MY FATHER’S LAST DOG.

In his old age, Lion had now become more human than animal. He had long cast off his dogly life; he did not mate about in the open field or urinate randomly as ill-cultured dogs do. He had, above all, honourably taken to complete celibacy. He now knew all the secrets of our home as much as the older members of the family did, and kept them secretly well beneath his great paws. Lion was a handsome black dog with sleek fur; white strips crossed upon his shoulder. This was an ancestral trait; he had come from a long line of noble dog ancestry. Lion followed Father closely, and had cultured a ritual of wagging its white tail and nosing the earth sagely as they went together strolling the neighbourhood dusty boulevard. This dog was very different from all its predecessors and ancestors. The bond of fondness between him and Father was filially so strong that one was not to be seen without the other, and in his secrete heart Father had wished that the dog were human. Little wonder then that folks gossiped at hindsight that Father’s best friend was his dog. Mama on her part treated Lion like one of us, and when Father fell out with him, Lion sought refuge from Mama.

Lion was two years older than me, and so I had no memory of his childhood. But Mama said that he had proofed distinguished from his sibling puppies right at birth. At childhood, the puppy walked with his infant paws well planting the earth with a majestic grace, such grace as only known of chivalric lions. And when he barked, his young voice racked through the air as though he were a cub. So Father named him Lion and said he would make a great dog. He sold out all the puppy’s siblings and kept Lion with us.  

We were now in the mid of the rainy season and the savanna landscape was a great site of greenery. In the fields, naara, the early millets, were blossoming in verdure and everyone yearned to eat the new millets. But Lion, fifteen years old now, was no longer a happy dog. He had sensed his death at hand. Few dogs, in fact, lived to this age. His forebears, and even very recent dogs, had created an identity crisis for their tribe; old dogs were known for turning sorcery, secretly offering libations at night to oust (kill) their masters and to takeover headships of the homes. This, Lion did not deny. So far, two seers had come to caution Father of the danger of keeping the old dog with him longer. A third one called Nsoh—Father’s trusted seer and cousin—came from Yua to counter the first two and counseled Father to let the old dog die his natural death, for all dogs are not same. The fourth soothsayer, a supreme one in our parts, toed the line of the first two, and the neighbourhood pressed heavily on Father to heed. All this, Lion had heard and kept mute.

On the evening earmarked for his death Lion did not sleep at home, but kept away for three days. The matter seemed forgotten. Lion returned home but now slept with his one eye opened and kept away from Father. He followed Mama wherever she went. The second attempt left a cut on Lion’s neck but he escaped. For five days Lion never returned and no one knew his hideout. 

      

One evening while everyone was dead asleep, Mama took me along to visit Lion in his hideout. We sneaked out on tiptoes, Mama holding an earthenware jug of water and a lantern kept under her cloth, and me, a calabash of flour and Lion’s bowl. Out in the forecourt, Mama unveiled the lantern from under her cloth and we took the riverwards path and branched into our idle neighbour’s millets field. A myriad of creepers—a labyrinth of crisscrossed climbers—had taken over his field and had vined up the millet plants and bowed them down. Wet dew dripped down on us and damped us wet. A firefly sparkled forth to rival the glowing light, but hurled itself against the glowing globe and fell down in the labyrinth. We turned left on a bull-furrow lane and walked it down to the zanga tree under which lay Lion. His eyes shone red, he had grown pallid and gaunt. He groaned weakly, rose up and smelled Mama round to be certain that Mama was Mama, nosed his familiar bowl and then lay down. Squatting on her hams, Mama stroked his head gently and caressed him for a while. 

    

The old dog lapped all the liquid floor. ‘Here is the wound,’ Mama pointed at Lion’s neck where the cutlass had left a bad sore. Mama unscrewed the lantern stopper, tilted the lantern and poured the oil onto the wound. ‘It will heal up soon,’ she said.

    

When I drove home the cattle the following evening, I found Mama weeping in her hut. ‘They’ve killed him,’ she muttered.

‘What? Who?’ I asked.

'Lion. They’ve killed him. He followed me into the compound and….’ Snivels took over the rest.

    

Lion was Father’s last dog. Years followed and no dog ever thrived in our compound. Father would recline on his wooden bed, his eyes showing red like Lion’s during his last days, as he mulled over pangs of regrets. It appeared Lion kept scaring away his kindred dogs from our home. Perhaps, dogs too have souls. Perhaps, they do not.

THE END

STORY BY; Abelumkemah Bertrand Azags.