She did not like to pass by the shed. No one really did, but she was the one who had to live nearest to it. After the first week or so of the people rattling the wooden slats for a reaction, it became clear one would not be given. It was strange, unnatural. They spoke loudly whenever they passed, despite the shaking back legs, the tails quivering with anxious excitement in case of response. And none ever came. Unnatural– Like the yellow-green eye she saw peeking out from between the chinks in the wood that made her tail tuck closer to her legs and made her steps hurry on through the hard-packed snow and mud.
It was no secret to anyone, person, dog, or otherwise, why he was in there, why he was kept. She never could see well, but, when he paced– as he always did pace– she could sometimes see the outline of him moving along the wall. It matched the flyers of him she saw pinned to saloon walls outside, to wooden poles, huge, dark, the untamed who belonged in the deepest, furthest reaches of the forest, for surely only nature could craft such a beast as he. They called him– and she suspected it was on the paper, too– The Hellhound of the North, Lucifer. There were other various titles and insults thrown about she sometimes heard, not that she was awfully curious... Only a little bit.
He never spoke to anyone. Some believed, mistakenly, that the people had cut his tongue out of his head to leave his teeth with room to bite without worry. When Pipo and some of his sled team came around to hassle him, the wolf did not respond to them gnawing on the wood or barking their taunts; they wanted to prove themselves despite the fact they'd never go up against him; they were not fighting dogs, but running ones. He just kept his silent vigil. He chose to not spill their blood for some reason. He'd killed three of the dogs in the fighting circuits so far, and injured countless others she didn't know much about.
She knew for one, her companion Pexa, from a litter younger than Pipo's, but having the same parents, closer to her own age, was thrilled and nerve-wracked each time she passed by, and her curiosity for the male in there, not the beast and killer, but the male, overwhelmed Annabella sometimes. She kept quiet. Every time she was quiet. And tried to be observant. It seemed like that was what he was doing, after all. She could only wonder with a morbid circle of thinking she always returned to when she was about to fall asleep, if she'd wake up and he'd kill them all to take his revenge. It was clear he was not here in Kuno of his own volition, though he had made no drastic attempts to leave since his first days.
All the dogs that first night had heard his howls. They'd fascinated and frightened them.
And then the next night his yelps and screams as the man who owned him beat him.
In the morning, when the first brave dogs got to see, there was blood on the door, on the wood. Both the killer's and the man's. There was shredded wood near the corner, and a barrel place in front of what could have been a hole.
A few days later, the supposed hole was repaired.
And every time he made his turn to pace the other way in the small shack, you could hear the clink of chain, not the soft thudding of rope that all the dogs in the town were used to.
As she sat in front of the fire that night, reflecting upon all of this before she fell asleep– as she usually did– she could only wonder if it was herself with the curiosity that needed to be watched, not Pexa. She huffed a sigh, tucking her brown nose by her paws, looking away from the firelight. Her male person tutted something in response to her sigh, and comfort replaced her discontent for a moment. Her female person, his mate, came and sat down with her sticks and yarn in the other chair, saying something not directed at her. It was a good life here. The rest of her littermates had been carted away some time ago, less mild-mannered than she, less content to sit before a fire. And her mother was gone. She didn't know why she herself had been left here to be a pet, but it suited her fine; perhaps it was because she was mild-mannered. But, regardless, it was warm and safe and loving here.
