The Dogs of Winter (15 page)

Days of rain passed in the damp dark, below the broken-down church Little Mother had found for us the week before. Grandmother coughed and shivered. The puppies cried and squabbled. They pestered Little Mother endlessly to nurse, even though they were too big for that now. The rain and the damp dark made her forget she was their mother, because she snapped and snarled and, finally, stalked out into the rain. When the puppies tried to follow, she rounded on them viciously. They ran back to me, their tails tucked between trembling legs.

“She'll be back,” I said as I stroked them. But would she?

Then one day, when I didn't think any of us could bear the rain and the dark any longer, the sun came out. We woke to wide bars of light striping the muddy floor. We woke to the sound of birds rather than rain.

Someone woofed at the entrance of our den. Lucky bounded down the heaps of rubble, wagging his tail.

Woof!

What could we do but follow him up into the sun?

We squinted against the first strong light in many days. The air smelled alive and green.

Rip and Lucky dashed back and forth, chasing each other through the shimmering puddles. Little Mother wagged her tail for the first time in weeks and allowed the puppies to nip her delicate feet. Grandmother found a sunny dry spot and stretched long in the warmth. Even the ever-serious Smoke joined in a game of chase. We ran, the dogs and I, in widening circles through the bare bones of the crumbling church. We ran and ran through the weeded lot rambling next to the old building. Bits of colored glass glittered in the sun. “You can't catch me!” I called to Lucky. “You can't catch me now!”

Suddenly, the toe of my boot caught on something. I rose into the air. My arms and legs spun like pinwheels. I landed with a
thud
on my back.

Rip and Lucky rushed to my side and licked my face and hands. “I'm okay,” I said, sitting up. Smoke pawed at something beneath the wet weeds and leaves.

I crawled over to him. “What are you looking for?”

Smoke pawed a mat of leaves and sticks aside. A tiny gray face stared up at us.

“Oh!” Smoke and I jumped back. Then we inched forward to get a better look.

I touched the face. It was hard and cold. I brushed the rest of the mat away. A stone slab slumped into the wet ground. The still face stared out from the middle of the slab. I traced the words carved into the stone with my finger. “I can't read most of this,” I said to Smoke and Lucky and Rip,
who were gathered at my side, staring and sniffing at the discovery.

I touched one word. “‘Loved,' it says.” I touched another word. “This one says ‘death.'” I ran a finger along a trail beneath the stone face. “These are dates. I think they are 1932 and 1975.” Heaviness settled in my stomach. Babushka Ina. She too had a stone slab with her dates on it. It had cost every ruble my mother had.

I stood and looked around. Stone markers of all sizes surrounded us. Some were only humps beneath the moldering leaves; others rose above the matted earth, furred by moss and lichen.

“This is a cemetery,” I said to the dogs. “It's a place where dead people live.”

We wandered through the rows of markers. On the top of one slept a stone lamb, its head resting on tiny white hooves, its eyes closed and peaceful. On another, crossed swords were carved into stone. I pointed to one word. “Brave.” I pointed to another. “War.” A cloud passed across the sun. I shivered in my damp clothes. “This place makes me sad,” I said. “Let's go back.”

We did not return to the cemetery again.

A rumble and a crash woke us a few days later. The earth shook like a great beast, waking. Dirt and wood and bricks
shook loose. The floor of the church above rained down upon us.

The dogs and I scrambled away from our sleeping corner just as a wooden beam crashed to the ground. “What is happening?” I cried. “Is the world ending?”

A terrible shriek. I looked behind me and gasped. Grandmother lay trapped beneath the fallen beam!

I ran to her side. Blood trickled from her mouth. Her faded eyes searched mine. I stroked her silvered head. “Don't worry, my babushka. I'll get you out.” She tried to thump her tail, but it would not lift.

Something screeched above us like the voice of a dragon. The earth moaned and shook again. Dirt and rubble fell upon us. Great iron teeth and claws ripped through the dirt roof above us. I threw my body across Grandmother's head and shoulders.

Smoke barked a sharp command. He stood at the pile of rubble leading to our door above. The opening was smaller, had become filled with crumbling bricks and dirt. Little Mother pushed her puppies out ahead of her, and then squirmed behind them. Rip frantically dug his way after her. Lucky must already be out, I realized.

Smoke barked again, this time frantic.

“I can't leave her!” I cried.

He raced to me and yanked on my sleeve.

I pushed him away. “No!”

He grabbed my arm and pulled hard, ripping the
sleeve of my shirt. I tumbled away from Grandmother. The earth shuddered. A fine curtain of dust fell across Grandmother. I crouched beside her head and wiped the dirt from her eyes.

Her eyes did not search my face. Her eyes did not smile as they had so many times.

Her eyes were empty.

I shook her and shook her and shook her. “Wake up, Babushka, wake up!” Blood rushed from her mouth and pooled beneath it. Still, her eyes looked at nothing.

“Please,”
I whispered. I pressed my head to hers.

Smoke sniffed Grandmother's face and whimpered. He licked the side of her mouth.

Something roared and clawed at the entry to the basement.

Smoke raced to the other side, barking and digging frantically. The passageway up and out of the broken church was buried.

He looked at me and barked. The look and the bark said, “We must live!” I took off my coat and draped it across Grandmother's head and shoulders.

I joined Smoke and we dug together, trying our best to get out, until my fingers were bloody. “It's no use,” I said to Smoke. “I can't get us out.”

Smoke's eyes told me he believed I could. Then I remembered the bucket I had used to bring water to our den.

I grabbed the bucket and dug with all my might. Smoke dug next to me. Finally, the earth gave way beneath his paws and my bucket, and we pushed into the light.

I coughed and sputtered and flopped onto my back, gasping for air. Something rumbled toward me. Smoke barked in angry fury.

I sat up and rubbed the dirt out of my eyes. A huge digging machine on wheels like army tanks bore down upon me. I had seen these machines before in our village when they tore down the old factory. I could just make out a man sitting atop the machine.

Smoke and Lucky barked and lunged at the machine. Rip darted this way and that just out of reach of the rolling ribbon of wheels.

“No!” I screamed.

I rolled to the side and scrambled to my feet. The man barely glanced at me. I was nothing but a cockroach scuttling beneath him.

I grabbed a fistful of rocks and flung them at the man and the machine. “You killed her! You killed her!”

Rip and Smoke and Lucky ran to the far edge of the weedy lot and barked. With all my strength, I flung a large rock at the man. “I hate you!” I said, tears making dirty tracks down my face. “I loved her and you killed her!”

The rock flew through the air like an arrow, straight and true. It smashed squarely into the side of the man's face.

“Hey!” he cried. His cigarette fell from his mouth. For the first time he saw me. Blood trickled down the side of his face.

I looked up at him, empty-handed. “I loved her,” I sobbed. “I loved her and you killed her.”

Then I ran to join the other dogs. With one last look at the place holding the body of Grandmother, we raced out of sight.

For days the dogs and I ran. We ran away from The City and the people and the machines and the body of Grandmother. We ran past squat apartment buildings, one after another, all looking the same. We ran past falling-down warehouses, skirting broken glass and bottles and skinny, wary dogs and men with hard black eyes.

We stopped long enough to dig food out of the garbage cans. There was no use begging here: No one had anything to spare.

One day, from the far side of a weedy, glass-sparkled lot, the cries of screeching birds drew us. The wind carried a smell both rotten and sweet. We followed our noses to the source of the smell. There, rising before us like a living, breathing, stinking hulk, towered a mountain of garbage.

Humans of all sizes crawled over the mountain pulling out scraps of this and bundles of that — ragged clothes, broken pots and pans, twisted heaps of metal. A small girl in rags and no shoes squealed with delight as she pulled a naked, armless doll from the mound. A woman with her head wrapped in rags dragged pieces of wood over to a tumbledown hut on the edge of the woods on the far side of the
Garbage Mountain. A pack of children played king-of-the-mountain on top of a pile of tires.

Two men argued over a rusty wagon. “It is mine!” said a man with a striped hat.

“No, I saw it first!” said a man with one arm.

The man with the hat hit the one-armed man over the head with a bottle.

We made our way around Garbage Mountain just inside the edge of trees. Even the puppies kept silent as we passed. Here and there, people huddled around small, smoky fires. I did not understand this. It was warm and the sun was high. Still, they stood and sat by the flames, passing bottles and laughing. Skinny, skulking dogs hovered at the edges. Their tails said they were scared and hungry.

The wind shifted, blowing the smoke through the trees to where we watched. Rip sneezed.

The talk stopped at the nearest fire. Heads turned in our direction. The dogs of Garbage Mountain growled. “Who's that?” someone demanded.

Slowly I left the cover of the trees and stepped into the light. The dogs — my dogs — pressed close to my legs. I rested a hand on Smoke's back. A low growl rumbled up through his chest and to my hand.

“What's your name, boy? Who do you belong to?”

“I belong to them,” I said.

“Who?”

I rested my other hand on Lucky's head. “The dogs,” I said.

“Ha,” said a woman with no teeth. “Who heard of a child belonging to a pack of dogs?”

“You come over here with us,” a man in a long coat said, waving me over to the fire with a bottle. “We'll look after you.”

“And bring those young dogs with you,” another man said, licking his lips like a wolf.

The low, skulking dogs, stay-by-the-fire dogs, inched forward and growled.

My heart thundered in my chest and told my legs to run. But my legs would not run.

The toothless woman grinned and cackled. “Come over here, little boy. Come to granny.”

My brain told me to run but I was frozen like a statue. Perhaps the toothless woman was a witch and had cast a spell on me. I closed my eyes and rubbed the baby tooth in my pocket.

Just then, a high
tweet! tweet!
pierced the air. Cries of “Militsiya! Run!” crisscrossed Garbage Mountain. Birds and dogs and people scattered.

The spell broke. My legs came to life. The dogs and I ran as far and as fast as we could away from Garbage Mountain.

We ran as if on fire, faster than we had ever run before. We left Garbage Mountain behind, we left the tribe of Garbage Mountain behind. We ran until our feet no longer skimmed and skittered over asphalt and broken glass. We ran until our feet fell upon green grass, and a gentle trail led us into the woods.