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The Hodag by Trent Hergenrader
I still remember that cold October afternoon in 1936 when Whitey McFarland's old coonhound Maggie dragged herself out of the forest, whimpering and yowling. Her skin hung off her sides in red flaps and her eyes rolled wildly. She collapsed on the ground and howled.
All us kids loved Maggie, but not one of us dared go near her, not while she was baring her teeth and snarling. Be
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I ran past the loggers walking home for the evening. Oswego was a tiny lumber town in northern Wisconsin and our neighbors were almost like family, but even when the men called after me, I kept ru
Dad banged open the patio door and my mom must have jumped a foot off the kitchen floor. Before she could scold him, he told her to draw up a warm bath as it sounded like the McFarland dog had a run in with a wolf or a cougar, or maybe Mr. McFarland. Without another word, he went to the closet and grabbed an old blanket and headed out again, pausing only to hold the storm door open for me to follow.
It was dark by the time we got back to Whitey's yard. Whitey was lying next to Maggie, stroking her head and speaking in a low voice. I felt a lump in my throat thinking we were too late, but when we got closer I heard whimpering and I could see her flayed side rising and falling. I noticed her fur was streaked with black, greasy marks. Then the smell hit us and I immediately felt sick. I didn't know how Whitey could stand it.
I asked my dad if it was a skunk but he didn't respond. He cast the blanket over Maggie and the wild look came back to her eyes. She yipped when my dad scooped her up and she snapped weakly at his face. He gently shushed her and held her close to his chest as we trotted home.
Maggie screeched when dad lowered her into the tub while Whitey, my mother, and I looked on. Maggie thrashed and sloshed water everywhere, but my father held her in place and she soon gave up. We watched in silence as he picked twigs and bits of dirt from Maggie's wounds. She hardly made a sound. My mother clasped and unclasped her hands beneath her chin and her lower lip trembled but she never said a word. The bath water turned a pinkish hue and then it got so dark you couldn't see to the bottom. Dad peeled the tar-like junk off Maggie's fur and that made the water stink something fierce. He told my mother to heat up more water and then he drained the tub and repeated the process.
When he'd gotten her reasonably cleaned up, he patted Maggie dry and let Whitey and me help wrap bandages around her middle and legs. We covered her with a blanket on my parents' bedroom floor and she fell asleep immediately. Mom said Whitey could stay the night and, after a quick di
Whitey drifted off right away but I kept my eyes on the dark hump that was Maggie. She whimpered and kicked her back legs as she dreamed, but she never woke. I never remembered falling asleep.
In the bed above me, I could hear my father turning throughout the night.
"Wasn't a dog or cougar that did that," my father said, and my mother told him to lower his voice.
Morning sunlight spilled through the frost-wreathed window. Whitey snored quietly beside me. Maggie's face peeked out from the blankets. My father paced in the kitchen and, between his thumping footfalls, I caught snatches of conversation.
"Whatever got at her was mean. Real mean. It didn't want to kill her or she'd be dead. It just toyed with her. I'm amazed she survived."
My mother said something I couldn't hear.
"Keep him closer to the house, that's all. Make sure he doesn't go wandering over creation." His clomping boot heels blocked out the rest.
"What do you think it was, Jack?" my mother asked.
There was a long pause before my father answered. "I don't know," and even without seeing his face I could tell he was lying. I'm sure my mother knew it too.
The bedroom door creaked and I snapped my eyes shut. I waited an eternity before opening them again and when I did, I saw my father leaning on the doorframe, staring at me, his face creased, his lips buried in the depths of his beard.
It took Maggie a few days before she could walk comfortably and Whitey stayed with us the whole time. At age nine, I hardly noticed that my parents took smaller portions to help the food go around four ways instead of three. Dad never mentioned it and neither did mom.
Whitey's dad finally came around looking for him. Whenever he realized he hadn't seen his boy for a few days, he'd stagger the streets shouting Whitey's name and expecting the boy to appear. My father stepped onto our porch and waved Mr. McFarland over. Mom kept us from the door but we still heard dad telling him that "he'd whip his ass" if he so much as laid a hand on either the dog or the boy.
My mother and I watched through the kitchen window as Whitey followed his dad across the yard with Maggie hobbling after them, wrapped in a fresh set of bandages. My dad closed the door, then knelt and gripped my shoulders.
"Did you hear me and your mother talking the other morning?"
"No sir."
His eyes smiled but his lips did not. "Well, if you had been listening, you'd have heard me telling her that I don't know what did that to Maggie. Could be a wolf or some kind of nasty cat but whatever it was, it's dangerous. I can't find any tracks or any other sign, so who knows where the dog found that trouble. Some other fathers and I are going to look around again tomorrow, but I'm telling you Jacob, you stay close to home, you understand?"
"Yes sir," I said.
The humor in his eyes had completely disappeared.
Oswego was never a big town, not even in its heyday when the lumber industry was booming. The population had been halved after the First World War and dropped by another half during the Depression. Oswego wasn't unique. The same thing was happening all over the country, but us kids didn't know we were poor and the adults never talked about times being hard. It's amazing what you don't think about until you're older.
Telling a nine-year-old boy to stay close to home in a small town defines impossibility. To this day, I can't honestly say whether Whitey and I deliberately went looking for trouble or whether it somehow found us. We went for our usual Friday after school ramble with Maggie, and we roamed a little further than usual-both of us noticing that we'd wandered more than we should have, both of us understanding that we ought to turn back, but neither of us saying a word. Nine-year-old boys can communicate in such ways.
We were on the winding path near the woods when Maggie stopped and raised her nose.