Dog Boy (31 page)

The first major militzia attack came near home in territories they knew quite well. They were making their way single file past the abandoned warehouses towards the allotment, when Mamochka stopped and lifted her head, good ear swivelling. They all halted and listened. Romochka couldn’t hear anything but all the dogs could. Then before he knew what was happening the dogs moved, fast and silent. Mamochka slid herself under the warehouse demolition fence; White Sister, low to the ground, backtracked to slip with Little Patch and Little Gold into a narrow trail that led between, through and under buildings, the long way round to the last meeting post and the mountain.

Romochka recognised a melt-away but dithered. By the time he decided to follow Mamochka under the fence, the dogs had all vanished, and even he could hear something. Then, half under the fence, he turned and peered back under the hessian. The unmistakeable padded dark blue trouser legs, many of them. He panicked and, breathing hard, wriggled through the fence and ran across the broken concrete of the yard.

He’d explored this warehouse before with the dogs and knew which way Mamochka would have gone. There was a narrow alley through to the car park behind the apartment blocks and an old tin car shed. But now, with the yelling men’s voices, the clank of chains parting, and gates opening behind him, he still dithered. What if they caught Mamochka in the car park, trapped them all in that little tin box? What would they do to the dogs? He was dizzy with terror, unsure whether he should try to follow the dogs or lose the militzia by himself.

He ran over to the buckled tin facing of the warehouse loading gates and tried to pull up a piece and slip inside. He could see into the huge first floor. It was spread with the usual discarded plastic bags and occasional pieces of tatty, comfortable-looking furniture. This building was the one inhabited by kids and their dogs. The dogs who lived here were not fighters and not organised. They too were often puppies. The kids were very sweet with them, and with each other, but exceedingly vicious if they caught outsiders. There were enough of them to beat off any intruders or kill anyone they hated, especially drunken adults or lone members of rival gangs. But he knew he was safe from the kids this once—he was, after all, trailing five uniformed militzi. They would have melted away too by now, if they were awake.

The tin wouldn’t budge, flimsy and old as it looked. He wrestled with it, cutting his hand. He couldn’t squeeze in. He glanced back. The five men were huge. They were inside the yard now and had slowed down, holding back. Yes, he could see it: they thought they almost had him cornered and knew enough to conserve their reaction time by not getting too close. He scuttled from the loading bay, hugging the wall, looking for an opening. When he got inside, he’d lose them in the spangled dust and light beams that crisscrossed the darkness: it was a space so bewildering it was worse than darkness. But leading them away from Mamochka took him away from the part he knew, and his flooding panic was making him fuzzy and slow. His heart pounded in his temples
. Let there be an opening around this corner!
He forgot that the next warehouse abutted this one, and the gap, what there was of it, was too narrow for a dog. The men fanned out, their boots clumping through the weedy concrete, stilling as best they could into the silence of a clumsy hunt. He rounded the corner to find a pile of rubbish and no pathway. Just an impossible, narrow gap in the rusty tin and flaking brick. He could see a sliver of freedom: the sunset glowing orange off the apartment blocks in the distance through the long narrow crack, but there was no chance he could squeeze through and run down those grassy trails. He squeaked and turned to face them, crouching low and flailing too hard, breathing too hard. He’d have to draw them in close, then trust that he was faster and more agile. If he could make it out of this horrible yard and into the long weedy growth of the allotment, they would never catch him.

‘Steady little man, steady,’ said the tallest militzioner. ‘We are not going to hurt you.’

‘Hell, Vasya, he’s just a bomzh kid.’

‘Nup—he’s the dogboy. Didn’t you see those dogs with him when he went through the underpass? Didn’t you see the weird way he ran? Just close in slow and easy, Misha, and catch him without hurting him.’ Vasya looked at Misha, flicked the cuffs at his belt with his finger and dipped his eyes meaningfully. Misha shrugged and nodded.

Romochka saw movement at the far hessian fence; then, at the corner, closer, just behind the leader, he saw Mamochka’s muzzle. Vasya was very alert for a house man and noticed the slide of Romochka’s eyes. He turned to look too; saw nothing. Turned back.

‘Drop the club, little man. Come quiet and easy. We’ve got you—you know we’ve got you. Just come quiet. I’ll give you a lollipop when we get in the van. I’ll buy you McDonald’s. Bet you’re hungry, hey?’ Vasya kept up a stream of gentle chat.

Romochka kept his eyes on the men, on Vasya, the leader. The dogs were here and had the advantage of surprise. He couldn’t give them away with his eyes, he mustn’t. The sweat sprang out all over his body and he was shaking. He drew himself in, pretending to be ready to fight, waiting for the moment in which he had to incite Mamochka, and then run,
run, run
.

When Vasya made the sign to move, Romochka yelped in unfeigned terror, sharp and loud, and six of the eight dogs also slipped out of their hiding places and sprinted in hunting quiet across the asphalt towards the men. Romochka’s teeth shook. In the last second, as claws scrabbled and scraped on broken glass and concrete, Vasya sensed it and spun. The six dogs were already upon them. Their snarls woke and swelled, and the men, screaming and roaring in fear, covered their faces, fumbling at their belts for guns and batons. Romochka was just in time to see Mamochka land on Vasya’s back, lips drawn back over her snapping teeth, and Vasya falling, flailing with his hands in the air to fend her off. Now! Romochka ducked under the brawling and ran as fast as his shaking legs would go. He wriggled under the broken fence, scraping the backs of his thighs on the wire. Little Patch and Little Gold were waiting for him on the other side of the hessian. They ripped through the allotment and bolted together for the lair entrance.

Don’t fight them long, don’t lock on!
pleaded Romochka into the darkness, hugging himself on the nest with the two frightened young dogs pacing in front of him.

The rest were not far behind. The dogs had made more noise and show than real savaging—Mamochka knew only too well that they had to melt away again as quickly as possible once Romochka was free. Romochka knew, too, what a fuss he had to make of them, and have them make of him.

 

Once Romochka realised the militzia were using dogs to track him, he knew he had to keep his smell off the ground. He clambered up onto ledges and slippery tin windowsills whenever he could. He bounded up onto parked cars and traversed whole streets and alleys leaping from one hood to another. He never let his trail lead beyond the last meeting place. Black Dog staggered under his weight but accepted this strange new custom. The trained tracking dogs knew what he had done, but couldn’t communicate it; and they were being asked, insistently, to track him, not the dog he was riding.

Then, for a while, Romochka decided to clean the streets of his smell and stay in the lair with Mamochka. He had never spent time with her immediately before she whelped, and this time he found a mellow peace in lying with her, stroking her big belly, feeling the milk begin to fill her undercarriage.

Dmitry was shaken by the revelation that the militzia had captured Romochka—it had to be Romochka—more than a year before. But he spoke calmly, even forcefully to the major, his mind racing. It was a win-win situation, he said: track the dogs and you find the boy, hopefully capturing him with minimum trauma. At the same time some idea of the life and territory of the feral clan could be established for scientific purposes. Everyone had seen feral clans, yes—even as close to the Kremlin as Neskouchni Sad there was a well-known, rather annoying clan given to chasing cyclists. But they were a phenomenon that had never been studied, and the mere fact that this one had included two human boys made them worthy of attention. Dmitry was glad Natalya wasn’t with him.

Dmitry was troubled that Romochka had disappeared. The boy hadn’t been sighted for a week now. Romochka’s dogs were recognisable as a pack, even without him. They had been seen twice. He stared down at the large photos Major Cherniak had put in his hands, pictures of the dogs running with Romochka, a blurred sequence taken on a rainy day. One image caught his attention. The dogs were spread out: one white, one grey, three pale yellow, two black-backed, one gold with an eye patch. All large, with husky mask and tail, all clearly related. Romochka hunched in the centre, his head turned towards the camera, his legs caught in a wide lope. One of his hands resting lightly on the dog running next to him. Dmitry felt a frisson of excitement and a knot of strange dismay looking at these images. It was like seeing the image of the last of an extinct species, something precious and, even in the moment of being photographed, doomed. It was also like seeing a photo of what he had once imagined Romochka to be.

Major Cherniak sighed. ‘Look, Pastushenko. We’ll give it one try. You supply the equipment and personnel. We’ll catch you one of the dogs. We’ve got a unit that does castrations on street dogs: they are pretty experienced. If it’s no good, and if he’s sighted again, then plan B. I’ve got journos and politicians breathing down my neck on this one, you know. It’s really bad’—he pointed vaguely at the roof and waggled his finger—‘that there have been two of ’em.’

Romochka, on the lookout, stared up at the sky. A bitter wind was tearing through the ruin. Tatty clouds, spread out like a clan of dogs hunting, scudded low beneath the leaden sky, each with a heavy black belly bearing a small flurrying snowstorm. The snow melted as soon as it landed, but the earth and streets looked slick, darker than the clouds. Romochka saw Black Dog creep back into the ruin with the snow melting on his shoulders. His head hung low, his ears were flattened, his usually jaunty tail was clamped between his legs and his back hunched in pain. He looked broken hearted.

Romochka scrambled down from the cupola. He entered the lair to see them all pull back from the big dog. Romochka alone dropped to his knees, threw his arms around that thick neck and buried his face in Black Dog’s coat. Black Dog smelled terrible. He gave off a sickly-sweet acrid stink—people, and a harsh alcohol. He smelled also of blood, but Romochka couldn’t see a wound in the dim light. He pulled the big dog over to his bower. Black Dog lay down and began licking himself to try to clean the smell off while Romochka felt him over. The others hovered around looking disoriented by all the strange smells that assailed them.

The hair had been shaved off Black Dog’s foreleg in a square patch. Black Dog licked it as if it hurt after Romochka had found and stroked it. Romochka pushed him onto his back and found the dried blood between his hind legs. Black Dog’s nose followed Romochka’s fingers, and then he began licking the open wound where his beautiful egg-sized balls had been. Romochka felt around the empty sac and whimpered softly with the big dog. Mamochka crept up and began licking him too, cleaning off the terrible stink with her own reassuring saliva. Romochka’s hands felt for that big head to cuddle it and the others all came closer and began licking as Romochka held Black Dog’s head in his lap. He caressed the thick jowls and the familiar scars. His hands moved over Black Dog’s head and neck and back. Then his fingers found a thick lump under the skin at the back of Black Dog’s neck. Black Dog yelped as he fingered it. It was solid, small and round. He squeezed it and Black Dog spun round and bit him. He snarled back warningly and held onto the lump. He smelled it. To one side of it there was a small wound. He leaned low over the dog and began to lick the wound gently. It was like licking an insect—small spiny threads stuck out of it every which way.