Meat

by Carey Sayers

In the backcountry, three paces are enough to swallow a path whole. I stepped out of the tent without a flashlight, eyes blurred with sleep, taking three wrong paces into the brush.

I froze. The ridge to my left fell straight into a gorge.

Then the snap of dry pine—

Something dense pushed through the laurel, too massive to be a deer. It drove into my chest before I could breathe, pinning me beneath matted fur. The hot smell of iron flooded my throat. I braced for teeth, but a wet tongue dragged across my cheek.

The clouds parted, outlining a collarless hound in moonlight. He stepped off me, shook the mountain dust from his coat, and trotted into the shadows. I followed his eyes, two copper coins, until he led me back to my camp.

“Good boy.”

The dog whined, his tail cutting slow arcs through the ferns, so I broke off a thick slab of venison jerky and tossed it. He caught it mid-air and vanished into the trees.

Winter arrived early, dropping the temperature below zero overnight. I huddled by the fire, unable to control my shivering.

The brush crackled. The hound emerged from the black, his jaw painted crimson, a thick slab of raw meat dangling from his teeth. He dropped the offering at my boots.

That night, the fat sizzled against hot river stones. It was the best meal I’d ever had.

By morning, he was gone.

Days later, hunger became a dull, rhythmic ache. I wandered farther from the trail to find food.

The dog found me again as the sun dipped below the ridge.

“Pavlov,” I rasped.

He dropped his gift at my feet.

Not venison.

A human ear, mangled at the lobe, pale and cold.

Pavlov sat on his haunches, panting, waiting for praise. My stomach turned as I looked back at the cold river stones. Pavlov spent the night beside the embers, his jaws working through the rest of his prize. Before dawn, he slipped back into the fog.

The blizzard hit from the west, wiping out the horizon. I huddled inside my tent while drifts buried the nylon shell. I woke to furious scratching.

A tunnel of light broke through the snowpack. Pavlov burst into the tent, shaking frost from his coat.

“Nothing left, boy,” I whispered. “No food.”

He bolted back up the tunnel and returned a minute later with a frozen human hand. The fingers were rigid, the wrist cleanly severed. No tooth marks. No ragged flesh.

Gagging, I shoved it into the snow. Pavlov whined and vanished into the glare.

The sun was blinding when I finally crawled out. I followed his tracks toward a grove of spruce where he barked twice, urging me forward. I dragged myself on numb knees until a green roof appeared through the branches.

I collapsed three yards from the porch.

I woke on a plaid sofa, warmed by a wood-burning stove. A blackened pot simmered on the iron top, filling the air with the heavy scent of broth.

Pavlov lay beside the hearth, his tail thumping against the floorboards.

A man in an olive uniform stepped from the kitchen holding a ladle. He reached down, stroking the hound’s thick head.

“Good boy,” the ranger murmured.

He looked at me and smiled.

“Brought me another fresh one.”