As soon as I got close to him, I saw that his cheeks were soaked with tears.
“I tried,” he said through his sobs. “They were flying above us, there were so many, and I aimed, but I couldn’t. And I wanted you to hear that at least I did what I could, and that’s why I lowered the rifle and shot. When the birds flew away and I looked down, I saw Dogg lying there.”
“Dead?” I asked him.
“No,” Karl said, and now he really started crying. “But… he’s going to die soon. Blood is running from his mouth and both his eyes are a mess. He’s lying on the ground, whining and trembling.”
“Run,” I said.
We ran and after a few minutes I saw something moving in the heather. A tail. Dogg’s tail. The dog smelled us coming. We stood over him. His dog eyes were like spilled egg yolks.
“He’s gone,” I said. Not because I’m any expert in veterinary medicine, as all cowboys in westerns seem to be, but because even if Dogg made it, he wouldn’t deserve to live as a blind hunting dog. “You have to kill him.”
“Me?” he shouted, as if he couldn’t believe I had suggested to him, Karl, to kill something.
I looked at him. My little brother. “Give me the knife,” I said.
He reached out and gave me Dad’s hunting knife.
I placed one hand on Dogg’s head and he started licking my wrist. Then I grabbed him by the scruff and with the other hand I tried to cut his throat. But I was too careful, nothing happened, Dogg just twitched a little. Only on the third try did I succeed. Like when you poke a hole in the juice carton too low, the blood seemed to gush out, as if it had been waiting eagerly to be freed.
“That’s it,” I said and let the knife fall into the heather. I saw the blood on the blades and wondered if any had splattered on my face, because I felt something warm running down my cheeks.
