Bloodlines

ear for human music, but I am a connoisseur of howls. This one lacked the volume, range, and melody of Rowdy’s—he is a canine Pavarotti —but it was unmistakably the song of one of his kin, the howl of an Alaskan malamute. Missy? Or maybe not. But a malamute, one of my own.
    As if the sound waves carried scent, at the exact second the howl reached my ears, the stench invaded my nostrils and pressed like a determined finger on the back of my throat. I’d eaten breakfast. Maybe I should have started out on an empty stomach. The fresh coffee I’d drunk had turned as stale and bitter as if I’d swallowed the filter and grounds. My breath stank of indigestion, and the damp air reeked of dogs and filth.
    I reached the clearing around the Simmses’ place.
    The road was somewhere to my left, hidden in the night. The sagging roof of the shabby little house dipped in a U-shape against a patch of sky visible through the cloud cover. The ruins of the sheet-metal broiler farm were straight ahead. Scattered between the remains of the big, ugly building and my spot at the edge of the woods were three little sheds that looked something like outmoded and abandoned overnight cabins and even more like miniature outhouses, which, in case I’ve lost you, is the only word for privies ever spoken by loyal natives of the State of Maine.
    In the shelter of the woods, I turned off the flashlight, slipped off the backpack, and transferred the camera, a collar, and a lead to the pockets of my parka. I removed my gloves, stowed them in the pack, and hefted it on again. Then I made for the nearest little shack. The closer I got to it, the more it smelled like an outhouse, but the less it looked like one. It was roughly the shape of a prefab tool shed intended for the suburban yard of a diminutive gardener. To avoid stumbling on the pieces of unidentifiable junk that seemed to be strewn everywhere, I circled carefully around and located the door on the side that faced the back of the property. With the little shed and the high walls of the ruined broiler farm between me and the house, I removed the penlight from my pocket, held it against my hand, flicked it on, and used its beam to find a big, sturdy hook and eye, the door’s only latch. I had to push up hard on the cold, wet metal to raise the hook, and it cleared the eye with a sudden snap that sounded loud enough to awaken Diane Sweet. I held perfectly still. Inside the building, something stirred. I switched to the big flashlight, and holding it poised to turn on, I inched open the door.
    I’m not afraid of dogs, of course, but I’m not naive, either. Ever been bitten? And I mean bitten, not just pinched or nipped. Like being slammed with a nail-spiked baseball bat, right? Intense pain and sorely wounded feelings, too. But I lost my pride a long time ago. Sure, dogs understand that I love them, but they’ll bite me nonetheless.
    Consequently, before entering the windowless little shack, I braced the door with one hand, and with the other, I raised the flashlight and inserted it in the crack of the door. I flicked on the beam and peered in. The first thing I saw was a slowly moving mass of white that momentarily baffled me. A motherless litter of Westie puppies? For a second, I scanned for tiny heads or eyes or tails, details that would let my brain read this pale, teeming blob as squirming newborn pups. For God’s sake, the stench should have told me; I didn’t really need my eyes at all. And even the ugliest, wettest newborn pup looks nothing like a thick swarm of maggots feeding on a disgusting pile of feces.
    I tugged the door closed behind me and turned on the big flashlight. There were puppies, too, an unborn litter that swelled the belly of the emaciated golden retriever bitch who barely dragged herself to her feet when I entered. I was raised by golden retrievers; compared with goldens, my human parents were the incidental figures of my early childhood. Vinnie and Danny were goldens. I have handled goldens in breed and obedience. I have trained dozens of them, groomed hundreds, and admired thousands. This bitch’s coat was so caked with filth that it took me a second to identify her breed. Or maybe I just couldn’t let myself see her as a golden. Lack of food and exercise had left her with bone in place of muscle and flesh. Although she managed to rise to her feet, she didn’t approach me. In fact, she seemed neither friendly nor wary, but merely stood there