It’s pitch black. Suffocating heat. I’m feeling punk and wrung out from three months of hard travel. Still, my man and I schlepped this far. We give it one last push, sign on for “Petra at Night” to see The Treasury, our last ancient ruin before returning home. 

The small tour heads out. We enter a long narrow path carved between towering stone cliffs. Lines of votive candles barely light the way. For half-an-hour we stumble through landmines of jagged rocks and loose stones. I cringe at distant howling. “Wild dogs,” someone says. The cliffs close in. There’s no escape here. At last the path opens on a sandstone temple illuminated by spotlights. We sit on rock slabs, straining to hear a flautist. Her music drowns in a sea of howling dogs and chattering tourists. 

I struggle to breathe. It’s been a rough travel day--up since 4 a.m. I’ve had trouble breathing these last months, and this intense heat makes it worse. A riot of barking erupts. Wild dogs rampage nearby. We expected a lecture, but realize the flautist is all we’re getting. Thirty tortuous minutes to go. It would be wiser to wait, to leave with the group. We decide to head back alone.

Not quite alone.

A dog follows us into the narrow canyon. It moves wolf-like, shoulders hunched, head down. Candlelight glints off its incisors. I scan the darkness for his pack. He is alone...for now. “If he attacks,” I say, “I’m attacking back.”

Dog keeps pace behind us. 

The thing I failed to notice–the thing my lungs are screaming--is that the path to The Treasury was all downhill. Also, and this is true, 1.2 kilometers walking downhill equals 17,000 miles walking up. I slow, sucking in air. Dog sneaks closer. His mange looks like Grandma Anne’s sealskin coat after I wore it into my wading pool. I can count Dog’s ribs. He’s sizing us up for his next meal. I’m not taking my eyes off him. 

Half-an-hour into the climb, shouting voices rush up from the darkness behind us. Dog stops, drops back. Seconds later, two young tourists burst out of the darkness, laughing, scrambling up the rocky path. Dog lunges, barking, charging, flashing his teeth until the men race on ahead.

“He’s protecting us,” says my man.

“Seems that way,” I say.

“Some animals,” he says, “have a sixth sense about people who need more care than others. The sick, the elderly--”

I narrow my eyes. “Tread lightly, Kemosabe.”

Forty minutes into the climb, my lungs threaten mutiny. I slow, walk backward, sideways, rest. I finish the last of my water. Dog comes closer, trotting at my side, stopping occasionally to scratch fleas. Suddenly, two large dogs tear up the path toward us. Dog goes wild, charging, biting. The deafening battle roars around us. We back away, pressing our backs against the canyon wall, helpless. He is a fighter, our Dog. All heart. There is no quit in him. I pray for his safety. Hold my breath until it’s over. The two dogs slink back into the night. 

I wish I had water for Dog.

An hour later we finally emerge from the canyon walls. The land opens wide in front of us. Free at last! Just 800 feet to go. 800 feet.... straight uphill. An unkept man materializes from the shadows offering an illegal taxi ride in exchange for a Mars Bar and our first-born. I’m tempted. Dog, an excellent judge of character, makes low-throated growls. The man backs away into the dark. We keep climbing. I think one of my lungs has stopped working.

Minutes later, tires crunch along the rocks next to us. The taxi, its lights off, inches up the hill with a passenger. Dog charges the car, running alongside, barking, making sure it’s gone from our lives.

Finally, the three of us arrive at the tour’s starting point, just half-a-block from our hotel. I’m gasping, bend forward, fists on hips, my lungs destroyed. I can’t stand. I need a moment. Just give me a moment. After a long while it occurs to me, I can get water and food at our hotel for Dog. I unbend.

Dog’s gone.

We fly home the next day. The pulmonologist samples a spot on my right lung. Tells me what Dog knew without attending Harvard Medical School. Lung cancer. Stage Four. Inoperable. 

* * *

That was nine years ago and counting. I’ve thought of Dog from time to time. Through excruciating near-death events and exhilarating moments of joy. It just takes fight and heart, fight and heart. Good Dog.