Bella was the best pet Dan and I could have hoped to adopt. The tiny Yorkie was obedient, playful, loving, and we both felt she had a bit of our essence in her personality. We often said all she needed to become human was the ability to talk.
But above all, we knew she’d give her life for us. That she’d forget her tiny size, as little dogs often do, to shield us from any harm.
After our second anniversary, we had our minds set on saving for our first city apartment. My inlaws offered us to stay at their summer cabin for a year, in order to avoid paying for rent. Our work commutes would be insanely long, but we decided owning our first home would be worth the strenuous season.
I’m a metropolitan gal at heart, so life in the small town bored me, and after nine months I was eager to leave. Nonetheless, I always found little things that made it easier to live there: the air was clean, life had a gentle pace, our neighbors were kind and genuine. At night, the backyard where Bella loved playing and rolling around lit up with fireflies. Dan and I would often watch them with a glass of wine, under a starry night sky that we couldn't find in the city.
Going for long walks with Bella was another one of the few things I enjoyed, so I’d do it daily. Right before sunset, I’d drive us to a small piece of road close to the forest, and wander around with my dog.
The afternoon of our last walk was particularly lovely and quiet. The light seemed to turn everything around us golden, and the air smelled of fresh greenery. Bella’s excitement to get out of the car made it difficult to put her leash on.
After taking only a couple of steps out of the car, I heard something moving in the bushes.
It didn’t particularly grab my attention. I had become used to similar noises, usually coming from a hare or a bird. Just in case it was a rattlesnake, I pulled Bella closer to the middle of the road, and kept on walking.
I never imagined that four coyotes would come out of nowhere, and pounce on my beloved dog.
It all happened so fast not even pain had a chance to reach her and bring out a yelp. I was the only one able to disrupt the rural quietude.
“No! Bella no!” I screamed at the same time I kicked the coyotes. “Let her go!”
None of them released their bite, or even acknowledged me. They were all devout to their prey, shaking and pulling it from side to side. Fighting for the biggest mouthful.
I would have pulled the leash harder, but I could notice Bella’s neck starting to tear and bleed. I didn’t want to help tear her apart.
I kept kicking, harder, until I saw her face… and didn’t find a trace of life in it.
It was too late. All I could do by staying there was witness the rest of the butchery.
I let go of the leash. The cadaveric eyes of the animal that had been my pet watched me, full of fear and confusion as it was pulled to the bushes by the coyotes.
Silently, I got back in the car and left. After a few minutes of quietly driving, I called my husband. Only when I heard his voice I was able to park to the side, and begin sobbing uncontrollably.
Later that night a police officer came by to tell me they found what was left of the dog, and insisted that I didn’t want to see it, or that it made much sense to go pick up the remains. He only brought back the leash I left behind, at the road.
Out of habit alone, I hung it next to the front door. All I was able to angrily think for days was that I couldn’t wait to leave this small town. And that I would give anything to have my dog back.
Then I started having the nightmares, or whatever you could call them.
It always started with the sound of Bella whining.
In the dream, I think, I would look for her in every corner of the cabin: the attic, the bathrooms, the stairs, the basement… the closer I got to her cries, the more I would hear coyotes around me, growling as they creeped into the house, looking to devour Bella one more time.
And when I found her hiding underneath some furniture, and pulled at her leash to make her come out, I would realize I was tugging at something else: a strand of her thin intestines, stuck to whatever little was left of her chest and head.
In the morning I’d wake up with the leash tangled between my hands. As if I had picked it up in the middle of the night and brought it to bed, but lacked any recollection of doing so.
I tried not giving it too much thought, as did my husband. I’ve always sleepwalked, and we assumed the nightmares would cease if we gave it time.
But everything got harder to put behind us when I started feeling Bella throughout my days.
Out of nowhere I’d hear her tiny paws walking around the wooden floor, or the squeak of her favourite toy, or the gentle scratch she’d give me when I had dinner and she begged me for scraps. Each time I’d turn to see her, and become sad that she wasn’t there.
Although we couldn’t explain how I could perceive all of this so vividly, I began to feel burdened by the guilt of leaving her behind, knowing she would have not done the same to us.
Soon after, it all made me wonder whether she wanted me to find her; that this was her way of letting me know she was waiting for me to go recover whatever remained of her body, within those bushes by the road.
So on one of my last days before moving back to the city, I took with me a cloth sack and headed to the site of the attack, which I had actively avoided since. I walked the whole way there, bracing myself to find some of her scraps, perhaps a couple of tiny bones, and take them with me to the cabin, where I could dig them in the backyard.
But as soon as I laid eyes on the distant dirt road, I turned around and headed back. I realised I was imposing a senseless penance on myself, and one I knew I couldn’t carry through. At this point, all I wanted was to move on with my life.
I couldn’t hide my elation when the day of the move finally arrived. We agreed that I’d be driving our car, and that Dan would follow me with the moving truck.
We were already on our way when something spoiled my excitement: I remembered we could only reach the highway by going through the place where the attack happened.
“It’ll only take a second,” I told myself outloud.
I squeezed the steering wheel as I turned to the dirt road, and kept looking ahead when I passed by the spot where I last saw my pet.
A sigh of relief came out as I drove away from the bushes. “It is over”, I thought.
And in that same instant, I heard barking. Incessant, and in pain.
I glanced at the rearview mirror, looking for the reflection of another small dog we maybe just passed. But there was nothing more than the road, the truck driven by my husband, and the sound of Bella’s unmistakable cries.
Wailing like it couldn’t on the day she was torn to pieces.
As if she was imploring “please, don’t leave without me.”
Weeks before, those barks would have made me stop the car. But on that day, I hit the gas. Without looking behind.
I have to know: am I heartless for driving away?
