March Madness

                      

   March is nearly gone and spring hasn’t sprung.  It’s cold and snowy.  Still finding a few things to do.

  

     The little under-the-sink water heater developed a leak.  Note:  when doing leak-detection exercises, follow the wet UP, up until you get to dry.  That’s easy to say after you have fixed the leak twice and it still leaks.  I thought the leak was in the fittings.  Note the clever way of handling the leak—cottage cheese container with two small holes punched near the rim, paper clips, thread and safety pin.  Undo the safety pin to take the cup out to empty it.  Just remember to empty it.

     The leak was in a diaphragm inside the heater.  Unfixable I think.  Two water heaters later, I installed a new one.  The first one I ordered did not have an adjustable thermostat.  A water heater is needed here under the kitchen sink because the big water heater is about 50 feet away.  You waste a lot of water trying to get warm water.

 

      The new heater requested an electrical disconnect.  So the fancy $20 box at upper left is the disconnect.  The big box to the right is the heater. The disconnect takes up more space than the heater.  The heater works great.

 

     Here it is in its new home with all the under sink impedimenta.

 

      When the weather is warm enough, I take on the nasty task of painting louvered closet doors.  With a brush.  Should have used spray cans.  Lesson learned, don’t use louvered closet doors. 

 

 

 

      Hanging the doors should have taken two or three hours.  It stretched over two days because I had to stop and go to barbershop.  I finished on Friday in time to go to McCook and sing.

    Here are the McCook guys with their “Lida Rose” singing the “Will I Ever Tell You?” counter melody.

     The feature quartet, scheduled to land in Denver from Kentucky /Ohio at 10:30 a.m., landed at 4 p.m. and got to McCook at 8:20 p.m.  They took the stage at 8:35 p.m. 

     Well, we were to put the show on twice more in Colby on Saturday.  Mother Nature arranged to have I 70 closed from Denver to Colby on Saturday.  Snow, blowing snow, cold temperatures, led to the cancellation.  How to do a make up performance?  It’s pretty expensive to ship four guys from Ohio to Colby.    

 

    But then we can’t just call it quilts.

Comet 19"

     Here’s another old story for you.  This “old dog” has been around since the 1960’s.  It was drafted from the Gambles store in Limon and pressed into active duty on the farm.  It has outlived two Lawn Boys and a riding mower.

 

 

      It has been through a few alterations, like the Lawn Boy handle that replaces the original one that broke several years ago.

 

     One engine overhaul

 

      At least one set of new wheels

 

      It gets awakened once or twice a year, usually to knock down the old asparagus fronds and the dried out mint leaves some time before it’s time for those two early-growers to spring forth.

    Due to the exceptionally dry year, it was pretty light duty for the old feller this year.  The near-100 mile per hour winds from last Memorial Day destroyed the nascent asparagus fronds, and they never recovered during the hot dry summer.  The few dried stems hardly made the engine groan.  Will there be any asparagus this spring?

 

     The mint shows sign of coming forth.  So time to resurrect the old Comet.

     The starter wouldn’t work.  I pulled the cowling, thinking to buy a rope pulley and replace the recoil starter (the spring has broken and been spliced at least once).  The solution was much easier:  rust kept the little ball bearings from rolling down into the slots like a bunch of roulette balls where they jam a gear-like disc when forced one way, and skip out of the way when the torque is heading the other direction.  Thus, it turns the engine when you pull the rope, and when the engine starts, the balls hop up harmlessly out of the way of the spinning shaft.  The bashful little fellows were held up out of the action by rust.

     Bottom line, a little WD40 followed by a few drops of oil, reassembly, a little prime gas down the carburetor throat, three pulls on the now-functional starting rope, and the old Briggs is humming right along.

 

     The unruly mint is tamed.  And the Charley Brown kite is snagged in the tree.  Well, it is March.  The tree is actually helping hold the kite while I snap the picture.  But, the mint stems are gone.  

The kite took off--like an old lawn mower

 

Long live the good old things that still work and don’t require much in the way of maintenance.

Here Buddy The End

    As they waited they both agreed that what they had heard must have been Buddy.  They saw no signs of a dog at the campground where the trailer had been parked.  However, there was a campground just a mile or less on down the Shell Creek.  That was beginning to nag at Uncle Ricky.  What if the barking had come from that campground?  Surely Buddy had not crossed the river.  If she had why did she not come back?  He began to panic, again.  What if she had started for home?  It was at least thirty miles over some rough terrain.  Then there was the chain.  That cussed chain.

     He remembered how Buddy had learned to get over the chain-link fence that surrounded the huge yard when they had lived on the school property in 1982 and the spring of 1983.  Buddy would climb the fence much like a cat climbed a tree.  Some of the school people had told him that the dog should not wander around on the school grounds.  Why could a dog not be advised of the laws imposed by people and do as all the people mandated?  That was when the chain first became necessary.  Buddy did not seem to mind the chain but it was such a bother.  Uncle Ricky would tie the end away from Buddy to a metal clothesline post.  Still Buddy would get it wrapped up until she had only a few feet of slack.

     Then came the edict from on high.  The authorities at the school had put out two pages of rules and regulations for those people living on campus.  One of the rules stated that dogs larger than a small house dog could not be kept on campus.  That, along with a rent increase, caused Aunt Jeri to do some house hunting.  She found a place along the Popo Agie River.  They had purchased this place and lived there for two years.  That was the place where Buddy had gotten caught in the snare and managed to gnaw the cable in two and come home. God had truly answered Uncle Ricky’ prayer on that one.

     Once in a while Uncle Ricky had chained Buddy to the front step at that house.  She could get under the porch for shelter.  He always got such a thrill when he got home and there Buddy was waiting.  Her tail would wag so furiously it would shake her head.  Even when he did not chain her she would be lying on the porch.  When he drove into the yard the wagging would begin.  She would bound out to the car as he was getting out and begin boxing at him with the white paw.  “How you doing Dudder?” Uncle Ricky would ask in his nick-name habit.

     Buddy would open her mouth wide and give what sounded much like a long human sigh.  “aaArgh.”  The pitch started low and gradually ascended to a high squeal.  “aaArgh.”  The greeting was the same and just as genuine.  Uncle Ricky would imitate her and Buddy would respond with the same reply, “aaArgh.

     Uncle Ricky valued those greetings as precious as any thing or anything money could buy.  He was roused back to the present.  The chain.  That cussed chain.

      Aunt Jeri roused Uncle Ricky from his review of the things that had brought them up on the mountain all night – his love of that dog, Buddy.  “I guess it’s not going to bark.  Maybe we better go back up to the logging road and wait for sunrise,” she said.

     When the engine started the clock on the dash lighted up 5:30 A.M.  Uncle Ricky guided the pickup back up the familiar road and turned onto the logging road.  As they drove he thought of the time when they had left the house on the Popo Agie.  He, his brother, and Buddy had come from their mother’s place to get the belongings.  Buddy had ridden in the cab of the truck with Uncle Ricky.  They had gone into Lander to get some plumbing supplies.  Uncle Ricky’s brother put Buddy in the back of the pickup along with the washer and dryer and some miscellaneous boxes.  When they got to Lander and were going to the hardware store Uncle Ricky had said to Buddy, “Wait here Buddy.  We’ll be right back.”  He worried all the time they were in the hardware store but upon returning to the pickup there was Buddy, curled up in a space just waiting.  The tail began to wag vigorously.  Uncle Ricky reached out and gave the head a loving caress.  “Good girl Bud.  Good girl,” Uncle Ricky said, his heart swelling with pride.

     He was jolted out of the trip down memory lane by Aunt Jeri’s sudden, “Stop!”  Aunt Jeri had been riding with her window open.  She said, “I heard a whine back there just a few feet.  Back up.”

     Uncle Ricky backed the little pickup back down the logging road until Aunt Jeri said, “Whoa.  This is about where we were when I heard the whining.”

     They decided to sit right in that spot until daylight and then work their way down to the road below.  Aunt Jeri was convinced that Buddy was in that area.

      The moon was just about gone.  In the east the ember of the sun, the same ember that had gone to the west twelve hours earlier, was beginning to glow ever brighter.  It was still too dark to make out objects and details.  Uncle Ricky was tired but hopeful.  His mind wanted to finish the memory he had been reviewing earlier.

     He recalled the time, the year 1985 and 1986; they had been living in a house on Aunt Jeri’s parents’ place.  Uncle Ricky had traveled between his parents’ place and the place of Aunt Jeri’s parents.  Uncle Ricky had been helping the folks.  His father had been very sick.  Buddy always went with Uncle Ricky.  She liked the farm because it was loaded with cottontails.  Buddy would pursue the small, swift rabbits until she could hardly walk.

     In 1986 Uncle Ricky and Aunt Jeri decided to move to Kansas.  They found a place in town.  Now they had a problem.  There was the beagle – Courtney; there was Sonya; there was Buddy.  Uncle Ricky’s mother offered to keep Buddy.  These memories flashed through Uncle Ricky’s mind.  The sun continued to gather momentum in its attempt to climb the Big Horn Mountain Range.  Uncle Ricky switched the key to ON.  The dash board lighted and the clock said 5:40 A. M.

     Aunt Jeri was explaining her plan again on where she thought they should begin their search.  She poured the remaining coffee from the thermos.  Oh could it be possible they might find Buddy.  The thought raced through her mind and she only could hope that they would be successful.

     Uncle Ricky was eager to follow the plan.  He knew Aunt Jeri, with her scientific approach, had figured things down to an exact procedure.  He thought, “We’re going to get you Buddy.  Help us.  Say something.”

     This brought him to continue the review of his life with Buddy, or in the case of where he had left off, without Buddy.  His mother had been so good to relate Buddy’s activities whenever they talked by phone or in her letters.  Uncle Ricky cherished these anecdotes and loved to hear them.  It was in 1987 and his mother was alone then.  Grandpa had died and she was living on the farm alone.  They called him Grampa because the boys had begun to call Uncle Ricky’s father by that name.  Granny, as the boys called her, arose one morning and was preparing breakfast.  She heard Buddy barking in an excited manner.  When she looked out the window she was taken aback.  There was a man with a knapsack, earlier probably referred to as a hobo, and there was Buddy.  Buddy was holding the stranger at bay and he was trying to hit her with his knapsack.  Buddy continued her defense of the place until Granny went out to see about things.  Buddy remained on vigil until the man departed.

     When Uncle Ricky and Aunt Jeri had decided to return to Wyoming Uncle Ricky was torn.  He knew his mother had become attached to Buddy, too.  Yet he had thought continuously about the time when he and Buddy could be reunited.  Two years had been a long time.  He saw Buddy from time to time and she always came into the little house where he and Aunt Jeri slept and spent the night with them, sleeping at the foot of the bed as she had done when they were all together.  Granny had decided that Buddy should go to Wyoming.  That’s when the deer chasing had started.  That’s when that cussed chain became necessary, or so Uncle Ricky had come to believe.  Now he knew different.

      Aunt Jeri roused him from this last memory.  “I think we might be able to see enough to begin,” she said.  She began to pull on her shoes, coat, and gloves.  Uncle Ricky did likewise.  He could see his wristwatch now.  It showed 6:00 A. M.

 

Chapter IV

The Next Day

 

  Uncle Ricky and Aunt Jeri stepped out of the little pickup.  The morning air was brisk.  It was cold and the mud in the tracks of the logging road had frozen to a hard, rock-like texture.  Uncle Ricky walked behind the pickup and let his eyes scan the slope of the area that they were about to walk down.  He felt a bit small and a hopeless feeling flashed through his consciousness.  Would they be able to find Buddy?  He said nothing.  He also had that feeling one sometimes gets that this effort would be successful.

     Aunt Jeri walked a short ways up the road, ahead of the pickup.  She surveyed her path she planned to take down the slope.  She called out to Uncle Ricky, “Are you ready to go?”

     “Yep, let’s go,” he called back.

     They each walked to the edge of the road and stepped over the crown which was the high part of the slope.  From this crown the slope began its immediate mild descent.  Slowly they moved down the hillside, their eyes moving back and forth, ahead, and back to where their eyes had begun the careful search.

    Uncle Ricky had moved down the slope about thirty feet and stopped.  Suddenly his ears heard it.  The little whine, more like the sound Buddy made as she yawned a long wide yawn.  It was just a soft, short “Aaagh.”  His eyes darted toward the sound as if his eyes, not his ears had heard the sound.  His heart seemed to jump into his throat.  There she was.  There she sat!  It was Buddy!  “Here she is!” he screamed, “Here she is!”  The sound that came from his throat was barely loud enough for his own ears.  Aunt Jeri couldn’t possibly have heard it.  Besides she was upwind from Uncle Ricky.

     Scarcely able to believe his eyes, Uncle Ricky began to run down the slope.  The distance between his beloved Buddy and him was probably about fifty yards.  The path was covered with about three inches of frozen snow.  Dead trees and large rocks littered the way down to where Buddy sat.  The light was still dim and he could just make out Buddy’s white front and the light golden tan of her coat that rose from the white front and upward to the black that was shaped like a saddle.

     Uncle Ricky blinked and looked back.  He couldn’t see her.  His pupils widened in the dim light of sunrise and there she was, no mistake.  “I have her!” he yelled to anyone or anything that could hear him.  Down the littered slope he ran and walked as rapidly as he could go without falling.  “I’m coming Buddy, I’m, coming.  Good girl.  Stay right there,” Uncle Ricky called to Buddy.  “How silly,” he thought, “as if she could go anywhere.”

     He was soon down at Buddy’s side.  He dropped to his knees in the snow and took the dog’s head in his arms and hugged her close to him for a long time.  “Oh Buddy, oh Buddy,” he said over and over.  Buddy wagged her tail as if to show him she was glad to see him.  She boxed at him with first one front paw and then the other.  Uncle Ricky continued to hold the dog close to him as a few tears welled up in his eyes.  “Thank you, God,” he whispered, “Thank you again.”

     After a time Uncle Ricky stood up and began to call out to Aunt Jeri in a loud, pure voice now, one which he was sure she could hear.  She responded but Uncle Ricky could not make out what she was saying.  “Over her, over here,” he yelled.

     Uncle Ricky began to untangle the chain.  At the end was a spindle of a dead tree.  It was about six feet long.  The chain was almost in the middle of the tree.  The slender, spindle had lodged, like an anchor, between two standing trees.  From there Buddy had circled another standing tree and worked her way under a downed tree.  She had about two feet of chain that was not tangled around something.  This was how she had spent the night, on a two-foot tether.  She probably had either sat on her haunches or lay down.

     Uncle Ricky heard Aunt Jeri’s voice now, “Do you have her?  What were you yelling about?  Where are you?”

     “Over here,” Uncle Ricky hollered.  “Buddy’s here.”

          Aunt Jeri made her way toward the voice and then she appeared where she could see Buddy and Uncle Ricky.  They could see Aunt Jeri.  “Well Buddy, what in the world did you do?” Aunt Jeri said in a mock-scolding voice as she too knelt down and ran her hand over the head, ears, and neck of Buddy who was anxious to be free from the short tether she was still being held with.

     Uncle Ricky snapped the clasp of the chain from the ring in Buddy’s collar.  Buddy began to run around in ever expanding circles, sniffing at the snow as she ran.  “Still want to hunt, Huh?” Aunt Jeri laughingly asked Buddy.  Buddy stopped and looked back at her as if to say, “Let’s go.”

     “You stay with me Dudd,” Uncle Ricky called out to Buddy as he continued to unwrap the chain from the downed tree where Buddy had sat for so long.  Finally he had it all unraveled.  “Here girl,” he called to Buddy.  Buddy came back to him.  He snapped the clasp back on the collar saying, “I am not going to lose you again; however, I’m going to hold the other end of this chain.  Let’s go home, okay?”

     As they made their way up the slope to where the little pickup sat, Uncle Ricky continued to think to himself about how very, very fortunate he had been to find Buddy this time.  Yes, surely someone was watching over them.  “Thank you God,” he whispered again.  Did God really care if Uncle Ricky found Buddy he asked himself.  “Yes he must.  I and Aunt Jeri could never have found her by ourselves,” he concluded.

     They arrived at the little pickup.  Uncle Ricky dropped the endgate and said, “Up you go.”  Buddy looked at him as if to say, “We haven’t done anything yet!”  Both Aunt Jeri and Uncle Ricky began to laugh.  They got in the pickup and headed back to where the big pickup sat loaded with wood.  Uncle Ricky went to the big pickup, got in the cab, started the engine and looked again to see if Buddy was still in the little pickup.  He could see her moving around to look out the windows.  “Thank you,” he said again and headed the big pickup towards the road.  Aunt Jeri followed in the little pickup.

     The sun was shining bright and warm as they drove on the main road that led back to the highway.  Uncle Ricky looked at his watch.  It was 7:30 A.M.

 

EPILOGUE 

    There are some people who argue that animals can’t think or reason.  They don’t think dogs can understand speech.  Aunt Jeri would say, “It’s the tone of voice they understand.”

     “No, I think they know what I’m saying,” Uncle Ricky would argue.

     As the days turned into weeks, the weeks into months both Aunt Jeri and Uncle Ricky were astounded and unable to believe the change that had come over Buddy.  When they went out to feed the horses or just walk around the place, Buddy would accompany them but never show any sign of even wanting to run away.

     Uncle Ricky occasionally would test her by leaving her alone on the porch while he went in the house to get something.  He would hurry to the door and look out.  There Buddy would be, sitting and waiting, maybe looking over the hills but nevertheless, she would be right there, waiting.  To this day Buddy still stays near the house or her people.  She comes to either Aunt Jeri or Uncle Ricky for a good petting; demanding a good petting by putting her nose under a forearm and raising her head to force the hand to move to the favorite place for petting: just behind the ears. 

                                    THE

                                                            END

Here Buddy Chapter III

THE EVENING

 

     The sun was down behind the hill now.  All that remained of the day was the glow from the light of the sun in the west.  It was getting close to being dark in the place where Uncle Ricky and Aunt Jeri had been cutting wood.

    They were ready to leave.  Neither Uncle Ricky nor Aunt Jeri said a word as they climbed into the little pickup and started down the logging trail toward the well-traveled main road that had led them to this place.  They drove for several miles in silence, both looking intensely to the left and right as they made their way back to Highway 14 and the way down off the mountain to their home.

     Aunt Jeri could see the tension on Uncle Ricky’s face.  She knew exactly what he was thinking and what he was planning to do.  She said, in a firm voice, “I will go back up on the mountain with you tonight.  We’ll pack some snacks, coffee, blankets, and pillows.  This pickup has reclining seats so we can sleep in it tonight.  Okay?”

     Uncle Ricky, who had been deep in thought, nodded his head instead of saying, “Yes.”  He thought some more before saying, “Maybe she will be back at the big pickup when we get back up there.”

     They turned on to Highway 14 and the road, being paved was much smoother than the gravel road they had just been driving along.  It became very quiet in the cab of the little pickup.  As the little pickup traveled around the mountain curves and down the incline stretching out below them Uncle Ricky’s mind whirled much like the wheels on the little pickup as it moved down the mountain.

     Uncle Ricky thought of Buddy up there on the hillside somewhere above Ranger Creek.  Was she caught by that chain?  He silently cussed himself for having brought that chain.  “Darn it Buddy, why do you have to chase those deer?” he said to himself.  His imagination threw him into a near panic and he almost blurted aloud, “Buddy, will I ever see you again?”

     “Easy now,” Uncle Ricky told himself.  “Get hold of yourself.  Buddy has scared you by being gone before and she has always come back.  Remember that!”

     He continued the debate with himself and answered silently in his thoughts saying, “Yes but how many times are you going to be so lucky?”

     They had come down about five miles and were nearing the area of Shell Falls.  Uncle Ricky’s attention came back to where he was and what he was supposed to be doing.  A large truck was in front of them and the little pickup was rapidly closing the distance.  Aunt Jeri said loudly, “Watch it!”

     “Right.  I see it,” replied Uncle Ricky.

     He waited until he found a long stretch where they could see the road ahead.  Uncle Ricky guided the little pickup past the truck loaded with cattle being brought down from summer pasture on the mountain high above.  He kept his mind on the road until they rounded the area for viewing Shell Falls.  Then his mind flashed back to the original problem.

     Uncle Ricky began to think back to the spring of 1983.  It was a beautiful morning early in May.  They were living on the school grounds.  Buddy was still a young and eager dog, almost a puppy.  She had grown since the late November days when she had claimed Uncle Ricky and his family as hers.  That spring morning Uncle Ricky had gone to school early for a teacher’s meeting.  When the meeting disbanded Aunt Jeri appeared at the door of the room and motioned for him to come. He could see she was bothered.

     “Buddy has gotten her face plumb full of porcupine quills!” Aunt Jeri said breathlessly.  “There are too many for us to pull.”

     Uncle Ricky and Aunt Jeri both knew that this meant only one thing.  A trip to the veterinarian.  However since they were relatively new to the country neither one of them knew of a veterinarian to contact.  After questioning some of the teachers who had been in the area for some time they finally got a name of a veterinarian who was reportedly good with dogs.

     Aunt Jeri took Buddy to the veterinarian in nearby Lander.  Poor Buddy.  She had been so miserable.  Uncle Ricky, Aunt Jeri, and their son Sid had all agreed, “Buddy will never do that again!”

     Uncle Ricky smiled a slight smile as he recounted the porcupine incident.  “Yep, Buddy will think twice before tangling with a porcupine,” he thought to himself.  He continued his remembering.  Buddy had gone out about six weeks later and returned to the house with quills sticking in her face.  There were only a few and those quills had not been imbedded so deeply.  Aunt Jeri and their eldest son Eric had put a towel over buddy’s eyes and pulled the quills.

     “Bet Buddy will never do that again,” the four people had resolved among themselves.  “Wrong again,” Uncle Ricky recalled to himself as the story continued to unfold.  In only a matter of days Buddy returned with six quills this time.  Uncle Ricky recalled how Buddy had sneaked in the yard and hid under the big pickup.  When he noticed the quills he had tried to coax Buddy out from under the pickup.  When she came out she ran around the other side of the house.  They finally caught her and removed the quills.  No one ventured an opinion about Buddy and her attempts to catch porcupines.  The men at the school had said the dog would never learn.  Perhaps they had been correct.  Uncle Ricky thought, “It’s been six years since the last quills.  Perhaps Buddy finally learned.”

     “Why would Buddy not learn to leave the deer alone now?” Uncle Ricky said in exasperation to himself.  “Why?  Why?  Why?”

     “Why did I put her on that chain?” he continued to ask as they made their way down the mountain.

     Again Uncle Ricky’s mind began to whirl.  He tried to stop and he knew that Aunt Jeri, the boys, his brothers and sister, his mother would all be saying, “You always get so unnecessarily worked up.  Why?  What good does it do?”

     “Please Dear God, help me to find Buddy.” Uncle Ricky uttered in a prayer he had used several times before.  God had always answered his prayer and Buddy had always returned.  “Please one ore time.”

     They passed by Shell Creek which was running merrily down the mountain in its course that had carved a bed hundreds of years old out of the rocks and boulders in the mountain crevice.  It made Uncle Ricky think of the outing he and son Sid had taken to a series of small lakes below Dubois.  Ring Lake:  Torrrey Lake.  They had gone fishing.  It had been early in June, 1983 and they had taken Buddy.  She loved to go with them wherever they went.

     They had fished on the banks of one of the lakes and caught nothing.  Buddy had been playing along the bank occasionally going the water to get a drink and cool herself.  She stayed close and returned to where Uncle Ricky and Sid were sitting watching their fishing poles.  Buddy would reach out with her big white paw and playfully jab at one or the other of them until they petted her.  When she was satisfied she would go off to check some other interesting thing she had noticed.

     They had decided to move to the stream that ran between the lakes.  It moved lazily along in most places.  They ventured out into the slow part, jumping from one large rock to another.  When they were out in the middle of the stream they heard a “splash” that caused them both to turn quickly toward the source of the noise, expecting to see a huge fish jumping.  They both had laughed and laughed at what they saw.  Buddy was following them and she had jumped from a rock and had missed the next one, landing in the water.  She had scrambled out of the water and stretched out on a nearby flat rock.  They laughed each time they moved.  They would jump from rock to rock.  Just behind them would come Buddy; jump, “splash”, jump, jump, “splash,” lie and wait.  The scene caused Uncle Ricky to rub his eyes so Aunt Jeri would not see the water building up in them.  “Oh Buddy, we’ve had some great times together,” Uncle Ricky thought; half in a spirit of thanksgiving, half in sadness as the depression set in again as he pondered the possibility of not being able to find Buddy.

     They were now at the mailbox that sat along Highway 14.  This was their mailbox and Uncle Ricky turned the little pickup onto the gravel road that led down the hill to their house.  He could see the three horses as they saw the approaching pickup.  Usually this sight made him laugh and he would talk to the horses as he drove by them and got out to open the gate.  Tonight he simply said, “Hi.  How ya doing?”

     Aunt Jeri opened the door on the back of the topper and dropped the endgate for Sonya.  Sonya jumped out and ran to greet the horses.  Sonya came back to the house and Aunt Jeri fed her and put her in the pen.  Then Aunt Jeri went in the house to fix supper.  While she was cooking the supper Uncle Ricky fed the horses and came into the house.  They began to plan for the night ahead.  Uncle Ricky gathered up a sleeping bag and a pillow for each of them.  He got the insulated cooler and began packing some food supplies.  He loaded all of it into the little pickup and went into the house to eat supper.

     They ate supper in relative silence, each of them knowing what the next few hours might bring and each afraid of what the end result might be for all of them.  Aunt Jeri did not want to talk of such things but felt she had to prepare Uncle Ricky for the possibility of Buddy not being found.  She knew he was probably thinking the very same thing.  “You know we may not be able to find her don’t you,” Aunt Jeri said sympathetically.  She winced inside herself as she said it.

      Uncle Ricky could only nod, “Yes.”

     “Apparently she is hung up on that chain,” Uncle Ricky muttered.  “She has never stayed away more than a couple of hours.  Three at the most.”

     “You’d think she would have barked or whined or something,” said Aunt Jeri.  “She’s a funny dog.” 

     They finished eating, cleared the table and prepared to leave on the trip back up the mountain.  It was very dark.  The clock in the little pickup showed 9:00 P.M.

     Uncle Ricky drove the winding road again.  He urged the little pickup up the steep grades and around the switchback turns.  He was hoping, hoping that the headlights would reveal a wagging tail standing near the big pickup.  That image held his attention as they climbed higher into the Big Horns.  Past the Shell Falls, up the side of the mountain where the road had been chiseled painstakingly by men and equipment and undoubtedly dynamite and then widened over the years to allow the addition of passing lanes in places where the trucks and slower vehicles slowed to a crawl; on the little pickup went.  The vision of Buddy standing in front of the big pickup made Uncle Ricky forget his thoughts that had held his attention on the earlier trip down.

      The sign appeared; Ranger Creek.  They turned onto the gravel road and crossed Ranger Creek.  They encountered some other vehicles coming out of the area they were headed into.  The headlights were blinding.  Uncle Ricky slowed down and pulled to the shoulder of the gravel road each time they met one.  Finally they could see the buildings which signaled the Ranger Station.  There were lights in one of the houses there.  Uncle Ricky considered stopping and asking if they had had any reports of a stray dog.  He decided against stopping and continued on where they crossed Shell Creek.  They were now on the last leg of the trip, the road that they had traveled so many times only hours before as they had searched for Buddy.  Now it was hard to make out anything in the dark.  The lights of the little pickup were strong enough to illuminate only the road ahead and not the area to the sides of the road.  The moon was nearly full but it was low and did not provide much light.  Uncle Ricky, still seeing the vision of the wagging tail, guided the pickup on up the winding road.  One mile, two miles, nearly three miles and then came the turn onto the logging road or trail.  His pulse quickened and so did the speed of the little pickup.  The logging road was rough.  He slowed the pickup but not his pulse.  They topped the incline and the lights reflected off the glass of the big pickup looking like a watchtower standing over the area they thought they knew quite will by now.

     Uncle Ricky and Aunt Jeri both strained to see as they headlights focused directly on the big pickup.  They got out and walked to the big pickup.  Nothing.  They walked around the pickup.  Still no Buddy.  Their shoulders sagged in disappointment.  It was very quiet.  It was very eerie.  The moonlight caused the trees to take on a skeleton-like appearance.  The wind had died down and they could hear the muffled sound of the Shell Creek below them.

     “I guess we wait, huh?” said Aunt Jeri as she and Uncle Ricky walked back to the little pickup.  They got in the cab and both said, “It’s getting cold!”

     Uncle Ricky parked the little pickup off the logging road and parallel to the road, the headlights shining up the road as though they would move on up the road.  He really did not know or for that matter have any idea what to do now except wait until sunrise.  The clock on the little pickup showed 10:30 P.M.

     Aunt Jeri began to work the sleeping bag into a comfortable blanket and reclined the back of the seat back to a position where she could lie back and attempt to sleep.  Uncle Ricky offered her a cup of coffee.  She accepted and they both sat there in the eerie moonlight, silence so still it was more than they could accept.  They turned the radio on to a station which boasted of talk and listened to the problems of other people across the United States.  Uncle Ricky got out with the flashlight in his hand and walked a short distance up the logging road, shining the light left and right as he walked.  He called, “Here Buddy, here Buddy.”  Then he stopped to listen.  No reply.  He returned to the little pickup, got in and drank some more coffee.  Aunt Jeri seemed to be sleeping.  The problems across America kept pouring in to the radio.  The man who was the recipient of these problems offered sympathetic and seemingly sound advice to each caller.  Uncle Ricky thought, “What would Bruce Williams do about my problem?”

 

     Uncle Ricky watched the clock move on to midnight.  He began to get sleepy and cold.  He started the pickup and let the heater run until the cab was very warm.  He switched the engine off, the radio went off with the engine and Uncle Ricky drifted off into a light sleep.    

     Suddenly Uncle Ricky awakened thinking he had heard something.  He rolled down the window.  There it was no mistake about it; a dog was barking in the quiet mountain night.  The sound echoed in the mountain from wall to wall.  Then it stopped.  He listened intently.  Suddenly it began again.  “AARF.  AARF,  AARF.”  Uncle Ricky quickly aroused Aunt Jeri.  She muttered confused and groggy with sleep, “What is it?”

     “Did you hear that?” questioned Uncle Ricky.  They waited.  No sound came.  They waited.  Still no more sound.

     “What was it?” asked Aunt Jeri.

     “I heard a dog barking.  It woke me and I heard it again.  Now it has stopped,” Uncle Ricky explained.  He turned the key which caused the clock on the dash of the little pickup to light and the time was 2:15 A. M.  Uncle Ricky started explaining again, “I was sleeping and suddenly this noise woke me up.  I thought it sounded like barking.  It stopped and then started again.  Sounded like it was quite a ways off though.  I thought it came from down on Shell Creek.”

     Aunt Jeri was cold and asked Uncle Ricky to start the engine and warm the cab.  He did and soon it was toasty warm.  He shut the engine off and laid back in the seat.  He drifted off to sleep.

     Aunt Jeri tried to sleep.  She nodded off and then would waken.  This went on for quite some time.

      Uncle Ricky suddenly was awakened.  Aunt Jeri was shaking him.  “Do you hear that?” she said.  They both listened.  The silence remained unbroken.  The wind came up a bit and the trees were rustling with the wind passing through the needles of the pine trees standing in the moonlight.  Aunt Jeri said, “I heard barking.  It sounded like it came from somewhere down below.”

      “That’s what I thought when I heard it,” said Uncle Ricky.

      “Let’s drive back down the road toward the campground down below,” Aunt Jeri suggested.

     “I wonder if somebody is camped down there with a dog?” Uncle Ricky asked as he started the little pickup.

      They drove back to the main road that led to the campground.  They had been up and down the road so many times now that they both knew all the landmarks.  They got to the campground and drove in to the area where a trailer was parked.  They drove on through and away from the camper trailer.  They stopped and listened.  The clock read 5:00 A.M.  The moon was working its way over the west peak where twelve hours earlier the sun had blazed a trail for the moon to follow.

     They drove back up the road toward the logging road.  About half way to their destination Aunt Jeri suggested “Why don’t you pull over here someplace and let’s see if we hear the barking again.  Maybe we can pin-point the area from where we hear it down here.  If it sounds above us we will know it is then between where we were parked and here.  At least that might give us some idea of where to begin looking when the sun comes up.”

      Uncle Ricky agreed and they stopped and waited.  They waited for a while and still all that could be heard was the never-ending muffled sound of Shell Creek just below them.