Commutation: The Dogs in the Darkness

    It was a dark night and the cast of  moonlight was obscured by trees that towered on the opposite side of the road up a high bank into the mountains. On the other side were railroad tracks, a river and, an open field. 

     It was the darkest stretch of the highway from one town to the next that I had ever walked and I had walked it many times. It was long, and dipped only once before it came around a curve into a small community that slept restless.

    However, I was welcome there and could be seen passing through on any given night. It was known by all who would peek through a window shade that I would pass through and cause no ill will toward anyone, but before I did so, I would have to complete that long stretch through the darkness known as Hogs Jaw.

    On this night that I remember I walked with a friend. Sweat dampened our brows and the skin underneath our cloths. The fall of our boots echoed into the emptiness. The interstate ran behind the tall trees along the side of the mountain where the moon hid.

    We walked without speaking. The journey had enclosed us so that our thoughts focused on completing this stretch of road and then the next, then the next, then the next. There would be time for conversation later perhaps when we had found the light again or when the journey was done.

    Half way through the stretch our nerves were ripped open by a blood chilling sound that  seemed to have erupted like gun fire into a kill zone but, it was not gunfire. It was the snarling and barking of dogs. Large dogs judging by the deep timbre of their bark. It did seem that they were set to ambush us though and that we were in a kill zone.

    We both stopped in our tracks. There was no running and we knew this without discussion. It was dark and we were tired. we would have simply been ran down.

     The click of their claws on the pavement coming toward us seemed to fill the night. soon they would be on us. With the ferocity that  filled those seconds it might have been demons set upon us.

     Light from a distant street lamp that I had never noticed before probably because I had never looked behind me on this stretch stood as a barrier between us and the pack of dogs in the darkness. In those fear diluted moments as we waited for those dogs in the darkness there was a split second contemplation on how to respond before they would be upon us ripping and tearing.

    Suddenly from deep inside us, simultaneously, we let out a war cry and braced for battle. All my life I had been told that a dog was less likely to bite you if it knew you weren't afraid of it.

    That night I was afraid and would have fought for my life but the dogs never came out of the darkness. The snarling, growling and, barking stopped almost immediately at the sound of our war cry and the click of their toe nails became a retreating sound as they withdrew back into the deeper darkness.

    We walked on. We finished the stretch unscathed. I couldn't tell you how many times that I had walked that stretch and would walk that stretch again and had never had that happen to me.

    When we entered the restless community lit by porch lights and a few street lamps we stopped at a small store that set just off the highway. It was closed but the bench outside was welcoming and we were welcome. We took off our boots and rubbed our feet. When we were rested we laced our boots back up and continued walking. More than half the trip was through.

     It was unlikely that catching a ride at this time of night would happen but it just so happened that we did catch a ride about half a mile down the road before the street lights of the restless community had faded from our vision. Right place right time I guess.

    Neither one of us ever mentioned the dogs in the darkness. I always look for meaning in things that happen and things that are dreamed but I never found any meaning for this random isolated occurrence. For years now it has haunted the back of my mind but not a scary haunt. 

    Maybe the meaning is meaninglessness. I never took it as a warning or an omen though but the one component of this event that always stood out for me was that we never once saw those dogs. We only heard them, then they were gone and we never talked about it.

    I often replay it in my mind as if I could go back and watch as an onlooker with a remote and review it frame by frame to see exactly what happened in those seconds before the dogs never came out of the darkness leaving me to wonder if it ever happened at all.

Salutation Pending 

Johnny R Draper