Old Bitch

He wept tears of despair and he wept tears of joy. Later, lying in the hay, he stared out at the moon and listened to the sounds coming from the little family.

In the morning, on his way to the kitchen to fetch another helping of provisions for the dogs and their mother, he passed by the noose that still hung from the barn’s rafters. He had walked by it many times over the last four days but the dogs’ suffering had taken precedence over his own. Although they would now survive without his help and despite his grief he took his knife from his belt and cut down the hanging noose. Slowly, with the help of the new life around him, he began to heal and once again work the land. He sowed and reaped, while the dogs bit at his heels and chased the crows from the harvest. Six months later when the bitch was contented with the dogs her pups would become she sauntered off and passed away. With the help of her offspring the man found her lifeless body and carried it back to the farm, burying her underneath a hickory tree that shaded his overgrown backyard.

All that happened a long time ago. The three legged dog that now lives on the farm and skips by his master’s side is a fourth generation descendant of that old bitch whose whines averted Death. Sharing life and five enfeebled legs, the dog and his master are perpetually intertwined as all life is. And while he is no less attached to this mutt then any of the previous, when death comes he will not mourn.