Read The Dog for Free Online Page A

birds.
    One morning as he was standing at the water's edge,
    nosing around for fish the otter had left, the stones shifted.
    When he tried to pull himself up one of his hind legs was
    caught. It was a long time before he managed to free himself,
    and then only with great effort and intense pain.
    The soreness stayed with him. The collapse of the stones
    was a longer-lasting lesson than the reprimand of the owl. He
    walked on three legs, hobbling and hopping when he had to.
    During this period his corkscrew tail was often limp. He
    didn't go lame, but when the wound healed he had a bump
    on his hock that he often licked. When the mornings were
    cold and rainy the pain reawakened. He grew accustomed to
    it. The pain became part of him, just like the bump.
    He knew what to expect from the owl. When she
    plunged, gilding on outspread wings, he should keep out of
    the way. The owl and the stones.
    There were other things that didn't reveal themselves. He
    no longer ambled along as he'd done as a pup, absentminded
    and eager. He crossed open spaces quickly, hunching
    down, his entire body tense from listening. When the
    summer heat hung over the pasture and the murmur of bird
    calls died out towards morning, he was a thin, muscular dog
    who often stood by a birch or a rowan, letting the shadow of
    the leaves play across his dark mask and slanted eyes as if he
    were aware of them and wanted to conceal them so they
    wouldn't give him away. He avoided the rustling aspens,
    which interfered with listening, and he avoided the side of
    the point near the rapids except for an occasional early
    morning foray to sniff for fish scraps.
    More and more often, he followed the trail of the moose. It
    served no purpose but felt compelling. His eagerness had no
    direction, no goal, and always left him bewildered. But the
    scent took him farther and farther from the little world near the
    cabin that he knew so well: the marsh, the pasture, the point.
    He found his way to other marshes, to rocky terrain covered
    with bog moss, dark forests with wood grouse, swampy shores
    of dark, unfamiliar lakes. Above him a buzzard screeched.
    He always caused a commotion. Birds flew up in front of
    him with piercing shrieks that went on for a long, long time.
    That could mean eggs. He searched, nose to the grass, letting
    the shrieks guide-him. When they grew loud and anguished
    he was close, when they died out he'd lost the trail.
    Now there were bodies inside the eggs. Most of the time,
    though, only the shells were left; the warm, moist contents
    were gone. He wasn't interested in the shells. The young that
    had hatched by the shore fled to safety in the water, leaving
    tiny rippling wakes on the smooth surface. He tested the
    wetness with his paw but didn't like it. Once he'd plunged in
    after them, but when his paws no longer touched bottom he
    couldn't see across the water. He paddled, but no matter how
    far he stretched his neck he didn't catch sight of anything
    alive, so he turned back to land, shook himself thoroughly
    and loped off without looking back.
    While following the moose trail, he'd come across a body
    of water not far from the marsh. He began including it in his
    daily rounds. Each time he went there and walked around
    the shore he was less tense and hunched down.
    It was a tarn, black and almost round, quite near the big lake.
    A brook made its way down through the dense forest of old
    spruce, bringing water from the tarn to the larger lake, an
    inland sea with cold, restless blue water that never was silent.
    The beavers had made a dam in the brook. Along the far
    bank the spruces and small pines were turning yellow. On his
    side the banks were steeper. Though the soil was full of passageways
    the ground held; water hadn't reached the roots of
    the trees and they were still healthy. In the passageways the
    scent of beaver was strong.
    In the evening the steep side was sunny and he lay there in
    a dense thicket of crowberry brush and