As other characters become involved, the plot twists, the conflict escalates and the situation turns deadly.
It was the day dog died.
I was sixteen, Carl fifteen.
A few days earlier Dad had shown us the hunting knife I killed him with.
It had a broad blade that glinted in the sun and was grooved on the sides.
Dad had explained that the grooves were there to channel the blood away when you dismembered your prey.
Him, Mum, you and me.
‘OK, I said as I turned the distributor cap to locate the ignition point.
Dog can have some too, he said.
There’ll be enough for everyone.
‘Sure there will, I said.
Dad always said he’d named Dog Dog because at the time he couldn’t think of anything else.
But I think he loved that name.
It was like himself.
Never said more than was strictly necessary, and so American he had to be Norwegian.
And he loved that animal.
I’ve a feeling he valued that dog’s company more than that of any human being.
Could see them turn into dots against the bare mountainside.
But I never heard any shooting.
And then one day, finally, I heard a shot.
I jumped so hard my head struck the underside of the bonnet.
Dog wasn’t with him.
He didn’t have his rifle either.
I had already half guessed what had happened and went out to meet him.
When he saw me he turned and began slowly walking back the way he had come.
When I caught up with him I saw that his cheeks were wet with tears.
‘I tried, he sobbed.
Once the birds were gone I looked down and there was Dog, lying there.
‘No, said Carl, and now he began really crying.
He’s bleeding from his mouth and both his eyes are shattered.
He’s just lying there on the ground whimpering and shaking.
‘Run, I said.
We ran, and after a few minutes we saw something moving in the heather.
It was a tail.
He smelled us coming.
We stood over him.
His eyes looked like two egg yolks pulled to shreds.
‘He’s done for, I said.
You’ve got to shoot him.
I looked at him.
At my kid brother.
Give me the knife, I said.
He handed me Dad’s hunting knife.
I placed one hand on Dog’s head and he licked my wrist.
But I was cautious, nothing happened, Dog just jerked.
‘There, I said and dropped the knife in the heather.
‘You’re crying, said Carl.
‘Don’t tell Dad.’
‘That you were crying?’
‘That you couldn’t bring yourself to .
couldn’t put him down.
We say that I decided it had to be done, but you did it.
OK.’
I slung the dog’s corpse over my shoulder.
It was heavier than I expected and kept sliding about.
Carl offered to carry it, but I saw the relief in his eyes when I said no.
I placed Dog on the ramp in front of the barn, went into the house and fetched Dad.
On the way back I gave him the explanation we’d agreed on.
Then he stood up, took the rifle from Carl and Dog’s body under his arm.
‘Come on, he said, and walked up the ramp to the hayloft.
Sort of falling apart.
‘Now it’s our turn, he said.
Even though Dad had never hit either one of us, Carl standing next to me seemed to shrink.
Dad stroked the barrel of the rifle.
‘Which one of you was it who .
He looked for the words, stroking and stroking that rifle.
Who cut up my dog?
Carl was blinking uncontrollably, like someone terrified out of his wits.
‘It was Carl, I said.
Dad’s gaze went from me to Carl and then back again.
My heart is weeping.
It’s weeping, and I have only one consolation.
And you know what that is?
The idea wasn’t to answer when Dad asked something like that.
‘It’s that I have two sons who have, today, shown themselves to be men.
Who have shown responsibility and taken decisions.
The agonies of choice do you know what that means?
When it’s the choosing that chokes you up, not the choice you end up making.
You could have run from this, but you faced the hard choice head-on.
Let Dog live and suffer, or let Dog die and be his killer.
It takes courage not to turn away when you find yourself confronted with a choice like that.
He reached out his big hands.
One straight ahead that landed on my shoulder, the other a little higher up on Carl’s.
And his voice had taken on a vibrato Pastor Armand would have been proud of as he continued.
He had tears in his eyes again.
I stand here a broken man.
But, boys, I am so very proud of you.
‘Now let’s go in and tell your mother.
‘Before she hears this version, best you give your hands a more thorough wash, he said.
Then he stroked the back of my head.
As far as I could remember he had never done that before.
And he never did it again.
‘You and me, we’re alike, Roy.
We’re tougher than people like Mum and Carl.
So we have to look after them.
We’ve got each other and nobody else.
Friends, sweethearts, neighbours, the locals, the state.
All that’s an illusion, it’s not worth a candle the day something really matters.
Then it’s us against them, Roy.
Us against absolutely everybody else.
Copyright 2020 by Jo Nesb.
No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission from the publisher.
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