Wooly Bear
“Nothing cain’t live if’n it ain’t got a heart.” Rusty looked at the snowman and then at her coonhound, Wooly Bear. Wooly Bear rolled on her back in the snow and waited for a tummy rub. She was treated to a tummy rub and a hunting knife through her throat. Rusty ignored the hurt entreaty in the dog’s glazing eyes as she slit open the animal’s abdomen and reached up under the ribs for the still beating heart.
“You can live now,” Rusty told the snowman as she scooped snow over Wooly Bear’s corpse and washed her hands clean. “You be walking about tomorrow.”
As she trudged back through the drifts of snow, to the warmth of the family cabin, Rusty sensed a presence behind her, in the darkness, amongst the trees. She turned to see the snowman staring at her through coal-black eyes. “Well, don’t that beat all. You’s alive an’ walking.”
A hole appeared beneath the carrot nose and grew larger and deeper. Rusty peered in. At the bottom of the pit something a deep, hot, crimson pulsed rhythmically. Rusty leaned closer. “Well, don’t that beat all.”
“Musta gone this way. Here’s the tracks. Goddammit! Ain’t I told her enough? Git home afore dark. I’ve half a mind to give them a whipping, both. Where the hell’s them dumb bitches?” A mournful howl answered his question, and Henry Niails thrashed his way through heaped drifts to the scene.
Rusty lay arched backwards over a mound of bloodied snow, a carrot clutched in her hand. She was sliced from neck to navel, a ragged gash that did nothing to hide the broken ribs and missing heart. Niails sank to his knees in the snow, overcome by the horror of what he was seeing.
Something pushed against his hand and Wooly Bear gazed up into his face, her muzzle and coat congealed with blood. As he reached for her the dog rolled onto her back, revealing a fresh scar along her belly.
