Mountain Dog

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Mountain Dog Page 5

by Margarita Engle


  in a quiet room

  with an easy chair

  beside a red rose

  in a blue vase.

  She says that little room

  is the only peaceful place

  in the entire prison.

  She describes the way her calm,

  soothing voice

  is recorded to make

  listening books

  for blind children.

  She tells me that generous

  volunteer projects

  will help her get early parole,

  and a new career helping people

  instead of hurting dogs.

  At first, I just feel amazed,

  then hopeful, and finally,

  so excited that I’m able to relax

  and share a happy picnic with Mom

  on the same sunny lawn

  where women with incense

  are singing.

  That one good visit

  feels like a joyful dream

  until the next time, when

  she doesn’t even

  show up and the social worker

  warns me that Mom is fighting again,

  insulting other prisoners,

  hitting, hurting,

  and getting

  hurt.

  I’m ferociously disappointed,

  but I struggle fiercely

  to concentrate on now instead of

  the future. I try to pay attention.

  Even in math. Tío helps me

  with the numbers. It’s the first time

  anyone has ever looked

  at my homework.

  When you put Tío and math

  together, you end up

  way out in the wild forest.

  I learn how to estimate

  the temperature of soil

  at a 6-inch depth

  by counting beats

  per minute

  in the song

  of a cricket.

  Fast insect music

  means the earth is warm.

  Slow bug songs come only

  on long, cold cricket nights.

  Tío also shows me how to count

  the age of a giant sequoia tree’s

  charred stump. Rings of growth

  from ancient times. Wide rings

  for spring, narrow ones

  for summer

  or drought years.

  We punch mapping coordinates

  into a GPS gadget, but it only works

  if you’re out in the open, with a clear path

  to a satellite orbiting in space. The GPS

  won’t work if you hold it in a dark,

  shadowy forest

  where modern science

  can’t find you.

  All the outdoor math lessons

  are helping, and I’m really hoping

  to get good grades. The semester’s

  almost over, and I can hardly wait

  for summer, even though

  it’s going to be weird.

  I’ll have to spend weekdays

  with B.B. while Tío is away at work

  in distant campgrounds.

  Luckily, loud Gracie won’t be around

  to make me feel

  small.

  She’ll be far away, in India, visiting

  her parents and the elephants.

  I imagine she’ll spend half her time

  making elephant Popsicles

  and the rest just trying to figure out

  ways to come back bragging

  about traveling so much farther

  than prison.

  B.B. is excited. She tells me

  she’s planning activities for me.

  Sports, crafts, swimming lessons,

  and bear whispering.…

  Bear whispering? Bear whispering!

  If only summer wasn’t still two whole

  seven-day weeks away! Math tests

  are making me 50 percent crazy.

  No cricket music or tree rings,

  just the speed of airplanes

  and other really hard word problems

  that send 99 percent of my mind

  flying away

  flying into daydreams

  about reaching

  summertime

  and the end

  of tests.

  My final-exam grade is a C.

  Average! For the first time

  in my entire life,

  I haven’t

  completely

  confusingly

  failed.

  The teacher smiles and tells me

  she’ll give extra credit

  for a cricket-song essay

  or a poem

  about tree rings.

  Tío must have talked to her.

  He probably told her about the fights

  and the bets

  and the sad way I was always

  the one who had to count dollars

  and report the numbers

  to Mom.

  Dogs that didn’t bring

  a profit

  lost a lot more

  than money.

  18

  GABE THE DOG

  DOG TRUTHS

  At night, Tony lies awake,

  stroking my head

  and whispering

  our

  summer plans.

  All I care about is the our word.

  As long as we’re together

  time will feel round

  and safe.

  19

  TONY THE BOY

  UNO

  Mountain chores are easy.

  No decisions. No numbers.

  No grown-up

  responsibilities.

  All I have to do is help my uncle

  plant his garden,

  pick fruit and vegetables,

  chop firewood,

  and cook berries

  so that we can surprise

  hungry thru-hikers

  with fresh-baked pies,

  a gift that leaves us chuckling,

  because each adventurer

  from Sweden, Canada, or Chile

  can devour a whole pie

  and still look hungry.

  Cowboys on horseback

  aren’t starving, but they are

  full of gratitude each time we drop off

  a pie while they’re herding cattle

  up to high, peaceful meadows

  that look like smooth green lakes.

  Old cowboys help Tío teach me

  wilderness lore. I learn that beaver houses

  are built of sticks,

  while muskrat lodges

  are mostly mud.

  I learn that fence lizards have smooth

  blue bellies but newts on this mountain are warty red,

  and I memorize natural patterns,

  like the upside-down V

  in the paw print

  of a red fox—scientific name:

  Vulpes vulpes.

  I love it when life makes some sort

  of orderly, organized sense, so:

  I

  learn

  that

  rabbits

  bite

  twigs

  at a clean forty-five-degree angle

  while deer leave

  shaggy

  frayed tips

  and porcupines shred the bark

  but bears reach way up high

  to rip claw marks

  in tree trunks

  maybe to show off

  their

  height

  so that other bears

  will respect them.

  Summer arrives. I’ve passed math

  and I know a lot about wilderness

  and I feel

  almost

  as tall

  and tough

  as a bear,

  but I don’t have to be strong

  around B.B., who lets me act young,

  silly, f
unny, clumsy, and small

  during my swimming lessons

  with Gabe in a quiet pond

  beneath a waterfall—

  so cool

  on hot days!

  B.B.’s idea of a summer sport

  is romping across a green meadow

  with Gabe, and the crafts she shows me

  are just animal and bird statues

  that we make from all sorts of stuff

  we find—pinecones, acorns, pebbles,

  fossils, arrowheads, and feathers.

  When I admit that I miss

  writing online articles, B.B. helps me

  start a blog, using a goofy, grinning photo

  of Gabe as my canine coauthor.

  At first, I want to call the blog

  something complicated and scientific,

  but then I decide that a simple name

  like Dog Nose Notes

  will make readers curious.

  So I start writing SAR dog thoughts

  as I imagine Gabe would write them

  if he could: When you get lost

  in the wondrous woods,

  stay in one place. Don’t wander.

  Keep your scent trail simple,

  because each roaming step you take

  makes it harder for a dog’s nose

  to find you.

  I even write about the sad part

  of searching. Hardly any modern people

  know how to stay alive in the wild

  for more than a few desperate days.

  If a lost hiker isn’t found quickly,

  Gabe has to use his cadaver dog training.

  Finding bodies instead of survivors.

  Tío calls it the monstrous side

  of the Rescue Beast. Searchers

  have to keep searching

  even when they know

  that too much time

  has passed.

  If I ever get lost, I’ll want to survive,

  so I beg Tío to let me tag along

  when he teaches apprentice handlers

  how to prepare for their big, scary

  UNO.

  In Spanish, uno just means one,

  but in the daring language

  of search-and-rescue volunteers,

  it means “unexpected night out.”

  SAR dog handlers learn to survive

  without a sleeping bag or a fire.

  No easy warmth. No cooked meals.

  Just a little imagination

  and a lot of courage.

  So I pretend I’m a real searcher,

  trapped by wild weather.

  I make a shelter of leafy branches,

  and I reinvent the sleeping bag

  by stuffing pine needles into a trash bag.

  I eat miner’s lettuce, berries,

  and cattail shoots sweetened

  with sugar-pine sap.

  It’s eerie spending a cold night

  outdoors, close to Gabe but so far

  from people. Well, not too far—Tío

  is camped really close by,

  and even though it’s hard to find

  a cell phone signal out here,

  he has a satellite phone

  for emergencies,

  and we have two-way radios

  so he can call to ask if I’m okay,

  and I can answer, first saying copy,

  to let him know that I hear him,

  then, over when I’m through,

  promising that I’m fine.

  I feel like I’m in an adventure movie,

  talking like a bush pilot

  or an explorer!

  While Gabe and I are out

  in the darkness, I start to wonder

  if he wants to leave and run back

  to Tío, but he’s a generous dog.

  He takes care of me.

  He stays close, snuggling

  to keep both of us safe

  and warm.

  It’s easy to sense

  how divided

  a dog

  feels

  when he loves

  two people

  and longs to be loyal

  to both

  but he knows

  he has to choose

  only one.

  20

  GABE THE DOG

  SMELLY RHYMES

  The scent of a whole night with Tony, far away from my Leo,

  almost rhymes with an aroma of fear, but it’s also a fragrance

  of excitement, so I stay awake

  until I sleep

  and then I dream

  the scent

  of running

  a wild smell that rhymes

  with home.

  21

  TONY THE BOY

  WALKING WITH BEARS

  On summer mornings

  out in the fragrant woods,

  I learn to identify

  the musky stench

  of a black-bear den

  in a hollow tree

  but the wildest drifts

  of clear mountain air

  carry sounds

  not just scent

  an eerie cry, a screech, a moan—

  soaring eagle

  or slinking ghost?

  It could be the protective cry

  of a mountain lion mother

  calling to her cubs.…

  or La Gritona, La Llorona,

  screaming woman, weeping woman,

  a spirit from Tío’s campfire tales

  about a mother who shrieks

  because her children are lost.

  Mountain lions and spooky myths

  are noisy, but studying bears

  is mostly a matter

  of silence.

  When B.B. takes me out to help

  with her research, poor Gabe

  can’t go with us, because even

  the biggest bears love peace

  and quiet. They run away

  from barking dogs.

  On my first day of wildlife biology,

  we find ourselves face-to-face

  with an adult male black bear

  whose shaggy brown hair

  makes me wonder why he’s called

  a black bear. B.B. explains

  that they can be reddish

  or light or dark. They can be

  the same brown as grizzlies,

  only smaller and a lot less

  aggressive.

  The bear points his long nose

  and gives a soft woof, a warning

  that sounds like a funny cross

  between a sneeze and a bark.

  We follow at a distance as he shuffles

  from tree to tree, scratching roots

  and gobbling

  squirmy ant larvae.

  B.B. speaks to the bear calmly,

  advising him not to worry yet,

  because hunting season won’t start

  until September.

  Hunting? I can’t believe that any

  modern person would kill a bear.

  Why? Are they hungry enough to need

  bear meat, or is it a so-called sport

  like a dogfight? Why do some people

  keep trying to prove their strength?

  If Mom was a hunter,

  would she kill the world’s

  last bear?

  Remembering my life before forests—

  before wildlife and a gentle dog,

  and gentle people—

  I start to feel

  so lonely

  that I have to shove memories

  of my old life

  away

  replacing them with B.B.’s scientific

  attention to detail as she shows me

  the colors of bear scat—that’s a biologist’s

  way of saying poop. Blue scat means a bear

  might have munched elderberries. Purple

  could be from wild blackberries, and red

  migh
t be manzanita.

  That evening, I post a Dog Nose blog entry

  about bear behavior, along with a list

  of wild foods. Blue and purple berries

  are often safe, but white and yellow

  are usually risky. There aren’t any rules

  for red. Wild strawberries are fine,

  but some red berries are deadly.

  Some things in life just can’t be

  predicted.

  The subject of safety catches my interest,

  so I do some research, then post a list

  of foods that can poison dogs:

  grapes, raisins, onions, garlic,

  macadamia nuts, chocolate.

  Gabe is called a chocolate Lab

  only because his rich brown color

  is warm and happy, not because

  it would be fine if you gave him

  a candy bar. He’d get convulsions.

  He could die. Writing about danger

  makes me worry—what would I do

  if anything ever

  happened to Gabe?

  He sniffs my hand, as if he can smell

  the invisible fingerprint

  of my thoughts.

  I wish we could both smell

  the future.

  22

  GABE THE DOG

  CHASING THE MOON

  Tony talks about a future,

  but I don’t know what he means,

  so we go outdoors, where he throws

  a yellow glow-in-the-dark ball.

  When a foolish squirrel runs

  right in front of me, I don’t chase it

  very far, because my teeth are already

  biting

  the brightness

  of my light-catching

  moon wish.

  I can’t imagine ever needing

  to do anything but play, right here,

  right now, together.

  23

  TONY THE BOY

  DANCING ELEPHANTS

  Gracie sends a note of approval

  all the way from India, shouting

  an all-caps BRAVO! for my bear-

  and-berry entry in the Dog Nose blog.

  She adds an animal note of her own,

  a poem called “Elephant Step Dance,”

  about the way the soles of huge feet

  can hear the drummed vibrations

  of elephant messages

  made by stomping

  boom boom

  on dry

  hard

  earth.

  The poem is funny, but is it true?

  I rush to find out, and my research

  tells me that yes, elephant feet

  really do act like extra ears,

  absorbing sounds.

  I picture loud Gracie

  on the other side of the world,

  making sure that her own

  booming voice

  is heard

  in verse.

  A few days later, there’s another

  useless phone call from Mom.

  Gracie’s poetic drum rhythm

  helps me think about my own

  pounding fury

  each time I have to hear

  the lies.

  The last time I went to the prison,

 

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