Here Buddy Chapter 1 Part 2

     “Well, we must get busy” Uncle Ricky said half aloud.

     “Right you are,” said Aunt Jeri as she opened the back door of the topper on the little pickup.  The door swung up and out jumped Sonya, not waiting for Aunt Jeri to drop the endgate down.  Buddy watched from inside the pickup box where she had ridden.  Sonya always had to be the first out, the first in – she was always in a hurry.  Sonya was eager to check this place.  Buddy stood and wagged her tail eagerly, waiting for Aunt Jeri to let the endgate down so she, Buddy, might get out and have a look around.

    Buddy, once out of the little pickup, began to sniff around.  Uncle Ricky took a quick breath and said, “Stay with me Bud.”  Buddy seemed to understand and stopped her direction of movement and returned to Uncle Ricky.  Buddy, tail wagging so hard it caused her whole body to sway back and forth just a little, gave Uncle Ricky one of her playful jabs with the white paw.  “Aw Dudder,” said Uncle Ricky who was always changing some part of the dogs’ names.  Duddy, Dud, Bo-Dud, Big Dud, Budder, Buddy, Bud – Buddy wagged her tail to any of these names.

     Uncle Ricky snapped one end of the chain to a hole in a plate on the bumper of the big pickup.  “Here Dud,” he said.  “You stay right here for a while and I’ll take you out for a run after a bit.”  Buddy sat on her haunches as Uncle Ricky snapped the other end of the chain onto her collar.  Uncle Ricky noticed how old and frayed looking her collar was beginning to look.

    “Here Sonar,” Uncle Ricky called, attaching the other chain to the opposite side of the big pickup.  Sonar, Ozone, Zone, Sonya, - Sonya too answered to Uncle Ricky’s various nicknames.  Sonya stood as Uncle Ricky attached the end of the chain to her collar.

     “You two stay right here,” Uncle Ricky told the dogs as if they were going to get up and leave.  Buddy lay down and watched.  Sonya walked to the end of the chain and began to bark in a “Yip, Yip” short, staccato voice.

     Aunt Jeri had been busy gathering lengths of wood.  She and Uncle Ricky moved across the trail where the downed trees were thick ands there was plenty of wood to gather.  They cut and carried for a long time.  Finally Aunt Jeri, who had been carrying long lengths of wood over to the trail while Uncle Ricky was using the chain saw to cut the lengths, said, “Why don’t we take a break and have something to eat.  Then we’ll move the big pickup across the trail and load the wood we have piled up.”

     “Sounds good to me,” Uncle Ricky answered as he wiped the sweat from under his big felt hat.

     Sonya jumped up and began her “Yip, Yip, Yipe” chorus as the two wood cutters walked toward her, Buddy, and the big pickup.  Uncle Ricky put the chainsaw in the back of the pickup and Buddy came around from the side of the pickup where she had been laying.  She came up to Uncle Ricky and began her game of boxing at Uncle Ricky’s leg with the white paw.  Uncle Ricky reached down and played the game they played all the time.  He would grab the paw and buddy would grab his hand in her mouth, never biting but just holding her mouth closed enough to keep the hand in place until Uncle Ricky released the paw.  Then the sequence would begin all over again.

      The dogs continued to remind Aunt Jeri and Uncle Ricky of the fact that they wanted to go roam a bit as Aunt Jeri and Uncle Ricky ate their sandwiches.  Finally the meal was finished.

     Aunt Jeri suggested, “Why don’t we take Buddy and Sonya down in the edge of these trees and tie them there.  That way they can be out of this sunshine and still see us while we cut up the wood we’ve gotten so far.”

     Uncle Ricky debated within himself and almost said, “Let’s turn them loose for a while.”  Instead he said, “Okay.  I’ll take Sonar and you take Buddy.”  Sonya always charged ahead and hanging onto the leash was asking for your arm to seemingly be pulled out of the socket.  Buddy walked with you and very rarely would pull at the end of the leash as you followed her.

     Aunt Jeri went a ways from where the big pickup sat, across the trail, and down the hill.  “Here.  This ought to be a good place for you girls to stay for a while.”  She tied the chain around a small pine tree in an area not too cluttered with downed limbs so Buddy would not get tangled up on the chain.  Uncle Ricky brought Sonya to the same area and looked for a spot with similarly clear space around a small tree.  He tied the chain and began to make his way back to the big pickup.  “Yip, Yip, Yarf, Yarf,” began the chorus from Sonya.  “Arf . . . .Arf, Arf, . . . . . Woof, Woof, Woof!”

     Aunt Jeri and Uncle Ricky began to cut up the long pieces of wood they had carried up to the side of the trail.  Uncle Ricky moved the big pickup over by the pile of short lengths and they loaded the pieces into the pickup.  They started to saw some more of the long lengths.  Suddenly there came the high pitched, excited “Ipe, Yipe, Ipe, Ipe” that both Aunt Jeri and Uncle Ricky had come to recognize as the sound from Buddy when she broke from whoever was walking with her to give chase to some wild animal.  There was no mistaking that sound.  They looked at each other, Uncle Ricky and Aunt Jeri, neither knowing what to say.  Then came the familiar “Yip, Yap, Yarf, Yarf,”  Both Uncle Ricky and Aunt Jeri knew what that meant.  Sonya had responded the same way every other time Buddy had run off after some thing only Buddy could see.

      “Oh no.  Oh no!” Uncle Ricky said half aloud, half to himself.  Aunt Jeri was already running toward the area where the dogs were tied.  “Here Buddy, here Buddy.”  This had become an almost too frequent and familiar sound to both Aunt Jeri and Uncle Ricky.  How many times over the past year had this been reenacted by either one or both of them.  Only before it had been down at the base of the mountain where they lived and the territory was more well known.  Now they were up high and in a thickly wooded area.  Besides that, - - Uncle Ricky could not bring himself to think but he knew must - - there was the matter of that thirty feet of chain.  Buddy had somehow gotten away, dragging the chain which Aunt Jeri had tied to the tree.

     Uncle Ricky and Aunt Jeri arrived at the area to find Sonya still tied to the tree where Uncle Ricky had left her.  She had wrapped herself around some brush where Uncle Ricky least expected her to go.  The tree where Buddy had been tied was standing but there was no chain around it.  There was a covering of snow which was in the shaded area below the trees and lying down the slope where the hill dropped down to the road below.  It was easy to see the marks in the snow where Buddy’s big paws had been only moments ago.  Between the footprints there was an unbroken line in the snow indicating the chain was still attached to Buddy’s collar.    

     “Here Buddy, here Buddy,” called Aunt Jeri as she followed the trail down the steep slope.  The snow made the going hard and Aunt Jeri slipped, slid, and skidded down the incline.  “Here Buddy, here Buddy.”  Aunt Jeri disappeared from Uncle Ricky’s view.  He tried to collect his thoughts.  What to do?  “Oh Buddy,” he said, “Oh Buddy.”

     Looking over at Sonya he said, “Where’d she go Sone?  You got to help me find her.”  With that he took the chain from Sonya’s collar and then from the tree.  Together they made their way down the slope following the trail left by Buddy’s big feet and the chain.  “Where is she Sonar?  Find Buddy,” said Uncle Ricky.

     They stopped.  It was very quiet above Ranger Creek and the campground of the same name.  “Here Buddy, here Buddy,” came the cry from below where Uncle Ricky and Sonya stood.

     Sonya looked up at Uncle Ricky.  She had been through this before, too.  When Buddy would run off Sonya would come back and stay very close to Uncle Ricky or Aunt Jeri.  It was if she wanted to be moral support in a trying time.  “What are we going to do Sone?” Uncle Ricky pleaded.

     Uncle Ricky looked around.  The hill where he and Sonya were standing dropped off toward the road below.  This road was the main road they had traveled as they came to the logging road where they turned to get to the wood gathering area.  Above them, up the hill, was the logging road.  They were about three hundred yards from the pickups.  Uncle Ricky decided to try moving up to the road on the chance Buddy might cross it in her chase.  He had seen her circle back like that during other chases such as this.  He and Sonya made their way up the hill toward the logging road.  “Here Buddy,” he called.  He tried the whistle he could sometimes produce through his lips but his mouth was so dry all he heard was “Whoooooo.”  He tried to lick his lips but his mouth was as dry as his lips.  Again, “Whoooo.”  Nothing.  “Here Buddy.”  His voice cracked.  It was not his own voice.  He hardly recognized it.  How would Buddy recognize it?  He and Sonya moved on up the hill.  They came to the road.  “Here Buddy.”  He looked all around, almost losing his balance as he turned the complete circle slowly.  It was like trying to look up at the sky and follow a cloud.  You became dizzy.  “Here Buddy, here Buddy.”  He heard his own voice or was that Aunt Jeri’s call?  “Oh Buddy,” Uncle Ricky said to himself.  “What have you done now?”

     Uncle Ricky and Sonya made their way back to the pickups.  Shortly after they got there they heard a noise in the trees below and close to them.  “Here Buddy!” shouted Uncle Ricky.  Out from the trees came Aunt Jeri.  From the look on her face Uncle Ricky could see the news was not good.

     Aunt Jeri explained that she had followed the trail of the chain down to the road where the snow disappeared and so did the trail.  She was out of breath having run down that steep hill and then walking back up the same hill.  Uncle Ricky looked around and called, “Here Buddy.”  He, Aunt Jeri, and Sonya listened but there was no sound except the eerie quiet of the mountain.  Uncle Ricky looked at his watch:  12:30 P.M.  Where had the morning gone?