Winter Wishes - a multi-author anthology of poetry and prose

Midnight at the Manure Pit | McKenzie Richardson

Keith looked down sharply as something brushed against his jeans. The light from the barn didn't reach this far along the driveway so all he saw was blackness. He glanced up at the hundreds of pinpricks in the sky, shinning crisply in the thin winter air.

Movement below brought his thoughts back down to earth. There it was again, something had definitely raced passed him. He could even hear the gentle rattle of the gravel shifting under fast feet.

There was something out here.

Moments ago, Keith was sound asleep in his nice, warm bed. Then something had woken him. Barking. Right outside his window. That was nothing strange. The two farm dogs went in and out of the dog door frequently, enjoying the freedom of not needing a human to assist them when nature called.

But this barking was different. For one thing, it was incessant. Usually Keith was able to ignore his dogs' nighttime barking, provoked by a passing car or an intruding raccoon. But this barking did not stop. It sounded almost urgent.

The second thing, which is why Keith had finally gotten out of bed, was that during the winter, Keith's father always closed off the dog door to keep out the chill winter air. Once Keith realized the dog barking was not one of his own, he ventured out into the bitter cold to investigate.

Something brushed against his leg a third time. Looking quickly, he could just make out the fluffy tail of the creature racing away from him.

Keith stayed where he was, knowing that the animal would return. A minute later, a dog's face appeared in the darkness about ten feet away. Though he could barely make her out in the night, Keith could see that she was a medium-sized dog, tan-ish in color with a few white patches. Squinting, he tried to determine what kind of dog she was. She had a full tail with long fur, reminiscent of a Collie, but her coloring wasn't right and her little ears flopped down in the middle. She must have been a mix of some sort. The dog paused, assessing Keith. Then she let out another urgent bark and raced away.

Keith wasn't too surprised. There were strays out here all the time. But he hadn't seen a stray act like this before. He listened closely. Though it was too dark to see, he could just make out the jingle of tags on a dog collar.

The Collie-mix appeared again and slowly crept forward, never taking her eyes off of him. Gingerly, he held his hand out, offering the dog a sniff.

When she was within two feet of him, she abruptly turned and raced back in the direction she had come, a short bark following her. Keith watched her disappear into the infinite blackness. It was then that he heard another sound, farther away this time. It was the sound of barking. A different barking. This one low and full of fear.

In an instant, Keith understood what the dog was trying to do. She wasn't afraid of him; she was trying to get him to follow her.

He raced back to the house, grabbed a flashlight from the entryway table, and ran toward the field in which the dog had vanished. When he reached the end of the plowed driveway, he shone the flashlight into the high snow that covered the yard.

Sure enough, there were the little dog's footprints, prints on top of prints from her back-and-forth route. After a closer examination, Keith saw that scattered along the path was a larger set of prints. Another dog.

As Keith sprinted along the path, his sleepy brain tried to piece it all together.

Then, a low, pained groan of a bark jolted him from his stupor. The manure pond. The dog was leading him to the manure pond. Picking up speed, he followed the footprints through the snow drifts, until he reached the edge of the frozen pond. Even through its icy covering, Keith could detect the strong odor of manure which his family used to fertilize the fields when the ground thawed.