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.