To Love the Wild

Clementine Hills III

"Okay, I have good news and bad news, which one do you want first?" The vet tech, Bianca, asked as her fingers smoothed through the puppy's mocha fur. 

I drew in a fortifying breath, "Bad news first." 

"Your little guy is blind in his left eye. We identified it as being caused by a puncture across the eyeball. It's directly in the pupil, which may be why you didn't notice last night. We also found several lacerations across his body." She slicked back his fur as she showed them to me, two across his spine, one trailing along his left-hind hock, and a final that ran diagonally across his belly. They each sliced through his soft fur with tender scar tissue. 

"... lacerations?" My eyes flickered to the puppy, he was blissfully happy as he wriggled under Bianca's gentle hands.  

Bianca glanced at the door behind me, we were in a private room, though, that didn't prevent the yowling of the animals still in the waiting room from seeping under the door. 

"This looks like abuse, he's quite small for a husky mutt, likely a runt. Some breeders are out just for profit, it's likely he was dropped off shortly after birth, he's blessed to be alive at all." Bianca sighed, as she flipped a wayward cornrow over her shoulder. "We've given him dewormer, vaccinations, and microchipped him, but you're going to have to put two drops of this," She slid open a metal drawer and pulled out a tiny, blue bottle, "on his eye every morning for a month if you don't see any problems come back on the fifteenth. If there are complications bring him here immediately."

"Of course." I said nodding, "you poor thing," I sighed, my elbows shocked with the cold of the table as I leaned over it, stroking his fur, my fingers bumping over the gentle ropes of scar tissue. They were quite subtle, hidden beneath his coat they felt like muscle and bone unless you touched with intention.  

"Oh, I almost forgot," Bianca slid over a clipboard as well as the medicine. "You didn't fill out his name, right here." Her lacquered fingernail tapped the paper. 

"I — I don't think I'll be keeping him..." 

Bianca smiled at me, a perfect brown brow arching. "You sure about that, hun? Y'all seemed pretty attached already." 

"But —" 

"Tell you what, I can put down 'No Name' if you want, I just have to put something in here for the records."

"No," I paused, racking my brain for something, anything. "Bear. You can put down Bear."

~

The clinic bell rang merrily as I stepped back into the parking lot, the newly christened Bear snuggled underneath a checkered green blanket, plucked from a display in the clinic. 

Cold wind tore through the trees swirling dried crackling leaves into raging animation. A man in a blue jacket hugged a less-than-amused ferret close to himself as he stumbled toward his car, the gale growing stronger. 

When I pulled the handle, my truck's door whipped open and bounced against its hinges. Hurrying, I slid Bear's cage into the passenger seat, my coat lapel flailing wildly against my neck. 

A roar filled the air and I whirled, my heart thumping in my ears. 

The two hulking men from earlier walked carefully around the corner of the building, supporting a third. His hickory-brown skin was coated in rivers of blood and what looked like slips of flesh, his clothes were shorn and bloodied, his limp head bounced off of his chest as they carried him, holding each of his arms across their shoulders like a man on a crucifix. And for a moment I couldn't tell if he was even alive.