Slamming on the brakes

as we came around the curve, the end was nigh.

We were about 80km south of Queenstown, NZ bombing towards Te Anau in Fiordland on State Highway 6 enroute to a four day tramp on the Kepler Track. The sun dripped behind the western mountains and the inland ranges behind were blanketed in a soft golden light. We hadn't seen a car in 20 minutes until a reddish van with tinted windows slowly stalked us from behind, eventually settling in a wee bit too close on our tail on this empty road.

The highway here is narrow and shoulderless and as we rounded a curve to the right I caught a familiar glimpse of roadkill, probably possum, on the centre line. And yet there was something else on the road. Something entirely out of place.

Standing, happy-as-hell over the flattened roadkill, tail in the air, was a Jack Russell terrier. I slammed the brake pedal through the floor and wrenched the wheel towards the long grass on the left, screaming by, two wheels off the road. In the rearview mirror I saw the panicked dog bolt behind us towards the grass and then it was too late. Smoke billowed from the van's tyres as the driver braked and I saw the dog go under the passenger side wheels, come out the back end and spin off into the grass in slow motion, brown patches rotating on white fur, its head pirouetting perfectly, like a spit roasted hog. One, maybe two seconds and it was over.

As the van stopped we briefly debated going back but the thought of the flattened dog was too much so I floored it, and slightly stunned, we turned right on SH 97 and accelerated towards the reddened sky.