The Dogs of Winter (23 page)

I dug through the garbage cans in the Ferris wheel park. For the first time in weeks, the cans were full. Perhaps the garbagemen were once again on strike; perhaps there had been a holiday I had forgotten about. I had forgotten many things in my years of living with the dogs.

I remembered the old woman asking me how old I was. I couldn't say. Six? Seven? Was my birthday in the late spring or early summer?

Rip trotted along beside me as I crossed the place where the people had danced on the long summer evenings. “I think I am seven now,” I said. “I could even be almost eight.” I liked the sound of being eight. Eight-year-olds got to do many things five-year-olds did not.

A shadow swept across the concrete. I stopped. Was it just a cloud passing across the face of the full moon?

“There he is!” someone shouted.

Rip growled.

Militsiya
came from everywhere!

I crouched and growled.

A voice I recognized as the old woman's son said, “Take it slow. Don't scare him off.”

I dropped my bags of food and backed away from the men.

The old woman's son held out a hand to me. “It's okay, boy. We're here to help you.”

I looked from the men to the side of the park with the duck pond. That was where the other dogs had gone in search of rats. I threw back my head and howled. Rip joined in.

One of the men laughed. “We should take him to the circus instead of the orphanage.”

“Shut up,” the son snapped. Then he stepped closer and said, “Come now. I have a nice lolly for a good boy.”

I pulled back my lips and snarled even as I felt the other dogs circling quietly behind me.

One of the policemen said, “Let's just use the net and be done with it.”

The old woman's son nodded his head ever so slightly.

My heart pounded in my chest. It was time to run. I flicked my hand. Moon, Star, Smoke, Lucky, Little Mother, and, of course, Rip, surged forward snapping and snarling.

“Holy mother of God!” one of the
militsiya
cried. “Look how many!”

Smoke and Lucky drew themselves up tall with their tails held high and stiff. Smoke's eyes glowed yellow and cold in the moonlight.

“What're we supposed to do now?” the policeman with the net asked, stepping back.

Smoke and Lucky lowered their haunches and gathered their muscles, readying to spring.

Run, Malchik!

I ran and ran and ran as fast as I could. The sound of snarling and screaming and shouting and yelping grew fainter. A sick feeling rose from my stomach and filled my lungs.

Soon, I heard the running feet of the dogs behind me. They ran, swift and silent in the moonlight. I listened over my hammering heart for the sound of boots. The dogs splashed through the stream and into the birch grove. I counted as they came — one, two, three, four, there were only four!

I whistled low. The dogs gathered around me — Lucky, Little Mother, Moon, Star. Where were Smoke and Rip?

Of course! How could I be so stupid! Rip couldn't run as fast as the rest. Smoke must be with him.

“Stay here,” I said. I touched Lucky's head. “You come,” I said.

We ran back the way we came, through the stream and past the big birch tree and across the small meadow. Soon we would be at the road to the Ferris wheel park. I heard running boots and heavy breathing. Someone called, “I can't see a thing.”

Lucky woofed low and raised his tail.

Into the moonlit meadow ran Rip with Smoke.

I dashed across the meadow and scooped Rip up in my arms. The sound of boots grew closer. Car horns honked. Someone cursed.

“Run!” I said to Smoke and Lucky. “The others are ahead.”

Lucky dashed off into the forest. Smoke said,
I will stay.

“No,” I said. “Run.”

I ran as fast as I could, Rip bouncing in my arms. Smoke ran next to me. He threw his ears back.
They come.

I stopped and looked around. I spotted just what I needed: A pine rose tall and black in the moonlight.

“Run,” I said. I hurried to the bottom of the great pine. I pulled myself up with one hand while the other clutched Rip to my chest. He kept perfectly still. I worked my way into a thick tangle of branches and stopped. I looked down. I could just see the eyes of Smoke watching from beneath a cluster of bushes.

I bowed my head against Rip's ragged ear. “Shhhh …” I whispered as I tried to quiet my breathing.

The
militsiya
entered the clearing. One limped and another had a torn sleeve. Yet another held a hand to his chest as if it were injured. The old woman's son had lost his hat. They panted in the cold night air.

Rip trembled against me.

“Now where?” one of the men grumbled.

“It's crazy, hunting that kid in this forest at night. We can't see a thing,” another said.

“We'll have to come back in the daylight,” the woman's son agreed.

The man with the limp said, “And just where are we going to look? Do you know how many hundreds of acres this forest is? He could be anywhere.”

The woman's son lit a cigarette. The other men followed suit. “The
bomzhi
over at the dump gave me a pretty good idea where he and those dogs live out there.”

“All I know is,” the policeman with the hurt hand said, “we won't be able to get to that kid with the dogs protecting him.”

“There are ways to deal with them,” the old woman's son replied.

“Bah,” one of the men said. “Why are we even bothering with him? There's lots of these street kids and no one cares.”

The son of the Woman in the Hat tightened his scarf around his neck. “It's not just my mother driving me crazy now. She's got all her old crones riled up about it, all because he lives with those dogs.” He coughed and spat on the ground. “Let's get out of this damned cold.”

I stayed in the tree long after the
militsiya
left.

Smoke crept from under the thicket and followed their trail. After a bit, he returned and barked the all clear. I lowered myself and Rip to the ground. My legs and arms shook.
My face bled from tree scratches. I stroked Rip's ears. “You were the best boy.”

I was tired, so tired. I half slept on my feet as Smoke led us back a different way to our home beneath the tree. As we entered our meadow, the rest of the pack hurried out to meet us, whining and licking and sniffing us all over. We crawled beneath the tree and piled together. The heat from the dogs' bodies slowly stopped my shivering.

“We will rest now,” I said. “But we must leave very early in the morning and go back to The City. They will not find us there.” There, we would be just one of many fleas upon the dog.

As always, we rode the train. And for a time, we were safe.

I begged money, bought food, scoured the garbage cans and trash bins behind restaurants. The people in their winter coats hurrying to and from the trains dropped coins and rubles in my hand without a word or a second glance.

Then one day, as I stepped into the bright sunlight from the train station below, I saw a policeman talking to the woman I bought bread from at the stalls outside the station entrance.

He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and showed it to her. My heart dropped to my knees. I pulled myself and Lucky and Rip into the shadows. My ears — keen from the months in the forest — picked up their words.

“This is a street boy we're looking for,” the
militsiya
said.

“Bah,” the woman said. “There are too many of these to count, these children with no home. How would I know one from the other?”

“This one is very young and travels with a pack of dogs.”

The woman hesitated. My mouth went dry. She had seen me several times with the dogs when I bought bread from her.

“You think I have nothing better to do than watch boys and dogs?” the woman snapped. But I could hear a sliver of doubt in her voice.

“Yes, yes,” the policeman said. “But my boss is driving us crazy with this boy. He won't let us alone until we catch him.”

Could his boss be the Woman in the Hat's son?

“Here's my card,” the
militsiya
said. “When you see him, let me know. You'll be rewarded, I promise.”

“Let's go,” I whispered to Lucky and Rip. We found the others sleeping in the train station. Together, we slipped into the last car in the next train and traveled to a different part of The City.

After that, it seemed everywhere we turned,
militsiya
watched for us. Sometimes I saw them as they showed the drawing of my face to a shop owner. Sometimes I saw them watching on the train station platforms as people and dogs came and went on the trains. We could not rest. It was getting harder to find food. We were always on the run.

One unusually warm winter day, I napped with the dogs in a patch of sun between two big garbage bins at the end of an alley. My hand rested on Little Mother's round belly. Her belly was not round from food, for there had been precious little of that. I'd felt something move in her belly when I stroked her the night before.

“It's him,” a loud whisper said.

The dogs leapt to their feet — all but Little Mother — and growled.

Two dirty faces looked down at me.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. They were only street children like me.

“I
told
you it was the Dog Boy,” one said, jabbing the other with his elbow.

Smoke stood in front of Little Mother and me and flashed his teeth and growled louder. The children's eyes grew big in their thin, dirty faces.

I stood and placed a hand on Smoke's back.

The taller of the two licked his lips and said, “They're looking for you, you know. The
militsiya
.”

I nodded. “I know.”

“Yeah,” the other said. He scratched at a sore on his hand. “They say you're a wild child. We're invisible, but you with those dogs …” His voice trailed off into a shrug. “They're offering vodka and cigarettes to any of us who helps catch you.”

Fear raced through me like the fire that took our Glass House. The dogs whined and pressed around me. The children stepped back.

The taller one waved his hand and said, “You don't have to worry about us, but you better be careful of the older kids and the
bomzhi
. They'll do anything for a drink or a smoke.”

“You won't tell?” I asked.

They shook their heads. “But I'd stay away from the train stations if I were you,” the taller one said.

Fat flakes of snow wheeled down from the sky. I shivered in what was left of my coat and watched them walk away.

I pressed my face against Lucky's warm neck and tried not to cry.

For days, we followed the great river winding its way through The City until we came to Komsomolskaya Ploshchad. This was the place where we had seen the Christian Ladies last spring, months and months before. We would wait here until they came again. I desperately needed a new coat, boots, gloves, and a hat if I was going to survive a winter not riding the trains.

So we waited, and one day they arrived.

They set up their tables and boxes in the center plaza near the statue of the man with the marble face. He watched, standing high above the snow, as a few children drifted from doorways and from under boxes. He watched, one marble hand still clutching his lapel, as they lined up for food and clothes. No one fought this time. It was the cold now they had to fight to survive, not one another.

Finally, the last of the children left. I crossed the plaza with Rip, Lucky, Moon, and Star. “Please,” I said to a big woman with her back to me. “I need a coat.”

She turned around. Her eyes widened. “Olina,” she called without taking her eyes off the dogs and me. “I don't think we have any clothes left to fit this young man, do we?”

The woman called Olina bent over a box. She straightened up and looked at us, then looked again. She touched a piece of paper on the table. She came over and stood next to the big woman. She licked her lips. “No, I don't think we do. Not right now.”

“But certainly we can bring some for you,” the big woman said. “Would you like that, for us to bring clothes just for a boy your size?”

I nodded.

The woman called Olina rubbed her gloved hands together and said, “We can bring them tomorrow, right here — a fine warm coat, boots, sweater, and as many socks and gloves and hats as a boy could need. Blankets too. Would you like that?”

I nodded, smiling. I felt warmer already. I stroked Star's head.

The big woman smiled. “Olina, I do think we have a bit of porridge and bread left, don't we?”

My mouth watered.

The woman called Olina bobbed her head and hurried to another table. She returned with a bowl of steaming porridge and a hunk of black bread.

“Here,” she said, handing it to me.

Before she could hand me the spoon, I shoveled the hot gruel into my mouth with my hands. Finally, I broke off pieces of bread for each of the dogs and stuffed two more pieces in my pocket for Smoke and Little Mother. I let Rip lick the porridge from my fingers.

“Now when you come back tomorrow for your clothes, you must leave those dogs behind.”

I looked up at the big woman. “Why?” I asked.

“They have fleas,” she said. Her face was screwed up in disgust.

“I'm allergic to dogs,” the woman called Olina said.

Something whispered in the back of my mind.

“We'll bring you lots of food, though,” the big woman said. “Enough for them too.”

If I had not been so cold, if I had not been so hungry, I would not have listened to them; instead I would have listened to that voice in the back of my mind. I would have wondered about that piece of paper on the table.

I returned the next day in the middle of a snowstorm. The flags ringing the Ploshchad snapped and slapped in the howling wind. Snow buried the steps at the bottom of the marble man's statue.

“They won't come,” I said to the dogs crouched in the
doorway with me. “Even Christian Ladies won't keep a promise in a storm like this.”

But soon, I saw them pushing through the wind and snow, the big woman and the one called Olina. She carried a bag in her arms. A bag full of warm clothes and food.

I yipped and jumped up. The dogs danced around me. All but Smoke and Little Mother.

“You must all stay here,” I said above the wind. “You must stay here and I will be back with food.”

The dogs whimpered and rolled their eyes.

No, Malchik,
Smoke said.

“I have to go,” I said. “I do not have a warm coat like you, and we all need food!”

Smoke grumbled.

“Stay here!” I barked in my firmest pack-leader voice, and then trotted across the snow-covered plaza. The big woman waved me over. I waved back.
Coat, gloves, hat, food,
I sang under my breath in time with my footsteps.

“You came!” I panted in the cold.

“Yes, child,” the big woman said. “Just as we promised.”

Wind cut through my ragtag clothes. I hopped from one foot to the other, trying to peer into the bag. “What did you bring?” I asked. “A coat? Food? I didn't bring the dogs, just like you asked.”

“Here,” the big woman said. “Come see.”

I walked over to the bag. I did not see a coat. I did not smell food.

“I have a blanket for you!” the woman called Olina said.

“But I don't need —”

She threw the blanket over my head and wrapped her arms tight around me. Everything went dark. I couldn't breathe!

“We have him! We have him!” the women cried.

Boots crunched in the snow. A man's voice called, “Hold tight to him! He's a wily one.”

I was trapped! I wriggled and struggled against the woman's arms and the blanket's grasp. Another hand grabbed my shoulder. I bit as hard as I could through the blanket.

“Ow!” someone cried. “The little beggar bit me!”

For an instant, hands fell away. I threw off the blanket and froze. I was surrounded by the
militsiya
.

“Holy mother,” one of the policemen said. “Look at it.”

I crouched and looked for a way around or through them.

“He's not an ‘it,'” the woman named Olina said.
“He's a child.”

The big woman held out a bag. “See here, boy, I have some food for you. Sausages, just like I promised.” She smiled. Her teeth were yellow and pointed.

I shuddered. Baba Yaga. I was not her boy.

I threw back my head and barked.

“What's he —”

Before the policeman could finish his question, Smoke leapt upon his back and knocked him to the ground. The Christian Ladies screamed as dogs came from every direction.
Lucky sailed through the snow-filled air. Rip darted in and out from between my legs, snapping and growling.

I grabbed the bag of food that had fallen from the big woman's hands. “Run!” I cried.

I ran as fast as I have ever run in my life across the Ploshchad, the dogs fanning out in front. Little Mother joined us and ran as fast as her big belly would allow.

Behind us I heard the
tweet tweet!
of the
militsiya
's whistles.

“Stop him! Stop him!” the Christian Ladies cried.

But we would not be stopped that day.