The Dog Read Online Free PDF Page B

the little marsh and its sparse,
    waterlogged pines. There, and along the shore, were his best
    fields. A narrow, wooded ridge extended into the grassy area
    of the marsh. His first sleeping place had been up there but
    he went no farther than the top of the ridge, where there
    was a sharp plunge towards an area he hadn't explored. On
    the incline the enormous spruces were so old and so dense
    that the ground under them was brown with needles.
    Nothing grew there.
    In the cleared area above the cabin were the hares. He
    didn't go very far in that direction either. That was the end
    of the world as he knew it, the border between the clearing
    and the marsh. Whenever he ventured into the unknown he
    was very much on edge.
    The ragged cover of grass and compressed leaves was in
    motion, lifted from below, bursting with new growth. From
    the space beneath the roof of grass came the buzzing and
    whirring of insects, but there were voles down there as well.
    He often stood still, head lowered, ears cocked, listening.
    One morning he heard a faint peeping. It sounded like
    birds under the grass. Following it with his ears, he found it
    was louder by the large rock near the cabin steps. The scent
    grew more intense in the clumps of grass. When he clawed
    at them the muffled peeping stopped. He clawed again and
    found hairless bodies, the smell of blood. He didn't look, just
    gobbled.
    The vole nest was full of young. He didn't chew until he
    got to the last one. The nest -- tangled tufts of grass -- lay
    between his paws. He put his cheek to the warm ground, his
    jaws crunching. The blood, the warmth, the spasms spurred
    him, making him eat faster than he ever had before. Only
    later did he feel the warmth and the pleasure, coursing in
    indolent waves through his hard, sinewy body.
    He found a dry spot on the slope and stretched his legs
    and paws. His belly made swishing and gurgling noises as it
    digested. Lying with eyes half closed, he felt shivers of satisfaction,
    pleasure and warmth. His paws twitched in his sleep
    and his upper lip drew back from his teeth. He was hunting.
    The sun hatched many eggs on long stems. They swayed in
    the wind off the mountains. He nipped at them when he
    crossed the wet ground by the shore. That wind was just
    fresh sky and water. It could continue for many days in a
    row, caressing the hardy yellow flower heads as they swayed
    and bobbed. The rowans had unfolded their leaves in long
    points like bird claws, white side up in the breeze. The wind
    sang in the birch leaves.
    The wind off the mountains never bothered him. It never
    brought anything stinging or sticky, nothing worrisome or
    threatening like the capricious wind that sometimes blew the
    water in the rapids back against the flow. The wind off the
    mountains was steady. Sometimes it picked up and then the
    lake showed its white fangs off in the distance. High above,
    the wind sang in the spruces. In the grass it was warm. The
    creatures that rustled and squeaked weren't affected by the
    wind, even when it made enormous waves in the grass.
    The wind raised the fur on his back but his muzzle was
    down among the voles. The grass was so full of strong smells
    that he sometimes had to raise his head to clear his nose. It
    smelled of yarrow about to bloom, a compact, heavily spicy
    scent. The mouldering humus was steaming, crawling with
    blind, hard-shelled insects that ground their teeth, crisscrossed
    by fat, industrious bugs the thrushes could find by
    listening. He himself caught them only by chance when his
    sharp claws scratched the ground. The delicate scents of
    cranesbill, cow parsley, buttercup, snakeweed and the slender,
    hardy bluebell, sheep's sorrel and tormentil were intermingled
    with that of the grass. The hoverflies and wasps and the
    fuzzy bumblebees filled the world that was the flowering
    roof of the pasture with a slowly rising and falling hum.
    The dog ploughed through the grass, leaving deep furrows
    behind him.