Mother gave a soft whimper.
When the human faces appeared at either end of the culvert, Mother went low, tensing her body. They showed their teeth at us, but it didn’t seem to be a hostile gesture. Their faces were brown, marked with black hair, black brows, and dark eyes.
“Here, boy,” one of them whispered. I didn’t know what it meant, but the call seemed as natural as the sound of the wind, as if I had been listening to men speak my whole life.
Both men had poles, I now saw, poles with ropes looped on the end. They appeared threatening, and I felt Mother’s panic boil over. Her claws scrabbling, she bolted, her head down, aiming for the space between the legs of one of the men. The pole came down, there was a quick snap, and then my mother was twisting and jerking as the man hauled her out into the sunlight.
Sister and I backed up, cowering, while Fast growled, his fur bristling on the back of his neck. Then it occurred to all three of us that while the way behind us was still blocked, the tunnel mouth in front of us was now clear. We darted forward.
“Here they come!” the man behind us yelled.
Once out in the creek bed, we realized we didn’t really know what to do next. Sister and I stood behind Fast— he wanted to be the boss, so okay, let him deal with this.
There was no sign of Mother. The two men were on opposite banks, though, each wielding his pole. Fast dodged one but then was snagged by the other. Sister took advantage of the melee to escape, her feet splashing in the water as she scampered away, but I stood rooted, staring up at the road.
A woman with long white hair stood there above us, her face wrinkled in kindness. “Here, puppy, it’s okay. You’ll be all right. Here, puppy,” she said.
I didn’t run; I didn’t move. I allowed the loop of rope to slip over my face and tighten on my neck. The pole guided me up the bank, where the man seized me by the scruff of the neck.
“He’s okay; he’s okay,” the woman crooned. “Let him go.”
“He’ll run off,” the man warned.
“Let him go.”
I followed this bit of dialogue without comprehension, only understanding that somehow the woman was in charge, though she was older and smaller than either of the two men. With a reluctant grunt, the man lifted the rope off my neck. The woman offered her hands to me: rough, leathery palms coated with a flowery smell. I sniffed them, then lowered my head. A clear sense of caring and concern radiated off of her.
When she ran her fingers along my fur I felt a shiver pass through me. My tail whipped the air of its own accord, and when she astonished me by lifting me into the air I scrambled to kiss her face, delighting in her laughter.
The mood turned somber when one of the men approached, holding Hungry’s limp body. The man showed it to the woman, who clucked mournfully. Then he took it to the truck, where Mother and Fast were in a metal cage, and held it up to their noses. The scent of death, recognizable to me as any memory, wafted off of Hungry in the dry, dusty air.
We all carefully smelled my dead brother, and I understood the men wanted us to know what had happened to Hungry.
Sadness came from all of them as they stood there silently in the road, but they didn’t know how sick Hungry had been, sick from birth and not long for the world.
I was put in the cage, and Mother sniffed disapprovingly at the woman’s smell, which had been pressed into my fur. With a lurch, the truck started up again, and I was quickly distracted by the wonderful odors flowing through the cage as we moved down the road. I was riding in a truck! I barked in delight, Fast and Mother jerking their heads in surprise at my outburst. I couldn’t help myself; it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened in my whole life, including almost catching the frog.
Fast seemed overcome with sadness, and it took me a moment to understand: Sister, his favorite companion, was gone, as lost to us as was Hungry.
There was, I reflected, much more complexity to the world than I had supposed. It wasn’t just about Mother and my siblings hiding from people, hunting, and playing in the culvert. Larger events had the ability to change everything—events that were controlled by human beings.
I was wrong about one thing: though we didn’t know it at the time, Fast and I would meet up with Sister again in the future.
{ TWO }
Wherever we were headed on our truck ride, I had the sense we’d see other dogs when we got there. The cage in which we were being held was positively flooded with the scent of other canines, their urine and feces and even their blood mixed with fur and saliva. While Mother cowered, her claws extended to keep her from sliding on the bouncing, jerking floor, Fast and I paced, our noses down, smelling one distinct dog after another. Fast kept trying to mark the corners of the cage, but every time he tried to stand on three legs a good jounce from the truck sent him sprawling. Once he even landed on Mother, earning him a quick nip. I gave him a disgusted look. Couldn’t he see she was unhappy?
Eventually, bored with smelling dogs who weren’t even there, I pressed my nose to the wire grate and pulled in great snootfuls of the wind. It reminded me of the first time I’d buried my face in the succulent garbage bins that represented our main source of food; there were thousands of unidentifiable odors out there, all of them coming up my nose with such force I kept sneezing.
Fast took up position on the other side of the cage and lay down, not joining me at the side of the cage, because it hadn’t been his idea. He gave me a surly look every time I sneezed, as if warning me that next time I tried that I’d better ask him for permission. Each time his cold gaze met my eyes I would glance pointedly at Mother, who, though obviously cowed by this whole experience, was still in charge as far as I was concerned.
When the truck stopped, the woman came around and spoke to us, pressing her palms to the side of the cage
