Four---By The Banks Of The Lachlan 4
Without Prejudice
I remember the dog, frothing at the mouth and weaving its way, drunkenly and messy all over the street. Heather and I looked on terrified from the relative safety of the newsagents frontage. We were both at once mesmerised and terrified as the dog, black and thin meandered up the Main Street.
We had been at the newsagents buying "scraps" for our scrapbooks. I preferred to keep mine in thick books, hoping against hope that one day I would fill them up. The thin paper ladies with their crinolines of pastel fairy green , pinks and hues, the special ones with glitter out lining their bonnets were as close as we could get to glamour in the unlovely old town.
Someone said,
"Kill it, it's mad"
Another,
"Mad dog, best its shot "
And Heather and I shrank away positioning ourselves further back in the doorway which had become our temporary refuge. We had to cross the street to get home to hearth and safety but the ill mad dog was staggering down it, blocking our escape. We stayed as still as we could, hearts in mouths, me in front of Heather, even though I was the younger by five years. I knew her terror of dogs from long before.
It must have taken a bait or eaten a rabbit with myxomatosis was my thought. I remembered the dead rabbits with their stiff bodies and eyes bulging in the back fields on the way to Mrs Hodges house, furry bodies elongated in death throes and their eyes bulging. The brothers would poke at them with sticks trying to squish out the eyeballs and us two girls would shriek and run. Myxo meant death.
Men were starting to gather in the street and other store owners came out to their shop fronts to offer advice and stare at the dog. Mr Wooley from the newsagents stood behind us.
" Feed it salt" he said.
I couldn't imagine any one being brave enough getting near enough to feed that mad sad animal salt, but I was only seven and curious to see if anyone would attempt it.
Heather and I closed our eyes quickly as George the only policeman arrived in his clapped out old Holden ute and jumped out carrying a rifle. We knew then the dog was doomed and didn't want to watch. One loud crack rang out, scaring us half to death and we both jumped. We peered fearfully around the corner of the shop front and saw the black figure of the dog, lying inert on the ground. And we ran straight away across the street, looking neither right or left, just running.
And ran all the way home, the wind behind us, like the scared little girls we were. Fear and horror making us not stop until we reached the relative safety of the fibro cement box that we lived in. I kept seeing the madness in the dogs eyes and the froth, white, foaming at its mouth, hanging in strings creating drops in the dusty road and still somehow advancing forward on shaky legs. That memory was to haunt me. Become the stuff of nightmares.
I remember the dog, frothing at the mouth and weaving its way, drunkenly and messy all over the street. Heather and I looked on terrified from the relative safety of the newsagents frontage. We were both at once mesmerised and terrified as the dog, black and thin meandered up the Main Street.
We had been at the newsagents buying "scraps" for our scrapbooks. I preferred to keep mine in thick books, hoping against hope that one day I would fill them up. The thin paper ladies with their crinolines of pastel fairy green , pinks and hues, the special ones with glitter out lining their bonnets were as close as we could get to glamour in the unlovely old town.
Someone said,
"Kill it, it's mad"
Another,
"Mad dog, best its shot "
And Heather and I shrank away positioning ourselves further back in the doorway which had become our temporary refuge. We had to cross the street to get home to hearth and safety but the ill mad dog was staggering down it, blocking our escape. We stayed as still as we could, hearts in mouths, me in front of Heather, even though I was the younger by five years. I knew her terror of dogs from long before.
It must have taken a bait or eaten a rabbit with myxomatosis was my thought. I remembered the dead rabbits with their stiff bodies and eyes bulging in the back fields on the way to Mrs Hodges house, furry bodies elongated in death throes and their eyes bulging. The brothers would poke at them with sticks trying to squish out the eyeballs and us two girls would shriek and run. Myxo meant death.
Men were starting to gather in the street and other store owners came out to their shop fronts to offer advice and stare at the dog. Mr Wooley from the newsagents stood behind us.
" Feed it salt" he said.
I couldn't imagine any one being brave enough getting near enough to feed that mad sad animal salt, but I was only seven and curious to see if anyone would attempt it.
Heather and I closed our eyes quickly as George the only policeman arrived in his clapped out old Holden ute and jumped out carrying a rifle. We knew then the dog was doomed and didn't want to watch. One loud crack rang out, scaring us half to death and we both jumped. We peered fearfully around the corner of the shop front and saw the black figure of the dog, lying inert on the ground. And we ran straight away across the street, looking neither right or left, just running.
And ran all the way home, the wind behind us, like the scared little girls we were. Fear and horror making us not stop until we reached the relative safety of the fibro cement box that we lived in. I kept seeing the madness in the dogs eyes and the froth, white, foaming at its mouth, hanging in strings creating drops in the dusty road and still somehow advancing forward on shaky legs. That memory was to haunt me. Become the stuff of nightmares.
