The Dogs of Winter (16 page)

Into the woods, the trail led us deeper and deeper. Never had I heard such quiet. The only sounds were my footfalls and the snuffling of the dogs. Everything was to be sniffed; everything was to be peed upon.

I had never imagined the world could hold so many trees. In my village, the only tree was the
yelka
tree in the town square at Christmastime. In The City, the trees grew confined in corrals of brick and iron, as if they might walk away on their own and wreak havoc in The City. Here, the trees grew and soared and sighed and sang where they wanted.

And birds! Oh, the birds and their sweet music!

For the rest of that day and the next, we followed the trails. They led us across small meadows dotted with bright yellow flowers, past clear streams, and through places where the trees hugged so close together the sun barely reached the forest floor. We drank from the streams and rolled in the grass. We napped to the drone of bees and the press of warm sun. My heart ached when I thought how much Grandmother would have loved sleeping in sun-warmed grass.

That second day, Smoke dropped a dead rabbit at my feet. It was large and brown and soft as soft could be.

“Thank you, Smoke,” I said as I stroked the still-warm body of the rabbit. “But I can't eat this.” I pushed the rabbit back to Smoke. Smoke looked at me with puzzled eyes. He picked up the rabbit and tossed it at my feet.

“No,” I said.

Smoke sat and looked at me for a long time. He took in my short, stubby fingers without claws. He studied my small, useless nose and equally useless teeth.

Smoke snorted. He picked up the rabbit and carried it to Little Mother and the puppies, who were watching from beneath a flowering bush. Smoke and Lucky and Rip trotted off on the trail; when they returned they carried another rabbit and two squirrels. My stomach rumbled. I watched miserably as they ate.

The third day was cool and overcast. Clouds spit rain. Once again, I watched in misery as the dogs ate mice for their meals. Even the puppies were more successful than I.

I crawled beneath the umbrella of an evergreen's wide branches. I stuck my thumb in my mouth, then pulled it out. “I am not a little baby,” I said to the rain and the dogs beyond the branches. “I got us away from the evil witch who eats children and puppies.” I reached underneath my sweater and ragged shirt for the pages of my fairy tale book. “Yes, just like that witch who tried to lure those children into her oven.”

The pages weren't there. I frowned and dug down in the front of my pants. No pages there.

And then my heart fell away down to my toes. “My coat,” I whispered. “The pages were in the pocket of my coat.” Which was covering the body of Grandmother.

“No!” I cried as I flung myself from beneath the tree. “How could I have forgotten? What will we do without the stories?”

I beat the bushes furiously with a stick. I knocked off the showy heads of flowers. “Stupid, stupid boy,” I said as I beat and smashed. “You are useless and pathetic.” I watched the puppies play tug-of-war with a squirrel tail. “Even the puppies are smarter than you,” I said.

Little Mother watched me with worry-filled eyes. She was torn between wanting to comfort me and fear of my anger and the swinging stick. Rip nipped at my leg. I swung my stick and brought it down hard on the little dog's shoulders. Rip yelped in pain. His eyes were huge with fear. He rolled over onto his back, exposing his throat and belly. He wet himself. The forest grew utterly silent, except for Rip's whimpers. The dogs all backed away from me as if I were a stranger.

I dropped my stick and ran into the forest.

I curled up under a bush and rocked myself back and forth. “Everything is wrong. Everything is lost! Grandmother, the fairy tales … and look what you've done now, you stupid boy,” I sobbed. “You worthless cockroach.” I buried my face against my arm and bit down. Hard. I bit my own arm
until I drew blood. “You hurt Rip,” I said over and over as I continued to bite.

Something warm and wet and rough stroked the side of my face. I lifted my head and looked into the smiling, worried eyes of Lucky. Just behind him stood Smoke.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

Lucky sniffed my arm.

“I am nothing but a stupid, pathetic boy.”

Gently, Lucky licked the blood from my arm.

Finally, Smoke nudged my side. He pushed at my legs and knees. When I didn't obey his command, he pulled on my sleeve.

I crawled from beneath the bush. “What do I do?” I asked the dogs.

Smoke barked twice. Lucky wagged his tail.
Let us show you,
his eyes said.

They led me along narrow trails crisscrossed with animal tracks. They led me across one meadow and then another. They led me across a stream, past a pond. The narrow trail grew wider, and then met a gravel road. The gravel road curved this way and that. It crossed a stone bridge littered with leaves and empty acorn shells. Something big startled at our passing and bounded away into the forest.

We loped along the gravel road for a long time. My legs trembled from hunger. I stopped. The wind blew and rain pattered the puddles in the road. “I can't,” I sobbed. “I can't go any more.”

Lucky leaned into my legs and licked my hands. Smoke barked up ahead. There was no sympathy in his bark, only a command.

Finally, the gravel road stopped. A blacktopped road crossed in front of us. A road that hissed with rain and cars. I swayed on my feet and shivered.

When the road was clear of cars, the dogs dashed across. What could I do but follow?

We trotted along footpaths. Here there were signs of people: aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles tossed to
the side of the path; empty candy wrappers and tufts of tissues. The trees thinned and then opened. I gasped.

A huge wheel higher than a house loomed above us. Wooden seats dangled from the giant wheel. They swayed in the wind. The wheel was still, but it didn't fool me.

I clapped my hands. “It's a Ferris wheel! You brought me to a Ferris wheel!” I had seen them on television before.

The dogs glanced up at the wheel with little interest. They trotted across the puddle-strewn plaza, noses held high in the wind. Reluctantly, I followed.

We passed a large pond. Ducks and geese huddled on the shore. We skirted a wooden stage and a scattering of tables and chairs. Sodden plastic bags hugged the chair and table legs.

The dogs led me to rows of empty wooden stalls and stopped. They sniffed and I sniffed. Food! I followed my nose behind the wooden stalls and a narrow, stinking shed to a large metal garbage bin. Delicious smells met my nose. My stomach groaned and burned. Lucky and Smoke looked from the garbage bin to me with pride.

“Oh, thank you,” I said.

But the garbage bin was tall and the metal slick. I jumped and jumped but still could not reach the lip of the bin to pull myself up. Viktor's voice mocked me.
Jump, little circus mouse!

Then I remembered: tables and chairs! I dashed back to the stage and grabbed a chair. I dragged it to the bin. I clambered
up, pulled myself into the bin, and landed in a gloriously stinking pile of garbage. I stuffed bread into my mouth, and pieces of half-eaten chicken. I ate and ate until my poor shrunken belly could hold no more. And still, there was so much food.

I climbed back out of the bin and rescued two plastic bags. Lucky and Smoke watched with shining eyes as I filled the bags with cast-off food. With this, I could eat for days. This human park, this garbage bin, would be
my
hunting ground.

The sun was setting as we crossed the last meadow to the place where we'd left the others. Rip yipped a happy greeting. He raced in circles around us, licking Lucky's mouth and face and my hands. Little Mother and the puppies crawled from under a shelter she had dug in the deep well beneath a sprawling evergreen. They sniffed and sniffed me all over. The puppies pulled at my sleeve. I laughed and pushed them away. “I am not something to eat, even though I smell like it,” I said.

I picked up Rip and kissed the top of his head. “I am sorry I hit you,” I whispered in his torn ear. “Sometimes I am not the best boy.” I took a piece of meat from my pocket that I had saved just for Rip, and fed it to him.

One of the puppies — the boy puppy — grabbed the bottom of one of the plastic bags and yanked. Food spilled out the bottom onto the wet ground.

The dogs leapt upon the food.
My
food.

“No!” I roared. “It's
mine
!”

The dogs slunk away on their bellies. I stood over my food, Rip still in my arms, and growled. I flashed my teeth.

They looked at me with round, piteous eyes. All but Smoke. He sat a few feet away and regarded me with cool, amber eyes.

I tied the bottom of the torn bag. I took off my tattered sweater and tied the arms in such a way as to create a cradle.

I stepped away from the food on the ground. “Okay then, eat,” I said. All but Smoke ate in grateful gulps.

Smoke watched with great curiosity as I climbed the wide branches of the evergreen and stashed the cradle of food.

That night we all curled close together in the well beneath the bottom of the evergreen tree. It was dry here, despite the rain. The generous skirt of bottom branches provided a thick, lacy green roof. The puppies played with pinecones while Rip and Lucky slept against my legs. Little Mother washed and washed my face and ears and neck. I fell asleep to the rasp of her tongue, the tickle of her whiskers, and her warm, smelly, wonderful breath on my face.

And just outside, in the glow of the rising moon, Smoke watched over us all. His pack. My family.

The days grew steadily warmer and longer. The puppies grew by leaps and bounds, the dogs shed their winter coats, and I shed most of my clothes.

The dogs hunted together and alone. There was plenty in the forest for them to eat: rabbits, mice, squirrels, and the occasional bird. Their coats grew shiny and sleek. The shadow of ribs and angle of hipbones fell away.

I quickly learned the rhythms of the park with the Ferris wheel. If I went there just after sunrise, workers were there mowing and cleaning, setting up the chairs and tables, and emptying garbage cans. Every few days a big truck came and emptied the metal bin I hunted in. If I came late at night after the park closed, shadow-people crept into the park. They argued over things they took from their coat pockets. Gangs of Crow Boys came too with their chains and knives.

So I came in the time before sunrise, just before black gave way to gray. The dogs and I watched from the edge of the woods for shadow-people and for Crow Boys. We knew after the winter that no good could come from people.

I searched the smaller garbage cans as well as the big metal bin. The big metal bin was for food; the smaller garbage cans were for treasures: rubber bands, a kerchief, a plastic rain cap, a broken kite, and the greatest treasure of all, a knife. Often I found matches or lighters. But after the Glass House, I was afraid of fire.

In the early part of that summer, the dogs discovered the eggs ducks had laid by the big pond. I gathered up eggs for myself to eat. I loved their wonderful slippingness as they slid warm and rich down my throat, like a small, fat yellow sun.