by Lin Barrett

Created on: July 09, 2009

"I'm sorry, son."

The boy stood up, wiping the sweat off his face. "Yeah, me too, Dad."

"She was a good dog?" the older man asked, sitting down on the stump of the old tree that had been a swing for as long as both of them could remember. But even trees are mortal.

"She was my dog," the boy said, returning to his task. "Didn't matter if she was good or bad."

The man scrambled around in his pockets until he found his pipe, and the boy continued to fill in the grave. "You hunt much with her?"

His son gave a short laugh. "She hunted with me or without me. A couple of times, she brought me live birds out of season. The first time, it was a pheasant, and I took it to the vet, who said that he could save it, but it would cost me a couple of hundred more than I had, and that if I let it go it would just die of infection from the bite wounds. I took it home and wrung its neck. Had pheasant for dinner."

The man exhaled a fragrant puff of smoke. "About the only thing you could do."

"Yeah. She put food on the table like that six or seven times a year, as long as she lived, as well as hunting season."

"How old was she when you started training?"

"Oh," the boy said, carefully tamping down a layer of earth, "she learned the sit-and-stay stuff once she was old enough, about four months. By that time she was already bringing me baby birds that had fallen out of their nests."

"What did you do with them?"

"First time, Mom insisted I take the thing to the vet. The vet told me that once a baby bird has fallen out of its nest, it's probably going to die. The only exception is a raven; they'll take care of one on the ground. And the Audobon Society will take care of one if it's a native species, but even they can't raise them all the way to adulthood very often." The boy stopped, chunked the shovel into the earth, and climbed out of the hole. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve, continued, "That one was a starling. The Audobon Society wouldn't touch it. I wrung its neck. I got a book so I could identify birds. She brought me a few that I passed on the Audobon Society, but most of them, I just wrung their necks." He smiled. "She never understood that. When she brought me a bird, she wanted a taste when I ate it." He bent to the work. Nearly complete, now.

"What did you do with her in the dorms?"

"I didn't live in the dorms. I found a bunch of other guys and we rented a house. Two other dogs, she was in heaven. She was alpha; one of the

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