Last Days of the Dog-Men by Brad Watson Page B

image of a nightmare, and yet she felt a profound and overwhelming love the moment she saw it. She was superstitious,she knew, because she had a vulnerable imagination.
    The car rose, like an airliner groaning into flight, up the steep other side of the ravine. At the top of the hill he turned right again, onto a hard-packed dirt-and-gravel road that wound into the woods, climbed, and ended in a clearing on top of a knoll from which two narrow drives dropped away.
    â€œI think we take the left one here,” her husband said. The drive he indicated, half the width of the dirt-and-gravel road, seemed to lead off into the air at the treetop level of broadleafs that grew down in the canyon. He eased the wagon up to the edge and they peered over it, where they saw a steep and rutted drive that curved sharply at the bottom into a clearing. Through the trees they could see part of a house and beyond that the slanting late-afternoon light glinting on water.
    â€œThere must be lakes all through these old canyons,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind living out here.”
    The wagon’s engine idled alternately high and low, adjusting to the condenser cycling on and off. He turned off the air and rolled down every window in the car, using the control panel on his armrest, then turned off the car. The engine ticked like a conductor’s baton upon the music stand, the silence of the woods settled into their ears, and they began to hear the desultory drone of insects, the oddly loud, staccato songs of birds, and some low sound they couldn’t distinguish: water, a breeze in the trees, or both.
    â€œIt’s so quiet.”
    â€œI could get used to it,” he said.
    â€œBe careful with this dog, okay?”
    â€œI will. I won’t get out if it doesn’t look right.”
    â€œOkay,” she said.
    â€œWe don’t have to get another dog right now, if you don’t want to. It’s not really important.”
    â€œNo, it’s all right. I know you miss Rowdy.”
    â€œYeah,” he said. “I miss him.”
    â€œI just want to make sure this dog’s—I don’t know—good-natured.”
    â€œHe’s got a hard act to follow.”
    â€œI know. Rowdy was the best.”
    â€œYep,” he said. “He was.”
    They peered again over the edge of the drive. The car was perched just there.
    â€œWell,” he said, “we’d better get on.”
    He didn’t crank the car again, but merely turned the ignition switch to On, dropped the gearshift to Neutral, and allowed the wagon to roll slowly off the knoll and down the narrow drive. It was steep and rutted with erosion, most of its gravel had washed away. The experience was like a slow-motion bronco ride. They were pressed forward into their seat belts and shoulder straps so that her arms actually hung forward toward the dash. She felt a faint, quick wave of nausea and almost wished she hadn’t come along.
    At the bottom of the hill they turned into a muddy clearing in front of a small brick home and immediately were rushed by three friendly, barking, tail-wagging dogs. As he got out of the car, the dogs mobbed him, rising on their hind legs and raking his clotheswith muddy paws, licking his hands. The dogs were so absurdly happy that she couldn’t suppress a rush of pleasure at seeing them. They wagged their whole rears, spines curling, tails whipping, and ran back and forth between her open window and her husband, desperate for both their attentions at once, transported into happy madness at their arrival. He looked back at her, delighted, and she laughed out loud.
    â€œWhat great dogs,” she called out the window. Her husband was smiling, tussling with two of the dogs, a big thick-coated shepherd-husky mix with a massive head, and a medium-sized shorthaired dog with white and brown splotches like birthmarks: a plain mutt. The two dogs nipped at his hands and his wrists and pants