THE YARD

Chapter 6

"You only leave if The Man takes you somewhere else himself." He rolled his shoulder muscles and lifted his tail, but Shadow didn't submit. Even as The Man leaned down and slipped the rope from around his neck.

"Oh," Shadow said, a bit too cheerily as if he wasn't too bothered with that now that he'd had a vague answer. He plopped down on his haunches and stretched out his toes to begin nibbling between them. Flare realized that Shadow was being passive rather than submissive, to avoid any confrontation whatsoever. How does he do that? She wondered. Most dogs would fight, flight or submit.

"What's wrong with him?" Mocha muttered with a crinkled black nose, seemingly half to herself. She turned and padded off.

"What are your names?" For the first time, Shadow's gaze flicked towards Flare. She returned it since the brown dog seemed completely unaggressive so far.

"That's Tan Dog. Jax and I already have mating rights with her, so don't even think about it."

Shadow cleared his throat and looked away from Flare.

"Yes, well, of course I smelled her. But you needn't worry about that from me."

"Good," growled Jax. He strutted up and lifted his tail, stretching up on his toes as if he wanted to be taller than this new male dog. "I'm Jax, self-named, and the other dogs are White Dog, Grey Dog and she-dog Mocha. But really, her name makes no sense so you can call her Brindle Dog." Flare held back on the impulse to roll her eyes at Jax's extra information.

And then Shadow, who couldn't be much older than Jax, lifted an eyebrow lazily.

"Tan Dog and White Dog? Must've thought long and hard about those ones," he mused.

Flare saw White Dog's muscles stiffen before he moved to pounce on Shadow. His teeth bared as he feigned for Shadow's front legs, and then aimed for his scruff when Shadow ducked low. The soft skin on the brown dog's neck was tugged on hard as White Dog shook Shadow side to side like prey. Though Shadow's paws were still touching the ground, Flare could see that he was too shocked to do anything at first.

Although that specific attack didn't have much of a wounding effect when inflicted on a dog's scruff, Shadow seemed to grow more frantic in the seconds that followed. He clawed at the ground and tried twisting his neck out of White Dog's grip. The brown male made a yelping noise and then a small whimper before White Dog let go.

Flare realized that Jax had moved away out of his fear of White Dog; so now she and Grey Dog were the only ones left to witness Shadow being bullied. Grey Dog's tail was wagging and his eyes shone with interest as he watched.

White Dog made a sudden movement towards Shadow again. The brown male ducked away from White Dog and nearly stepped on Flare as he cowered against her.

"What a mutt!" White Dog snarled insanely, his jowels leaking spittle.  He shot a glare of daggers over at Shadow, and stepped forward with one paw raised as if he wasn't done. Grey Dog must have started growing bored, because turned away from the porch.

Then Flare noticed movement from behind the dogs, the tall patch of shadow that had become nothing more than background during the fight. The Man stepped past the dogs and went inside his den with the water buckets in-tow. A brief patch of light shined onto the side of White Dog's face as he stood near the porch. It was shut off with the slamming of the door, and all of the dogs were left in the dark mist once again. Flare licked her lips nervously as she realized that The Man had done nothing to act on White Dog's savagery towards Shadow. Instead, he'd gathered the water buckets to clean and refill them.

He acted like nothing was happening! The Man brought him here! Why doesn't he protect him? Thinking hard, Flare studied the doorknob that The Man had just touched.