The Dogs of Winter (24 page)

“Once upon a time,” I said to the dogs in our cold, dark den beneath an abandoned warehouse, “there was a ghost who very much wanted to be a boy. He thought if he were a boy — the very
best
boy — he would be loved and protected. He did not want people to look past him and through him because he was just a little ghost and he was lonely and afraid.”

Little Mother groaned and panted. Smoke watched her and so did I. Something was not right with Little Mother and it frightened me.

I stroked Little Mother's ears. “And once upon another time — a time much later than before — there was a boy who wanted very much to be a ghost….”

I sighed. Now I would bargain with Baba Yaga herself to be invisible again.

Later, something woke me in the dark.

One of the dogs pawed at my arm. I sat up. “What's wrong?”

I heard panting and moaning on the other side of the tiny den. I crawled across on hands and knees to Little Mother. I could barely make out the glow of her wide eyes in the dark. “Oh, Little Mother,” I said, reaching out a hand to stroke her.

She snapped at my hand, just barely missing my fingers. I gasped in surprise. Never had she threatened me before!

She whimpered in apology but still, I crawled back across the rubble away from her. I cuddled Rip to my chest and pulled Moon and Star next to me. Only Smoke was allowed to be close to Little Mother.

I buried my face in Lucky's flank. “Nothing is right anymore,” I said. “I do not know what I have done, but everything is wrong.”

A tiny sound woke me in the gray hours of morning — the tiniest of cries. The dogs quivered next to me with excitement.

On the other side of the den, Little Mother lay on her side licking something. Smoke hovered over her protectively.

I held my breath, hardly daring to move. I looked from Little Mother to Smoke.
Is it what I think it is?
I asked in our silent way.

Smoke's eyes smiled.
Come see, Malchik.

Slowly, I crept over to Little Mother. She grumbled a warning. I stopped and turned my eyes away. Smoke snorted.

I crept a little closer. This time, Little Mother did not growl. She busied herself licking the just-born puppies nestled against her belly.

“Oh, puppies!” I breathed. I counted three. Later I would find the body of a fourth that had not survived the birth.

Suddenly, the world was full of hope. We had puppies to care for! For the rest of the day, I made plans.

“We'll wait until they get a little bigger,” I said to Little Mother, “and then find a better place for the winter. Maybe we'll go back to the den where you had Moon and Star.”

That day, Lucky and I left only long enough to find food. Smoke would not leave her side.

“I'll get us lots of food, I promise,” I told Little Mother and the others as I fed them from what I'd found. “The puppies will grow big and strong.”

We listened to the snow-scraping machines out on the streets. “And when spring comes, we will return to the forest and never,
ever
come back.”

And so day after day, I hunted food with Lucky, Moon, and Star. Smoke brought her food too, but he didn't like leaving her alone for very long. And Rip had taken on the role of the puppies' babushka.

At first, I tried going out only when it was dark so as not to be seen by the
militsiya
, if they were even still hunting me.
But I could not bear the cold long enough to find the food we needed, especially for Little Mother as she nursed her puppies; and the night belonged to the tall, skinny Crow Boys in their black leathers and chains, and the
bomzhi
, who would do anything for a drink.

So the dogs and I devised what we thought was a clever plan: We hunted food separately but together. The dogs would saunter along like any pack of street strays and investigate the trash bins behind certain restaurants. I stayed behind, pretending to sleep in a doorway, an old newspaper covering my face, and listened. If the dogs found food in the bins, they yipped. I waited until the sidewalk was empty of people and then I dashed behind the building and joined the dogs. I grabbed what food I could and ran back to our den. Some days, even after visiting several bins, there was not much food to show for our efforts. But at least it was something.

And so it was, on this particular snowy afternoon, we had found a restaurant whose bins overflowed with food. We came back again and again to fill our bags.

Lucky and Moon and Star disappeared around the corner without a backward glance. I curled up in the shivery doorway and waited for their signal.

And waited and waited.

I sat up. The newspaper covering my face fluttered to the ground. My stomach groaned and my hands ached in the cold. “They must be filling their bellies first,” I grumbled. I'd
caught Star and Lucky doing that before, gorging themselves before calling me.

I ground my teeth. Anger filled my belly.

And then I heard a sharp, panic-stricken bark. This was not the usual we-found-food
yip
, this was a call that said they were in trouble. I heard the bark again.

I ran around to the back of the building and skidded to a stop in the snow. Their paw prints led to the garbage bin, yes, but then they continued on.

I followed the prints with my head down. I heard another bark — Lucky's deep, angry
woof
. The prints and the bark led to the back door of the restaurant. I stopped to listen. “Lucky?” I called in a loud whisper. “Moon? Star?”

Moon's answering whimper came from inside the restaurant!

Panic raced through me. How had they gotten inside? I grabbed the door handle and turned it.

It was locked.

I pulled and pulled on the door handle with all my might. I banged on it with my fists until they turned bloody. “Lucky!” I cried. “Moon!”

“They can't help you now, little Mowgli.”

Every part of me turned to ice at the sound of that voice. I lowered my fists and turned my head.

There, with falling snow resting on his wide shoulders, and a cigarette dangling from his bottom lip, stood the
Woman in the Hat's son. Many other
militsiya
stood on either side of him in their gray coats and tall black boots.

I looked frantically to the door and then to the way in and out of the alley.
Militsiya
were everywhere.

“Come with us quietly, now.” He stepped closer. “Don't give us any trouble, and your dogs won't get hurt.”

My mind raced as fast as a subway train. Little Mother and Rip and the puppies needed me to bring food but they also had Smoke to protect them and take care of them; Moon and Lucky and Star were trapped inside the restaurant with no way to get out except me doing what the
militsiya
said. And how did I know the dogs were unharmed even now?

I flicked out my knife. One of the policemen gasped. Another snickered.

I stuck my chin in the air and made myself tall as I could. “Let the dogs go and I'll come with you,” I demanded, looking directly into the dark eyes of the Woman in the Hat's son.

A short, fat policeman laughed. “So the wild child is not dumb!”

The old woman's son narrowed his eyes and studied me. A smile played at the corner of his mouth. “Okay, Mowgli, it's a deal. But you must step away from the door first.”

Once I moved aside, he signaled to one of the policemen. “Open it.”

I readied myself for what would come next. The dogs would burst through the door and knock down every one of the policemen. Then we would run away. I knew I could outrun any
militsiya
. I didn't need shiny black boots to run fast; I didn't need Famous Basketball Player shoes. Like the dogs, my feet had wings.

The door swung open. There on the cement floor of the storeroom, wrapped in a thick black net, lay the dogs, helpless. They locked their pleading eyes on my face and moaned.

“No!” I cried. I lunged for the dogs and attacked the net with my knife.

Arms grabbed me from behind and pulled me back.

“Let me go!” I screamed. I slashed with my knife at anything I could find.

Someone cried out and cursed. But even as those hands fell away, more hands grabbed and hit and twisted. My knife fell to the ground.

The dogs barked and snapped and growled from their place on the floor. I snarled and snapped and sank teeth.

I was knocked to the ground. Gloved hands shoved my face into the snow and twisted my neck sideways.

Hands grabbed my legs and my feet and tied them with rope. Another pair wrenched my arms behind my back and tied them too.

“Give him the shot,” someone said above me. “We can't carry him screaming and biting through the streets.”

I rubbed blood from my face in the snow. My eyes searched and found Lucky. His dark brown eyes poured into mine.
I am sorry,
he said.

“Oh, Lucky,” I moaned. He'd never spoken before.

Something sharp stung the back of my neck. A sick warm sweetness flooded my head and my stomach. The last thing I saw was Lucky's eyes.

“Good God, he's a filthy little beggar,” a voice from somewhere above me said.

“Stinks too,” another voice said.

My head, my legs, every part of my body thrummed with pain. Why couldn't they just let me alone?

A hand grabbed my boot and started to pull it off.

“No!” I snapped. My eyes flew open. I could not survive the winter without my boots. I could not find food for myself and the dogs without my boots!

But I was not on the streets of The City. I was in a too-bright, too-warm room that stank of soap and desperation. I was not surrounded by my family of dogs but by people in green uniforms and white coats.

I panted and snarled and looked about wildly for a way out. No busy streets to run down, no trees to climb, no tumbledown buildings to hide in — only one tiny window high above my head.

I gathered my legs beneath me and shot across the room for the only door.

“Look out!” a woman in a green uniform cried.

“Grab him!” a man in a white coat commanded.

I clawed and scrabbled at the door handle. It would not turn. I spun to face down my captors. I bared my teeth and reached in my pocket for my knife. It was gone.

And then I remembered: the restaurant and the
militsiya
and Lucky and Moon and Star all trapped in that net and trying to cut them loose with my knife and the fist to my face and the gloved hand on my neck and Lucky's eyes.

I sobbed. Did they survive?

A hand reached out for me. I bit as hard as I could. Blood filled my mouth. The man in the white coat screamed in pain. Eyes filled with horror and disgust.

I scrambled beneath the cot on the far side of the tiny room and made myself as small as possible. I watched the feet scurry back and forth. I covered my ears to block out the angry words. I shook and shivered with fear. I wet myself.

Finally, the door opened, and then clicked shut. No feet, no angry voices.

I cried and rocked myself to sleep.

Later, a smell woke me. The door eased open just a bit, and a hand pushed a tray of food through the opening, then the door slammed shut.

I watched the bottom of the door and the tray of food. When no one came back, I crept out from the safety of the cot and crawled over to the tray. I lowered my head and sniffed. The hair rose on the back of my neck and along my arms. There was something very wrong with this food.

I backed away.

A noise on the other side of the door.

I looked up.

A face with eyeglasses watched me through the small window in the door.

I flashed my teeth and retreated to my hiding place beneath the cot.

A day passed and then another, and another. During the day, people came and went. If hands tried to grab me from beneath the cot, I bit and clawed and kicked. Once I almost escaped through the door when food was brought — food that still held the bad smell — but I was knocked to the ground.

The man in the white coat, one hand bandaged, pinned my arms behind my back. “Don't you know we're trying to help you?” he shouted in my face.

I wanted to say if he wanted to help me, he would return me to my family. Instead, I spit in his face.

That night, I paced back and forth, back and forth in my tiny room, trying to outrun my despair. I sat on the cot and rocked and cried and pulled at my hair. I rubbed the little tooth still in my pocket until my thumb hurt.

And then, like a dream, I heard it: first a bark and then a questioning
yip
. I sat still as stone and listened.

One howl rose and then another and another. I gasped. There was no mistaking the deep rumbling of Lucky, the high, soaring song of Moon, the
yip, yip
of Star.

I pulled the cot over to the window that was barely a window and climbed up. If I stood on the tips of my toes, I could just see outside. My eyes searched the shadows for the dogs but I could not see them.

I am here! I am here!
I yipped.

There, on the other side of a high wire fence surrounding the courtyard, I saw them.

I laughed and cried. They had come for me! I threw back my head and howled.

The dogs barked and howled in a frenzy of excitement. I could just make out Lucky standing tall on his back legs, clawing at the wire fence.

I barked louder and beat my fists against the glass pane separating us. Moon and Star dug frantically beneath the fence.

A bright light flooded the courtyard. The dogs froze. People ran out into the courtyard shouting and waving their arms. Moon and Star cowered before their angry voices. Lucky snarled and growled.

Someone picked up rocks and threw them at the dogs through the fence. One of the dogs yelped in pain, but I could not see which one.

Moon and Star fled into the street.

Lucky looked from the people to my window.

Don't leave me!
I howled.

“Get out of here!” someone yelled, and threw part of a brick at the wire fence.

Lucky hesitated, then he loped out of sight, his head and tail low in defeat.

I pounded my fists against the glass. “No!” I cried. “Come back! Come back!”

But no matter how loud I howled and called, they did not come back.

Finally, exhausted, I curled up under my cot and comforted myself with the knowledge that somehow, Lucky and Moon and Star had gotten free of the awful net and they were alive.

They returned the next night and the next. They howled and they dug and I called to them in return,
I am here! I am here!
And every night, the people ran them off.

During the day, I heard the women in the green uniforms wonder at the dogs. “How did they find him?” “Why do they keep coming back?” “What do they want of him?” One woman whispered, “It is not normal, the way the dogs and the boy are bound.”

I smiled to myself as I listened to them from the den beneath the cot. I wanted to say to them, they found me and they wanted me because I belong to them; we are bound because we are family, we are each other's place in the world. But I did not waste my words on them. They were human.

And then came the night when the moon was full and bright upon the snow; I saw him. He stood silver and black and gray and proud, shifting in the moonlight. His amber eyes glowed. His voice — deep and wild as our summer forest — said,
I have come, Malchik.

Smoke howled our story long into the night and into the next. He told of how we found one another and how he had saved me and I had saved them. He howled of the Glass House and the death of Grandmother and running free in the forest. He sang of the House of Bones and the battle with the boar and nights beneath moon and stars and city lights; of cold that almost killed us if it were not for one another.

I howled back and pounded my fists harder and harder against the glass window.

“I am here!” I cried. “Don't leave me!”

Dark forms inky against the moonlit snow stomped across the courtyard. They shouted at the dogs. Lucky hurled himself against the wire fence. One of the humans raised something in his hand. A
crack
, and a light flashed in the night. A gun!

“No!” I screamed, pounding my fist against the glass. “Don't shoot!”

The dogs scattered. They regrouped a short distance from the fence and barked and howled even more.

The gun fired again. A sharp yelp.

“No!” I screamed. I slammed my fist against the glass. It shattered. I gasped from the pain. Blood spattered everywhere. It ran down my arm and onto my bare feet.

I tore my eyes away from my blood and searched the night for the dogs. There they were, milling about, all of them moving. I panted in pain.

I saw the arm raise the gun again and take careful aim.

“No, no …” I moaned. My head swam and my legs shook.

With the last bit of strength I had, I screamed, “Run!”

The last thing I saw was the dogs disappearing into the night.