Read After the Snow for Free Online Page A

at me as the snow blow up around the girl’s legs.
    “Want food.” He say it all quiet.
    And I know then they alone, and they got the same color skin like the dead body behind me in the end of the house and I know their dad aint coming back.
    These two kids just gonna die out here.
    “Want food,” say the little boy.
    But I can’t stand it no more. This place is wrong. I know it.
    You may as well throw your food to the storm. You don’t want someone else’s sickly pups suckling at your dugs. You’ve got to get up to your place on the Farngod before nighttime.
    The dog talking to me good and slow. And the dog talking sense.
    “Want food,” say the little kid.
    “I’m gonna come back later,” I say.
    “Don’t go,” say the girl.
    “I’m gonna come back later.” I pick up the rope from the sled.
    Those starving kids calling after me with their hollow eyes and thin voices, but I don’t look cos I know I aint coming back, and I just got to go away from this place.
     
     
    An eye for an eye.
     
     
    Just pull myself away from that rotten body lying in the snow and those starving kids begging for food and lean forward into the rope and pull my sled out of there as quick as it gonna go.

8
    I got proper angry with that sled bashing my ankles—the sweat starting to soak right through me which aint good out on the side of the mountain like this. Once the sweat wet you through, you’re gonna end up like an icicle.
    I shout at the snow quite a bit. The shouting aint helping me I know. It probably make me sweat more and my face got red I can feel it. But sometimes when you’re gonna be that angry it aint something you can stop just by saying it gonna be a good thing to stop.
    It’s like a mad dog got inside me, just jumping around under my skin like he’s walking on a fire and frothing at the mouth and barking, and nothing gonna stop him except going back for those kids.
    But I don’t reckon it’s my dog making me feel like that cos my dog’s a clever dog and he don’t get the frothing-mouth disease and go all mad on the mountain. No, he’s the sort of dog who gonna curl up tight with his back into the weather like a sensible dog.
    And my dog been good and sensible. He told me right when he make me go quick away from those kids just standing all frozen and starving with their dark eyes begging me. They’re just gonna be deadweights .
    It got to be a mad dog inside me now telling me to go back. The mad dog that go dancing around making me shout at the sky and the ground and the sled and get that hot wild feeling.
    I got to get to my place up on the Farngod but I can hear a telling beating through my skull. The telling spit at me with every snowflake stinging in my eyes. The telling dancing about on hot coals shouting like a lunatic but I don’t want to hear it.
     
     
    My sled heavy enough. I been hungry enough. But all the mad dog see is that little girl and her red lips.
    You don’t want sickly pups suckling at your dugs. Might as well throw your food to the storm .
    I been proper pleased to hear my good clever dog talking all calm to me. I aint gonna hear him if I shout all angry at the sky like that. Good clever dog gonna make it all right. He gonna tell me what to do. Maybe he gonna bite that mad dog on the tail and make him roll over on his back all cowering like dogs do when a bigger stronger dog jump on them. Dogs sensible like that.
    If you been wondering how I know so much about the dogs—well I got it mostly from watching them. Cos sometimes in the summer after the melt, I just lie down behind a rise on the hill and watch if a pack of dogs make a summer camp up there. I got to be upwind of them and quiet and still and the rest of it. But once I got myself all tight behind some rock, I’m gonna watch those dogs all day if I can. You got to know about dogs cos trapping one gonna be proper difficult if you don’t know how they move about and how they do their being-a-dog stuff.
    Sometimes when