Raccoon
Each time I tried to wipe the blood from the six wounds on his face, he would wince and pull away. Each time I would pull him back, wipe him down, and apply a dollop of antibacterial ointment, not at all sorry that what I did probably hurt. I have no love for raccoons, but, thanks to my carelessness, I had just watched Newton kill one.
Our backyard is unfenced and borders a small branch creek. Across the creek is a wooded triangle of land fenced off from a pet cemetery and the backyards on Friendship Street and bordered by our branch and Ralston Creek—its point is at the streams’ convergence. The one-acre triangle is owned by the city, and it is unused except by rabbits and squirrels and other city wildlife. A few wildflowers and a thick patch of garlic mustard grows there in the summer. It is a solitary patch of not-parkland. Because of it, and because our neighbors are all renters who rarely venture into their backyards, our place is much quieter than it might be otherwise, close as it is to First Avenue and a large supermarket.
Ten years in Iowa City have not killed in me a country boy’s attitude toward dogs. So long as Newton isn’t chasing cows or killing chickens or sprinting toward the street, I don’t worry about his whereabouts or fret over his activities much. He, of course, knows no borders. When I let him out in the backyard, he will chase a squirrel across the branch, leaping down the bank and splashing—or crossing the ice, if it’s that cold—after it. On the other side, he often loses interest in the squirrel and tears through the woody triangle after a rabbit, and then another, and then another. He never goes far. When there is snow on the ground, I cannot see him over there, but I can hear him stomping on sticks or yipping at something just missed. Eventually, he comes back, excited and not at all tired, ready to come inside to chase one of the cats into the bedroom. It’s all innocent enough, and though K has worried over it, I have generally believed it a good way to exercise him.
Until Saturday night, he had never caught his prey. There was an evening, not long ago, that he treed a possum, and I had to go into the branch to collect him. The possum hadn’t climbed the sturdiest or most vertical tree; when, standing in the middle of the stream, cold black water coursing around my ankles, I grabbed the dog’s collar to haul him back to the house, I could have whacked the possum with my hand. It was a close call, but not that close.
Saturday night we had just returned from a walk, and I had let Newton off his leash when we got into the yard. He doesn’t always run off when I do this, though he does sometimes, and because of that, K has roundly criticized me for doing it. Saturday night he ran. I watched him bound toward the branch, and I figured he would come back in a few minutes, so I didn’t call after him. I began milling around in the backyard. I was listening to the Band on my Ipod and picking up snow to check its consistency. Then I overheard something snarling, and my heart fell. Just behind the house I could see Newton with his head to the ground, intent on something he had there. I ran to him. In his jaws was a scrawny, undernourished or immature raccoon. It was spitting at him. I didn’t know how hurt it might be, so I grabbed Newton’s scruff and pulled him away. I should have hurried him to the door right then, but I stopped instead to see how badly the thing was hurt. The raccoon got up and limped slowly away to the other side of the branch. There it stopped and wheezed, every breath a loud, seemingly painful thing. Knowing there was little I could do to help it except jail its assailant, I began to drag the dog back to the apartment. Every muscle in him was stiff, every sense focused on the raccoon.
Newton got away from me. Fast as I could turn around, he jumped down the bank, splashed into the stream, and snatched up the raccoon again. (I imagine this is how he caught it the first time, too, a raid from above.) They splashed in a pool for a few seconds, then Newton picked the thing up in his jaws. I could see its front claws scratching at him. He shook it. Finally, he pinned it to the ground. I watched it struggle for a few seconds, then it stopped, and everything was still but for Newton’s heavy breathing.
It must be hard to let something so intense as a kill go. To get Newton away, I had to carry him up the bank and drag him through the snow to the door. Then, after I cleaned his wounds, he followed me from room to room. When I would approach a door he would look from door to me and back. He wanted to return to the raccoon so badly. But he would be disappointed that night.Later, I woke up to the sound of more snarling, and the next morning, the raccoon was gone.
Newton’s wounds
