I put my ears back because I know why they’re doin’ it. I’m a bad dog, I killed their calf and they know it just like Buddy knows everything his dog thinks or does.
I gotta get outa here, I gotta stay down in the grass. I sure am hungry, I wanta eat. If only they’d let me work for food like Buddy did. But they smell the dead calf on me, sure they do, and no way are they gonna let a badun like me work nowhere near their cattle.
Hey! Hey! I like you guys!
BANG!
Gotta run! But they’re people. I belong to people. So are they really, really after me?
That truck is growling, raising dust, comin’ right toward me so they sure are after me and look, there’s a whole lot more of ‘em and they got another truck comin’ too. I gotta get outa here. I gotta run. I don’t want to, I don’t want to be the enemy of men. But they’re mad at me, and I know what they want: they want my life.
I can't go back to the creatures, they’ll be madder at me than these men, now I’ve caused all this trouble. But there’s no place to run ‘cept out in this open field with no grass to shield me. So I head out, but I don’t like the feelin’ of bein’ out here like this, I think they can get me easy.
The wind is in my face, the sun is shining down bright. I’m not only hungry, I’m thirsty again. My leg is really hurtin’, I can’t go like this forever. Bob is tired, Buddy, dog tired.
And then I am goin’ down a ridge and here the water is dark and big. Behind me I hear the snarl of trucks, lotta trucks.
“Lookit, gonna stop and drink.”
I gotta have water.
“Take it careful, go for the chest just like a deer.”
It tastes so good!
“Now, just squeeze it off, son. Just think about pullin’ the trigger, and let your finger share the thought.”
WOW! WOW! I’m flyin’ over the water, I’m in the water! My side! Oh, my side hurts so bad! I never hurt like this, I am screaming, I am hurting and I am in the water, under the water. It’s so soft here, so quiet. I can see the plants of the deep wavin’ their arms at me. I can feel my blood seepin’ outa me. Now my head is up, I am breathin’.
I hear laughter. More bangs. And then they are gone behind me. I am being carried by the water, carried away in such a tumble of scents that it is all confusion.
I feel sleepy. I would like to close my eyes, but my legs want to swim, they want me to keep my head up so I don’t breathe water. Breathin’ water makes your nose burn.
What I gotta do is get outa here. I gotta. These people hurt me. I’m pushin’ at the water. My side burns! I gotta push or go under, but if you do that, then you can’t get air.
I see the land, it’s over there. It’s full of bushes, I want to crawl up in there. I want to heal this hot pain in me. I want to go where it’s dark and safe. Gotta sleep.
I’m goin’ under, I’m sinkin’, I’m fallin’ alseep right in the middle of the water. I gotta push it and push it, I gotta keep on, but my legs, they don’t wanna no more. My legs, they are slowin’ down on their own and my head is gettin’ lower in the water. I can just keep my nose and eyes out. My ears are fillin’ with water and it’s cold. I wanna shake my head. It tickles in there!
I gotta keep on but I want to sleep. I want to sleep right here in the water. I hear spit! next to my head. Far away, the voices of the men and boys laughin’. I’m scared, I don’t know what to do.
I am a joke to them, just a dog, but oh my heart.
I feel somethin’ again, this time with my front legs. Oh, yeah, there it is, it’s the ground. The land is close and I can walk now. I’m comin’ up outa the water. Bang! from across the river, then skeee beside my head. Skee! Skee! I can see the leaves around me ripping. I’m in the shade now. Skee! Skee! Death, how you sing.
Now it’s quiet. Nothin’ here ‘cept bugs and birds. Don’t smell no snakes. I gotta sleep, I gotta lie down. Somethin’ in me is hot! It is burning me! I don’t like people bein’ mad at me, but I know I been bad. There is no Buddy here to say, it’s okay Bob, and then I am forgiven and I could wiggle and pant and just be so darned relieved.
I want to lie down. But them people and them trucks are mean. They’re gonna hurt Bob, so I gotta keep goin’, get outa the trees and take a scent, cross the fields again to find the creatures because they are dogs in some way, too, and if they stay here, they will die.
The boss of them wants my life, but that don’t mean nothin’ to me anymore, ‘cause now I gotta warn them. They gotta move their lie. They gotta go.
So I’m goin’ into my lope again, but my two legs on one side of me are not doing right. I gotta angle myself or I drift sideways. I just gotta catch their scent. My own blood sure does smell strong. Ohhhmeee, I hurt. Ohhhmeee-eee-eee-eee!
Gotta get to ‘em, gotta, gotta. We shouldn’t’a killed a calf. Anybody knows ‘at. Any dog does, anyway. Guess they’re just like they smell—not dogs, just close.
I smell their lie! Strong—thataway. Don’t hear ‘em.
I’m lopin’ awful slow. Glad they ain’t no cattle in this field, I’d get myself tromped.
Behind me I hear the trucks growlin’, the people laughing. They’re huntin’ me from the trucks.
Faster, Bob, faster! I’m aiming right at the lie, I can smell it. I gotta get there before the people! I hungry. I thirsty.The cars’re growlin’ louder. I hear the people growlin’, too. “He’s leadin’ us back.”
“We gonna get some coy-dogs, first time ever!”
“They got a dumb scout this time.”
Gotta warn ‘em, gotta, gotta.
“Hang back, man, don’t spook ‘im. Let ‘im lead us in.”
“This thing ain’t runnin’ with no coy-dogs.”
“The hell he ain’t. I seen ‘im with ‘em last night. Couldn’t get a shot, though, they pulled out quick.”
What’s it all mean, all that gabble? Thing is, it means somethin’. I know it does. There’s all kinds of stuff people have and people do that we don’t get.
Now I’m comin’ up on the lie. Hey! Hey!
This—it’s empty! They took off already! They left Bob behind.
RRRR go the trucks, gabble gabble gobble go the people. Snap snap go the guns, and speee goes the grass around me.
“That ain’t no scout, they used the sucker as a decoy!”
“Damn, them things is smart!”
“That’s what I been’ sayin’. You ain’t never gonna get ‘em, ‘cause they are that smart.”
“Shoot the ding.”
Spee! Spee! right past my head! I smell the heat. I smell my own blood and the scentmarks in their empty lie. I’d like to stop and scent over the boss’s. He’d smell that from way off, you better believe it. But I gotta go somewhere away from all the trucks and all the people who keep makin’ bang at me.
Go down through the grass.
Wow! Wow! That hurt! That was my rump, oh it’s burnin’ Oh, eeee, eee! Oh, wow! Wow!
“Got the sucker!”
Grrrrowwrrr go the trucks! Gotta run. Run.
“ ‘At’s a tough dog, it ain’t goin’ down!”
Drippin’ blood. Got a hot place on my side, a hot place on my rump. Hurt, hurt, hurt. Where can I go?
Kai kai reee—
Him! He’s here! Where’d he come from? I didn’ smell him anywhere round here, but I can smell him now an’ I can follow him.
Okay, I’m behind you, I'll go in the trees with you. I’m so glad! Where’d you guys come from, downwind? Musta been. You stayed downwind, nobody could smell you. Smart, smart.
Hear the people yellin’? Hear the trucks snarlin’? They think they got Bob. But Bob is here, ain’t I? You led me this way out through these trees. You smart. Buddy was, too. Buddy was a whole lot smarter, I could see that, and it made me cry that I just could not always get what he was sayin’ to me. Darn, maybe that’s why he went off. Maybe that’s why he left old Bob. I did not get somethin’ he was sayin’ and he finally give up on me.
She’s lickin’ me. Lickin’ my blood off. I got holes in me. That’s what they do, they make holes in you even though they’re far off. They bite you from way away.
It feels good, she’s lickin’ me. She’s pretty to smell, I can get some of her scent even though I got blood in my nose.
The sounds of the trucks fade. We’re where they can’t see us. The people are yellin’, they’re real mad. I am goin’ to sleep, and it is gonna be deep.
And now I am in the sky, I am flying up and up after our Frisbee, and I am gonna get that thing!
The air is dark. I’ve been asleep a long time. And she is gone. Them creatures, they went on without me, and they’ve gone far ‘cause I can just barely smell ‘em. They left like shadows.
I am so thirsty I could scream. I am so hungry I could eat a calf. I’d never do it, though, no, never again.
I can’t get up. I don’t have the strength. My whole body is one big ache. There are spots of deeper hurt in my thigh and on my side where I got bit by the far away people.
I don’t hear no trucks at least, I don’t smell no people. None of them coy-dogs, neither. Just…what is that? What animal is that I do smell?
Rats! There’s rats all around me! Go! Go! Yourrr gonna get bit! Go! Go!
They been lickin’ me an eatin’ me and I didn’ even know it! They’re eatin’ me an’ I’m still alive!
Gotta get up! Gotta, gotta, gotta! Rrrrrra-a-ats, get get get away! You go eat some other dog! Not this fella, nossir! Ow! Wow! Not this way, not gettin’ et by rats!
Not RATSRATSRATS!