Into the Dark

My father and I exited the back of the house and headed out across the field to kill the only thing that I had ever loved.

That morning had been chilly and now with the sun covered up by clouds, the cold had turned bitter and biting. The sky was gray, shot through with streaks of pale green the way it got just before a big storm was about to hit. It hadn't started yet, but when it came it would drop the temperature even further, the wind howling and whipping the window shutters and lightning scorching the tops of the trees leaving them with shattered branches, the remnants scattered at their roots looking like amputees gaping down at their lost limbs.

I knew Milo was sick and needed an operation that we couldn't afford. I understood this, but couldn't bring myself to accept it. When I looked into his eyes all I saw there was love. That love should have made me want to end his suffering, but instead I held on tighter, because after he was gone it would just be me and my father alone in the house, the two of us silently skirting around each other like ghosts.

It wasn’t that my father didn’t care for me. He had never raised his hand in anger, and I had never gone to bed cold or hungry, but he kept a large part of himself locked away from me and from everyone else. I don’t know if he had always been this way or only became so after my mother died. Sometimes it felt as though he didn’t know quite what to make of me—instances where he seemed utterly at a loss, like the time as a small child when I had bawled for hours over the loss of a plastic, toy horse. He stared at me like I was some strange creature he couldn’t comprehend. Eventually he left me there to cry myself to sleep. Some might consider his actions cruel, but I think he was simply confused and unable to cope with situations that would have fallen to my mother had she not vanished from my life before I even knew I was in the world.

Milo had been my father’s solution to the problem. The day he brought the black and brown puppy home was the happiest of my life. I suppose most would argue that a dog, no matter how affectionate, was no substitute for a mother’s love, but to me Milo was the world. He would walk with me in the morning along the dirt path that lead out from the front of our property and met up with the paved road where I waited for the bus. In the afternoon he would be sitting on the front porch when I got home from school and would come bounding across the lawn to meet me. We grew up together, and in a lot of ways I thought of him more as my brother than my pet.

He was still bigger than me, even with all the weight he’d lost from the cancer, and I heard my father grunt several times while carrying Milo in his arms as we made our way to the tree-line that marked the beginning of the forest that bordered our property.

This had been our favorite spot to play. The field behind the house was for planting and therefore off limits, so Milo and I spent all our time wandering around the woods with me skulking through the trees pretending to be a ranger while he chased squirrels and rabbits and gophers and once a very agitated skunk that made him stink for weeks afterward.

We had seen so many things there.

A family of deer drinking from a pool, the parents flanking either side of their fawn that was barely half the size of Milo and still shaky on its new legs. A black bear trudging through the stream snatching fish out of the water like they were standing still. Wolves howling in the distance and Milo howling back like he wanted to join them.

There were also those simple, everyday occurrences. The sweet perfume of flowers in the springtime and the earthy aroma of dead leaves in the fall. The satisfying crunch of snow and ice underneath our feet in winter. The summer sun streaming in through the branches casting angular patterns of shadow on the ground.

These were moments that wouldn’t have been the same if Milo hadn’t been there at my side to witness them with me.

When we reached a small clearing circled by a ring of birch trees, my father stopped and set Milo on the ground.

“This is a good spot,” my father said. “You’ll have no trouble finding him here to visit after we put in a marker.”

I nodded, not sure of what to say. I knelt down and nestled my hand in Milo’s fur; he lifted his head a little and looked at me.

“He’s your dog. You ought to be the one to do it,” my father said as he unslung the .22 rifle from his shoulder and held it out to me.

This was the way of things for my father. Something he understood better than crying toddlers. It had been his daddy’s way, and his daddy’s daddy before that.

I shook my head at him. “I can’t.”

My father put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry it has to be this way. I wish there was something more we could have done, but it isn’t right to let him suffer.”

“I know....” I said, choking back a sob that caused my whole chest to hitch forward.

“Say your goodbyes and give him some peace, son.”

I nodded again and took the rifle from him.

My father stood there for a moment like he was about to say something else, but instead turned and headed towards the house without looking back.

I laid the gun down next to me in the grass and stroked the top of Milo’s head. He was staring up at me again, gazing straight into my eyes with that love that made me want to hold onto him as tightly as I could and melt into the ground so that we would always be together.

The first drops of rain began to fall.

I put my arms around Milo and pointed my face towards the sky waiting for the storm to come...waiting for the rain to turn the earth to mud, and swallow us both up forever.

Written by: Peter Naughton

Photograph by: Garrett Carroll

Anderson Ridge

The ferry ride was long and hard and left the boy feeling serious. The trip up the coast took three days and three nights, dropping them in the bush at the end of June. Pop had already been at the camp for months; he always headed to the forest the second the snow was off the ground. Before leaving, Pop took the boy aside to have the talk, reminding him that while he was gone, the boy would need to be the man of the house. It was his job to look out for Mother and little Shirley, to protect them from trouble and danger of any kind. The boy took his duties to heart, diligent in his watch all through their journey, eager to be reunited with his father and to relinquish the role of ‘Man.’

Now that they have made it to the camp and found his father still absent, off in the bush with a group of laborers and lumberjacks, the boy sits quietly in the corner listening to the rain and waves, attentive for any sounds that could mean trouble. He watches as his mother attends to the most immediately pressing problems. Behind a silk screen she removes her travelling clothes and pulls on a white lace gown. Her next necessity is a drink; she pours the whiskey, a neat two fingers, and drinks down half of it in the first gulp. She sighs and makes her way to the other side of the room, smiling at the serious boy and his restless little sister before she winds up the gramophone and music fills the cabin.

Little Shirley is unhappy, crying and fussing on the floor, she stretches her chubby arms out towards the soft white vision that is their mother. Mother gulps down the last of her drink and dances a few steps around the room before twirling towards the toddler and swinging her up into her arms. Little Shirley squeals with delight and leans her curly head against her mother’s shoulder. They waltz around the room, their voices raised sweetly in song.

Like Jack Horner, in the corner. Don't go nowhere, what do I care? Your kisses are worth waitin' for

Clad in silk ribbons and ivory buttons, they are elegance, they are sophisticated femininity, they are a contradiction in this old wooden shack with its leaky roof. Mother keeps singing, her voice made sultry by the whiskey sipped from a crystal tumbler. The sound of her song weaves around the music of the gramophone and the laughter of Shirley in her arms. The joyful noise slips between the cracks in the walls and out into the logging camp that surrounds them. The sweetness of them mingles with the rough sounds of men living in the bush. It melts into the sounds of the waves of the northern ocean and the dull patter of raindrops on wood.

The boy, still serious, thinks of the waves and the unknown men. He imagines them and all the other dangers crashing against the cabin walls. He squares his shoulders, sitting taller, watching the women he’s been assigned to protect, picturing the gun that is already loaded and tucked under the bed. He thinks about how much time it would take him to pull the weapon from its hiding place if the doors burst open. If wolves and bears and bad men were to set upon them, he knew he could have that weapon out in an instant. Pop would be proud.

His mother has always been an enigma among women, refusing to be left behind in the city. Every summer she insists that she be brought to the bush, where she can dance barefoot across dirt floors and swim naked in moonlight when none are watching. She has never known fear, not in the cities or in the woods. She is oblivious and bold.

His sister, a joyful toddler laughing in her mother’s arms, has never been to the lumber camps before. As an infant, she was left behind last year, kept safe with the house servants in the city. It is her first time in the forest, and she doesn’t know to be fearful. They are his to guard, here, deep in the north pacific rainforest, miles away from the parlours and parties of North Vancouver. He will be brave and mindful for all of them.

The boy senses the change before he hears it, a shift, something different in the sounds of the men. The waves keep on crashing in their regular rhythm and the raindrops tap with the same regularity, but the murmurs of the men have changed. The boy is on his feet in a flash, the gun is raised to his shoulder, levelled confidently at the door.

“Clay?” His mother asks.

The boy does not answer. He aims the rifle, cold steel held steady, waiting for movement. He is ready for whatever will come next. He stands on knees that tremble, a shield between the women and the outside, ready to do his duty as a man. The shadow of something makes its way around the cabin, though there are no windows set in the walls, he can see the passage of the creature in the chinks between boards; he can hear it in the men’s voices. Something is coming for them.

His finger tightens on the trigger, ready for action as the door pushes open. Before the boy can react to the dark figure on the threshold, Mother reaches down from behind him and plucks the rifle from his small shaking hands.

“Hush now, Clay. It’s just Pop.” She meets Pop at the door with the rifle in her hand and a sultry smile on her mouth.

Clay feels the fear fizzle out of him. He has been relieved of duty; for the moment he can be just a boy again.

Written by: Sarah Scott
Photograph by: Rob Gregory