It is dark tonight. The moon shines dimly through the gnarled clumps of trees and there are no other lights but for the cars that pass by, once in a while, and they are few.

But I do not need light. I can smell the rotting flesh of the earth below me, hear the flap of an owl's wings and the cry of its prey, feel the night fall upon my back like soft smooth rain.

I am running away again.

I have tried it before.

Sometimes, I chew through my leash, and then I run. But every time I run I get tired and hungry and I can only go back to the master. He yells and me, and he hurts me, and then he ties me up in the yard again. The rope is stronger and thicker each time and it is harder to break. The master goes inside, then. I am not allowed inside the house with the master.

A car approaches behind me, but it does not pass. The driver keeps pace with me, looks at me, calls out his window. His voice is soft and kind.

He gets out of the car and walks toward me.

His smell is strange. I run away, into the trees.

But he doesn't go away. He follows me. His car is parked with lights flashing bright against the darkness, and he waits. For a long time, he waits for me. I watch him from the trees and wait for him to grow tired and leave, but he does not.

He has food. I can smell it. I am weak with hunger.

I leave the safety of my hiding place with caution. He smells like something too sweet to be alive, something wasting away. He carries the scent of other dogs, dogs that aren't me.

He offers me a treat. It is delicious. He scratches me behind my ears, and I wag my tail.

"You trying to get home?" he says. "I'll take you there."

He lets me sit up front next to him. He rolls down the window so that I can stick my head out the window. I have never been in a car before. Cars are wonderful.

He leads me to his front porch, and I can sense the other dogs in his pack. He fills a tub with water and I am afraid. I do not like the water. Sometimes I sit out in the yard alone when the rain is cold and wet, and sometimes my master sprays me with the hose until I get angry and he laughs.

I growl at the man with the strange sweet smell.

"Shh," he says. "It's just a bath, nothing to be afraid of."

He puts me in the tub and scrubs the mud from my fur with hands that are at once rough and gentle. The water is not so bad, I decide. Maybe I love the water.

When I am clean he brings me to the others.

"Winston, this is everybody. Everybody, this is Winston."

Now he is my master. He took me home.