The Kiminee Dream prologue, scene three
Here is the third and final scene of the prologue to my work in progress, The Kiminee Dream: A love song for Illinois disgused as a novel.
In a time that now dwells in the realm of legend, a trapper’s husky broke loose, jumped a fence and leapt upon a widow’s prize dog. The bitch was in heat and of a breed resembling the modern-day sheltie. Hearing the ruckus, the woman grabbed her slingshot and rushed outside, cursing. But the canines had already mated by the time she took aim and let a stone fly, nicking the intruder as he bounded away.
She bred the sullied female with a suitable male from her pack the next day and hoped for the best. Her family had grown a reputation up and down the Mississippi and its tributaries as excellent breeders of farm dogs, and she counted on trading puppies for food and other necessities to keep her through winters so bitter they withered the brain. But when the litter arrived, three looked like their mother; three clearly pulsed with husky blood, which she considered inferior.
Incensed by the threatened lineage of two small herding dogs her Scots grandfather had brought across the Atlantic and then overland to a strange and wild world, the widow gnashed her teeth as she watched the pups grow. Finally, before daybreak one morning, she stuffed a brick and the three she didn’t want into a burlap sack, tied it closed, slung it over her back and slouched to the banks of what would eventually be called the Bendy River. She tossed the writhing sack as far as she could, watched it splash and sink, and trudged back home.
To this day, nobody knows how the pups got out.
Over the years, sightings of this curious tricolor mix of speed and spunk were recorded all along the Bendy. And stories of encounters with them proliferated. Families even befriended them from time to time and trained them just like any other dogs. However, sightings gradually tapered off and eventually became so rare, stories were all that remained.
Some people in Kiminee believe the tales are a bunch of hooey invented to pass time around log cabin hearths in the days before radio and TV. Others are certain a pack of them still runs wild in the woods.
(End of excerpt)
If you haven't read excerpts one and two of the prologue yet, you'll find them on this blog here and here, respectively. I will welcome your comments. Next time, I'll share an excerpt from the first chapter.
Note: Only one scene from the prologue ended up in the published book. The cover below is also not the final cover. This post just shows part of the writing and publishing process. I hope you've enjoyed the glimpse.
