The Dogs of Winter (19 page)

“Lord save us,” the Christian Lady said, as she looked me up and down, her beefy fists planted on her round hips.

I did not look down at my shoes. I rested one hand on Smoke's shoulder and stared straight back at her. “I need clothes,” I said. Her brow furrowed. Something pushed from far back in my memory. “Please,” I added.

She shook her head. “You need more than clothes, I daresay.” She reached a hand out to touch my chopped hair. I stepped back. Smoke growled.

The Christian Lady's eyes darted from Smoke to me. She licked her lips. “I mean you no harm, boy. But if you want anything from me, you'll call off that dog of yours.”

Back,
I said to Smoke. He grumbled a complaint even as he trotted a few feet away.

“You really could do with a bath and a haircut….”

I shook my head. “Just clothes and shoes.”

The Christian Lady sighed. “Wait here.” She bent over tall cardboard boxes filled with clothes and shoes and blankets. Other children of all sizes tried on this and that. Some took only blankets. Some followed other Christian Ladies to
a long white van. It would not take long for the boxes to empty. I knew the Christian Ladies would leave the bigger cardboard boxes for the children to use for shelters. I did not think a cardboard box could make as wonderful a home as a den beneath the generous limbs of an evergreen.

“Here you go.”

I blinked.

“See if these fit. I don't have things much smaller.”

I frowned. “I am not a little boy,” I said, standing up tall. A little boy could not kill a giant pig with one blow.

A tiny smile tugged at the corner of the Christian Lady's mouth. “I see,” she said.

On went the new old clothes and battered boots. I pulled a hat down over my chopped-up hair and my ears. Now I looked like any other unwanted child on the streets. Once again, I was invisible.

And so we rode the trains that long snowy winter. Always, we rode the last train of the evening, clacking nose to tail down the track and into the station. At night, few people rode the last train, so we often had it to ourselves. The few passengers on the late-night trains stayed clear of a boy and his pack. I had no use for people except the garbage they provided for food. Seldom had they not meant me harm or betrayed me. The dogs were always with me.

Moon and Star invented a game with the trains. They dared each other to wait until the last possible moment to leap from the station platform, through the whooshing doors, and into the train — without getting a tail caught. Little Mother watched their game with alarm and then irritation. Lucky, of course, joined in the fun. Smoke just watched. I held my breath each time they played this game and clapped when they tumbled aboard, tails held high — and whole.

I did my best to avoid the other children of the street. I watched them beg; I watched them fight and cry. I watched them stick their noses in brown paper bags, breathe in, and breathe out. I watched them get drunk and get sick. They froze in helpless heaps inside cardboard boxes and doorways, on top of heat vents. The police came and poked the body with their night sticks; an ambulance wailed its way up the street and took the body away down the street. That winter, they took many bodies away.

We rode the trains.

Once, as we waited for the last evening train, a gang of Crow Boys sauntered down the long, overlit corridor of the metro station. The heels of their boots clicked on the marble floor. One smashed out lights with a long stick as he walked along. Another demanded money from the few people waiting for the train. Then they spotted me.

The one with the long stick stopped and pointed it at me. “Hey, you're that boy. That boy who lives with dogs.”

I shrugged and looked away.

They stepped closer. The tallest took a cigarette from behind his ear and put it to his lips. “Yeah, I heard about you. The boy who lives with dogs.” He lit the cigarette and flicked the match at my feet. Rip backed away in terror. I growled and flashed my teeth. The Crow Boys hooted with laughter.

“He thinks
he's
a dog!” One pulled out a knife and flicked open the blade. His eyes grew hard as ice. “Let's see if you can beg like a dog.”

I barked one high, commanding bark. From the shadows came the other dogs, surrounding the Crow Boys. The dogs crouched and crept in closer to the boys, their voices growling and grumbling with hate. My hand itched for my club. What was left of it was far away in the forest, buried beneath the snow. So instead I said simply, “They will kill you if you come closer.”

One said, “You think we're afraid of a little kid and his dogs?” but their eyes said something different. The one with the long stick said, “Just give us what money you have and we'll leave you and your mangy mutts alone.”

I slipped my hand into my pants pocket. I felt the smooth lump of my baby tooth and the length of knife. I curled my fingers around my knife. “Sure,” I said.

Just then, a cold, lazy voice said, “Is this all you have to do, play with little boys and dogs?”

There in the light of an oncoming train, smoke drifting from his nostrils, a small black gun hanging in one hand, stood Rudy.

I gasped.

Rudy did not look at me. Instead he said to the cowering Crow Boys, “I know who you work for. I wonder how he'd like it if I told him you were no better than rats pestering a flea?”

“We were just having a little fun, Rudy,” one of the boys said. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down in his throat as he gulped.

The train hissed to a stop. Rudy tossed his cigarette to the floor and crushed it beneath the toe of his shiny black boot.

The train doors opened. Rudy flicked his eyes in my direction. He waved the small gun. “Go,” he said.

The dogs and I hurried down to the last train compartment and threw ourselves in. My heart was hammering in my ears when I heard a voice say, “Why is it I keep saving your skin?”

Rudy slumped down on the floor of the train across from us. Smoke growled and Moon flashed her teeth.

“Call off your hounds,” he said in a weary voice as he tucked the gun inside his coat.

I murmured to the dogs. The growls and flashing teeth stopped but their eyes never left Rudy's hands.

We rode in silence for a bit. Then Rudy shook his head and said, “I never would have placed my bets on you.”

I shrugged and stroked Rip's chest.

Rudy leaned his head back and closed his eyes. The train clicked and clacked along. Slowly, I relaxed.

“How did you do it?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Survive.” He opened his eyes and looked at me. “How did you survive the winter and the
militsiya
and the gangs of boys like me?”

Rip sighed and laid his head in my lap. Star shifted his warm weight into mine. The others never took their eyes off Rudy.

“The dogs,” I said.

Rudy nodded. “The dogs.”

The train sighed to a stop. Rudy stood. He dug into the pocket of his black jeans and tossed a wad of rubles at my feet. “You still have those fairy tales you used to read to us?” he asked. His voice sounded old but his face looked younger than I remembered.

I shook my head. “I lost them.”

Rudy looked away. “Ah,” he said. “Too bad.”

The doors to the train whisked open. Rudy touched two fingers to the brim of his hat, then turned and walked onto the train platform and down the corridor without a backward glance.

I never saw him again.

Day after day, the snow fell. The
militsiya
drove the children and the
bomzhi
from the metro stations. The street children disappeared beneath the city streets to the warm water pipes below. The
bomzhi
slept in doorways and apartment building lobbies. The garbage bins behind the restaurants where I found our food now filled with snow. Everything we ate that winter was frozen solid.

I tried to remember summer. What had it felt like to be warm day after day? How had grass felt under my bare feet? I could not picture the green meadow dotted with yellow flowers. I could not remember the sheltering arms of the great tree we slept beneath. I did not believe in Summer or Warmth or Angels. All I believed in was Cold.

We were all tired and snappish. Some days, all I wanted to do was sleep on the warm, rocking train. The thought of spending another day in the bitter cold and wind and snow trying to find enough food to feed the seven of us brought me to tears and made me turn on my family.

“Why can't you find your own food?” I shouted at the dogs one afternoon as I dug my way through a snow-filled garbage bin. Rip whined. Lucky just wagged his tail.

“If it weren't for you, I would be fat,” I said. I pulled a rotten potato from the snow and hurled it at Rip. It bounced in front of him and then skittered away. Star pounced on the potato. Lucky woofed with excitement at the new game I had invented.

“I'm not kidding!” I shouted. Little Mother and Moon looked up at me on top of the snow-covered garbage with worried eyes. “You're lazy! You're stupid, lazy dogs!” I hurled frozen carrots, onions, chunks of bread, and bones down upon the dogs. The dogs quickly realized this was no game. They crouched and cowered beneath my anger, their eyes pleading.

Stop,
Smoke said.

“Oh, now you speak to me!” I cried. “You haven't spoken to me for months and now you boss me around!” I threw a frozen cabbage as hard as I could and hit Smoke squarely in the side of his head. He yelped in pain and staggered. The dogs all looked at me like I was some red-eyed beast. I was not their boy; I was not one of them. I was an Other.

Smoke shook himself and then tossed me a cold look. “I'm …” The words were a frozen lump in my throat.

Smoke barked once and trotted to the end of the alley. The dogs looked from Smoke to me, standing on top of a small mountain of garbage and snow, red-faced and shivering.

Despair and the days behind us and ahead of us swept over me.
“Go,”
I cried. “Just go! I don't need you!”

The dogs flattened their ears and tucked their tails and disappeared with Smoke.

I stared at the huge, empty, dog-shaped hole where they no longer were. I dropped to my knees and panted. I waited and watched. Surely they would be back any minute: Lucky smiling his Lucky smile and wagging his tail; Little Mother washing the snot and tears from my face; Rip snuggling against me — their eyes, even Smoke's eyes, saying
all is forgiven
.

I climbed down from the garbage bin as the wind swirled up the alley. The sky grew leaden and close. Any minute now, they'll be back, I told myself over and over.

The skies opened and great sheets of snow fell. I climbed inside an empty cardboard box and curled up on my side. I hugged my knees to my chest and rocked back and forth.

I heard soft footfalls in the snow. They were back! I stuck my head out into the snow. “I am so sorry! I —”

A large black cat looked at me with cold green eyes. A rat hung from his mouth.

I pulled back inside the box and buried my face in my hands. “I am alone,” I moaned. “I belong nowhere and to no one in the whole world.” I cried and shivered and rubbed the tooth in my pocket over and over and over. Day faded to night.

I woke to something warm and wet stroking my face. “Mother,” I said through chattering teeth. I reached up my arms to the warmth of Little Mother's neck. I buried
my frozen hands and face in her deep fur. Rip pushed into my lap and snuffled my neck. Moon and Star did their best to curl themselves into the box, but it was not big enough for a small boy and four dogs. I crawled out of the box. The alley was lit with snow and moonlight. I stood in drifts above my knees.

The dogs crowded around my legs and licked my hands and fingers. “I am sorry,” I whispered in the moonlight. “I never meant to hurt you,” I said, stroking heads and shoulders. “You are the best dogs, the best family.” Lucky dropped a fat sausage at my feet. I laughed. “Who did you steal this from, my little thief?” He wagged his tail. His eyes glinted with mischief.

Malchik.

I turned.

Smoke shimmered and shifted as a cloud passed over the moon.

Smoke.
I held out my hand. For the first time in all the many months we had been together, he pushed his head into my hand. I stroked the top of his silver and black head and the thick ruff around his neck. His eyes were yellow in the moonlight.

Our Malchik,
he said again.
Our boy.

And I knew my place in the world.