Mountain Dog by Margarita Engle Page B

true relative. He says he cares
    what happens to me.
    He tells me what happened to him.
    He came to this country on a raft,
    just like Mom, but years earlier,
    when she was still a child.
    His raft drifted, then washed ashore
    and crashed on rocks, leaving him alone
    and stranded on a tiny, nameless isle
    for weeks, a castaway, marooned,
    just like Robinson Crusoe.
    He had to learn how to survive
    by eating seaweed, drinking rain,
    and breathing hope.…
    I wonder if he remembers my mother
    when she was tiny. I hope she was gentle,
    sweet, and kind. I hope she loved animals,
    and liked everybody,
    and was too young to know
    that life can be dangerous.
    All I know about her is that
    after growing up and floating away
    from her island, she reached a rough city
    where she met mean people
    who used drugs and dogfights
    as cruel ways to make money.
    Tío swears that if he’d known
    where she was, he would have tried
    to help her, he would have struggled
    to help me.
    When he’s finished talking,
    I shake off the tears, and he asks
    if I want to sing.
    That makes me grin, but he’s not joking,
    so we pile into the truck with Gabe,
    and we whirl around mountain curves,
    until the steep road ends at a jumble
    of barns and corrals
    beyond a crooked wooden sign
    that announces
    Â Â Â COWBOY CHURCH
    Â Â Â DOGS & HORSES WELCOME
    I’ve never been to any church at all before,
    and I’ve certainly never imagined a God
    who likes horses and dogs.
    Gabe treats the place like a feast
    of scent, sniffing boots, jeans, hoofs,
    and manure. Even the yucky smells
    make him smile. He turns out to be
    the kind of dog that loves to laugh
    and howl.

    When the cowboys and forest rangers
    start to sing, Gabe joins in, off-key,
    and everyone ends up chuckling,
    especially me. I never thought
    I could have so much fun
    so soon after trading
    my tough-pit-bull
    real life
    for this temporary
    foster home
    in a wild forest
    that somehow feels
    so much more gentle
    than the city.

 
    4
    GABE THE DOG
    WORD SMELLS
    After horse smells and howling, we run, race, leap, noses open, eyes open, mouths open, until the floaty aroma of a passing hawk almost disappears.
    Low flying. Foresty. Swoop. Chase. Hunt. Hawks leave winged trails of hunger in midair.
    Snow. We’re tired. We flop, dance, flap, flutter, flip. We make shapes in the softness. Tony’s patterns of snow are four limbed, just like mine when I roll from side to side. Only my shape is bigger and more wispy, because it has a tail.
    Snow angels. I love it when the boy shouts words with cold, clear meanings that I can smell and taste!
    I twitch my nostrils, inhale deeply, swallow meanings. I make the sound, smell, and taste of each new word my own, filling my hunger for friendship. I breathe the bumpy surface of words that rhyme with the scent of humans, the aroma of happiness.

 
    5
    TONY THE BOY
    TRAIL ANGELS
    I’m afraid to sleep, terrified
    that the same old nightmares
    of fangs
    and claws
    will keep coming back …
    but beside me, Gabe woofs,
    then drifts
    into a running-dog
    dream
    that leads my tired mind
    toward a race
    where I am four legged
    and fast
    so swift that I can
    almost
    fly!
    It’s not a real dream,
    just a half-awake
    fantasy,
    but it helps me feel
    safe enough
    to doze.
    In the morning, I wonder
    why people always assume that dogs
    just want food. Walks are the reward
    they really crave—movement,
    adventure, new smells.
    So I get up and take Gabe out
    to sniff the forest while I wish
    for a way to avoid my first day
    at a new school, and a way
    to visit Mom without seeing her
    in a prison uniform.
    An hour later, my wishing ends.
    Small yellow school bus.
    Tiny, splintered-wood school.
    So how come it seems like a ton
    of huge, scary faces?
    The old-fashioned building
    is plopped in a rocky patch
    of flowers that smell like wildness.
    Right away, a loud girl shouts
    that she saw me at Cowboy Church.
    Good dog, she yells,