Protecting Ichie, Jenni Darby [love letters to the dead .txt] 📗

The new divorcee, Joan Wick, absentmindedly twisted the old newspaper around her great-grandmother’s china vase. The paper carried the musty scent of the basement. She had slowed down in packing those past three days. What started out like a furious rampage of getting her shit out of that house was now a tedious task of avoiding memories. She even started slouching, her former-dancer’s body now as wilted as a drowned flower. Not realizing just how much it cost to take care of the house alone, she had foolishly believed she had won ownership of the house, as though the divorce had become a competition and she was determined to feel like the champion. Isn’t that what most divorced women want? To win the house and the dog?
Joan’s strained lips actually curled into a gentle smile when she thought about Ichie. He was her four year old German Shepherd that she and her now ex-husband, Steve, had found as an abandoned puppy behind a Japanese restaurant called “Ichie.” Though at the time they were vacationing in New York, they still couldn’t bear to leave the friendly, sad little guy dumped behind a restaurant.
“Honey,” Joan had pleaded. “You can’t leave him doomed to smell the wonderful smells and never get a taste.”
Too bad getting the house along with the dog meant that Joan’s measly teacher’s salary didn’t stretch far enough to feed them both and pay the bills. She decided that six months of scrounging to feed Ichie was long enough. Anyway, the house was her very first with her husband. Ex-husband. It would always smell of him. And whenever she made her way into the bedroom she could still hear that cheating bastard’s moans echo down the hall.
Joan’s trembling fingers nearly dropped the priceless china vase. She took a breath and set the vase in the cardboard box marked fragile. That damn man. They were married for twenty years with no kids. It was always just the two of them. Statistically, divorce rates are less likely in couples without children. It figures that Joan’s marriage would be in the bad side of a good statistic.
The only photo that remained on the refrigerator was the picture of Joan holding Ichie as a puppy. Her one loyal man, the only other soul she needed in this world. Screw Steve. Let him be happy in his new life with his girlfriend. Joan was planning her own life with Ichie and a little duplex in a cute town far enough away to forget that cheating bastard. She even got a new job at a new school where the sympathetic looks and whispers couldn’t find her.
Joan stepped away from the china cabinet and opened one of the bottom cupboards filled with generic dog food. She poured Ichie a bowl and set it on the linoleum. Almost as though he heard her, Ichie began to bark. Joan smiled. Yup, Ichie was the only one she ever had to worry about pleasing ever again.
She made her way to the sliding door that faced the back patio and the little shed across the lawn. Ichie was tied up to the water spigot on the side of the shed. Joan froze in her tracks. Ichie’s barking had quickly changed from excited to alarmed. They were noises a dog makes to frighten away something they are scared of. Joan had never heard him make such ferocious noises before. She stepped in front of the door and looked out to wear he was chained.
Ichie was threatened, there was no doubt about it, even if Joan couldn’t tell by the sound of him. Legs stiff and straight, head low, ears back, fur on end, Joan’s eyes slid over to see the problem, praying he was simply worrying a stray cat. When she spotted the creature she first thought it was a large fox or a small dog. It was a reddish brown, nearly matching Ichie’s coat, with white markings on its jaw and inside its legs. It stood with its tail down, ears back, and mouth open. Joan realized with icy fear that she was looking at a coyote. From the thick, white, saliva dropping from its mouth and the long peels of strange growls it made she knew the beast was rabid.
It faced Ichie with a boldness its kind did not usually possess. Joan had no doubt that in a fight against a coyote Ichie would be the ultimate victor, but she couldn’t bear to take a chance of him receiving a bite. She couldn’t bear it if Ichie was horribly maimed, or worse, infected. When she was a little girl her sister found a goat that had been killed by a coyote. Its throat was punctured and neck broken. All Joan could see was Ichie lying on the ground that way.
She spun in place and ran out of the kitchen and through the house to the front porch. There was Steve’s unused sports equipment. The aluminum baseball bat covered in dust was barely visible amidst the boxes of junk. She grabbed it and ran back to the sliding doors. She thrust them open and made three bold steps onto the patio before freezing.
Ichie was still standing like an angry statue, growling and letting loose with warning barks that would shake a lion’s bravo. The coyote’s rib cage was jutting out of its sides, pressing in to an extreme angle with every maniacal growl. Ichie’s size and ferocity did not worry the animal. It made an inching step closer to the dog and stumbled a bit. Foam dripped out of his mouth. Joan’s eyes flashed from Ichie to the monster threatening him, gaining on him.
“Hey!” she shouted, fear soaking into her voice. She took a sharp breath in through her nostrils and screamed, “Heeey!”
The coyote stopped and twitched its ear at her. It kept its evil glare on Ichie. She gripped the bat with both hands, raised it high above her head, and ran down the patio steps and onto the grass. “Heeeey!” she shrieked.
Joan stopped halfway through the yard. The beast didn’t even move except to turn its frothing anger her way. Glaring at her, growling in its strange, diseased way, it shifted gracelessly, as though drunk, to square off with Joan. She lowered the bat to shoulder level, breathing fast and shallow, feeling the stabbing terror of Ichie’s possible death.
She had to get to him. She had to unchain him and get him to safety. Somehow she had to accomplish that without letting the coyote attack them. She slowly sidestepped closer to Ichie, noticing that the motions bothered the coyote more than when she had charged it. Every step she took the foaming devil lowered its head more and more until finally it let out a series of high-pitched barks. Saliva flew around as it gnashed its teeth and snapped its jaws.
Almost there. Joan could nearly reach Ichie’s chain. She took a final slow step and the coyote advanced three more. She now stood next to Ichie, who hadn’t moved a muscle except to rage at the intruder. Still gripping the bat with her right hand, Joan let the sweaty palm of her left hand slide off the handle of the bat and make its descent through the air to Ichie’s chain. She never once looked away from the coyote.
The cold metal met her fingers and she found the hook release with her thumb and pressed it. Ichie’s fur brushed her arm and his tension could be felt as though his fur were made of little steel rods. He was just as afraid as she was.
Don’t worry, baby, she thought. Mama’s here.
With a slight tug the chain came free of Ichie’s collar. She let it drop to the ground. Now that he was free, Joan had to figure out how to get him back inside without inviting the coyote to attack.
“Ichie,” she said. “Back.”
She took one small step backwards and Ichie matched her, staying right by her side. They took the next two steps in unison and the coyote let out a skin-crawling howl. Joan resisted the urge to press her hands to her ears. It felt as though the sorrow and the insanity of the canine would pierce her skull.
When the creature began to growl and drool at them once more, Joan said again to Ichie, “Back.”
It was a slow retreat of one small step after the other. She didn’t dare sneak a glance behind her to see how far away the patio steps were. At that moment she felt her yard was hopelessly long and the devil would attack before they could reach the house. Joan’s grip tightened on the aluminum bat. If the coyote wanted a piece of her, she’d give him one.
Sweat fell down her back in long trails. She didn’t want to let herself revel the distance they were gaining from the monster but it was nearly enough for Joan to feel safe turning and running inside. She took a breath, opened her mouth, and almost spoke the command when every muscle in the coyote’s body flexed and in two lunges it scaled the span of the yard and was on top of them. Ichie snapped his jaws and it was a sudden confusion of fur and foam.
Joan swung the bat.
The impact made a crack just as it would have if hitting a baseball. Out flew brains, blood, and bits of skull into the air like violent confetti. The force of the strike shook all the way up her spine so hard she thought her teeth would shatter.
There, upon the ground, lay the ruin of the rabid devil, eyes frozen open in eternal emptiness, head cracked open like an egg shell. Ichie immediately sniffed around the corpse, making sure of the death. He let out a few hailing barks and returned to Joan’s side, sitting down and leaning on her. Joan stood stiff and hardly let out a breath. The bloody bat slipped through her fingers and thudded onto the grass. Aftershock tears stung her eyes.
Just when she thought she might break down, Ichie’s long tongue rolled out of his grinning mouth and he looked up at her with perfect adoration. She let out a laugh and scratched his head, looking into his much-relieved face. Kneeling down next to him, she inspected him all over for bite marks. It was difficult to do with him licking her face and neck, but she was satisfied that he had emerged from their ordeal unscathed.
She stood and led Ichie inside, heading for the phone. The half-packed boxes that had been tormenting her mind all that week now seemed silly and just plain messy. She breathed a few long sighs as she looked up the phone number for animal control and couldn’t wipe the crazy smile from her lips. Suddenly, packing didn’t seem so dramatic anymore.