Hunger beckoned the dog forward. When the man and the woman retreated several steps from the mound of food awaiting him, the dog became emboldened. He wobbled forward off the porch. From inside the big, rolling thing that carried humans from place to place, a caged dog barked.

The dog had no fear of the caged dog; there’d been no real aggression in his warning bark, just an attempt to claim a dinner that couldn’t be reached.

“Good boy,” the man called out over and over, beckoning the dog forward with words his master had used when he was young. As he’d grown older, he’d learned “Here, boy” and “Come, boy” and “Sit, boy.”

This man’s tone was softer than his master’s. The gentleness in it guided him forward in spite of his hesitation and weakened body.

Hunger and solitude had been his companions since the long quiet at winter’s end when his master had stopped coming, had stopped bringing him food and fresh water. That had been before the rains began.

The dog had lived here in the pen behind the house since he was small and weak enough that munching a single piece of kibble in his sharp milk teeth had been nearly impossible. That was too many seasons ago for the dog to have kept track of.

For so long, life had been easy and predictable. The dog had counted on a short visit from his master each morning that ended with a bite or two of the man’s food—something grainy and greasy and delicious and nothing like his dry, plain kibble—and a second visit toward the end of each day as the sun dipped low in the sky. It was during this late-in-the-day visit that his master would open the dog’s pen and let him run about the yard and in the woods all the way to the river. These were the dog’s happiest times, as he stretched his legs and left his scent in his favorite spots: bushes and tree trunks and rocks and human things that had been abandoned in the tall grass. In too short a time, his master would whistle and call the dog home. Waiting inside his pen would be a bowl spilling over with fresh kibble and another with water.

Rather than rush inside, the dog would sit at his master’s feet, his tail wagging in anticipation. Most nights, his master would reward him by stroking one ear for a short time. Then he’d point to the kibble and dismiss him with an “Eat, boy.”