The Shine Journal

No Way Home

by

Kathleen Jordan

Clayton blasted the horn and slammed on the brakes. The elderly Walker Hound lumbered onto the blacktop road ahead of us.  Heartbreak on four legs. The dog, dingy white with brown and black spots, moved slowly toward the other lane. Clayton honked a warning: the driver of a pickup coming over the rise in that lane slammed to a halt.  The oblivious dog continued its journey.  
 
Surveying the nearby farmland, I asked, “Where do you think it came from?”

Clayton compressed his lips and shook his head. Crossing completed, the Hound shambled through an empty tobacco field like a tired soldier after a long march.  We pulled over, got out and followed.
 
A few hundred feet ahead we found the dog lying outstretched, the letters “DB” emblazoned in black paint on his left side. The abomination stretched from his underbelly almost to his backbone, from his back legs to his front.  Clayton gently lifted the emaciated body. The dog raised his head with the barest show of interest.  Heavy cataracts covered his sightless eyes.    
 
Back at the car, I got in and Clayton laid “DB” across my lap.  Then he went to knock on the door of the only house around.  The residents claimed they knew nothing about the animal.  On the drive home, the dog lay silent and unmoving. I cradled his head in my hand and his rank smell assaulted my nostrils. 

With despair, I wondered, What will we do with this one?

Motivation: For years before I became visually disabled, my husband I did dog rescue work, taking in and finding homes for lost, stray, abandoned and abused dogs.  It was heartrending work and the story described in this piece came toward the end of that time--when we were both burned out at the pain of the work. I was outraged that someone would use black paint to defile the dog with their giant initials, like putting ID's on your electronics.Then they abandoned him when he got old.   But this was a living creature! We did find DB and all of our other dogs homes except for one so abused it had to be put down.

Bio: "My first published piece is in The Shine Journal.  I have been writing fiction and memoir less than a year but I'm working on several other pieces.  I have taken several online writing courses and have been participating in the internet writing workshop for almost a year.  I'm retired, visually disabled and use software for the blind."

Image by: Bethan Hazell