A few small rays of early morning sunshine sliced their way past the drawn curtains in the bedroom. A grizzled looking German Shepherd lazed on the queen size bed. On the floor below, a large ash colored Chesapeake Bay Retriever sat licking its undercarriage on a plush dog bed. Across the room, a Brittany dog laid on the bare hardwood floor in front of a closed door. A horizontal sliver of light was escaping from beneath the it, along with the sounds of a running shower.
The room itself was a modest size, rather small for a master suite. Aside from the bed and the dog beds the only other furniture in the room was an oak bureau and a floor lamp next to the head of the bed. Three stacks of books sat intermingled with dirty clothes and dog toys on the oak flooring. The walls were barren, and the curtains holding out the light were a simple, solid navy blue. A single networked speaker sat atop the bureau along with an imperfect wooden valet meant to organize a man's daily necessities overnight. The entire room felt cold and uninviting; it denoted a spartan existence.
Several minutes passed as the dogs separately whiled away the time. Then, finally, the door swung open and Nick, nude, toweling off his tan, glistening skin, emerged. He was slightly above average in height with a rather robust musculature. This was no precisely sculpted gym-rat physique though. For the most part Nicks body consisted of large smooth bulges very much lacking in definition and detail. His muscles were those of a laborer, hard won through years of living in self imposed exile.
Isolde, the Brittany, snapped to energetic life almost instantly. She paced back and forth, her tail seemingly wagging her body. Lost in her enthusiasm, she managed to block Nick’s path out of the bathroom.
“Izzy! Go to bed baby-girl.” Nick said in his doggy-voice, noticing that the other four eyes in the room had locked on to him. Izzy continued to dance around just in front of him. “Bed! Now!” He barked in a much sterner tone.
At once, Izzy trotted across the bedroom and climbed into her own plush bed. She sat, tail still wagging, aching to get some validation of her ‘good-dogginess’.
“Good girl.” Nick grumbled softly as he began to gather his clothes for the day. He sat on the edge of the bed and gave the German Shepherd a loving pat. “Morning, bud.”
Nick proceeded to get dressed. Thick, wool socks. synthetic “performance” trunks, weathered and worn brown canvas trousers held in place by leather suspenders, and a heather gray long sleeve cotton Henley. His closet consisted of a very limited wardrobe: three pairs of jeans, three pairs of cotton duck trousers (one green, one blue, and the aforementioned brown), one pair of weather repellent waxed-cotton canvas trousers, also in brown, three pairs of winter weight wool field pants (green, charcoal, black). He had purchased all of these pants on the same day five years ago, and the age showed on every pair. His shirts consisted of many plain white t-shirts, assorted long sleeve Henleys, several plaid flannel button downs, plus an assortment of wool sweaters. In the back of the closet there was an assortment of hunting specific clothing in orange, brown, and camouflage, along with heavy winter outerwear.
Once dressed, he walked to the dresser and began picking things up from the valet and packing his trouser pockets. His wallet, a set of keys, a large folding knife, two white handkerchiefs, and a pocket watch without a chain.
The dogs sat patiently. Izzy still wagged her tail. She was by far the smallest of the dogs, barely tipping the scales at thirty five pounds. She was a beautiful purebred from show winning stock. Her white, subtly wavy fur gave way to a bright orange mask and saddle, dotted with freckles all over her legs, face, and body. As illustrated by her desperate need for attention, she was the most co-dependent of the pack, something Nick had come to accept as a unique quirk.
Nick picked up and checked a cellphone, seeing no new messages, he set it back down on the dresser. Lastly, he grabbed a ball chain necklace, adorned by three rings and slipped it over his head, carefully tucking the rings inside the half buttoned collar of his shirt. Two of the rings were plain gold bands, dull and scratched, while the third was a dainty ring set with a modest princess cut diamond.
“Izzy, boots.” He said, turning back to the bed. Izzy excitedly scampered out of the room. Tristan, the Chessie, stood up and stretched thoroughly as Drake, the German Shepherd, slowly climbed down from the bed.
Izzy trotted happily back into the bedroom with a beat up pair of brown leather Wellingtons flopping loosely in her jaws. She happily presented them to Nick; Brittany's are born bird dogs, and Izzy was no exception. Nick had chosen the breed specifically to train as a working gun dog. Commonly wrongly referred to as a spaniel, the Brittany stands alone in the grey area between setter spaniels, springer spaniels, pointers, and retrievers. They are perhaps the finest do-all upland hunting dog there is, or at least that's what Nick suspected when choosing the breed. Izzy had rewarded Nick's educated decision many times over the years. Every morning though, her job was to retrieve his boots, but only on command. Nick patted her on the head and pulled the boots on.
Before standing to leave the room, Nick glanced up and saw the three dogs standing shoulder to shoulder, excitedly staring at him, their three tails wagging completely out of sync. Izzy looked as though she were about to burst with anticipation, whereas Drake was patient and calm. Tris abruptly twisted his head around and began digging into the hair of his haunches with his snout, trying to scratch an itch.
“Let’s go outside.”
The three dogs exploded into a flurry of furry frenzy. They ran, skidding and slipping on the hardwood floors, jockeying for position with each other all the way to the back door of the house. Nick strolled calmly after them.
Bear, a massive black Newfoundland, fell in line with them as Nick was passing through the living room. Bear slept alone on the living room rug every night, and had only just woken up as the others went racing past.
Nick had, along the way, put on a brown felt bush hat– which, like all of his clothes and boots, was extremely worn– and grabbed a pair of leather work gloves that he tucked in his back pocket. When he got to the door, he had to push through nearly four hundred pounds of excited dog, luckily they knew enough about the door to make way. Nick managed to swing the door wide open and he and the four dogs all stepped outside into the early morning air.
The dogs raced out into the vast and featureless South Dakota prairie at their respective full speeds. Izzy, like a bullet led the pack by smoothly gliding along, low to the ground. Drake sprinted hard demonstrating the awesome combination of speed, power and grace that German Shepherds possess, but ultimately slowed to a trot much sooner than the others. Tris easily paced Drake but looked far more clumsy bouncing up and down on his longer legs. Then there was the massive tank of a dog called Bear. From a distance, one might mistake the black silhouette of Bear for a draft horse with it's lumbering gallop and comparatively amazing speed. Bear's ears flapped with each stride while his large pink tongue fluttered along the side of his head in the wind.
Aside from Nick’s small homestead, including his house, a large garage/workshop and a few small outbuildings, nothing resembling civilization was visible in any direction except for some of the loneliest utility poles in America. Nick, meanwhile, sat down at a roughly built picnic table in his yard. On it he found, and proceeded to open a wooden box. He pulled out a cheap pipe, followed by a matchbook and finally a pouch of Vanilla Cavendish tobacco.
Nick paused momentarily, staring at his dogs romping around in the distance, before setting about packing the bowl of the pipe. Once finished, he set the pipe down and walked back into the house. A minute passed and he emerged once more from the house carrying an empty glass and a bottle of Scotch.
He sat down and poured the Scotch. He took off his hat and set it on the table. The sun was low in the sky behind him, there was no need for it just yet. He took a large drink, and immediately refilled the glass. He placed the pipe in his mouth, and with a trembling hand, struck a match and lit it. He sat in the disarming silence and smoked; his left hand mindlessly clutching at the rings on his necklace.
In time, Drake had made his way back to Nick, and rested his head in his lap. He was the oldest of the dogs, going on nine years old, and Nick figured that he lacked the energy and patience to play with the younger ones for long stretches. Nick let go of the necklace in order to stroke Drake’s ears.
As is usually the case, the human was drastically underestimating the animal. Drake knew that human's weren't solitary beings, and seeing as how he was the closest thing to another person around— the other dogs lacked a requisite experiential knowledge— Drake took it upon himself to tend to Nick. He was a bulky, strong dog of working lineage. Weighing in at around ninety pounds he dwarfed typical dog show Shepherds. Even though his dog brain couldn't comprehend the meaning of the rings on Nick's chain, he absolutely remembered the thousands of times he saw them on hands presenting him with treats or toys. He missed the smaller set of hands that always smelled peculiarly nonhuman, and he reckoned that Nick missed them too. So it was that whenever Drake noticed Nick clutching at the rings he always gave Nick some attention, just to take his mind off of it.
Exile in the middle of nowhere hadn’t always been Nick’s life. In fact, it was a completely new and different life, dating back less than five years. He was thirty-six now, either just happy and/or miserable enough to live out his days on this prairie. Drake was one of a very few select things that had been a part of Nick’s old life. Before South Dakota. They could both remember.
In the distance, Izzy raced across the ground like a white cheetah while Bear galloped along with surprising grace. Tristan stopped playing in order to find the perfect spot to soil.
Nick knocked back another two drinks and finished off the pipe before donning his hat and walking around the corner of the garage. Drake naturally walked at Nick’s heel as they approached the gardens. There were several small plots in raised beds in addition to a large area of sweet corn and various squashes. Being early August, the plants were large and fruitful. Nick walked around carefully inspecting everything, checking individual vegetables for ripeness. Occasionally Izzy, Tris, or Bear would approach Nick for a bit of attention before running off again.