The Dig by Cynan Jones

scuffed and tried to dig and the big man punched the sack and the badger went still. At this, the boy felt a comradeship with the man again and a senseof victory, holding the iron spike there in readiness, as if he was on hand.
    We’ll hang him while we fill things in, said the big gypsy, stop him trying to dig.
    They filled in the hole. Threw in the old roots and stones they’d dug out and finally put back down the sods of bluebells. The place was slick with mud and trodden down and the ground of the area looked like the coat of a sick dog.
    The big gypsy looked at the sack hanging from the tree, at the sack-like weight of it.
    It was the second time he’d dug a badger for the gang. That first time, Messie had been just a pup. He thought of the money. It was worth the risk. He made a point now and then of taking in a badger he found genuinely hit on the road to the Veterinary Investigation Center and he carried the receipt slips in the van to produce if he was stopped. But that worked only for dead badgers, or to explain the hairs they might find. He had to move the live badger and it wouldn’t matter what else was in the van if they stopped him.
    The big man reached into his bag and took out the mink and threw it to the boy. Its damp weight and the limp,sumptuous ropiness of the animal surprised him as he caught it. The mouth was drawn and he could see the precise teeth.
    You can keep him, the big man said. They’re vermin here. It was like a payment for things.
    The boy felt a glow of pride and the sudden warm teamship with the man that was alien to him and which he had difficulty with. His father looked at him with a strange grin and the redness came to him then.
    He lifted the mink’s lips to see the needle teeth. They were like sewing needles. He looked at the needle teeth and felt the fur of the rope-like body. The electricity was gone out of it.
    Give her a shake tonight. The big man nodded at the pup. Good rat dog be good on mink.
    The boy’s father was panting and looked brightened. The boy could see the sweat on his father’s head through the very short hair. The adrenaline was coming in the boy now and he looked at his pup and swelled with pride. He felt a warm cruelty, standing there on the beach of soil.
    I’ll start her tonight, he said to himself.

    When they got back to the yard after taking the badger it was gone midday. The boy was exhausted and tired. The boy had been expecting the same kind of flurry as ratting and he was in shock at the monotonous graft of the dig.
    How’s the dog? asked the big man.
    The boy’s father picked up the big Patterdale and looked at his throat and chin. There was a glancing scratch underneath its jaw and a little way back was a tear some two or three inches long that had bled all down the dog’s front. The dog seemed unperturbed.
    Stitches? asked the gypsy.
    Aye, said the boy’s father. He lifted the cut flap of skin up, peeling it from its own blood, and holding the dog more firmly as it bridled. The blood had soaked into the rough coat and it was jammy.
    There’s nothing cut, he said. The dog’s artery was a fraction above the cut and he could see it pump thickly through the dog’s skin.
    The big man had not put the badger down at all and when he put the sack in the back of the van he swore once, succinctly, at the release of weight.
    They uncoupled the dogs and let them sort themselves out and the boy watched his pup work over a log pile withthe other dogs. They were frantic with the scent of rats the big man had driven out the day before.
    The boy was ratty and awkward himself and he watched his pup with a proudness, thinking of the mink the big man had given him. It had given him a teamship with the big gypsy.
    What’s for him? said the boy’s father. He nodded at the sack in the van. Behind the big gypsy the farmland looked wider and tamer without the mist. You could hear the tractors work somewhere