Early one morning after Brandon left, I stood leaning on my shovel, looking out across the grassy field between the beach and the boathouse. It was the area I’d designated as the graveyard. An elderly local fisherman named Carlos and his wife, Dominga, approached me.
“Are you okay, mi hijo?” Carlos asked in his gruff voice.
Up until that moment I had been lost in thought and not really aware that anyone else was there. Apparently they’d seen me carrying one of the dogs across the parking lot to bury her.
“I’m okay, thanks,” I said, without really looking up.
“We’ve seen how you are with the satos, feeding them and taking care of them. You’re a good man.” Carlos patted my shoulder. “I know it’s hard when they die like that.”
By now I’d learned that sato was the local term for a street dog, which some Puerto Ricans tended to use with a dismissive sneer. It essentially translates to “street mutt,” and I never used it myself. I had come to think of the dogs at the beach simply as my dogs. At that point, I thought that no one else was willing to take responsibility for them, so they were mine.
“Be careful here, son,” his wife said. “There are people who come to this beach who could kill you if you get in their way, and they won’t bat an eye at doing it.”
I wondered who could possibly want to kill me simply for taking care of innocent strays. But as we talked further, I thought of the sketchy-looking people I’d seen hanging out in the shadows of the boathouse. The interactions were pretty quick—cars drove up, people passed objects I couldn’t make out through the windows, and they sped away minutes later. I’d even seen police cars roll up and meet with the shady characters in the darkness of the dilapidated structure. I assumed the figures were drug dealers because I couldn’t fathom any other reason people would come to this derelict dead-end part of the world. But I minded my own business like I hadn’t seen anything. If they passed close by, I’d give a friendly wave. But my instincts, which had sharpened again since moving to Puerto Rico, were telling me to be more careful.
“Listen, mi hijo,” Carlos said. “You’re not in the States anymore. You had better watch your back. You could go missing here and no one would ever find you. It happens all the time.” He sounded like he was pissed off at me, but I knew he was actually being emphatic out of concern.
I thanked them both and assured them I would heed their warning and try to be careful.
But first I had to find the puppies of the mother that the old couple had just seen me bury. I went back to where I had found her lying at the edge of the parking lot near the tall grass. I was pretty sure she’d made her den there. I’d found her with a half-eaten hot dog in her mouth; she’d clearly been poisoned. By then I’d heard that people on the island fed unwanted animals something called “two step,” which caused a fast but violent death moments after ingesting it. I needed to see if the pups had made it or if they too were gone.
I rummaged through the grass, listening for sounds of life. And then I heard it: the telltale squeaks and grunts of baby dogs. The grass was so thick I couldn’t see them, so I had to be careful where I stepped. I dropped to my hands and knees, feeling around until I finally found three little ones. I estimated them to be a couple of weeks old at most. Their eyes weren’t even open yet. I gently gathered them up and put them inside my shirt to keep warm and hear my heartbeat. They yelped, squeaked, and grunted for their mother. They would die if I didn’t do something.
A few days earlier, I’d discovered another nursing mother, who had made a den in the safety of the jungle just off the main road. A couple of her pups had died. She had whimpered and whined when, not wanting her remaining puppies to get sick, I took the dead ones out from under her. I hoped I could introduce these new pups to her and she would take them as her own. I had seen this done when I was kid, and I had a feeling it would work now if I handled the introductions properly.
As I approached, the mother dog immediately noticed the puppy noises coming from inside my shirt. She nudged at the squirming bundle, and sniffed their little bodies stem to stern. After a few minutes, she settled down with her own puppies and gave me a look that seemed to say, “I’ll take them. Those are my puppies now.” I placed the orphans by her side, and in no time they were nursing happily. The mom licked, cleaned, and prodded at them as they suckled. I stayed with her and the puppies for the rest of the day, my heart swelling with elation as I watched the puppies heal the mother and the mother save these orphans.
But a dark thought clouded my happiness: Was I really doing these puppies any good, or was I just postponing the inevitable?