One of the battles occurred when a dog in Green’s brigade, an impudent male with thick lips, bulging eyes, and a coat of bluish fur, took liberties with a pretty spotted-faced female who was one of Red’s favourites. Infuriated, Red charged the motley male and knocked him into the river. After climbing out and shaking the water off his fur, Thick Lips launched into an angry tirade, which earned him the jeers of the other dogs.
Green barked loudly at Red to defend the honour of his brigade, but Red ignored him and knocked the motley cur back into the river. As he swam back to shore, his nostrils skimming the surface, he looked like a huge river rat. The spotted-faced female stood beside Red, wagging her tail.
Green barked contemptuously at Red, who returned the insult.
Blackie placed himself between his two companions of earlier days, like a peacemaker.
Now that the dog pack was reassembled at a new bivouac area, they busied themselves drinking water and licking their wounds as the ancient rays of the sun danced on the surface of the gently flowing Black Water River. A wild rabbit raised its head on the embankment; scared witless by what it saw, it quietly slipped away.
In the warm mid-autumn sun, an atmosphere of lethargy settled over the dog pack. The three leaders formed a seated triangle, eyes drooping as though reliving the past.
Red had led a peaceful life as a distillery watchdog. The two old yellows were still alive then, and even though there were occasional disputes among the five dogs, they were, for the most part, one big, happy family. He was the runt of the group, and once, when he developed a case of scabies, the other dogs drove him away. So he went straight to the eastern compound to roll around in the sorghum chaff, and his skin cleared up. But he returned more antisocial than when he’d left, and was disgusted by how Blackie and Green fawned over the strong and bullied the weak, and by their smarmy tail-wagging.
Red sensed that the violent upheaval of the pack was a power struggle, and since the conflicts had been shifted onto the three leaders, the other dogs grew relatively peaceful. But the mangy cur, who hadn’t mended his ways despite repeated warnings, was now trying to stir up trouble among the other dogs in the pack.
The flash point was reached when an old bitch with a torn ear walked up to Blackie and put her wet, icy nose up against his, then turned and wagged her tail at him. Blackie got to his feet and began cavorting with his new paramour, while Red and Green looked on. Red quietly crouched down and glanced over at Green, who sprang instantly and pinned the amorous Blackie to the beach.
The dog pack stood as one to watch the fang-to-fang battle erupting in front of them.
Green, enjoying the element of surprise, quickly gained the advantage by burying his teeth in Blackie’s neck and shaking him violently. The green fur on his neck stood straight up as a thunderous roar burst from his throat.
Blackie, whose head was spinning from the attack, jerked backward to free his neck from his attacker’s jaws, losing a chunk of flesh the size of a man’s palm. He stood up shakily, racked by spasms of pain and crazed with anger. He was seething over the perversely undoglike sneak attack by Green. Blackie barked furiously, lowered his head, and threw himself on Green, aiming straight for his chest, into which he sank his teeth, peeling away a huge flap of skin. Green immediately went for Blackie’s wounded neck, but this time, not content with merely biting, he was actually devouring the torn flesh.
Red got slowly to his feet and looked icily at Green and Blackie. Blackie’s neck was nearly broken. He raised his head, but it drooped back down. He raised it again, and again it drooped. Blood gushed from the wound. He was clearly finished. Green arrogantly bared his fangs and barked triumphantly. Then he turned, and was eyeball to eyeball with the long, cruelly mocking face of Red. Green shuddered. Without warning, Red pounced on Green, using his favourite trick to flip the wounded dog over on his back, and before Green could scramble to his feet, Red had buried his teeth into his chest and was pulling on the ripped flap of skin. With a powerful jerk of his head, he prised the skin loose, exposing the raw flesh beneath it. As Green struggled to his feet, the loose flap of skin hung down between his legs and brushed the ground. His whimper signalled the knowledge that it was all over for him. Red walked up and drove his shoulder into his barely standing victim, sending him tumbling to the ground, and before he could struggle to his feet, he was swarmed over by a dense pack of dogs, whose fangs quickly turned him into a bloody pulp.
Now that Red had defeated his most powerful opponent, his tail shot up as he roared at the battered and bloodied Blackie, who barked pitifully, his tail tucked between his legs. He looked up at Red with despairing eyes, silently begging for mercy. But the other dogs, eager to bring the battle to an end, rushed forward, forcing Blackie to make a suicidal leap into the river. His head bobbed into sight once or twice before he sank beneath the surface. A few gurgling bubbles rose from the depths.
The dogs formed a circle around Red, bared their teeth, and let forth celebratory howls at the bleached sun hanging in the sky on this rare clear day.
The sudden disappearance of the dog pack made Father and the others nervous and introduced chaos into their lives. A heavy autumn rain struck all living things with a monotonous sound. The hunters had lost the stimulus of battling the mad dogs and had turned into addicts in need of a fix: their noses ran, they yawned, they nodded off.
On the morning of the fourth day after the disappearance of the dog pack, Father and the others lazily took up their positions at the edge of the marshland, watching the swirling mist and smelling the stench of the land.
By then Gimpy had handed over his rifle and disappeared to a distant village to help his cousin run an eatery. Since Blind Eye could not function alone, he stayed back in the tent, company for my ailing granddad. That left only Father, Mother, Wang Guang, and Dezhi.
‘Douguan,’ Mother said, ‘the dogs won’t come back. They’re scared of the grenades.’ She gazed wistfully at the three dog paths, shrouded in mystery, more eager than the others to have the dogs return. All her intelligence had telescoped into the forty-three wooden-handled grenades buried in the paths.
‘Wang Guang,’ Father ordered, ‘make another reconnaissance!’
‘I just made one yesterday. There was a fight east of the bridge. Green’s dead. They must have split up,’ Wang Guang complained. ‘I say, instead of wasting our time here, we should go join up with the Jiao-Gao forces.’
‘No,’ Father insisted, ‘they’ll be back. They’re not going to pass up a feast like this.’
‘There are corpses everywhere these days,’ Wang Guang argued. ‘Those dogs aren’t stupid enough to come looking for a meal of exploding hand grenades.’
‘It’s the number of corpses here,’ Father said. ‘They can’t bear to leave them.’
‘If we’re going to join up with anybody, let’s make it Pocky Leng’s troops. Those grey uniforms and leather belts are really impressive.’
‘Look over there!’ Mother said.
They crouched and watched the dog path where Mother was pointing. The sorghum stalks, pelted by sheets of glistening raindrops, were trembling. Everywhere you looked there were tightly woven clumps of delicate yellow shoots and seedlings that had sprouted out of season. The air reeked with the odour of young seedlings, rotting sorghum, decaying corpses, and dogshit. The world facing Father and the others was filled with terror, filth, and evil.