The Brotherhood of Trees

Every morning that winter, just as the black night began to melt into the first red fingers of day, I went running in the forest behind our house. Fred was still snoring and twitching in his light, carpal-tunnel-induced sleep, and his eyes would be red when he woke after too much dreaming about line after line of code. Me, I'd be refreshed and sharp and focused, thanks to my new routine of jogging with the hounds.

We'd never wanted kids, Fred and me, not back in the days when our love was still athletic and young. So we got dogs instead. Not a bad tradeoff, in hindsight, due to how hard Fred worked and the long hours I'd started to keep myself after fifteen years at the firm. We loved our nieces and nephews, and we ignored the awkward moments as the kids adjusted to having two uncles living together in one house.

We always got the dogs in pairs -- first we had greyhounds (former racers, docile and loyal), then lap dogs (Fred's choice, not mine), and even mutts (from the pound, always grateful and at our heels).

But these two, Boris and Cloris, were something else. They were beagles. Forget lethargic Snoopy lounging on top of his doghouse. When I took these two running through the frozen woods behind our house, it was all I could do to keep them from pulling my arms out of their sockets, one leashed, furry ball of energy per arm. They tore up and down the trails, baying louder than all of our previous dogs together could've mustered. God help me if they saw a squirrel or caught scent of a deer.

Boris was light brown and white, while Cloris was dark brown and spotted, and they were the ones who first saw the young boy standing next to the cave half a mile from the house I shared with Fred.

When they saw him, they didn't bark like they usually did -- all throaty yowl and frenetic gasping for air. They simply turned toward him the same time, hard, tripping me in mid-stride, and then they padded off the trail up to the pale, shirtless boy.

"You okay, son?" I asked as I clambered up the incline toward him. I was gasping for breath, sucking the frigid air into my aching lungs, and it wasn't just from my previous ten minutes of running. The young man was beautiful: porcelain skin, jet-black hair falling over heavy-lidded, light-blue eyes. His perfection was marred only by what looked like dried blood on the tips of his slender fingers.

(art by Bridget McKenna)

Continued...