Animal Appetite

I’d never heard him scream like that before. I’d never have believed that my father would cry for help. And his ax dug only into his foot. And only once. But the gash was deep and ugly. The wound bled and bled. Miraculously, he didn’t lose even a toe. Miraculously, one Indian boy survived, as did one wounded woman.
    Their slaughter ended, Hannah Duston, Mary Neff, and Samuel Lenorson set off in a canoe. But they turn back. There actually had been rewards for Indians, not dead or alive, either. Just dead. Proof had been required. Scalping was primarily an English practice. The rewards have been canceled. Maybe Hannah doesn’t know that. It is she who returns, she who wields the scalping knife. Soon after she reaches Haverhill, she and her husband take the scalps to Boston to petition for “publick Bounty.” It is granted. On behalf of his wife, Thomas Duston receives twenty-five pounds. The same amount is divided between Hannah’s companions in captivity “as a reward for their service in slaying divers of those barbarous salvages.” Question: What did Thomas Duston do to deserve the money? Answer: Possess a Y chromosome.
    In the midafternoon, I set aside my scholarly research on a colonial heroine to work on an article for a women’s magazine about how to get your dog to come when called. Make yourself a good target, I advised. Open your arms to your dog. Your voice is important: Make it welcome your dog. And when your dog runs to you, don’t grab him, don’t run at him, don’t invite opposition! Back up! Help him learn to move to the one who loves him. And when he gets there? Feed him. The way to a dog’s heart is through freeze-dried liver.
    I’m a convert to positive training, you see. I used to give a lot of corrections. That’s a nice way of saying that I used to inflict pain. I now use gentle methods. I get results. But I am a captive only of dogs. I am a prisoner of love. My civilized advice had nothing to do with Hannah Duston.
     

Six

     
    Two purported suicide notes lay on Jack Andrews’s desk the night his body was found. One, handwritten in what reminded me of my own illegible scrawl, read as follows:
     
    I have slowly and reluctantly been driven to conclude that it takes more than the absence of faults to make a winner. Consequently, I am determined no longer to pursue what is obviously a lost cause. Your disappointment is my only regret.
    Love,
    Jack
     
    The second note had been typed on what I guessed was an IBM Selectric. Like the first, it had no salutation.
     
    It is unfortunate that society judges some weaknesses more harshly than it does others. Far from desiring to create an embarrassing public furor, I am eager that what must now transpire do so as privately as possible.
    With regret,
    John W. Andrews
     
    Above the typed name was a scribble that I deciphered as “Jack.”
    I didn’t know what to make of the second note and was unwilling to share with Kevin Dennehy what even I recognized as an eccentric interpretation of the first. I’ll admit to you, though, that from my admittedly dog-obsessed perspective, it seemed to convey the decision to quit trying to finish a championship on a dog that no judge had looked at twice.
    Kevin didn’t bring me the original notes, of course. What lay on my kitchen table at five o’clock on Friday afternoon were photocopies. Kevin had just finished eating a lobster salad sandwich made from yesterday’s leftovers. To try to brighten what had been shaping up as a gloomy Thanksgiving, Steve and I had decided on lobster in lieu of turkey. He bought double portions for each of us: four lobsters. When we got them out of the bag, I noticed that two were dead. If you, like Steve, happen to be from Minneapolis, I should inform you that the regional specialty here is boiled live lobster, okay? Not boiled dead lobster. And a veterinarian, of all People, should be able to see the difference. Unfortunately, I said so. We ended up overcooking all four lobsters. Steve pretended that his tasted fine. I accused him °f lying. Mine, I insisted, was tough and flavorless. While We were arguing, Kimi filched one of the two remaining lobsters and dashed into my bedroom to devour her catch of the day in the long, narrow, inaccessible recess under the headboard of my platform bed. Naturally, I took it for granted that while I was luring Kimi from her den, Steve would have the sense to restrain Rowdy. But just as I’d almost wrested Kimi’s prey from