Here Buddy I



 

    Not much going on this week, so here is another UncleRricky story--one by Uncle Ricky, not about Uncle Ricky.  Well, wait a minute, it is too about Uncle ricky, by Uncle Ricky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 

     The author is indebted to his niece who provided the cover and inspiration for this story.  Thanks Tisha.

 

      Also, thank you Jeri for your patience and intellect.

 

 

                                    DEDICATION

 

     This book is dedicated to all my friends listed below who have in some way been so dear to me:

 

      Snip;  Billy Whiskers;  Stubby;  Queenie (Ruff);  Ralph;  Fritzie;  Dodie;  Frenchie; Hanna;  The Puppies;  Rommel;  Strapper ( a very special friend);  Muffin;  Jason;  Gus; Spot I;  Spot II;  Ruffie;  Skeeter;  Belvedere.

 

     Special remeberance to our dear Courtney and of course Buddy and Sonya:

 

                        “All Creatures Great (in my estimation),

                        Large or small

                        All wise and wonderful,

                        The Lord God made them all.”

 

     (From the hymn, adapted)

 

                        E.        

                              O.

 

                                                      Chapter I

                                                THE MORNING

 

     It was a very pretty day in the middle of September.  The Big Horn Mountains looked so very clear and green as the sunshine warmed the Wyoming sky.  It looked like a perfect day for Uncle Ricky and Aunt Jeri to go to the mountains and cut a load of firewood for the cold winter ahead.

     There were things to be done before they could go and they set about getting ready.  Saturdays seemed so short; they hurried to get done so they wouldn’t be too late coming back down.  First was breakfast.  When they had eaten there were the horses to feed, the clelan-up to be done around the house, and the dogs, Buddy and Sonya, to be fed.  Buddy and Sonya were too eager to get to whatever it was that was going to happen that day to even want to eat.  They knew something was going to happen.

     Uncle Ricky began to load the pickup with the necessary equipment for going to the Big Horn Mountains and cut wood.  Buddy and Sonya jumped up on the fence and wagged their tails excitedly.  “Let’s go!  Hurry, let’s go!” they seemed to say.  Aunt Jeri was busy packing lunch, drinks, and coats.  Each time she passed the window that looked out into the pen where Buddy and Sonya stayed they could see her they would bark, “Yarf, yarf,” “Hurry, hurry.”

     Finally the lunch was packed and the pickups loaded.  Uncle Ricky had decided they had better take both pickups in case the big pickup go stuck.  It was not four-wheel drive and the little pickup was four-wheel drive.  He had gotten the big pickup stuck earlier in the year and had to leave it on the mountain.  He sure didn’t want to have to go through that again.

     The little pickup had a “topper” over the box.  Buddy and Sonya jumped into the covered pickup through the open endgate.  They did not even have to be told to “load”.  For that matter they would not have gotten out if called.  Something was going to happen.  A trip.  The door on the back of the little pickup was closed.  Aunt Jeri got in on the driver’s side and said, “Let’s go girls.”

     Uncle Ricky got into the big pickup and off they went, headed into the east and toward the winding switch-backs that were the highway up into the beautiful Big Horn Mountains.  The dogs ran from side to side of the little pickup looking out the windows on either side of the topper on the back of the pickup.  Something was up.  A trip.

      Uncle Ricky looked overt the scenery as he drove.  He thought about the two dogs with Aunt Jeri.  “Gosh I wish I would have taken at least one with me,” he thought.  Buddy was a female mixed breed.  He always had trouble remembering the mix.  Then it would come to him.  Airedale and shepherd; Airedale and shepherd.  “Airedale and shepherd,” he said aloud to himself.  That was not so hard to remember.  Buddy had come to Uncle Rickiy quite by accident in the fall of 1982.  She was just a little puppy and when whoever had owned her left they had left buddy.  She came to Uncle Ricky’s house and Uncle Ricky fed her.  From that day she was Uncle Ricky’s dog.

     As the trip up the mountain road continued Uncle Ricky tested himself.  Buddy was basically a brown dog with a black saddle that began behind her neck and spread across her sides as it continued toward her tail.  Her legs were brown, a light brown clear down to the tip of her toes except for one foot that was pure white.  This is where the test came.  Was it the right front foot or the left front foot?  “Hmmm,” pondered Uncle Ricky.  The right - - the left.  The right - - Yes the right."  You would think that after seven years he would know which paw was the white one.  “Gosh, what is the matter with me?” thought Uncle Ricky.  He continued to test himself and thought of Buddy’s hair which was almost like wire.  In fact he could hear Aunt Jeri say to Buddy, “You old brush.”  Yes, that was what Buddy’s hair was like – an old, soft hair brush.  Not quite as stiff but just as course.  Buddy seemed to have inherited the Airedale head and face but her hair was thicker than most pure Airedales that he had seen.

     The road continued on and as they got higher into the mountains the air began to have the feel of the mountains.  It was colder.  They wound around the switchbacks and passed the Forest Service building at the Shell Falls viewing area.  Ranger Creek was only a few miles now.  Uncle Ricky and Aunt Jeri had taken Buddy and Sonya up to Ranger Creek the weekend before and scouted around for a good place to cut wood.  That was where they were headed now.  Only a few more minutes and they would be at the place where they were supposed to turn off the highway and onto the gravel road that led to the place where they were going to cut wood.

      “Ah, there’s the sign,” Uncle Ricky said to himself as he looked in the mirror to see if the little pickup was in sight.  Not yet.  He slowed to turn off the highway.  He looked again in the mirror.  There they were.  He started moving on down the gravel road slowly, waiting for the little pickup to catch up.  He could see the two dogs changing windows for different view.  Back and forth they went standing on the fenderwells to get a little better look.  Their tongues were hanging out and they looked as though they had pulled the pickup up that mountain road.  Boy were they excited.  Uncle Ricky chuckled to himself at the sight of those two dogs and their excitement about a trip to the mountains.

      Uncle Ricky now began to watch for the little logging trail he needed to find to get up to the place they had found for cutting wood.  A couple of more switchbacks on the gravel road and the turn to the trail appeared.

     The trail led to an area marked by a sign placed by the Forest Service indicating that this was a wood gathering area.  Wood gathering was a favorite activity for Uncle Ricky and Aunt Jeri.  They and the two boys loved to go to the mountains and cut wood.  It smelled so good, the air was cool, and there was rarely any other people around so they were not disturbed.  They began doing this when they moved to Wyoming in 1982, the same year Buddy had come to be part of the family.  Now the boys were living in different parts of the United States so it was Aunt Jeri, Uncle Ricky, Buddy, and Sonya.  Sonya – Uncle Ricky let his mind wander for a minute about Sonya.  Sonya was a different story.  Buddy was basically quiet, a mild mannered dog while Sonya was just the opposite.  Sonya was such an excited, exuberant dog.  It didn’t matter what it was, Sonya was just wild to get involved.  Sonya was jet black with a white blaze on her chest.  She had a brown/white eyebrow over each eye with some white splashed into her paws.  Her hair was black and as smooth and soft as baby hair.  Under the black was a layer of white hair like the down of a duck.  Sonya could go swimming, come out and shake and be dry in just a matter of minutes.  Uncle Ricky saw Sonya move to the window on the other side of the pickup.  Buddy seemed to tolerate this constant moving about with a bit of serious acceptance as though to say, “Oh Sonya why don’t you just stay still and look through that window.”  The two dogs, as different as they were, never fought.  It always amazed Aunt Jeri how Buddy was so patient with Sonya.  They were about three years apart in age.  Sonya was born in 1985.  At four years of age in 1989 she still acted a lot like a puppy.  Uncle Ricky smiled to himself as he saw Sonya’s tail wagging like a flag moving back and forth in the wind.  “What a crazy dog,” thought Uncle Ricky gently, knowing full well that if anyone tried to get Sonya away from him they would be in for an awful hard time.

      “There’s the trail!” Uncle Ricky exclaimed with no one to hear.  They were here.  Up the trail abut a half-mile and the big pickup stopped.  Here was a good place to park since they needed to be off the trail or logging road as it was referred to on the map of the Big Horn Mountains.  Aunt Jeri parked the little pickup and the back of the pickup, under the cover of the fiberglass topper, seemed to come to life with activity.  The two dogs were wanting out.  Sonya began to paw at the endgate impatiently.  “Easy girls!” exclaimed Aunt Jeri.  “Just a minute now!”

     Uncle Ricky looked at his watch.  It was 11:00 A.M.  “My word,” he thought, “time sure does fly.  We re going to have to get to work to get the big pickup loaded and put a partial load in the little pickup.”

      The first thing was to let Buddy and Sonya out and let them run a bit.  This pained Uncle Ricky as he thought about the dogs.  It used to be when they went after wood they would let Buddy and the little beagle, Courtney, run.  The two would stay near and come when called.  But over the course of the last five years Courtney had grown old an died;  Buddy had taken to running off in chase after deer, rabbits, squirrels, or even birds.  Uncle Ricky knew that the Wyoming Game and Fish Department did not look very kindly on domestic dogs chasing wild game.  The Game and Fish officials were always publishing articles warning owners of dogs to keep their dogs restrained.  “Well, that is why I brought these two small chains,” Uncle Ricky said quietly to himself.  Besides the possibility of being shot by the Game and Fish officers the dogs were likely to encounter deer hunters today.  Archery season had been open for several days and Uncle Ricky knew that there would be hunters looking for deer moving though the area where he, Aunt Jeri, and the dogs were now standing.

 

        (To be continued)