Read this short story, Rolo and the Dog, free, right here on my website. No need to sign up or enter your address. It’s my gift to you, no strings attached. If you want to read more, you can download a longer story for free by joining my VIP list.
Rolo Barba was sitting on a bench in the shade of a rubber tree, on the main square of the town of Miraflores, sheltering from the midday sun and deciding what to do about the man and the dog. The man was across the street, leaning against the open gate of the Chapel of St. Philip the Good and chatting with two others. He was holding the gate in such a way that it formed a sort of cell against two walls that met at an angle beside the stairs that led to the chapel. The dog was trapped inside. He had walls on two sides and the gate barring his only escape route.
This was bad enough, as far as Rolo was concerned. The dog was cowering in the corner, his ears down and his tail between his legs, looking up at the man with a pitiful look on his face. But the man did not find this sufficiently amusing, and as he talked with his friends, he would open the gate a bit to see if the dog tried to run away. If he did, the man would smash the gate against him. This he would do with a smile on his face, without interrupting whatever he was saying, the way a man will tip the ashes of his cigar on the floor.
It had been the dog’s cries that had attracted Rolo’s attention in the first place, piercing through the clip-clop of the horses over cobblestones and the sounds of conversations, near and far.
His instinct was to get up, cross the street, and get the dog. If the man objected, that would be his bad luck. Today, however, he hesitated. Standing up for the dog might lead to a confrontation, and the last thing he wanted to do was to call attention to himself. He was conspicuous enough already, being a head taller than any man in town.
If we come to blows, and anyone calls the authorities, they’ll ask questions. Once they learn I’ve been in jail, they will do their best to send me back, and telling them they convicted unfairly me never seems to help.
He stared at the dog.
I know how that feels, my friend. I, too, have been the prisoner of an idiot. But I can’t help you. Besides, it’s hotter than a priest in a convent out there. Better stay here, in the shade.
The dog cried out again, and the men laughed. Rolo sighed and looked at the blinding sky. He could feel fire coursing through his veins.
“Why me?” he said out loud. “Why can’t anyone else step into the breach just this once? Because you hate me, that’s why.”
Two older men playing chess at a nearby table heard him and turned to look, observed the dimensions of their neighbor and got back to their game. Rolo leaned forward, put his hands on his knees, and stood up with a groan. The chess players gawked, but when Rolo looked at them, they hunched over their chessboard.
Rolo crossed the street, looking out for horses and carriages and mindful not to step on any green dung. As he approached the trio, they turned to look in his direction. Rolo nodded at the man holding the gate.
“Hey, flapdoodle!”
The man hardened his expression.
“Do I know you?”
“Let the dog go.”
The three men exchanged glances.
“Make me,” said the man at the gate.
“If tormenting a poor, dumb animal helps you feel like a big man, why don’t you go home to your wife?”
“Maybe you want to take the dog’s place.”
The other two men walked up to Rolo. The third man opened the gate and stood there, holding it open while the dog scampered away.
“Come on in, big man,” said the man by the gate.
Rolo watched the dog disappear around a street corner and turned away, but the two men grabbed his arms.
“I said, come on in, big man!”
Rolo held his ground.
“You don’t want to do this,” he said.
The two men pulled him towards the gate. Rolo broke free and punched one in the face, sending him reeling, but the other one jumped on his back and pummeled again and again him with his fist, and the leader ran up and joined in. The third man shook his head and got back into the fight. Now the three were raining blows on Rolo, who was down on one knee, and the surrounding crowd hurried away from the commotion. Then one man bent over and fell with his hands between his legs, and another stumbled back and collapsed on the street. Rolo stood up and faced the third man, the one who had been holding the gate. Somewhere, someone was blowing a whistle, but Rolo paid it no mind. He feinted and landed a solid left hook on the man’s temple. The man went down.
Rolo dragged him by his shirt to the chapel gates, threw him in the corner where the dog had been, and slammed the gate on him. The man cried out, but he stood up and reached through the gate, grabbing Rolo’s hair. Rolo seized his opponent’s throat with his enormous hand and squeezed, leaning his body against the gate. The man put his leg between the iron bars, but Rolo absorbed the kicks and kept pressing the man against the corner, watching his face turn red, then purple, and his eyes bulging out.
Then he felt a blow to the back of his head. When he turned around, still holding the man in the corner, he saw two men in the blue-striped white uniforms of the Spanish army pointing their rifles at him. A corporal was standing closer, holding his rifle butt first, ready to hit him again. Rolo eased the pressure on the man’s throat and heard him speak.
“Get this animal off me!”
“You heard him!” said the corporal. “Let the lieutenant go!”
Rolo turned to look at the man behind the gate. The man’s face was still red, but his eyes had returned to their proper place in their sockets.
“That’s right,” he said. “Lieutenant Carlos Cueto, of His Majesty’s army. And you just made the biggest mistake of your life.”
