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.

Here Buddy Chapter II

THE AFTERNOON

     Aunt Jeri and Uncle Ricky both stood looking around the wooded area and then at the partial load of wood on the big pickup.  Then one of them would shake his or her head as if to say, “What do we do now?”

     Finally Uncle Ricky summoned an opinion.  “Let’s go ahead and cut some more wood.  Buddy knows where we are and we sure don’t know where she has gone.  We’ll let Sonya run loose and maybe she’ll find Buddy.”

     Aunt Jeri countered, “Well, let me take one more walk through this area and see if Buddy has gotten caught.  I just don’t see how she can get very far dragging that chain through all this down timber, do you?”

     “Looks like she would bark if she was stuck,” said Uncle Ricky.

     “You’d think so but . . . .”  Aunt Jeri paused.  She continued, “You know how crafty she can be when she doesn’t want to be caught.”

     Uncle Ricky nodded in agreement.  He was still thinking about that chain.  Why did he put that chain on Buddy?  Could she possibly get away from it if she did get stuck?  The vision kept returning of the time in 1983 when Buddy did not come home all night.  The next morning still no Buddy.  When Uncle Ricky got home from school, there was Buddy.  Aunt Jeri had explained how Buddy returned with a cable snare very tight around her neck.  Aunt Jeri had shown him the cable and how it appeared to have been chewed in two pieces.  Could Buddy possibly be so lucky this time?  Uncle Ricky continued mulling the situation over in his mind.

     Aunt Jeri said, “I’m gonna go through here once more.”  Not waiting for an answer she made her way back into the trees and disappeared.

     Uncle Ricky picked up the chainsaw and began cutting some of the long lengths of wood into stove lengths.  As he worked he continued to worry and think about Buddy.  His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a vehicle.  He looked around and saw a pickup coming on the logging road from the main road.  The hunters went on by.  This caused Uncle Ricky to start worrying now about the possibility of a hunter seeing Buddy chasing a deer.  Although Uncle Ricky knew this was forbidden and the hunter would be within his right to shoot at Buddy the thought caused Uncle Ricky to get mad.  First he was mad at the system.  Why, if it was alright for Man to chase after wild game with weapons, was it so wrong for a dog to pursue deer or other game in the age old tradition of the animal kingdom?  He had posed this question for himself before and still could only come up with the same answer:  “It is the Law!”  Was this the same law that allowed men in helicopters to hunt coyotes for the same government that made the law stating that it was illegal for domestic animals to chase wild animals?  Wyoming was a tough part of the world.  It had to be.  Dogs were for working cattle and sheep.  Wyoming people took their dogs with them in the back of pickup trucks.  Their dogs stayed in the pickup while their masters went in the post office, store, or wherever.  Why couldn’t Buddy learn to stay and quit chasing those deer?

 

      The wood kept piling up as Uncle Ricky cut wood and thoughts of Buddy whirled through his mind.  He would stop the saw occasionally and call, “Here Buddy.”  Where was Aunt Jeri?  He looked around.  “Here Sonar.”  No Sonya.  “Oh no not both of my dogs!”  Uncle Ricky said aloud.  Where was Aunt Jeri?  “Oh no - - .  What if she fell and is hurt?”  continued Uncle Ricky in his rising panic.

     Aunt Jeri appeared as she came back out of the trees.  “Whew!” sighed Uncle Ricky to himself.

     “I went clear down to the second area below the road,” explained Aunt Jeri.  “I’m sure that mark in the snow is the chain.  However, I couldn’t find a trace of it crossing the road or in the area below the road.”  Aunt Jeri went onto explain about seeing two carloads of hunters driving on the road.  However they had continued on down the road toward the south where the road rises to climb Snowshoe Pass.

     Uncle Ricky bit nervously at his lip.  Aunt Jeri looked as though she would cry.  She had been through this a good many times with Buddy these past several months.  It always made her so mad.  She would let Buddy and Sonya out of the pen and take them for a walk.  Then it would happen.  Buddy would bolt and run and be out of sight.  Calling, “here Buddy,” would result in nothing.  Buddy would be gone for two or three hours and then come home looking as though she knew she was in big trouble.  They wanted to punish Buddy but Uncle Ricky would say, “I know - but if I punish her she might not come home next time.”  This would make Aunt Jeri a little disgusted with Uncle Ricky but she knew how much he loved that dog so she just kept trying to keep Buddy from running off.

     Aunt Jeri could see the fear on Uncle Ricky’s face.  She wanted to say, “we’ve always known that each time Buddy does this it could be the last time and that she might not come back.”  However she only looked at Uncle Ricky.

     Finally he said, “You know – I noticed just today how worn and loose Buddy’s collar is becoming.  I’ve been thinking that maybe she got caught and the collar broke and she is loose after all.” 

      “Do you think that’s possible?” asked Aunt Jeri somewhat hopefully.

     Uncle Ricky reminded her of the “snare” incident down on the Popo Agie, the river they lived close to in 1983.

     “Was Sone with you?” Uncle Ricky asked.

      “Is she gone now?” said Aunt Jeri somewhat disgusted.

      “Here Sone,  Here Sone.  Come on Sonar.  Here Sonya!” came the cries from Uncle Ricky as he moved away from the pickup.  He continued on up the hill above the pickup.  No Sonya.  “Here Buddy!”  No Buddy.  Uncle Ricky wondered if Sonya had come across Buddy and what they might be doing.  Would Sonya come back and try to get he and Aunt Jeri to follow and lead them to Buddy?  Had Buddy managed to slip out of the worn collar and were both of them roaming the mountain that seemed to sprawl around them like a gigantic universe?

      Uncle Ricky made his way back toward the pickup.  Aunt Jeri was sitting in the seat drinking a cup of coffee.  Just then he saw something move in the trees below the pickup.  “Sonya, come here.”  Sonya came bounding up to him and jumped up with her front feet resting on his hip.  She gave him her customary greeting of a few quick licks on the hand.  “Where’s Buddy, Sone?”  asked Uncle Ricky.  “Lick – lick” and a wag of the tail was the reply.

     Sonya went across the logging trail and hopped into the back of the little pickup and lay down in the shade of the topper on the box of the little pickup.  She needed to rest.  Uncle Ricky and Aunt Jeri began to load the wood that Uncle Ricky had cut into stove lengths.

     They continued to cut and load wood.  Gradually the pickup began to fill with firewood.  They were getting near to the tail end of the box.  Uncle Ricky took a long piece and cut it to fit across the box.  He cut two more and then fitted them into the space where the endgate should be.  They began to cut more stove length pieces and stack them into the pickup box filling the remaining space back to the make-shift endgate.  They paused every little while to call, “Here Buddy.  Come on Buddy, let’s go.”  Why didn’t they at least hear a bark or some noise to give them some idea some hope?

     The afternoon wore on.  They decided to move further on into the wood-gathering area.  They took the little pickup in and found a spot.  Uncle Ricky walked back to get the big pickup.  When he returned they paused for refreshments.  They made small talk trying not to think about the dilemma approaching.  The sun was getting ready to start sliding down behind the western side of the hill that rose above them.  Uncle Ricky looked at his watch.  4:15 P. M.  No wonder the sun was preparing to go over the mountain.

     Aunt Jeri looked at the load of wood on the big pickup.  “Maybe we better have a look around and see if we can find a track or something before it gets any later,” she said.  “We’ve got a pretty fair load anyhow,” she continued.

      “Yeah, I think you’re right.  The hunters will probably start getting thick too,” groaned Uncle Ricky.

     With that they moved the pickups back to the original site where they had cut the load on the big pickup.  ”Think we better leave the pickup here so Buddy will realize we are still here.  Maybe she will hang around until we get back,” Uncle Ricky said hopefully.

     Aunt Jeri sat in the little pickup drinking coffee.  Uncle Ricky stood by the door drinking a cold drink and glancing around the mountain as though he had never seen it before.  At the same time he could almost draw a mental picture of the terrain around them as he had strained his eyes looking over the tree-covered hills hoping to see the familiar sight of Buddy bounding toward him, her tongue hanging out to cool her as she ran.  Nothing.  He shivered slightly and reached for his red, hooded sweatshirt.  “Starting to get cool with the sun beginning to go down,” he said absentmindedly.  “Come on Buddy!” flashed through his mind.

     “I’m going to walk down that hill once more,” declared Aunt Jeri.

     “I’ll drive down the road to the Ranger Creek Campground,” followed Uncle Ricky.  “I’ll wait about half-way down for you to come out so you won’t have to walk back up.”

      With that they separated.  Uncle Ricky drove slowly down the road stopping wherever the road was wide enough to pull over and be out of the way of other vehicles.  He went clear down to the campground stopping to call, “Here Buddy!”  No Buddy.  He started back up the road toward the logging road.  He stopped and waited for Aunt Jeri.  She did not come and she did not come.  He became impatient and drove on up the hill to the logging road.  Perhaps Aunt Jeri had returned with some news.  There was the big pickup just as they had left it.  No Aunt Jeri, no Buddy. He sat there for a while.  Then he heard the sound of an approaching vehicle.  It was three hunters in a pickup.  Uncle Ricky stepped out of the little pickup.  He waved at the driver of the other pickup.  The pickup stopped.  “Haven’t seen a dog running anywhere up here have you?”

     “No,” replied the driver.  “What does the dog look like?”

     Uncle Ricky described Buddy.  He winced as he finished the description with, “She’d be dragging a tether chain.”

     “We did see a lady walking up the road,” offered the driver.  “That your wife?”

     “Yep,” said Uncle Ricky as he thought of how Aunt Jeri was going to chastise him for not waiting on the road like he said he was going to do.

     “I better get going,” said Uncle Ricky.  “Thanks for your help.”

    “No problem.  Good luck,” came the reply from the other pickup.  “Yeah, good luck,” echoed one of the other passengers, anxious to get on with their hunt.

     Uncle Ricky started out to the main road.  He met Aunt Jeri, who got into the little pickup saying, “Did you hear a dog barking?”

     “No, did you?”

     “I think it came from the house down the road.”

     “Is that the Ranger Creek Guest Ranch?” asked Uncle Ricky.

     “Let’s drive over there and ask if they have seen anything,” Aunt Jeri said pointing toward the buildings and trees that made the Guest Ranch.

    Uncle Ricky drove to the Guest Ranch which sat back off the main road about a quarter of a mile.  The winding road was muddy and the red clay mixed with snow and water splashed up on the windows of the little pickup.

     Uncle Ricky went to the door and spoke with the people in the main building at the Guest Ranch.  “No they hadn’t noticed anything of a stray dog.”  They said they would keep an eye open for her.  “Did you check down at the Ranger Station?” they inquired of Uncle Ricky.  He explained he had not but that he intended to do so.

       Uncle Ricky thanked the people for their time and returned to the pickup.  Sonya was straining to see the strange dog and was beginning to warm up her bark with a deep “RRRuff-RRRRuff.”

      “Ssh – be quiet Zone,” Uncle Ricky told her as he got into the pickup.

     “No luck,” he told Aunt Jeri.  “Now what?”

      As they pulled out onto the winding, sloppy drive back to the main road Uncle Ricky told about the people recommending that he contact the men at the Ranger Station.  He hated to do that because he thought that once they knew Buddy was loose they would only have early warning about a dog chasing deer.  He had no other choice though and turned onto the main road to return down the switch-back road, past the campground and on up to the Ranger Station.

     As they drove past the logging road they rounded a curve in the man road.  There sat two pickup loads of hunters.  They were talking with the Game and fish Officer.  Uncle Ricky recognized the officer.  It was Bob.  He had his two German shepherds with him.  One was called Smokey.  The other was just a puppy.  The hunters were admiring the dogs.  They were beautiful dogs and Smokey was as smart as a human.

     Uncle Ricky stopped the pickup and waited for Bob and the hunters to finish their conversation.  Bob pulled his pickup along side Uncle Ricky’s pickup.  They greeted one another.  Uncle Ricky said, “Bob you haven’t seen a dog running loose around here dragging a chain have you?”

     “No, I sure haven’t” said Bob sympathetically.  “When did she get away?”

     “About 12:00 today,” said Uncle Ricky.

     “What kind of dog is it?” asked Bob.

     Again Uncle Ricky described Buddy, her breed, her white paw and again the chain, that darned chain.

     “I’ll keep an eye out for her.  Maybe she’ll come back after bit,” offered Bob

     Another load of hunters came up behind Bob’s pickup.  After visiting with the hunters he wished them good luck, waved to Uncle Ricky and drove on toward the logging trail where Uncle Ricky and Aunt Jeri had just passed by on their way from the Ranger Creek Guest Ranch.

     Uncle Ricky and Aunt Jeri decided to go on down the main road once more in hope of spotting Buddy or at least some sign that she might have been there recently.  As they moved along the now too familiar road they kept their eyes glued to the trees and terrain on either side of the road.  They came to the place where Aunt Jeri had seen the trail of the dragging chain.  Once more they stopped to check this place for a possible clue but it was futile.  There had been so many vehicles up and down the road by this time that any trace of a dog’s tracks was gone.  Aunt Jeri decided to have one more try at walking through the dense timber from where they now sat to a place below where the road came around on its decent toward the campground below.

    Uncle Ricky continued on down the road in the little pickup.  Sonya had stretched out in the back, not seeming to be worried.  They worked their way down the main road and were waiting near where Aunt Jeri came out of the timber.  “Not a sign,” she said, weariness beginning to show in her voice.

     They turned the little pickup around and started back up the switchbacks and the logging trail where the big pickup had been left.  They hoped that maybe Buddy would be there when they got there.  They turned on the logging road and rounded the turn where they could make out the big pickup.  Closer and closer they came to the pickup loaded with wood.  Uncle Ricky prayed that Buddy would come crawling out from under the pickup.  They arrived at the big pickup.  It sat all alone like a waiting sentinel, just waiting all alone.

     Uncle Ricky and Aunt Jeri sat there each thinking of what should be done next.  Aunt Jeri spoke first, saying, “Why don’t you go back down and feed the horses and find us something to eat?  I’ll wait here in the big pickup.”

       They were preparing to proceed like Aunt Jeri had planned.  Just then the group of hunters with whom Uncle Ricky had conversed earlier and who had told him of the lady they had seen walking appeared.  “See you found your wife,” one of the hunters joked.  They had not seen any sign of the dog however.  “Getting chilly isn’t it?” said another of the hunters.

     Although all the hunters they had seen that day had been quite friendly, Uncle Ricky decided that he could not leave Aunt Jeri alone up here.  Besides, he could see she was chilled and her shoes and socks were wet.  “Why don’t we both go back down the hill?” he asked.

      Aunt Jeri nodded in agreement.

     “We’ll take all the tools, lock the big pickup, and leave it here.  If Buddy comes back she’ll recognize it and probably stay around,” Uncle Ricky said as he explained his plan.  They gathered up the saw, ropes, shovels, cooler, and axe and put it all in the back of the little pickup.  Sony looked a bit interested but only moved forward to lay down and wait.

     They called, “Here Buddy, here Buddy.”  They listened but all they could hear was the sound of the wind blowing through the trees.

      “Oh Buddy, I’m so sorry,” Uncle Ricky said so only he could hear it.  “I’ll be back.  Please be here.”  He looked at his watch – 6:00 P.M.

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?

 

 

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)

    

  

 

 

 

Housework

So, the house interior is nearly done. Chandelier over the new floor.

 

 

 

Dining room table on the new floor.

 

Now the great furniture shift.

 

It used to look like this.

 

Now this.

 

 

 

     Meanwhile, outside, the work goes on.  The kitchen stove vent, installed a year or two ago, finally got vented to the outside.  (Previously, it emptied into the garage, but it mostly remained plugged because of the cold air it let in.)  So far, it works great and doesn’t let in a bunch of cold air.  

 

 

 

     And the latest project, weather permitting, rain gutter installation.

 

 

 

 

 

    Mother Nature is patiently waiting for me to get the gutters done so she can try them out.  Funny how she can get impatient when I have a roof job about half way done.  Don’t want to complain too loud.  It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.