Read Online HOWLERS by Kent Harrington - Free Book Online

off her share of the ranch for a lot of money, moved to San Francisco and married a tight-ass professor. Chuck stayed on, living on his veteran’s benefits.
    One of Chuck’s several dogs, a big German shepherd, started barking loudly. The dog came out from behind the cabin, bounding through the snow. His chest buried, the dog struggled to get to the sheriff. Quentin stopped. He tried to remember the dog’s name.  A Border collie came up behind the shepherd.
    “Ronny, good dog.” Quentin called the shepherd’s name, clapping his hands together. The shepherd stopped barking when he heard his name called, then started running again, his tail wagging. He got within ten feet of Quentin. Big white strings of saliva hung from the dog’s open mouth.
    “Ronny! Good dog. Come here . . .  Good dog!” The shepherd came forward in slow hops, its chest sending snow flying. Quentin patted the animal on the head when he reached him.
    “Good dog. Where’s your master, huh? Where’s Chuck?” The dog barked twice, then took off running back toward the cabin, recognizing Quentin. The dog’s black fur was covered with snow powder.
       Quentin could feel the cold and wet through his jeans. He followed the dogs to the cabin’s front door. The stairs were covered in new snow, a sure sign that Chuck was gone.

    The cabin door was crude and had big hand-forged hinges. Quentin knocked twice. Chuck had given them a key, which Quentin carried, but he didn’t use it. The little porch had firewood stacked up neatly next to the window. No lights were on inside.
    Quentin turned around. Chuck had worked to make a clearing in front of the cabin on all sides. Quentin remembered one day, in mid-summer, coming down the road in his father’s car just to say hi. Chuck was out in the field in just a pair of shorts and a chain saw. It was right after he had married Marie.
    “What the hell are you doing, man?” Quentin had said.
    “Field of fire,” Chuck said.
    “Field of fire?”
    “Yup.”
    “Man, you’re back home. This isn’t Vietnam,” Quentin had told him.
    “I know that. But it’s going to get bad. All those riots in the cities. You wait and see,” Chuck said. “Just wait.”
    “You didn’t come to the wedding. Marie and I were looking for you,” Quentin said.
    Chuck put down his chain saw. It was blazing hot and he had wood chips and sweat and pine pitch sticking to his big upper body. His eyes were soft. Not the eyes of a man who had done several tours of duty in Vietnam and stayed in the Marine Corps, doing twenty years.
    “I’m sorry about that, Quentin. I didn’t have no clothes for that. How’d it go?” Chuck asked. He killed the engine to the chain saw and all they could hear was a woodpecker’s euphonic tapping; the summer morning held a clear, soon-to-be hot sweetness.
    “You know. Lots of people. Church in Nevada City was crowded,” Quentin said.
    Chuck walked toward the car and they met out in the field and shook hands. Chuck’s greasy black Giants cap was pulled down low over his forehead.
    “How’s married life? You got a sweet girl there in Marie. You’re a lucky guy.”
    “It’s better than being shot at,” Quentin said. They both smiled at the joke.
    “I figure a hundred yards is good enough—360. What do you figure? No sappers going to sneak up on my ass,” Chuck had told him.
    Quentin had looked at Chuck squatting on the dirt, wearing his jungle-style combat boots. He was still back there. He hadn’t come home at all, Quentin realized.

    Quentin turned around and knocked again on the cabin’s door, this time loudly. He tried the door. It was locked. He pulled the key to the place that Chuck had given Marie before she died, telling her it was important that her family have a key to the cabin. It was still a mystery as to why he’d given it to Marie in the hospital. She’d made Quentin promise to carry the key with him and he had. It was one of the last things they’d talked about. He