The Hunter and the Hound

This story contains graphic depictions of military violence and allusions to suicide and implications of PTSD.

Orion hunts | Hound a ‘heel

Bow drawn | Tip of steel

Scorpio stalks | Hunter takes aim

Creature from hell | Extinguish the flame

Scorpio slinks | Back to Sheol

Loyal hound | Scorched in soul

Unleashed, untethered | Master slain

All in her path | Feel the pain

Sirius ascends | Dog Days begin

Her world stripped bare | An inferno within

All summer long | Rage burns fierce

Reprieve only comes | If the grave he does pierce

***

Spring

The Hunt

Operation Scorpion’s Sting

US 6th Fleet, USS Gerald R. Ford

37.9493° N, 24.1691° E

18:37:48 ZULU, May 07, 2032, 78°F

Orion: Setting

The little dog followed the master’s finger as he pointed out to the great lights in the sky, again. She knew he liked them. She liked that too. The sky was nearly complete in its transition. Light blue intermixed with various shades of purple, both engulfed in transcendent yellows and oranges – as if Helios himself was reflected across the Aegean sky. Nyx had taken over now. She morphed the purples into an onyx-indigo. The yellow and orange flames cooling to increasing depths of blue.

“… and that one’s hydra. She’s the sea dragon. Russians probably think we are the sea dragon.”

She watched him as he howled at the lights, glancing at her between calls. She responded with several raspy yips at the lights too. She looked back at him, and he smiled. The briny sea mist tingling her nose and cooling her fur.

The master pulled a manilla envelope out of the backpack that had once been black.

“Discharge papers girl.” She perked up. She caught a higher crescendo in his normally flat intonation. He was excited about something. “Once we port in Italy its all over. We will backpack across what’s left of Europe, just you and me.” She let out another yip matching his. “Of course, we are going to get state side. Just not yet.” He knelt, eye level with her, and brushed her from forehead down her neck. She liked that.

Her ear shot sideways toward the coast. “Can you hear them?” She noticed a rhythmic thumping on the air. Hard to pick up above the myriad of noses aboard the mechanical beast. “Well, let’s go welcome the General.”

---

“Muzzle that thing in the briefing room Staff Sergeant!”

“Her call sign is Nova..Sir.”

“I don’t give a damn what its call sign is Staff Sergeant!”

Nova tensed fixated on the target. Haunches flared. A low growl boiling between her exposed rear teeth. She was prepared to settle disputes about pack hierarchy.

The master’s hand went down in front of her nose. “Settle.” Nova breathed out an audible “Humph” of protest to the master and laid down on the hard metal floor.

The General entered “Colonel, go a head and take your seat. Kesil, keep her quiet and she can stay.”

“Everyone, congratulations. You’re going to win this war tonight. We’re punching through the Bosporus Strait tomorrow.” He tossed a battered deck onto the table; cards spilled like shrapnel. “Somehow, the Agency has conjured a meeting at a Russian safe house. Message reads: Full House. Jacks covering Kings. Royal Flush. Hearts. Full Ante.”

Kesil repositioned at the edge of his seat “All 4 kings, Ace high?”

“That’s correct Staff Sergeant.”

Nova went from laying down to an alert and upright sitting position, ears cocked forward.

Kesil continued, “Then tonight, we hunt.”

---

“Breach!”

Nova dangles in her harness thirty feet above the road. Scattered fires burn inside fractured buildings. Tracer rounds zip back and forth. She knows that bark means an explosion in 3… 2… 1…

The third-floor wall blows inward, a plume of debris curdling into the witching-hour air. The pack swings into the cloud at the same moment the blast pulses. Inside, the haunting fog drapes a graveyard littered with shattered office furniture, rubble, bodies, and dead electronics. Beyond the blast’s perimeter, flickering office lights silhouette ghost-like figures turning toward the intruders.

Nova calculates her path mid-swing. Behind the big man. Over the desk. Through the shattered window.

The big man opens up with the light machine gun. The other three squad members catch their balance and release their rappelling gear.

Kesil pops Nova’s karabiner in the same motion. She flows behind the machine gunner and through the gaping window like a red-brown ghoul.

The quarry’s jugular pulses with each heartbeat. He registers the phantom’s presence and glances toward the mist. The fifty-pound creature drives her canines into the soft flesh of his neck, the force of her pounce driving them both into the group of stunned aggressors.

Captain Mitchell barks orders over the radio, voice calm.

“Yellow, breach. Clearing second floor. Blue, Red, report.”

Nova picks up movement in a dark corner. She ducks under a desk and pins herself near a wall. Kesil sees her movement and looks up to see a barrel sticking out.

“Get down!” Jordan and Kesil dive behind metal desks.

Mitchell drops the radio and fires five shots. Jordan pulls the pin on a grenade and lobs it around the desk as the hidden gunner cuts Mitchell down.

Jordan and Kesil glide through the destroyed door. Nova falls in on Kesil’s heel. In the room: a group of middle-aged men standing defiantly. “Full house.” Kesil whispers. Nova streaks between the two soldiers. Intent on the closest target. His eyes snap from defiance to terror. Kesil and Jordan eliminate the three remaining men.

“Yellow two, to Scorpion actual”

“Go Yellow two, where’s one?”

“KIA, full house. I have positive on Jack Diamond, Jack Spade, King Spade, King Diamond and –”

What had looked like an HVAC vent flies through the air on the report of a metallic TING. Muzzle flashes strobe the dark accompanied by deafening cracks from a rifle. Kesil and Jordan drop as the rifle clicks empty.

Nova lunges into the blackhole.

The King of Clubs screams in agony. Nova can’t see his neck. She works from body part to body part until she finds it. Not quite on the jugular this time. She waits until the gurgling and thrashing stop.

***

Summer

Dog Days

Military Working Dog Rehabilitation Kennel

Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland

29.3861° N, 98.6134° W

16:12:09 ZULU, July 14, 2032, 105°F (Heat Index: 117°F)

Orion: Fallen

The super-heated air stings the back of her throat with every drag.

“Cynthi-“

“Dr. Evans, Major.” The smoke hit the air and wilted like the plants dotting the edge of the parking lot.

“Dr.Evans… Just get the dogs out of here. I’m not saying how. Just get 200 dogs out of here in the next 30 days.”

When did I start smoking these disgusting things. She motioned to put it out but took another drag. “Drove by the barracks today.” She exhaled. “Looks like they have about as much support as the dogs.” Her stomach jumped. The secondhand thought slunk lazily through the sweltering air and slapped the major across the face like an odorous cloud.

“Bill, I know, I’m sorry. That’s not how I meant that to sound. I just meant that everyone’s on edge. They look like my dogs. Scared. Angry. Purposeless.”

The Major took the cigarette from Dr Evans, sucking down a long drag, and smashing it into the sand atop the trash receptacle. “The 4th infantry will be back state side in August. The Marines are pulling a battalion back too. I forget which one. The dogs are coming here. Dr. Evans. It’s not that I don’t care. There’s just no room.”

Cynthia led the two through a corridor of kennels facing each other. Ammonia and cleaning solution burning their eyes and nostrils. The air roasting their skin. A black-brindle Dutch Shepherd launched at its chain-link door, sending both sides of the corridor into frenzied madness — until the silent howl of the heat swept through, recasting the lethargic enchantment.

At an awning at the far end, Cynthia picked up a stack of folders. “47, Major.” She threw the stack on the table. They slid lifelessly across each other as if in a mass grave.

“How many are you still doing yourself?” The Major reached down and picked up a folder that hadn’t been on the pile.

“All of them. Wouldn’t you?”

The persistent low growl of an under-sized female Malinois finally pulled her gaze.

The general leafed through the file, “Wow. This one broke a handlers wrist? You’ve kept her here for almost two months?”

“She’s not part of the 47 major.”

A single sharp bark from the Malinois broke the Major’s attention and she settled back into her low growl. Haunches raised. Ears forward.

“That one?” The major asked.

“Yeah.”

“Not one of the 47?”

“Her issue is not behavior.”

The Major attempted a laugh but the heat made it too much work. “Not behavior? What’s your definition of behavior then Dr.?”

“Watch her. Look at her looking at you. She wants to bite you just for standing here. Look at that one over there, in kennel 47, the big Shepard. Notice what he’s not doing?”

“Not barking at us.” The Major said satirically.

“Walk towards his kennel. He will see you. He will try to intimidate you with his growl and teeth. He will lunge at you. But then he will back away into the far corner of his cell as far from you as he can.”

“I believe you. What’s your point?”

“Look at her again. She is just standing there. It doesn’t matter how hot it is. She is angry, Major. She’s angry at flowers for blooming.”

“God, damn it Cynthia!”

“Major! Look at that stack!”

“30 days. She’s on the top of that stack in 30 days.”

---

Nova watched as the two walked away. She wanted to like that one. That made her hate her even more.

She paced around her kennel searching for the right patch of ground. The German in the adjacent kennel slowly made its way toward the water bowl connected to Nova’s wall. Head down. Tail tucked. She noticed him. She waited till he was at the bowl and lunged at him. A short yelp and he jumped several paces back.

She found her patch of dirt and went to sleep.

---

She could see the new cleaner coming down the corridor so she stood up.

When he got to her kennel she stood in the center. He’d need to come in and put the harness on her to get her out. She started to growl.

His shirt was drenched around the neck and arms. White deposits of salt all along the outline where the helmet sat. He rested his arm on her kennel above his head and looked at her. “The easy way or the hard way?” Her hair prickled at his tone. Familiarity. She wasn’t pleased with how casual he was being. She took several quick steps forward with a bark.

He smiled at her and got off the fence to put the padded suit back on. “Hard way it is.”

She got her self-set as he moved to the gate. Then he sprayed her with his hose. The cold shock of the water flooded over her. She yelped with surprise and backed into the corner.

***

Fall

Requiem

Military Working Dog Rehabilitation Kennel

Kennel 50, Callsign: [Redacted]

29.3861° N, 98.6134° W

14:25:08 ZULU, August 13, 2032, 86°F (Heat Index: 86°F)

Sirius: Setting

“Today’s my last day Girl.”

The little dog lifts her head off her crossed fore legs. This one’s quiet low howl reminded her of a sad ancestor in a midnight forest.

The cleaner continued wrapping the leash into a loose noose, untying it, then winding it again.

“Sullivan is going back north today.”

She tilted her head and starred at him.

“He’s my brother. We’ve been together since boot camp.”

She let out a high quick whine.

“No, not my real brother. He’s dead too. Frozen in Siberia somewhere. Sullivan and I went to eastern Europe after hitting the line.”

Another whine, falling like a string of eighth notes across a stanza.

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much girl. I’m going to join them today. My mom. I haven’t seen her since I was 8. Dad. He went alone while Blake and I were fighting. Blake. Well the Marines had it rough over there too.”

She heard his voice suddenly rise in pitch and stop like a violin who’s stroke was rent to hard.

“Sullivan and I made it though. He’s going to go back to his families farm. He asked if I wanted to go.” He turned and gave her a melancholy smile, and the little dog could see the pools at the bottom of his eyes. She crawled forward and put herself under his arm.

“Ah, don’t worry about it girl. It’ll all pass soon enough. He told me to come over here actually. The day I bought the rope. ‘The kennels need volunteers. You should go. You’ve been at the house too much.’”

The little dogs head shot up and her ears pivoted sideways as she started to growl.

Dr. Evans froze so fast the Major ran smack into her. Hat falling over his face, mumbling something. His scrunched-up face of exasperation instantly slacking such that his lower jaw looked as if it might fall off.

“What the hell are you doing in that kennel Travis!” Dr Evans blurted out as the Major found his voice and started in, “What in god’s name are you doing with that thing, soldier!”

“Ahh.. Uhm… Good morning, Sir! I was just taking a break. .. Sir,” Travis stammered while getting to his feet. The little dog had risen to, her fur puffed, maintaining the low growl. “Shut up” Travis leaned over and halfheartedly whispered to the dog. She stopped and sat. Ears perked at the Major. At this the Dr.’s brow raised as she asked, “She listens to you?”

“Well, listens might be an exaggeration” Travis corrected.

“Looks like she listens well enough.”

“Wow now Cynthia,” The Major Interjected, “He’s in the rehab battalion, he can’t…”

“When do you get out Travis,” the Dr. asked, cutting the Major off.

“Well… Actually, I’ve been out for about 3 weeks now. But Sulli… My roommate got out today and so I just kinda kept coming.”

“Take this and take her to field 2. These are the basic commands” Travis grabbed the piece of paper from the Dr. and looked toward the training field with a single small bleacher.

The Major noticed the confusion on the soldiers’ face and a sly smile crept sideways as his eyes narrowed. “Congratulations. You just adopted a demon.”

-

The house was mixture of off white’s and old browns. No furniture except for an old wire table with a thin wood top and two mismatched chairs.

The little dog trotted down the corridor checking all the rooms. Travis went and opened the fridge. The yellowed light revealed a bottle of ketchup and a package with a few slices of lunch meat. Travis turned around to the little dog dragging the straw-colored rope back down the corridor. He took a deep inhale. His shoulders slacked and his posture eased as he let out a long audible exhale.

“I guess that’s yours now. Let’s go to the grocery store.”

***

Winter

Advent

Season of the Elk

Sullivan’s Hunting Lodge

Kootenai National Par: 5,846 ft

3:17 AM, November 25, 2032, 12°F (Wind Chill: -5°F)

Orion: Ascending

“Orion, you and your savage ready?"

"Fuck you Sullivan.” Orion shot back, “Her name is Ember. Let me grab my rifle"

The little dog trotted around the corner of the F-250. Charcoal snout. Black Forelegs and Hindlegs as if they had walked the fires of Hades. Mahogany brown fur that undulates with shifting veins of orange under Sullivan's headlamp

Sullivan would have rather been approached by a grey wolf.

"Treat her with respect, she'll treat you the same.”, Orion yelled.

The three of them, riding abreast in the old truck, Orion broke the silence. “Thanks Sullivan.”

Ember decided this one might belong in the pack.

Sullivan shifted. Then again. Eventually he gave up and relaxed, dropping his arm onto Ember’s hind. Resigning to stroke her fur as the washboard road bounced them along.

-

Ember looked out across the rolling peaks of the Rockies as the increasing twilight started to mute the great lights in the sky.

The silence of the alpine morning pierced by the cawing of a distant Hawk. Ember’s ears suddenly perked and turned toward a dark thicket of blue spruce 150 meters up wind. Cracking of limbs could now be heard. The outline of antlers faint in shadows. Slowly the beast grazed out into the meadow the pair had set up on. The great beast lifted his head and strutted broad side exposed. Embers muscled tensed, she lay perfectly still. Waiting for the familiar crack of the rifle. The elk looked at the hide the pair was in. It stared for several seconds before letting out a long and guttural bugle. Continuing its strut down the incline and out of sight Ember relaxed and looked at Orion. "Sorry, girl. Just couldn't do it."

The snow fell without a sound. She relaxed and laid her head on Orion's lap. His hand falling in her left haunches gently brushing her fur. She liked that.

The two sat in silence. Finite but together. As far as she could see more peaks rolled like waves under the increasingly purple sky, streaked with vivid orange and contrasted with gold-lined clouds floating like ships.