I heard that a dog was seen loping his free way around the hills, thieving, leaving mange-ridden fur in tufts on barbed wire and footprints in the mud. When I find him outside my door he’s nearly dead with the hunger; his eyes dull, his ribs like stairs carved deep into a matted rug. I don’t know why I mind. Perhaps it’s the betrayal in his eyes where hope should be, as if he knows this is his last chance and senses I don’t want to be burdened. My own cantankerous nature makes me break the rule of a lifetime. I open a tin of soup and scrape it into a bowl. I thought he’d be gone the next morning, but he’s lurking outside, a wary look in his eye. It’s only a matter of days before he sidles past me to take possession of a rug my mother worked from rags nearly a century gone.

It’s been unexpectedly hot this summer, but now, three weeks after Dog’s arrival, the sky hangs heavy, the hills breathe with expectation. We tread on ground cracked and parched, gasping for water, but the dry weather’s about to break hard. Above, on the ridge, grey rocks like troublesome teeth pierce the coarse grass, a snarl in the face of encroaching gloom. A distant echo of thunder rolls. I pause, lean on my stick, anticipating the iron taste of rain, the rich scent of sodden earth.

Dog stops, looks back at me, tongue hanging out the side of his panting mouth. Cleaned up, his fur groomed to soft gold, he turns out to be a Collie of sorts. I don’t know what the other sorts are: German Shepherd, maybe a slice of Labrador? His shaggy mane is tipped with black, as is his massive, feathered tail. He has a wide brow over intelligent brown eyes which see little and a black bullet of a nose which misses little. He’s still a bag of bones, but now burns with life.

He’s chosen to stay.

‘Wait up, Dog,’ I warn.

I’m worried that the fields are spotted with sheep. I sense his grin. Childlike, he has no concept that my rules are for his safety. Even if I were still young and fit he’d run rings around me, and even as I’m wondering about collars and leads, he lifts his nose to some scent too exquisite to ignore, and is gone. He probably knows the land better than I do, and I used to know it pretty well.

A long time ago I rejected these hard-won fields that now stand barren and unloved. I turned my back on them, and Dad never forgave me because I was the only one. Mum, his silent shadow, had grieved with her eyes as I packed and left.

‘You’ll come running back with your tail between your legs,’ Dad had shouted after me as I trudged away, but I didn’t.  I went back to the farm once or twice, a stranger, and after Mum died I forgot to go at all. I got a city job and married Kate who bore three children Mum never lived to see.

Hugs and kisses were gifts we gave to our own children; times had changed.

I hadn’t expected Dad to leave me the farm, but I guess blood won out over anger. I came back with the intention of selling the place, but instead discovered bittersweet memories lingering in the air, anchoring me to my childhood.

I lift my face to the first smattering of rain. It’s time to go back and light a fire and watch the wind draw the flames.

‘Dog?’ I call.

But the hills are silent. Dank smells rise as small, dead things swell with moisture. I find myself battling a swift squall. I shrug tighter into my coat. He’ll find his way back.

Then a shot rings out, bouncing against distant mountains.

I freeze.

Memories tumble in with the gale, not diminished by time.

‘We don’t have pets, boy.’ Dad said. ‘Any creature that don’t work’s got no place on a farm. Everything has to pull its weight. And don’t give animals names. You can’t kill something you’ve put a name to.’

He’d said it often, but I was ten years old, and life sprang before me filled with dreams.

One day, on my way home from school I saw a stray in a neighbour’s field, rounding sheep, herding them towards a gate. There were no whistles or pipes of command. The farmer wasn’t in sight. I knew what this meant for the dog. I climbed the gate and called urgently, ‘Here, boy.’

The stray heard. It looked over, head to one side, assessing.

‘Here, boy. Good lad. Leave the sheep be, now.’

I enticed it closer, put my hand out. It sniffed, wagged its stump of a tail. Turned out she was a bitch, the colour of sand, short haired, used to people. She licked my hand, a quick, tentative offering. ‘Come on, then,’ I said. I was surprised when she followed, but kind words to kids and animals were in short supply.

As we walked home down the boreen I was consumed by the joy of companionship. I’d never asked Dad for anything much, and this bitch had come to me like a gift from God, to fill the vast space beside me where still-born siblings should be running.

The bitch slunk into the kitchen behind me, not sure of her welcome. Mum gasped and put her hand to her mouth. Dad stared. He pulled on his pipe a few times, then cocked his head. ‘Yard,’ he said. ‘Tie it up.’

I knew better than to argue. I took her out and tied her to the fence with string. I stroked her ears, whispering I’d be back, and went in for dinner. Dad talked about the cows, the grass, and the weather being good for hay – thank the Lord. I began to relax. They were going to let me keep her. I’d call her Lucky, I decided.

The next morning Dad took his gun from the wall. ‘Come on, boy, you gotta learn.’

He told me to watch. It was a clean shot, through the head, instant. Dad nodded to me, man to man, when I didn’t cry or show emotion. His hand fell on my shoulder, a rare moment of communication. ‘That dog was seen worrying sheep,’ he said. ‘Go and bury it.’

I could have told him I saw her working the sheep, not worrying them, but he wouldn’t have listened.

She was small, but hung heavy as wet washing in my arms.

More than fifty years ago, and the wound is open and weeping yet.  I’m belted back into the present by a barrage of shots. Rain clouds my vision. I reach the summit slowly as it spatters to a halt.

Yellow storm-light wedges a gap between grim cloud and bleak hill.

‘Dog?’ I call, but I don’t expect a response.

I scan the sheep-littered scrub, but dusk defeats me. Even if I find him he’ll be too heavy to carry. Maybe a couple of the farm boys from down the valley will do it for a fee. I make my way back down to the farmhouse where it perches, lonely, on the side of the hill.

Dad’s life had been hard, too filled with struggling to allow for sentiment, but I know he must have felt the sense of homecoming I feel now. I told him I hated the farming, but that wasn’t true. I just didn’t want to be enslaved by it, battling for every inch of grass, toiling day after day just to survive. I wanted a city job, a house that didn’t have worms in the walls, and clothes that didn’t smell of manure.

Yet now I’m surprised to find my roots held fast, refusing to be torn up and replanted.  The silent, hidden part of me is still burdened by a childhood that won’t be silenced. It’s the reason I came back, and can’t leave, because my time is no longer forever.

I finally realise what Dad had known all along, that I would be equally enslaved by my city job, my marriage and my children, but without the deep satisfaction of walking my own land and sitting by my own fireside every evening.

My soul has unfinished business here.

As I near the house I hear a sound behind me, and turn. Dog stands there, head tip-tilted as if pondering the reason I’d come back without him. I wipe the rain from my eyes and rub Dog’s ear between my thumb and fingers. His eyes close with bliss.

‘This is our home, now,’ I tell him.