog's growling when the bright bird grew bold
and came too close to their food. Insistent, penetrating
sounds were also what he longed for: his mother and the
food bowl. He wanted to get back. But when he started off
through the damp snow he sank, floundering. Soon everything
was just wet and grey and he was exhausted. He lay
deep in the snow for a long time, without hearing the
magpie. Then the memory faded. When he really started to
freeze, with his bare belly against the wet snow, he managed,
even though his legs hurt, to turn around and make his way
back to the hole under the spruce.
He slept, and even when the sun was at its highest in the
sky it never penetrated the root of the spruce where he was
lying. This was on a northern slope, on a wooded rise
behind the summer pasture. Faint with hunger, he lay with
his muzzle tucked under his own backside to draw warmth

from his body, from his own wet, matted coat and the cavity
in which his heart fluttered like the wing of a bird in the
cold and damp. It beat eagerly and wildly, throbbing, hungry
for life, for warmth and kind voices, for milk, sunshine,
tongues, fur, paws, belly and legs.
He wasn't alone in the pasture. A squirrel scurried,
hooked claws clattering on the bark of the spruce tree. The
black grouse settled in the treetop again when the snow
turned blue. They sat in the dusk, filling their gullets with
birch buds to ward off hunger and the night and the cold
that crept up from the shadows. He had heard the cheeping
and twittering of a great tit all afternoon in the sunlight, and
the drip of the melting snow. Now that it was colder, the
bird was silent and had crept in under the eaves of the cabin.
A little flock of them spent the night there, keeping each
other warm.
It was a cold night. They slept under the eaves with pattering
hearts, their blood coursing and throbbing. In crevices
and nests, in dens and under roots they slept. The pup sank
more deeply into the lethargy of cold.
THE DOG

The magpie's sharp, piercing laughter. Time after time her
impudent chatter from the top of a birch. The woods near
the pasture are full of other magpies and they need to know
she's here, that she's claimed this treetop and everything visible
from it. The others hear her but do not reply. And all
the way down under the branches of the spruce tree, heavy
with the weight of the frozen, wet snow, the pup hears the
magpie. Eventually he comes completely awake, surfacing
from a sleep that has long been dangerously deep, thanks to
the cheeky, insistent jabbering.
He moves around because he's thirsty and manages to eat
a bit of snow. But it isn't the same. It's hard. The magpie goes
on chattering; from his hole the pup can see the flash of her
white breast and the way her blue and black tail feathers
shimmer with every outburst. She woke him up. The snow
he ate has triggered the hunger inside him. Now he crawls
out. The magpie's finished and she flies off, disappearing into
the woods in a gleaming black arc.
This is a different kind of morning. Very cold, very few
scents in the air. The birch branches have long, stiff icicles
from snow that melted the previous day. A light breeze from
the lake sets them in motion and they ring like chimes. The
sharp crust of the snow cuts the pads of his paws when he
pulls himself up into his old tracks. Finally he's standing on
top of the snow, a frozen floor. He walks clumsily on big
puppy paws. Yesterday the snow was wet and mushy. It caved
in, dropping him into grey hollows where he couldn't keep
his balance. Today it holds him. He barrels forward, steadier
now. Sometimes he stops to lick the crust of the snow.
That morning his hunger drove him a long way, despite
his exhaustion. Big drifts had blown up against the cabin. He
couldn't get close to it. Slowly he continued up the hill, resting
now and then on the crust, panting. He kept looking up
towards the barn. When he reached it he sat down in front
of the door. He looked at it. But nobody came. He yelped
and whimpered but no voice answered. He curled up against
the door. He didn't fall asleep but lay looking out across the
marsh, sniffing. He caught a scent. Soon he also saw something
white bounding through the newly planted pines. It
was a hare. The pup rose stiffly and made his way down the
slope. He thought that where there was movement he might
find the high voice or the deep one. Or his mother. There
might be food.
The scent was still there, rich and pungent among the
small pines, but the hare was long gone. At least it had left
something behind. He gobbled up several pellets of warm
hare droppings. He started off again in search of more. That
was when he heard a voice. It was forceful and stern and
kept repeating one single sound. By now he had reached the
marsh, and where he was standing the birches and the little
waterlogged pines were so sparse there was nowhere to hide.
He crouched, belly to the snow crust, hearing the voice
again. It was scolding him. When he peered up he saw outspread
black wings, wings he already had inside him, an
image that was deep down and signalled danger. He dragged
himself towards a small pine tree but it had so few branches
he could still see the silhouette of the crow. All of a sudden
there were more voices and more black, circling bodies.
They left him alone, though. They were after something else
they couldn't find in the expanse of white, covered with a
thin layer of ice, still so hard from the morning chill that it
held his weight.
He padded across the snow, on his guard against the ones
up there, ready to lie flat if they dive-bombed. But what
made him keep going and overpowered his fear was something
his sense of smell had picked up and that kept growing
THE DOG

stronger. The scent was coming from the snow. It made him
start digging with his paws and poking with his nose. The
crust was sharp but he broke through it quickly and the
smell, the wonderful smell, the smell of food, wafted up. The
snow had receded, packed down by the thaw. It was heavy
and grey but he didn't sink into it the way he had the day
before. Head and forepaws deep in a hole, he dug out the
snow the storm had brought. Suddenly he got his first taste
of whatever had smelled so good, though it was just a little
scrap. He went on digging all the way down. Finally he sank
his teeth into a frozen flank with a bristly hide. He had got
through. It was food.
The crows were carrying on. They saw he'd got hold of
the thing they were after, concealed from them by the
snowstorm. They circled closer, settling in the tops of the
pines, scolding loudly. But he wasn't prey for them. When
they came too close he growled, his body all muscle and
determination now, arched over the big frozen mound of
food in the snow. They couldn't know the white teeth he
bared were just puppy teeth. Eighty-four dawns were
behind him when the sun rose, and he wouldn't have
made it through a single day more if he hadn't found the
moose carcass in the marsh. No one can live long; on hare

droppings.

The nights were very cold. He sought shelter as close to the
food supply as he could, but found none in the marsh. He
had to head up the south slope where enormous spruces
spread out their protective skirts. From there he could see
the place where the snow was spotted with fur. At dawn, as
soon as he heard the crows, he left the shelter.
In the mornings the young birches and pines were covered
with white hoar frost and the crust held all the way to
the food spot, where the crows were circling, flapping and
screeching. A few days earlier he had cowered in fear of
them. Now his belly was round and he stayed warm all night
and angry all day. When he curled around himself with his
muzzle tucked up under him he kept that vital spark of life
burning inside. In the mornings he was hungry but not
worn out. When the screeching awakened him he was cold
and sluggish with sleep, but when he saw the crows sitting in
the snow tearing at his food his anger woke up as well.
Within a few mornings he had realised they'd fly off when
he approached, and he took the time to pee before heading
toward them. Urinating on the crust of snow, crouching like
a female, he glared at the big-beaked thieves.
As the sun rose higher in the sky the frost on the trees
melted and dripped. 'By midday the water was streaming and
the sun beat down. It warmed his back. Bulging with food,
he needed somewhere to rest. He lay against a spruce trunk
in the sun and, what with the warmth and the dizzying sense
of satisfaction, he couldn't keep his eyes open, even when he
heard rustling and chirping nearby. He slept in the comforting
sunlight, squinting with one eye when he heard pine
cones fall or branches snap. There weren't many sounds in
the forest in the middle of the day. The soft chirping of the
titmouse, the willow-tit's constant activity in the spruces
above him. Murmuring water. Dripping branches. It made
him drowsy.
In the engulfing, deep blue twilight the cold crept up
stealthily. He needed to eat again. His gums were bleeding
from the new teeth coming through. A fresh crust formed
on the snow and at night, when the stars shone bright over
the jagged spruces, the temperature dropped. He went back
to his shelter and carefully chose a spot for sleep, tramping in
a circle and finally curling up with a deep sigh.
Sometimes at night he heard howling. He raised his head
and shivers of anticipation ran through his body. He was riveted,
but as the tension receded a dull sense of discomfort
was left in its wake. Only sleep could make that go away.
The howling was hoarse and piercing, carried by the
wind from off the lake. It wasn't the right howl: his mother's.
There was sonrething dangerous about it that came through
despite his weariness. Even in his sleep, all his muscles were
quivering slightly. Finally the howling ceased. All the tension
left his body and his sleep was deep and oblivious.
Day followed day and between them cold fragments of
nights penetrated his sleep with the hooting of an owl or the
snapping of a frozen branch. But he didn't connect the days
in a series. His life and his memory were images upon
images, fading in and out, scraps of days with bright skies,
sharp scents to follow, disconnected cries wafting one by one
through the woods until they attached to an image deep
inside him. There was baying darkness that turned into grey
dawn and blustering, biting snow that forced him back into
the hole; there were days and nights of hunger when he
shivered from the cold and damp, days of gluttony with the
hot sun on his back. The others down by the marsh moved
in and out of these images: a white, long-eared shape bobbing
in circles among the trees; the enormous grey creatures
with long legs making their way across the marsh; the
screeching black forms; the little peepers and busy chatterers
in the spruces; the black, heavy ones perched in the tops of the birches; other grey animals that left such straight tracks
among the tree roots. He never got really close to them but
their paths criss-crossed his memory, the trails of their scents,
their calls and chirps, the hoarse howls of the invisible one
who was sometimes down on the lake.
By now he knew he must never stop guarding the food
spot. Sounds penetrated his deepest sleep, making him raise
his nose to pick up a scent from the marsh. He fell asleep
again but slept uneasily. His puppy sleep had been heavy; he
had given himself up to it, abandoning any claim to the life
that had satisfied him, until he woke up eager for warmth
and a full stomach. Now his sleep was tattered and ragged,
with sharp, easily awakened hunger, with alarm and muffled
excitement, with sudden readiness that instantly flooded his
primed muscles with coursing blood. Sleep and calm
returned to him when it was quiet again or when the tantalising
smell had drifted away.
Sleep and calm came from a full belly and the warmth of
the sun, absorbed by his healthy, dry fur. But even then he
was waiting.
He didn't have an image or a name for what he was
expecting. But he would recognise it when he heard it or
caught its familiar scent. He lived in wait like the lumptish
living in the cold, cloudy, turgid water of the stream underneath
the ridges and rough patches in the ice.
One night he was awakened by a sound so familiar it
called forth an image in him: bones cracking between powerful
jaws. He pulled himself out of the hole and sat rigidly
attentive under the spruce. The teeth went on crunching
bones. He waited for a scent to complete the image, turning
the crunching into his mother's teeth and the shadow down
in the marsh into his mother. The moon was out and the
crust of snow was gleaming. Branches cast a pattern on the
white surface. He took a few steps across the expanse of crust
and emerged from the shadow of the spruce. Now he could
see the shape over by his food. He wanted it to be her, and
his memory stretched and twisted to turn this long, thin
back and the far too bristly tail into his mother. On the
verge of terror, he took small, cautious steps until he couldn't
make himself go on. He was torn between vigilance and
anticipation. Then he started off again, and what propelled
him along the last stretch was sheer longing. But when he
got close enough to see the long, thin legs, the triangular
head with the long snout and pointed ears, he stiffened and
stood still. The blood froze in his belly, bringing on waves of
nausea. Terror made his fur rise. He saw eyes gleaming in the
moonlight, reflected on the crust, and the look in them was
alien and hostile. Now he caught the scent of fox.
He wanted to turn tail and flee back to his hole. But
between the paws of the fox was a piece of the moose meat.
When that smell reached him he had the urge to run up and
bare his teeth. The fox didn't move. It stood still, a full
grown male with thick winter coat and bushy tail, every hair
on end, filling a large space in the moonlight. A large space,
a large body, he emitted wave after wave of pungent presence
without moving.
The dog sat down. He sat suddenly and clumsily as if plopping
his backside down on the kitchen linoleum. He lifted
one back paw and began scratching his ear. He scratched and
scratched as if he didn't have a care in the world other than his
madly itchy ear. And the fox, mouth still open and upper lip
pulled back, withdrew into the undergrowth. There he stood
still and the pup continued scratching, his paw thumping the
hard snow. The fox slipped away and was gone, reappearing
down on the marsh: a back, a long tail, a vanishing streak.
The pup didn't know how he'd managed to get the fox
away from his food. But the fox was gone and now he
walked stiffly, sniffing its tracks. He left a few drops of urine
here and there. This was the first time he peed standing up
with one hind leg raised. Then he gnawed at the rib bone
the fox had pulled out of the snow.
When he had finished he sat listening for sounds in the
bright night. Then he started to bark. The sound rang out
between the trees, high-pitched and tentative. He listened to
the echo and barked again. Finally he was overcome by
sleepiness and loped back in his own tracks to the hole.

The hoarse howls from off the lake often woke him at night.
His body tensed and he growled. As he drifted back to sleep
his throat and lungs would sometimes let out an instinctive,
involuntary response. His own howling woke him up. He sat
up straight and threw his head back, baring his throat. He
bayed. At the tip of his muzzle his lips formed a small, round
opening through which he pressed the air.
He walked on the crust of the snow now. His paws were
still large and clumsy but his legs had grown longer. He flew
forward. Now and then he stopped, listening for the hoarse
cries from the lake. Behind him there were no longer any
memories.
From the pasture in front of the cabin he could see the
lake. The frozen surface reflected the moonlight. The ice
was like a smooth bluish film extending into the distance,
farther than he could see. His paws took him running. Out
on the smooth surface his body grew light. He fell into a
rapid, rhythmic stride and, after a while, a sprint. He was
running for no reason, towards nothing. The moonlight and
the cold and the speed made his body sing. There was no
limit, no forest, no shore. On its own his body ran in loops,
making a long, flat figure of eight on the bright surface. He
didn't stop. His pace slowed by itself; the loops became
smaller. Finally he was back at a lope, which was when he
felt the pain in his paws. He stopped and licked them. There
was a salty taste he didn't recognise. The saltiness left a powerful
scent in the snow.
The speed and the running of a moment ago were forgotten.
He crossed the ice, following the sharp scent of fox.
Sometimes there was another smell, dense, heavy and
oppressive. It awakened memories but he had nothing to
attach them to. He circled the holes drilled in the ice, sniffing
around, pawing at the crust. He found wads of snuff and
orange peel. His nose poked at them just as his memory did.
When they were in his mouth he snorted, and the strong,
nasty smell made him drop them again. Eventually he found
a little burbot by a hole. It was frozen stiff but when his teeth
sank into its back he tasted fish. He gobbled it up without
even spitting out the head, licking his paws thoroughly afterwards.
He
wanted to get back to shore but his own tracks went
in so many different directions he was unable to follow them.
They just led in circles on the ice. After a while he looked
up, then headed straight for the rocks at the shoreline.
Halfway there he thought he saw something crouching,
lurking among the boulders, watching him. He turned off in
a different direction. Once he was a bit farther away the
lurking body disappeared, became a rock among the other
rocks.
The moon was setting as he made his way back to the
wooded area above the marsh. It was dark among the spruces
and the snow wouldn't support his weight. Time after time
he sank through until he finally curled up by a root, licking
the salty tang of blood from his paws. The woods were just
coming to life as he fell asleep. At dawn one bird after
another warbled tentatively in the dense, moist air. But he
was sleeping.
The meltwater made the forest hum. It gurgled under the
snow. His paws sank into the slush. His belly was wet most of the time, and as soon as he had pulled himself up on a
stump or found shelter by a fallen tree he would lick himself
until his belly and paws were dry. The singing of the birds
and the dripping of the water filled his ears. The bright light
from above caught in his eyes and made him drowsy.
Sometimes he tried lying on his side and sleeping in the sun,
but he couldn't. The wetness always overtook him.
He was hungry. That night, after running on the ice, he
had looked for his food spot at the edge of the marsh, but
hadn't found it. By morning, after he had slept fitfully against
a rock or the trunk of a spruce tree, the clear memory of the
food spot had faded. Now all that was left was apprehension
and hunger. He was nothing but an aching belly and plodding
paws in the slushy snow. He had to lift his legs high to
make any progress at all. The woods were full of clear scents
and voices but he couldn't catch things that moved. He
found frozen lingonberries in the melting snow by tree
stumps.
In his sleep during the long, light mornings when the
surge swelled in the forest, a sound reached him that he'd
never heard before. It was a burbling like the murmur of
rising water. He raised his head and listened, but fell asleep
again when the waves of sound receded. One morning
when he awakened the sound was so close he could discern
voices in the murmuring. He stood up and started walking
cautiously, his legs stiff with cold. There were rays of sunlight
between the trunks of the spruces on the slope. He avoided
it because of the glare. The gurgling song was now very
close by. He could hear individual voices rising and falling.
One disappeared and another bubbled up, rang in his ears for
a long time and vanished into the murmuring. In front of
him was a little tarn, glimmering white with untouched
snow.
Now the sun had risen above the spruce-covered slope.
The surface of the tarn blinded him. But he could still see
dark shadows moving down by the shore. When he started
running he could hear a bird take flight and at once the rippling
song went silent. For quite a while he nosed around on
the ice, following the fresh scent. The only thing he found
was a feather, a black curved feather from the tail fan of a
large black grouse cock.
He roamed and he slept. In the early morning he was
awakened again by the same song filling the forest. This time
he crept more stealthily, keeping his belly to the snow when
he paused to listen. It was murky and grey under the spruces.
But he saw two round shadowy bodies pull apart, dancing
towards each other and away again at the edge of the marsh.
It was as if they had arisen from the very murmur of
voices and become solid and black. They were running with
outspread wings, dragging their tails. He could hear them
burble and gurgle. A bit farther away he could see more of them. The whole area was alive and moving, full of circling
black bodies. The song rose and fell with their movements

against the snow. He lay near them until the sun was in his
eyes and the glare off their white tail feathers was blinding.
He pounced, but only half-heartedly. The grouse cocks flew
up. Heavy bodies with noisily flapping wings went off in so
many directions his eyes couldn't follow a single one. He
never saw the hens. They had scurried off into the reeds. He
only heard their terrified cackling. As soon as the grouse had
flown off he started scratching his ear.

Slushy water and sour lingonberries. Feathers in the moss,
straggly, odourless. Nothing but water in his aching stomach,
wet paws in the marsh. Push on, push on, slow and soggy.
Chew on feathers, suck on bones. Water dripping on nose,
stinging eyes and aching belly. Traipse and trudge. Crouch
with belly to the snow. Push on with nose to the ground.

Odourless water. Meltwater. Hungerwater.
The moon creeps up on the forest. The night is not silent.
It purls and ripples, it twitters and rusdes. Up, keep going across
the patchy ground. Body uneasy, forest uneasy. Patches of
moonlight and snow, patches of shadow and dark marshland.
Sharp branches, paws and claws. Crouching stumps with
furry backs and ears. Sleeping boulders. Fall asleep on damp
lichen, frozen stiff and dizzy. Spots before the eyes. Hunger
pangs and dull fear. Sleep it off. Sleep in the sun. Suck the
warm teats. Doze off. Suck. Suck the warmth.

He came to a spot he recognised. It wasn't just one of the
countless places where he caught a whiff of the restless phantom
that was everywhere, his own scent. The silhouette of
the grey building was familiar. He walked up to it, discovering
the smell of his own urine on the wood of the door.
The barn door had rotted off its hinges and stood leaning
against the entrance, forming an opening that was wider
towards the bottom. He sniffed at it for a long time before he
dared wriggle through. An unfamiliar smell, sharp and concentrated,
bewildered him. Once inside he could see almost
nothing. When he sniffed at the rough floorboards the dust
made him sneeze. Something was hanging on the wall and he
started chewing. It was stiff but his saliva softened it and the
taste filled his mouth. He pulled off a piece and swallowed it,
but that only made his bellyache worse. When he knocked
over a rusty bucket he panicked at the clatter, dropped the
halter, ran to the entrance and wriggled out.
A short distance away the fear let up. He lay by a spruce,
staring at the building. It was still familiar, beating like his
own heart, a sickening pounding that pitched him between
terror and reassurance. At dusk the building seemed larger.
In the constant murmur of water all around him he heard
things that weren't there: people's voices. His memory singled
out strands in the weave of sounds that could have been
voices. But they weren't. The murmuring continued but no
one emerged from the ramshackle building. He withdrew,
dejected, curling up against a windfallen tree with its dry,
compressed mass of soil and roots rising towards the sky.
At dawn the crows awakened him. They were circling
above the marsh, telling him the same thing they told each
other: food! With a couple of bounds he was there and they
immediately flew up. Now he was the one who frightened
them. He stood over the food on long legs, tugging at the
rotting, shaggy flank.
Everything here was familiar. He was back at his marsh.
The moose carcass was still there, though all that was left was
a decomposing hide over some ribs and a few scattered
bones. He didn't find much nourishment but plenty of unfamiliar
scents, trails that went in circles, and droppings. He
marked the tree trunks with a few drops here and there and
then lay down on the slope, gnawing greedily at a thighbone
that still had a few sinews. His mouth was bleeding. His incisors
were loose and the gums tender where new teeth were
breaking through. His permanent front teeth had already

come in.

At first hunger is a spur, making legs grow long and forcing
nose to the ground. Then it becomes a whip, lashing out at
sensitive ears with sounds, striking through a deep sleep. It
releases scents that soon are lost. It gnaws and torments
from deep inside an aching cavity. The body, with matted
fur, legs that dash, claws that tear and scrape, is merely the
shape hunger assumes. There's nothing else inside. Only
hunger.
The porous snow melted away. The marsh water rose. The
top layer of ice on the lake was gone. His paws sank into
grey slush and he had to retreat to the rocky shore. One
night a storm blew in, awakening him from the numbness of
hunger. He tried to curl up again and sleep but was too
exposed. His ears were pressed back by the wailing wind. He
had to go and find a spot in the woods under a spruce. There
he lay, listening as the howling in the air snapped off
branches. At dawn the wind was still strong, and fallen twigs
and needles covered the snow under the trees. All smells had
vanished from the world.
In the morning he faced the wind, angling down to the
lake. Standing in the trees along the shore he was suddenly
afraid. Massive grey shapes rose up and broke on the rocks.
The churning waves boomed as they pounded against ice
and stones. He didn't recognise this roiling, crashing lake
with its black water and chunks of ice, and he retreated into
the forest.

Keep going, keep going.
That was the day he found a dead vole. Its belly was
swollen and it had yellow, protruding teeth. He turned it
over with his paw and nudged it with his nose. The
distended skin ruptured and a mess of liquid poured out. He
left it at the foot of a spruce, covering it with leaves and needles.
He roamed on, but for shorter and shorter stretches.
Hunger ruled him in a different way than before. It made
him dizzy and dazed. He longed for sleep, and if it hadn't
been for the moisture, the clammy, dripping water that
always soaked through the fur on his belly, he'd have slept for
eternity.

If you found warm eggs among tufts of grass you would look
around for birds. But if no one had told you where eggs
came from you would crack them open and eat them, and
when you were full you'd puzzle it out. You would look at
the sun and the shiny yolks inside the shells you'd crushed
and suppose the sun had laid them like roe in the grass and
was now warming them until they were ripe.

The dog found them but didn't wonder where they came
from, though he soon realised they had something to do
with the sharp cries of the birds. He ate with his muzzle
pressed into the grass, lapping the viscous whites with his
tongue, slowly and thoroughly licking up the yolks, licking
every blade of grass.
The last patch of snow on the marsh had vanished. In the
forest there were scruffy drifts with hard, almost transparent
crystals. The spruces had dropped their seeds and needles on
them; the wind had brought down lichen and twigs.
The marsh was suffused with water. It flooded, forming
two streams that ran down to the lake, murmuring and
singing among the stones. In the forest and on the marsh, at
the shore where birch and alder appeared in the opening
beyond the blanket of spruce, on the point down towards the
narrows, in the shallow bay, protected from the wind off the
mountains in Norway -- every day brought a shower of new
voices. In the morning, when red and gold still lingered in
the sky like gravel at the bottom of the brook, a shifting,
quavering blanket of bird calls hung over the forest. Throats
with yellow or rust-coloured or plain lava-grey patches were
vibrating. Small bodies were filled with song. Though they
were nothing but a handful of down, a few hollow bones
and a mouthful of blood, their calls rang out. Their song rose
like marsh water in the forest.
Wherever the sun dried and warmed the ground insects
were creeping and crawling. Early in the day the anthills
slowly came to life. When the sun was highest in the sky the
ants were at work repairing holes. If it was too cold in the
morning the colony grew sluggish and didn't go out. The
ants clung to each other, barely alive, so feeble that the
anthill didn't even smell like piss when a paw scratched its
rough surface.
But sunny days dominated. The sun warmed and incubated.
It drew out bodies that had burned stored fat while
sleeping. Hunger awakened in the forest. The voles started
scurrying in the dry grass, looking for seed pods left from the
previous autumn, for frozen lingonberries, cocoons and eggs.
At night the water in pit holes froze in thin sheets, injuring
paws that broke through. The brown grass acquired a
new film of ice. But the light came early. Before the ball of
sun had emerged above the treetops in its haze of red, the
entire forest was suffused with light.
Water and light rose in veins and stalks, in vessels and
nerves and tiny roots. Voices were filled with light and light
filled the warm eggs. It shot like sparks in newly awakened
membranes and muscles filled with blood, pulsating inside
the eggs.
He licked the light, sucked it. The water in the run-offs
retreated. It was no longer the enemy; it was a bright voice
under the stones. His belly was dry and he turned it towards
the sun. He could have been killed in those moments of
trust, lying there as if he'd suckled the sun, snoring in his
puppy sleep. But though many were killed when winter
hunger awakened in the forest, he was not among them.

All those living in dens and lairs around him had their own
ways. From the moment daylight began filtering into their
sleep until darkness fell and they tucked their beaks under
their wings or curled their tails around their paws, each day
was the same. They scurried up the same treetrunks and
crept into the same holes. During the daylight hours they
were constantly busy. Their world was familiar and they were
on guard, for they all knew what was behind the tufts of
grass and above the treetops, and what might be there.
During the long period of privation he'd wandered aimlessly,
his memory patchy, like clouds of damp fog.
Sometimes he had run half-heartedly, without searching in
earnest; sometimes he had fallen asleep by a treetrunk in the
midst of chasing something that rustled or squeaked. Now
he searched eagerly but knew where he was, even when a
snapping twig or a faint rustle in the dry grass woke him
from a nap.
He'd become wary of his old sleeping place on the slope
by the marsh. Now he preferred the large spruces where the
lowest layer of dark, needle-covered branches skirted the
ground. But he never slept many nights in the same spot.
After a while he would become uneasy. Sniffing around the
place he'd slept, he wasn't sure what scents he picked up.
Then he retreated, found another spruce or another pile of
stones to crawl into. But he often returned to the old places
that felt familiar, where he was on guard but not agitated. If
too many indistinct trails of scent surrounded the spot he
became confused, at worst afraid. But fear didn't strike often.
He didn't know what brought it on. Fear stung; fear struck
in the dark.
In the mornings his body was stiff and he had to stretch
his numb legs again and again before the blood got moving
and his joints loosened up. The sharp smells of early morning
made him alert. Whatever had taken place in the grass
and the moss had just happened. There were no lingering
traces of creatures that by now were far away. He always
began by scouring the marsh where he'd first found eggs.
Searching was futile now, but the delicious, flavourful eggs
remained with him. He had to forage in the marsh before he

did anything else.
Every day he roamed the same area. The recent past hung
in the air as wisps and trails. In the present, branches
snapped; there was rustling, squeaking and scraping. But
some things had happened so long ago that their smells had
completely vanished. There were many such things. They
happened once again when he reached the place where the
scent had faded away. But now they happened inside him,
with a jolt that made his muscles tense. He started searching,
his snout rooting, his paws tearing at the ground.
Under the roof of the cabin, against the timbered wall
where the ground was dry, there had been a dead magpie
one morning. He couldn't walk past the cabin without
investigating that strip of dry ground. When he crossed the
pasture and came down to the wooded area on the point
there was a rotting tree trunk that roused his excitement.
This was the place he'd found large cocoons. He scratched at
the reddish wood; it crumbled under his claws. There were
no more cocoons, but that was where it had happened, and
when he came across the trunk it happened again. Each time
it grew fainter until eventually it sank into the ground and
disappeared. Other things happened that made him watchful
and momentarily roused, nose to the ground and ears
pricked. If they brought more than a mouthful to eat, if they
filled his belly, these things, too, would remain with him a
long time.

The birch buds swelled and grew sticky. On the slope down
to the inlet the sallow bushes were in bloom, covered with
pollen and bright in the sunshine. He was alarmed the first
time he saw them, thinking for a moment that they were
large, luminous bodies.
Under the alders, pointed blades of grass, green and with
an intense taste, were pushing up from beneath the grey
brown blanket of last year's leaves. There was a stand of
nettles by the old manure pile at the barn; the air around
them had a sharp smell.
The ground, too, was always changing. The pattern of
wet areas and grass, of sounds and smells, shifted beneath
him. Down by the shore the ground ended: no grass or
tracks, just stones and the murmuring and lapping of the
water. When the wind blew hard, pieces of wood washed
up, scrubbed and polished by the smooth stones. The wood
was shiny, pale and strange. The strip between the deep, constantly
churning water and the wet ground where grass had
taken root was a dangerous, rewarding borderland where
creatures were left behind, with straggly, drenched feathers or

soggy fur.
He always stayed as far as possible from the water's edge,
stretching his neck towards the smells and setting his paws
down cautiously. Along the shore there were no bushes.
Though this made him uneasy, he often took the risk of letting
himself be seen. Down there he always found something

to eat.
If he went far out on the point he came very close to the
other world. He could see the opposite shore and sometimes
he heard dogs barking. He didn't dare go to the very tip. He
was afraid of the other side. When he heard barking he
wanted to howl, but fear stopped him. He crouched low in
clumps of brush on the bank, squinting in the wind, catching
scents from the dangerous side.
From the shore that was usually sheltered from the wind
he could hear the loud roar of the rapids. He couldn't see
them and didn't know what they were. The water danced in
eddies down towards the noise. It was dangerous out on the
point. The surging of the water made him deaf. He couldn't
hear sounds from the forest. He kept to the wetlands and
took small, cautious steps on decaying logs. Only rarely did
curiosity lure him out into the roar of the rapids.
Once he saw the silhouette of a long, arched back on the
rocks in the narrows. It slid into the water and emerged on
the opposite side. He saw the back lengthen into a tail, saw
the undulating movement of the otter's leap to its den on the
bank, but with his poor vision he lost track of the movement
among the crowberry brush, and when he didn't pick up a
scent he forgot about it.
On the shore by the inlet, beavers had felled birches and
aspens, stripping bark and twigs from the trunks. The logs
plunged into the water, naked and pale. He became familiar
with the scent of beaver although he never caught sight
of them. The ground was muddy and rough where the
beavers had been at work so he kept to the woods. He
didn't like mud sticking to his fur. He didn't like unnecessary
trouble. Climbing tired him out and made him forget
to listen and stay on guard. He was no longer a pup who
acted carelessly, without considering. He'd become deliberate and cautious.
The path from the boat landing was overgrown; young
spruce trees and birch saplings were so close together that he
had a hard time making his way through. There was a
murmur of bird sounds in there, rustling wings, shadows,
blinking eyes. He never paid any attention to the little ones.
They fluttered up on tiny, quick wings and vanished into the
darkness of the enormous spruces. When he found one of
them on the ground with ruffled feathers and limp neck he
didn't connect it with the ones who fluttered and chirped.
They were nothing to him when they were in the air; they
were too quick. But the ones with heavy bodies that had a
hard time taking flight, the flapping and squawking ones,
those interested him. Where he picked up their scent he
might find eggs.
The old summer pasture had a dense layer of last year's
vegetation, brown and compacted by the snow. Now green
blades of grass were lifting it up. From the warm space
between the ground and the tip of the blades came the
rustling of quick paws. He made his way slowly up the slope,
his muzzle in the warm, fragrant mat, eating insects methodically
while continuing to listen for the rustling. Down there

he could smell vole.
Around the barn were stands of nettles. Those he avoided.
To reach the marsh he had to cross an overgrown hollow
bisected by a black, muddy ditch, where there was often a

strong scent of moose.
He was quite familiar with the little marsh and its sparse,
waterlogged pines. There, and along the shore, were his best
fields. A narrow, wooded ridge extended into the grassy area
of the marsh. His first sleeping place had been up there but
he went no farther than the top of the ridge, where there
was a sharp plunge towards an area he hadn't explored. On
the incline the enormous spruces were so old and so dense
that the ground under them was brown with needles.

Nothing grew there.
In the cleared area above the cabin were the hares. He
didn't go very far in that direction either. That was the end
of the world as he knew it, the border between the clearing
and the marsh. Whenever he ventured into the unknown he
was very much on edge.

The ragged cover of grass and compressed leaves was in
motion, lifted from below, bursting with new growth. From
the space beneath the roof of grass came the buzzing and
whirring of insects, but there were voles down there as well.
He often stood still, head lowered, ears cocked, listening.
One morning he heard a faint peeping. It sounded like
birds under the grass. Following it with his ears, he found it
was louder by the large rock near the cabin steps. The scent
grew more intense in the clumps of grass. When he clawed
at them the muffled peeping stopped. He clawed again and
found hairless bodies, the smell of blood. He didn't look, just
gobbled.
The vole nest was full of young. He didn't chew until he
got to the last one. The nest -- tangled tufts of grass -- lay
between his paws. He put his cheek to the warm ground, his
jaws crunching. The blood, the warmth, the spasms spurred
him, making him eat faster than he ever had before. Only

later did he feel the warmth and the pleasure, coursing in
indolent waves through his hard, sinewy body.
He found a dry spot on the slope and stretched his legs
and paws. His belly made swishing and gurgling noises as it
digested. Lying with eyes half closed, he felt shivers of satisfaction,
pleasure and warmth. His paws twitched in his sleep
and his upper lip drew back from his teeth. He was hunting.

The sun hatched many eggs on long stems. They swayed in
the wind off the mountains. He nipped at them when he
crossed the wet ground by the shore. That wind was just
fresh sky and water. It could continue for many days in a
row, caressing the hardy yellow flower heads as they swayed
and bobbed. The rowans had unfolded their leaves in long
points like bird claws, white side up in the breeze. The wind
sang in the birch leaves.
The wind off the mountains never bothered him. It never
brought anything stinging or sticky, nothing worrisome or
threatening like the capricious wind that sometimes blew the
water in the rapids back against the flow. The wind off the
mountains was steady. Sometimes it picked up and then the
lake showed its white fangs off in the distance. High above,
the wind sang in the spruces. In the grass it was warm. The
creatures that rustled and squeaked weren't affected by the
wind, even when it made enormous waves in the grass.
The wind raised the fur on his back but his muzzle was
down among the voles. The grass was so full of strong smells
that he sometimes had to raise his head to clear his nose. It
smelled of yarrow about to bloom, a compact, heavily spicy
scent. The mouldering humus was steaming, crawling with
blind, hard-shelled insects that ground their teeth, crisscrossed
by fat, industrious bugs the thrushes could find by
listening. He himself caught them only by chance when his
sharp claws scratched the ground. The delicate scents of
cranesbill, cow parsley, buttercup, snakeweed and the slender,
hardy bluebell, sheep's sorrel and tormentil were intermingled
with that of the grass. The hoverflies and wasps and the
fuzzy bumblebees filled the world that was the flowering
roof of the pasture with a slowly rising and falling hum.
The dog ploughed through the grass, leaving deep furrows
behind him. Sometimes when the sun, the scents and
the sounds made him dizzy with languid pleasure, a delight
so sweet it almost tickled, he lay belly up, rubbing his back
against the grassy carpet. He wriggled, his body coiling,
front paws waving. Afterwards he got up quickly and shook
his coat. When he ambled off he was himself again, composed
and on guard. Behind him the grass was flattened and
the thin blades of cranesbill and starwort were pressed down.
Vessels had been broken, green blood was flowing. Slowly
the work began to restore everything to its pre-disaster state.
Fluids found their way to vessels that didn't leak. Wounds
dried up and blisters healed. By then, though, he was already
lying on a rock near the shore, licking his coat clean from
everything that had stuck to it in the sea of grass.

At night the large grey creatures emerged. They were often
standing down where the forest met the marsh. In the stillness
they resembled rocks and shadows, heavy shapes that
dissolved in the dark and seemed to disperse among the tree
trunks. His ears and nose told him where they were but his
eyes could no longer make them out.
Resting in his old sleeping place, he became accustomed
to them. Their movements were slow and imposing and they
made careless noises, breaking twigs and tramping through
mud with their hooves. They made wheezing sounds and
the bark ripped in their powerful teeth. He saw their legs
moving, white in the dim light. They were always together.
It was quite a while before he realised there were two of
them. If one appeared at the edge of the marsh in the erratic
dawn rays flickering before his eyes, if the shadows and the
sound of snapping twigs coalesced into a single body, then he
knew there would be another one down there too. He listened,
one ear cocked, for the one who was missing.
But he didn't know they were yearlings, or that the female
moose who had given birth to them and nursed them last
year was the carcass that had kept him alive from late winter
to spring. The hunters had sent the dogs after her but she got
away. She'd survived till midwinter with a shattered jaw, and
had died of starvation.

His nose was honed in on voles and mice and the concentrated
smell of bird nests; he ignored most of what the
ground and grass could tell him. There was a blur of smells

everywhere.
But he followed the tracks of the moose. Plunging into
the fresh trails they made gave him intense pleasure. His
entire body quivered in a frenzy of joy. But when he picked
up their scent he stopped. He could hear them wheezing. A
yelp forced its way out of his throat, confusing him, and he

pulled back.
Restlessness came over him. All the creatures living in
dens and holes, moving about in the pale light under the
trees, creating new wafts of scent in the night, all of them
had their own ways. Only he walked with his nose to the
ground, searching and listening, waiting. When he'd found
a mouthful that relieved the pangs of hunger he looked for
a place to sleep, but he was always expectant.
No one came. His restlessness stirred as the light faded. It
became intense when the smell of moose in the tracks
merged with their scent in the air. Bewildered, he withdrew
under a spruce, licking his paws and listening. It seemed as if
each and every creature around him had scents and trails that
were their own and he was the only one searching for a way
to make sense of a jumble of sounds and restless shadows.
But he didn't find it. He could find no trace of the pack he'd
once belonged to.
He was on his own, working out what he needed to
know. A short-eared owl had swiped him across the face
with the side of her wing. He'd thought it was a game bird
when he heard the swoosh, but game birds fled, flapping off
between the trees, not even attacking in self-defence. Owls,
though, dived down. From that day on he listened for that
swooshing noise, distinct from the sound of game birds.
One morning as he was standing at the water's edge,
nosing around for fish the otter had left, the stones shifted.
When he tried to pull himself up one of his hind legs was
caught. It was a long time before he managed to free himself,
and then only with great effort and intense pain.
The soreness stayed with him. The collapse of the stones
was a longer-lasting lesson than the reprimand of the owl. He
walked on three legs, hobbling and hopping when he had to.
During this period his corkscrew tail was often limp. He
didn't go lame, but when the wound healed he had a bump
on his hock that he often licked. When the mornings were
cold and rainy the pain reawakened. He grew accustomed to
it. The pain became part of him, just like the bump.
He knew what to expect from the owl. When she
plunged, gilding on outspread wings, he should keep out of
the way. The owl and the stones.
There were other things that didn't reveal themselves. He
no longer ambled along as he'd done as a pup, absentminded
and eager. He crossed open spaces quickly, hunching
down, his entire body tense from listening. When the
summer heat hung over the pasture and the murmur of bird
calls died out towards morning, he was a thin, muscular dog
who often stood by a birch or a rowan, letting the shadow of
the leaves play across his dark mask and slanted eyes as if he
were aware of them and wanted to conceal them so they
wouldn't give him away. He avoided the rustling aspens,
which interfered with listening, and he avoided the side of
the point near the rapids except for an occasional early
morning foray to sniff for fish scraps.
More and more often, he followed the trail of the moose. It
served no purpose but felt compelling. His eagerness had no
direction, no goal, and always left him bewildered. But the
scent took him farther and farther from the little world near the
cabin that he knew so well: the marsh, the pasture, the point.
He found his way to other marshes, to rocky terrain covered
with bog moss, dark forests with wood grouse, swampy shores
of dark, unfamiliar lakes. Above him a buzzard screeched.
He always caused a commotion. Birds flew up in front of
him with piercing shrieks that went on for a long, long time.
That could mean eggs. He searched, nose to the grass, letting
the shrieks guide-him. When they grew loud and anguished
he was close, when they died out he'd lost the trail.
Now there were bodies inside the eggs. Most of the time,
though, only the shells were left; the warm, moist contents
were gone. He wasn't interested in the shells. The young that
had hatched by the shore fled to safety in the water, leaving
tiny rippling wakes on the smooth surface. He tested the
wetness with his paw but didn't like it. Once he'd plunged in
after them, but when his paws no longer touched bottom he
couldn't see across the water. He paddled, but no matter how
far he stretched his neck he didn't catch sight of anything
alive, so he turned back to land, shook himself thoroughly
and loped off without looking back.
While following the moose trail, he'd come across a body
of water not far from the marsh. He began including it in his
daily rounds. Each time he went there and walked around
the shore he was less tense and hunched down.
It was a tarn, black and almost round, quite near the big lake.
A brook made its way down through the dense forest of old
spruce, bringing water from the tarn to the larger lake, an
inland sea with cold, restless blue water that never was silent.
The beavers had made a dam in the brook. Along the far
bank the spruces and small pines were turning yellow. On his
side the banks were steeper. Though the soil was full of passageways
the ground held; water hadn't reached the roots of
the trees and they were still healthy. In the passageways the
scent of beaver was strong.
In the evening the steep side was sunny and he lay there in
a dense thicket of crowberry brush and bilberry, letting the
warmth sink into his fur. If he lay still for a long time he
sometimes caught sight of a beaver's head gleaming in the
light, cutting straight through the water. He always followed
the beavers with his gaze but didn't move or become agitated.
It was impossible to get near them.
By the passageways along the banks where the beavers
came ashore there was nothing for him. He picked up their
particular scent and the smell of their droppings. There were
no fish scraps, not a single feather, either, but they left
stripped branches everywhere.
The loud splash of a large, flat tail sometimes awakened
him. He liked lying there listening to them. The sound of
their gnawing could be heard from far off. When they
thought they were alone they poked around on the shore.
They were clumsy on land. He couldn't see them, but he
could hear their heavy bodies and the twigs that snapped in

their jaws.
The sun was low in the sky. It was no longer warm but
stung in his eyes as it played among the trunks of the spruces.
He liked lying there listening to sounds that signalled neither
flight nor a threat. He and the beavers had nothing to do
with each other, but they were there, in the same evening
sun, by the same dark water that glowed in its reflection. He
liked the sounds they made, their company.

A vole in the grass. He heard it a moment ago. He recognised
the sound of the hindquarters, heavy and sliding. It's not the

scampering of a mouse.
He's standing tense, head lowered. His ears are cocked
forward, the cartilage stiff, the hairs raised.
They're both stock-still now, but as soon as the vole at his
feet moves, he'll pounce. Down there is the warm world of
the grass with its whirring and humming, but he's only listening
for one distinct sound: the vole. It's there
somewhere, blinking, its heart pumping blood, listening,
every hair in its grey-brown fur on end.
The dog remains still so he won't lose the scent. The wind
off the lake blows through the meadowgrass; the pasture billows
and shimmers, blinding him. But he doesn't move. In
the jumble of sounds under and above him there's only one
sound he's waiting for.
He never tires. A vole that's not threatened moves straight
through the grass, perhaps towards its nest. It may freeze
warily in its tracks but will start moving again. The dog often
misses when he tries pouncing in the cover of grass, but his
ears never lose track of a vole that has come to a halt somewhere
beneath him among the coarse stalks of wolfsbane.
Now. A faint sliding. The cow parsley doesn't move, but
that's where it came from. The dog is poised for the strike.
His nose and front legs dive into the grass. He's got it, but
only for a moment. Frenzied wriggling under his front paws.
Then it scurries between his legs. Two more tries. It's injured
and can't get away. Now he bites and the tiny, warm body
goes limp between his jaws.
He takes it with him out of the grass, lying down under a
spruce at the edge of the forest. With his paws he pins the
vole against a root, tearing at it with his front teeth until the

fur rips open.
He's not especially hungry. The pasture is full of voles and
he's become skilled at finding them, though he's still somewhat
clumsy when he pounces. But after a few hours of
hunting in the morning he's no longer so eager that he gobbles
them up right away. He carries off his prey, tears at the
fur for a long time, leaves bits and pieces.
The strong wind blowing off the lake creates a little tempest
in the crown of the spruce. The sound makes him
sleepy. He dozes, eyelids heavy. The pasture rustles in the
wind and blades of grass gleam when it combs them apart.
The tiny birch leaves shimmer, too, catching the sun. Birch
saplings sprout up here and there in the heavy grass, an invasion
from the forest.
White flecks swirl across his field of vision. He knows
what they are. Butterflies don't have much taste. Bumblebees
sting in your mouth. He knows.
THE DOG

In his drowsiness he gazes out across the familiar pasture.
The grey fluttering of birds. The flecks of butterflies. The
grass is fragrant and the air is filled with pollen.
In the mornings he sees the vixen. She's usually there
before he is, hunting for voles, surrounded by a haze of powerful
scent. Ifhe he rushes her she vanishes, running low in the
grass, which closes above her.
They've never approached each other but he's lain on a
hill above the inlet, looking down on her den. Her cubs
often come out in the sun. Growling, they squabble over
bird wings. Though there are sometimes food scraps outside
the den he never goes down there. There's something
between the foxes and him, something that keeps them
apart.
The pasture is his. It billows under his drowsy gaze, humming
and whirring.

Catching the young hare brought about a change in him. So
much blood and warmth at once. Such extended pleasure,
along with the lingering sense of surprise.
It had happened quickly. The hare popped up in the grass,
rustling in a clump of ferns. With a single leap he had him;
the smell of blood merged with the smell of broken ferns.
The rustling of stiff fronds and their bittersweet fragrance
excited him long afterwards.
The full-grown hares kept their distance. Not so long ago
he'd thought of them as huge. As a pup he'd kept still by the
root of a spruce when they bounded by on the crust of the
snow. He hadn't felt safe.
It was the same with the large birds, the black or brown
speckled ones that flapped up from the thicket. For a long
time he didn't dare hunt them, remembering the hard wing
of the owl, the reprimand in his own pasture.
But now there were others like those hares, only smaller
and more afraid. The fine hairs of fur so erect the downy
undercoat caught the light. The eye. The smell of death even
before his fangs sank in. The stench of terror.

Prey.
There were wood grouse chicks in the grass. Cheeping,
scurrying in the same glassy-eyed terror of being caught.
The dog was changing, growing into his muscular body.
Inside him, something was evolving: a purpose. Filling his
mouth with blood and warmth, keeping it filled. Pouncing
when he heard a rustling noise. Sinking in his fangs. What
was there to be afraid of in the shadows? His body was nearly
full grown now. It hardened around this awareness: can
strike. Am stronger than the rustling and the shadows.

The warm nights brought gnats and black flies. They
plagued him and he never got used to it; the torment didn't
become part of him. He tried to flee but there was nowhere
the insects didn't catch up with him. The flies crept into his
eyes, the gnats settled in his belly fur. He licked the swellings
they left. Only the wind brought relief.
The voices were also part of the warm nights. He avoided
them. Now he was sleeping up in the woods, on windy
mountain slopes where the gnats and flies were swept away,
but the unfamiliar terrain made him uneasy. The wind was
blowing too hard for him to hear properly. He was on edge.
In the mornings, when he came down to the pasture to
hunt, the voices were gone. The smell of smoke hung in the
air. Gusts of wind brought other enticing smells, thick and
unfamiliar. He began going down to the shore and searching.
There was fish blood on the stones. If he got there
before the vixen he might come across a tiny, stiff fish that
had been left. He found rubbery sausage skins. Although
they were salty and hard to chew, he couldn't resist then;. He
was thirsty after going through the scraps the fishermen had
left by the cold campfire, and his mouth burned. He lay at
the edge of the lake by the boat landing, licking his paws
clean from grease and soot. Then he took a long drink of
cold lake water.

From the bramble down by the shore a surge of living
creatures makes its way toward the pasture. The air is humming
and sticks in his throat when he breathes. Everything
warm-blooded is fair game. There are swellings on his hide
from the stings. The more he licks the more it burns. He
wants to escape to a cool breeze, but the wind has completely
died down. During the white nights of summer the

water is smooth.
He spends his days stretched out motionless under a
spruce, as close to the water as he can get without being
seen. There are often boats on the lake now. The voices
make him uneasy. He wants to get away from them but the
heat in the clearing is so intense he's forced to turn back.
There's no escaping them by the shore; the voices even
punctuate the night.'
He hunts in the early morning when there's still a trace of
cool night air, going down to the lake to drink while it's still
quiet along the shore. The goldeneyes dive for food, pulling
up strips of vegetation that quiver on the smooth surface. He
listens for the sound of the beavers.
Everything is familiar. He hears the same sounds he always
does, but beyond them are the voices. They're present even
when they can't be heard. The activity along the shore has
scared off the otter and her young. Their scent gradually
fades away. The fox enters their den and roots around. Soon
his own scent has wiped out every memory of the timid
otters.
The shore belongs to those who dare to live with the
voices of human beings. The dog is one of them, but he's on
edge, his body tense from the plague of gnats and from listening.
There's no restfulness in the light, warm nights, no
deep sleep. In the pasture the valerian shines so brightly that
the opaque bells of the flowers seem to contain a white light.
The sickly smell reaches him in little bursts. Nothing is forgotten.

One
morning he was out at the point, digging for mouse
nests under the spruces. He let down his guard for a
moment, not listening around him, attuned only to faint
sounds under the moss. Then the voices swept over him.
There was barking and a creaking noise. He heard a smack
and water splashing, then wood scraping against stones. He
was so close to the shore he could glimpse the boat and all
the people in it through the alders.
They came ashore without noticing the dark mask in the
speckled shadow of the alders, but he couldn't escape from
the point. Their sharp voices and careless movements were
all around the cabin. He crouched in the blueberry brush.
No matter how hard he listened he wasn't sure where they
were. They tramped around the pasture and slammed the
cabin door. Windows flew open. Rugs and tablecloths
snapped in the air. None of these noises were familiar. He
was completely bewildered by them, lying with his head
cocked, ears perked to pick up the sounds. Even if he'd been
able to see what they were doing he couldn't have made
sense of it. Axes chopping. The screech of a saw on wood.
The clattering of a bucket. Last of all the smell of smoke
pouring out.
Lying there in this chaos of sounds and insistent scents, he
waited for a chance to get away, but the people were unpredictable.
The smallest ones hollered and flattened the grass,
throwing an object that kept landing near him. When they
fetched it he could pick up their smells, which were very
concentrated and seemed to burn and sting.

He withdrew farther out on the point. Although he was
lying still, he was agitated. All other creatures were in
motion at specific times. They hunted and searched and
then they looked for a den or a branch. But the people at
the cabin didn't leave, allowing him to sneak away. It was
impossible to outwait them. When they'd been quiet for a
few minutes the noise and activity started all over again,
without warning or respite. Their chaos was between him
and the forest. Each time they came in among the trees on
the point he grew more terrified. He was prepared to

defend himself.
Towards dawn he broke out. By then it had been calm for
quite a while after the last one had returned from the fishing
spots by the narrows and gone inside. The dog crossed his
tracks in the damp grass when he fled.
Belly close to the ground, he followed the shore of the
shallow inlet and then ran in among the scrubby birches
by the pasture. Without bothering to look for the easiest
path, he bounded across the wet area below the barn. It
was covered with meadowsweet, which left a dense,
honey-like smell when it broke off, making him dizzy. He
ran through the marsh, black mud splattering around his
legs. When he reached the spruce forest he had to slacken
his pace. He loped along until exhaustion dulled the tension
in his muscles. The memory faded. The throbbing
sensation in his throat and lungs let up and his heartbeat

grew steadier.
He was extremely thirsty; all day and all night he'd been
too afraid to drink. As he started looking for water his body
began to relax. Weariness came over him in the chill before
dawn. He discovered a brook and drank for a long time. As
he wound down he just lapped sporadically, standing with
hanging head, letting the murmuring of the brook clear his
head and drown out the loud surge of blood in his ears.
Then he pushed on through the forest. Dawn awakened
all the creatures that had perched on twigs to sleep. There
was a soft flutter quite nearby: the bold Siberian jays. He was
accustomed to them and kept going.
Exhaustion made him increasingly sluggish and empty
inside. Once the sun was up he came upon a boulder to rest
by. The warmth of the sun found him there; it penetrated
through his furry coat to his tired, tingling body. He slept in
fits and starts while the warmth took over, healing and calming
him. Only when the jays came too close did his paws
twitch.

That day he didn't hunt. He didn't recognise the forest
around him. He was searching, but not for food; it was
familiar places he was after, and the smell of his own markings.
He left no drops of urine, merely stayed on guard and
kept on searching. He didn't empty his bladder until it was
painfully full. Towards evening he started covering longer
stretches at a time, loping at a steady pace, stopping once in
a while to listen. But even the blend of sounds in the air had
changed. Everything was different.
He headed uphill. Sharp rocks protruded and he had to
climb. He was frightened of stones that might shift under his
weight but he had to get across the rocky area. Inside him
was a cavity that could only be filled by familiar things. No
matter where he stopped, listening and sniffing, the wind
brought only the unfamiliar, and it was vast.
The unfamiliar was hunger and stone. It was gravel and
debris he'd never seen before, blasted-out strips of new logging
roads, blotches of diesel oil in the gravel. It was rusty
iron, plastic containers, mouldering cloth, beer bottles and
jagged rocks. The pads of his paws got cut. Eventually he
retreated from the strip; it had seemed easy to walk on but it
exacted a price on his paws.
He drank from a brook, standing in the water for a long
time. It soothed the pain in his paws. The running water
cleared his nose but he still couldn't pick up any scents he
recognised. The only relief from fear and confusion was to
keep going.
The farther up he got the sharper the air became. The
cleared area was huge. He tried to avoid piles of twigs and
woodchips but there was no way round. Tractor ruts, deep
as ditches, cut into the ground. Above him a buzzard
sailed on outspread wings, screeching. It wanted him to
leave. He would have been glad to escape the horrible
noise and the circling overhead, but there was no forest to

be found.

In the days that followed he could only hunt in the cleared
area. The rough terrain made it difficult to find anything.
Tracking prey was impossible. The buzzard could strike from
the air but the dog had to make his way on the ground
through brambles of brush and muddy tractor ruts.
Hunger made him clumsy and overexcited. He found a
couple of mouse nests with litters of young. Once the ache
in his belly let up he started listening for squeaks from the
nests instead of the rustling of adult animals scurrying under
the brush. He never caught enough to fill him up and make
him sleepy. The constant hunger in his belly drove him on
through lacerated terrain where the smell of diesel overpowered
the scent trails he tried to follow.
The sun burned down on the cleared area during the day.
He tried to find shade by the piles of brush. At first there had
been water in the tractor ruts but it had dried up. Thirst
drove him out into the heat. At midday the only sound was
the monotonous buzzing of the horseflies, a dull song from
no apparent source in the scorching air. The buzzard didn't
appear at midday and the dog could roam without its
screeching surveillance.
One night he walked a long way in the dim light, driven
by thirst. Nose to the ground, he searched for moist patches
but found only dryness and debris. Often he felt apprehensive,
as if something were after him.
There was no wind to pick up a scent. He walked in
loops, frequently twisting round to detect a pursuer. Hunger
and thirst made his muscles tire easily. Sometimes he wanted
to curl up by a boulder and let weariness overpower him, but
the nagging sensation of having something on his trail drove
him on.
When the darkness over the cleared area lifted at dawn and
the piles of grey brush shifted to red again, he heard running
water. He started off at a trot but remained on guard. Water
in a brook rippled among stones. The air was different. Dawn
had brought the sound of birds.
He reached the murmuring water, running across stones
and the trunks of small, felled spruces, but he didn't dare
stand in the open and drink. Pushing on to a place where
the brook ran in a crevice between some rocks, he found a
sheltered spot where he could lap the cold, sparkling water
until the burning in his throat subsided. Then he listened.
The wind had awakened, bringing bird calls and the fragrance
of pine needles. The forest was close by. But the one
whose presence he sensed was not discernible and there was
no rustling.
He crept along the brook to find better protection before
drinking his fill. He was now going upstream towards the
smell of forest. Then the wind changed, bringing back his
early-morning apprehension. It blew from the opposite
direction through the brushwood by the brook and there
was a loud crackling in the leaves. The dog caught the scent
of predator. It stung in his nose.
He never saw her. She was resting on the boulder where
he'd first stopped to drink. Eyes wide, she watched him
crashing forward. The tufts in her ears quivered. Then she
glided down and crossed the brook in the opposite direction.
Her large cat pads left their marks in the damp sand of the
brook.
When he got to the forest it didn't engulf him, just forced
him on. He took the first hill in leaps and bounds. Large
stands of blue sowthistle snapped. He heard birds flying up,
shrieking. For a long time he ran along a ridge, hearing only
the surge of blood in his ears.
Now the wind picked up, singing high above in the
spruces. Surging wind, surging blood. No quiet. He was
frantic. Forgetting was remote and the memory of the unfamiliar
scent was near. It was the scent of a creature that
attacked; his body knew that instinctively. Now he was running,
but he wasn't following a trail. He ran to escape the
memory, to forget.

The loon called out from above a distant lake. Up here the
waters were cold. The loon's cry lingered in the air, a quivering
ribbon of sound.
He sometimes returned there, to the steep, straight banks,
but the intervals in between were long. He'd become a rambler,
a rover.
There were no abandoned pastures this far up, no dense
coverings of grass where voles rustled. Hunger drove him
on. He covered long stretches each day. At first he had nothing
to eat. He was dizzy and often had to rest.
Day by day he adapted to this new life, always on the
move. He started finding wood grouse hens and their
broods. He herded the frightened, peeping chicks, running
rapidly in a wide circle where he'd heard the cackling and
the hen taking flight. He grabbed each chick by the neck
and chomped. The fluttering wings and twitching body
excited him. His jaws clamped down again. His teeth ripped
through feathers and down, reaching warm flesh.
He rarely caught game birds, surviving mainly on rodents.
At the foot of the spruces he sniffed out mouse nests and
tore out the young, but up here he never found very much
in any one place. He loped on, a muscular grey body, almost
invisible in the sheets of fog across the marsh at dawn.
Sometimes he crossed his own tracks, returning to places
they'd disappeared, where only the scent of an old marking
clung to a stump. This wasn't enough to make the place
seem familiar. Only where the loons were: there he often
stopped, lying on the steep northern banks above the tarn
and listening. He rarely saw the loons, just their streaks in the
water, but he heard their cries from far away as he roamed
the ridges; that made him want to turn back.

He covered more ground than hunger compelled. When he
was running long distances he had an economical, slightly
uneven lope that didn't tire him out. It took him deep into
a different area, into belts of forest in the mountains. Under
high stands of blooming sowthistle he listened for lemmings.
They were easy to catch: prey that went limp when he bit
them across the back, revolting little bags of patchy skin. If
he was hungry he swallowed them, otherwise he let them
be. Some of them didn't run away; instead they sat on their
haunches, chattering furiously. At first this bewildered,
almost frightened him.
He ate cloudberries that had ripened in the sun. At dawn
he sneaked up on game birds out on the marshes but he
never caught anything in such open terrain. When he'd
frightened them off he did as they did, gobbled wet cloudberries
until his belly felt heavy. He knew the foxes came
here to eat. When he got farther up the mountainside he
caught another scent that he avoided, of something heavy
that made enormous, deep tracks in the marshy soil. This
scent made him veer and get as far away as he could.
The marshes were narrow, running between the ridges
and the islands of birch forest where the ground was dry. Up
here the wind had more bite. Black-beard lichen fluttered in
the birches and the lady fern and sowthistle rustled. There
was rarely a period of calm between the gusts, and the wind
from the mountains carried a whiff of snow.
One day he crossed the last of the marshes, coming up to
a treeless slope. The ground was hard, covered with brush
and heather. The wind pressed his ears back, making him
uneasy. He could hear nothing but the whining in the air.
When he scared up a grouse he was startled. It seemed to
come out of nowhere, tearing at the air with its flapping
wings. He started noticing rocks and thickets of dwarf birch
and willow. He kept a lookout by them, crouched and listening,
but the grouse always came from unexpected
directions and he could never catch them. Frustration made
him more and more restless and irritable as he ran.
He came to a large field of snow that was trampled down
by hooves and speckled with droppings. The snow was
coarse, porous and sunken. He sniffed at reindeer hairs and
ate some snow but was afraid to walk on the expanse of
white. Disturbed by the roaring wind in his ears, which
deafened him and made his surroundings unreliable, he
turned and began loping downward.
That night he slept under one of the first large spruces became
to once he was back in the forest. The days had grown
shorter and no insects tormented him, but he was stiff when
he awakened in the morning and the bump on his hind hock
hurt. Below him the marsh lay under a layer of frost. Each
blade of grass was pristine and powdery when he started
nosing for the sickly-sweet smell of overripe cloudberries.

He was heading down, running long stretches each day. The
mountain wind at his back carried his own scent ahead,
making it impossible to pick up whatever was moving or
hiding in front of him, but he paid no attention since he
wasn't hunting. He loped along unevenly and purposefully.
His paws got used to the gravel of the logging roads. His
pads became hard and slick, his claws dull and worn down.
He'd turned back just before the first night of frost when
he encountered a sharp wind on the mountainside. Since
then he'd only hunted at dawn. Even if he didn't catch anything
he started running after a while. What drove him was
a stronger incentive than hunger.
After drinking from a brook he would doze for a while
under a spruce, but never for long. Soon he was on his way
again. He didn't know where he was heading, but an inner
sense told him he should run towards something more compelling
than the cry of the loon above a distant mountain
tarn.

Not all the days were strong, bold days for running.
Confusion seized him sometimes, making him run aimlessly,
not knowing if he was hunting or just following something
distant he'd caught on the wind. When the rain washed the
logging road clean from gravel and dug furrows in the sand
he stayed off it.
Long, cold rains blew in off the ocean beyond the mountains.
Clouds shrouded the jagged ridges in grey mist, not
dissolving until they had emptied all their water over the
forests and marshes. But the one caught in the downpour
didn't know where it had come from or where it was going.
He was in a chamber of swirling water, trapped and miserable.
His coat was drenched nearly down to the skin, a
thick, unpleasant wetness that made him so cold he shivered
all night no matter how tightly he curled up around himself.
His hock ached.
When it wasn't raining too hard he would run anyway, at
a measured, steady pace, a dark grey body with worn paws
and a tight belly. He was running from the pain and his
hunger and confusion, which pursued him like persistent,
raw fog.
By day, the one who swooped down was in the spruce
tree, dozing. The one who hunted voles was by the edge of
the marsh. The little ones who cheeped and fluttered busied
themselves in the trees. Each was where it belonged. They
circled, roamed and fluttered, each in its own domain, and
they always returned. But he was the one who kept running.
One
night he slept near the logging road in a jumble of
roots and stones. There were raspberry seeds between his
teeth. He was engulfed in a freezing fog that muffled all
sounds. He slept curled up, stiff from the cold.
At dawn the wind lifted the fog, carrying with it a complex
fabric of smells that penetrated his sleep. His paws
twitched and he started whimpering like a pup.
When he woke up he stood facing the wind, taking in the
scents. It was all his. It was far more compelling than the cry
of the loon. He took off running before he had even peed,
before he had even found a stream to drink from.
He reached the marsh up above the pasture before the last
clouds of mist had risen from the sedgegrass. The higher
ground was orange after the frost, and the pit holes were
black and saturated with rain. He sniffed. Everything was
familiar. His paws knew every bump in the ground and
nothing frightened him. His markings were still there in the
wood of the barn. He peed on it again. It was all his, but he
needed to mark it once more.
Although he was hungry he didn't feel like hunting. The
scent of a hare hung in the wet grass. It was quite fresh but
he didn't follow it. He needed to ring in the whole area first.
Nose to the ground, he ran in circles. Lots of others had
been through this grass. The enormous grey creatures had
left huge prints. They'd broken the stalks of meadowgrass
and ploughed through the dark green blanket of leaves covering
the wetlands, now starting to turn brown.

Everything that happens is inside him. It has already happened.
Everything that happens is vivid within. He knows.
It flares up, flashes like a wing in the dark night, settles again.
It encompasses a lite that has been lived.
Remembering and forgetting are the same murky depths.
Something swirls up from the sludge -- he recognises it. It
settles -- he forgets but knows. He is just the hard mask over
vivid things remembered, elusive things forgotten.
He roams. A shape, grey fur and a black mask. White
patch on the neck. Eye slits. He roams through wisps of
memory, hovering over the soft brown sludge of oblivion.
The flutter of a wing, the flick of a sharp claw. He
crouches. Low to the ground, body taut, he sniffs from

behind the mask.
Lake water laps the stones, gently and rhythmically. The

yellow foam between water and stone contains the memory
of long, habitual licking, a rhythmic, murmuring memory
that will soon be effaced.
The pasture grass is dying back. Thick, rough stalks,
brown spotted leaves; coarse vegetation prevails. Faded blue
wolfsbane rustles in the wind near his ear. There's a sickly
sweet smell of decay from the dampness. The voles move
slowly in the wet, heavy grass. The dog listens for their

sounds.
His ears are alert and warm with blood. The cupped cartilage
with its fine fur quivers. His hearing shifts from short
to long distance, from what the wind carries to what is
drawn into it. Ragged fragments of sound attach to the
knowledge concealed deep within him.
Deep inside he has a core. It is his sun.
Throughout the spring and summer the cranesbill blossoms
in the pastures, the wolfsbane, the quaking grass and
the stitchwort flowers have all turned towards their sun. It
sent water through them, drew up salt and nutrients. Their
sun warmed them by day, putting them to sleep when it
set.
But he carries his sun inside. He moves with it. Even in
the dark of night it is there and it is what sends him out into
the marsh and what allows him to keep roaming on frosty
mornings, finding what he needs.
Late summer days arrived, bringing calm to the overgrown
pasture. Many voices were gone. Every night of frost
made the marsh a deeper yellow and the cloudberries more
faded. The berries no beaks had found dropped away, into
the mouldering humus.
Gusts blew in off the mountains, day after day, clearing
the air. He felt the bite of the wind as he lay in the sun at the
top of the rise behind the barn, squinting. The choppy
waves on the lake were like fangs.
The voles in the marsh had grown so sluggish it was difficult
for them to get away. He hunted up there most of the
time now, in spite of all the noise he made ploughing
through the meadowsweet. The wind whistled loudly in the
spruces. He didn't know much about what was happening
beyond the pasture. He was surrounded by noises that dulled
his memory. But he avoided the point and the lakeshore.
There were frostbitten, scent-laden mornings when he
could hear things far away. Sharp dog barks. Car doors slamming
and engines revving.
One morning a rifle shot whined in the distance. He
didn't understand it any more than he understood the sounds
of the cars. It shattered the crisp air with its whizz. Again.
And again. His ears buzzed for a long time.
By the time the wind had awakened the lake, making
long, dark waves on the surface, he had forgotten the shots.
But there were more uneasy days. The sounds from the
world on the other side of the rapids were sharper, more
sudden. The dogs over there knew something.
Beyond his own marsh, in the dense, old forest where the
wood grouse lived, and around the little bogs and the flat,
rocky areas, the peace was also disturbed. Moose crossed the
marshes on their way to higher ground. The pair of yearlings
went farther and farther afield. He heard loud blaring, the
trumpeting of the young bull moose. The female was being
pursued by a bigger moose the grey dog never saw. This bull
kicked up the ground and left his scent in the holes. The young
female evaded him, running in long loops with the trumpeting
young bull close behind, the big one never far away.
The dog listened in two directions. He didn't hunt much
now, day or night. The skin on his belly was so tight his tendons showed. Often he stood still, head cocked, trying to
make sense of the loud, unrecognisable noises. Hooves kicking
wet moss off stones. The dry sound of scraping antlers on
bark and wood. And in the far distance, from the other side
of the lake, the whizzing of rifle shots.
Early one morning in his old winter sleeping place
above the marsh, before either peeing or drinking water, he
was licking his paws and listening. Dawn was breaking over
the edge of the forest and the fog hovered over the treetops
like grey smoke. Although he wasn't about to get up, there
were sounds, still too far away to interpret, that disturbed


him.
He didn't dare go off among the little pines and crouch
down, though he needed to. If he licked his paws hard, the
noise of the licking blocked out the distant sounds altogether.
His ears had a respite, only to be assaulted anew, in
loud bursts, as soon as he paused. Eventually he did get up
and slink along the edge of the marsh towards the barn.
There he lay back down and took in the scents. But the light
breeze that was beginning to make the mist rise from the
marsh was coming from off the lake. The sounds were from
a different direction.
He didn't know what they were, but they seemed to be
growing louder and more frequent. There was something up
there along the ridges. It was in lots of places and he didn't
know what it Was, nor could he capture its scent.
Just then a fox skirted the marsh, running fast in a straight
line. Twice the ribbon of his red fur was visible. Then he was
gone. But the dog could tell he was fleeing. So he got up
and moved behind the barn. A raven screeched high in the
sky. It had seen something. Time after time it called out.
The dog heeded the warning and slipped down towards
the cleared area. He began to cross it at a brisk pace; the
wind was awakening, blowing off the lake. He didn't stop
until he reached the beaver tarn. There was silence, but it
wasn't a silence he trusted. He stood on the ridge above the
tarn, waiting for the fickle morning breeze to turn so he
could catch the scent of the danger coming from that direction,
from the edge of the forest where the birds were
making such a racket.
Then it came. A light, biting whiff to his sensitive nose.
The smell of smoke. He turned tail and fled.
All morning he ran, looking for a way out. Now he knew
the noise meant people. They had never before come from
up above. They usually kept their loud bursts of noise close
to the shore. They were being quiet, but little sounds that
were not part of his knowledge of the forest told him where they were. Loud rustling. Sharp banging. He was prickly
with fear when he worked out that there were many of them
and they were far apart in places he could not identify. As he
tried to get away, he kept encountering others who were
fleeing as well. Hares rushed past. Game birds rose noisily,
heading straight towards the lake, hurrying away from the
transformed forest.

A dog. Excited barking.
He went rigid, lowering his belly to the ground. Never
had he heard barking on this side. A thin yapping; it cohered
into a ribbon of noise in the air, rising and tailing. A dog
tracking its prey. Loud and shrill. Then it sank again, coming
closer.

He turned, bounding up the slope. Along with the
roaring in his ears he also heard a crackling sound. He never
saw the man, but from the band of trees beyond a little grassy
area, he caught a heavy scent. He changed direction again,
rushing back the same way he had come, the barking of the
dogs in his ears.
As he crossed the pasture he heard something large, running.
Loud panting. He lowered himself into the blanket of
leaves and grass so as not to be visible. The massive body
rushed closer. Very close to him, it abruptly changed course.
It was the bull moose. Mouth wide open, tongue stiff.
Inhaling and exhaling wheezily, gasping.
The moose was so close to him for an instant that the dog,
lying flat in the grass, felt as if he were being singed by the
smell and the bursts of air. As the moose rushed on towards
the point he no longer heard panting, only the cracking of
branches and brush. Just as the huge body plunged into the
water, a dog appeared.
He dashed silently through the pressed-down tracks in the
grass. When he reached the point he began to bark in a
high-pitched tone. This was the sound of a dog in pursuit,
almost a howl. The moment he reached the water the tone
changed. It grew deeper. He was telling someone what was
happening. He was wild with excitement. But he didn't
follow the bull moose as it swam off across the lake.
The grey dog was about to sneak back up the slope
towards the barn and beyond to make his escape, when a
shot resounded. It came from so close by it hurt his ears.
For a few moments his senses exploded. He remembered
nothing and was not aware of danger. When he could see
and hear again he found himself lying pressed up against the
trunk of a spruce.
He could feel the ground trembling from two directions.
Someone was there, on the other side of the spruce. Out in
the pasture a second moose was careering down the slope.
When the grey dog heard whoever was behind the spruce
make a rattling sound, he bolted. In a panic, he dashed
towards the point, following the moose, and crept under a
windfallen tree. From his hiding place he could see the
moose fall. He knew it must be the young female, though he
wasn't entirely familiar with her scent. Blood foamed around
her muzzle.
The black dog that had been pursuing the bull stopped
barking and ran quickly towards her. When she heard him
approaching she wobbled up and tried to reach the water.

Bright blood poured from her wounded lungs. When the
dog reached her she plunged forward and toppled heavily
into the lake.
The black dog barked, prancing along the shore.
Otherwise there was silence. The moose lay in the water like
a block of stone. Little waves sparkled and washed softly
around her body.
It remained quiet. The black dog whined softly, pacing. In
the trees, the birds that had gone silent now resumed their
activities. Soft peeping and chirping could be heard, as if a
new morning had dawned. The waves breaking on the shore
and the leaves crackling in the wind overpowered these
sounds. In the distance was the dull roar of the rapids, comforting
and lulling.
The grey dog didn't move. He was downwind from the
black one and took in his smell every time the other dog
moved. He also knew the whereabouts of the man who had
fired the shot. He was standing on the slope below the barn,
though he hadn't made any noise for a long time now.
When the dog had lain still so long his body ached, he
heard the man moving towards him. He was crossing the pasture,
making no effort to hide. When he arrived at the cabin
he stopped, putting down his rifle with a clatter. He continued
with a lighter, more cautious step. The black dog barked.
Out at the point, the man began walking slowly; the dog
could hear him breathing. He stopped right by the wind
fallen tree; the air was thick with his potent, compact smell.
Then he waded out into the water. The grey dog rose up
slightly on his stiff legs but did not dare flee. The black dog
was still close by.
The man began to speak. There was static and beeping
from his walkie-talkie. After a while he hung it on the branch
of a birch tree, leaning his rifle against the trunk. There was
rattling and rustling, followed by the smell of smoke.
The fire burned on the shore of the lake between two
rocks. The man just sat idle, but he kept making sounds.
After a while the water in the sooty aluminum coffee pot
began to hum.
The dog lying under the windfallen tree listened without
understanding. Many of the sounds were familiar from the
fishing spots. They had reached him on the wind on bright
nights and he had not forgotten them. They were frightening.
He wanted to get away.
The unfamiliar male dog sat completely still beside the
man's backpack. His short coat gleamed. His eyelids were
heavy in the warmth of the fire but his ears were pricked as
if he were listening to something at a great distance.
The grey dog heard the sounds too. Other people were
coming down. Soon voices could be heard from the pasture.
He crept as far in towards the tumble of upturned roots as he
could.
He couldn't attempt an escape without moving in the
direction of the approaching men. There were too many of
them and he didn't know exactly where each one was. Deep
voices could be heard from all directions, the clang of metal
and the flick of matches. Stiff fabric swished against straps.
They had other dogs with them. When they came closer
they growled. The black one lying by the fire leapt up, his
ragged ears rising. He rushed off towards the other dogs,
then stopped in his tracks halfway and put his nose to the
ground. He'd caught the scent of the grey dog.
Running excitedly, he took up the trail. When he came
dangerously close the grey one rushed up and fled out
towards the far end of the point. He heard the black dog in
pursuit. Behind them the men were shouting and tying up
the other loudly barking dogs.
He zigzagged through the undergrowth on the point. His
heart was pounding; bursting with fear. There were no steep
hills to hide in here, no endless marshes, no mountain
forests. At the end of the point there were just cliffs on either
side. More than once he ran down to the edge of the water
and turned back. Finally he stopped. The black dog stopped
too. They weren't far apart. The grey one lowered his head,
ears pulled back, baring his teeth with a fierce expression.
That was too much for the other dog. He attacked.
They fought, growling deeply all the time. The black
dog's body was heavier and his legs shorter. He wasn't easily
thrown off balance. He bit wherever he could reach, vicious
warnings, while continuing to growl, urging his opponent to
bare his neck and give up.
The grey one was still young, and emaciated. He'd never
been in a fight before. But now he was fighting for his life.
He bit back, wherever he could reach, and his bites were
sharper than the black dog's. They didn't hear the voices
shouting all around them. The men and the other dogs, on
leashes, were there now, too. One man grabbed the hind legs
of the black dog and pulled at him. He lost his balance and
his jaws released their grip. Another man aimed a kick at the
THE DOG

chest of the grey dog. They were separated. Someone managed
to get the black foxhound on a leash, pressing a glove
over the bleeding wound on his cheek.
The grey dog stood all alone on the lakeshore, facing the
men and three dogs. His body was rigid. When one of the
men began to approach he didn't flee, but pulled back his
upper lip and lunged.
So many voices and bodies. He had to keep each individual
in the crowd in sharp focus while he was looking for a
hole to escape through. Then something happened that confused
him.
All but one of the men withdrew. They left, taking the
other dogs with them. He could still hear them among the
trees. Only one man stayed behind, alone. But he didn't
come closer. He went down on his knees. Then he lowered
his head so neither his eyes nor his teeth were visible. A
voice came out. It wasn't like the others. It murmured and
clucked. It was a gentle stream of soft talking that awakened
a strong urge in the young grey dog, in the midst of all his
confusion.
Something might happen here. He didn't know what. He
was still frightened. Every time the crouching man moved,
the dog's muscles went taut. The voice, though, made him
feel weak with longing. He wanted to run up to the man.
But at the same time he was terrified.
So he sat down heavily on his bottom and started thumping
his back paw against his neck, behind his ear. The
motion made his chest ache. After some time he got up and
moved to one side. His body was no longer so rigid. He

i
mgm^mmmmr^






lid
bear soft sounds and dogs whining from the woods


But instead of fleeing for his life he walked along the shore

at a measured, leisurely pace. Once or twice he turned
around to look at the crouching man, who was still talking,
on and on, in a soft, lulling tone. When the grey dog was
out of sight the man stood up and whistled for him. Short,
high-pitched sounds.
The grey dog stopped. He was part of the way up the
slope, heading for the pasture, and he knew he was visible.
The whistling was like the lulling voice. He was drawn to it.
Deep inside, deep down, was everything that had happened
between himself and the man. It had happened
between a litter of puppies and a deep-voiced fellow who
could shrink to half his own size by going down on his
knees. He had a voice that made them so excited they would
pee all over the linoleum and nip at his sweater sleeves and
fingertips.
It was not lost. It did not begin to happen again when
the man whistled and called. But something shifted,
moved.
He didn't go any farther than the barn. Once there he lay
down and listened. He licked his coat thoroughly clean. He
had a bleeding sore high up on one shoulder that his tongue
couldn't reach. He tried rubbing it with one paw and then
licking the paw clean. He was thirsty and would have wandered
farther afield for water, would have gone all the way to
the beaver tarn, enveloping himself in the silence, if it hadn't
been for that whistling. The short, high-pitched sounds
reached him off and on. His chest ached where he had been
kicked. He wanted to lie still for a long time. It hurt when
he breathed.
He didn't see the men pull the female moose up out of
the lake. But the sickening smells of blood and excrement
came to him on the wind. When the men left, carrying
heavy loads and taking the dogs, straining at their leashes, he
withdrew. But he came back to listen. All he could hear was
the rustling of the leaves and the little waves breaking against
the stones on the shore.
When he walked down to the lake the injured rib in his
chest ached; it hurt more when he moved. But thirst
drove him. Lapping up water, he stood with his paws in the
lake, feeling the chill spread through him, deadening the
pain. He walked a little farther out, letting himself be
numbed.
Then he heard the whistling again. He turned fast, trying
to run up out of the water, but he stumbled, hunched and
stiff. Once he was out of the lake he didn't stop until he was
halfway up to the barn. The man was still at the spot where
they had cut up the moose. He'd been completely still until
that moment.
The soft whistling kept the dog there. He lay in the grass
listening to what the man was doing. Most of his tasks were
silent ones, but now and then he would break dry branches
or split a log. The smell of smoke wafted up. And that occasional
whistling.
Once they both appeared in the open. The dog stood up
in the grass. The man stepped forward to the edge of the
birch brushwood that extended from the point up towards

the pasture. After a while they both withdrew again, one
silently, the other whistling softly.
Late that afternoon two boats came and collected the
man and the moose meat, which he had butchered into
manageable pieces. The man paced uneasily. When he left
with the other men he was whistling, but the dog didn't let
himself be seen. When the voices and the sound of the oars
in the water were gone he went down. He was extremely
tense and agitated by the whiffs of scent crossing every
which way in the rough terrain. Now, though, he was alone

at the point.
At the spot where the moose had been slaughtered there
were patches of blood but no remains. He sniffed around.
The smells awakened the hunger pangs in his belly. But he
was tired and his injured chest hurt. He couldn't hunt in the
pasture when his body wouldn't respond. He licked at the
patches of blood but found nothing to eat. In the end he
wandered back up to the cabin and rested at the foot of the
steps. He lay very still, curled tightly into his own dizziness

and pain.
At dusk he went back down. He walked on stiff legs and
with slow, jerky movements. There was a strong wind
blowing from off the mountains to the west. It had picked
up as night fell, and it washed through his coat and cleared
his nose and ears after all the confusion of the day and the
jumble of scents and loud noises.
Then he caught a whiff of the man. He knew he wasn't
there. But his smell was. It was at the spot where he'd been
fighting with that black dog; a compact odour, not just a
residual scent from the morning. His instinct was to turn tail,
but his muscles wouldn't obey. Then he smelled the blood.
He moved closer to something dark between the stones.
Next to it he found the food.
He ate, pressed low and tail uncurled. It didn't take long
to devour the pile of meat. Before he hobbled off, he sniffed every bit of the fabric, its familiar smell.
That night he slept up in the cleared area, where he could
hear all the sounds coming off the lake, even the most distant
ones. His belly was heavy from the meat. He slept for long
stretches and the pain receded. At dawn he went back down
to the spot where the man had left his jacket spread across
the stones alongside the pile of chopped moose lung.
Sniffing the whole area thoroughly, he found a few scraps
he'd missed.
It was a windy day. He couldn't hear any noise from the
forest, no gunshots. He lay still for so long that when he got
up there were yellow birch leaves stuck to his coat.
The man returned that evening, rowing across. The creak
of the oarlocks cut through the wind. As he stepped out of
the boat he whistled and talked, but he didn't stay long.
When darkness was falling he pushed the boat out into the
lake and it vanished, along with the creaking and splashing.
The grey dog lay in the clearing, ears pricked, following the

journey.
There was food down there. The man had put it where
the wind would carry the scent to the cleared area. The dog
had revealed himself there for an instant, a grey-black mask
and a pair of attentive ears in the undergrowth.

Things had gone quiet all around the pasture. Only the softest
voices were still there. He heard the chirping of the
titmice and the soft calls of the bullfinches from among the
trees. The Siberian jays fluttered gently among the birch
leaves, which fell even on windless days. The aspen leaves
were ready to fall. Sometimes on frosty mornings he heard
soft clicking sounds as they snapped loose.
The water that had filled green leaves and made the grass
grow tall was receding. The blanket of pasture was withering
and turning yellow. At the roots, where the soil was still damp and warm, the mouldering process began, working on
leaves and whatever else was on the ground. Everything that
happened now took place deep down, and from the earth
rose the heavy, powerful scent of decomposition. When the
rain began to sweep in off the ocean beyond the mountains,
the pasture became a brown place of rough grass and rotting
stalks. It was silent there. The short-eared owl rarely
swooped, and eventually it flew away. Not even the vixen
caught any voles.
The dog's shoulder healed but his bruised rib continued
to ache in the cold weather. Most of the time he lay still,
though he had to guard the food spot out at the point and
keep the vixen away. She sniffed around, sticking her pointy
snout in between the stones where there were still patches of
blood. He moved awkwardly from the pain in his ribcage, so
he was careful not to rush at her, just letting himself be seen
so she wouldn't become overconfident. The fur on his
shoulder was long again. He raised his head and chest, and
she ran off. But she would soon be back unless he stayed out
at the point, guarding the spot.
The man arrived late each afternoon. After a few days he
moved the food spot over to the cabin, laying the chopped
entrails in a bowl at the bottom of the outside steps, his rain
soaked jacket across them. Before he headed home he sat in
the boat for a long time, whistling and talking.

Rain and days passed by. One blue-sky day when the sun
was warm but the frost was thick and the air still, the boat
appeared in the morning instead. The man pulled it further
up than usual. Glancing towards the cleared area, he noted a
pair of alert ears following the noise made by the bottom of
the boat scraping on the damp gravel. He walked past the
cookhouse and up to the cabin with loud steps, tossing his
backpack down with a thump that reverberated in the still
air. He settled in, with slamming doors and groaning
window frames. He lit the stove, knowing that the gusts of smoke, and later the smell of coffee, would reach all the way
up to the cleared area. But the dog didn't appear. In the
evening the man put out food as usual, but this time right on
the steps. Then he shut himself inside the cabin. In the
morning the food remained untouched.
All day he busied himself around the pasture. He felled
birch saplings and repaired a broken pane in the cookhouse
window. Although he could see no signs of life up at the
clearing, he aimed his whistling and talk in that direction.
Late that evening he left the cabin, putting food on the steps.
He had also left a door open, the one leading into the hall
where the woodpile was. He put a blanket on the floor next
to the soggy jacket, and then rowed away with long, creaking
strokes. Yellow birch leaves floated in the water along the
shore. Now and then he rested on the oars, listening and
looking up towards the top of the rise behind the grey cabin,
where the stove was going cold now that he'd left.
Dusk was falling. The man felt the pull of the black water
as he rowed along the point. The last stretch across the lake
he just glided in the silent darkness. Not until he heard
stones scraping against the bottom of the boat was he
brought back from the fantasy that he was dipping the oars
into an indestructible thick, black mass. When he'd left the
boat and put on his backpack, he stood for a long time staring
across at the point. He thought he sensed a presence
moving along the edge of the woods. When he had stood
there for ages, staring into the shifting, flickering darkness,
he thought he saw a black mask, imagined that for an instant
the two of them were staring at each other.


The vixen had gone in and peed on the jacket. It was bright
daylight when the dog cautiously approached the cabin steps.
The open door and the dim interior made him tense and on
his guard. A powerful smell of the fox and her piss came
from the doorway.
Stiff and awkward from fear and the pain in his ribcage, he
climbed the stairs. No food. And that taunting smell of fox.
Bowl licked clean and everywhere, in every nook and
cranny, she'd poked her pointed snout. She'd even pissed on
the jacket, like a male.
His blood was hot and pounding, his skin prickled under
his coat. He, too, peed on the wet fabric, then climbed back
down the steps, walking a wide arc in front of the cabin,
marking his territory with distinct splashes. He had neither
eaten nor had anything to drink for a long time. His urine
was yellow and pungent. He was very thirsty, needed to go
down to the lake, but his watchfulness and a readily aroused,
stinging sense of anger kept him there. After a while he lay
down at the foot of the steps, soaking up some morning sun.
His eyes never left the little birches on the far side of the pasture
where she tended to emerge when she left the den.
When the sunlight had moved beyond the top step in
front of the cabin, he was still lying there. Towards midday
he went down to the lake and drank his fill, then went back
up again, lying on the steps instead, to have a better view.
When he lay still and breathed calmly he was in less pain. He
lay out of the wind coming off the lake; his coat was dry.
The insects that flickered past were late ones that had not yet
found their death or a crack in which to spend the winter.
Fragile wings flashed by.
He had to rely on his vision that day. The wind was
against him, blowing in the direction of the vixen's den. She
had a litter of growing cubs. They could turn up anywhere
he looked. He kept an eye out for movements, for shapes
that changed.
He was on guard but calm. Deep inside his watchfulness
there was anger without the least bit of fear. It lay there,
poised. It could raise the fur on the ridge of his neck and
make his front half large and threatening without his even
getting up. A dull, rolling growl also lay there, ready. He used
it once or twice when he saw shadows moving in the blurry
area between grass and yellowing ash shoots.
Late in the afternoon he heard the boat. So he clambered
down the steps in spite of the pain, and stood over by the
cookhouse to watch the man disembark. He stood in the
open. When the man caught sight of him he stopped, stood
perfectly still and whistled, softly and gently. After a while he
walked up the grassy slope. The dog moved out of sight.
He hung around the slope in the cleared area all the time
the man was there. When he was alone again he went back
to the cabin, gobbled up the contents of the bowl and lay
back down to watch and wait. Occasionally he had to go off
and relieve himself; the food had made his stomach uneasy.
The first few days most of it had gone right through him,
but he was better now. He never went farther than to the
raspberry patch alongside the cabin. After doing his business
he would lie back down on the steps.

The grass was always wet at this time of year, and it was
hard for him to extricate his paws. There wasn't enough sun
to dry up the pasture. Aspen leaves flashed in the rays of sun,
floating down like stiff wings, flight without life. In the grass
they became mottled, and the brown spots soon grew

larger.
Brown had taken over. Under the blanket of grass, everything
was decaying; the spreading patches emitted a heavy
scent. The late summer darkness hung in the tops of the
rowans; frost had stripped away the dense leaves and berries.
Now the leaves were falling from the treetops into the grass,
decomposing silently. Berries hung bright from leafless

branches.
Along the shore of the inlet, sallow stalks stood straight
and tall. Now that the leaves had fallen he could see the
water and catch a glimpse of the birds down there. When the
strokes from the man's oars scared up a wood grouse on the
point, the grey dog followed its flight from his lookout on
the steps. No leaves blocked his view. The cock rose, neck
long, wingstrokes quick and invisible, a heavy weight flying
in a straight line into the dark spruce forest.
Wind squalls blew beneath a dense cloud cover. The
mountains were never visible any longer. Wisps of cloud
scuttled above the lake and the tarn.
Twilight was brief. Night fell like a black curtain, too fine
for the eye to perceive, merging with the darkness of the
rocks and the darkness dwelling in the spruces. The gusts of
wind ripped at the tops of the grass, rough and dull, like
blunted knives. The heads of the starwort were dry now,
stalks tufted, thin and brittle as skeletons. The cow parsley
plants still had black seeds on their brittle ribs, but the shrew
mice could no longer climb them in the wind.

For the dog, the days disappeared slowly, like leaves sinking
in water. He forgot them all and stored them deep inside. He
no longer hunted. He waited and watched.
The man brought his food. He didn't come every single
day and no longer from the open part of the lake where the
wind tossed the water up against the stones. He would land
the boat in the marshy inlet. The wind carried off the sounds
and scents; often the man would appear unexpectedly from
the undergrowth at the edge of the pasture. The dog would
rise from his spot and move away stiffly. As soon as the man
had left, he would go back down and eat and continue his
watch. He never saw so much as a shadow of the vixen. But
he never forgot her.
Between himself and the man something happened every
time they met: the voice and the food. That was the good
part. It was a warm stomach and a pleasant sensation sifting
like strong sunlight through his fur. It touched nerves and
awakened memories with no images.
The scent of fox remained in the mouldy jacket. When he
came inside, his nose clear from the strong wind, he smelled
it. That was the bad part. It made him edgy. Between him
and the man there was this as well: he had to keep the fox
away. Not until the man's boots could be heard tramping
through the overgrown pasture could he abandon his post.
He stretched his back legs, squatting down to do what he'd
needed to do for hours. But he seldom went farther than to
the barn nowadays, although his pain had let up and no
longer slowed him down.
The wind rose to storm strength. One night the rumbling
in the tops of the spruces intensified until the dark night
roared from a hole no one could see. The lake thrashed and
thrashed against the stones, lifting heavy logs of loose timber
far up onto the shore.
He lay in the dark cabin by the woodpile, his body tightly
curled around muzzle and paws, listening through the open
door to the cracking of branches and the crashing of tree
trunks. Although the wind was coming from the other side,
the door kept slamming on the wire loop the man had made.
It jerked all night long, creaking, trying to come loose along
with the other things being blindly tossed about outside.
Day arrived with bright light and a cold wind under a sky
with scuttling wisps of cloud. There was a glimmer of blue
beneath them, and now and then the sun glistened in high
breakers on the lake. He went out to pee, and then headed
down to the lake to drink at the shore that was sheltered
from the wind. The grass lay in brown drifts. It caught at his
paws as if wanting to drag him down into the wetness. Gusts
of wind tore at his coat, combing it up sharply on end.
The storm that tore at his fur was not merely cold and
unpleasant. It robbed him of his dignity and composure. He
needed to present a strong, cohesive front to the world. But
now, shaggy and hunched down, he was being buffeted
towards the water, half fearful, half angry, and vulnerable. By
the time he headed back up, though, he was whole again,
although his ears were still pressed back and the white fur on
his chest was matted.
For two more days the wind continued to blow. He
curled up around his hunger, not leaving the cabin to hunt.
One cold morning when the tail end of the storm was still
surging against the rocks on the shore, the man returned.
The dog didn't see him until he was at the bottom of the
slope between cabin and lake. They hadn't been this close to
each other since the dogfight at the shore. But this time the
man didn't crouch down and he didn't say anything.
If the dog left the steps he would have to approach the
figure standing down there. Or he could rush into the tall,
straight raspberry canes alongside the cabin. From there he
could sidle off towards the cleared area.
He rose slowly, standing still, his back legs bent. His ears
were perked. The fur on his back had risen and darkened to
a sharp strip running like a fin all the way to the root of his
tail. The mane of fur around his neck and muzzle was also
on end. His slanted eyes in the stiff, black mask stared at the
man. But he still hadn't moved.
There was a flutter. The last brittle leaves from the crown

of an aspen had resisted the storm but now let go in a puff of
wind that blew through the branches. Perhaps the man
thought it was a bird taking flight. He took his eyes off the
dog.

And the dog went down the steps. He descended in three
quick leaps, with no limp and no trace of his ribcage injury.
He stopped at the bottom, suddenly unfurling his tightly
coiled tail. It twitched.
The man made a sound: exhaling. The grey dog flicked
his tail again. His head was cocked and he'd relaxed his ears.
His smooth brow creased straight across. Twisting, he moved
in an arc down towards the man, simultaneously approaching
and keeping his distance. In spite of being out of
practice, he looked genuinely friendly. The hair on his back
had settled down, without depriving him of his dignity or
composure. His curly tail, almost floppy, was wagging. The
whole hind part of him was in motion and he took little
tripping steps in smaller and smaller loops around the man.
That was when the man started to talk. He muttered and
mumbled, head turned aside, moving in the direction of the
cabin. When he went into the hall, putting pieces of bread
and meat in the enamel bowl, the dog sat nearby, staring
intently in through the doorway. He listened to the crinkling
of the plastic bag and to the soft, rhythmic voice. When the
man had gone back down to the shore, the dog went straight
up and ate. For the first time he ate while being watched. He
gobbled the food; the enamel bowl rattled against the floorboards.
When it was empty he didn't take the time to lick it
clean. He ambled out, settling in partway up the pasture
slope, watching the man.

A series of bright, clear days followed. The wind was sharp
and churned up the lake, but only on the surface, and never
enough to prevent him from hearing the creaking of the oarlocks
as the man came rowing.
One evening he barked when he heard the boat. He
wasn't accustomed to barking. His voice cracked and his
yapping became a howl. Soon, though, it carried well.
He would bark out across the lake now. Sometimes when
he heard the creaking of the oars, sometimes just because he
had the urge. He would sit out at the end of the point listening
to his yaps reverberate against the cliffs by the narrows.
Now he would be standing in the trees by the lakeshore
when the man landed his boat. His curly tail wagged; he
paced eagerly, twisting and turning and letting his ears relax.
His throat produced sounds he hadn't really mastered. Out of
him came yaps and yelps. When he heard the rattling of the
enamel bowl against the bottom of the boat he would tramp
back and forth under the alder bushes. Soon he came closer.
The man had started feeding him where he landed the
boat. He would put the bowl down on the stones by the
shore, then head up towards the cabin by himself. He'd stop
about halfway up the slope, watching the dog eat. The bowl
jumped on the stones. Sometimes it was in the water by the
time he had finished. The man would wade out to get it later,
talking softly all the while. The dog would be sitting on the
slope by then, watching. They switched places comfortably
and sometimes they were very close when their paths crossed.
One evening he left the bowl in the boat. He'd landed it
stern first, close to a flat stone. The dog hesitated briefly,
then stood on the stone and ate. The next evening the bowl
was in the bottom of the boat.
When he had eaten they would take a walk. The man's
boots trampled down the tufted brown grass. The dog ran in
big circles in front of and behind him. He stopped and
waited at the edge of the marsh. His mask looked very black
there, against the fluttering leaves in the sparse birches.
When darkness crept up on the spruce forest the man
would leave. The dog followed the boat from the shore,
walking all the way out to the end of the point. He stood
there listening to the scraping and banging of the boat landing
on the other side. Chains jangled. There was rattling
when the man pulled in the oars and a sliding sound as he
dragged the boat ashore. All these sounds were now familiar.
He knew what came next: the pounding of footsteps on the
hard, dry, grassy soil. Then there was silence. He stayed sitting
there for a while. The water at the narrows purled, and
in the distance was the roar of the rapids, blocking other
sounds from the mysterious opposite shore where the footsteps
had vanished. He went back to the pasture and climbed
the steps to the cabin, going in through the open door, held
with a hook. He would lie in the opening and wait. That
was his place.
He was the one who waited.

One day the man arrived in the morning. The wake rippled
the water, creating a pattern of light and shadow. The dog sat
at the edge of the woods, listening. He was uncertain and
had to scratch his ear. He thumped for quite a while, sensing
it was the wrong time of day. His stomach told him it was
wrong, and the light falling from the wrong direction. He
couldn't hear the rattling enamel bowl, either. The man
walked right up to the cabin. He looked around, squinting;
the light was so sharp the rowan berries on the leafless

branches gleamed bright against the sky.
The grey dog stopped scratching and followed, bounding
cheerfully, keenly excited, like one who has been waiting for
a long time and now senses the wait is nearly over.

The man strode on; he was happy, too. He radiated good
cheer; it was in the calm morning air, without him saying
anything.

Above the pasture, where the wetlands began, the meadowsweet
was more than waist high. The soggy ground had a
strong smell. The dog followed, engulfed in naeadowsweet.
When they reached the marsh the man stopped, looking for
hoof tracks. He'd put a salt lick at this spot during the
summer. It was gone now, but the ground under the pole
was still salty. The dog had been there too, sniffing and digging.
Now he waited at a distance. The minute the man
moved on he bounded after him.
He criss-crossed the marsh, following scents and gusts of
airborne smells playfully, without any real intent to hunt. He
kept his eyes on the man, as he strode calmly across the
higher ground. When he entered the woods the dog ran up
behind him and followed at his heels on the path, ears alert
and tail tightly coiled.
They crossed a second marsh, after which they headed
sharply uphill towards a little slope of crooked, lichen-clad
birches. At the top, the man stood still for a long time, staring
out across the marshes and the parcels of forest land,
across the lake water gleaming so bright it was difficult to fix
one's gaze on the huge sheet of pure light. He looked
towards the blue mountains over in Norway, their slopes
dotted with snow. The dog sat a little way behind him. His
nose was sensitive to what the gusts of wind carried with
them, but he certainly wasn't looking at the view. He sat
there squinting.
The moss was bright, and the sun caught in the yellowing
field of grasses. Around tree stumps there were ripening
clusters of lingonberries, and every single shiny leaf among
them stood out as if it had just been created. The man pulled
off handfuls of lingonberries, letting them run through his
fingers down into the moss. His gaze wandered. Sometimes
it played on nearby things, on the ground and the grass.
Sometimes it sought things far away, off in the marshes, and
where the forest became sparser. For a few minutes he
looked at the distant ridges and mountain peaks, jagged and
blue, and at the bright light on the lake. Then his gaze
returned to what was nearby, resting on the stumps and the
berries.
The dog sat, ears cocked. He followed what was happening
in the distance, mostly the doings of the birds in the
trees; once a snapping branch, a crashing hoof made his ears
perk even more and his shiny, black nose wriggle.
They both heard a game bird rise, possibly a large wood
grouse. The man looked at the dog, saying a couple of
words. The dog's tail began to twitch and he sat even more
attentively.
The sun warmed him. It shone down on his curly white
chest; it felt good. This morning there was no pain. He grew
sleepy in the sun and lay down, forepaws extended. He kept

his head up and his ears perked, his nose sniffing, but his eyes
were shut for longer and longer spells.
The man lay down, too. He'd turned around, saying
something in a soft voice, waking the dog from his sun
slumber. Then he stretched out in the moss on his stomach.
His face vanished. His voice was gone, his gaze, the teeth
that gleamed.
The dog jumped up. Initially tense, he moved slowly
toward the man, tail straightening. Then he pulled it back in
with a twitch. He ran up, poking the man's neck and ears
with his muzzle. When the man rolled over, the dog licked
his face. Eagerly, his tongue swept all over it. When the man
rose onto his elbows, the grey dog lay down, belly-up. His
insect-bitten stomach glistened in the sun.
Now the man spoke to him again in the same way he had
done when they had met during the moose hunt. He put
one hand on the dog's neck behind his ear and scratched his
short fur hard.
After a while the two of them rose, the dog leaping up
with a bound. When he had shaken himself he was composed again. They began to hike back down. He was
happy. That was clear from the way he ran in circles in the
THE DOG

marsh. He ran much more than he had to, out of sheer joy.
When the man began to laugh at him he ran even faster.
He took off at great speed, kicking up a nasty smell in the
mire.
When does something end?
Perhaps never. There's always something else after it. Hunting days follow with sun and strong wind, and lazy days
of rest, head against forepaws, listening to the heavy rain
streaming through the branches of the aspen and drumming
on the tin roof. Long, sleepy days when wooden walls make
clicking noises in the cold, and spring days of dripping water
and chirping birds, when the very air seems to come to life,
tickling nose and ears.
This tale will not end as long as a dog's strong heart goes
on beating, as it is likely to do for quite a few years to
come.
They called him Plucky. That name came to the man as
he rowed back that Sunday morning when he had been
allowed to touch him for the first time.
People asked how he managed to get him tied up. But he
never used a rope or a leash. The dog had come of his own
accord.

The man often told the story of how he'd started putting out
food at the lakeshore and then in the boat. One day when
the dog had become accustomed to standing in the boat he
had carefully shoved it out. The dog had crouched down,
ears pulled back. But they got across without him trying to
jump out.
He also spoke often of how they made their way home
through the village. The dog had walked right at the edge of
the woods, often entirely out of sight. Now and then he
peeked out. Almost invisible, he followed his master.
Like some damn cat, the man said.

The dog came to love sitting by the stove. His old injuries
sometimes ached, and the older he got the more he loved
the sunshine, the warmth from the sun on the rag rug on the
front steps, and the heat of the white enamel Husqvarna
stove in which they burned birch wood. He liked her, too,
the one who put down his bowls of food. When no one was
looking he would jump up on the wooden kitchen settee
and lie on her sweater.
He was quick to learn what he wasn't allowed to do. The
mother dog knew. But she no longer punished him. There
was no need. He copied her.

One winter day a flock of migrating moose crossed the
clearing on the other side of the ridge. The mother dog
was loose and the grey dog followed her. They cornered three moose on the marsh. The snow reached way up over
their bellies, so they couldn't move fast enough to prevent
the moose from getting away. The flock dispersed and the
dogs were left with just one, a yearling with long, white
legs.
After two hours the mother dog had had enough. But the
grey dog kept it up. When his master came skiing to call him
off, he had been barking for five hours. That was when the
man realised he was a very special dog. That's what he said
later, over and over again.
He started training him, first on the ski track and then
behind his bicycle. In September he took him along hunting
for the first time. He wouldn't chase his prey very far, but the
man said that was an advantage. Saved you standing around
waiting for a dog that had gone his own way.
That first season they shot five moose he had hunted
down, four bulls and a calf. There would be more. He'd
earned his name, the man said.
Now he was able to take him in the car when he was
going to meet the others, and he could also put a collar and
leash on him. Not even the radio scared him any more.
But he remained a one-man dog and no one could touch
him but his master, and the woman who put down his food
bowl by the kitchen sink. Both of them also knew they
should speak gently. A raised, angry voice would make him
retreat and not reappear for a long time.
He was constantly watchful. Often he sat upright on the
front porch or out at the top of the steep hill on which the
farmhouse perched, ears and nose attentive. He followed
things that happened far away. The brown, squinting eyes
THE DOG

in the black mask monitored movements in the leaves and
the grass.

Even indoors' he was on his guard. Often they thought he
looked as if he were listening for something, though they
couldn't imagine what.
They would put a hand on his head and talk to him, but
he would pull away and settle back down somewhere he
would not be disturbed.
He remained alone in his waiting.

The tale ends there. No one knows what he was listening for
or what he had been through out there where no one had
been able to see him.
No one even knows whether there's a word for whatever
it is he's waiting for.