About the Bookstore Browse Aisles Search Desk Shopping Basket Book Trade Terms Just Released! Return Policy Help Here is the full reference card for this book... If you'd rather place an order by talking to one of our cheerful order desk clerks, please call 1-888-232-4444 (USA and Canada only) or 250-383-6864. From Europe, ring our UK order desk clerk at local rate number 0845 230 9601 (UK only) or 44 (0)1865 722 113. The Butcher's Dog by Eliza Hemingway 161 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #01-0368; ISBN 1-55212-966-7; US$17.50, C$19.95, EUR14.50, £10.00 A young orphaned boy escapes the Russian Revolution and in 1917 arrives in Canada. During prohibition he becomes wealthy working as a rum runner between Vancouver Island and the American Coastline. Read more! about the book      about the author      What people are saying...      sample excerpt      catalogue info About the Book The Russian Revolution is in full swing when ten year old Mikhail loses his family and has to take to the road to get away from the guns. He feels that the death-marchers he walks with are doomed so breaks away from their line to look for shelter. Farmers Ivan and Anna find him and let him live with them to work their farm. He grows into manhood and falls in love with Anna. He suffers through years of brutality from Ivan and knows they must one day come to blows. There is a fight and Mikhail kills the old man and runs for his life again. There is an old fable about a butcher whose dog is killed because the villagers thought he was keeping food from them. Ivan is left lying in a clearing in the woods just like the butcher's dog. Mikhail finally arrives in Canada with another young boy, Andy, and learns the ropes in Fort William as a docker. He and Andy get to Victoria and fall in love with the sea. Mikhail marries into money and buys a boat to start running liquor into the states because of prohibition and the temptation of larger profits. He's wealthy but not truly happy. He never stops trying to find Anna, his first and only love. About the Author Eliza Hemingway (Hawkins) was born in Yorkshire, England. She calls Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, her home, where she was given Honorary Citizen status for her work in the arts. She has written and produced plays, written for newspapers, acted in theatre, read stories for C.B.C. radio and appeared in movies. She is also a successful oil painter and fabric artist. She has won three awards for her work. Visit Eliza's websites at http://www.maggiedove.com and also www.authorsden.com/elizahemingway What people are saying... Dear Eliza, I have read your book. It is beautifully written, you have a very lyrical style, but such a sad, poignant story... I wish you the very best of luck with it. It deserves to be read. Maybe it will be picked up for a film. It certainly has the right stuff. Patricia Smith, Theatre Department (retired), Concordia University

Sample Excerpt - From the Prologue

Paths are always there to follow to make passage easy but are cut by those who went before. From habit of security she has denied her urgencies. Safeness a learned virtue. Mikhail is gone. She'll stretch herself to fill the space he left.

There are low growls, a prowling restlessness as hungry tigers wait.

"I had a dream last night," Mikhail tells Anna. He's in her kitchen watching as she slices cold meat for him with a chunk of bread. Desire shy in both their eyes.

"I travelled forever, all my life, day after day through a labyrinth of trees searching for answers to a problem I could not define, until finally my legs would no longer walk. I felt old...tired. Then, as I was about to sleep I came upon a door. It gave me a strange feeling of great joy. My body revived itself as with some difficulty I managed to get my hand on the latch of this wonderfully carved..." he searches for a word, "portal. I gave thanks in my heart. Quietly at first, then as powerfully as I could I shouted gratitude to an unseen person who had given me one final chance to discover what I thought might be some of the mysteries of the world." He stuffs bread into his mouth.

"I wanted to die with dignity and honour. So, I pulled with enormous effort on this mysterious gateway, until, with curiosity and joy and the last of my strength, I flung it wide...to discover a cage of hungry tigers."

Anna puts a hand on her mouth to say oh.

"You are lucky, Mikhail, because your dream shows you have the soul of a woman. For a man to have visions of tigers gives him strength, but to see himself in danger gives him the insight needed to guide him along. This is male and female. Your weakness will provide you lasting courage."

Mikhail wants to be part of things. He remembers the first time he met Anna, the only woman he will ever love. He hears a younger voice above the hissing of hot water.

"The soldiers told me a story, one of them did, before he died. It's about a tiger, do you want to hear it?"

Anna gets to her feet, "oh, yes please. Perk up mamma we have a storyteller here. Russians love stories. But wait 'till I get some more tea then we can settle in better."

Her mother sits with them to listen.

Mikhail sneezes as Anna brushes past to put water into her glass.

"Oh, no, now we know your story's not going to be true. You know what they say: sneeze before you start telling a tale and what comes next is a lie."

He hesitates.

"But it's what the soldiers told me." What reason would they have not to tell the truth? They would all be dead soon.

She laughs at his innocence.

" Well, you tell us and we'll decide if we believe it or not."

He starts speaking slowly, concentrating as he goes to get the details exactly as he's heard them.

"A man is being chased by a tiger and he comes to the edge of a cliff. As he looks down he sees another tiger, the mate of the first one, waiting at the bottom for him to fall so it can eat him. He stands there wondering what to do next but his foot slips and he falls over the edge." Both women are completely engrossed.

He continues:

"On his way down he catches hold of a branch, a small tree growing out of the side of the cliff. It has taken root in one of the cracks, but as he grabs it the force begins to pull the roots out of the earth. Near the man's hand is a wild strawberry plant. It's only crop one luscious bright red strawberry. So the man, just before the tree gives way and he falls, picks the fruit and eats it."

Everyone sits quietly for a second or two.

"Is that the end of the story?" Anna asks.

"And what did you say when your friend told you this? Did you ask him if the man was dead?"

"No." The fable puzzles him but he is naïve. Tigers are a marvel.

"There you see, mamma, we have a smart young man here. Would you have eaten the strawberry Mikhail, if you had been falling off the cliff?"

"I don't know, it seems a shame to spoil something in passing...if you're about to die anyway. Maybe the man didn't die, he could have killed the tiger and escaped." Young Mikhail can see himself at the bottom in the gorge fighting off the huge man-eater.

Anna thinks for a moment.

"I would have eaten it. It would be a shame not to use a precious thing, particularly if you are the only one who is ever going to see it," another pause.

Then she says: "I would think it a compliment to the plant for producing an object of such splendor; a matter of personal honor."

This woman seems very wise to Mikhail. He asks, "do you think it a lie? Was the soldier making it up?"

"No, Mikhail, you had a very smart friend there."

She gets up to empty the samovar.

"He was killed. I never saw him after that." The room is quiet for a while.

"As I walked down the road I kept thinking about the man who fell. If he died how did anyone hear the story?" Mikhail looks at Anna for the answer but her mind is far away. Who could know they would become lovers?

Tanya's grandfather died today.

He was Russian, from the old country and never loved a woman as much as mysterious Anna. She was his wild strawberry, a desire in passing never to fade. He was younger than she was. She was pregnant. See how poverty makes us wise. Who ate the dog? Always we have choices. Shall we hurt the things we love in order to survive? We are all wandering orphans, wearing our costumes of experience; pain like jewellery round our throats. Treasures abound but are rarely seen. Like coveted strawberries protected by a cage of hungry tigers our future lies guarded. Like Mikhail we can fight our man-eaters. Like Anna we can taste unexpected joys in passing, let our actions lead to yet another road to walk.

Sing for everyone, love from the heart, never explain yourself and never say sorry, his words echo past her ears. We love deeply only once. The feelings move again.

"Why look so grumpy?" Her chin sits in his fingers.

"If you're not careful you'll die soon and no one will get to see how beautiful your face can be when you smile, except God and he knows already."

She weeps at a stranger's graveside. Chrysanthemums are a winter cemetery flower; white a reminder of death. Look at my gorgeous cheeks now Mikhail. There's so much cruelty in loving. Her grandfather died a short time ago. Her world is paradise thanks to him.

To eat, one must kill the thing most loved, look into its eyes and beg forgiveness. They ate the dog. Survival is by standing on another's shoulders, maybe? Who will know what reasons prompted actions now that grandfather died? For Tanya he opened a door to sweetness, grace, happiness, love, money, joy and a new land to be born in. Is this not all right? He escaped murder, disease, sadness, cruelty, poverty and hatred. Who would want to stay? Comes a time to let him go; now sleeps the Old World dead.

This graveyard is not for him. The sea will take his ashes towards Russia. In the spring she'll plant strawberries. In pockets of dirt on cliffs that overlook the sea on the southern side she'll hide them. If she's really lucky, maybe a tiger will be waiting, a tawny, ochre-coloured totally hungry beast to guard them. As its growl melts with the sullen air of a dying day she'll feel Mikhail at her side.

Time passes.

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