The Dogs of Winter

by Bobbie Pyron

  “Run!” I shouted.

  The pig was fast and agile. Long white tusks curved up from its snout like twin crescent moons.

  The pig hooked Star with a tusk and tossed him aside. Little Mother leapt upon the beast, sinking teeth into the back of its neck. The pig tossed her to the ground. Just as it was about to stab her with its tusks, Lucky and Smoke rushed it. Lucky grabbed the pig by one ear while Smoke grabbed a back leg.

  The pig squealed in fury and pain. It shook Lucky off as if he were no more than a bothersome flea. It swung its massive neck and scraped Smoke off with a rake of its tusks. Smoke yelped in pain and rolled to the side. The pig lowered its head, its tusks aimed at Smoke’s belly. The pig pawed the ground.

  “No!” I roared. The beast swung its head. The red pig eyes gleamed with hate. I raised my club and brought it crashing down on the pig’s shoulders. Crack!

  The beast staggered under the blow. Smoke leapt to his feet. I glanced at him. Blood streamed from his side.

  The pig charged and slammed into my leg. A tusk tore through my pants and sank into flesh.

  I screamed in pain and fell backward. The pig prepared to charge again.

  First Moon, then Smoke and Lucky set upon the huge pig. Blood and fur and snarls and yelps filled the air.

  I pulled myself to my feet and raised my club. Smoke glanced up from his hold on the back of the pig’s neck.

  Now, he said.

  The dogs froze. The pig’s red eyes locked on mine. I brought the club down with such force on the pig’s head that the club broke in two.

  The legs of the beast buckled. For just a blink, the red eyes gleamed again with hate, then dulled to nothingness.

  My knees gave way. I sank to the wet, blood-spattered leaves. I gulped the air with ragged breaths.

  The dogs sniffed the great pig. Lucky licked at the blood on its torn ear. Little Mother pawed its side. It did not move.

  I watched and shivered as the dogs tore into the pig.

  I am six years old now, I thought. And I killed it.

  My stomach heaved, and I vomited in the grass.

  For two days and two nights, the sickle-shaped gash from the pig’s tusk festered. My leg burned and pulsed. I grew hot, then cold, then hot again. I slipped in and out of fever dreams — dreams of being chased by big black things with glowing ember eyes. Sometimes the thing was a giant wolf with wings, sometimes Baba Yaga chased me. Sometimes he chased me.

  I’d wake with a cry and always, the dogs surrounded me: Moon and Star were pressed into my side, Rip and Lucky lying at my feet, Little Mother busy licking Smoke’s side over and over.

  Once, I dreamed of my mother’s hands. She smoothed the damp hair from my fevered face. She washed my face over and over with a wet rag. “There, Mishka,” she said. “My brave boy.”

  “Mother,” I said, opening my eyes. I expected to see her face, the face I no longer remembered, hovering over me. But it was not my mother washing my face. Instead, Little Mother hovered over me, washing and washing my face with her rough wet tongue.

  Smoke stood next to her, gazing into my eyes.

  Brave Malchik, he said. My brave boy.

  Winter came early that year. Winter came and people left the Ferris wheel park. The food stalls closed. The garbage cans were all but empty. The big duck pond where we’d found the delicious eggs and where the dogs had occasionally managed to catch a duck or two iced over. My sweater was in tatters from living in the tree for months; I had outgrown my boots. I had no coat.

  Every day it was colder, and every day I said to the dogs, “We have to leave.” But still, we stayed in our home beneath the tree.

  And then, the snow came. It did not come in gentle fits and starts like the winter before. It did not do us the courtesy of coming with patience. One day it was not there and the next morning it was everywhere.

  We woke to darkness. The air in the den beneath our tree was close and wet. I untangled myself from Moon and Rip and felt my way to the opening beneath the tree limbs. My hand met snow. I felt all around the circle of the tree’s wide skirt. Everywhere snow packed thick against the limbs.

  My heart beat hard in my chest. Rip squeezed next to me and sniffed the snow wall. He whined, and then barked.

  Another bark and then scratch scratch scratch on the other side of the snow wall.

  Little Mother and her children began digging on our side of the wall. Snow flew in all directions, and then …

  Light! Light and a big black nose pushed against my face. We shoved and tumbled our way out of the den and into the gray light.

  Lucky jumped up and down, his plumed tail wagging, his tongue swiping the side of my face. He chased Moon and Star through the snowy meadow. Smoke and Little Mother licked each other’s faces. Rip crawled into my lap and looked up at me with smiling eyes.

  The meadow was a stranger now. I could no longer see the stream’s course or the rocks where I’d sat every night and watched the stars. The trails that I knew as well as I knew each of the dogs were gone. The deer skull was mostly covered in snow. Only the black holes of the eyes were visible. I stared at the holes. They stared back.

  Rip nudged my hand and whined. I tore my eyes away from the skull and looked into his worried eyes. “I know,” I said. “It is time.”

  And so it was, the dogs and I left our home in the forest and made our way back to The City.

  As always, the people of The City hurried this way and that, huddled in their coats, slipping and sliding on the ice-crusted sidewalks. Here, no birds sang. My eyes were hungry for trees, for open spaces. Here, the tall buildings and the tumbledown buildings pushed in on one another. I coughed and pinched my nose against the foul smells: car exhaust, unwashed hair, smokestacks, rotting garbage, sewage.

  We passed children and bums sleeping and begging in the shop doorways. Their eyes widened as we passed. One called, “Hey! What are you?” Another called, “I smelled it coming a mile away!” We did not stop; we did not look left or right. I curled my fingers around the knife in my pants pocket.

  Moon pressed close against my legs. The other dogs kept close too. A large, mangy dog growled and snapped as we approached. His ribs rippled beneath patches of fur and sores. The dog stood in our path, daring us to pass.

  Smoke and Lucky closed in front and stopped. They raised their tails and narrowed their eyes and growled. I took out my knife, narrowed my eyes, and pulled my lips back from my teeth. A long, low warning growl rumbled in my throat.

  The dog blinked. He looked from Smoke and Lucky to me. I growled again. The dog dropped his tail and slunk away into the shadows.

  I rubbed Lucky and Smoke’s sides. They licked my hands and wagged their tails. Then we sauntered down the sidewalk to Sokolniki metro station.

  At first I was so busy raiding the garbage cans in the metro, I didn’t notice the people staring at me. “There must be more in here,” I muttered to myself. “If only I were a little taller.”

  “What is that?” I heard a voice say.

  I pulled my head out of the garbage can to see what the problem might be.

  Two women stared at me, their eyes wide with disbelief. One pressed a handkerchief to her nose and mouth. “It almost looks like a child,” she said.

  The other woman shook her head and pinched her nose. “No child ever smelled like that. Certainly no human. It looks like a demon!”

  “I am a boy,” I said, my voice croaky from disuse.

  Their eyes widened again.

  I held out my hand. “I am just a boy,” I said again, my voice clearer this time. “And I am hungry.” Lucky wagged his tail hopefully; Rip tried to dance on his back legs but toppled over.

  The women clutched their purses against their sides and hurried away.

  Their words rung in my ears as I looked for more food. It looks like a demon! No child ever smelled like that! I sniffed my clothes and my skin. I smelled like the dogs and the earth and the trees. “I smell good to me,” I said to Moon and Star.
Still, the people coming and going to the trains pinched their noses and looked at me in disgust when they passed. No one would give me money to buy food this way.

  That evening when the metro station was quiet, I slipped into the bathroom for a drink of water. I almost fled in fear from the wild beast glaring at me from above the sink.

  I bared my teeth. It bared its teeth.

  I narrowed my eyes. It narrowed its eyes.

  “What are you?” I demanded. Its mouth moved in time with mine.

  I gasped and touched my face. It touched its face too.

  I stepped closer and touched the cold glass of the mirror. “You’re me,” I whispered.

  This was not a mother’s little Mishka staring back at me. This was not a boy who slept curled into a mother’s side and hid in pantries. This was not a little mouse who cowered in fear of the tall boys in chains and black.

  This boy staring back from the mirror had slept beneath a tree with his pack; a boy who ran through the forest swift as a deer and rolled with delight in mud and the sweet scent of dead things. This boy carried a club and killed a giant pig and howled at the moon with his family.

  This boy was Smoke’s brave boy, his Malchik. I smiled.

  “Still, we need to eat,” I said to myself in the mirror.

  I stripped off my clothes and scrubbed. The water turned black and my skin turned pink. The scar on my leg from the pig’s tusk glowed red.

  The clothes were in tatters, it was true. “I need to find the Christian Ladies and get new clothes,” I said to the boy in the mirror.

  Clothes, food, and a warm place to be safe. That was all we needed to get through another winter. “And then we’ll return to the forest,” I said. My mind whirred with a plan as I slipped on my clothes, my too-small boots. “Clothes from the Christian Ladies. More people mean more money and more food.” I took the knife from my pocket and pulled open the blade. I pried twigs and dead leaves from the long snarls in my hair. I grabbed a greasy lock covering my eyes and sawed back and forth with the knife. I grabbed another and another and another until hair blanketed my feet.

  “And to keep warm and safe, we will again ride the trains,” I said to the brown eyes in the mirror.

  The eyes that stared back from the mirror did not belong to a demon or to a wild beast or to a mother’s little bear. They were the wary, cunning eyes of Malchik.

  “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.

&nbs
p; 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.