Liz Furze
The Rabbits and the Hounds

June hopped out of the rusting, 1987 beige Bronco, gravel crunching beneath her feet, but she could hear nothing but the dogs. They weren't so much barking as they were whining in tandem. The clang of chain-link fence that held them echoed in the large, empty yard surrounded by pine trees. She stopped, stock still, her fingers stiffened at the tips, almost trembling.

"Those're just the dogs," said Aunt Gina. "Nothin' to be scared of."

June wasn't afraid, at least she didn't think so, but the sound perplexed her. She had never been to her Aunt Gina's house, but knowing Gina, she wondered why she had expected anything special. She had imagined arriving in a friendly new pickup truck, Aunt Gina helping her out of the car, the house gleaming with new cream-colored vinyl siding, the dogs running, speeding gracefully down a sloping hill to greet them with smiles and wagging tongues. She scolded herself for her optimism.

"Grab your bag," said Aunt Gina.

Gina was already walking up to the house, leaving June to heave her duffel bag out of the way-back by herself. She was a small girl, gangly in the arms and legs, and she had embarrassingly underdeveloped torso for a girl of thirteen, or so June thought. She dug the heels of her canvas sneakers into the ground, nearly tripping on the untied laces, and wrenched the bag out of the car. Her mind raced to recall what exactly she had brought that was so awfully heavy, and remembered her entire life was packed away in the duffel.

"Don't drag that bag!" yelled Gina from the screen door. "Sling it over your shoulder and carry it like you're meant to."

June almost yelled back. Instead, she bit her lower lip, reminding herself for the umpteenth time to be grateful.

After dumping the duffel in her new room, a dimly lit space with a double bed in the corner, Gina told June she would introduce her to the dogs. June wanted nothing more than to settle in, unpack her books, or explore the wooded landscape by herself. Instead, she followed her aunt through the dark hallways of the small house, feeling claustrophobic and foreign.

Her aunt's hair was the color and texture of cornhusk, pulled into a high ponytail with a blue scrunchie. Her face was lined and covered in sun spots, and she wore clumping mascara on her light, sparse eyelashes. She was the sort of woman who carried a lot of weight in her hips and lumbered in an almost masculine way, though June supposed this was due to a bad dog bite Gina had received in the leg some years ago. June's mother had told her all about it, how Gina had needed sixty seven stitches and afterwards switched from breeding pit bulls to greyhounds. Much more profitable, anyway, and fewer teeth involved.

Another slam of a screen door, the nip of September air, and they were out in the kennel, surrounded by chain link and concrete. The smell of feces and hair permeated the enclosure. The greyhounds seemed to have disappeared at first, but then they timidly moved away from the corners, their sleek, bony bodies emerging from shadows and walls like ghosts. They walked gingerly out to sniff June and she didn't recoil. She smiled at their strange bodies and gentle, trusting countenance.

Their noses were cold and their snouts were comically long, elegant and funny looking at the same time.

"They're cute," said June.

"They're all right," said Gina.

There must have been fifteen or twenty of them, most of them very young. Gina grabbed one by skin of the neck, a small brindle male with pitiable amber eyes, and dragged him over to June.

"I called him Cindy's Pride, after your mom. She helped me whelp his litter." June felt compelled to care about him, to be drawn to this dog with nervous, dancing feet and tiny bones, but her mother had died three weeks ago. She just wanted everyone to shut up about it already.

"That's really nice," said June, patting the dog on the head, not knowing what else to say.

*

Just when Gina was peeling the plastic wrap off the microwave meals that night for dinner, a man named Chad Pickford walked through the doorway. Chad was large in every way possible. Broad shoulders, tree trunk thighs, belly spilling over a braided leather belt, and a neck like the dewlap of a beef cow-even his bushy, peppery mustache was massive. Gina greeted him with a wet kiss that made June look away as her cheeks grew warm with discomfort.

"Juney," she said in an overly familiar tone, "This is my honey, Chad."

"Well, aren't you prettier than a picture?" said Chad in a voice that had clearly been born in the South and raised on low-filter cigarettes. "Pleased to meet you."

He proffered a meaty hand, which June shook, half expecting him to interject, "That's quite a grip you've got there, tiger!" The last time Gina visited June and her mother, she brought along another "honey" who was not much different from Chad in mannerisms but nearly the polar opposite in physical terms; his nickname was Slim.

Dinner was served when the microwave buzzer interrupted Chad and Gina's conversation about simulcasting dog races.

June sat at the table, counting the threads in the raffia placemat as her aunt set down the cardboard trays of fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes, and fudge pudding. She also produced a basket of sliced Italian bread before sitting down at the table herself. Chad wheezed when he eased himself into his chair.

"Lord," began Gina, and June bowed her head, "Thank you for blessing us today with this food, and for the company of our dear little Juney. May you keep her safe in her new life here with us, and God rest her mother's soul, Amen."

Gina shifted her eyes around the table before raising her head. June had never said grace over a meal in her life, and she had a feeling that her aunt hadn't either. They started to eat.

Gina took small bites, June noticed, just like her mother always had. She wished Gina would stop. Her gaze turned to Chad. Chad ate with his eyes down, focusing only on the food, his fingers and lips moist with chicken grease. He wheezed intermittently. June poked at the green beans with her fork, daring herself to take a bite, but then Chad addressed her.

"So, June," he said. "How do ya like it out here in the boonies? Bit different from bein' a city gal, huh?" He laughed in a throaty way so that June could hear the food still traveling down his esophagus.

"It's nice," she said, picking at the placemat again.

"Sorry I couldn't make it out for the funeral, had a big race that day," said Chad, shoveling potatoes between his wet, purplish lips. June stiffened, not wanting to hear more apologies.

"Yeah, it's ok," she said.

"That's rough, though, losing your mom so young like that and all. My dad died in a car accident, too. Thank God I wasn't there to see it. That's rough. Real rough, kiddo." He added the "kiddo" after a pause.

"Yeah," said June. She glanced at Gina, who was staring at the floor, then grabbed a piece of bread. It was stale.

*

June spent the next several days reading by the kennel. She acclimated to the smell surprisingly quickly, and it was comforting to sit with the animals. They never asked her questions. School would be starting soon. June immersed herself in the summer reading she had been putting off since her mother died. She had barely had time to sit, as she was shifted between relatives, dragged to wakes and funerals and memorials and counselors and social workers, constantly asked, "Are you okay? Are you okay?" Well, no, not really, I'm really not okay, she wanted to say, but she never found the words.

The giant pines around the property loomed like sentinels. June liked sound the wind made as it rushed through them. It helped her sleep at night in her foreign bed. She was staring into the darkness of the trees, the golden summer blades of wheat blurring in her sight and her copy of White Fang temporarily forgotten, when Gina grabbed her attention by yanking on her mousy ponytail.

"Hey, Juney," she said, "Come with me, I wanna show you something." Gina's voice rasped like a rusty door hinge.

June stood up, sighing, dog-eared her page and followed Gina to the side of the house. Leaning against the chipped shingles was a dilapidated rabbit hutch. June's aunt beckoned her to the chicken wire face of the cage.

The rabbits sat huddled inside, a dozen of them, maybe, all packed into one corner, looking like sheltered refugees. They varied in breed, color, and size-some large meat rabbits, some silky Rex, some common pet store hybrids. Their eyes glittered in the shadows. Gina reached into the hutch and they scattered, eyes widening and noses twitching.

"Come here, you," she said, picking up one of the brown meat rabbits by the scruff. "These ones are fast." She grinned. June's hands were sweating in her corduroy pockets.

It was for training, Gina told her, that they kept the rabbits. The greyhounds needed to learn how to chase a moving target, and live rabbits were the cheapest way. "And it doesn't hurt to give them a little blood thirst. Makes them better competitors," she added, laughing a reedy laugh that turned into a cough.

June was nervous. Her hands shook when Gina opened the kennel door and let two of the dogs out into the open field. Her breath caught in her chest when Gina let the rabbit go.

The rabbit bolted at the sight of the hounds.

The dogs took off.

June's hands twitched. She wanted so badly to cover her eyes, but she couldn't. She kept watching. It all flashed so fast, just like when she had watched her mother take a swig of some amber liquid before she grabbed her keys. She kept watching the scene like she had from the back seat as her mother swerved between lanes, yelling profanities at the other cars on the road that beeped at her. She watched silently, as a child is supposed to, because adults know what they're doing and children do not, as her mother dug for her cell phone between the car seats, not looking at the road and not wearing a seat belt.

Six seconds was all it took for the dogs to reach the rabbit and tear its fragile bones and ligaments apart. The rabbit still had time to scream before it died. The golden field was spattered instantly with red, and the dogs were so hungry from confinement they nearly fought each other for the kill, baring their teeth, their lips bloody.

Gina was smiling.

"Whoo, isn't that somethin'?"

*

The night before school was to begin, June sat at the kitchen table eating a burned grilled cheese sandwich Gina had cooked for her, listening to Chad and Gina laughing throatily in the living room. The sweetish smell of marijuana smoke, familiar to June, wafted into the kitchen and settled in June's hair and cotton sweatshirt. It reminded her of the smell of her mother's bed. She could see them, their backs facing her, through the open doorway. The sight of them lounging on the couch, taking puffs of those fat little cigarettes and just laughing made her want to scream.

Chad sauntered into the kitchen to grab another beer. June stared at her plate, hoping he wouldn't speak to her.

"Excited for school?" he asked in his drawl.

"Very," she answered, perhaps the most truthful thing she had ever said to Chad.

"And how come's that?"

June whirled in her chair to face Chad, looking him in the eyes. They were bloodshot and glossy. "Because I'm sick of you. I'm sick of all of you. Every single one of you is exactly the same."

Before she could utter another word, she fled the kitchen, slammed the screen door, blindly ran out to the yard. She thought of the greyhounds and their nervous dancing, their human loyalty, their complete lack of knowledge that all of them would break their legs on the track, or that Gina would put a bullet in their heads if they weren't fast enough. She thought of the food caught in Chad's mustache, Gina's yellow teeth, the way her mother laughed that same smoker's cough laugh as Gina, the hundreds of times she had been told "I'm sorry."

I'm sorry for your loss. I'm sorry I disappointed you. I'm sorry I don't care. Even the dogs' eyes said "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over and over.

The fresh dew soaked her cotton socks as she ran past the dogs and rattled the chain link as she went by. They never barked. She slipped turning the corner, but kept running to the side of the house. She reached the rabbit hutch. They sat inside, huddled against each other like always, fur meeting fur, eyes full of fear, ears stiff.

June picked them up one by one and set them on the ground. They didn't know what to do at first, didn't understand. June could hear Gina inside yelling, "What the Hell?

Well, where is she?" She knew time was short.

"GO!" she screamed. "Please just go!" The rabbits pricked their ears, sniffed the ground, but did not move. She stamped her feet, chasing them now, begging them to get away from this place. This time, they fled, scattering in all directions.

Cottontails high, they pranced into the darkness of the pines.

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