Note: This story was awarded 2nd Place in the 2024 Passage Prize contest. It is published here for the first time.
Vernon ran through the field, on the narrow track between rows of dormant winter wheat. His dog ran alongside; her spritely steps bouncing through the crop. Rifle in hand, Vernon made for the woods that lay beyond his family’s farm.
Everyone said he looked just like his father. Taciturn, Vernon had his father’s jaw and dusty blond hair. They both had blue eyes, but Vernon’s were much brighter.
“My eyes once looked like yours. As blue as chicory flowers. Just wait, boy. With enough hard work, your eyes will lose some of their sparkle.”
The chill in the air felt permanent, the kind that confirmed there would be no more warm days until spring. Soon Vernon’s flannel jacket would not be enough to keep him warm. Soon the snow and ice would come, and the Minnesota winter would force the living world into hibernation. His people had not been there long, but they could handle the cold. His mother said the flat farmland and frozen lakes reminded her of home.
As high school was letting out, his friend, Nick, had pestered him to meet up to hunt squirrels. Vernon had rushed to finish his chores, going so far as to foist some tasks on his younger brothers in exchange for the promise of a pelt. At best, there was another hour of daylight left.
At the edge of the field, Vernon climbed over the sturdy split-rail fence, and followed the muddy leaf-strewn path into the woods.
Nick was waiting at their spot next to the creek. He was warming his hands over a small fire. Vernon’s dog ran up to Nick and sniffed him, licking his hand before running away to inspect the trees at the edge of the camp.
“You already lit a fire?”
“I got cold. And I wasn’t sure you were going to show up; the way you were talking to Ingrid Dahlstrom after English class.”
Nick nudged a log further into the fire with his boot.
“Are you two going steady?”
“With Ingrid? No, I’m not interested,” said Vernon, convincing himself. “You know I like to play the field. Anyway, when have I ever missed hunting?”
Nick crouched down closer to the heat.
“There’s a first time for everything.”
“You know, you’re just going to get colder when you step away. You should’ve brought your hat.”
“I’ll warm up once we get moving. Besides, I brought this.”
Nick produced a flask from a jacket pocket. He handed it to Vernon who opened it and tipped it to his mouth. The fire burned in his throat, then spread out warm across his chest.
“Well, we’re burning daylight.”
Nick grabbed his rifle from where it rested against a maple tree, and the two walked deeper into the woods. Noticing their departure, the dog snapped her head up and ran out in front of them.
All over, damp leaves blanketed the ground. They still held some of their color: yellow, orange, and rust. The boys’ footsteps were muted and the sides of their boots were water darkened.
Neither boy spoke until after Nick took the first squirrel, silencing its anxious chittering with a sharp crack from his rifle.
Nick hollered.
“Woo! That got him!”
It had been a clean shot, through the neck.
The boys ran and collected the squirrel.
Nick weighed the limp animal in his hand before stowing it in his satchel. The boys kept walking, as the dog ran ahead.
She was a good dog. Vernon had had her for five years; since the day he picked her up out of a crate left at the co-op, when he had gone there with his father. He had held her with her legs dangling, and she looked at him curiously through gun-blue eyes. She cried as they got in the truck, but she soon fell asleep in the boy’s arms. When she woke, she was happy: playing and panting and nipping fingers with milk teeth. She was happy ever since.
Vernon’s parents had argued when he showed his mother the dog. They went back and forth in their native tongue, a language that had only been whispered to him at his mother’s breast or shouted from the barn. The argument was over when his father softly said a few words that Vernon knew: …god för pojken.
“It is good for the boy.”
The dog was forbidden from the house; sleeping on a pile of straw under the porch in summer and retreating to a corner of the barn when winter set in. Vernon would throw scraps to her through the open kitchen window when his mother was not looking.
When Vernon was outside, the dog was always close by. She was there, leaning against his leg, when Vernon’s two older brothers said their farewells and went off to war: one to Europe, the other to the pacific.
“It’s too bad the war is over,” said Nick. “I wanted to know what it’s like to shoot a Jap. Don’t you wonder what that would be like?”
“Getting shot?”
“Ha! No, you son of a gun. Shooting someone.”
“You just shot a squirrel. How did that feel?”
“Squirrels don’t count.”
“Why not? God numbers the sparrows, doesn’t he? Or don’t Methodists believe that.”
Nick sighed.
“You would have had a time of it over there, you know that? And yes, sure he does, but a critter’s life doesn’t count the same. Man is made in the image of God. That makes it different.”
“So God looks like a Jap?”
Nick spat.
“You’re just messing with me. Forget it.”
The boys walked in silence again. A blackbird sang the setting sun.
“Anyway,” said Vernon, “mom says Allen and Norman will be home for Christmas. Maybe you can ask them what it’s like.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
They walked on. Nick kicked at leaves.
“Say, it’s getting dark. I need to get home for supper.”
Up ahead Vernon’s dog barked.
“Don’t go just yet. I promised Gordon a pelt for finishing my chores.”
Nick stood, considering. He reached into his satchel and pulled out his squirrel.
“He can have this one.”
“Come on. Just a few more minutes.”
The dog barked again.
“See, she’s spotted one.”
“No, it’s okay. Here.”
Vernon took the squirrel from Nick.
“See you tomorrow.”
“See you.”
Nick left for home. Vernon did not watch, but listened to his footsteps receding in the leaves.
The dog barked, and Vernon looked to the tree she was circling. Twenty feet up, the squirrel sat on a thick branch; chittering and shaking its tail.
Vernon raised his rifle and took aim.
Crack!
The squirrel took off running down the branch, ready to jump to the next tree. Vernon thought he had missed his shot until the leaping squirrel faltered and fell short. It dropped heavy onto the leaves and remained there unmoving.
Vernon shooed the dog away from where she sniffed at the animal, her tail wagging excitedly. He stooped and picked up the squirrel.
The sun sank below the clouds that had obscured it. The trees glowed golden in the final fleeting rays.
There was time to get another squirrel, maybe work through the woods back to the road that flanked the family farm. Vernon thought about it for a minute; each of his feet seeming to pull him in a different direction.
“Two is enough,” he said, giving into the pull of his right foot. He would still need to skin them when he got home. He turned back.
The dog ran ahead, off into a thicket of young trees and heavy brush.
Once her panting had died away, all was still in the woods. From a distance, Vernon heard the plaintive call of a loon. He thought it was far too late in the season for any to be at the nearby lakes, but the water had not yet frozen over.
It did not sound quite right, carried on the crisp cold air instead of summer’s humidity. But it was hallowed and familiar and stirred him deep down in a place without language.
As a young boy he would mimic the high trill of the monochrome birds with the black-banded, slender necks. He got good enough to fool them, and they would respond with agitation. In the summer, coming in from the fields, he would make the call to his mother shucking peas on the porch. His pure warbling was the one thing that always coaxed a smile from her.
In the silence he called back to the loon. He had not made the call in a long time; his voice was deeper now, and his falsetto cracked. He winced as if wounded by the broken note. Vernon waited for the phantom loon to respond. There was only the gentle rattle of the branches surrounding him.
Vernon pushed through the brush and emerged to find his dog waiting for him by the fence.
Vernon looked down at the mud. He was back at the exact place he had crossed before. He could see his footprints where he had hopped the fence on the way to meet Nick not an hour earlier. His dog’s tracks were there too. So were a rabbit’s.
He crouched, inspecting the tracks. If he were to look at them, not knowing what had happened before, he might think that they had all come through together: a boy, his dog, and a wild rabbit. If he thought carefully, he might conclude that the only thing that he could know for sure was who came through first and who followed behind. The only apparent connection the three creatures had was this place. Time kept them strangers.
Here he and the dog were again, adding new tracks atop the old. He knew everything about that young man who had come through, not an hour distant, but that young man had only ever thought about him as he might think of a dream. Through a glass, darkly.
Vernon stepped into the mud, careful to avoid his earlier tracks. Stepping up onto the bottom rail, the mud on the sole of his boot oozed around the wood. His foot slipped, but he caught himself. He was a little light headed. The dog passed beneath the rail, and stopped on the other side to wait. Vernon placed his other foot on the top rail and heaved himself up to jump over.
As Vernon pushed off the rail, his foot slid out from under him. He flailed his arms as he fell headlong.
It was clear that the dog knew something was wrong. She paced back and forth, pausing to lick the boy’s hands and face. Eventually, she gave up. With a whimper, she dropped to the ground, curled up against her master.
She was still by the boy’s side in the morning, when his father found him, dull-eyed, and wept.
Excellent work with this one. I can see why you consider it some of your best writing. That ending hits hard.