Strike out in any direction, and you had a narrow pass to cross over. Except for the long, winding valley to the south, mountains were all around, and whatever your destination, a mountain pass awaited you. And so the settlement had come to be called Crossover Village.
There was a time, from early one spring to late in the fall, when quite a few people bound for the Jiantao region of Manchuria passed through Crossover Village. Those arriving by the pass from the south inevitably stopped to rest their tired legs at the well in front of the shacks beneath the mountains to the west.
These were not what you would call small families. There was the occasional young couple—man and wife, most likely—but it was mostly large families who filed through the narrow pass from the south. The younger people toted cloth bundles from which tattered clothing poked out, while the old folks limped along trying to keep the youngsters in hand. The women carried babies on their backs and loads on their heads.
Reaching the well, the travelers would first stop in the shade of the weeping willow and wet their throats. All would take turns drinking, again they would drink, and then water would be given to the children, restive by now, and to the young ones not yet weaned. The mothers seemed to prefer feeding their babes water to giving suck with breasts that no longer produced much milk.
Next they would splash the cold water over their chafed and blistered feet, again taking several turns. When the adults had finished, the children drew water by themselves, all they wished, and splashed it over their feet. And when it was time to leave, these travelers would shuffle along as before, disappearing over the pass to the north.
Some groups arrived near dusk. They too stopped beneath the mountains to the west, passing the night at the decrepit mill there. Once settled, the women would untie the gourd each carried from her waist and go begging for a meal. Their destination: the two houses with the tile roofs at the foot of the mountain directly to the east. Usually the children would tag along, and if a grain of cooked rice were to fall from the gourds, it would be gobbled up at once. The women would remind the children that the grown-ups also needed to fill their stomachs. Still, by the time they returned from the houses with the tile roofs, some of the gourds would be nearly empty. The next day, these wanderers would set out in the gloom sometime before daybreak and stream north, ever north, and out of sight.
One spring, a dog appeared in Crossover Village at the mill beneath the western mountains, next to where Kannan’s family lived. There it began licking the underside of the winnow, which was thick and gray with dust—the mill had lain idle for what seemed the longest time. The dog, which looked ravenous, was a bitch of medium size. Her coat must have once been a lovely white, but was now a dirty ocher yellow. Her belly, pinched in toward the hindquarters, pumped in and out with every breath. From her appearance you would think she had walked a long distance to get there. And a close look would show where a leash of some sort had been tied around her neck.
Which suggested she had come from far away. For when people bound for Jiantao passed through, you would see now and then a dog led by a rope around its neck. The owners of this white dog might very well have been such wayfarers. Among their modest household items they undoubtedly had sold those they couldn’t take a long distance, in order to raise more cash for the journey. But in leaving home with their meager possessions they had probably allowed this dog to tag along like any member of the family—perhaps one of the children had badgered them. And on their way here to P’yŏngan from Chŏlla, Kyŏngsang, or some other region, when they had run out of conveniently transported foods such as chaffy rice cake, they would beg food or go without, until finally they had nothing to feed the dog. Perhaps the best they could think of then was to leave the animal tied up beside the road, hoping someone would take her home. And so it may have been that this white dog, howling for her master, had managed to struggle free and had drifted into Crossover Village searching for him.
Then again, wayfarers bound for the P’yŏngan region might have sold the dog before arriving at Crossover Village, realizing they couldn’t take her all the way to their destination. Or perhaps in thanks for a meal they had given her to a family. In any case, the dog may have been unable to forget her master and may have set off after him, making her way to the village.
Finally, if you looked carefully you might have noticed that the ocher color of her coat was somehow different from the ocher of the P’yŏngan soil.
Now, finding nothing but dust beneath the winnow, the dog moved to the millstone and nuzzled it all over, the limp in one of her hind legs suggesting just how far she had walked to get to Crossover Village. She lapped and lapped, but the millstone too wore only a layer of gray dust. Still, she licked for some time before giving up. Then she began nosing around the rest of this mill, where her master, bound for P’yŏngan, might have spent a night of troubled dreams, worrying about the wretched lot of his family and about the dog they had abandoned beside the road.
This white dog left the mill and slipped through the gate of millet stalks in front of Kannan’s house next door. The family’s yellow dog, lying prone in the yard at the foot of the veranda, looked up and rose to confront this stranger. Fearing a bite, the white dog tucked her tail between her legs and against her shrunken belly and limped away. She passed a cluster of humble shacks, and beyond them a vegetable patch, hobbling along even after realizing that Yellow had given up the chase. After the patch were some hardscrabble plots, and beyond them a ditch that showed only gravel in times of drought but now held an occasional pool of water. Whitey lapped up some of the water.
Directly opposite the ditch was a rise. Tucked against the top and set a short distance apart were the tile-roof houses of the two brothers who were headmen of Crossover Village. Between the houses sat a mill used solely by the two families.
Into this mill limped Whitey. Here, at least, chaff was mixed with the dust. Around the winnow she went, licking industriously. Her shriveled belly pumped faster.
After a time, the elder headman’s large black dog caught sight of Whitey from a distance and dashed over. It stopped at the door to the mill and growled, teeth bared, glossy fur bristling. Whitey, yelping as if a chunk had been taken from her hide, tucked her tail between her legs but kept licking. Blackie, perhaps deciding Whitey was no match for him, stole up and began sniffing her all over. Aha, a bitch! Blackie let down his guard and began wagging his tail. In the presence of the other dog Whitey quivered in fear. But she never stopped licking.
After licking beneath the winnow and the grindstone, Whitey visited each house’s privy, then returned beneath the winnow and settled down on her stomach. She began blinking drowsily. The blinking became more frequent, and finally the eyes closed altogether. Blackie, sitting a short distance away, kept watch.
That evening a woman’s voice could be heard calling the dog from the elder headman’s house. Blackie ran for home. Whitey returned to where she’d been earlier and resumed licking. But then, as if on a hunch, she set out for the headman’s house.
Sure enough, from outside the gate she could see the open door to the kitchen, and just beyond it a basin where Blackie was slurping up his dinner. Instinctively Whitey stuck her tail between her legs and approached, trembling. But before she could get near the basin, Blackie bared his teeth and growled, fur bristling. Whitey stopped, stared at the basin, and hunched down to wait.
Before long Blackie was licking his snout with various contortions of his long, drooping tongue. Then he withdrew. Whitey rose immediately. Still quivering, she went to the basin and stuck her snout right in. Fortunately, some rice was left at the bottom, as well as a few grains stuck to the sides. She attacked the basin, quivering more and more violently. She licked and licked, and when nothing was left she slunk past Blackie, who had kept to himself, and out the gate.
A dog with black and white spots—the younger headman’s dog—blocked the path to the mill. Again Whitey cringed instinctively. The spotted dog sniffed Whitey all over. This time it was Whitey who perked up; she smelled something. The other dog’s snout was still moist from his dinner, and Whitey began licking it.
Annoyed, Spotty struck out for home. But Whitey was right behind. Spotty went through the gate and sat down in the middle of the yard. Whitey went directly to the basin outside the kitchen door.
This basin also held rice, some on the bottom and quite a few grains on the sides. Whitey busied herself licking, and when the basin was clean she returned to the mill and her place beneath the winnow.
It began to rain in the middle of the night, and the next day was gray and sodden. From daybreak Whitey was in and out through the dog holes beneath the walls of the headmen’s houses. She walked better than the day before, but still with a limp. Her first few visits she found only rainwater in the basins. When food finally appeared, she had to wait until the master’s dog had eaten its fill and withdrawn. And so she licked up what the two dogs had left, and after a stop at the outhouses she returned to the mill and lay down beneath the winnow. Around noontime she crawled outside, licked up some rainwater, and went back to her resting place.
That evening the rain finally stopped. Whitey had already made the rounds of the two houses with the tile roofs, finding food in the basins. Spotty seemed to have lost his appetite; he had left a fair amount of food.
The next day was clear and fair, springlike. Again Whitey found food by making the rounds of the two houses, starting at dawn. Her limp was almost gone. She returned to the mill, found a sunny spot, and lay down to bask in the warmth.
Late that morning Whitey heard someone approach, a farmhand who worked for the two headmen coming to hull rice. He thumped down a bundle of rice stalks and went back the way he had come. As he was leaving, Kannan’s grandmother arrived with a hand winnow. With her was Kannan’s mother, who carried on her head a mat to collect the hulled rice. Although Kannan’s grandfather no longer did farm work for the headmen, his wife and daughter continued to set aside their own duties when necessary to attend to the various chores they had always handled for the brothers.
While Kannan’s mother was sweeping the grindstone, the farmhand returned with an ox and another bundle of rice stalks. The farmhand untied the bundle, and the first thing Whitey noticed was a savory smell—more food. She drew near. But the farmhand wasn’t having any of this and kicked her in the ribs.
“Mangy bitch—can’t you see we’re busy?”
It wasn’t a very strong kick, but the farmhand’s leg was firm and stout, and Whitey tumbled to the side with a yelp. Back she went to her resting place nearby to soak up the sun.
When the hulling of the first batch of stalks was almost finished, the younger headman appeared. He was a stumpy fellow, solidly built, hair closely cropped. His color was good, and though he was approaching forty, he certainly didn’t look his age.
“Better be dry enough to hull,” he said in a firm voice—to no one in particular, it seemed, because he didn’t wait for an answer. “Just make sure you don’t crush it.”
Kannan’s grandmother, guiding the ox from the rear as it turned the grindstone, picked up a handful of hulled rice and examined it closely, seemed to find it properly hulled, then returned it without comment to the mat.
As the headman turned to leave, he noticed Whitey.
“Whose dog is this?”
Before the others could turn and look, he had kicked Whitey square in the ribs. Whitey scurried outside, yelping. At a little distance she turned around, as if reluctant to leave the mill. The farmhand and the two women were once again absorbed in their work—ownership of the dog was none of their affair. But the headman was staring in her direction, and when he bent over as if to pick up a rock, Whitey fled with all her remaining strength. She started down the gentle hill, and sure enough a rock flew by, landing at her side.
She crossed the ditch, where water had pooled from the previous day’s rain, and kept running through the hardscrabble plots worked by Kim Sŏndal and others. At least she wasn’t limping anymore, and under the circumstances this was fortunate.
At the mill next to Kannan’s family’s house at the foot of the mountains to the west, she lay down beneath the winnow, which still wore a coat of dust but nothing else. Some time later she set out again for the headmen’s mill. Reaching the gentle rise, she stopped and gazed toward the mill. The younger brother was nowhere to be seen, so she continued on. But the sight of the vicious-looking farmhand turning the winnow brought her to a halt, and after inspecting the scene she retraced her steps to the mill next to Kannan’s family’s house.
As the day began to wane, Kannan’s mother and grandmother came into view along the millet-stalk fence of the house across the way. Before entering their own house, they looked into the mill. Whitey rose apprehensively, but the women paid no attention to her and disappeared inside their house.
In no time Whitey was back at the headmen’s mill. It had been swept, but there remained a generous layer of rice husks on the posts and other timbers. Whitey started beneath the winnow and licked everything clean.
Early that evening, as Whitey stood inside the gate to the elder headman’s house gazing at the basin while Blackie finished his meal, a door slid open and the headman emerged. Like his brother, he was a stumpy man with closely cropped hair, his complexion was good, and he looked much younger than his age. At a glance you might have wondered if the brothers were twins. And in fact people meeting them for the first time often confused them.
Stepping down to the yard, he discovered Whitey intent on the basin and realized he’d never seen this dog before.
“Damn mutt!” he shouted, stamping his feet. His tone was firm like his brother’s.
Startled, Whitey wriggled through the dog hole and fled.
Just as the headman emerged from his gate in pursuit, his brother appeared, making an after-dinner visit. Spotting Whitey, he realized she was the dog he had chased from the mill that morning. She was now being driven off by his brother, and it occurred to him that this damned mutt no one had ever seen before might be mad.
“Mad dog! Grab it!” he shouted in the same firm tone.
The older brother followed suit, also struck by the thought that this unfamiliar mutt with the pinched belly, this damned mongrel running off with its tail between its legs, might indeed be mad: “Mad dog! Catch the damn thing!”
He flew inside his gate, emerged with a good-sized stick, and set off after Whitey, shouting over and over, “Mad dog! Grab it!”
By the time the brothers reached the bottom of the gentle slope, Whitey was cutting through the hardscrabble plots. Kim Sŏndal, still working his plot, heard the brothers shouting. He looked around and spotted the dog.
“That damn mutt must be the mad dog.”
He ran after Whitey, shovel in hand.
The headmen stopped at the plots, their energy flagging. “Mad dog! Catch it!” they kept shouting in turn.
It was as if through their shouts they were ordering Kim Sŏndal to step up his efforts to catch the mad dog and beat it with his shovel, as if by the sound of their voices they were calling on the people living at the foot of the western mountains to arm themselves, burst forth from their homes, and slaughter the mad dog. They continued shouting until Whitey had disappeared among the shacks beneath those mountains, until they could no longer see Kim running in his distinctive way, trunk bent back instead of forward.
After the brothers had stopped bellowing, an eerie silence descended upon the evening. And then from the foot of the mountains to the west rose a commotion that carried so clearly you might have felt you could reach out and grab it. A short time later a thin mist began to rise, and out of it Kim returned, at the head of several villagers. No mad dog had been caught. Kim passed the vegetable patch, but before he had reached the hardscrabble plots the younger brother called out.
“What happened?!”
It was such a loud shout, spreading throughout the village in the still of the evening, that he thought maybe he’d overdone it.
Frustrated by the lack of a response, his brother took up the cry.
“Well, what happened!?” he shouted just as loudly.
“We lost it. Damn mutt ran like the devil. It’s up in the hills somewhere.”
Kim’s voice seemed to come not only from the depths of his body but also from far in the distance. How was such magic possible? Ah, through the silence of early evening in this mountain valley.
“You mean it ran so fast it got away from you?” sneered the older brother. “I’ll bet you gave up. You were scared—scared of a worthless mutt. . . .”
Kim could joke with the best, but this time he strode off silently into the mist and retrieved his hoe and shovel from the plot he’d been working. It was as if he were admitting to what the headman had said.
It was still a bit early in the year for people to be gathering outside in their yards, but nightfall found a few of the neighbors squatting in the corner of Ch’ason’s family’s yard. They discussed farming: Was there enough to eat until the first barley crop was harvested? And then someone brought up the mad dog.
Kim Sŏndal spoke up at once. Just the night before last, he’d gone to South Village to borrow an ox—hadn’t come back through the pass till late. Just then he’d heard a dog howl somewhere off in the distance. Weird, it was—scared the hell out of him. Sounded like the dog was sick, or like someone was dragging it at the end of a rope. But if someone was dragging a dog along, you wouldn’t expect the howling to come from the same spot each time—that was the weird thing. Now that he thought about it, it was probably the mad dog.
All Kim had to do was open his trap and out came a fanciful story that was sure to bring laughter. So he had long been known, not only in the village but also in the surrounding area, as a latter-day Pongi Kim Sŏndal, after the famous jokester of old. For this reason the listeners couldn’t be sure how much of his story was fancy and how much was true.
In between puffs on his pipe, Ch’ason’s father sent a stream of saliva flying. The part about the dog being dragged by the neck while the sound seemed to come from the same place was calling something to mind. Maybe, he offered, the dog belonged to one of the P’yŏngan-bound travelers who had passed through the village a few days earlier. Perhaps it had been tied to a tree and left behind and had gone mad. That would explain why it was in the village now. Animals, you had to remember, go mad after several days without food. In fact, Ch’ason’s father continued, he was quite certain that the dog Kim Sŏndal had heard was such a dog—howling while trying to break free of the rope about its neck.
Kannan’s grandfather, while admitting to himself that this was plausible, recalled something his wife had told him a short time before—that the dog she’d seen that morning at the village heads’ mill, and again on her way home at the mill in their own neighborhood, didn’t look rabid. In any case, he now declared, you couldn’t tell if a dog was mad unless you looked at it up close. But mad or not, the dog would soon be back—that much was clear. Ch’ason’s father agreed, adding that everyone had better be careful.
Whitey, under cover of darkness, had already come down from the hills and trotted through the hardscrabble plots toward the headmen’s houses. You would have seen her moving cautiously, in spite of the darkness.
At the top of the gentle slope, she paused to inspect first the mill and then the two houses with the tile roofs. And then, with the greatest of care, she approached the older brother’s house.
Through the dog hole she went. Blackie acknowledged her without growling, as if she were now familiar to him. Whitey went straight to the food basin and began to lap.
In the younger brother’s yard, Spotty accepted Whitey in similar fashion. There too Whitey went straight to the basin and lapped up what was left.
Then she was off to the brothers’ mill, where she licked the places she had covered that afternoon, and the rest of the mill as well. But she evidently had no intention of sleeping there, and set off toward the foot of the mountains to the west.
The next morning Kannan’s grandfather, who was known for rising early, emerged from the millet-stalk gate of his house and discovered Whitey prone beneath the winnow in the mill nearby. He returned home, fetched the supporting stick for his A-frame backrack, and reappeared at the mill, hiding the weapon behind his back. It might be mad, but a blow with the stick would kill it.
Whitey rose, startled by the sound of someone approaching. Instinctively, she tucked her tail between her legs.
Not a good sign, the old man thought. He stood motionless, glaring at Whitey, tightening his grip on the stick. Still, he told himself, I don’t see it drooling or foaming at the mouth. If it’s rabid, it can’t be that serious. He looked at her eyes. If it’s rabid, those eyes ought to be bloodshot, or have a bluish tinge—but not this dog. All the old man saw in those eyes were crust and fear.
Whitey looked right back, wondering if this man meant to hurt her. Kannan’s grandfather looked dangerous because of his tall, robust build and the salty beard covering his swarthy face. His glaring eyes were also crusted, with crow’s-feet. As she looked at those eyes, Whitey sensed this wasn’t someone who intended to harm her, and her tail between her legs lifted ever so slightly.
It wasn’t rabid after all, the old man decided. At least not yet. He relaxed his grip on the stick, and it came into view. Startled, Whitey slinked past him and fled.
Yellow, outside in his master’s yard, chased Whitey. A thought flashed across the old man’s mind: What if the dog was rabid and bit Yellow? He called his dog. But by then Yellow had caught up to Whitey and was blocking her path. Whitey seemed ready to tuck her tail even tighter between her legs, but then Yellow, recognizing her scent, touched his nose to hers. Whitey nuzzled right back and her tail began to lift. No, Kannan’s grandfather told himself again, the dog wasn’t rabid.
That day Whitey went up the gentle slope to the mountain behind the headmen’s houses, almost like waiting for the two brothers to leave, you might think.
After breakfast the headmen walked to a ravine below the village where they were having a dry field regraded. The steep upper portion of the field, owned by the older brother and worked by Ch’ason’s family, was being leveled; the deep lower portion, owned by the younger brother and worked by Kannan’s family, was being filled in. The two portions were to be combined into a rice paddy that could be properly irrigated. Since the spring thaw, virtually every member of the two families had been turning out for this reclamation project.
Some time after the brothers had left to oversee the work, Whitey cautiously ventured down to feed at the basins. Then she went to the mill for the new layer of dust and chaff. Finally she visited the brothers’ outhouses, before retracing her path uphill and settling beneath a tree. There she lay prone while the day wore on into evening, and when night had fallen she went back down to the houses with the tile roofs and on to the mill beneath the mountains to the west. She didn’t forget, either, to lap up some of the water in the ditch near the vegetable patch.
Every morning when Kannan’s grandfather emerged from the gate of millet stalks in front of his house, he would see Whitey leave the mill and walk along the path through the hardscrabble plots. It was as if she had decided to be the earliest to rise.
One night Whitey was licking the food basin at the older headman’s house. The man came outside and tiptoed to the granary, where he got a stick. He stole up behind the dog. Whitey was not unaware of his movements, but her hunger kept her at the basin. Finally, with the man close behind her, she whirled about and scampered toward the front gate. At that instant the man saw a strange blue gleam that seemed to be coming from her eyes. It struck him that the dog really was mad, but for some reason he couldn’t shout this news.
Whitey stole through the dog hole beside the gate, and finally the headman shouted, “Mad dog! Catch the damn thing!” and gave chase. He realized that the dog was skipping off in the darkness toward the mountain behind his house. On he ran, shouting, “Mad dog! Catch the damn thing!” But he wouldn’t get within striking distance. Instead, he grew more and more afraid of a close encounter with Whitey, and his shouts became louder and more fierce. Whitey disappeared up the mountainside. After several more shouts, the headman turned toward home. As his brother and their families ran toward him, he remembered how he had chided Kim Sŏndal for being afraid to get near a “harmless” mad dog. If only he had broken the damned dog’s back in his yard once and for all, he scolded himself; he could have caught the dog if he’d tried, but he’d been afraid to get close. His temper flared. “What took you so long!” he barked at the people thronging toward him.
The next morning, before leaving to supervise the reclamation project, the older headman paid a visit to those who lived at the foot of the mountains to the west. There he told everyone he met that the dog was surely mad. He had seen a blue gleam in its eyes the previous evening. The dog had attacked him and he’d barely managed to beat it off with a stick. Anyone who caught sight of it ought to kill it on the spot; otherwise the villagers would have hell to pay. The headman’s shouts had carried clearly the previous evening, and the villagers knew the mad dog had reappeared. If the dog had actually attacked someone, blue gleam and all, then it must be crazy for sure. Ill at ease, they made up their minds—they’d take care of that dog, you bet.
For her part, Whitey seemed even more cautious. She remained out of sight of the villagers beneath the western mountains, not to mention the two headmen and their families.
One night Kannan’s grandmother, using the outhouse, rushed back inside saying she’d just seen the mad dog with the blue gleam in its eyes. When Whitey had been called mad and driven from the village, the dog had not seemed mad to her. But now that she’d seen that blue gleam, there was no doubt in her mind—the dog was mad.
Kannan’s grandfather, though, argued that dogs were no different from people: you could see a gleam in their eyes if they went hungry or got their dander up. Why should this dog be any different? No need to be so frightened just because it was on the loose. But suddenly the old man realized something: the dog had come to the outhouse to feed on his valuable supply of nightsoil. That was the last straw. He headed for the outhouse, hefting the supporting stick for his backrack. Sure enough, near the pit for the feces he saw a blue flash. “Damn mutt!” he shouted, giving one of the outhouse posts a crack with his stick. The blue gleam whirled away, and the dog, a white blur, escaped through the millet-stalk fence.
From then on, no glimpse was to be had of Whitey. Summer arrived, and with it the rains—just in time for transplanting rice seedlings into the paddy newly graded by the two headmen and their tenants. Then one day a rumor spread through the village: as Kim Sŏndal was having a smoke while weeding his plot, he saw a fleeting movement among the trees on the mountainside behind the houses with the tile roofs. Looking carefully, he had seen it was the mad dog. But it wasn’t alone, it had other dogs in tow—Blackie, the older headman’s dog; Spotty, the younger brother’s dog; and with them still another dog he hadn’t seen clearly enough to identify.
It was just as Kim Sŏndal had said. Blackie and Spotty hadn’t been seen at home for a good two days. The village heads were indignant—that damned mad dog had infected their dogs right from the start and now it had lured them away. And they were fearful as well. And—the villagers didn’t know this, because Kannan’s grandfather had told his family to say nothing—Kannan’s family’s dog had also been gone the past two days.
During those two days, a number of villagers reported hearing dogs growling, both in the daytime and at night, from the mountainside behind the tile-roof houses. The headmen again were indignant, realizing they should have hunted down that damned mad dog and killed it.
On the third day, the brothers’ dogs finally returned, one after the other. Kannan’s family’s dog also returned. Blackie and Spotty immediately found some shade and lay down on their stomachs. They panted, drooling tongues hanging low, then closed their eyes and fell fast asleep. They looked wasted from their two days outside.
The brothers were watching over the transplanting in the reclaimed paddy when the farmhand arrived with the news.
“Good enough,” said the brothers. “About time we got rid of them.”
They set out for home, the farmhand and Kannan’s grandfather in front.
Kannan’s grandfather approached Blackie bare-handed. That old fellow’s in for some trouble, thought the older headman and the other onlookers, keeping their distance. The old man stroked the dog’s head. The animal opened its sleepy eyes, then closed them and began wagging its tail in delight, sweeping it back and forth across the ground like a broom.
“And this dog is supposed to be mad?” Kannan’s grandfather said, returning to the village head’s side.
“Well, it’s a good thing if it’s not,” said the headman. “But when you see it drooling, when it can’t keep its eyes open, you know it’s only a matter of time—we’d better get rid of it before it’s completely rabid.”
“Mad dogs aren’t supposed to have an appetite,” said the farmhand. Why not try to feed Blackie? In the kitchen he prepared a mixture of steamed rice and water in the feed basin. When he brought the food out Blackie put his snout near, but after a token sniff he closed his eyes.
“There—what did I tell you?” said the village head.
There was a reason Blackie was acting that way, said Kannan’s grandfather: he’d been doing stud work the last few days.
Up jumped the headman. “With that mad dog!? That’s even worse. Get the rope,” he ordered the farmhand. “The Dog Days aren’t far off,” he muttered. “We’ll get rid of the dog and have ourselves a Dog Day party to boot.”
Kannan’s grandfather had to give in. The farmhand tied a noose and passed it to the headman, who secured it around Blackie’s neck. The farmhand took the other end and jerked the dog toward the gate, drew the rope under the threshold, and pulled it tight from the other side. Caught unawares, the dog yelped frantically, but it was no use.
Hearing the yelps, Spotty came out to look, and all the dogs from the neighborhood at the foot of the mountains to the west emerged onto the road and started barking. Blackie’s eyes blazed blue. He clawed at the ground and finally at the threshold of the gate. This was what the headman had seen every time a dog was slaughtered, but this time the fire in Blackie’s eyes was unusually blue. However you looked at it, he repeated to himself, the dog was mad. Excrement spurted from the dog’s bowels, and then the animal gave one last great twitch and went limp.
Now to the younger brother’s house. As if sensing his fate, Spotty began a slow retreat into the yard, making it a chore to snare him. The farmhand had to act more swiftly to tighten the noose around his neck. And so Spotty met a similar fate.
The older brother’s wife brought out a large kettle and propped it off the ground beneath the chestnut tree in back of their house for boiling water to remove the dogs’ fur. Meanwhile, the brothers conferred, then sent the farmhand off to Dolmen Village, near the pass to the north, to invite the village head and Pak Ch’oshi.
As the butchered dogs were cooking in a soy-paste stew, the three men returned. The Dolmen Village headman had slicked-down hair parted to the right. Pak Ch’oshi was a pudgy man who wore the traditional horsehair cap and an unlined ramie jacket that resembled a pair of dragonfly wings. The guests contributed two half-gallon bottles of soju, which the farmhand had toted on his shoulders.
The drinking commenced immediately. The men fished out the dogs’ innards, already cooked, to snack on over a couple of rounds.
The host removed his jacket.
“Strip down and get comfortable, men. It’s time to let loose.”
The brothers had decided not to mention that the dogs they were eating were rabid. It wouldn’t be much fun if the guests lost their appetite.
“Now this is what I call getting a head start on the Dog Days,” said the Dolmen Village headman as he removed his jacket. The host’s younger brother did likewise.
Pak alone demurred—he never removed his jacket, even at drinking parties. And when he paid a visit without wearing the traditional topcoat, as he had that day, he felt he’d committed a breach of etiquette. And so after the first polite suggestion to remove his jacket, no one mentioned it again.
“How about a repeat performance out our way when the Dog Days start?” asked the Dolmen Village headman. He gazed at Pak as if to say, “You’d better join in the fun then.”
Pak nodded once.
The Dolmen Village headman continued to stare at Pak.
“Kilson’s family have a dog, you know. And they’re planning to sell it. Kilson’s sick with food poisoning, and they need the money, so the dog won’t cost much. Pretty scrawny, because they don’t feed it very well, but it’s good sized.”
The head beneath the horsehair hat nodded once more. It was as if Pak thought the Dolmen Village headman could speak no wrong.
Meat from a foreleg was served, then meat from a hind leg. Kannan’s grandfather was kept busy stripping the bones so the others could eat while they drank.
Evening came earlier to the highlands, and before they knew it the long twilight of early summer was settling over them. The first bottle of soju was sprawled on the ground, mouth gaping, and the second bottle had assumed its place on the table. By now everyone was quite drunk.
Under the influence, the older brother went so far as to admit that the dogs they’d slaughtered that day were rabid. But the meat of a rabid dog was a tonic, so the guests were to set their minds at ease and eat up.
“That’s why it tasted so good,” chimed in the Dolmen Village headman. “Let’s eat till our belly buttons pop out.” And with that he loosened his waistband, exposing his navel—as he was wont to do on such occasions.
The younger brother asked the two visitors if they could find him a puppy. As was his habit, he kept passing his hand back over his stubbly hair.
The Dolmen Village headman responded first. As a matter of fact, his in-laws in Temple Hollow had a bitch that was about to pop, so not to worry. It was a good breed, he added.
“Make sure you save me one,” said the younger brother. When it was grown, he continued, they’d slaughter it and have another feast.
Everything sounded fine to Pak. He continued to nod, smiling a smile of utter contentment. Perspiration had dampened his white ramie jacket. The torsos of the other three men glistened with sweat and dogmeat fat. Gradually all of them blended into the evening shadow.
The farmhand lit a kerosene lantern and hung it from the chestnut tree. The oily, sweaty torsos and the Dolmen Village headman’s slicked-down hair came alive, flickering in the light. Sitting bleary-eyed around their low table, each man passing his empty drinking vessel to the next and filling it, stripping meat from bones, then slapping their necks and chests when bitten by mosquitos and other pests—they resembled a pack of animals.
“Let’s limber up the vocal cords, boys,” said the Dolmen Village headman. Thick tongue and all, he was the first to launch a tune. The younger brother then took up the challenge, still in control of his voice, and the others followed in their turn, all except Pak, who was content to keep time tapping his knee. Sitting in the dim glow of the lamp on this early summer evening, the men sounded like a band of howling beasts.
Which was why, among the people who would gather in the corner of Ch’ason’s family’s yard at the foot of the mountains to the west, Kim Sŏndal had always been able to draw a laugh by saying that the singing accompanying a dogmeat party was actually the howling of the slaughtered animals. Tonight too, Kim set the others laughing. There you could hear Blackie, and now Spotty, he said as the Dolmen Village headman and the younger brother traded songs. And whether it was the jokester Kim or the laughing villagers, any feelings they may have had for the dogs were subordinated to the same thought: if only they could taste that meaty stuff—when was the last time they’d savored it? Late into the night the lantern remained in the chestnut tree, like an animal’s eye glaring in the dark.
The next day the brothers visited the families who lived at the foot of the mountains to the west. Someone had seen, besides their own dogs, another dog following the mad one. Whoever’s dog it was, he had better get rid of it now. And remember, the brothers said—if the owner knew his dog had followed the mad dog and was concealing that fact, the day it became known would be that man’s last day in this village.
Understandably, Kannan’s grandfather did nothing about the family’s dog, Yellow. Five days passed, then ten, but Yellow didn’t turn rabid. Meanwhile the villagers at the foot of the western mountains put their mill to use for the first time in a long while, sweeping up the dust and hulling barley. Whitey seized this opportunity, and whenever the mill was used she would visit at night and lick up whatever chaff the broom had missed. Because this was the season for rice weevil infestations, the brothers constantly hulled small amounts of rice as a precaution, so their mill was an even better source of chaff.
Two months later, Yellow still wasn’t rabid. The villagers near the mountains to the west harvested and hulled the early millet. For the poor among them, a nicely cooked meal of rice mixed with this millet was one of the year’s supreme delights—how could food be so nutty, so tasty? A bowl of it would call to mind the old saying that young-radish kimchi eaten with early millet will draw milk from a virgin’s breasts. How true, these impoverished people thought.
In the meantime, Whitey continued to visit the mill at opportune moments in search of food, and there she would sleep. She kept out of sight of everyone, and seemed to rest a bit easier. But she made sure to leave for the hills early in the morning, so that even Kannan’s grandfather wouldn’t spot her.
But then one day, word spread that the mad dog had been sleeping in the mill. Ch’ason’s father, bound for the western mountains to find a tree limb he could make into a crossbar for his oxcart, had seen something emerge from the mill and run off. A closer look revealed it to be the mad dog. And even in the predawn darkness he had seen it wasn’t alone. Ch’ason’s father saw well in the dark, and the villagers took him at his word.
Hearing this news, the village heads visited the families at the foot of the mountains to the west. The wild dog would have to be ambushed that night. (The brothers no longer referred to it as a mad dog, for if it were truly rabid, they told themselves, it wouldn’t have eaten anything and eventually it would have bitten off one of its own legs and died.) And if it were carrying young, they added, that would mean it had mated with a jackal—in which case there was no better tonic than the meat of the pups, so after they’d slaughtered the dog they would take only the pup fetuses and leave the rest of the meat for the villagers. After this pronouncement, they went back home.
At nightfall the brothers returned. The villagers had gathered in Ch’ason’s family’s yard, and the brothers made sure each was armed with a stick or a backrack support. Kannan’s grandfather was among the group. He didn’t think Whitey had changed, but if in fact she’d been sleeping in the mill next to his house, then she’d doubtless been consuming his scant supply of nightsoil. No way could he allow that, and he decided the time was ripe to slaughter the dog. And, like his neighbors, he knew this was a rare chance for meat.
The night was far along when Ch’ason’s father returned from his scouting mission to report that the wild dog had just gone into the mill. The villagers tiptoed there, each already anticipating the taste of meat. The brothers remained at a safe distance, watching carefully.
The mill had two openings, and the villagers surrounded each one. They looked inside, and sure enough, something was moving in the dark, a light-colored animal. Clearly it was that damned Whitey dog. They crept inside a step at a time and closed ranks. As the animal was gradually forced backward, part of it lighted up—the eyes, like the eyes of a wild dog. The villagers tightened their grips on their weapons—Kannan’s grandfather among them. The circle narrowed by one step. The dog whirled about once, as if the blue flame of its eyes were seeking an opening to escape. And then Kannan’s grandfather realized that the flame emanated not from Whitey alone but also from the pups inside her. So what if it was an animal? How could they kill a creature carrying young? he wondered.
“Get it!” someone shouted. The next instant, those on either side of Kannan’s grandfather rushed forward and swung their sticks down. At the same time, the old man saw a blue flame slip past his leg.
“Who let it out?!” said an outraged voice.
“Who was it? Who was it?”
Emerging from the grumbling, the farmhand stuck his face up close to Kannan’s grandfather’s chin.
“It was Grandpa here.”
“What happened?” came the older brother’s voice from off to the side.
“It got away,” said the farmhand.
“Got away?!” shouted the brothers simultaneously.
“Who let it out?!” asked the older brother, his irate voice carrying nearer.
Kannan’s grandfather walked outside to his home next door.
“These old goats’d be better off dead!” barked the older brother a short time later, his voice carrying into the old man’s house.
One day about a month later, when autumn was gone for good and the people of Crossover Village were busy gathering winter firewood, Kannan’s grandfather set off for Fox Hollow. This place across the mountains to the west had long been known to be rugged, and most woodcutters avoided it. There the old man could quickly fill his backrack with fuel. After an easy day of gathering, he was on his way back home when he came upon a brood of animals at the side of the path. He startled, thinking they might be tiger cubs, but quickly discovered them to be a litter of sleeping puppies. And there was Whitey herself gazing his way from a distance. She was nothing but skin and bones.
Kannan’s grandfather approached the puppies. There were five of them, and they looked a good three weeks old. But then the old man received another jolt. There was no doubt about it—among the sleeping pups were a miniature Yellow, Blackie, and Spotty, all in the same litter. Well, it was only natural, wasn’t it? A smile formed on his rugged face with its bushy salt-and-pepper beard, and he made up his mind that he wouldn’t tell a soul what he’d seen, not even his family.
One summer when I was an eighth or ninth grader, I was visiting my mother’s family in Crossover Village, and there I heard this tale, at the end of one story or another, from Kannan’s grandfather, Kim Sŏndal, and Ch’ason’s father as they were taking a work break beneath the weeping willow near the well at the foot of the mountains to the west. Kannan’s grandfather was the main storyteller. The tale unfolded, and since it had happened two or three years earlier, if the sequence was wrong or someone’s recall was faulty, the others would correct him, and if one of them left something out the others would fill it in.
After Kannan’s grandfather had seen the pups, he’d exercised caution so that no one would suspect, and it was his pleasure alone to see them when he went to gather fuel. Though his family didn’t have enough to eat, he would secretly gather the remnants of their vegetable porridge and feed the pups. When they were old enough to eat solid food, he brought one of them home, explaining to his family that he had gotten it from someone at such-and-such a place. A second one he took in his arms to neighboring Koptan’s family. He said he had gotten a third puppy from someone in Temple Hollow, which he could reach directly from Fox Hollow; a fourth one from someone in Sŏjetkol; and in this way he ended up accounting for all five of them.
At the end of the story, Kannan’s grandfather said that the dog now living with his family was Whitey’s great-granddaughter. And because Whitey herself was of a good breed, practically all the dogs in Crossover Village were either her great-grandchildren or her great-great-grandchildren. Even the two village heads had been given pups from his dog, which would make them Whitey’s great-great-grandchildren. A broad smile lit up the face of the old man, whose bushy beard was by now the color of frost.
When I asked whatever had become of Whitey, Kannan’s grandfather turned serious. Rumor had it she was shot by a hunter the same winter he had found the pups. Whatever her fate, he never saw her again.
I wished I hadn’t asked.
March 1947