King Comes Home

King grew bigger and stronger by the day. Marley and Betsy let me take him on short walks along the road or down to the resort. Sometimes we’d veer off into the woods, chasing after squirrels or rabbits, not to catch them, but for the thrill of the hunt.

We spent hours outside under the warm summer sun, and I felt like the luckiest kid alive.

King loved to zigzag through the tall grass, nose to the ground, ears twitching. Every so often he’d flush out a mouse and start a game of dog-and-mouse, batting the poor creature around until it escaped, or until he got bored.

Then he’d trot back to me, tongue lolling, tail wagging, waiting for praise.

“Good boy!” I’d say, scratching his ears as he grinned up at me like a little champion.

On one of our hikes we discovered a hidden patch of wild raspberries, bushes taller than my head, bursting with ripe red fruit. I already knew raspberries from the store, but these wild ones were better, sweet at first, tart halfway through, and finished with a crunch of tiny seeds.

I learned to squash them against the roof of my mouth to squeeze out the juice before chewing.

King tried one and immediately spat it out, glaring at me like I’d betrayed him.

“That’s okay, King,” I laughed. “More for me.”

I was hooked. The next time I brought a pail to collect them. There were more berries than I could eat, but I wasn’t ready to share them with Cathie, not after all the teasing she’d given me about being “small for my age.” She wasn’t much bigger, but she sure acted like it.

I’d learned a new phrase from Dad and quietly put her on my you-know-what list.

Later, King and I found a different kind of bush, taller, with clusters of deep-purple berries the size of marbles. They looked like candy. I grabbed a handful and popped them into my mouth.

Ugh.

Bitter. Awful.

I gagged and spat them out.

Could they be poisonous?

I remembered something Dad had told me after I’d eaten a sour red berry weeks earlier.

“Never eat something if you don’t know what it is. Some berries can make you sick, or worse.”

It turned out the mystery fruit was chokecherry, technically edible, but only after boiling, straining, and burying it under a mountain of sugar. Mom said it was just the skin that was bitter. Properly prepared, she promised, they made the best jelly around.

When I brought King back to Misty’s pen later that week, Betsy met me at the gate.

“Well,” she said with a grin, “are you ready to take King home? He’s eight weeks old now, fully weaned and ready.”

“Weaned?” I asked, unfamiliar with the word.

“It means he doesn’t need his mother’s milk anymore,” she explained. “He’s ready for real food.”

She led me into the trailer, opened the fridge, and pulled out a big metal can with a picture of a golden dog on the label: Ken-L Ration, Since 1922.

Even I, a new reader, could make out the name. The fine print said it was made with U.S. government-inspected horse meat.

My heart sank.

I loved horses.

The thought of feeding one to my dog felt… wrong.

Betsy noticed my hesitation.

“These are old, sick, or injured horses, ones that couldn’t be saved,” she said gently. “It’s not wasteful, Jerre. It’s respectful.”

I wanted to believe her.

“Let’s see what King thinks,” she said, spooning some into a bowl.

He gobbled it down like it was the greatest feast ever served.

“A half-can a day is plenty for now,” she said. “He’s not even ten pounds yet, but he’ll grow fast. When he’s full-grown he’ll need one in the morning and one at night.”

She handed me a small leather collar and a short leash.

“Try this on him. Dogs grow to love their collars, it becomes part of who they are. And it’ll help with training. Bring him back in a few days and I’ll show you the basics.”

It took a while to get it fastened, King wriggled and pulled his head back like a turtle, but I finally managed it.

He pawed at it for a minute, then forgot all about it.

I clipped on the leash and walked him to the end of the drive and back, just as Betsy said.

By the time we returned, he was strutting like he’d worn it forever.

“But what about my parents?” I asked. “They don’t know I’m bringing him home today.”

Betsy smiled.

“Already taken care of. I stopped by your Nanna’s this morning. Your mom said it’s fine. I dropped off dog food, and your Nanna found an old rug King can sleep on.”

I didn’t tell anyone I still planned to let him sleep with me.

That night, as I lay in bed beside King, I thought about horses and sacrifice. It bothered me, the idea of something so majestic ending up in a dog food can.

I asked Dad about it a few days later.

He said, “Everything has its place, son. Horses, cows, chickens, they’re part of the cycle of life. When their time comes, they still serve a purpose.”

That made me feel better, until I pictured the Lone Ranger’s horse, Silver, being ground up and packed into a Ken-L Ration can.

That was a hard one to shake.

Still, I slept soundly that night, King curled beside me, warm and quiet.

Somehow he already knew to do his business outside. Not once did he have an accident, not in the cabin, not in the lodge.

He was home.

And so was I.