Memoir

Ariadne Hawkins
Boston, MA, USA
ariadnehawkins@gmail.com
copyright Ariadne Hawkins

First Place Winner, Memoirs Ink. Writing Contest Spring 2011

(Hockey Night in Canada)
Finalist, Third Coast Creative Nonfiction Writing Contest, 2008
(A Dog Named Dog)

The Gift of Anonymity

Chapter 1

A Dog Named Dog

My family had limited talent when it came to naming pets. But at least Dog was a better

name than Shithead. That was the name my brother bestowed on a scruffy mutt he adopted when

we were teenagers. Shocking as it sounded in public (“Shithead, heel!”) it wasn’t even original,

having been lifted from the Steve Martin movie, The Jerk. Still, despite his unfortunate name,

Shithead did live longer than some of our other animals.

Dog was our second pet, acquired full-grown in 1971 when I was eight years old. I

thought the decision to get an adult animal had been influenced by our discouraging experience

the previous year. Our first pet had been a tiny fluffy kitten that we never had a chance to

name. She arrived in a cardboard box to our home that summer: a converted school bus parked

1
Hawkins The Gift of Anonymity Ch. 1 A Dog Named Dog
in a meadow in the Rocky Mountains. We enjoyed her antics and lovely softness that evening,

and debated inconclusively over her name. But the next morning, my brother Ries (rhymes

with peace) headed out to relieve himself in the woods, and stepped right onto the kitten as she

crept out from under the bus. Her back was broken, and my parents decided she had to be put

down. From a distance, I saw my brother watch in somber fascination as the kitten suffocated

in a plastic bag, sealed by driving the back tire of the bus over the open end.

Dog was a much sturdier pet, and he was a very good dog. Most of the time. An

unusually large and handsome German Shepherd, he reminded me of my stepfather Alan:

intelligent, charismatic, and possessed of an uncanny ability to influence others. Yet he also

displayed an unwillingness to follow rules, and a lack of control that was finally his undoing.

Dog was clearly Alan’s dog. When not off doing dog things, he was Alan’s shadow,

following him about on chores or lying quietly beside his chair in the evening. He became part

of the family during our first truly transient summer, and it must have been tough to be a dog

on the road, with the long hours in the car and constantly changing venues. However, he

managed to handle travel remarkably well, never getting lost, and always appearing instantly

when called as we packed up to leave.

When the fruit-picking season ended, our family and about a dozen people we had

gathered on our travels decided to settle for the winter near Burton, British Columbia. Proud to

call themselves hippies, the men all had long hair, and many of them beards, and the women

similarly had long hair and usually wore flowing skirts or loose pants, and of course wore no

makeup (or bras for that matter). My mother wore her hair very long and natural, and would

sometimes tie it back on itself in a loose bun if she were cooking or working. She was slender

2
Hawkins The Gift of Anonymity Ch. 1 A Dog Named Dog
and graceful, and favored cotton blouses and light long skirts, often of inexpensive fabric from

India. John Lennon glasses completed the look. Alan had shoulder-length hair and sometimes

a beard, and with his tall well-built physique and air of wisdom and charisma, he resembled a

muscular Jesus.

The plan was to build a commune based on a shared commitment to live more simply

and ‘go back to the land,’ doing without electricity, running water, and other modern

conveniences. Our group found a piece of land that we could squat on, well into the woods, up

an old logging road a couple of miles from town.

The site was not far from a small mill, which had mounds of scrap lumber piled about

its yard, providing building materials for our new home. It seemed to the grownups, who had

no experience in architecture, that a giant wood teepee would be the most straightforward way

to get a roof over our heads. The Native Indian link was also appealing. Hippies admired the

traditional native way of life, and my parents had cultivated ties with several tribes while

camping out on reservations here and there throughout the province. And since we arrived late

in September, we needed something simple that could be finished before the first snow hit

Gradually, a large rough cone the size of a house emerged among the trees, and we

were able to move out of our tents and cars. I soon found that although the lumber scraps were

free, and decorated the walls with rustic swatches of bark, their irregular shapes resulted in

gaps that we stuffed with moss and newspaper, which did little to block the drafts. Inside the

cone there were two levels: the ground level which was a large common area, and the upper a

large loft where the adults slept. It was an airy place, with rooms and privacy created by

Indian batiks hung on clothing lines. And while the other two children in the commune were

3
Hawkins The Gift of Anonymity Ch. 1 A Dog Named Dog
young enough to sleep near their parents, Ries and I climbed a small ladder to a cozy nook of

our own between the two main levels, a ledge not much wider than our sleeping rolls.

The problem of providing heat and a cooking fire for a house of up to twenty people

was solved in authentic teepee style. A hole at the apex of the cone allowed smoke to escape

from the fire held in a circle of large stones at the center of the dirt floor. Outside the stones

lay a larger circle of logs for sitting. Later we added a wood stove with a chimney, as well as

some wood flooring on the perimeter of the common area, but we kept the nightly open fire

through the winter.

Each evening we sat around the fire to eat our communal meal, and I would look up

through the hazy smoke as the grown-ups talked. To me, the early morning freeze from the

hole in the roof seemed a reasonable tradeoff for some relief from the thick air. Dog would

stretch out next to Alan, lifting his head when he heard Alan’s voice, clearly content to be the

top dog’s top dog. After supper the guitars, banjos and autoharps came out, and the music often

lasted until long after I climbed up to bed.

It was an ideal place for a large healthy dog, at least initially. There was plenty nearby

for him to explore – a rushing mountain river, the mill further up the road, plenty of deer in the

woods, and a couple of farms with more dogs. Lots of dog adventures just an easy lope from

home.

The forest was pleasant to walk in. The dense cover of conifers prevented much light

from filtering down to the ground, so there were a few ferns and lots of mushrooms, but mostly

a soft carpet of needles. This was much better than the mountains near the coast, where the

undergrowth of the rainforest was so thick that a dog, never mind a child, couldn’t dream of

4
Hawkins The Gift of Anonymity Ch. 1 A Dog Named Dog
finding a way through. But in the interior mountains near Burton we both found it easy to

traipse off, and I was soon discovering fantastic fungal formations on the trees, feeling the soft

moss between my toes, and poking sticks into the rocky narrow river.

That fall I watched the salmon come upriver in the steep current. Dog would

sometimes appear while I was there, perch bear-like on a rock, and swat at the salmon as they

struggled up stream. I thought it un-sportsmanlike of him – they were so battered and bruised

by the time they had reached this far that they were laughably easy prey. I could see where

rock had pounded skin away, leaving the flesh to rot even as the fish continued their climb.

Most people didn’t realize just how far the salmon swam: we were a couple of hundred miles

from the coast, and I knew they went even farther. To add insult to injury, Dog wouldn’t even

eat the fish when he landed one. Perhaps he knew what I found out later: that salmon become

inedible and even poisonous at the end of their journey.

What stupid fish they were. What possessed them to swim huge distances up streams

to lay eggs in a particular place to create the next generation of foolish salmon? I sometimes

threw rocks at them, sort of aiming and sort of not, unsure of whether I really wanted to hit

them. On the one hand, it would be a favor to put them out of their misery. But did I really

want to frustrate their noble quest? The Indians revered the salmon for their single-mindedness

and endurance, placing them prominently on totem poles, masks and platters. But were they

really that admirable when the goal they strived for was so idiotic? Hell, just lay your eggs

downstream like the ones who had had the good luck to be spawned there, the salmon

equivalent of being born with a silver spoon in the mouth. Why fixate on one particular spot?

If they didn’t know what home was, they would be a lot better off, that’s for sure.

5
Hawkins The Gift of Anonymity Ch. 1 A Dog Named Dog
 After a short time Dog would tire of the fish, and leave me on my own. Dog preferred

the large and the fast – leggy dark-eyed deer and quick-as-a-flash squirrels. I was interested in

the small and delicate. Fiddleheads and tiny white mushrooms. Spirals of fragile white birch

bark that made roofs and walls for the forest fairy houses I built.

The forest felt like a safe and friendly place, even in the winter. The snow came and

raised the level of the whole world. I grew concerned about the fairies, going back to check on

my little houses and build new ones as the old ones were swept away by miniature avalanches.

I returned from school after dark as winter arrived, but even a bit of moon, captured and

reflected by the snow, provided enough illumination to visit my familiar places. It was

peaceful and quiet, and for some reason I never got lost, or even worried about it. Perhaps my

middle name, Ariadne, was appropriate: possessor of a thread that would always lead to a way

out. And while I knew there were bears and sometimes cougars in the mountains, it was easy

to stay out of trouble if you knew how to avoid antagonizing them. I felt comfortable in the

woods, able to choose where to wander, calm in the damp cool tranquility.

I loved my name, although most people didn’t know how to pronounce it. I would try

to sound it out slowly for people – “ah-ree-add-knee,” but sometimes even that didn’t work, so

I would say “just Ari will do.” My father had given me this name, and I felt as though it was

the only thing I had left of him. He had simply disappeared from my life a couple of years ago

when I was in kindergarten, and Mum never said anything about where he had gone or when

he might come back. Then she moved us out to Vancouver earlier this year, thousands of miles

from my early childhood home, Ottawa. Soon after arriving in Vancouver, she met Alan, and

suddenly we had a stepfather.

6
Hawkins The Gift of Anonymity Ch. 1 A Dog Named Dog
 And now I had only vague memories of my life in Ottawa. We moved numerous times,

so I didn’t remember any particular house. About my homes, the main thing I remembered

was that there were lots of people around all the time. Dad was a poet and musician, and I

guess that was why so many people came over. He also helped run a club called L’Hibou, a

name I somehow remembered, perhaps because the grownups on the commune still talked

about it. I recalled that it smelled like beer and cigarettes, and Ries and I would crawl around

under the tables, giggling, Then there was Granny Simpson, who smelled so good, a soft scent

that matched the feel of her cheek. Granny Fern had a little dog, and would take us to the

Dairy Queen to buy us banana splits. I love, love, love banana splits, and she was surprised

that I could eat the whole thing. We watched Mummy on the television – it was a children’s

show and she looked very different then, Her hair was shorter and flipped up at the end, and

she wore different glasses: black and shaped like a cat’s eyes. We also heard her on the radio,

where she would talk in between the pretty music. And I remembered walking down the

sidewalk carrying two pop bottles to take to the store to trade for candy, but then tripping,

breaking the glass and cutting my wrist. There was so much blood and it hurt when the doctor

did some stitches.

But that was about it. Mostly I remembered moving a lot,

I wasn’t sure I would ever see my father again. I had given up on hoping for a letter or

even a Christmas card from him. I figured he must be awfully busy doing something very

important. I couldn’t even remember much about my father any more either, just some vague

impressions of sitting on his lap reading, and the nice smell of his sweater. But I knew he had

picked this name for me, and I knew it was from Greek myths, about a princess who had given

a hero a ball of thread and a sword, so he could kill a monster in a maze. There was something

7
Hawkins The Gift of Anonymity Ch. 1 A Dog Named Dog
about her becoming a goddess later too. In any case, I thought it was pretty, and maybe it

helped me from getting lost.

Unlike the forest, town and school did not feel safe. Burton had a population of five

hundred, if that. It had a gas station and general store - where town folk watched us hippies

suspiciously - and not much else. My brother and I were dropped into the tiny local school a

few weeks late, since we had been picking fruit as long as possible to put away enough cash for

the winter.

The school was small and nondescript. I noticed little beyond the books I was reading

at the time (Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys), the feel of the chair on my back, and the

wonderful warmth of the central heat. I was a precocious reader, well ahead of my grade level,

and teachers seemed to find it difficult to integrate me into the class. I didn’t make it easy,

either, since I preferred to just sit in the back with my security-blanket book, and participate as

little as possible.

The real challenge was recess. Canadians have an almost religious faith in the value of

fresh air, so unless the weather was truly dangerous, we had to go outside. I would slide out

the door and try to find a quiet spot to keep reading. Ries, just one grade ahead, had a much

harder time. Being a boy made him a more obvious target for bullying, and boys shouting

“hippie kid” and throwing rocks often pursued him. As a girl, I was typically subjected to the

feminine form of youthful cruelty, ostracism. It wasn’t just the hippie thing: I really did look

different. In my school photo from that year I looked like a caricature of a hillbilly, scrawny

and short, with fine brown hair that is half in and half out of braids, wearing a worn dress with

8
Hawkins The Gift of Anonymity Ch. 1 A Dog Named Dog
a lopsided collar which appeared to have been buttoned up wrong. So girls pointedly ignored

me and snickered behind my back, but I could usually block it out enough to read.

I was so used to this routine that I was shocked one day to find a boy standing in front

of me. “Hippie kid!” he sneered.

What was wrong with the guy? Didn’t he know that boys weren’t supposed to bother

girls? I mean, what did he want me to say? Maybe he was on a dare. In any case, there he

was, right in my face as I tried to ignore him and continue reading. This made him angry, and

he grabbed my arm, knocking my book down.

“Hey! What are you doing?” I said.

“Whatchya readin’, hippie girl?” he said in a high fake-girl voice.

“Leave me alone!” I said, and tried to pick up my book.

His grip slid down to my hand, and I felt a sharp pain. As I stood up I found a fork

sticking out of my hand, and nasty, triumphant look on the boy’s face. The schoolyard slid

away, and there was just me, my hand, and the fork. He waited for me to scream or cry, but I

just stared down. I didn’t know it was possible to stick a fork into a hand so it would stick

straight up. I turned away and walked into the school. The teacher seemed oddly cross with

me as she bandaged up my hand, but from then on I was allowed to stay in and read during

recess. A white scar in the shape of a star developed, and remained there like some strange

small brand.

So the forest was definitely the safest place, for me and for Dog, and it was only when

we ventured out of it that we found trouble. Even the path from the highway could be

9
Hawkins The Gift of Anonymity Ch. 1 A Dog Named Dog
treacherous. The school bus dropped Ries and me off at the highway, where we had about a

mile walk up the dirt road to the commune. As winter deepened, heavy snows accumulated,

and white walls grew up above our shoulders, changing the path packed down by footsteps into

a cold white corridor. When spring came the walls melted down, but the path below had

meanwhile become solid ice. Eventually, in one section there was an ice bridge over a black,

almost pond-sized puddle. I approached it nervously, looking for cracks and listening for

snaps and creaks, but not wanting to take the very long and muddy detour.

One day a loud popping sound made me pause. A moment later the ice collapsed

around me. I plunged up to my chest in the dark freezing water - I had had no idea the water

was so deep under the bridge. I stifled shock, tried to breathe, and waded to solid ground,

weighed down by mud and decomposed leaves. I was cold enough to be scared and crying, but

Ries had run ahead of me earlier and couldn’t hear, so I stumbled along, the dark forest

wrapping around me as the scant daylight faded. I was blue by the time I finally got home,

where I was quickly bundled up and placed near the fire. When there was enough water heated

to fill the big metal tub, the warm bath soaked away the last of my shivers.

But a fork in the hand and an icy dunk were nothing compared to the trouble that found

Dog. We knew he hunted squirrels and young deer in the woods during the fall, but as the

snow levels rose, he sank too deep in it to move with any ease. He took to wandering more

frequently on the roads, which led to local farms, and to their sheep. He was intrigued by

them, but somehow knew they were too big to handle on his own. So he gathered other dogs in

a pack and tried to pick off the slower sheep. The farmers were furious. They’d never had

packs hunting the sheep before, and packs did far more damage than the odd rogue dog. That

Shepherd dog from the hippie commune had started some serious trouble.

10
Hawkins The Gift of Anonymity Ch. 1 A Dog Named Dog
 Alan was concerned, but didn’t see that there was anything to be done about it. We had

no fence, and I don’t think he would have fenced Dog in anyway. They were so close, and

Alan had such high regard for Dog, that it would have been too great a betrayal. Needless to

say, tying up the noble beast was out of the question as well. So he said we would just feed

him more, and hope that decreasing Dog’s hunger would dampen the urge to hunt.

I wasn’t actually sure what we fed him. We were vegetarians at the time, and we didn’t

have money for dog food. I doubt Dog cared much for our leftovers – beans and lentils in

various forms. Come to think of it, I was rather skinny myself, and developed a distaste for

legumes. My mother had bought supplies in the fall: 50 and 100 pound bags of staples like

beans, flour, dried milk, brown sugar, carrots and onions. Each evening she and the other

women prepared a large meal, usually involving lentil-loaf or something that resembled

vegetarian stew or casserole. We couldn’t afford much fresh dairy, fruits, or vegetables

(oranges were a special Christmas treat). But I think we were remarkably well nourished on a

tiny budget, and I never tired of my mainstay: oatmeal with brown sugar.

Slump was my favorite food – a “secret recipe,” Mum would say. She simmered dried

fruits all day until they became an intense jammy stew, and dropped in dumplings at the

beginning of supper so they would be steaming and light in time for dessert. My mother had

painstakingly dried the apples, plums and apricots months earlier. Our family picked fruit

from the trees to earn cash, but fruit that had dropped on the ground was free for the taking.

Mum often sent us kids out gathering the sticky pieces late in the day, then she sat in the

evening, washing and pitting by the fire. In the morning she spread the fruit out on old

window screens, and placed them to dry in the fierce Okanagan Valley sun. The result was

11
Hawkins The Gift of Anonymity Ch. 1 A Dog Named Dog
brown and shriveled – hardly the plump colorful dried fruit one found in the supermarket – but

it made excellent slump, and tasted like sunshine in the deep of winter.

Whatever Dog’s diet change may have been, it didn’t seem to help with the hunting.

Finally the farmers took things more directly into their own hands. One day, in the early cold

spring, I came home to find Alan and a couple of grownups crouched around something near

the house. It was Dog, lying on the ground, breathing hard and noisily as Alan gently stroked

his head.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Dog got shot,” Alan said. One of the farmers had pulled out a rifle as Dog led a pack

into his herd, and shot him. Before the farmer could reach him, Dog had made it to the trees,

limped his way home, and collapsed in front of the door.

“Will he be all right?”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to see,” said Alan. I squeezed beside him to pat Dog’s

head myself. Then I saw the bullet hole on the side of his chest, just behind his front shoulder

blade. It wasn’t very messy, which surprised me.

“Where’s the bullet?” I asked.

“It came out the other side, which is good,” said Alan. Sure enough, as we moved him

inside, I could see another neat hole on his other side. My mother boiled water and Alan

cleaned the wounds carefully. At first Dog just lay on a blanket on the floor, only raising his

head to lap at a dish of water, or to watch my mother as she applied poultices of dried

goldenseal and other herbs.

12
Hawkins The Gift of Anonymity Ch. 1 A Dog Named Dog
 After a couple of days, Dog could struggle to his feet, and totter a few steps to a bowl

of food. We started to think he might make it: hunger is always a good sign. I was

surprisingly relieved. While he was very much Alan’s dog, I realized he was also a kindred

spirit for me, based on our shared love of the forest and occasional companionship there. He

still looked weak and wasted, like some kind of wraith dog. But each day he grew stronger and

started gingerly moving around to place himself beside Alan whenever possible. He ventured

outside, briefly at first, and his eyes brightened. It was our own spring miracle: who’d ever

heard of a dog recovering after being shot clear through the chest? His fur became shiny again,

and grew over the small puckered scars.

Meanwhile the snow had turned to slush and mud. Spring seemed no improvement

over winter, and in fact it was worse. It was still cold, but instead of a clean white dry cold it

was wet, grey and muddy. But there was a silver lining: Easter was coming, then birthdays -

first my brother’s, then mine.

Both my grandmothers had sent candy for Easter - at least, so I suspected from the

secretive movements of my mother. One day I woke up early, too sleepy to realize that it was

Easter Sunday, but needing to pee enough to brave the cold. I climbed down the ladder from

my loft and stumbled towards the big door, heading for the outhouse across a short stretch of

mud and remaining patches of snow. As I pushed on the door, a huge blue candy Easter egg

swam into sight, wedged behind an angled piece of wood that held together the slats of bark. It

made the freezing toilet trip bearable for once, and I scurried back up to bed to nibble on it for

an hour before others got up.

13
Hawkins The Gift of Anonymity Ch. 1 A Dog Named Dog
 After Easter, Dog seemed to fully recover, and wandered farther and farther. Spring

took hold, and a band of green crept slowly up the mountains, pushing back the melting

snowcap. The trees dripped and new bird songs trilled in the woods as flocks returned from

their southern winter homes. Finally the ground was dry enough for me to return to my

favorite places, and do some repair of my fairy houses. The stream was a huge gushing torrent

now, carrying chunks of still-melting snow to the lakes and rivers, and on to the huge turbines

of the hydroelectric dams of British Columbia. I was happy to be back in my old haunts and

away from the commune, which had felt claustrophobic during the time when it was neither

cold nor warm enough to be in the forest.

Ries began to get excited about his tenth birthday coming up late in April. Granny Fern

in Ottawa always sent some money with a card, and Granny Simpson usually sent something

interesting from her various travels abroad. This year, Ries told me he had asked Alan if he

could have a hit of acid for his birthday. I really didn’t think it would happen, but it disturbed

me - scared me actually - that he wanted to.

His interest in trying drugs seemed to start after we had both accidentally eaten some

hash brownies a year earlier. My mother had left us for a couple of days with a friend, known

as Crazy Jackie for her loud and goofy laugh. Soon after Mum left, a party got underway, and

more and more people stopped by her rambling and freewheeling house. Booze was flowing,

talk was loud, and the Stones were blaring on the stereo in the smoke-filled rooms.

Ries and I found it easy to sneak a few of the brownies that had been left out on a plate

into our pockets. We hiked down to the beach, gobbling our prizes on the way, innocent of

their special ingredients. The rocks on the beach were particularly fascinating, I stared at the

14
Hawkins The Gift of Anonymity Ch. 1 A Dog Named Dog
trees waving in the wind, and giggled at Ries’ jokes and antics until my sides hurt. It wasn’t

until we began to get hungry and cold, that we realized we had no idea where we were.

Nothing looked familiar as we wandered towards what we thought was Jackie’s house. It got

dark, and I was very scared. The giggles were gone, and we picked our way along the shore in

serious silence.

When I finally woke up it was to the voice of my mother screaming at Jackie. I

couldn’t remember how or when we were found. Since my mother almost never raised her

voice, it was quite memorable. We left quickly, Ries and I keeping a low profile in the back

seat as my mother drove, jamming the clutch hard into gear, lips pressed into a thin line.

While I had no desire whatsoever to repeat that experience, Ries started to hang around

when the grownups sat down to smoke joints, waiting till they became mellow and talkative.

Grownups did seem nicer when they were stoned. He asked for tokes, and at first was just

laughed off. But eventually, someone might be buzzed enough to say something like “Hey

why not? Just one toke can’t hurt. It’ll be good for him, help him sleep.” So Ries would get

his prized toke, and then provide some amusement as he giggled sleepily, smiled a lot, and ate

practically everything in sight. I generally left when this started. I didn’t like it. It reminded

me too much of the way people acted when they would force smoke into a cat’s mouth, and

then laugh as it got stupid.

The day after his birthday, Ries didn’t walk to the school bus with me. Mum said he

wasn’t feeling well. I figured he had eaten too much whole wheat birthday cake, or was

getting a day off to sleep in as a birthday treat. When I returned home, I stopped to help one

of the younger kids gather up some kindling.

15
Hawkins The Gift of Anonymity Ch. 1 A Dog Named Dog
 “So, did you see Ries last night?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I thought about it. I’d had too much cake myself, and fallen

asleep early.

“Well he was pretty crazy. He was acting real funny and laughing till he cried. Alan

said he was up all night.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Well I guess it was that acid stuff Alan gave him for his birthday.” She took the wood

inside. I turned and walked off towards the river.

The young spring salmon were so fast and small they could barely be seen. They

rushed their way downstream, anxious to reach the endless waters of the open sea. There they

would be unbound from the sharp rocks and swift currents that defined their youth in the steep

river. How did it feel, I wondered, to suddenly have the whole world open up? How did they

know what to do? Were they happy to leap off into the liquid horizon, or were some frozen

with fear and indecision, overwhelmed by the scale of the choices that confronted them? Dog

came along and climbed up a nearby boulder. This spring he seemed content to watch the fish.

He knew he was no match for the combination of youth and current that sped by, and he didn’t

bother to try to catch any.

Dog was now fully recovered. If you brushed the fur aside you could still see the scars

on each side of his stout chest, but he seemed as strong as ever now. This was apparently true,

as we began to receive visits from the local farmers complaining that Dog had been hunting

16
Hawkins The Gift of Anonymity Ch. 1 A Dog Named Dog
sheep again. It seemed that even though the forest was once more open to him, he could not

break the habit of easy game and exciting company.

Finally, one warm day a police officer came driving up the road, splattering his car with

mud, and stepping out with an expression of disgust as he looked around the house and yard.

The little kids stood in bare feet with mouths open as he hitched up his belt.

“I need to see the owner of that German Shepherd dog you have here,” he snapped.

Alan came out and stood talking with him for some time. Eventually the officer walked

back to his car, took one last scornful look around, and drove off. Alan watched him go, and

stood there, very still, for some time.

“What happened?” I asked my mother when I found her by the stove a bit later.

“The police say that Dog has to be tied up, or they will put him down.” Her tone was

curt, and I didn’t ask more.

Alan sat by the fire, smoking and stroking Dog’s head for a while, looking into the

flames. Finally he stood, picked up something from behind the door, and said “Dog, come,”

as he walked outside. I followed, and watched them head into the woods, Dog’s brown tail

wagging as they disappeared into the shadows.

I sat there on the step as the sun went behind the mountains, and the forest became a

black silhouette against the waning sky. A sudden loud crack split the air, and I put my head in

my hands. A few minutes later, Alan’s dim shape emerged slowly from the trees, walking

alone.

17
Hawkins The Gift of Anonymity Ch. 1 A Dog Named Dog